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Secret of The Martian Moons - Donald A. Wollheim Published by The John C. Winston Company, 1957 Cover artist: Alex Schomburg

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Around the Universe in Eighty Days

It had been two months and two weeks by the time that P.A.X. had grown close to completing their mission. The Pioneers of Astronomical Xenobiology had seen the best and the worst that the universe had to offer and had managed to visit and map out forty-seven of its calculated forty-eight sectors. Now, as it all came to a close, they had one final destination: Sector Omega Minor.

They scanned the sector and found the principal star system, which had nine orbital masses around a star and its leaders located on the one known as Asdin. As they landed, they discovered its leader - an old lord by the name of Baldr who ruled over his people, which he recognized as the Bosconians. Lord Baldr, ever the understanding and gracious host, allowed them entry to his kingdom - the star system named after its star,Yggdrasil - to survey their microcosm, with all its faults and virtues.

As the P.A.X. split up into their respective searches, they each took two planets and recorded what they observed, leaving Asdin to be the last planet.

016 surveyed Alfhermóðr and Vanafrejig to learn about the Valkyrie.

032 surveyed Niðasvartálfa and studied the Dwarfish Niðavel that inhabited it, as well as surveying Mupeltyr and studying the Infernal Tyrsai inhabitants.

064 surveyed Niflheim and Jotunheim to learn about the Jotun and the Burinar, learning very little besides their routine, which involved the creation and maintenance of pillars of ice. 

128 surveyed Midjord and Hel, its technology and the people servicing it.

As they all finished their observations, they reconvened, as agreed, on Adin to personally interview Lord Baldr as their final task before fulfilling their ultimate task.

“What would you gentlemen wish to know about my empire?” he asked.

“We simply need to know what is the general lifestyle that you and your people hold here in this star system,” 128 answered.

“That would include your technologies and lifestyles,” 064 added.

“I see. Well, I suppose that that can be arranged.”

Baldr gave the team a walk-around the Asdinian library - a building of physical recordings that held not only material to read, but to observe. Weaponry, clothing, and technologies that had since become defunct but served as reminders of its roots and how they affected the modern era in which they found themselves.

Through this, they learned that the Bosconian empire was one of commerce, their main export being physically enhanced soldiers who were created throughout the star system. On Alfhermóðr and Vanafrejig, they obtained and processed the essences of the fallen warriors across the universe. The Dwarfish Niðavel of Niðasvartálfa and the Infernal Tyrsai of Mupeltyr served as the inspiration for what would ultimately become the enhanced warriors. The natives of Midjord and Hel served as a control group to which the enhanced warriors were compared to, resulting in each soldier having the stamina and strength of roughly ten Midgardian civilians and 20 Helish civilians. When 064 questioned the records of the Jotun and the Burinar, Lord Baldr calmly explained; “While there is no strife with Jotun, they are not the most open of those of us here in Yggdrasil. As for the Burinar, those have been here since my grandfather had been but a small child, so little is truly known about them or their habits.”

At last, they had arrived at the final place of their mission: the revivification chamber.

“Here,” Baldr said, “is where the final neurological programs are made. Whatever residual impulses and aggressions that lead to an inefficient soldier are neutralized.”

“And what are they used for?” 064 asked.

“They are used for defense and maintenance of order throughout Yggdrasil. The remaining few that are surplus are contracted to be soldiers for the neighboring stars.”

“I see.” 128 observed the machine that was promised to be the revivification machine. It stood as tall as the building in which it found itself. There were three dark bars that came up from the floor, and extended into five bars of light as it reached the ceiling. Each bar of light seemed to have a different color, with different types of texture.

This could be the final piece to the salvation of Creator’s people, 016 thought.

That is true, 128 thought in response, though we would have to be careful not to repeat what he created. He turned to Baldr. “Would we be allowed to connect to the machine to see how it functions?”

“Be my guest,” he answered.

The four members of P.A.X. circled the machine and placed their hands atop the console. At once, they saw the machinery in its basest components and how each one worked with one another to create life from the death of another. At that exact moment, an Yggdrailsk flare struck the machine. On any other given moment, it would have been dealt with with no fanfare and no issue. However, given P.A.X. was in the coding meant that their own code was exposed and vulnerable, and while 064 and 128 were left unharmed, 016 was unfortunately left vaporized and 032 had their inhibitor chip fried.

“032!” 128 yelled. They unplugged themself from the machine and headed over to their compatriot. However, there was something that they had noted about them. The clear of their eyes had filled with a thick black liquid, and the color had all but vanished, morphing into a dark red.

“032, respond,” 128 demanded. 032 did not respond. They instead stepped back, and sauntered over to Lord Baldr.

“Lord Baldr,” the android spoke, with a newfound demeanor, “I understand that this style of machinery inhibits the soldiers’ impulses?”

“Y-yes, it does-” was all that was heard, before his moment was cut short. The silence that followed was filled with a wet, crunching sound. 064 and 128 only watched as 032, their compatriot, had killed Lord Baldr.

“032, respond,” 128 demanded, though weaker than their first attempt.

032 did not respond. 032 did not even look their way as he re-inserted themself into the revivification machine. There was a shift that could be heard, and at this point, the android, maddened by their damaged programming, had released the the prototypical soldiers and the soldiers not yet inoculated and thus retained their abrasive, impulsive, and aggressive behaviors. As they wreaked havoc upon their places of creation, the android looked around. They saw that they had been left alone, as 064 and 128 had left in search of help.

Perfect, he thought, as he ripped off the numbers that had once identified him, though little of them remained. No one here to stand in my way, and not a soul to defy my conquest.

With that, 032 the android was no more; he had become P.A.X., Conquest incarnate. However, those of whom had survived the terror would forever know him as Pax, Destroyer of Worlds, telegraphing the message out into the universe in hopes of salvation.

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Andromeda Galaxy

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I am the universe experiencing herself. And boy is she having a bad time.

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Patlabor 2

1993

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゜・。。・゜☆゜・。。・゜☆ ゜・。。・゜☆ ゜・。。・゜☆ ゜・。。・゜

loneliest girl in the entire galaxy

゜・。。・゜☆゜・。。・゜☆ ゜・。。・゜☆ ゜・。。・゜☆ ゜・。。・゜

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Long Live Politzania

As the war continued to rage on, the Politzanian populace continued to dwindle. A few of the decidedly defective defectors departed for the enemy’s territory and those who remained that the leader believed questioned his laws or who were secret harborers of doubt were… disposed of. As such, the leader - in his forty-eighth year - found trust in what had become a rather small pool of an inner circle.

He saw how all those whom he trusted had - in some way or another - had betrayed him, had conspired, and had deceived him. Though it had pained him, he found no other option but to cull the culprits. To him, every commander had become a spy, every loyal servant a traitor, and every bridge made bound to be burned.

A small price to pay for victory, he thought, as he commanded the removal of the tenacious few who decided to confront his authority. With his well-amassed army of soldiers - most of which had been mentally reprocessed - he had managed to eliminate every last remaining threat he could reach. However, it all began to go awry when the senseless soldiers, having had their mental capacities rewired, began to perceive their fellow comrades as immediate threats, reducing one another to rubble and ash, just as he had done to his closest confidants whom he considered conspirators against his new order.

Soon, with Politzania posing a laughably low threat to the enemy, the last and so were quickly quelled.

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The Bone-Colored Men

“Well, this is quite the predicament we’ve landed ourselves in,” 128 said, as he looked around the area in which he had crash landed. “064, can you hear me?”

“Affirmative, 128” 064 answered, “though I am having trouble reading you.”

“I figured as much.” He stepped out of the spaceship and looked at the damage received to it. “Well, on the supposition that we are on the same orbital mass, then may we find each other within the next age.”

“Understood.”

It was, in fact, by the next century that the two would reunite, without much pomp or circumstance. Afterwards, they would remain as recluses, only subtly influencing the world around them.

Having said that, however, they did slip up once in the year 1769, in an act of their programming, when they defended some indigenous tribes-folk from a clearly invading force. This oversight of secrecy did cement themselves as an Ohlone legend where the spirit Ezhno, jealous of the humans for having community, plucked two hairs from his head, tied them to a rock, and tossed it toward the world, in hopes it would cause chaos for the people. However, in the heat of the air, the knots in the hair undid themselves and had their color burned away, leading their skin to be colored an inhuman white like bone, as opposed to the average white man, who was pinker than the Men. One had landed far away east, where the waters were blocked, while the other one had landed up north, where the people spoke Salish. Believing they were ashamed of their origins, the legend said that they rarely emerged from hiding without cover, disguising themselves as bears or - eventually added, perhaps because of sensationalism - the Sasquatch.

By and through the 1800s, legend notwithstanding, they experienced their fair share of misadventures, which included. 128 and 064, having been forced to move a myriad of times that the average person would have lost count, managed to maintain their stories straighter than the bullets that would attempt to break their metallic skin. This would include, but is not limited to:

New York City in 1884, when they had to act as inspectors and remove the rather imposing technology that was 064's spaceship lodged in what was once the Ricker family's island that they somehow managed to claim was a "faulty weather machine".

McPhearson County, Kansas in 1888, when - after managing to retrieve the technology from 064's spaceship and reverse engineer the revivification technology that they had seen on Valhalla - began testing on deceased animals. This, of course led to the local legend of "Sinkhole Sam".

Tombstone, Arizona in 1890, when they had to move once again to avoid suspicion after their revivification of a common Pteranodon created yet another legend, known as the Arizona Thunderbird

By the time the two made their way to the 1900s, where the world began to feel more grounded, they had only a handful of mishaps, such as:

North Carolina in 1906, when - with the remaining technology - they managed to create a simulacrum of their internal clock, which began to go haywire and blink out of synchronicity given 032's missing connection, as 064 had theorized, and

Their trek to Alamo, Nevada in 1910, to avoid suspicion after the mountain lights had also become something of local legend.

Eventually, after maintaining reclusion for 60 years, the two androids - finding the world more grounded still - eventually remerged to the surface in what was then known as San Francisco, California. having learned that titles and names were rather important to the race of being that existed on the landmass they found themselves on, decided on playing an elderly man named Norman Aarikson, a certified CT Scan technician, and his father, Truman, a simple man who began work as the clerk of "The Final Frontier", a space-themed video game arcade room.

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(by Alain)| Switzerland 

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Roger

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Josh Guglielmo - Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, 1953.

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Helmets - Design exercise by YUSONG ZENG

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Norwood Hodge MacGilvary (1874-1949) Birth of an Idea 

Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956) Astral Body and Ghost

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Moon Temple, Gilbert Williams

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aesthetic: those landscape photos that look like they were taken on another planet in deep space

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