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aeliyamarineinsights · 7 months ago

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Precision and Performance with Aeliya Marine’s Encoders: The Key to Accurate Motion Control

In the world of automation, robotics, and motion control, encoders play a pivotal role in ensuring accuracy and reliability. Whether you’re designing a marine navigation system, robotics project, or industrial automation system, having the right encoder can make all the difference. Aeliya Marine offers a comprehensive collection of high-quality encoders that cater to various applications, ensuring that your systems function with the utmost precision.

Why Choose Aeliya Marine for Encoders?

1. Superior Accuracy and Performance Encoders are integral components in any motion control system, converting mechanical motion into electrical signals for feedback and control. Aeliya Marine’s encoders are designed to deliver superior accuracy, ensuring that your systems provide precise measurements and smooth operation. Whether you're working with rotational or linear motion, the encoders available at Aeliya Marine will meet your needs with exceptional precision.

2. Wide Range of Encoder Types Aeliya Marine understands that different applications require different types of encoders. To cater to various industries, they offer an extensive selection of encoders, including:

Rotary Encoders: These are ideal for measuring rotational position, speed, and direction in motors, turbines, and other rotating machinery. With Aeliya Marine’s rotary encoders, you can expect accurate feedback for continuous, high-speed rotation in both industrial and marine systems.

Linear Encoders: For applications where linear motion needs to be tracked, Aeliya Marine provides linear encoders that convert the position of a moving object into an electrical signal. These are perfect for applications like CNC machines, automated manufacturing systems, and other linear motion systems.

Incremental Encoders: Incremental encoders are great for applications where the measurement of position relative to a reference point is needed. These encoders are commonly used in industrial applications where rotation counts or speed feedback are essential.

Absolute Encoders: Unlike incremental encoders, absolute encoders provide a unique position value within a full rotation, even after power loss. This makes them a crucial choice for systems that require a constant reference to their position at all times.

3. Marine-Specific Encoders Aeliya Marine specializes in electronic components tailored to withstand harsh marine environments. Their encoders are designed with rugged durability, resistance to corrosion, and the ability to function in extreme weather and temperature conditions. This makes them the perfect choice for marine navigation, automation, and other critical systems that operate in demanding environments.

4. Reliable and Durable Construction The encoders offered by Aeliya Marine are built to last. Whether you need encoders for land-based projects or marine applications, you can trust that Aeliya Marine’s products are engineered to endure the rigors of continuous use. Their encoders are resistant to dust, moisture, vibration, and even saltwater exposure, ensuring longevity and reliable performance.

Applications of Encoders in Various Industries

Encoders are indispensable in a wide range of industries and applications. Here are just a few ways they are used:

Marine Systems: In marine applications, encoders are used to monitor and control the position and movement of various components, such as rudders, winches, and thrusters. Precise feedback ensures that systems remain operational even in tough maritime conditions.

Robotics and Automation: Encoders are essential for robots and automated machinery to track and control motion with high precision. From industrial robots to conveyor belts, encoders help maintain efficiency and reduce errors.

CNC Machines and Milling: Encoders provide accurate feedback on the position of the cutting tool in CNC machines, ensuring that milling, drilling, and cutting operations are precise.

Medical Equipment: In medical devices, encoders are used to track movement with high precision, such as in surgical robots, imaging equipment, or diagnostic instruments.

Industrial Machinery: Encoders help monitor the position, speed, and direction of moving parts in industrial machinery, ensuring optimal operation and reducing wear and tear.

Why Trust Aeliya Marine for Your Encoder Needs?

Expertise in Marine Electronics: Aeliya Marine has years of experience providing high-quality electronic components tailored for the marine industry. Their encoders are specially designed to thrive in maritime conditions, where durability and accuracy are critical.

Exceptional Customer Service: Whether you need guidance on selecting the right encoder for your application or assistance with installation, Aeliya Marine’s knowledgeable team is always ready to help. Their commitment to customer satisfaction ensures that you’ll receive the support you need.

Global Shipping: Aeliya Marine serves customers around the world, ensuring that no matter where you are located, you can access their premium encoder products.

Conclusion

When it comes to motion control, precision is key—and with Aeliya Marine’s collection of encoders, you can trust that your systems will operate with the utmost accuracy. Their broad selection of encoders, built for both land-based and marine applications, ensures that you get the right tool for the job, no matter the complexity of your project.

Explore Aeliya Marine’s Encoder Collection today and take the first step towards enhancing your systems with high-performance, durable encoders designed for any environment.

#industrial equipment #automation #industrial spare parts #marine automation #Encoder

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samautomation · 1 year ago

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Renishaw FORTiS-S™ enclosed linear encoders

Next-generation enclosed linear absolute encoders for use in harsh environments.

🔹High Accuracy 🔹Easy to Installation 🔹Superior reliability

#encoders #linearencoders #harshenvironments #cncmachine #machinespart #importantpart #machine #industries #installation #Accuracy

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prokopetz · 6 months ago

Note

You've talked before about how "generic" ttrpg systems still contain hidden assumptions about genre, story, playstyle, etc. (e.g. gurps and military scifi/fantasy) how do you figure out what those assumptions are? what should you look for in the rules to find them?

That's a fairly involved question for which a full answer is beyond the scope of a Tumblr post (even my notoriously long-winded ones!), but I find that a good place to start is with the "who gives a shit?" principle.

For example, suppose that the first piece of mechanically significant information on a game's character sheet is a statistic called "Strength", rated on a scale from one to ten.

Who gives a shit?

That is, why do we care how strong player characters are? Why do we care about having a definite, codified answer at our fingertips to the question of which characters are stronger than other characters, to a fair degree of precision? Why does any of this matter? What assumptions are we making about the nature of the conflicts that will be present within the game's narrative?

That's a fairly trivial case, but the principle can be extended to more fundamental features of a game's rules. Let's consider the classic Dungeons & Dragons style skill check, for example: roll a die, add a stat, compare to a target number, pass or fail. What assumptions are we encoding about the nature of conflict in this game?

Well, for a start, these assumptions might include:

The assumption that generating binary pass/fail outcomes for performing discrete physical, mental and social tasks is how most conflicts will be resolved;

The assumption that your game will benefit from these outcomes having a high degree of player-facing uncertainty;

The assumption that your game will benefit from this uncertainty containing a relatively high likelihood of complete failure;

The assumption that your game will benefit from the principal determinant of that likelihood of failure being some intrinsic and objectively measurable attribute of the acting character;

... and so forth.

If you're only familiar with Dungeons & Dragons and its very close imitators, these may seem like things you have to assume in order to have a functioning game, but there are a fairly specific set of conventions being expressed here. Why do we care about any of these things? Who gives a shit?

Even the first bullet point can easily be knocked down: one can imagine, for example, a game which simply assumes players can always choose to have their characters succeed at anything it's within the realm of possibility for them to do, and whose rules instead focus on providing a codified game-mechanical answer to the question of what that success will cost them, with the only uncertainty being whether the player is willing to pay that cost.

It's clear that a game which approaches conflict resolution in this way is expressing a strong set of genre assumptions. The trick is recognising that the industry-standard alternative (i.e., the D&D-style skill check) is equally laser-focused on a specific set of genre assumptions, in a way that's often rendered invisible by how common it is.

All of which is a very long-winded way of saying there isn't a simple checklist you can go down to identify a game's genre assumptions. But then, I warned you way up in the opening sentence that this would be the case – I hope I've at least given you a place to start!

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #game design #swearing

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sightseertrespasser · 4 months ago

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Odds of Survival Part 8

Per usual, the tf mecha au was spawned by @keferon

Prowl and the flyt he said he didn’t want: “It’s not an ESA, it’s a tool for detective work that runs on food and affection.”

Anyways why do pets always look like their owners?

———————————————————————

Prowl had approximately 6 breems before Elita finished cleaning her skull.

The tactician added 4 additional breems to account for time spent in adding the piece to her skull throne. On average, Elita One spent between 8 to 13 breems total on “personal art projects” as a way to unwind after intense battles.

As soon as Prowl was within comms range, he had sent an encoded message to Red Alert suggesting Breakdown intended to plant listening devices on the exterior of the Lost Light.

Nevermind the fact they were working on the same damn side.

That trick would keep the mech busy for at least 5 breem.

Typically, Prowl was the first to defend Red Alert as an invaluable head of security. His paranoia secured their defenses so well, security chief had completely countered every infiltration attempt by the Functionalists to date. That said, the price of privacy for their ship was Red Alert having a total monopoly on it instead.

The distraction was not only so Prowl could have a single minute of peace, but also to ensure the security officer did not interrogate an injured and highly unpredictable mech.

Because Jazz might actually give Red Alert a spark attack. (;7%)

Prowl tried to rub away the ache between his optics. Tacnet thrumming angrily with pent up, unfinished calculations. Most of which were completely defunct now thanks to the violator of numerical probability sitting in the medbay.

Jazz…

Fragging Jazz.

Prowl shut the door to his office. He could feel his helm getting warm again. He’d need to take what time he could to sort his processor before the logic cascades that had been accumulating since he found the mech became too much to manually keep on pause.

Luckily, the tactician had discovered a secret technique to unraveling Tacnet build up without requiring a constant cycling of industrial grade coolant.

Prowl unlocked the wardrobe-like habitat next to his desk.

A faintly cool breeze sighed from within, as the thawing process completed. Uncurling in response to the change of stimuli, a flyt woke from brumation to look at her praxian with bleary eyes.

“Hello Green.” Prowl eased a servo beneath the flyt. “we have much to discuss.”

As Green tucked herself against the ambient warmth of his frame, Prowl activated the large screen built into the adjacent wall.

“I met someone today.”

Tapping away, creating categories, connection points and theories arranged by probability, Prowl slowly filled the screen with a tree of possibilities.

All the while, conferring with Green to ensure his thoughts stayed at a conversational pace, rather than whirl through the labyrinth of his mind at breakneck speeds.

“-and then, he gave me his designation number, except it’s just a completely nonsensical string of seven numbers!”

Green squawked at the audacity of the mech.

“He did space out the numbers while reciting it. Two eight four, pause, four three four, pause, five five zero eight.” The praxian typed in the numbers, adding dashes where appropriate.

He muttered, mostly to himself, “This had better not be some sort of prank.”

As Prowl continued to verbally filter through his mental evidence locker, Tacnet finally straightened out the concrete math of the situation.

“Jazz is either an alien or a lost government experiment. Alien 57%, cybertronian 43%” The screen automatically supplied a pie chart, superseding several lesser graphs beneath it.

Prowl tilted his helm back and sighed, expelling all the hot air he’d holding behind locked vents at once.

Tacnet had finally. Finally, attached a precentiall figure to Jazz’s existence. The sheer relief of that knot untangling was better than any oil bath. Rolling his shoulders and neck, Prowl continued.

“There are two schools of thought regarding The Jazz Situation.” Prowl divided the board in two beneath the chart.

“The first, was that Jazz is a wholly alien mechanical lifeform, and it is through convergent design that he happens to closely resemble a cybertronian. Albeit with various physical abnormalities.”

Green squawked.

“Precisely. Until the language barrier is further overcome, we cannot rule out the second theory either. That Jazz is a creation of the Functionalists. It would account for the physical abnormalities while removing a significant amount of uncertainty the Alien Theory comes with.”

Prowl gathered a small bit of skitter. Green didn’t have much appetite immediately after waking, but the prospect of food still served as positive reinforcement for her “help”.

Ostensibly, caring for the flyt was supposed to take Prowls processor off of work. Jokes on his government assigned therapist, Green was a fantastic assistant and confident.

While he did care for his brothers, Smokescreen was explicitly unhelpful when Prowl latched onto something intellectually stimulating. Constantly cajoling him into going to bars or casinos or wherever else the elder Praxian considered “actually stimulating”.

And Bluestreak, meanwhile, was a mech physically incapable of keeping a secret.

“You don’t try to get me overcharged or tell everybody about the Mesothulas Incident.” The tactician cooed while scritching the underside of Greens beak.

Nevermind it was the same night.

Green trilled happily at the attention and praise, waking up more thoroughly.

“I’ll see about introducing you later. Jazz shows no discomfort concerning organics and I predict a strong likelihood he will appreciate your work.”

Just as Prowl was about to close the theory board, a comm came through, making him pause with a servo still hovering over the screen.

[VELOCITY]: Update about the patient for you sir.]

Speak not of Unicron lest he appears.

[PROWL]: Go ahead. Do you need me to come back to the medbay?]

[VELOCITY]: No, he’s not displaying any adverse behavior you warned me about. His common is very rough though and he’s definitely struggling to understand my questions and clearly articulate his answers. Outside of that, the patient seems fairly relaxed actually.]

Rough? Jazz had been making steady progress with his language acquisition. He should be capable of understanding and answering Velocity’s questions with 76% accuracy.

[PROWL]: He did suffer a helm injury, though I am certain you’ve taken that into account already.]

[VELOCITY]: I already ran a simple cognitive test and he passed without issue. I’d have to open his helm up to make sure, but he otherwise seems completely fine mentally.]

Prowl settled himself at his desk, tapping the surface absent mindedly.

[VELOCITY]: His other vitals are what concerns me however. By cybertronian medical standards, you brought me a talking corpse.]

Prowl stopped tapping.

[PROWL]: Elaborate.]

[VELOCITY]: The patient has no energon, no nanites, and no spark signature. He’s absolutely covered in the tiniest welds I’ve ever seen, which I should not be able to see if he had even 5% of the nanites a healthy mech should have.]

[PROWL]: Does he require more intensive medical treatment?]

[VELOCITY]: That’s a bit complicated to answer. He’s an alien so I’m not sure what his baseline for healthy is supposed to be. And if what you say about prior medical abuse is true, I don’t think he knows either.]

[VELOCITY]: He’s taking repairs like a champ so far. I can see he’s had a ton of previous repairs that all look clean and well executed despite being done without anesthetic.]

There are other kinds of avoidance than just physical aversion. Jazz is being compliant to get through the repairs quickly but faking confusion to avoid deeper medical questioning 88%.

[PROWL]: Unless it is to ask for consent for a procedure, you may desist questioning the patient for medical information. Rely on your own observations and expertise to form any pertinent theories.]

[VELOCITY]: Understood. The patient has turned down any deeper scans around his helm and chassis and I don’t want to push it on a first time check up. I’ve finished fixing his feet and the replacement part for his shoulder is almost done being machined.]

[VELOCITY]: I want to deal with his visor and helm sooner rather than later, but that’ll take a much more thorough scan to deal with. That’s all I have to update so far. His arm won’t heal on its own so I need to concentrate on rewiring the sensory network manually now.]

[PROWL]: Understood. Contact me immediately if anything changes.]

One more horrifying concept to add to the list. He was completely and utterly reliant on potentially manipulative doctors to fix even the most minute scraps and pains. No wonder Jazz had the pain tolerance of a Titan.

Prowl went to pull his data pad from subspace to update his Jazz Theory Board and stopped short with a full body cringe.

He gingerly took out Jazz’s missing shoulder and placed it on the table.

Prowl shuttered his optics.

The fact he forgot he had another mechs shoulder on his person was a testament to how badly he needed to defrag tonight. He briefly considered comming Velocity, but didn’t want to interrupt her operation on delicate wiring. Besides, if Jazz lacked a self repair system, then it wouldn’t matter if the piece was original or machine made.

It was such a fundamentally wrong concept, Prowl was unsure whether he’d prefer that to be Jazz’s natural state (51%) or a condition inflicted on him by whatever sadists created him (49%).

The tapping sound of beak on metal pulled Prowl back into the room.

“Green, do not.” He said sternly, lifting the flyt away from her object of fascination. She looked at him with pitifully wet eyes at the unhappy tone.

The praxians wings drooped. With some difficulty, Prowl attempted to project his EM field in something like “Your actions displeased me but I harbor no ill will towards your being. I am simply under a significant mental load and find the prospect of you attempting to eat a piece of someone’s body fairly distressing and ask that you discontinue that behavior and not act on any future impulses to put foreign objects in your mouth.”

What he got was a wobbly Meehm-blah-sorry-sad.

Flyts were supposedly capable of picking up on EM fields (12%). Prowl suspected Green was simply quite good at interpreting his body language and tone (88%).

In either case, Green responded by attempting to groom his plating, cooing softly. Organic EM fields were small and alien, but with practice and exposure one could begin to map one’s field to cybertronian equivalents. Green radiated a lightly brushing sympathy of sad and want-happy.

Prowl gave up on his field projection practice, and idly returned Greens affection with physical pets. If that damn therapist asked, he’d count it towards his quarterly goals.

That mech bothered him. Not just because he put limits on his workflow or for the one sided glaring contests Prowl would enact during their sessions. But because for the life of him Prowl could never remember his name. And that missing data point drove Tacnet crazy.

Everytime Prowl tried to investigate where the therapist even came from, something always came up distracting him from the task.

In a moment of determination, Prowl reached for his pad to look up his own therapists name on the ship’s registry and paused mid action.

The tactician turned his gaze back to the morbid weight resting on the desk.

His brow furrowed.

Lifting the piece closer (where Green couldn’t get at it), Prowl inspected something odd along the surface of the shoulder.

It looked like a row of staples protruding from the metal.

It looked like ladder rungs.

A frantic banging on Prowls door interrupted his introspection. He quickly subspaced the shoulder joint.

The indignant voice of Red Alert carried through the door, yelling to be let in immediately.

Prowl sent a few consecutive pings to clear the board, reduce interior illumination by 40% and then finally allow the chief of security entry.

Red Alert stumbled in through the sudden opening, plating misting off the residue frost formed by the chill of outer space. His optics darted rapidly around the dimmed interior, landing on the stone faced mech seated behind the desk.

Impassive and unreadable, the only signs the tactician was alive were the cold glow of his optics and the servo lightly stroking his pet. The flyts beady eyes bored into Red Alerts. Silent and unwavering.

Mouth suddenly dry, the mech was unable to form words.

The desired effect was achieved.

“I’ve been expecting you.” Prowl did not offer him a seat, as there was none to offer.

Red Alert got a hold of himself and puffed up his plating.

“Why is there an unauthorized mech on board this ship and why did I only hear about through gossip?!” Red Alert’s voice cracking the last word into a higher register.

“Jazz is authorized to be here. By me.” He offered Green a bit of skitter. “And by our captain. I found him stranded in open space after he fell out of a Quintesson gate tear.”

The smaller mech blanched slightly at the sight of an organic feeding. Prowl estimated the presence of Green would speed their meeting along by a factor of 120%.

“So you’re just bringing home random mechs then.” Red Alert flapped his arms at his sides. “How do you know he isn’t a Functionalist spy? Or a High Command spy? Or a third party spy?!”

Prowl raised a single digit. “One, Velocity has confirmed Jazz is absolutely an alien lifeform and not cybertronian in origin.” He held up a second digit. “And two, he fell out of a quintesson gate tear in the middle of empty space.”

Red Alert began to pace the room. “Okay fine. He’s not a plant for any cybertronian factions. How do you know he isn’t some kind of twisted Quintesson creation? Maybe he was created to infiltrate our ranks, and then a sleeper agent switch flips and he kills us all!”

“He is not a quintesson creation.” Prowl plainly stated to Red Alerts increasing exasperation.

“And how do you know that?!” Throwing his servos in the air.

“He likes music.”

Red Alert reset his optics. “Come again?”

Prowl cleaned off his servo with a rag in his desk, and played a low quality snippet of Jazz’s music that he’d managed to capture.

Red Alert startled at the sudden unfamiliar sound.

When actually was the last time any of them had heard new music? Before the civil war at least.

Prowl continued, “Quintessons do not value nor comprehend alien aesthetics. Their culture revolves around expansion and material acquisition and whatever may qualify as “art” to them does not equate to our understanding of it. They have absolutely no records of partaking in sound based recreation nor of collecting samples from other cultures.”

The snippet cut short. “Simply put, quintessons don’t know good music. Jazz does.”

Red Alert was loosing steam, but still had one more point to contend with.

“Isn’t just too improbable though?” Hands on the desk, leaning as close as he dared. “That out of the entirety of the universe, Jazz just so happened to pop out exactly next to the shuttle you were riding on, conveniently alone, unconscious, unharmed AND he gets picked up by high ranking decepticon?” For once, it looked less like Red Alert was fighting him, rather than pleading with him.

Prowl tilted his helm slightly, “You are correct. The odds are unfathomably low. So low in fact, it is nearly statistically impossible to achieve such a scenario on purpose.”

Quintesson gates were finicky. They had a margin of error the breadth of planets. That was also usually their targets however, and quints weren’t picky where they touched down.

“But-“

“But what? I have addressed every concern you have presented.” Prowl flared his doorwings. “I found a lost mech of a new alien species that may very well be an invaluable ally in the war against the quintessons. It’s a valuable opportunity.”

Red Alert balled his fists, fear manifesting as a last burst of rage. “It’s a trap! It’s an Oil-Pot! It is so obviously a purposeful manipulation when you look at it from the outside!”

The security officer began counting on his digits, “Step one! Put a handsome mech somewhere in need of saving so the target feels like they’re in control and the hero. Step two! Ramp up the flirting and the codependency, they need you so you stay in touch and start giving in to more of their requests. Step three! The Oil-Pot gets you alone somewhere under false pretenses where they SPLIT OPEN YOUR PROCESSOR AND SCRAPE IT FOR SECRETS!”

Red Alerts fans blasted hot air around the room. The mech challenging the Praxian for whatever excuse he had this time.

Prowl stood. Taking his time to return Green to her habitat.

“What am I most known for?”

For not the first time since entering his office, Red Alert was knocked off balance.

“I..uh. Math?” He stammered. Knowing the answer but not wanting to say it.

Prowl lacked that reservation.

“Any spy worth their shanix would have done their research thoroughly before even attempting such a scam. If one were to sift through information on me organized by Decepticons, the most prominent word would be Efficient.”

Prowl leisurely shook out Greens cloth-mop nest of any remaining ice crystals.

“If they sourced their information from the Functionalists, that description would include the word Ruthless.”

Prowl gave the flyt one last scritch before closing the door.

“Other popular words I’ve cataloged in relation to my name include Cold, Severe, Sparkless, Unfeeling and Merciless.” The smaller mech shrunk a little with every addition.

Prowl stepped around the desk in the dimly lit room to stand directly before Red Alert, servos clasped behind his back. “With this information available, any spy would be an idiot to attempt an Oil-Pot against me specifically. Ask nearly any mech aboard this ship if they think I’d go out of my way to save a stranger for no apparent benefit and they’d tell you No.”

Red Alert fiddled with his servos, torn between a nervous tick and the pressure to be professional. “If that’s all true, then.”

He chanced a glance at Prowl face, which gave away nothing. “Then why did you save him?”

“Because they are wrong.”

The room brightened back to normal levels, as Prowl sent a ping first to the lights and then to open his office door. He held out a servo, gesturing to the exit.

“Until further notice, Jazz is to be treated the same as a rescued non combatant. He will be kept under observation but not interrogation. We can work out the details at a later-“

[VELOCITY]: Jazz is gone.]

Prowl closed his servo. His doorwings twitched once. Red Alert tensed.

[VELOCITY]: I just finished the last repair and when I turned around he disappeared from the medbay. The guards outside didn’t see him.]

Prowl marched out the door, pulling Red Alert along in the direction of the security office. “I require your assistance immediately, as Jazz is currently loose somewhere on the ship, unmonitored.”

The tactician endured the security chiefs well earned tirade the entire way. Prowl kept a steely grip on the situation, only barely convincing Red Alert not to raise every alarm on the premise that Jazz would be easier to find if he didn’t think they were looking for him.

Tacnet stubbornly held onto the 56% saying Jazz was experiencing a delayed negative reaction to his medical care and was acting out of fear.

A steadily growing percentage screamed sabotage in a voice annoyingly similar to Red Alerts.

Said mech was almost cheery with vindication, in between vehemently describing every way the Lost Light could explode with the next few breems.

Red Alert worked fast. Sifting through the camera feed at a dizzying speed. A camera caught Jazz quickly slipping out of the medbay. Barely escaping the notice of the two mechs tasked with keeping watch. Prowl noted their designations for later scathing admonishment.

“The port side door lock is time stamped as malfunctioning just before Velocity discovered Jazz’s disappearance. It looks like the lock experienced an extremely localized electromagnetic pulse, putting it in Safe Mode.”

Red Alert switched the camera feeds on the main screen. “After he rounds this corner he just vanishes. I can’t find him anywhere on my system.”

Prowl nodded. “Good. Then I know exactly where he has to be.”

There were very few places to hide upon the Lost Light. Red Alert made certain of that. Which by extension meant that someone desperate to stay out of any camera views would have an extremely limited amount of space to operate in.

That space would normally be un-traversable, unless the mech in question was in possession of incredibly powerful magnetic augments, allowing them to crawl along the ceilings.

Prowl sent out a flurry of comms, updating Elita and calling in trusted reinforcements. He set out down the hall.

[PROWL]: What rooms aboard this ship do you not have any cameras inside of?]

[Red Alert]: The war room. The Captains quarters, your office, the therapists office and the operating theater.]

[PROWL]: There’s a camera in my berthroom?]

[Red Alert]: I mean. It’s not like you use it?]

Prowl consistently removed any bugging attempts in his office. Half the reason he kept Green in there was to deter Red Alert from trying. The other half was because he legitimately spent more time there than in his quarters.

He mentally crossed off his office, Elita’s quarters, the operating theater and the therapists office from the list as each one had someone inside at the time of Jazz’s disappearance.

All that left was the war room. Windowless, minimalist and with only once entrance, Jazz would be cornered like an animal in a trap.

Prowl gathered several of the least impulsive guards he could summon on short notice. Lining them along the hallway, he ordered them to shoot to disable. Prowl added that he would make an attempt to talk the mech down before escalating further.

If Jazz was spec ops (44%), the only benefit of infiltrating the war room would be to plant listening devices in its purposefully sparse interior. If Jazz wasn’t acting out of malice, and simply having a panic attack (56%), he may still react violently to suddenly being cornered.

Matchup: Close quarters fight Jazz versus Prowl. Jazz victory 97%.

The 3% in Prowls favor mostly depended on Jazz having some kind of sudden health emergency.

Prowl carefully assumed a neutral pose, knocking on the door to the war room.

“This is officer Prowl speaking. Please exit the room peacefully, we do not want to hurt you.”

Silence, save for the shifting of many nervous peds behind him. Prowl risked opening the door a crack, keeping his body well out of the line of fire. “Jazz, it is Prowl speaking. I need you to say something. Otherwise we’re going to have to come in.”

When there was still no response, Prowl signaled for the gathered soldiers to come closer in preparation for a raid.

On the silent count of three, they entered the war room, blasters drawn and optics searching.

Prowl kept special focus on the ceiling. Fanning his doorwings, He created a real time 3D map of the room, tracking every mechs movements within.

Jazz wasn’t here.

Instantly, Prowl prepared to order a ship wide mech hunt. They’d already wasted so much time with their one sided negotiations. The tactician began rerunning his mental map of where Jazz could have disappeared.

Elita had already sent him several unhappy comms messages about what she was going to do to the alien and him if Prowl didn’t find them. Confirming between threats that Jazz hadn’t gotten into her room.

Velocity had Nautica and Nightbeat in the med bay with her, turning the place upside down in case Jazz doubled back.

He found the comm line for the therapists office.

[PROWL] We have a rogue, possibly unstable mech loose within the Lost Light. Are you inside your office?]

[RUNG] Ah Prowl! Good to see you reaching out to me first for a change. Just finished up a lovely talk with Jazz.]

[RUNG] I think he has something important to tell you.]

———————————————————————

I am generally intrigued by the concept of how being apart of the Decepticon’s pecking order messes a person up.

There’s references all over to how Prowls physical and mental well being got absolutely wrecked and is now in recovery from being apart of High Command. (Inspired partially by @glitchgh0sty’s Deception AU go check ‘em out they’re cool.)

I also wanted to explore the social side of things.

Prowl makes himself unapproachable on purpose, Elita makes acts of excessive violence on her enemies a prominent display and Red Alert is even more invasive than normal.

It’s all to ward off other Decepticons from sensing weakness and stabbing them in the backs. Younger mechs like Bluestreak and Velocity can get away with being much more relaxed and friendly because they’ve got scary ass mechs like Prowl and Elita behind them radiating the “I will fucking destroy you.” energy on their behalf.

We get to see the masks slip a bit here and there. Red Alert genuinely concerned for Prowls safety underneath the paranoia. Elita gives Jazz and Prowl a lot more freedom than an actual tyrant would, even if it’s granted with over the tops threats of physical violence. And of course we see a lot of what Prowl is actually like removed from the pressure of behaving like a “proper” Decepticon.

Wonder what will happen when a certain mecha pilot gets a crowbar under those masks.

-SSTP

<- First Next ->

#tf mecha universe #writing #ye

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cyberpunkonline · 4 months ago

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10 CYBERPUNK ARTISTS THAT'LL JACK INTO YOUR SKULL AND REWRITE YOUR TASTE IN MUSIC

Your auditory implants won’t know what hit ‘em.

Right then, reader — pull up your faux-leather trousers and strap on your chrome-plated headphones. We’re blasting through the corrupted circuits of the 2025 underground, bringing you 10 contemporary artists who sound like they’re scoring a riot in Neo-Tokyo while being hacked in real time. Yes, there’s synths. Yes, there’s screaming. No, Grimes isn’t on this list.

MACHINE GIRL Genre: Gabberpunk, Cybercore, ADHD-core Ever wanted to be mugged in a server room by a rave demon? Machine Girl has you covered. It’s breakbeats plus punk plus absolute chaos. Every track is a manic assault from a frothing modem on fire. Start with “MG Ultra” — it's like doing parkour through a collapsing arcade. Machine Girl is a project from New York-based Matt Stephenson, who started it in 2013. What began as breakcore mutated fast into a multi-genre freakout. Live performances are frenzied, sweaty, and borderline ritualistic, often featuring live drums and mosh pit energy in tiny venues. Bandcamp: https://machinegirl.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0WwSkZ7LtFUFjGjMZBMt6T

TENGUSHEE Genre: Faewave, Electrofolk, Cyberdrift, Post-Ratcore This glitching shadow-beast of the net is what happens if a faerie takes too many digital drugs and starts a resistance movement in a cursed VR chatroom. Tengushee doesn’t just cross genres — they light them on fire, digitise the ashes, and make a concept album out of it. Expect story-driven drops, haunted samplers, and the occasional whisper from the void. Tengushee operates like a ghost in the wires, often dropping full-concept albums with narrative arcs tied to multimedia projects, zines, or even encoded tone signals. Based somewhere between London and Faewave, their work includes collaborations with glitch-artists and mythmakers, crafting a world as deep as it is weird. Bandcamp: https://tengushee.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5pPzJk8q2YbVRo3dEiE5rZ

PERTURBATOR Genre: Darksynth, CyberGoth Former black metal guitarist turns synth wizard and soundtracks the end of civilisation in style. Every track feels like the opening credits to a forbidden anime you found on a hacked VHS tape. His recent albums dip into goth rock, coldwave, and grim industrial — a sonic warehouse rave thrown inside a haunted monolith. James Kent is the man behind Perturbator, rising out of the French synthwave explosion in the early 2010s. What set him apart was the sheer cinematic density of his work, as well as his willingness to evolve. His later albums feel like full-blown existential crises scored with analog doom. Bandcamp: https://perturbator.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0O02jvPzKT1kQEYg5XEqRA

GUNSHIP Genre: Synthwave with Dad Issues Think “Stranger Things” but horny for Blade Runner. GUNSHIP slaps synth arpeggios across your face while whispering movie references into your ear. Songs like “Tech Noir” and “Dark All Day” are pure neon cocaine. Bonus points for the video with Tim Capello, the sax guy from The Lost Boys. Formed in the UK, GUNSHIP emerged from the ashes of alternative rock band Fightstar. What they lacked in punk energy, they made up for with lush synth arrangements and cinematic ambition. With vocal guests ranging from horror icons to YouTube animators, they’re a love letter to analog future-fantasies. Bandcamp: https://gunshipmusic.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3dD9W6Gh8Mo9Tu4S7ydz8q

SHREDDER 1984 Genre: Darksynth, CyberMetal French producer who mashes heavy metal energy into a screaming cyberpunk blender. His album "Dystopian Future" is all dark atmosphere and adrenaline. This is music for doing squats with a neural interface strapped to your head. Shredder 1984 is exactly what it says on the tin: shred. A project born from metal roots but raised on VHS aesthetics and neon grime, Shredder builds tracks that feel like boss fights in an underground data vault. Occasionally throws in face-melting guitar solos for good measure. Bandcamp: https://shredder1984.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2YlR5FzF4XWgeXGxR2b3Vh

REVOLTING PUPPETS Genre: Cyberpunk Punk These Swiss psychos deliver rebellious punk fused with grinding electronics. The kind of band that would stage-dive into a riot squad. Add in LED helmets and maximum cyber attitude and you’ve got a live act worth risking a black eye for. Born in Bern, Switzerland, the Puppets are part cyber-art project, part live-action political tantrum. The band leans hard into performance art, complete with backstories and a lore-rich website that feels like an ARG. Think Rage Against the Machine, but upgraded with malware. Website: http://revoltingpuppets.com

CLIPPING. Genre: Sci-fi Horror Rap Experimental hip hop trio fronted by Daveed Diggs that brings tales of malfunctioning AIs, haunted ships, and cosmic terror over glitch-heavy beats. Their albums feel like audio novellas for doomed protagonists. Start with "There Existed an Addiction to Blood" or "Visions of Bodies Being Burned." clipping. formed in Los Angeles, with William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes providing the surgical, abrasive production. Their use of silence, static, and horror tropes makes them unique in the rap world. And yes, Diggs was in Hamilton, but don’t let that fool you — these guys write soundtracks for existential dread. Bandcamp: https://clppng.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7cNNNhdJDrt3vgQjwSavNf

BEAST IN BLACK Genre: Cyber Metal, Synth Power If you're into big riffs, bigger vocals, and synths that sound like they were mined from an alien war machine, Beast in Black delivers. Their album "Dark Connection" is basically a concept record about AI girlfriends and cyber-samurai. Finnish-Greek metal band formed by former Battle Beast guitarist Anton Kabanen, Beast in Black are unapologetically bombastic. They mix anime aesthetics with power metal drama, and if you can get past the over-the-top vocals, you’ll find a band that gets how to marry synths with shredding. Website: https://beastinblack.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5wJ1z2KgFvb1GQ9ApnFlog

OKLOU Genre: Glitchpop, Cyberambient A softer, prettier ghost in the machine. Oklou blends vaporous vocals with ambient electronics and medieval fantasy energy. It’s like if a fairy princess got lost inside a Sega Dreamcast. Oklou is the moniker of French artist Marylou Mayniel. With classical music training and a background in club culture, she creates tracks that are emotionally dense but digitally fragile. Her work occupies the misty edges of cyberpunk, where romance and signal loss overlap. Bandcamp: https://oklou.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1FqqOl9itIUpXr4jZPIVoT

NAZAR Genre: Deconstructed Club, Warwave Amsterdam-based producer with beats sharp enough to cut through reinforced concrete. Inspired by war, trauma, and classic cyberpunk anime. His upcoming album "Demilitarize" might be the most realistic sonic vision of future conflict you’ll hear this year. Nazar was born in Angola and raised in Europe, and his music reflects that blend of postcolonial tension and Western club evolution. His productions on labels like Hyperdub use field recordings, mechanical rhythms, and unflinching political commentary. Harsh, heavy, and honest. Bandcamp: https://nazarmusic.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1pQWsZQehhS4wavwh7Fe8D

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commodorez · 2 years ago

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I still believe the craziest form of computer program storage format from the 1980s is the cassette tape. Logical I get it but to store entire programs on little tape (that I only remember using to play music) is just crazy to me. Idk

Agreed, cassette tape for data storage was really clever. The concept had its heyday was the 1970s in a wide variety of encoding schemes for different computer platforms. It did persist into the 80s, mostly in Europe, while the US switched to floppy disks as soon as they were available for systems. The majority of my Ohio Scientific software is on cassette.

Talking with UK vs. US Commodore 64 users in particular will highlight the disparity in which storage mediums that were commonplace. I've got a few pieces of software on tape for mainly the VIC-20, but I rarely bother to use it, because it's slow and annoying. To be fair, Commodore's implementation of data storage on tape is pretty rock solid relative to the competition. It's considered more reliable than other company's but Chuck Peddle's implementation of the cassette routines are considered quite enigmatic to this day. He didn't document it super well, so CBM kept reusing his old code from the PET all the way through the end of the C128's development 7 years later because they didn't want to break any backward compatibility.

The big thing that really made alot of homebrewers and kit computer owners cozy up to the idea was the introduction of the Kansas City Standard from 1976. The idea of getting away from delicate and slow paper tape, and moving towards an inexpensive, portable, and more durable storage medium was quite enticing. Floppy disk drives and interfaces were expensive at the time, so something more accessible like off the shelf audio tapes made sense.

I've linked two places you can read about it from Byte Magazine's February 1976 issue below (check the attribution links).

You might recognize a familiar name present...

There are a few ways to encode binary data on tape designed to handle analog audio, but the KCS approach is to have 1's be 8 cycles of 2400Hz tone, and 0's be 4 cycles of 1200Hz tone. I say cycles, because while 300 baud is the initial specification, there is also a 1200 baud specification available, so the duration of marks vs spaces (another way of saying 1's and 0's), is variable based on that baud rate. Many S-100 computers implemented it, as do a few contemporary proprietary designs.

The big 3 microcomputers of 1977 that revolutionized the industry (Apple II, Commodore PET 2001, and Tandy TRS-80 Model I) each have their own cassette interface implementation. It kept costs down, and it was easy to implement, all things considered. The Apple II and TRS-80 use off-the-shelf cassette deck connections like many other machines, whereas the original variant of the PET had an integrated cassette. Commodore later used external cassette decks with a proprietary connector, whereas many other companies abandoned tape before too long. Hell, even the original IBM PC has a cassette port, not that anybody bothered to use that. Each one used a different encoding format to store their data, rather than KCS.

Here's a sample of what an OSI-formatted tape sounds like.

And here's a Commodore formatted tape, specifically one with VIC-20 programs on it.

I won't subject you to the whole program, or we'd be here all day. The initial single tone that starts the segment is called the "leader", I've truncated it for the sake of your ears, as well as recorded them kinda quietly. I don't have any other tape formats on hand to demonstrate, but I think you get the idea.

You can do alot better than storing programs on tape, but you can also do alot worse -- it beats having to type in a program every time from scratch.

#kansas city standard #cassette tape #commodore vic-20 #ohio scientific

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darkmaga-returns · 1 month ago

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June 23, 2025: Pfizer experimented on millions of human beings with 12 vaccine candidates, including self-amplifying mRNA (saRNA), which is highly infectious through shedding.

EXCLUSIVE: Pfizer's Documents Confirm COVID-19 Shots Contained Self-Amplifying mRNA Karen Kingston · Jun 3 EXCLUSIVE: Pfizer's Documents Confirm COVID-19 Shots Contained Self-Amplifying mRNA June 3, 2025: We all remember being told that Pfizer’s COVID-19 spike-protein encoded mRNA lipid nanoparticle (LNP) injections;

Read full story saRNA is also biotech’s foundation for biosynthetic pathogens that can replicate inside the cells of animals, or what we call ‘coronaviruses’. While the FDA is announcing the fast-tracking of saRNA vaccines, billions of people worldwide have already been infected with the weaponized saRNA biotechnology.

Share this FREE Kingston Report. TRUTH WINS.

"Everything's Been a Lie." Last week I had the honor of being on The Absolute Truth with Emerald Robinson, to discuss the biopharma-industrial complex’s biotech attack on humanity and how everything we’ve been told about the SARS-2 coronavirus and mRNA has been a lie.

Check out this 3-minute clip.

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some-small-mercy · 8 months ago

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Whalefall – The Kirik Empire

Or, On Being So Evil it Makes You Stupid

The fun thing about real xenophobic politics – about believing that your species has some special mandate or divine blessing that makes it the most important, specialist, most brilliant and courageous and strong bunch of little guys in the entire history of the universe, and that you are preordained to spread across the galaxy and conquer or enslave or exterminate every bunch of filthy aliens you come across is:

Literally every species has done it at some point, at least a little bit

It’s an ideological dead end that will doom your whole civilization to irrelevance if it doesn’t get it bombed into rubble by someone who understands the incredible strategic value of not being a dick and making friends.

There’s an enjoyable sort of dramatic irony to a supercut of a dozen different genocidal maniacs from as many species giving basically the same speech with the names swapped out, right?

It’s also more or less a Commonwealth propaganda reel, or possibly a children’s edutainment vid, so probably shouldn’t take it entirely seriously. But there’s a reason known space is divided between two different incredibly cosmopolitan societies and all the pathological chauvinists and genocidaires are marginal or dead, right?

Not to say the Commonwealth is perfect about these things – obviously. I’m terran, I’m aware – let alone the Hykaeri. But a brutal, genetically encoded caste system is still a civilization that can incorporate and make good use of all its member species and motivate them to work, fight and die for it (and, less dramatically, a civilization that’s reliably going to get more out of incorporating new subjects than it will lose managing and policing them, at least once the initial turbulence has settled down – just look at how quickly Terra’s moving along). The same really can’t be said for tributary empires, let alone genocidal expansionists.

The latter are usually just more depressing than interesting to talk about, but I did promise you all something with a bit more substance than another wannabe pirate-king carving out an iron-age empire this time. So let’s go all the way back to what’s now mostly remembered as ‘the most successful exercise in large-scale nation building in Commonwealth history’.

The Kirik Empire

Not it’s name, of course – only the most tiresome and tedious megalomaniacs actually call their empire ‘the Me empire’. But ‘The Krin-Tcho Compact’ doesn’t look nearly so menacing scrawled across a star map in the opening minutes of some war-vid, does it? (Actually, on the infinitesimal chance any kirik read these – how do the translation protocols handle that sort of thing for you if you dig up some old serial?)

Anyway, on paper it was a nice, decentralized system with allied-but-autonomous governments answerable to the popular will. In practice it was a nasty little number, with just barely informal alliances between the confederate space force, leading industrial conglomerates, and powerful religious institutions running the show (you’re all clever enough that with that list I don’t need to waste any time going over the particular ways it was unpleasant for its own citizens, right? Splendid.)

Kirik reproduce quickly, have a talent for engineering and optimization, and have a tendency to get really invested in tribal identities. All that was an order of magnitude more obvious during the Confederate era – instead of being famously rowdy sports fans, it was university dueling societies nearly killing each other over every slight any student of one had done to the other. Which was already the domesticated, civilized version of what had been rampant honor feuds and vendettas that half of kirik civilization was built around (that parts that survived, anyway).

Now, let it never be said that I told you all that racists are necessarily stupid. They cracked FTL all on their own, which is more than most Commonwealth members can say. Established a few extrasolar colonies and spent a frankly concerning amount of time wargaming how space combat would work for a species with no actual history of it, just in case they needed to keep them in line �� which is where the military that would grow to basically become the government got its start. Things went along like that for a generation or two, and then some brave prospectors stumbled onto an already inhabited system. Not an incredibly primitive one, but one that was only just messing around with the basics of satellites and chemical rocketry.

First contact led to threats and grandstanding led to executed explorers led to gunboat diplomacy led to war. A war that ended up with the Confederate Space Force as the occupying force over hundreds of millions and auctioning off concessions to exploit the new world to all its favorite contractors. Which is about when kirik society fully succumbed to that lethal madness known as Manifest Destiny.

Over the next generations Krin-Tcho Compact laid claim to over three hundred star systems – of which six ended up being home to significant kirik populations, and another eight were inhabited by subject species reduced to some kind of tributary, protectorate, or other colonial status. Every single one of them laboring for the benefit of the oligarchs and voting public of the homeworld, with the sharp stick of collective punishment liberally applied should their enthusiasm ever waver. The imperial class believe themselves to be divinely ordained conquerors of the cosmos, and the most advanced civilization to ever exist. The subject populations believed them invincible and inevitable, resistance both futile and self-destructive.

Then a Polri Wof surveyor arrived to chart what was quickly dubbed the Kirik Expanse, and the Compact officially made contact with the All Systems Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth’s Favorite Monster

In popular histories and primary school curricula, making contact with the kirik is usually marked as the end of the ‘Founding Era’ of the Commonwealth (the other options are either making contact with (happened before) or the full ascension to membership of (after) the Serene Verinsoan State and incorporation of kyrians into the body politic. Some outliers say its the first run-in with the Hykaeri, but they’re cranks). If you’d asked them, the selein and azt of the time wouldn’t have said that they were the only species in the universe to have discovered FTL travel, but reading the records everyone but the mystics and philosophers kind of believed it. The Commonwealth was the work of generations of economic integration and decades of careful diplomacy between the only interstellar governments in the cosmos, and the rest of history would be its encountering and slow, consensual, mutually beneficial incorporation of each new species it would uplift to the stars.

So yeah, the alien scout force chasing a surveyor back into Commonwealth space and bloodily seizing a supply depot was a bit of a shock.

Neither side was even slightly prepared to deal with a hostile interstellar state of unclear size or capabilities – but even more than now, the Commonwealth’s frontier was scientific and commercial, while the Krin-Tcho’s was as militarized as it could possibly be. The only reason they only took over three (very lightly) inhabited systems before communication were figured out and the Confederate High Command sent someone out from the home world to take control of the situation is because they couldn’t figure out Commonwealth coordinate systems or star charts any more than they could our offers of surrender.

The Commonwealth was a much less tightly bound thing back then, and so it was specifically the selenic republic whose borders were being invaded – the Ablane Union, for anyone training for a quiz show – that handled those initial negotiations. Which led to a lot of confusion during the initial negotiations – or at least, left the kirik convinced that they were dealing with a few hundreds of millions of aliens scattered across a couple of half-empty moons, rather than anything grander.

The initial negotiations for a truce turned into threats and grandstanding, and the carefully timed arrival of a detachment of kirik frigates in-system did its job forcing the selein to cede the systems that had been occupied and send the kirik diplomats home with enough ‘gifts’ to seriously hurt the local economy. Archival records show they were hoping the demands would be refused to create a justification for a real campaign of conquest, and it was only a matter of time until a different one was discovered. If the Commonwealth didn’t start something first – because wider galactic culture was not responding well to these less-than-friendly new neighbors.

There was some initial blind panic, paranoia, hoarding of supplies and doomsaying on street corners (even on planets literally dozens of jumps away from anywhere the kirik had been seen) – there always is. But mostly, there was a lot of anxious conferring by worryingly practical people about how to deal with the threat. Which most of all meant understanding it – and this is where every spy agency you should be terrified of knocking on your door in the middle of the night really got its start.

Once you knew the language, it was pretty easy to figure out what poor grunts and low-level administrators on shitty border postings wanted – and it became increasingly obvious just how cheap it was to bribe people who spent half their careers shipping more riches than they’d ever touch back ‘home’ for their betters. Every bit of information was massaged and framed before it ‘leaked’, making the Krin-Tcho government seem as horrible and horrifying as possible, and as opposed to anything your average selein or azt considers right and good and beautiful. There’s nothing like a looming threat to define yourself against, and when war finally came the Commonwealth was more united than ever, ready to struggle against the terrifying, brutal imperialists who wanted to reduce them all to poverty and serfdom.

Ideologically and culturally I mean. They were still years from being actually prepared.

The Aleal Incident

There were two years of peace between the official opening of diplomatic relations between the Compact and Ablane. The time was filled with an endless series of provocations on one side, and an absolutely desperate attempt to work out how to defend worlds from interstellar invasion from first principles, on the other. If you’d given them twenty, they might have even figured something out.

The war came, as things often do, before anyone at the top really wanted it. Aleal was the Ablane asteroid colony nearest to the jump-point leading to the kirik-occupied systems. After however many interstellar joyrides and harassment raids, a whole array of what were at the time cutting edge defensive systems were shipped out to scare off the next provocation. Which arrived while they were in the middle of being installed. The kirik squadron responded to getting ineffectually shot at by the batteries that were working by jumping from provocation to invasion. The colony was bombarded, breached and seized, and every selein within was dead within a week. The kirik commander, either worried about being punished for going beyond their orders or surprised at how easy the attack had been and dreaming of glory, sent word back requesting reinforcements and then kept going.

The Confederate Space Command had been planning on an invasion, of course – the homeworld was absolutely abuzz with dreams of all those decadent alien kingdoms and the riches they would provide in tribute – but interstellar logistics were even more a bitch back then than they are now, and they’d have preferred to take some more time getting all of their ducks in a row. Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for probably a few billion selein), news of the ‘glorious victory’ leaked as soon as they received it and any chance of doing anything but backing the attack to the hilt became political suicide.

The war was on.

Now, if you are the sort of reader who wants the blow-by-blow of interstellar warfare and enjoys the challenge of keeping all the theaters’ timelines in your head without developing a migraine, good on you. Go have fun with that somewhere else. For the purposes of this barely-edited ramble, all you really need to know is that the war initially went very poorly for the Commonwealth – the Ablane Republic was occupied entirely, and so were continents and colonies of several other selenic states. It’s the last time enemy soldiers ever landed on several different planets, actually. People were panicking. Also dying. Many, many people dying.

But things didn’t stay that dire for too long – the Confederate Space Force could cut through the pretty rudimentary voidborn defenses that were set up anywhere, but the kirik empire was built on either threatening a planet with orbital bombardment or delivering a few thousand soldiers with modern weaponry to a world that fought by shoving bits of metal into each other. Trying to invade three different planets with populations in the billions and the industrial base to shoot back at any ships in orbit (as they were at their high-point) was just beyond them. And once things bogged down, the problems really started.

The Compact was built on easy wins in more ways than one. Most of their space force was old, because making new spacecraft is expensive and why bother when patching up any issues is so much easier? The R&D and manufacturing systems they had were halfway to being entirely graft and patronage networks, eating the plunder of empire as any part of them doing real work atrophied. Which was an issue, once they started taking actual losses and needed to quintuple the previous production rates.

But that was a solvable issue – was being solved, really. The actual crippling weakness was that, by and large, all the selenic colonies they invaded fought back on whatever level they were capable and all the Commonwealth states they weren’t currently invading (at that point basically just the other selenic republics, whatever you call what the azt had going on back then, and a few uplift cases) were enthusiastically contributing their share to the war effort.

Beyond the kirik homeworld, this was...not the case for the Krin-Tcho Compact. As soon as rumors of the war going badly spread and space force patrols became less frequent, just about every colony and tributary with a local government started coming up with excuses about why their taxes would be late, and the directly occupied ones discovered very good reasons to keep all the cash and guns they had close at hand. Even before the first Commonwealth incursions into kirik space, production issues were everywhere. And once they did, well-

Just about every Commonwealth world would ignore demands to surrender and fight. The first time the reverse occurred, it caused a coup and the colony’s new government welcomed their ‘conquerors’ with open arms. The Commonwealth couldn’t economically transport army groups worth of troops across space any better than the Krin-Tcho – with one exception, they just didn’t need to.

Ruin and Rebirth

Soon enough, the grand, star-spanning empire was reduced to nothing but Triklun – the homeworld – itself. Which was hardly nothing – 6 billion and change kirik spread across three densely populated continents, if maybe a bit light on the military-aged and physically fit compared to what you’d hope for. The terrestrial armies and air forces the different Compact member states could muster up were at least as well-armed as anything the Commonwealth could throw at them, and outnumbered then hundreds to one. Actual orbital invasion was simply not going to happen.

But Triklun wasn’t built for autarky – even before a proper orbital blockade was established, the planetary industrial base was already starting to cannibalize itself to make up for lost taxes and tribute shipments. When it was – and when Commonwealth ships dipped into low enough orbit to start hitting logistics hubs and extraction chokepoints – things started to get dire quickly. Well, ‘dire’ – the chance of anything except exhaustion back home making the Commonwealth break the blockade was gone within a few months. It still took more than a local year before the first Compact member state went behind the General Staff’s back and opened incredibly secret negotiations. Once those leaked, then things came to a big bloody finish, and fast.

The ruling elites and the great mass of Krin-Tcho citizens had been gung-ho and enthusiastic about planetary unity and racial glory when it was full of heroic victories and shipments of luxuries and getting told they were the most important and blessed people in the whole wide universe. Less so after years of siege and promises of eventual victory becoming more and more delusional. They’d still fight to defend their home and country, of course – but they remembered that, technically speaking, they were independent governments whose greatest commitment was to their own citizens, not the alliance that had dragged them into all this shit.

Once the selling each other out started – and the Commonwealth brass in orbit had brought along plenty of spies and diplomats to help it along – it turned into a frenzy. The mixture of bread riots and the thought that the guys over the next hill might get a sweetheart deal under the new regime instead of you proved pretty motivating, and once the first state was officially welcomed as a Commonwealth ally – well, world wars are pretty easy to win when you have friends with increasingly total orbital superiority dropping presents down on enemy formations. The aid packages giving your soldiers and specialists a taste of the life they used to have didn’t hurt, either.

The Compact was dissolved, of course. The colonies and conquered worlds that had rebelled in support of the Commonwealth were showered with aid and support to join as Commonwealth members (with blew up in everyone’s face a decade down the line, but that’s a different story), while on Triklun itself the enthusiastic traitors and collaborators all got to dig through old nationalist fantasies and realize their most absurd expansionist dreams as the map got redrawn. They – let alone the rest of the planet – then got a much more involved period of tutelage before getting past probationary status.

But plus or minus a few planetary uprisings, attempted coups, and still incredibly-politically-suspect religious traditions, a couple hundred years latter and it’s all worked out. The baby Commonwealth more than doubled the number of member species within it, and for all but one of them it was just an absolute strict upgrade in circumstance. Not that kirik aren’t doing fine now – depending on which census you trust, they’re either the fifth, fourth or even third most populous species around, with almost-but-not-quite commensurate representation in galactic institutions and decision-making bodies.

The experience taught the Commonwealth a lot of good lessons, too. And one incredibly, ruinously, planet-destroyingly bad one about how easy winning an interstellar war against an ideologically unpalatable peer-society would be, but first contact with the Hykaeri Imperial Republic was still a while away.

#worldbuilding #whalefall #science fiction #esoterica #histories

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