#Orbiter Processing Facility

[ages-and-pages]

SSME Installation

[chaoticallyfluffy]

"What are you, a cop?" and "Now you see me now you don't" both sound interesting

For "What are you, a cop?"

Billy is deaged (actually deaged. He goes from 15 to 10 or something and doesnt remeber the league) during a mission. He suddenly woke up in the middle of a battle so he's freaked out. the Justice League take down the threat then try to calm the boy down, explaining that theyre heros and here to help.

Billy takes a moment to take that in... then bolts.

It takes a bit to catch the kid, he's surprisingly agile for his concerningly small size, but they manage to get him into the jet and hes pouting in the corner looking angrier than the league has ever seen him.

They try to ask questions. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Why are you so thin? Is there anyone we should call? But Billy stays silent and his glares stay intense until he finally speaks.

"I don't talk to pigs." he spits out, giving them the nastiest look as if his glare alone could poison and kill them.

They stare at him for a moment, processing that.

"We're not cops???" Clark says, unconvincingly. Hes never been more confused in his life and has definitely never been confused for a cop.

"Whats wrong with being a cop?" Barry, the forensic scientist, pouts.

They knew that Marvel had a bit of a weird relationship with cops but they didn't realize he hated them, and especially not with such a passion!

The league spends the whole jet ride back to the tower trying to convince Billy that not only are they not cops, but that cops shouldn't be something to be afraid of anyway.

Billy spends the whole trip explaining ACAB to them and that yes, they are in fact cops, and here's all the things that the police system has done wrong that the league have probably also done or been complicit in..

I just want to write Billy radicalizing the Justice League and the league helping to reform the police system.

---

For "Now you see me, now you dont"

In the original comics Billy can and will transform in front of anyone at anytime and they wont realize that it was a transformation. Why?because plot armor. They will just think that the boy ran away right as Captain Marvel appeared or something, and when Billy reappears they don't question it either.

In the fic, its a magic perk that came with the whole Champion of Magic package and its a perk he uses often and irresponsibly. He takes it to the extremes by transforming in front of large crowds (no one questions it), while being recorded (The camera shorts out and stops working completely), and even in front of villains (they curse when the captains escapes yet again, completely ignoring the little boy standing in the middle of their secret base)

The last one is how he figured out that even if he is very much Not supposed to be somewhere, he wont be questioned as long as the only people who see him there also saw Marvel transform in that area. If someone who didn't witness the transformation were to see him, they would realize he wasn't meant to be there and call him out which would cause the witnesses to notice it as well. Leaving the room and then returning would also snap them out of it and he would be questioned.

Its a pretty overpowered ability for a child to have access to and when your a street kid without any video games to play who gets chased out of public parks for being too 'dirty' and can't afford any toys, you have to get creative with your entertainment.

Billy wants to see just how far he can take this power, and decides to transform in front of as many people in one day as possible while on the most highly secure facility in earths orbit- the Watchtower.

Follow Billy as he stretches his powers to their limits by transforming in front of the Justice League while praying he doesn't get caught and see what pranks he's able to pull off in that time!

I really like both of these ideas and I definitely want to write them someday. I already have lots of ideas for ways Billy can abuse that particular power! For now I am focusing on a few other fics but these ones are somewhere in the queue.

[lonestarflight]

STS-115 "Space Shuttle Atlantis rolls away from Bay 3 in the Vehicle Assembly Building to move it to Bay 1. There Atlantis will be demated with the external tank and solid rocket boosters in anticipation of its transfer to the Orbiter Processing Facility."

Date: February 25, 2003

NASA ID: KSC-03PD-0571, KSC-03PD-0573

[mariacallous]

Leia Organa, along with the likes of Mon Mothma and Bail Organa, learned that there were few ways in which any form of sustained ethical choices could be made while operating under Palpatine's rule. If decisions were put before committees or raised as bills and amendments on the Senate floor, they were often liable for alteration or manipulation by Imperial political advisors or governors to create the outcome they desired, while also smearing the reputations of those senators who had been the driving forces. So complicated was the process of navigating the various pitfalls of Imperial politics that Senator Daho Sajan once wrote to a compatriot that "the Senate increasingly resembles a rigged casino. Given that Palpatine always win the political games, it seems pointless to play unless you can also secure your own prizes at the same time." Sajan was later executed for some unspecified form of treason, so it appears that he did not end up playing the game well enough.

Records of the decisions taken by the Senate - records that the Empire itself made sure were well-preserved and dispersed to the relevant worlds - are replete with examples of senators signing off on decisions that then had widespread negative effects. Campaigns to help the starving population of Wobani resulted in the planet being converted into a prison and labor camp, thereby providing "accommodation and food" for those trapped there. A bill requesting additional employment opportunities on Corella led to the shipyards becoming an associated offshoot of Kuat Drive Yards to help construct new Star Destroyers. The result for the inhabitants of the planet was heavy pollution in the upper atmosphere. For everyone else it was the growing shadow of Star Destroyers in orbit above their worlds. Shortly after the Empire was founded, Senator Riyo Chuchi of Pantora was a strong dissenter against the planned Imperial Defense Recruitment Bill that would seek to phase out the clone army and replace them with civilian solders recruited, or conscripted, from the wider population. The bill had already been defeated once before but had been returned to the Senate again. Senator Chuchi garnered opposition to the bill from existing clone soldiers and then exposed the destruction of Tipoca City and its cloning facilities on the orders of Vice Admiral Rampart - who was the bill's main supporter - on the floor of the Senate. Rampart was immediately arrested as a response. Chuchi and her allies may have briefly thought they had won the debate, but the sudden arrival of Emperor Palpatine changed all of this. He expressed his concerns that Rampart's clone soldiers had obeyed the order to attack Kamino without hesitation and that such blind loyalty represented a threat to the Empire - something that a conscript stormtrooper army would not. In response the Senate enthusiastically supported the bill and Chuchi discovered that she had been outmaneuvered all along.

Because of the ongoing fear that any action would be twisted to either support the Empire or result in senators being held responsible as culpable participants in ongoing Imperial activity, many of them found themselves effectively paralyzed by indecision. When faced with several, even seemingly contradictory options, fear that all of them somehow served Palpatine prevented lawmakers from acting decisively, or indeed, at all. This did nothing to remove the reputation of the Senate as a body that achieved nothing but talking, with only Imperial governors seemingly able to act without the obstacles of politics. Amid this indecision various unscrupulous politicians took the decision to simply accrue their own personal wealth and power at the expense of their home systems, given that little could be done to assist them anyway.

The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire by Dr. Chris Kempshall

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Webb's autopsy of planet swallowed by star yields surprise

Observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have provided a surprising twist in the narrative surrounding what is believed to be the first star observed in the act of swallowing a planet. The new findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal, suggest that the star actually did not swell to envelop a planet as previously hypothesized. Instead, Webb's observations show the planet's orbit shrank over time, slowly bringing the planet closer to its demise until it was engulfed in full.

"Because this is such a novel event, we didn't quite know what to expect when we decided to point this telescope in its direction," said Ryan Lau, lead author of the new paper and astronomer at NSF NOIRLab (National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory) in Tucson, Arizona. "With its high-resolution look in the infrared, we are learning valuable insights about the final fates of planetary systems, possibly including our own."

Two instruments aboard Webb conducted the post-mortem of the scene—Webb's MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph). The researchers were able to come to their conclusion using a two-pronged investigative approach.

Constraining the how

The star at the center of this scene is located in the Milky Way galaxy about 12,000 light-years away from Earth.

The brightening event, formally called ZTF SLRN-2020, was originally spotted as a flash of optical light using the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego, California. Data from NASA's NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) showed the star actually brightened in the infrared a year before the optical light flash, hinting at the presence of dust.

This initial 2023 investigation led researchers to believe that the star was more sun-like, and had been in the process of aging into a red giant over hundreds of thousands of years, slowly expanding as it exhausted its hydrogen fuel.

However, Webb's MIRI told a different story. With powerful sensitivity and spatial resolution, Webb was able to precisely measure the hidden emission from the star and its immediate surroundings, which lie in a very crowded region of space. The researchers found the star was not as bright as it should have been if it had evolved into a red giant, indicating there was no swelling to engulf the planet as once thought.

Reconstructing the scene

Researchers suggest that, at one point, the planet was about Jupiter-sized, but orbited quite close to the star, even closer than Mercury's orbit around our sun. Over millions of years, the planet orbited closer and closer to the star, leading to the catastrophic consequence.

"The planet eventually started to graze the star's atmosphere. Then it was a runaway process of falling in faster from that moment," said team member Morgan MacLeod of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "The planet, as it's falling in, started to sort of smear around the star."

In its final splashdown, the planet would have blasted gas away from the outer layers of the star. As it expanded and cooled off, the heavy elements in this gas condensed into cold dust over the next year.

Inspecting the leftovers

While the researchers did expect an expanding cloud of cooler dust around the star, a look with the powerful NIRSpec revealed a hot circumstellar disk of molecular gas closer in. Furthermore, Webb's high spectral resolution was able to detect certain molecules in this accretion disk, including carbon monoxide.

"With such a transformative telescope like Webb, it was hard for me to have any expectations of what we'd find in the immediate surroundings of the star," said Colette Salyk of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, an exoplanet researcher and co-author on the new paper.

"I will say, I could not have expected seeing what has the characteristics of a planet-forming region, even though planets are not forming here, in the aftermath of an engulfment."

The ability to characterize this gas opens more questions for researchers about what actually happened once the planet was fully swallowed by the star.

"This is truly the precipice of studying these events. This is the only one we've observed in action, and this is the best detection of the aftermath after things have settled back down," Lau said. "We hope this is just the start of our sample."

These observations, taken under Guaranteed Time Observation program 1240, which was specifically designed to investigate a family of mysterious, sudden, infrared brightening events, were among the first Target of Opportunity programs performed by Webb.

These types of study are reserved for events, like supernova explosions, that are expected to occur, but researchers don't exactly know when or where. NASA's space telescopes are part of a growing, international network that stands ready to witness these fleeting changes, to help us understand how the universe works.

Researchers expect to add to their sample and identify future events like this using the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory and NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which will survey large areas of the sky repeatedly to look for changes over time.

TOP IMAGE: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of what is thought to be the first-ever recorded planetary engulfment event revealed a hot accretion disk surrounding the star, with an expanding cloud of cooler dust enveloping the scene. Webb also revealed that the star did not swell to swallow the planet, but the planet’s orbit actually slowly depreciated over time, as seen in this artist’s concept. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, R. Crawford (STScI)

LOWER IMAGE: Schematic illustration of the preengulfment and postengulfment interpretation of ZTF SLRN-2020. Credit: The Astrophysical Journal (2025). DOI 10.3847/1538-4357/adb429

[anumberofhobbies]

The Kennedy Space Center-based research, test, and now space launch company Starfighters International, which has been flying F-104 Starfighters privately for decades is now, is in the process of acquiring a dozen F-4 Phantoms. The deal would see the iconic third-generation Cold War fighters fly primarily in service of the firm’s space launch operations, which aim to provide rapid and flexible access to low Earth orbit (LEO) for small satellites, as well as suborbital offerings. Starfighters International began as a company around three decades ago, and grew from doing air shows to becoming largely a research and development support firm with a very unique address. The company and its fleet of antique Mach 2-capable F-104 Starfighters, which includes seven airframes today, moved into Kennedy Space Center in 2007. There they would have access to arguably one of the most famous and largest runways on earth, the Shuttle Landing Facility. Now they are in the process of building a 150,000-square-foot facility in Midland, Texas, to support the firm’s more ambitious space launch aims. And this is precisely where the F-4 Phantoms come into play. While the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter is capable of zooming up into the stratosphere at high speed, they cannot carry heavier, outsized launch vehicles at the required performance that will allow larger payloads to be inserted into low Earth orbit. The F-4s — at least in concept — can.

Starfighters Space Expands to Midland, Texas Spaceport October 7, 2024 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Oct. 7, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Starfighters Space Inc, headquartered at Kennedy Space Center, operating the world's only commercial fleet of aircraft capable of flying at sustained MACH 2+ and able to air-launch payloads at altitude, proudly announced the addition of its second launch facility at the Midland, Texas Spaceport.

Thank you to member GTX at Secret Projects Forum for bringing this to awareness.

[threestarsaboveclouds]

BHB: What's the most interesting thing you've seen in those stars? Wait maybe I should share something interesting I've seen first, A sort of trade. The people of my city seemed to have an interest in crystalline structures, and once I heard of a rumor of an enhydros with void fluid inside! Personally I find the claims doubtful as I never found such an object but the prospect is interesting.

TSAC: Oh! I am familiar with a similar mineral formation! Early geological studies of the mountain range that would eventually become home to my facility revealed veins of minerals enriched with Void Fluid inclusions. This Void Fluid-enriched rock was pushed closer to the surface by a convergent plate boundary to the northwest; the same process that eventually created the mountain range. A refinery was eventually created to extract the fluid from the rock, which laid the groundwork for what would eventually become my Filtration System.

The crystals you speak of seem to be something similar... though, rather than containing microscopic Void Fluid inclusions, they have entire fluid-filled pockets inside of the rock. I myself am not familiar with such formations... I would assume that the high concentration of Void Fluid in those pockets would dissolve the rock entirely. I imagine that if they do exist, such mineral formations would be quite rare.

...ah, yes, you wanted some information from me as well, to complete this “trade”. I suppose I can offer you some data that is also of a mineralogical nature.

My studies involve not just the stars, but anything moving amongst the Celestial Spheres. This includes comets and asteroids, rocky and icy bodies far from the planet, inhabiting the depths of space. Occasionally, these rocks fall to the ground in the form of meteorites, but very few are large enough to survive the trip down to the surface. Most burn up in the atmosphere in streaks of light, known as meteors.

Periods of high meteor activity are known as meteor showers. There is evidence to suggest that these meteor showers may be linked to these comets and asteroids, which shed debris as they travel through space. This debris, when encountered by the planet in its orbit, then falls to the ground in the form of a meteor shower.

The periodicity of these meteor showers may also be connected to karmic fluctuations, perhaps as a result of the planet’s gravity interacting with these celestial bodies. I lack the equipment to study this phenomenon directly, however I have been looking over some of the historical literature related to dust concentration records in my spare time. There is a weak correlation between observed atmospheric dustfall and the movement of the Spheres... perhaps the topic is something worth looking into.

[tunastime]

Slim and Easy Pickings

a little late, but here's a piece for bigb's birthday that kind of got away from me! watching all of wild life in his pov really made me obsessed with him, so now I've scruffed him and put him in sen <3 happy birthday to the guy ever!!

A cargo-runner with his own ship, "Captain" BigB spends his time hauling supplies from station to station. This particular trip, despite it's semblance of normalcy, isn't going quite to plan. Especially when his recipient, Ren, the CMO of Medical Station 4, asks him to make a wayward stop for extra cargo. And that that cargo happens to be a person. (1067 words)

BigB puts the ship's computer to rest. Here in the cockpit, the lights dim, he leans his head back against the padded upholstered headrest and shuts his eyes for the briefest of moments. Of course the computer is running in the background—the ship's reprogrammed, but complimentary AI, SmallB, was still running life support, navigational control, security protocol. But without BigB poking around in its brain, it could devote part of its processing power to doing something it actually enjoyed, like watching BigB's reactions to media, or music, or books. 

He'd reworked the framework of the central AI not too long after he made his last installment on the ship and actually powered the damn thing on. He'd kept it dormant while still hauling for the Deep Space Miner's Corp from the connector station between a moon and its planet (he'd long since forgotten the name, now. Lunara? Lumiara? Luminary? Something like that) but now that it had been his for almost six months, he'd gutted and rebuilt the whole thing. He can almost feel it poking around in his data feed, squirreled away while he tried to rest his eyes.

He was fourteen days out from the medical station, and already, after ten days, cabin fever had started to set in. He'd been really good about it before, six, eight, even nine months quietly roaming his ship in bouts of silence. Maybe he was just anxious to stop moving for a bit. 

The medical station was more than just a hospital. It was like it was its own planet, with shops, docks, and transient housing. He'd been to stations like that before, but nothing that nice. And, he'd been promised, at the behest of station management, that his week of leave time could be spent there. They'd already arranged him a room, assured him a currency card for meals, and left him an open docking spot. It was nice—and he was suspicious, or would be, if he hadn't talked to the station chief himself. He'd also talked to a man called Ren, and Ren was who this delivery was for to begin with, stacked four crates high and three crates deep with medication, liquid, solid, reusable and disposable medical utensils, all the equipment an orbit-locked transitional medical facility needs to function. Ren was pleasant, spoke conversational common with a voice that sounded like it smiled more than frowned, and an accent reminiscent of people BigB used to know during his dockings on the orbital of Luminary (Luminary, is what is was, that was the name. At least he'd known it as Luminary, which was what people from planetside and dockside had said. Might've been called anything). He was the chief medical officer and head surgeon of the reconstruction unit—BigB was not interested in knowing what the term reconstruction meant. 

He blinks his eyes open. Not a nap, but definitely a rest for his dry eyes.

"Captain—" says SmallB, even though BigB isn't a Captain, not in the slightest. "Looks like we have an incoming transmission from the Octagon. Interested?"

“Depends on who it’s from, SB,” BigB says, stretching his arms and rising to a stand.

“Looks like it’s from the CMO of Medical Station 4, if that’s anything to you?”

“Ren?”

“The same.”

“Sure,” BigB says, repositioning himself in his chair. He sits up straight, trying to will the knot in the top of his spine away. “Patch him through.”

There’s a small, affirmative chime from the ship’s computer as the two telecom links join together. Even at this distance, through an array of satellite and range extenders, planetside connectors, and ship-bound relays, com links could successfully patch through, even with a short delay. There would likely be about a thirty-second difference between the MS4 central hub and BigB’s own, smaller computer. Plus it would be audio only; there was no way for SB to support the strength of a holograph projector in any capacity, unless BigB did some serious rewiring and power allocation changes.

Ren’s voice jumps to life through the speaker.

“Captain B!” he says cheerily, still in that accented common tongue. “Nice to chat with you.”

“Likewise, Doctor,” BigB says. He takes the brief pauses as time to readjust the travel calculations and update his positional log. If Ren were collecting transmitter data real time, he wanted it to actually be there to collect.

“Please,” Ren says after the delay. “Just call me Ren. Listen—I wanted to ask you a favor. I know you’re still about two weeks out, and we’re expecting you on time, but I wanted to know if you would be willing to make a slight detour for me.”

BigB frowns. His concern must bleed slightly into the feed connection between himself and SB, because he feels an internal nudge, and sets his shoulders again.

“That depends on the favor, I guess. What sort of thing did you have in mind? And, maybe forgive the directness, but what kind of incentive?”

The pause is more significant this time, suggesting that Ren were taking time to consider the question, rather than just the connection relay delay. SB pokes him, quiet.

<You’re not a smuggler, remember?>

BigB wrinkles his nose.

I know that, he says, or really, subvocalizes, pushing his message into the feed connection between the two of them. I remember. But maybe it’s not what we think it is, yeah?

<Maybe so.>

Ren’s voice startles him, and SB, who’s jittering, electronic start shuffles through their feed connection enough to shock him. 

“I’ve got… a friend who needs transport. It’s a bit personal, but I’m willing to pay double for it. Plus what he’s willing to pitch in. He’s in a bit of a jam, but should just need a tow to MS4. If you’re willing?”

BigB pulls a face. It’s something SB sees, but doesn’t comment on. He drags his tongue between his teeth, frowning slightly.

“Double?”

“You’ve got my word, Captain,” Ren says, letting out a sigh that sounds more stressed than concerned. BigB feels a knot start to form at the notch of his sternum, right at his solar plexus. It feels… dangerous. But it can’t be the most dangerous thing he’s ever done. He sits back in his chair again, steepling his fingers, tapping them against his chin. 

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do,” BigB says, steeling his expression. “Send me the coordinates.”

[dertaglichedan]

SpaceX's $1.8 billion Starship expansion in Florida to create 600 jobs by 2030

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CBS12) — Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Tuesday, SpaceX's decision to expand its Starship launch capacities and processing operations to Florida, marking a significant milestone for the state's aerospace industry.

SpaceX's Starship, the first rapidly and fully reusable launch vehicle, is designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

SpaceX plans to construct a new launch and landing infrastructure at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which is pending environmental approval. The project will also include a new integration facility, Gigabay, offering over 40 million cubic feet of vehicle processing space. This expansion represents a $1.8 billion capital investment by SpaceX and is expected to create approximately 600 new full-time jobs in the Space Coast by 2030.

"Florida is the present and future of the space industry with leading space companies—like SpaceX—investing in the Free State of Florida," said Governor Ron DeSantis. "We welcome SpaceX’s Starship to our state."

[blackjackkent]

OK, last bit of conversation at Elerrathin's Home and then we're off, shiny new password in hand, back to Candulhallow's Tombstones.

Rakha looks with mild interest at the weapons stored away in Jaheira's hidden back storage area. A scimitar and a quarterstaff - neither of which stick out much to her except for their magical tinge, and the fact that they clearly have some sort of significance to Jaheira herself.

She's more curious about the amulet found in what seems to be a place of honor at the back of the cavern.

(A/N: This still obliterates me from orbit every time I think about it. 😭 )

Rakha has not heard Jaheira speak of this husband - although she did mention falling in love with another Harper at some point in the past. At the time, she was reticent to give Rakha any details, and at first it seems like that might still be the case:

"About that amulet I found in your house..."

Jaheira flinches, a sardonic smile pasting itself across her face automatically. "Oh, dear. Should I brace myself for some fashion advice?"

Silence. Rakha stares at her, uncertain how to answer this. Jaheira sighs, rubs at the bridge of her nose. "But I suppose you have earned more than glibness from me," she mutters. "It... was a gift from my husband. Khalid."

Rakha can hear the emotion layered through the speaking of that name. And she feels her head twinge in answer to it, a flash of the beast's rage as it rose when it heard the name of Minsc. This Khalid is another of those Bhaal has hated, it seems, and she clenches a hand behind her back with the effort to keep her face immobile.

Jaheira seems like she might not have noticed anyway. Her expression has grown distant, her thoughts in another place entirely - a place full of muted and finely-aged grief. "He was a Harper," she says slowly. "A better one than me, truth be told. Any idiot can swing a sword, but to believe in the cause with the whole of your heart? A much trickier thing."

She scowls. "He died. Alone, in pain, and far too young, murdered by a mage who craved immortality," she adds bitterly. "I'll not grant it by naming him in the same breath as my husband."

Rakha is quiet for a moment, processing this.

The word love is not one that she has innate facility with. Her relationship with Wyll comes to her like every other good thing in her life - through desperate, clawing effort. But she does love him. She loves him for his warmth and his unerring sense of good, the lodestone she steers by.

To believe in the cause with the whole of your heart - a much trickier thing.

She tries to imagine a loss such as Jaheira suffered. The guiding star snuffed out and emptiness left in its place. A terrifying sense of rage and terror fills her even to imagine it. How does Jaheira face each day so calmly?

"I'm sorry," she mutters. "I hope I didn't... bring up any bad memories."

"Nothing that was not already there," Jaheira says quietly. "Fear not. But I've lived many lifetimes since Khalid died." Her tone gives a little bit of lie to her matter-of-fact words, though; there's a slight hitch in her breath as she goes on. "You twine your life around the people you love. And when they are gone, you grow around their absence instead. It is just another way they shape you."

She pauses, then plunges ahead, suddenly dry again, "Which is my sage way of saying - I am in no danger of forgetting how my husband died. But I choose to remember how he lived."

Perhaps she was afraid Rakha would mock her for the moment of sentimentality. Little danger of that, in truth. Rakha's head still aches at the mention of the man's name - but that is Bhaal's thoughts, not her own. She tries to search her mind for any memory, any knowledge beyond that lingering wordless rage.

She is so tired of knowing nothing, of being forced to hunger for the death and pain of things she can't even recall.

"Tell me about him," she says abruptly.

Jaheira looks, perhaps, mildly surprised, and for a moment Rakha thinks she is going to object. But then she just shrugs, and thinks for a moment, before answering. "Most Harpers swagger and flash their feathers to catch your attention," she says. "Khalid was of a quieter sort. I have never known a warrior who would go so far out of his way to avoid a fight - which meant the few he chose were usually the right ones."

A pause, and then she laughs suddenly, shaking her head. "And when we were married - on an upturned cart in the rainy Dalelands - he stammered so much, I've never been sure if our vows actually counted."

Rakha tilts her head. She remembers the frightened boy upstairs, the one with the stammer hiding in the bedroom. And she thinks about this description, of a man who avoided violence when any other solution could be found. She measures herself against this description and does not like what she sees.

It is an astonishing thing, at times, that Jaheira is willing to travel with her, to keep watch over her, with all the blood that is on her hands.

"He sounds like he had true strength," she mutters gruffly.

Jaheira laughs again softly. "Oh, I'm sure time and an aging mind have smoothed out a few of his flaws," she says dryly. "But he was a good man. The songs make much of Khalid's meekness; the quiet little Harper who had to keep a tight hold on his courage. But he had it when it counted. And more than that - he had compassion. When you live a Harper's life, see all that a Harper sees, that is by far the harder thing to hold onto."

She trails off into silence - and then her eyes abruptly hood over and she turns away. "But a bard can tell you all the rest. As for all the things they cannot... well. I shall just have to keep those for myself."

[bubbl3zdaseaotter37]

Whumptober 2024

No. 4: HALLUCINATIONS

Hypnosis | Sensory Deprivation | “You're still alive in my head.” (Billy Lockett, More)

A/N: I'm not completely happy with it, but here you are. I got it finished in time! For this one, I focused more on the lyrics of the song than the word prompts. The first half of the song in particular really reminded me of Chell and Wheatley’s relationship, whether you ship them or not. I tried really hard to keep this one short, since I am already struggling a little to keep up with the prompts and keep my usual style/quality of writing, so I hope y’all like it!

No trigger warnings this time, but spoilers for all of Portal 2 :)

As far as Wheatley could tell, space had a way of driving one insane.

At least, he thought it did. Out here, his only benchmark of what was “sane” was his space-obsessed companion and himself. And he had proved just how absolutely splendid of a role model he was in that area. A true bastion of mental stability, he was. Especially when he had singlehandedly destroyed a massive, sprawling super facility, gone absolutely off his rockers, and tried to murder the only person who cared for his sorry metal husk in who knew how long.

“Yeah, I really am kidding myself, aren’t I?” Wheatly asked aloud, to only be answered by silence.

At some point in the last few hours – or had it been days? It was really quite hard to keep track of such linear things when you were spinning uncontrollably, handle over carapace, around the Moon which itself was spinning uncontrollably around another astrological body, the Earth, which was in turn spinning uncontrollably around a bloody massive ball of blindingly bright fire—

Wait where had he been going with that thought? Oh, right. His astronomically obnoxious companion in exile.

At some point, Kevin – that was what he had taken to calling the personality core who had been jettisoned out into the depths of space with him – had gained a little more speed than he had in orbit, and was now a good distance away from Wheatley, and out of range of his internal radio receptors. Because of course Aperture Science had thought up a way to allow Aperture Tech to communicate even in the soundless vacuum of space.

Initially, he had thought that being forced to constantly listen to Kevin’s babbling would be the thing to drive him insane. Goodbye higher reasoning skills! You would be missed. But now, Wheatley was starting to almost miss the yammering about stars, comets, and space in general.

Because with the overpowering, infinite silence of the cosmos pressing down on his audial processor, Wheatley was starting to hallucinate. At least, he thought he might be. What was really categorized as a “hallucination” was likely up to debate; maybe there was a requirement jotted down there somewhere about needing to be human, or a non-Aperture Science Technology. Either way, something wasn’t meshing right back there in the ol’ central processing unit, and it was getting to him.

It had started with small things. Little flashes of light that might have simply been attributed to the damage his lens took when She crushed him in her huge, terrifying claw-arm. The twitching remained, although there were no sparks to accompany the obnoxious bug out in the vacuum of space.

Now though, it had developed into something significantly more concerning. Periodically, Wheatley would hear the low, droning noise that flowed through the very veins of the Laboratories, the one he had never really realized was there until it was gone. It was strange, how many things one realized they had taken for granted when they were floating pointlessly through space.

The people they took for granted.

That was the other oddity, of course. There was no one to talk to out there, and no one to listen to with Kevin temporarily out of conversing distance. At least, Wheatley hoped it was temporary…

Anyways, with no one to actually speak to – a real one-on-one conversation, with a sentient being who could actually comprehend what was being said and maybe even talked back— well, maybe not that one. Ironically, the only sentient thing that ever really responded to what he said was the exact murderous supercomputer who wanted him dead more than anything in the world. Except maybe for the death of Her nemesis and 2-time vanquisher.

No, the sentient being he was thinking of was quite the opposite. He had never heard her speak during their time in the facility, not once, and yet it always felt like a conversation to him. A real give-and-take conversation. He would talk, she would listen. He would give an order, and she would either follow it or give him one of those mildly confused glances, or annoyed eyerolls, or graveside-smiles. It felt like she listened.

And with no one listening out here, no one for an astronomically long distance…

Wheatley liked to pretend that maybe, just maybe, if he ever got to talk to her again, he could change things. Maybe, he could have tried to see things another way than from his stupid, narrow viewpoint, then things would have been better.

And sometimes it was like she was really there. Really, actually there.

Like they were back on the run, speeding through the endless catwalks between the testing tracks – or just strolling. There were those dreams too, if they were considered a dream since he was a robot and couldn’t technically sleep.

They would talk— well, he would talk, and she would do the listening and reacting that she was so very skilled at. Sometimes it was just babble, a skill Wheatley had down pat; that was maybe the only thing he was good at, come to think of it. Talking. But the point was, it felt so real. And every time he twitched, or otherwise snapped back to reality, it was like being hurled into space all over again.

The worst part, of course, was knowing that this was all his own doing. It was his own, stupid fault that he couldn’t do anything right, and he would never be able to do anything right because he was a moron. A moron who couldn’t see what he had until he had singlehandedly destroyed it. And oh, how I wished I could take it all back, everything. I really swear it.

I’m sorry. That’s what I would say, if I ever saw her again. I was monstrous, and horrible, and you deserved so much better.

I’m sorry.

[lonestarflight]

Space Station Concepts: Space Operations Center

"The SOC is a self-contained orbital facility built up of several Shuttle-launched modules. With resupply, on-orbit refurbish- ment and orbit maintenance, it is capable of continuous operation for an indefinite period. In the nominal operational mode, the SOC is manned continuously, but unmanned operation is possible.

The present mission management and control process is characterized by a people-intensive ground monitoring and control operation involving large supporting ground information and control facilities and a highly- integrated ground-flight crew operation. In order to reduce dependence on Earth monitoring and control, the SOC would have to provide for increased systems monitoring; fault isolation and failure analysis, and the ability to store and call up extensive sets of data to support the onboard control of the vehicle; and the onboard capability for daily mission and other activity planning."

"Like most other space station studies from the mid/late 1970s its primary mission was the assembly and servicing of large spacecraft in Earth orbit -- not science. NASA/JSC signed a contract with Boeing in 1980 to further develop the design. Like most NASA space station plans, SOC would be assembled in orbit from modules launched on the Space Shuttle. The crew's tour of duty would have been 90 days. NASA originally estimated the total cost to be $2.7 billion, but the estimated cost had increased to $4.7 billion by 1981. SOC would have been operational by 1990.

NASA's Johnson Spaceflight Center extended the Boeing contract in February 1982 to study a cheaper, modular, evolutionary approach to assembling the Space Operations Center. An initial power module would consist of solar arrays and radiators. The next launches would have delivered a space tug 'garage', two pressurized crew modules and a logistics module. The completed Space Operations Center also would have contained a satellite servicing and assembly facility and several laboratory modules. Even with this revised approach, however, the cost of the SOC program had grown to $9 billion. Another problem was Space Operations Center's primary mission: spacecraft assembly and servicing. The likely users (commercial satellite operators and telecommunications companies) were not really interested in the kind of large geostationary space platforms proposed by NASA. By 1983, the only enthusiastic users for NASA's space station plans were scientists working in the fields of microgravity research and life sciences. Their needs would dictate future space station design although NASA's 1984 station plans did incorporate a SOC-type spacecraft servicing facility as well."

Article by Marcus Lindroos, from astronautix.com: link

NASA ID: link, S79-10137

Boeing photo no. R-1859, link, link

[awkward-tension-art]

Puppet on a String Chp.2 (Fives x Reader)

Chapter 1. Chapter 3.

Strolling the Streets

CW: Fives x Reader, Reader is a medical practitioner, mentions of Umbara Arc, mentions of Pong Krell, Crying, Grief, Fives crying is his own warning, angst, swearing, anti-clone propaganda, kissing, tickling, some fluff, anti-jedi sentiment, Death mention at the end

Tag list, Thank you for reading!: @spicydonut25 @amazonian-bae

You returned to your apartment with Fives. As soon as his armor was removed, he crawled into your bed and fell asleep in his blacks. The poor ARC trooper wasn’t even under the blankets when he passed out.

Sitting on the bed next to him, you stroked his cheek softly with one hand. The other held a datapad, with all the information and scans the 501st doctor had sent. 

ANOMALY: right orbital floor, parietal and temporal intersection

Anomaly…

Based on the scans, there was a massive chance this was beyond the 501st legion. Every clone had this anomaly. And theories ran through your head. 

Was this a defect of the cloning process?

A mutation from their base DNA?

This…anomaly would be figured out soon you guessed. This wasn’t a secret to the medical personnel you knew. These scans were sent to almost every nat-born doctor in the Grand Republic Medical Facility. and those interested were going to look deeper into them. 

Granted, if any of them broke confidentiality oaths, that would be their career, job and any social standing in the medical field. 

Fives shifted, grabbing your hand and kissing your fingers. You looked down, your eyes meeting his own. 

“Hi,” You smiled softly, “How are you feeling?” 

“Better, knowing an angel was looking over me.” He smirked back, shifting to sit up. 

You snorted, putting the datapad down to hold him close. The trooper leaned into your side, closing his eyes again. 

Fives was exhausted. That much was clear. Umbara had taken so much out of him.

Ruthless fighting. Hardcase, and so many other soldiers were killed. Pong Krell, a Jedi, being a traitor. 

And ARC trooper, along with his other brothers, were expected to shoulder it all and continue on like it was nothing. 

“Do you need to get back to the barracks or can you stay with me?” You asked softly, “I don’t want you…” 

To be alone. You nearly said. The truth was, Fives wasn’t alone. He had the troopers. His fellow clones. 

Vode, he called them. His brothers.

You settled on asking something else, “Do you want to stay here?”

“May i?” Your lover sounded relieved when you asked, “I…I want to be with you.” he always did love the sense of domesticity he got from staying in your apartment.

“Of course-!” You couldn’t even finish your sentence before he cut you off.

He pounced on you, causing you to fall back onto your bed. The trooper was over you, peppering your face in kisses. You halfheartedly tried to push him off, giggling as he kept pecking your skin. However, he started tickling you, making you laugh. 

“F-Fives!” you were breathless, wrapping your arms around his chest, “Fives stop it!” His hands were everywhere on you, bringing out just delightful laughs from your lips. Until he stole them into a kiss. 

You wanted to remain like that for a while, just taking in his presence. However, he pulled away and buried his face in your shoulder. 

“I love you,” He murmured, “I love you.” Ever so slightly, Fives trembled, “I love you…” Warm tears seeped through your clothes, telling you his mental state.

He’s breaking down again. 

You kept him close, keeping your arms around his chest, “I love you too, Fives.” your words were a soft, gentle whisper.

The both of you remained there, tangled in each other's presence for the rest of the night. You refused to let him go, not until he drifted to sleep again. This time though, he managed to get under your blanket, snuggling close into your body. 

Before you fell asleep as well, your eyes settled on your forgotten datapad.

You had a bad feeling about that anomaly…

Apparently so did your supervisor, because you were informed the next morning that she, along with some members of the ethics committee, had organized a meeting with Kamino. Several rotations later, they boarded a transport ship and left Coruscant. 

You, however, continued your usual job. When Dr.Mila was away, you held down her specific fort in the medical facility. Which, to your heartache, took time away from Fives. 

The only consolation was the fact that the ARC trooper had his own orders and duties. Especially after being one of the clones to fire on Pong Krell. He was questioned about what happened. From landing on Umbara to leaving. 

The Jedi were ruthless. Unable to come to terms that one of their own had done such intense damage to the GAR. Every night afterward, he came to your apartment, hyperventilating and sobbing. He was forced to relive it all, over and over again for the Jedi. 

The only support he had during these interrogations were Ahsoka and Anakin trying to put a stop to the questions. 

While you didn’t like the Jedi, you truly appreciated those two. They were good. They were kind and determined. Everything a Jedi should be. 

You weren’t alone in your opinions either. Everyday you heard colleagues and patients alike gossip about how the Jedi were no longer the defenders of peace. They were political pawns, acting on the  whims of the senate. 

You’ve never told your ARC trooper lover. He was loyal to the Republic and the Jedi, you couldn’t tell him your thoughts. So you kept silent about the generals. He most likely knew, after all, it was hard to ignore the rising ire over the war.

You were still vocal about your support for clones and clone rights, of course. However, other individuals didn’t say the same. Just like the Jedi, the clone troopers were also facing the rising levels of dissent and loathing. 

It was hard to ignore now. You stepped outside into the Coruscant air, taking a deep breath. On a light pole right outside the medical facility was a fresh flimsi sign in bright colors and anti-clone imagery.

As Natural as a Droid Army! The poster read loudly. 

Fives was waiting for you, leaning against the light pole, arms crossed. His eyes were closed, as if trying to ignore such a hateful message. It broke your heart.

Pathetic assholes, you huffed, approaching the pole and ripping the poster down. Angrily, you shredded it into smaller pieces before tossing them to the ground. Someone scoffed as they walked past you, another person let out a quiet, ‘finally it’s gone’. It was clear that many others still supported the troopers.

Good.

“Thank you, mesh’la.” He murmured, standing straight, “If I took it down, I would have been arrested.” 

“Ignorant asshole,” you mumbled, greeting him properly with a peck on the lips, “Care to walk me home, my dear?” 

He smirked, “If you want me to.” There was a deep sadness in his brown eyes. As if the poster did more damage to him than he let on. You read the clone in front of you easily, you didn’t mention it. 

Your smile was genuine as you interlocked your fingers with his, “I’d like that.” You leaned into his side, letting him drape an arm over your shoulders. He needed more support than he was letting on and you’d be happy to provide.

The two of you strolled the Coruscant streets. Even at night the entire planet was alive with people, vehicles, lights and sounds. You and your lover shared gossip to each other, the latest whispers in the army as you walked home. 

You giggled as he told you some wild rumor that Cody and General Secura were in a relationship. It was, of course, false but hearing such ridiculous things helped Fives get his mind off of…everything. 

As you hit the street where your apartment building was located, you tugged his arm, leading him elsewhere. 

“Wrong way, mesh’la,” He raised a brow, “Unless you're taking me on an adventure.”

“There's a new bakery that's opened up down the block,” You informed him, “I’m in the mood for something sweet.” 

Fives’ steps followed yours. He squeezed your hand as you weaved around those who also walked the streets. Perhaps he knew this was your attempt to help him feel better. Or maybe he was just happy to have a normal date with you. Especially after Umbara and the Jedi questioning.

You found the bakery and within minutes you and him were sharing a piece of overly rich cake. The amount of sugar was almost too much, but you didn’t care. The best part of eating such a sweet thing was who you shared it with. 

The ARC trooper in front of you looked lovely under the warm and welcoming light. His eyes reflected overhead lamps, making them burn with a warm amber color. 

Handsome. So handsome… you were certain you had hearts floating around your head at this point.

Fives caught you staring dreamily. He gave you a cheeky grin, “See something you like?”

“Very much, yes,” You responded, returning his smirk, “The most wonderful man I’ve ever seen is in front of me.”

The clone in front of you laughed softly, “And what makes me so wonderful, mesh’la?”

“Well, let's see…” You reached across the small table and booped his nose with your finger, “You’re handsome. Kind. Passionate. Oh, and very hardworking.” Your compliments were honest, but you added one more just to stroke his ego ever so slightly, “You're also the best person to cuddle with, even if you make me late to work sometimes in the morning.” 

Your dear lover laughed, bright and genuinely. After he managed to calm down, he stood and pulled you to your feet, “I love you.” He responded, “I love you so much.” his hands were on your waist, pulling you in for a heated kiss. 

“I love you too, Fives.” You kissed him before pulling back, “Let's head home?” Your fingers were interlocked with his again. Once he nodded, you both left the bakery and made your way to your apartment. 

Fives radiated relaxation now. He needed the escape. Just a couple hours to forget everything that's happened during the war. 

Once you made it to your apartment, the clone trooper went to the fresher for a shower while you checked your holo. There were several missed calls from multiple colleagues. 

“W-what?” Your blood ran cold. What happened? Was it an emergency? Did something occur at the medical facility?

You pressed the holo, calling the most recent missed call. A Pantoran nurse by the name of Rino had attempted to reach you 4 minutes ago. Once he answered you fired out questions, “I’m sorry I missed the calls. What's going on? Is something wrong?”

Rino looked disheveled, emotional and distraught, “Oh thank the stars you're ok. Something’s happened!” 

“Rino, what the fuck is going on!?” Your patience ran thin, you needed answers. 

“The meeting…with Nala Se and Dr.Mila’s group,” He answered, voice cracking, “Their ship…it was attacked after they left Kamino.”

Your eyes widened and you could feel your brain go into shock.

“No one survived the attack!”

[torchship-rpg]

Dev Diary 10 - Martians & Spacers

Hello cosmonauts! Today we’re going to go into some more detail on human identities (don’t worry, we’ll get to aliens soon enough). Torchship development is progressing behind the scenes, albeit a bit slowly (the last two weeks especially have been hellish), and in particular we’re working on a revision of some of our core systems in a way that hopefully we can touch on in our next dev diary.

Until then, let’s wrap up the Sol-based human identities today.

Spacers

It’s safe to say that humanity in Torchship are a bunch of space cadets, and an awful lot of them were eager to live in space the moment the opportunity arose. The result is that, in the year 2169, there are entire cities floating free in the Sol system, and thousands of small stations for mining, processing, and refining the near-limitless resources of the asteroid belt and Oort cloud.

Spacers live in much-reduced gravity to the Earth norm; 0.35g is the ‘standard’, originally because of mechanical limitations in the construction of stations and now simply their norm. This means they’re recommended the ‘Freefaller’ trait, just like Lunars. They are also recommended the Radiation Hardened trait, representing modifications and pre-emptive treatment to cope with living outside of a planet’s magnetosphere and atmosphere. This gives you inbuilt reduction against radiation damage in exchange for slower passive healing due to the metabolic cost of those redundancies.

Spacers are divided into two broad categories; Habitat Spacers and Deep Spacers. As the name implies, ‘Habbers’ live in the many purpose-built space habitats which orbit Earth and, to a lesser degree, the other planets in the Sol system. These habitats are enormous technological wonders and a vital step in the space-based economy of the Solar Union, containing the light manufacturing facilities which turn the resources of Luna, the outer system, and beyond into consumer goods. They also help route the people and resources flowing to and from Earth, ensuring the colonies get fed and Earth reaps the benefits of large-scale industry without the environmental cost.

Habbers might live in space, but their day-to-day isn’t much different from their Terran cousins. Their habitats are huge, massive cities with equally large green areas. Standout habitats include L5 Hab, home of Star Patrol HQ and Academy, L4 ‘Guest Star’, the former headquarters of the PLA’s astromilitary and current HQ of Star Force, and Destination Station, the orbital anchor for Earth’s space elevator. 

Habbers, especially L4 and L5 citizens, made up a disproportionate amount of Solar Patrol members back in the day, so they get recommended the ‘Veteran’ Trait, scoring you reduced Stress in combat and bonus Security/Tactical certs in exchange for a lowered total Stress threshold. The strong presence of both the play market and shipping bureaucracy come with the Entrepreneur trait; you’re a better negotiator than average because you’re used to these kinds of transactions, but take Stress from both offering the Union’s Credits in negotiation and from the Union being in debt, as you have a much better handle on what it might mean for people when the Union’s economic systems are strained.

By contrast, Deep Spacers don’t live in cushy habs. No, these crusty cosmonauts make their living out in the farthest reaches of the Sol system, mining ice from Saturn’s rings, breaking up distant asteroids, and sending the bounty back on slow orbits. Not long ago, before the FTL drive was invented, this was the farthest you could get from the authority of the Union; most Deep Spacers are anarchists of various sorts who very much prefer their little self-contained communities to the stifling oversight and endless democratic procedure of Earth, who eschew the ration credit and play market for gift economies and black markets of their own devising. Their relationship with Earth never has to get deeper than minerals for biologicals, and most of them prefer it that way.

Still, Deep Spacers are the rock-solid core of the Patrol, because a lifetime on stations and rockets give them unparalleled instincts for the job. They are recommended the same Claustrophile trait as Mazedwelling Lunars and the same Communal Spirit trait as Urban Terrans, meaning they’re great working in a team or on EVA. They also pick up languages quickly with Polyglot, because many of their stations are extremely multicultural, and it's not uncommon for deep spacers to speak five or more languages, plus whatever pidgins are used at their trade posts.

Finally, both types of Spacers are recommended two traits which make them beloved by Star Patrol. Voidborn gives a bonus to patching hulls in exchange for added Stress when the vehicle is low on Supply, representing both their lifetime of decompression drills and their deep awareness of how thin the margins are in space. They are also recommended the Well-Connected trait to always have friends in the Patrol wherever they go, because for many Spacers, this is the family business!

As a final note, Spacers get a unique third sub-identity, the Daedalus Children, which is mostly a way of showing players that they’re free to go wild with the Trait choices even if they’re playing with humans. The Daedalus Children are a small group of artificial, silicon-based human duplicates created by the sapient supercomputer running Sagan Station, orbiting the distant planet Minerva 500 AU away from the sun. They have a psychic connection to the Daedalus computer (who they affectionately call their ‘Daed’) through the Patron Being trait.

This gonzo addition makes it clear that this is a big, strange, somewhat silly world, and you should feel free to make your blorbo whatever you want, and damn the canon!

Martians

Let’s go down the gravity well again and meet the Martians. Mars is well on its way to being humanity’s second homeworld by 2169, the result of a near-obsessive colonisation and terraforming effort through the 21st century. More or less the moment fusion engines made it viable, humans were throwing comets into the poles and setting up artificial magnetospheres, excited by the possibility of using their new high-energy toys to create a livable planet in less than a century.

Unfortunately, though perhaps not surprisingly, their maths were somewhat off. Mars is lingering in a low oxygen state, and has too many people and too much infrastructure now to try any of the big flashy high-energy terraforming anymore. Instead, it’ll be slow centuries of cultivating an artificial biosphere before Terrans can breathe unaided on the surface; despite the rapidly spreading greenery and brand new oceans, Mars’s current average surface oxygen level rivals the peak of Mount Everest.

Undeterred, the Martians turned to genetic engineering so their children could play outside. The result is that Martians get recommended the Hypoxic Conditioning trait, which gives them total immunity to low oxygen conditions and a shocking ten minutes of normal activity in total oxygen deprivation. In exchange, they take a penalty to their physical capabilities, reflecting the metabolic changes and the fact they’ve all ended up a good eight centimetres shorter than they would be without the modifications.

Martians also get recommended the Driven and Lone Wolf traits, neurological consequences of this engineering; these traits combine to mean that Martians work best when they’re alone and hyperfocusing on a single task. This may or may not be familiar to some of you, which is very much intentional; Martians are a not so subtle fantastical allegory for neurodivergence. 

The two major Martian sub-identities are The Red Frontier and The Dome Cities. The Red Frontier represents what is often thought of as the archetypical Martian lifestyle, even if it’s slowly being displaced; small groups of people living in bunker-like bases deep in the vast Martian wilderness, tending to the massive fleet of agriculture, survey, construction, and maintenance drones which are both building infrastructure and tending the genetically-engineered biosphere of Mars. This job gets them recommended the Machine Minded trait, which eliminates the penalty normally taken when working remotely with machines in exchange for one to social interaction in person.

Mars’ fragile ecology manifests as a strange sort of tundra, with spindly evergreen trees, hardy lichen, and a variety of engineered animals. A lot of work has to be done to keep it all going, especially because insects can’t survive the oxygen-poor environment, which makes pollination difficult. Martians get recommended the appropriate Environmental Adaptation trait for this tundra; they know all about survival in cold, dry environments. 

Finally, if you wanted to play one of those terraforming drones instead, that’s always a viable option; we dropped Machine Life in there as a reminder!

The dwellers of the Dome Cities are part of Mars’ high tech industry. Because of the gravity well in the way, Mars doesn’t export much in the way of material goods. Instead, it uses the concentration of expertise needed for terraforming and drone management to make cutting-edge software and media for the rest of the Union, and the cities are where this takes place. Martian cities are much more high-tech than their Earth counterparts, with lots of automated systems designed either to make up for the smaller population, or simply because Martians are already used to making robots do as much work as possible; Machine-Minded is unsurprisingly also recommended here.

Because Mars is a world of specialists, where being the best at your One Thing is a strong cultural value, the Prodigy trait is recommended for citizens of the Dome Cities, allowing them to pick three certs as Focuses and advance them faster, at the cost of advancing the others slower. Finally, the greater reliance on automation sees the Prosthetics trait recommended, representing both the greater reliance on mechanical parts over regrown tissue in medicine and the fact Martians aren’t adverse to a bit of computerised self-improvement.

Digital Elysium

Just like Spacers, Martians have a third, highly-specific sub-identity. Where Daedalus Children are a gonzo departure from the setting’s norm, the citizens of Elysium City instead are instead deeply rooted in the history of the setting. Remember how we said the Star Union isn’t a utopia? Well, this is one of the major ways it has failed, and a resolution is one of the things that can emerge over the course of the campaign.

Forty years prior to the modern day, a group of Cybernetic Democrats calling themselves the Lab Rats hatched the brilliant scheme to all move to one of the brand-new Martian cities together and use their newfound political majority to set up one of their predictive networks, peacefully starting the cybernetic revolution on a new world. They built themselves an automated city, possessed by a ghost of convenience which always knew exactly what you needed, always had a train ready when you reached the station, and always had a task you wanted to do ready to go every time you looked at your smart watch. It was efficient, seamless, responsive, and incredibly alienating, replacing any real sense of community with quest markers in your smart glasses.

When vital colonists tried to leave the city, the algorithm predicted the majority wouldn’t like that, and it locked the doors to stop them. Then the Solar Guard showed up to the ‘hostage situation’. Nobody listened to one another, both sides refused to understand what was going on. The Solar Guard rolled in tanks, and the algorithm helped the Lab Rats ambush them. After a month of brutal street to street fighting, the first war on another world, the Solar Guard retreated, and bombed the city with jumpjets until the terrified defenders lost hope. Once the majority no longer wanted to fight, the algorithm dutifully switched off.

Forty years later, Elysium City is still under military occupation. It was supposed to be brief, but the neighbouring cities who now have the controlling vote keep extending it whenever violence flares up, and each extension radicalises a new generation of Elysium citizens. Both sides are incredibly unpopular with a majority who just want peace and a greater Union who find it all monstrous, but the systems of the Solar Union are paralyzed by their own democratic checks and balances, leaving the city in a horrible limbo. 

If you want to be from Elysium, you get recommended a whole pile of traits reflecting the extreme circumstance. Vengeful and Fretful are two recommended Traits representing the understandable anger and anxiety which come from living in a city where drone bombing still happens with regularity. Prodigy reflects how Elysium City is the single largest concentration of computer science geniuses in the entire Union, due to the fact that none of them are allowed to leave. Dark History can represent in equal parts being a member of the Lab Rats or the Sol Guard, both staggeringly unpopular organisations to everyone else in the Union.

Finally, Patron Being represents how, despite the best efforts of generations of computer engineers, the self-replicating Network still lingers deep in the electronic bones of Elysium, waiting for the day that a majority want it back. Hackers and technomancers both claim they have made contact with the Network, and this trait can represent your dedication to bringing it back.

[hermannco]

No a request per se but I'd love to hear more about your TF OCs, if there's anything you'd like to share!

I have a lot to share! I will separate them on two main Locations bcs thats where they lump the most storytelling wise. I am mostly taking IDW runs as inspo (I am not confident enough to make my own timeline yet, although that can come with time.) (Might do a lot of changes bcs Skybound is VERY YUMMY)

BTW a lot of spots are missing for a full crew and what not but I will probably fill the as I need them lmaO

OC info and ART bellow

BATROS STATION:

Batros is an outpost with a bit of a tricky reputation. Located in Gevret planet. Originally built as a vacation spot it is now a mix between a medical facility and a inn. This Autobot outpost welcomes most but prioritizes autobots. An interesting amount of Autobot rookies come from Batros. Whether is necessity, curiosity ,or thankfulness; it seems to happen more often than not, and they leave with a shiny new badge.

On the other side, rumor has it among Decepticons that this is the new Institute. This is where they take you if you are about to be processed. The lucky ones get moved to prison, if you are unlucky however you will leave with a new personality, never to be recognized again.

Security

Atrius

Medical team.

Dop-L

Station and Repair.

Heliglade

Lucky

Wick

ORBITAL OMEN:

Orbital Omen or OO it is one of the many Decepticon warships. The OO however, has the task of finding, cleaning and prepping planets for the arrival of miners or harvesters.

The OO is one of the pinnacle decepticon warships that are not in the resourcehog known as Earth, as they are dedicated to expand the Decepticon Empire. Its reach planet to planet.

Detecting the OO is a priority to the Autobots, as stopping the terraformer warship will make sure more innocent planets aren't ravaged into extinction.

Captain 1:

#1 Ordained by Megatron to Cocaptain with Striker (i know there are typos here)

Captain 2:

STRYKER

TBD

Science Team

TBD

1st wave Team: Recognizance and subterfuge.

Siege Taw

Double Tap

and then there is Reset who is going a rewrite and maybe a redesign we will see

And thats it, thank you for coming to my lirycal spiritual Transformers talk

[morsstellae]

Axora, capital of Auronia, is no stranger to labs, engineering shops, and testing facilities. Given it's a city like almost no other, these things are inevitable; Axora itself exists on the bleeding edge of Rutanian technology.

Quite literally, on account of the fact that it's flying.

Built on a massive platform suspended in the air by a complex, interconnected system of rotors, thrusters, inertial dampers, gyroscopic stabilizers, and so on, it is, if anything, a bit of an understatement to say that Axora is built on cutting-edge tech. While this platform was all that Axora was as originally constructed roughly 5 decades ago, it has since seen some expansion, first by extending the foundation itself... and later by tethering entirely new sections with indepedent propulsion into the main foundation. This has resulted in a web of smaller platforms almost orbiting the central platform, ranging from large platforms such as the one serving as the foundation for a currently-under-construction space elevator, to small platforms supporting smaller facilities intended to be isolated from the rest of the city, usually for safety reasons.

And on one such platform, in one such facility, we find a large room, about the size of a typical single-family home, with one wall conspicuously missing. Just a railing and then open air. Probably there's a reason for that.

Scattered throughout the room, mostly towards the outer perimeter, is a wide assortment of equipment- worktables with half-dismantled machinery on them, several large machines against the wall opposite the non-wall for different machining purposes, observation and monitoring equipment, various equipment for moving... other equipment, and what looks to be a control panel against the left wall.

Right smack in the middle, suspended about 10 feet in the air by chains anchored in several different spots on the ceiling, and with about a dozen different cables and tubes connected into it from both above and below, is a large mechanical device of at-a-glance unknown function. About 8 feet long, 2 feet tell, and about a foot and a half long, and mostly exposed componentry; it appears to have some kind of barrel running down the middle, with one end pointing out towards the wall that doesn't exist, and the other end terminating into some kind of heavily-metal-plated dodecahedral hull, possibly some kind of containment vessel for sensitive components inside.

There's also a boom lift right near this device, with its boom extended to position its basket right next to the suspended device, as someone standing in said basket appears to be working on it.

Said someone is one Henix Aurorus, who appears to be finishing up some adjustments and parts replacements in the bottom-middle section of the device, as he wrenches a couple bolts to torque, and then starts reconnecting some wiring harnesses and quick-release tubes that apparently had to be disconnected to access what he was working on. "Alright, that's tuning coils set #251 installed. We should be ready to power her up now."

"Not while you're still up there, we're not." A voice calls out from below- one Yuki Sakura, standing near the control panel mentioned earlier, watching Henix work from afar. "Unless you want to try your luck on what it feels like doing this time."

"Yeah, yeah, smartass, I'm on my way down." The boom lift is now being driven away from the center of the room, with the basket being lowered in the process; once it's near enough to the floor, Henix shuts the machine off, and hops out, now making a quick jog over to join Yuki at the control panel. "Hopefully this iteration will be less catastrophic than the last one."

"Pretty sure that's wishful thinking." As Henix approaches, Yuki turns her attention to the controls, now flipping some switches, with various machinery around the room whirring to life as she does.

"Probably. But this is science, even if it isn't, we're still learning something." As Yuki continues turning on and configuring machinery via the control panel, Henix pulls up diagnostic information on one of the panel's many screens, checking to make sure all parameters are what they should be. He then pulls up a microphone from the panel, prompting the facility's intercom to kick on. "Void Drive, prototype F2, test #1082, is about to begin. All personnel, please stay clear of the test chamber."

That announcement made, he lets the microphone retract back into its holder on the console, and moves over to a much larger switch built into the panel, helpfully labeled 'Sequence Start'. "Beginning firing sequence in 5." He counts it down... and throws the switch.

Immediately thereafter, the device suspended in the middle of the room, now identified as a 'Void Drive', starts to audibly kick on. Electronics energizing, mechanics clicking and whirring, and a quiet whine starting, which gradually becomes louder and louder. Presumably something charging, this whine continues escalating for about 30 seconds, before, with a deep, low, THOOM sound, the device fires a pitch black beam out of the end of the barrel, right out of the room, and stopping a short distance outside.

And right there, a rift in space appears, tearing open as the beam pierces it, opening into a black-and-purple expanse. The Void.

Said rift also immediately starts sucking in air en masse.

"I have NO IDEA if we can call that an improvement!" Henix immediately moves to un-throw the switch to cancel the sequence and close the rift... and nothing happens. "Oh, not this shit again, Yuki-"

"Already on it!" Surrounded by a faint multicolored aura, Yuki immediately leaps into the air, springboarding off the railing separating the space immediately surrounding the control panel from the rest of the chamber, and quickly flying over to the still-active Void Drive in the middle of the room. Circling around to its rear, she grabs on to what appears to be a circular hatch on the back of the containment vessel on the back of the device; she quickly undoes a latch, opens the hatch, reaches in to grab something, twists her arm, and yanks, pulling out what appears to be a canister containing a purplish-black substance.

Immediately, the Void Drive shuts down, the beam vanishing and the rift quickly closing in the process. The chaos it caused has now mostly ceased.

"Okay, so parameters are still wrong, and the cutoff still isn't working reliably. I swear, we've tried fixing that sixteen separate times at this point." Henix is now re-reviewing the diagnostic information on the screen as he starts shutting things down again, and as Yuki now touches down next to the panel and sets down the canister she just almost ripped out of the machine.

"I might have some ideas on how to fix that cutoff, but we might need to completely isolate the Void cell's electrics from the rest of the machine to make it work. We'd probably need to redo most of the circuitry and wiring for the control system."

"Yeah, that might be what we have to do. I think my idea of using excess output from the cell to drive the control system instead of using external power isn't going to work out."

"That said, I think I know how we need to adjust those coils to get rid of that vacuum effect, now. But it's probably gonna take some trial and error to get them set up right."