#posts from orbit

[let-them-eat-rakes]

i choose to believe this is a symbol

[kaiserouo]

(prev | next | first)

got a corpus engineer on board

he really likes warframes

[heartorbit]

photocard i drew for the kohane bday cupsleeve event by kimjucupsleeves!! 🐹🍑

[rickybaby]

Did Daniel go from 9.5m to 9.6m followers since posting the Frank Hermann video??

[jupiterfangs]

Could it be.....

sfth as textposts part 5??? THE ANSWER IS YES!!!

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 6 <<<

[merlyn-bane]

i still can't believe skywalker got a slap on the wrist after all of that nonsense with r2 instead of, idk, a fucking court martial?

[bluejay-makes]

Got inspired by @taylor-titmouse womanulet hijinks and thought about wo/manulet potential for some ocs :3c

[kaiserouo]

if ordan karris wanna complete that sentence does that mean he also likes us?

[stone-stars]

Transcript:

[8bbc theme fades out] Murph: Welcome to 8-bit book club, the only book club that makes you dumber. (laughs) I'm laughing because Emily has the mic at the ready to interrupt me. [Caldwell laughs.] Interrupt the intro. But yes, I'm joined as always by my life-slash-comedy partner, Emily Axford. Emily: Sup, bitch! Caldwell: (laughs) not really on theme, but okay. Murph: Whatup. Yeah, whatup. Uh, and the, uh-- Emily: Oh, I didn't even think to do that. We just were talking about "bitch" so much before we started this. Caldwell: Yeah. Murph: Yeah, and the, uh, Aerith Gainsborough to my Cloud Strife, Caldwell Tanner. Caldwell: (laughs) What's up, it's me, the music bitch! [Emily and Murph laugh.] Murph: Yeah, what's up bitches! Caldwell: Can't get enough of the stuff! [Emily laughs] Murph: We're say-- we're saying "bitch" a lot today, apparently. Emily came in and she kept calling everyone bitch, and referring to herself as bitch. Caldwell: Emily-- Emily said it was cool if we did it. Murph: She said-- Emily: (quietly) No, I said I'm allowed to. Murph: What were you saying? Because we're gonna go-- we're gonna go out to eat after this, and you said-- Emily: I said (exaggerated) this bitch is getting meat! Murph: This bitch is getting meat. You also-- Emily: (exaggerated) This bitch is getting the 12-ounce New York Strip Steak! [Caldwell laughs.] Murph: You were also talking about daddy. Daddy is taking us to go get dinner. Emily: Yeah, I said-- If we record a very good podcast, daddy's gonna take us to get some steak! Murph: This is… Caldwell: That's true. And you meant like-- Murph: Off to a strange, sexual start. Caldwell: You meant like, our collective daddy. Like, the kind of philosophical daddy, which represents you self-disciplining yourself. Emily: Well-- what I said is that everyone has their own inner daddy. Caldwell: Right. Emily: And inner daddy can treat you if you-- um-- if you are good. Caldwell: Right. And that's what-- Emily: You have an inner baby and an inner daddy. Murph: Awh. What? [Emily and Caldwell laugh.] Caldwell: I don't like where this is going. Emily: Baby I mean like-- child. Caldwell: Right Murph: Okay. Emily: Not like baby like, santa baby. Caldwell: Listen, Murph, we're past that basic bullshit where we talk about self care. It's all about uh-- treating your little inner baby-- [Emily laughs.] Caldwell and Murph: --and being your own daddy. Emily: You have to discipline-- Murph: We have discussed in the past being your own daddy. Emily: You have to discipline your inner baby, and be your own daddy. (laughs) So stop going and getting pedicures and acting like that's what you owe yourself. No, your inner baby is soft. Caldwell: Right. Emily: It needs to start pumping up. Murph: Oh my god. Caldwell: Hey. Spare the rod, spoil the daddy. [Emily cackles. Caldwell laughs.] Murph: Everybody-- Alright. Alright bitches, shut the fuck up. Uh, this week-- Emily: Spare the-- [cackles] Murph: Would you guys--? This one's-- This is gonna be a loose one, 'cause we didn't read a book.

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

they’re actually incapable of keeping their eyes off each other and it’s my favourite thing

(x)

[itscuntingseason]

re-reading wotakoi. these fucking homos.

[wildsaltair]

Maximus is the constellation, and I am but a humble astronomer spending my life studying him

[hopecomesbacktolife]

Star-Dust by Michael Giacchino from the Rogue One soundtrack 🤝 Mahler Symphony no. 5, Adagietto, sehr Langsam

doing absolutely transcendent and heavenly things with strings and harp while hanging out on a middle C

[buckets-of-dirt]

Can someone suggest a non-judgemental milder substitute for scotch bonnet peppers in a recipe for me? There's a soup I desperately want to make but sadly my spice tolerance isn't strong enough

[professor-doc-emeritus]

"girl. girl. boy. girl. boy who was turned into a girl. girl who was turned into a boy but still identifies as a girl. girl who grew a dick. girl born with a dick. trans girl. trans boy. girl."

The scientists look down at their notes as they flash another image of a sexually ambiguous waifu at me. 487 consecutive correct guesses.

[qedmirage]

Episode 14 clear!

And there we go. The climax to our Arc 2 plotline, finished. As usual, gameplay thoughts above the cut, story thoughts below. I feel like there isn't actually much to talk about with the gameplay in chapter 14. The new mechanic of Active Orignium storms is interesting at least; tiles will have Pollution, and a nasty storm that gets stronger and larger each time it touches them circles the map. Plus, some enemies benefit from being in or crossing the storm. The Beacons being used to steer the storm is neat, but the deployable beacon only shows up in 3 stages, so outside of puller/pusher strats there's not much interaction with it. There is a very cute moment in 14-1 where a large number of Originium Slugs look at the Originium Storm and just run away. An 'even speedwagon is afraid' moment. The second half of the mechanics, dealing with the Revenants on the airship and in the Assimilated Universe, doesn't stand out as much to me. You basically have swarms of lil' baby units you want to keep separate from the main units, or they'll eat the small guys to empower their attacks. Works well enough in the main stages but frustrates me in HI-2 because of the sheer quantities of mans they start out with; it ends up feeling like something that really WANTS you to have massive AOE DPS. Special mention to the new flying Chalice enemies, which absorb a portion of the damage suffered by all enemies in an aura around them, have giant HP pools, and 0 defence. And you know what that means:

On to the story. Spoilers abound!

Episode 14's story is long. It has to juggle the resolution for the Self-Salvation Corps, Siege, The Followers, the Taran rebellion, and also the RI gang going up to stop Theresa. It juggles all these plotlines...okay. I felt I came away from it all with more questions about 'Theresa' 's goals and motivations than answers. Okay, high points! First off, chapter 14-10 has an amazing cutscene in it, where the narration talks about the struggles of different members of the Exemplars to get Siege to the 'stone of the sword'. As it does so the image pans up, scrolling as Siege and the sword advance, the narration shifting to the different members of the Exemplars as it does so. The full piece is amazing:

my cinematography! A high point of the story.

Okay, since I know I get a ton of non-arknights players reading these, I'll warn you in advance that this isn't really a full summary of the story, of everything that happens in chapter 14. But I will drill down a bit on one bit, because people make a lot of memes about her and I think she's one of the more interesting parts, and that's Priestess.

Priestess was first mentioned in chapter 8, RI's ship has an AI called 'PRTS', and the map interface has 'Eyes of Priestess' written along the bottom. She (in as much as she has a gender) has been haunting the background of the game, and we don't really learn much about her until Babel and then again now. Back in chapter 8, she's someone who holds Doctor's hand as Doc goes into the Sarcophagus for the first time, and says this:

Well, we've given the writers a few more years to figure out what they want to do with her, and they've landed on some fun stuff! Priestess only appears in person after the airship contacts the originium crystal Ammannan, with everyone being almost instantly devoured by crystals. Like, doc sees this:

And then comes to rest in a dark room with Priestess. Storywise, Priestess is the only known surviving precursor other than Doctor. But she isn't out there 'in the flesh' ; she seems to exist as a digital consciousness inside Originium. And while Doc doesn't remember their past, she does - including their civilization's last struggle before its death, and the decisions they made as a result.

In Priestesses' telling (Which may not be accurate - other characters have disagreed), Originium is a record of their civilization to leave far beyond the disaster passes. The harm that it may cause to other civilizations along the way is irrelevant; it is THE solution, and all those other societies were going to die anyways.

She's very devoted to Doctor, having been with them for a long time; she describes her first introduction of herself as:

"My name is Priestess, a linguist. I am researching the final sound waves emitted by planets as they die. I like quietly spending my time alone, but I also wanted to find someone to explore the universe with."

and it's unclear just how long they were together, but their transhuman hyperspace adventures clearly spanned quite a while. Back in Babel there's a line where Doc references the 'billions of lives lost' in the search to an answer for that disaster, and we also get a firm answer for how long Doc was in stasis before Theresa awakened them: 13,021.9 years [BB-ST-2]. Priestess has been sleeping within Originium for at least that long, and this is where we get to the final neat leg of Priestess's character; her patience and supreme confidence that things will go her way. See, Priestess is an antagonist. From what we know so far, she wants to see Originium flood over the surface of Terra, converting all the life on its surface. She wants Doc to give up and retreat into despair. But Priestess is also loving and affection to Doctor, in the calm way of a long life, and she's confident she knows what Doctor will do. Her words before parting in 14-19 sum it up well.

It's calm, welcoming, caring. But there's a manipulative quality to it, right? Amiya and Kal'tsit are 'doubts'. The entirety of Doc's involvement in the surface world is 'grand rhythms and minute pulsations' destined to fall into silence. At the same time she's far from a standard anime yandere, as she doesn't actually do anything to stop Doc's involvement in the surface world, and wishes them well as they go. After all, why not? She's immortal, and so is Doctor. She can be patient. You will return to her side. ... Okay, some last notes. It's really funny that in the Assimilated Universe, the 'The Matrix' - like construct inside Originium, Logos the words and grammar wizard intuitively understands that the place 'has its own grammar' before Kal'tsit tells him to not study it too deeply. My man got put in a computer and almost instantly was thinking on how to hack it. The Follower's drama with Shining and her dad (sorry I am not copying those names over) is very abstract but I think I get it after a while. Poor Liz, I hope she can find a happy life. Also as Arknights is a game by otaku who definitely read Fate/Stay Night, if your dad is a Matou Zouken you are obligated to kick his ass with your girlfriends. It'll be really hard! But you gotta do it. Finally, I actually have this book on my back shelf, 'Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition'. A sort of study of scientists poking at ways to live in space and survive the heat death of the universe and all that, with a bit of a lens of 'aren't these guys kooky' if I remember correctly. It's been over a decade since I last cracked it open. BUT I do remember that the segment on how to survive Heat Death introduces, as one concept, creating a virtual world that would slow its clock rate down as the usable energy lowers, extending the last few perceived seconds of its inhabitants into infinity. Given the literal demons Arknights has in the form of Collapsals I think the disaster that befell Priestess and Doctor is somewhat more direct, but it was neat to see digital arks as a long term survival method again. "Until the stars fall", huh.