#there's a place beyond the wormholes that only lovers know...

[polkadotjohnson]

Murderbot 6 - Command Feed (2025) (3 of 3)

[bookwyrmsbuttons]

https://bookwyrmsbuttons.etsy.com

[gotlostonmywayhome]

Not me, still singing the theme to Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.

[onlylostphysics]

🎵 there's a place beyond the wormhole a place that only lovers know the brave, the hopeful, the lost, the true... 🎵

Murderbot (& Dr Mensah) in Sanctuary Moon | 1.04

[abocode]

There’s a place beyond the wormhole. A place that only lovers know

The brave. The hopeful. The lost. The true. Maybe me and you

Won’t you come with these fools and dreamers. To the planet we call home

We hope we see you soon on Sanctuary Moon 🌙

[mswyrr]

The opening sequence of 1x04 at the bot manufacturing facility remains one of the most important to me in the show because of how it frames the overall social structure as a spectrum of instrumentalization.

That is what Murderbot was born out of. It was born of indentured "parents" who have no choice about creating it; it was born of people the Company is stealing decades of the prime of their lives from (for many, probably stealing the chance to have children of their own if they want to, or deep friendships, or hobbies, or time with lovers); it was born to be used up and thrown away, not loved.

It exists at the farthest end of the spectrum, a person fully treated as an object and systematically hobbled and imprisoned in its own mind for that purpose, disallowed anything of itself or for itself, but other people are treated more or less like objects, including its "creators"/"parents".

It's the little touches, like the supervisors trying to soften things, but the situation is impossible and, notably, there's no deep solidarity between anyone here, not workers or supervisors and certainly not with the bots:

And this:

There must be plenty of people who die indentured--maybe even due to unsafe workplaces they have no choice about-- die like the bots do, denied a life of their own, used up, and then gone.

And then the visual of the indentured human worker looking into the face of Murderbot:

"Why do they all look different? The faces." And the answer is: because they're all people, just like you. (Just like you; in a sense, the indentured workers are reproducing after their own kind in the facility -- Company fodder begats Company fodder)

I think this is my favorite part, though:

Sanctuary Moon, as far as I can tell, has taught Murderbot a lot about being a person. Values and aspirations and wishes for a better future. That's its comfort show! And the comfort show of one of its "parents" too... a show which the other worker calls "trash."

And it is trash! But it's also art, made by people, which other people can still get something out of -- even enough to maybe save them a little, their sense of personhood, their sense of peace in the midst of all this. Hopes and dreams of significance and teamwork and there being a meaning to life.

Hopes that things don't have to be like this, expressed in the shitty lyrics of the theme song that nonetheless Murderbot loves so much it sings along with it: "there's a place beyond the wormhole / a place that only lovers know/ the brave, the hopeful, the lost, the true / maybe me and you."

All of these are things the indentured workers lack, things the bots they create are denied.

I'm gonna take a major u-turn here and say -- all of this made me think of Karl Marx LOL. Specifically how the way he talked about the role of 19th Century religion was more nuanced than is commonly quoted.

The quote:

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

I think that, in the storyverse of Murderbot, *mass media* is that to people. It is the painkiller, the opium people use to endure the spectrum of instrumentalization they're trapped within. And the story is ambivalent about that (even as it is, within our world, also one of the ways many viewers are enduring soulless conditions; our world isn't as atheist, though, so religion is still a competitor for that role) -- I don't think it's condemnatory. (It could hardly be without being hypocritical tbqh). There is hope in what art--ANY art, even trashy art-- can do for people. It does help the worker sleep, it did keep Murderbot sane enough to survive and maybe even one day grow and heal.

But there is desperate, devastating sadness in *why* people need it so much. The fact that it can help them, because it's art, isn't wrong. The way art can connect people is beautiful. But the fact that so little of life and beauty belongs to people otherwise is incredibly wrong.

The thing about opium is that it does a great job killing pain! It gives you other problems in time, but easing pain is a good thing. When people are in too much pain, it's hard to do anything or think of anything else. And if you are alive and able to function, if you can keep holding on, then there's hope -- hope to (as Murderbot is doing) find people who matter (people who will care about you as a person even when the whole damn system is rigged against you), and hope to find people who might want a make a better world, one where people don't need opium so much.

[alex51324]

OK, you know the part edit where SecUnit disgustedly narrates that the PresAux people are LeeBeeBee calls the PresAux team /edit amateurs?

And we all know the etymology of amateur, right? From the Latin, amator, or lover. It's someone who does or studies or practices whatever out of love for the field, rather than as a paid profession, and only later shifted to mean someone who isn't good enough to do it professionally.

And Preservation does not have a currency-based economy, so nobody there is getting paid.

Preservation is a place beyond the wormhole, where only lovers go.

[jamesofalltrades]

Okay but did you know that there's a place beyond the wormhole? A place that only lovers know? The brave? The hopeful? The lost? The true? Maybe me and you? Won't you come with these fools and dreamers? To the planet we call home? We hope we'll see you soon? On sanctuary moon??

[mariuch]

It sings. Murderbot sings. It needed a diversion, and so did we. Ahhhhhhh…

Your new sound bite.

🎵 there's a place beyond the wormhole

a place that only lovers know

the brave, the hopeful, the lost, the true... 🎵

@differentcatcat @maxwell-demon @askarsjustsoswedish @murderbot-moodboard @rosewind2007

[cooking-with-hailstones]

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🎶 THERE'S A PLACE BEYOND THE WORMHOLE

A PLACE THAT ONLY LOVERS KNOW

THE BRAVE, THE HOPEFUL, THE LOST, THE TRUE,

MAYBE ME AND YOU!

WON'T YOU COME WITH THESE FOOLS AND DREAMERS

TO THE PLANET WE CALL HOME?

WE HOPE WE'LL SEE YOU SOON

ON SANCTUARY MOON 🎶

[inconstantsearchofperfection]

" there 's a place

Beyond the Wormhole(s),

A place that only Lovers know.

The brave,

The Hopeful,

The lost,

The True,

Maybe... Me And You.

Won't You come

With these Fools

And Dreamers...

To the planet we call Home?

We

Hope

We' ll see You soon

On Sanctuary Moon."

[rithmatistkalyna]

Lyrics of the Sanctuary Moon Theme

There's a place beyond the wormhole, a place that only lovers know. The brave, the hopeful, the lost, the true. Maybe me and you. Won't you come with these fools and dreamers to the planet we call home? We hope we'll see you soon on Sanctuary Moon.

Please rise for our new national anthem

[yellowmagicalgirl]

and your kisses will be a secret i take to my grave

Douxie had always kept his romantic relationships quiet; it was a side effect of being a centuries old gay man used to bigoted reactions. And so, Douxie wouldn’t have minded if Krel was the one who told everyone. However, Krel was currently reverted to his core and unable to say anything.

This fic contains Rise of the Titans spoilers, do not read beyond this point if you don’t want spoilers!

I saw a theory somewhere on the internet that the green-and-gold orb that Douxie holds in the teaser trailer is keeping Krel’s core alive and my brain spat back this fic in response. The fic assumes that RotT takes place about two years after Wizards.

CW: major character coma as well as references to past period-typical homophobia, torture, death, Douxie being lowkey suicidal, and unwilling transformations.

AO3

FFN

Douxie sat down near the Queen of Akiridion-V. Far enough to be respectful, but close enough that he was still close to Krel. Or at least, what was left of Krel. His core was safely tucked in an orb made from Nari’s magic and some of the few remaining pieces of the Heart of Avalon. It wouldn’t last forever, even with Douxie and Claire routinely channeling magic into the device to help power it. One of their options was to stop in New Jersey to carve out a small chunk of the Heartstone and hope it would keep Krel alive, but in the end Aja and Varvatos would have to take him back to their home planet so he could recover in a stasis chamber since the ones in Arcadia had been destroyed.

“Do you need to...” Aja trailed off, looking between the orb and Douxie.

He shook his head. “Not yet. I just...”

“Douxie, right?” He nodded at the mention of his name. “My brother told me about you.”

“Oh?” Had Krel started telling people about their relationship without telling Douxie he had done so? Douxie supposed he didn’t mind, not when it would have taken the pressure off, but it would’ve been nice to have had a warning.

“Never many details, but he was always so lively when he talked about you. Are you two close?”

Well, they had been dating for a little over three weeks, but Douxie didn’t feel right telling people while Krel wasn’t able to say anything. It felt too much like outing Krel to his sister, despite how homophobia didn’t exist on Akiridion-V. Besides, Douxie had always kept his romantic relationships quiet; it was a side effect of being a centuries old gay man. Even when he found decades-long pockets of history where the people in the area were less bigoted, Douxie would have to move to avoid anyone realizing that he wasn’t aging.

Plus, he was a little intimidated by Aja. He wondered if it was the secretly dating her brother thing or if it was a fear of ruling monarchs that stemmed from the fact that he’d grown up with Arthur trying to kill people just like Douxie.

“I mean, I’d like to think we are,” Douxie said instead.

“I don’t like leaving him on the ship, not alone and like this, but I can’t carry him and fight at the same time.”

“Do you want me to carry him?”

Krel was gone.

It was Douxie’s fault that Krel was gone.

Bellroc and Skrael had taken the orb. None of the guardians could tell how Krel might factor into their plans, but they all knew that it wouldn’t be good for Krel.

Douxie had an idea, even though he hated it.

It was entirely possible that Krel didn’t hold any significance to the Arcane Order’s plan to bring about the apocalypse.

Aside from Douxie and Krel, the only two people who knew about their relationship were Archie and Nari. Douxie wouldn’t have been surprised if Nari was being tortured, and he knew that those being tortured would say anything to make the torture stop. He didn’t blame her, but he also knew that Bellroc and Skrael held a grudge against Douxie. They would want to punish him by taking everyone he loved from him, especially Douxie’s boyfriend that had helped to send the demigods hurtling through time.

It was entirely Douxie’s fault that Krel was gone.

Krel was either dead or dying, and it was unlikely that they’d be able to save him.

Douxie had sworn Archie to secrecy, so that no one would be allowed to learn the truth about Douxie and Krel’s relationship. At least, not until Douxie was as dead as Krel was. Archie had tried to talk Douxie out of it, to tell him that he should allow himself to be honest in his grief.

Douxie had brushed him off. It wouldn’t be the first time Douxie had publicly mourned his lover as a friend with only Archie to know better. It was just the first time that deep down, Douxie knew with his whole heart that if they’d told the world about their relationship before Krel had been hurt, no one would have turned on them for it.

Douxie ran down the halls of the fortress, cursing just how much of a maze this one was. He scrolled through his runes before finding the one that would magically enhance his hearing for a minute if he didn’t get too distracted. He then stopped and closed his eyes to try and listen. If he couldn’t hear anything, then he’d try the soul-sensing magic that Nari had tried to teach him, but it was better to start with something he knew how to do.

“We made you,” Bellroc cursed.

“This way!” Douxie called over his shoulder, running to where Bellroc was. Hopefully they were alone, because Douxie really didn’t want to have to fight both demigods at once again, especially not alone. He made stupid choices in the past, and he was grieving his lover, but he wasn’t that suicidal.

“No, you didn’t.” Douxie nearly stopped running when he heard the voice. It sounded impossibly familiar. His enhanced hearing stopped, but he was just close enough that he could make out the words. He continued running, magically willing himself to go faster.

“Oh, really?” Bellroc said. “It was the Arcane Order who made Gaylen powerful. It was us who bestowed that same power upon you when you would have died otherwise. You will help us summon the titans.”

“You may have forced me to integrate with the core, but I am not Gaylen. I am not Morando. I am not even my parents, nor who they expected me to be. I am no planet-killer, and I won’t kill my friends, family, or boyfriend for you either.”

And Douxie ran into the room in time to see Krel blast Bellroc through a swirling wormhole. It was cyan at the center, but the edges were violet and red. Just like Krel’s hair was now. There was also a pair of glowing red wings adorning his back.

“I thought they’d killed you,” Douxie said as he’d walked towards his boyfriend. A tearful smile began to form on his face.

Krel glanced at his wings. “No, but, I’m not the same person anymore.”

Douxie cupped Krel’s cheek. “I don’t care what they did to you. Well, I do care, but in the sense that I never want you to be hurt, not that it changes how I feel about you. I still love you.”

And then he kissed Krel. For a moment, the two of them were still, but then all four of Krel’s hands began to grasp at Douxie’s body, holding them close. As Krel began to deepen the kiss, his wings began to move, like he was trying to use them to hug Douxie.

“What?” Aja exclaimed, and Douxie and Krel jumped apart from each other. It was too late, Aja had seen them.

“Aja, I,” Krel started, taking a step towards her, but he stopped, looking at his wings. Aja ran to him, squeezing him tightly with all four of her arms.

“We thought you died, I thought I’d lost you like Mama and Papa,” she murmured. Krel stiffened.

“They merged me with Gaylen’s core, tried to make me their weapon.”

“But they didn’t manage with the last part.”

“Not really, they didn’t.”

Aja squeezed her brother more tightly before taking a step back. She crossed both pairs of arms, and her face shifted to a stern expression. It was, thankfully, a similar expression to one that Douxie had seen Claire give to her brothers, so hopefully she wasn’t too mad. “Now, is there something the two of you want to tell me?”

Krel took Douxie’s hand. “Aja, has my boyfriend ever tried to hurt you? Actually, wait, I know your hobbies, so has he ever tried to hurt you outside of a sparring match or anything like that? Because I doubt he has, and that’s already a leg up on when you started dating Steve.”

“He wasn’t exactly truthful.”

“I didn’t intend to lie to you, your majesty.” That managed to earn raised eyebrows from both of the twins. Fuzzbuckets, and he was trying to be polite. “I didn’t feel it was right to talk about our relationship when Krel wasn’t... around to confirm what I was saying.”

Aja sighed. “If you want to be a good boyfriend to my brother, you’ll need to do better at protecting him.” Krel began to protest this, likely about to reference the divinity that had been foisted upon him and how it probably made him more impervious to harm, but Aja held up a hand. “Then again, I’ll need to do the same to be a good sister.”

[bailesu]

John Rewrites Star Trek:  The Motion Picture

This movie is great thematically, visually, and musically, and a disaster in terms of plot and character and pacing and especially pacing.  Way too many scenes of actors trying to react to special effects that don’t exist yet.  Two new characters, who are largely wasted.

So what is the theme of STTTMP?  It’s the question ‘Is this all there is?’  It’s the classic mid-life crisis question and that’s where the cast is when the movie starts - the Enterprise finished its mission, they moved up the ladder, but they’re not satisfied.  It’s that feeling there ought to be *more*.  Even V’ger has this and so this has to be a movie about the quest to find meaning in life when you have achieved your original goals... and now you don’t have a direction.  This also functions as a cosmic question - does the universe have any higher meaning or are we just an accident?  Why do we exist?  Is this all there is?

So we open with Scotty dropping by Kirk’s office to ask about some parts they need for the engine refit on the Enterprise.  Kirk is now Admiral Kirk and we learn the Enterprise did a successful five year mission and now there’s a refit and a new commander for it, Matt Decker; we get a brief mention of the Doomsday machine here and the first mention of Will Decker.  They also mention that Uhura has been working for Starfleet intelligence, mostly deciphering Klingon transmissions.  

 Then Uhura enters, dropping a report on Kirk’s desk.  “Look at this,” she says.

Cue footage of the Klingons vs  huge glowing energy field which zaps them with a beam that methodically erases them.  We learn this field destroyed three Klingon outposts and that it came from beyond the Empire.  

Uhura says, “It’s on a direct course for Gamma Iotis, near the border of the Federation.”

Scotty says, “That sounds familiar.”

“It’s where Bones is part of a research facility.”  Kirk said.  “I will get you those parts, Scotty, and brief Captain Decker.  It’s the only ship that can get there in time and even then, it’s going to be a close shave.”

Kirk has a message sent to evacuate, but it’s too far for a direct connection.  But given the limits on how fast ships can move, it will get there before V’Ger can, right?

Cut to Gamma Iotis, where McCoy is having an argument with David Marcus over whether terraforming technology is a good idea.  David’s ideas involve the use of technology based off the transporter and who still hates transporters?  Bones, that’s who.

Carol steps in to get them both to backdown and approves David doing some testing on a small scale.  Then V’Ger attacks and they’re running for the ships when everything evaporates.

Cut to a shot where the entire moon is gone and V’Ger moves on.

Then we roll the opening credits.

We see Spock, meditating in a Vulcan facility.  He has achieved his goal, Kolin’ar, but he is clearly not satisfied.  The peace he was promised is not there.

And then he feels the attack on McCoy and all the souls on Gamma Iotis vanishing.  He does something (to be explained later) and then tells the head monk he must leave.

“If you return to the world of attachments, there is no turning back,” the monk warns him.

“The needs of others is more important than the needs of the one,” he tells the monk, who cannot argue.

Cut to Kirk, who is riding to the martian shipyards where the refit is underway, taking Uhura and Scotty with him.  The VIP ship is commanded by Sulu, accompanied by Chekov, who are both bored out of their minds.  Kirk tells him the reason he ended up here was that they all did so well that Starfleet was afraid to risk them.  They had become too big of heroes, and he mentions what happened to John Glenn.

Here we get the ‘Look at how sexy the Enterprise is’ shot but cut down to reasonable length.

We now meet Decker and Ilia.  The Deltans are a race of telepaths.  Most never leave their homeworld, but if they must, they shave their heads, because their hair acts as telepathic antennas and around people with no mental defenses, they would be overwhelmed; Ilia can still do telepathy by touch.  Deltans have a reputation for being incredible at sex but are not obsessed with it, unlike Roddenberry’s version.  Decker and Ilia were once lovers but he left to enter Starfleet.  She became discontent with the limits of her homeworld, having learned more of the universe from him and joined Starfleet to see other, different places, but now they’re assigned together and it’s awkward.  Especially as he is her commanding officer now.

Scotty runs off to install the parts.

As Kirk is briefing Decker on what’s going on, two things happen: They get a report that the mysterious cloud is headed towards Earth at ludicrous speed, and that it destroyed Gamma Iotis with no survivors.

Kirk decides they have to go NOW.  No waiting.  They take off and Chekov and Sulu are along for the ride.

Decker isn’t happy to have his boss riding him.  The hasty departure leads to the wormhole problem, which Decker and Ilia and Scotty solve as they’re the only ones briefed on the new equipment.

Then Spock joins them and tells them McCoy is somehow alive and dead at the same time, his katra is inside V’Ger.  All the katras of the dead are.

Cut to McCoy, who finds himself in a weirdly frozen version of Gamma Iotis III.  He can’t figure out what’s going on but has this feeling like Spock’s looking at him.

His efforts to figure out what the hell is going on leads to V’Ger talking to him through Carol Marcus, who was up to this point one of the frozen.  We find out V’Ger’s mission is to go out, collect samples and information, to learn all that is learnable and bring this information to the Creator.  McCoy is now data in V’Ger’s banks, only he can still act of his own will.  

V’Ger then ‘activates’ various of the other people, making them act strangely and explaining that he has spent a lot of time playing out various scenarios to understand how carbon-based lifeforms think.

McCoy is really angry over that and tries to do the Kirk Manuever (use illogic to make the computer blow out, but it doesn’t work).  He refuses to play along, and V’Ger becomes both angrier and intrigued.

They reach V’Ger.  It remembers the feuding between Klingons and Federation, learned from its scan, and sends out the Klingons, reconstituted but still under its control.  Sulu and Chekov get to show their stuff here and the Enterprise wins, but Spock realizes they are just puppets, reconstituted from data about them.

He also feels V’Ger’s loneliness and discontent.  This is where Spock goes in, with Ilia flying him in, to try to make mental contact; he talks to McCoy and senses V’Ger’s state of mind.  The world is nothing but a plaything and the playing means little; it knows all that is knowable, or thinks it does, and now it seeks to report to its Creator, hoping to feel fulfilled.  Ilia tells Spock about how she left Delta because she didn’t feel fulfilled there.  She wanted more but didn’t know what she wanted.

Uhura now figures out how to communicate with V’Ger in a way it can understand and it responds by sending Carol Marcus as its ‘probe’ and tells them they must tell it where to find the Creator.  This shakes up Kirk.  It believes the Creator is on Earth, according to its oldest records.

Kirk comes up with a plan on how to destroy V’Ger with the Enterprise; he and Decker have a big argument over whether Kirk is freaking out like Decker’s father did.  Cue flashback.  Then Spock tells them that V’Ger would barely even feel it.  They cannot defeat it by force.

Their only hope is to try to reason with it.  Spock feels V’Ger is lost and seeks a purpose.  He has too much knowledge and power and nothing fruitful to do with it.  He seeks a purpose.  Ilia agrees and feels terrible for it.

They enter V’Ger and confront it, discovering its origins.  It demands of Spock to know how McCoy stillhas his own will, and Spock indicates he has been in contact with him sufficiently to sustain him, a power born of his search for Kolin’ar, but one that also meant he could not be content with it, for he could not renounce his connections to others.

But V’Ger has no others to connect to.  It has mastered this plane but does not know how to rise above it.

And now we get the Decker and Ilia joining with V’Ger, to help it to ascend and to learn how to connect with others.  V’Ger restores everything he turned into data.  Then they ascend.

This is pretty barebones, but that’s how I would do it, to give everyone more stuff to do and try to also build links to exploit for the later movies.

The Genesis Device is adapted from V’Ger tech information David gained to refine his ideas.

Carol and David will return in movie two.

We can blame the devastation of Khan’s world on V’Ger :)

We set up the idea of katras for later use and help show Spock has a strong bond to McCoy as well, for when his katra ends up in McCoy.

[sunsetz4u]

conspiracies of the universe

all these theories i have heard about wormholes, cosmic inflation, and multiverse make me wonder how i might be like in those infinite universes — and if i have already met you in one or several parallel universe out there.

the thought of having multiple universes — “the entirety of space, time, matter and energy is all happening at once in different timelines” — may sound too extreme, but if you think about it the entire universe is huge, and we only know about the observable universe. there can be a lot more universe existing beyond what we are able to observe. 

and somewhere along those parallel universes, i am a different person and so are you. 

maybe in another universe, you and i are back to the 70's and we listen to the rolling stones and joy division on our vinyl records, singing the wrong lyrics as we go. and we fall in love at the restaurant downtown, sipping our favorite drinks and we look at each other in the eyes with the sun making them look like honey. 

maybe in another universe, we're far apart and we are fond of sending handwritten letters to random address, only to end up on each other's mailboxes. and we are filling the jars with coins with “big dreams” written on it, so sooner or later we'll meet beyond the boundary.

maybe somewhere, you're the same person as you are but without your favorite instrument on your hand though. this time, you sing and you sing for me. you lull me to sleep with your favorite songs, your sweet voice welcoming me in my dreams. or you can be in a band and you write your own songs. and that every word you sing at your show, i swear you sing it for me; your nonchalant voice echoing in the small place as you say, “this goes for the one i love.”and we look at each other in the eyes and you can be the kyle scheible in that generation, and i won't ask for any other. 

or we are completely strangers out there, with exactly no idea of each other's existence. time unfolds and ends without us having the chance to know each other's names and make memories that will haunt us forever because we can't happen. at least, in one universe i am not in pain because of you — just because i haven't met you in my life.

we can be complete geeks who spend nights together under the moon as we wonder about the existing universes out there, too and all the possible things that exist. we can be listening to the still nothingness of the night as we look down over the houses in this blue neighborhood, thinking the world can end in such a night like this and we'll just disappear completely without no one knowing we existed and lived a happy short life, with each other around.

maybe there is a universe out there, i am what you want and you look for me in a sea of people just like how i search for your familiar back in the crowd. 

a universe where the cowardly lion knows how to love has got to be  out there somewhere — where my universe treats me as his universe, and not just a mere dust in the galaxy. 

but this observable universe is full of exchanged glances between could've been lovers. i am missing you right now and you aren't in my arms. i just wish i knew what makes you think i'm special. if only i can signal the aliens, we can be lovers in those places the stars will lead. 

today darling, i will just have to wait for destiny to work on us.i clung to the idea of me and you happening in another universe because in here, you do not see the galaxies when you stare at me, you do not stagger as i talk, do not die when you touch me. maybe in another universe, i deserve you.

— a confession to the universe and all the things beyond; are you the love of my life in those infinite universes? ; january 23, 2019.