grimdarkandhandsome

[grimdarkandhandsome]

Eternal Twilight

A sketch of a Twilight AU

In the Twilight universe, vampires are crystalline beings that are almost completely indestructible. Eternal Twilight, introduced here, is similar except that vampires are fully indestructible.

Fire, gunpowder, cannons, volcanoes - these things can knock a vampire to the ground, cause her pain, even make her see stars. But nothing can change her shape. It's a good thing vampire hair & nails don't grow, because you can't cut them!

No physical force can damage a vampire. They are cold because they don't absorb heat. They shine because they don't absorb light. No furnace or laser could injure them. They are simply exempt.

While no one has tried it, a vampire impacting the surface of the Sun would presumably survive, sinking into a truly hellish eternity. And incineration by nuclear bomb has in fact been tried, when one of the Volturi's enemies was chained to an A-bomb during a 1960s weapons test. She survived.

Chains, burial in stone, & burial in concrete are the ultimate aims of all vampiric combat. Vampires in this universe are not quite as strong as those in Twilight, & cannot shatter stone if their limbs are bound. No vampire has ever been killed, nor ever will. Thousands of the world's fortresses & tombs contain overthrown vampires within the mortar-cracks of their foundations. Overcome by bloodthirst, they push feebly against the rock, hoping over millennia to scrape free.

Vampires are undead in the sense that they have skipped death. As if Heaven has forgotten to schedule their deathdays. They are in this sense exempt from all forces in the universe, cursed, Edythe Cullen thinks, by God. She doesn't want Beau to join her in this state because he very well might end up in a lake of fire. Or he might survive until the Earth falls into the red giant Sun. And she doesn't want him involved in the cruelties of the vampire world, like when she buried James in the desert outside Phoenix, piling dry soil on the cement to muffle his screams.

What i like about this AU is that it unifies Twilight's vampire physiology with the theme of damnation. I find it easier to understand some of the character's perspectives in this version. It's also fun that the Volturi are guarding against anyone digging up the previous administration. Are they buried beneath Volterra? Or in a secret location that only they know?

[grimdarkandhandsome]

Diagram of the above.

Explanation forthcoming.

The Twelve Storygods of the Mountaintop

From the Throne Room of the Mountaintop Palace reigns the insurmountable Aletheia Dao Brahman, storygod of Truth. She is a skeleton queen, robed in black & crowned with stars. From her bony right hand she scatters flashcards like rectangular petals. In her left hand is a phone with 999 notifications.

Above the Throne Room stretches the First Tower. Herein reigns foreign Morpheus, storygod of Dreams. He rules imagination, fiction, & all that is not.

The doors on the left lead to the Vault of Words, the redoubt of coy Nyx Hekate, storygod of Secrets. We will earn some of her million treasures in time, but some we will never know.

Upstairs in the Tower of Words ponders eternal Thoth, storygod of Knowledge. Birdheaded, he reads, earmarking pages with his long beak. Half-empty bookshelves ring him, the gaps awaiting texts he has not yet won from Nyx.

The glass Vault of Splendor is the temple of obligatory Anubis, storygod of Ethics. By law he cannot bloody his sword, save against a sword that is already bloodied.

Above in the Tower of Splendor dances friend Baldur, storygod of Beauty. He wove thorns into a crown for himself.

Down in the Palace's Vault of Blades paces Taker Osiris, storygod of Death. His green, scarred palms are calloused with knowledge of every weapon: of the knife, of the tumor, of the arrhythmia.

Aloof in the Tower of Blades, distinct Eris, storygod of Differences, conducts her experiments. Nine of her fingers are divine, but one is beyond divine, something new.

Baldur's mother lives in the Vault of the Heart: skyspanning Venus, storygod of Love. Her stride knows not distance; she is on the threshold of every star.

Above her, the concrete Tower of the Heart houses Brother Deimos, storygod of Fear. He gazes longingly at the neighboring Tower of Blades. Eris declined to marry him, but offered to be his in the winters & take other lovers in the summers. Wary Deimos said no.

The uncharted Labyrinthine Vault was long thought uninhabited, an ecosystem of paradoxes & exceptions. Now it is haunted by Unexpected Coyote, storygod of Surprises. He spends a lot of time off-Mountaintop, stalking humans who have almost finished inventing new jokes.

A hidden stair connects to the Tower of the Labyrinth above, home of clearheaded Athene Saraswati, storygod of Reason. She carries a notebook in her left hand & a titanium spear in her right. She wears sensible shoes.

[grimdarkandhandsome]

My partner & i have been working on a fun little poker variant & it's now polished enough to share. The pot is still the goal, but now you can also permanently upgrade your abilities. Who will win, me with 2 wildcards or you with 2 extra cards in your hand & a Ace up your sleeve (semiliterally)? It's great :)

[grimdarkandhandsome]

Intro to the Wooverse

Welcome to the Wooverse, where everything is real.

The Wooverse is a fictional universe similar to our modern world.

What's Different?

Heaven, astrology, ghosts, UFOs - these things are all real in the Wooverse. Real as in hard evidence, laboratory replication, encyclopedia articles, university departments. Psychics make 7 figures at hedge funds.

The core beliefs of all major religions are true. God, angels, Hell, prayer, sin, ghosts, kami, & reincarnation are all real.

Tarot reading, crystal energy, & herbal medicine are all in use at your local hospital - in addition to antibiotics, MRIs, surgery, etc.

Along with a doctor & a bank account, you probably have a psychic & an afterlife consultant.

30% of experts on spiritual topics (afterlives, Heaven, prayer, sin, etc) are not believers in any particular religious tradition. Rather, they study the large area of agreement between most religions. Similarly, 'nonreligious' means you don't go to religious gatherings. It doesn't mean not believing in God - that would be crazy!

What's the Same?

Earth hasn't changed too much since the scientific community accepted magic in the late 20th century. There are some big new industries, new labs, & new types of consultants. But there are still 200 nations, still cars, planes, & cell phones.

Consulting a psychic, cleric, energy healer, or ufologist feels about as ordinary as seeing a doctor or tax expert in our world. Most of these professionals speak to you in nonmystical language, have diplomas on their walls, & let you pay by credit card.

Traditional experts on these topics (palm readers, all kinds of clerics, etc) are still in business. But they have been mostly outcompeted by larger organizations that provide the same services plus various combinations of scientific research, modern business sense, economies of scale, & fact-based assurances the customer can clearly understand. Old-style psychics still attract certain customers, but it's hard for them to surpass data-driven divination in terms of prophettracker.org scores.

Religions are still here. For example, many Presbyterians hold that ghosts are a mass delusion & that posthumous ascension is only possible via Jesus, despite much evidence against both claims. Other Presbyterians are much more mainstream, but they still go to church & focus on the parts of Heaven that are discussed in the Christian Bible.

Everything is real? What about Zeus?

The premise of the Wooverse is that the top 100ish most-believed supernatural phenomena of the modern day are real. So, no Zeus. Yes Vishnu. Yes Archangel Michael, yes the Six Paths of reincarnation. Heaven & Hell are real but your time in either is not eternal, & you resume reincarnating afterwards.

[grimdarkandhandsome]

History of the Wooverse

Welcome to the Wooverse, where everything is real.

Fictional History

The 1946 Spaulding Report was universally derided upon publication, but has since become accepted as one of the foundational discoveries of the modern era. It described what it termed 'the mass-energy shadow of the soul', measured in terminally ill patients at the moment of death. The New York Times called this 'The End of the Scientific Era'. Today we would call it posthumous discarnation.

1950's Paris Symposium on World Religion was originally a conference for delegates from many religious groups to share perspectives on the new field of quantified spirituality. Most delegations, however, interpreted it as a World's Fair with a prize for the One Correct Religion. The Symposium attracted relatively young men from each faith, many of whom told reporters that their faith was a religion of universal insight, the best explanation for all recent lab results, & appropriate for all cultures. The Contest of Religions was largely a phenomenon of the popular imagination, however, as these sentiments produced equal or greater backlashes in the conservative populations of each faith.

Nevertheless, the 1950s saw an immense surge of public interest in the supernatural, which the US press called the Magic Economic Boom & the Magic Research Boom. In both sectors, much of these new projects were delusional, chasing rumored phenomena that never actually existed. But history well remembers the successes of this era, such as the Saldana family's psychic search & rescue enterprise. While much of the public still doubted the reality of psychic abilities & miracles, they could no longer doubt the ability of these concepts to make money.

By the 1960s, most American universities were divided not between art & science but between magic & tradition. While the supernatural sector sometimes drew millions from investors, most graduates found their much-mocked 'degree in Miracle Studies' of little use for finding a job. It was the Esoteric Science movement in Boston that first successfully integrated these new fields into academia. As anti-mystical as the traditionalists, yet convinced in the reality of supernatural phenomena, Esoteric Science studied the concepts of religion & superstition with open-minded rigor.

In 1968, a Soviet orbiter photographed something completely unexpected: A companion plying the skies. This 'Gost Object' was a distant gleam on an orbital trajectory, that changed course & departed for outer space with an ease far beyond what NASA's chemical propulsion was capable of. Due to a misunderstanding with a junior US diplomat, the Gost Report was shared, leaked, & published in the papers all over the world. The Great Silence of humanity's solitude was replaced with the Neighborly Silence - the extraterrestrials were here, but they weren't saying hello.

By the 1970s, popular demand for religious clarity was outstripping the ability of traditional religions to provide it. In 1973 more young urban Californians identified with the Secular Spirituality movement than with any church. With roots in New Age religious groups in Berkeley, CA, the Secular Spirituality Manifesto pitched its game as 'venerating real religious concepts without allegiance to any particular religion'. Sec-Spirit types wanted an evidence-based attitude toward souls, virtue, afterlife, & prayer, but didn't want to go through a church to get it. These groups were closely associated with the War Fills Hell slogan of this era. California's No Just War Act (the first state measure to decriminalize draft dodging) was a successful campaign promise of Sec-Spirit-affiliated Governor Alan Richards.

[grimdarkandhandsome]

if i wrote Harry Potter

It would be thematically centered on the 900 theses of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.

Similarly, lines like this: "divine Providence … caused certain books to fall into my hands. They are Chaldean books … of Esdras, of Zoroaster and of Melchior, oracles of the magi, which contain a brief and dry interpretation of Chaldean philosophy, but full of mystery."

Like in canon, there's a secret history of truly-supernatural alchemists. But it's not a genetic group with a clear demarcation between Witch & Muggle spaces. Most of the world knows alchemy is worth researching, but they don't quite realize how many fantastic secrets the field offers.

Our story happens in the 1800s. Magical locations aren't protected by Muggle Repelling Charms or Memory Charms, so future incursions of the camera & aeroplane will surely unveil the magical world to the public.

Levels of secrecy. Some of the ignorant wrongly believe that magic is a myth. Others believe correct superstitions but wield no arcane control. Some, like Newton, are Awakened & also wield temporal fame & offices. And there are ancient Orders that even most Awakened are oblivious to.

There are lands whose kings acquired certain codices & are now aware of wide swathes of the Awakened world. Indeed, all citizens of these kingdoms speak openly of monasteries & clandestine Orders whose existence would startle the halls of power in Paris. It is Distance & Mistrust of Foreign Rumors that stays the spread of such secrets.

Our characters. The only woman of Indian birth among the University faculty, called cruel in the dormitories & cutthroat in the staffroom. A study group so despaired of her homework that they bound an angel to do it for them. A secret war rages now between them & her own angels. But very few students know of her demons.

Another: A student who often goes days without speaking a word of mortal conversation. She styles her name as Caliban. She incarnated the ghost of her dorm room out on the meadow & sleeps there so as to avoid her roommate. Once she vented a full minute to a classmate, then realized she forgot to deetherealize & he hadn't heard a thing.

The magic of this story is relatively subdued compared to canon. There are no wands, & lots of books. But some fields are more developed than in canon: Constructing magical buildings, prophetic knowledge of the future, & contact with Heaven & the afterlives.

Art & Div is what students call Arts & Divinity, a class taught from the first year. Both clergy & practitioners leverage the supernatural gifts of Heaven in different ways. The school is of course tolerant of the Arts, which is why it occludes itself from the Church. 'Heresy Harms Not the Wise' was the confident new addition to the songs in the student pub last year.

Proliferative Era is a seventh-year elective course on the philosophy of knowledge. In the last few centuries, it has been more common for theories to be evidenced than disproven. Practically every christological paradigm seems to have a solid chance at working out, & they each have at least one opinionated champion among the faculty. Similarly, practitioners exploit reality's rational, mathematical foundation, while other magic works based on the world's illusory nature. The Vedas are very clearly of eternal age, yet chronomancy dates the first living beings at six thousand years ago. Any seventh year can summon preta & hear firsthand of the six samsaric paths. Yet both errant & inerrant Scripture - not to mention several angels - speak quite specifically of eternal Salvation by the name of Christ. Indeed, the dead of many cultures give contradictory statements to the living. While surely Truth is singular, it is often possible for two practitioners to both profit from two paradigms of total contradiction.

[grimdarkandhandsome]

Read this instead of Rifters by Peter Watts

Non-Spoilery info:

Rifters is a series of 4 scifi novels from around 2004. They contain a extraordinary mix of cool & off-putting elements. What's cool about it is it's a delightfully bleak drama about amoral cyborgs fighting freaky nonhumans.

Discussion of fictional sexual assault:

The most strikingly off-putting element is that this is in part a drama about how horrible it would be if a evil government modified your brain to enjoy being a victim of rape. Personally i find this a reasonable topic for horror science fiction - indeed, it would be quite horrible. But i think it's sufficiently gruesome for readers to know what they're getting into. And sufficient for many readers to skip the series. If that's you, then i hereby give you permission to read this post & spoil yourself on all the other cool things that happen in this series :)

Spoilers for Book 1:

The 1st novel, Starfish, is cool but very small-scale. We're in a ominous research station on the bottom of the ocean. My favorite parts:

The deep-sea organisms are mysteriously developing beyond the usual rules of biology. (However, the author is a marine biologist obsessed with accuracy, so we will still be getting real science ideas here.) Transparent fish several meters across, organisms clumping up & behaving like cells in a superorganism, flesh gone mad.

One of the characters suffers a stroke in his modified brain while swimming outside the station. His radio goes dead but his vitals keep going. He goes feral, haunting the ocean floor, eating fish, mostly braindead, only his 'lizard brain' functions running his body.

Spoilers for Book 2:

Maelstrom is my favorite book in the series. It has some fun ideas that i've never seen elsewhere in scifi. Favorite parts:

Much of the future economy depends on biotech thinking machines composed of vat-grown human gray matter. They're more like computers than brains, because they are human neurons arranged in totally different shapes & arrangements from a brain. Each one is task-specific: Some are connected to a mic & speakers & can speak to you, some are connected to cameras & can see, & some run shipping companies.

The delightful nickname for these neuronal petri dishes is 'head cheeses'.

The portrayal of the strengths & weaknesses of these neural nets is mostly quite realistic. You could also say this is the best pre-LLM novel about LLMs.

The future internet has a totally awesome problem. There was a cybersecurity arms race where humans competed to create computer viruses that could evolve faster than defensive viruses could keep up. Now most computers on the planet are carriers for a million strains of endemic, still-evolving viruses.

We call these 'wildlife'.

We even get memorable chapters from the point of view of wildlife! Struggling to avoid being overwritten (byte by byte) by more sophisticated wildlife.

We also have a biological epidemic. The protagonists caught a deadly microbe at the bottom of the ocean, now it's devastating cities on land.

This microbe, called Behemoth, is a totally new domain of life. Its metabolism uses new a chemical pathway which is of superior efficiency to all other life. It has been contained to one hydrothermal vent for eons, because cold water is lethal to it.

At first, we think it came in on a panspermial meteorite long ago.

Later, we learn it is native to Earth, coming from abiogenesis at that vent. All other domains of life are panspermial. We colonized Behemoth's planet!

Earth is ruled by a amoral corporation-government. (ie, a 'corporation'-themed organization that rules territory, has a monopoly on force, & draws taxes.) They are fun antagonists, full of cynical spymasters & smart, heartless biologists.

The corporation is initially skilled at handling both biological & cybersecurity epidemics. Corporate computers are well-firewalled against wildlife, & cities are quarantined off from each other by walls & draconian biosecurity checkpoints. However, Behemoth becomes unstoppable.

The tone of this novel is very fun. Cyberpunk super-agents vs huge evil government. Human species lucky if they can survive the year. Scowling at night in a rainstorm. Etc.

EVERY character is amoral. Everyone & everything is a self-prioritizing organism in a ecosystem.

At the end, we think everyone has failed to contain Behemoth, & that it will infect & kill all terrestrial life. But then we see something awesome. The corporation has deployed a line of (vacuum-chamber) airships, sweeping west across North America, firebombing the continent so thoroughly as to completely sterilize every ecosystem. The bad guys aren't giving up yet!

Spoilers for Book 3 & 4:

These books escalate the stakes & do a decent job of concluding everything. Favorite parts:

Earth's leadership has abandoned every continent (!) & is now based out of a station on the ocean floor. (It's a different ocean.)

Those land animals that weren't bombed are developing mysterious new phenotypes. Animals grow extra limbs, in a strange symbiosis - perhaps Behemoth will become a upgrade to the mitochondrion??

As a general theme, all characters are nothing more than a collection of lobes & cortices, sometimes artificially disrupted. The universe is nothing more than a lawless contest between humans, microbes, & everything else. Whichever organism adapts & reproduces more in Earth's chemical environments wins.

The corporate biologists lose control & the freaky organisms win.

Again, this series has a lot of unpleasant rape plotlines, but the other parts are so fun! People who won't read the books deserve at least to hear what happens in them.

PS: I halfheartedly recommend Maelstrom. I wholeheartedly recommend Blindsight, my favorite novel by Watts :)

[grimdarkandhandsome]

The Twelve Storygods of the Mountaintop

From the Throne Room of the Mountaintop Palace reigns the insurmountable Aletheia Dao Brahman, storygod of Truth. She is a skeleton queen, robed in black & crowned with stars. From her bony right hand she scatters flashcards like rectangular petals. In her left hand is a phone with 999 notifications.

Above the Throne Room stretches the First Tower. Herein reigns foreign Morpheus, storygod of Dreams. He rules imagination, fiction, & all that is not.

The doors on the left lead to the Vault of Words, the redoubt of coy Nyx Hekate, storygod of Secrets. We will earn some of her million treasures in time, but some we will never know.

Upstairs in the Tower of Words ponders eternal Thoth, storygod of Knowledge. Birdheaded, he reads, earmarking pages with his long beak. Half-empty bookshelves ring him, the gaps awaiting texts he has not yet won from Nyx.

The glass Vault of Splendor is the temple of obligatory Anubis, storygod of Ethics. By law he cannot bloody his sword, save against a sword that is already bloodied.

Above in the Tower of Splendor dances friend Baldur, storygod of Beauty. He wove thorns into a crown for himself.

Down in the Palace's Vault of Blades paces Taker Osiris, storygod of Death. His green, scarred palms are calloused with knowledge of every weapon: of the knife, of the tumor, of the arrhythmia.

Aloof in the Tower of Blades, distinct Eris, storygod of Differences, conducts her experiments. Nine of her fingers are divine, but one is beyond divine, something new.

Baldur's mother lives in the Vault of the Heart: skyspanning Venus, storygod of Love. Her stride knows not distance; she is on the threshold of every star.

Above her, the concrete Tower of the Heart houses Brother Deimos, storygod of Fear. He gazes longingly at the neighboring Tower of Blades. Eris declined to marry him, but offered to be his in the winters & take other lovers in the summers. Wary Deimos said no.

The uncharted Labyrinthine Vault was long thought uninhabited, an ecosystem of paradoxes & exceptions. Now it is haunted by Unexpected Coyote, storygod of Surprises. He spends a lot of time off-Mountaintop, stalking humans who have almost finished inventing new jokes.

A hidden stair connects to the Tower of the Labyrinth above, home of clearheaded Athene Saraswati, storygod of Reason. She carries a notebook in her left hand & a titanium spear in her right. She wears sensible shoes.

[grimdarkandhandsome]

abiogenesis & endosymbiosis timeline

I put this together after reading Nick Lane's The Vital Question. The proposed timeline:

3.8bya: The earliest evidence for life is isotopic fractionation. The carbon (and iron, sulfur, nitrogen) atoms in graphite in Greenland are non-randomly sorted, which indicates the presence of cells whose enzymes have a slight preference for the lighter forms of each. However, geological processes can also produce non-random sorting, so this evidence is ambiguous.

3.5bya: Less ambiguously, we have microfossils that look like cells, again with isotopic signatures.

We think bacteria and archaea split off really early, close to the beginning of life (abiogenesis) itself. This is because their cell walls and membranes are so different it's hard to see how one could have evolved from the other. They probably emerged in parallel when they became independent at all. (Quick sketch of abiogenesis, and bacteria/archaea divergences.)

3.2bya: We see bacterial activity in rust bands in rocks. When bacteria strip electrons from iron dissolved in the oceans, the oxidated iron precipitates out into rust and sinks down to the ocean floor.

All bacteria and archaea respire (strip electrons from a donor 'fuel' to generate ATP, which fuels cellular activity). Many donors are possible – common ones are Fe2+, H2S, or H2O (which respectively become Fe3+, S, and O2 after the electron is stripped). Water is the last to be cracked as a donor.

2.4bya: It's cracked now, by some bacteria (archaea never manage it), which leads to The Great Oxidation Event. The oxygen is first absorbed by the oceans, the seabed, and land surfaces. It'll take over a billion years before the oxygen 'sinks' are exhausted, and oxygen accumulates in the atmosphere for real.

1.8bya: A bacterium somehow ends up inside an archaeon cell, and somehow they don't die about it. The bacterium becomes a specialized energy-producing unit, allowing the host cell to grow larger and more complex. They become the first eukaryote, invent sex, and spawn all complex life. (You can read my RPF about it btw.)

1bya: This engulfment – endosymbiosis – happens one more time, to produce chloroplasts in plants.

0.5-6bya: Atmospheric oxygen levels are rising for real now. We see large complex eukaryotes for the first time. These creatures have specialized tissues whose failure threatens the entire organism, and it becomes advantageous to separate out the germline (the part of eukaryotes that divide forever, e.g. sperm and eggs) and make the rest of the body just durable enough to last as long as the most failure-prone tissues. Death by design has entered the world.

[grimdarkandhandsome]

I think classic literature sequels are really fun. I've only ever heard of 2 Frankenstein sequels - this board game Abomination & Twig (loosely).

[grimdarkandhandsome]

TLTL: What?! This theft could disrupt our whole civilization!

7S: No! This conspiracy could disrupt everything we do!

TWTB: Agh, this schism could disrupt even the writing of this history!

PTS: <Error: Historian did not log in today>

[grimdarkandhandsome]

People tell me parts of the solar system are 'useless' & it's 'not worth it to build anything there'. But that's short term thinking. We should leave the Sol-Venus L2 point empty until 2300 when it'll be cheap to build a monument there, a huge stone ziggurat that will orbit for 10,000 years, engraved with 'Humanity survived it all'.

[grimdarkandhandsome]

Twilight State

A Twilight fanfiction AU

History

1944

On December 24, Vice President Henry A Wallace murdered President Franklin D Roosevelt & falsely claimed that he was unable to appear in public due to illness. It would later come to light that Wallace had for some years been a vampire. He was the sole public-facing agent of a conspiracy of vampires in Washington, who had since 1914 been scheming to overthrow Volturi rule.

By supernatural means, Wallace obtained the forgiveness of the Judicial & Legislative branches & retained control over the presidency even after evidence of his murder & inhumanity came to light. However, most of the states joined against him in the Second Civil War. And after the Day of Disobedience (1945 January 23), around 90% of US military personnel effectively joined the secessionist side.

1945

The Civil War (1945-1947) was complicated by uncertain loyalties, ignorance, & rejection of orders at all ranks. At far too high a price, it became clear that no amount of numerical superiority would help the FAS take ground held by vampire infantry, & that the CUS was unwilling to openly conquer land claimed by other states.

1947

June 2: In the first & only use of atomic weapons in an armed conflict, an unconfirmed actor detonated an experimental bomb near Florence, Italy. While Benito Mussolini was only 47 miles outside the primary blast radius at the time, he was likely not the target. A majority of historians agree that the weapon was probably a nuclear landmine planted by the Washington, DC coven of the CUS, which likely wiped out the Volturi of Volterra.

Indeed, the very next day began a series of worldwide crises known as the Summer of Demons. While incomprehensible at the time, these events were later understood to all have the same cause: across the planet, vampires were no longer forced to hide.

1948

The Toronto Treaty nominally formalized the borders of the modern CUS. However, low- to medium-intensity warfare between the post-USA nations continues to simmer even today. It has been theorized that a certain minimum military death rate is required to support the CUS's blood economy.

2005

Present day.

Taxonomy of Regimes

Vampire dictatorship - Open dictatorship by a vampiric individual, with unlimited term length

Vampire regime - Upper levels of government are dominated by vampires

Vampire tolerant - Vampires are banned from upper-level leadership, but tolerated as residents

Antivampiric - Vampires are banned from the region entirely

Canada

Vampire dictatorship

Constitutional United States (CUS)

After the Second Civil War of 1946, only the northeastern portion of the USA remains loyal to Washington DC. The CUS, as it is now known, retains control of Missouri & those states north & east of it. Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, & Virginia border the secessionist union of FAS (see below).

Vampire regime - While the CUS has only seen one vampiric president, vampires still have extremely influential rules in the Cabinet & in many other government positions. Permitting the facade of human democracy contributes to the high public opinion of vampires within the CUS.

For example, the mayor of New York City is the vampire Aaron Burr. He claims to be the same Aaron Burr who served as Thomas Jefferson's vice president, saying he became a vampire & faked his death in 1836, then concealed himself from public life until the end of the Pax Volturi.

Federation of American States (FAS)

In the Second Civil War, most of the USA seceded & formed the FAS, unwilling to accept a vampire presidency.

The FAS is antivampiric, denying both citizenship & entry visas to vampires.

The southern & western states created the FAS as an emergency replacement for the compromised federal government. Its constitution is identical to the US Constitution, with the addition of a 22nd Amendment preventing presidential succession via criminal means.

Mexico

Vampire-tolerant democracy: While vampires are permitted to reside in Mexico, many consider them invaders.

South America

Legally antivampiric, but rumored to retain a secret undead aristocracy that still follows the laws of the Pax Volturi.

Subsaharan Africa

One of the regions of greatest antivampiric success, having driven out many ancient covens.

Europe & Mediterranean

Almost exclusively vampire dictatorships.

West Asia

Highest rates of direct intervampiric warfare in the world. Since vampiric aggression here is mostly directed against other vampire groups, human institutions have remained relatively intact for now. However, the violence of newborn-based warfare has been very destructive in many large cities.

Asia Pacific

The PRC (China) has the largest human-led military in the world. It has also secured the (temporary?) loyalty of dozens of vampire soldiers.

Most of the rest of the region has succumbed to varying degrees of vampire control.

New Personnel Briefing - Minnesota Theater - Annual Status Report

CLASSIFIED Tier D Secret by the War Department of the Federation of American States

ISSUED TO: Pvt Isabella Swan (RECIPIENT EYES ONLY)

ENEMY DISPOSITION IN THEATER: While numerous vampiric infantry units are stationed in theater, conventional defenses are relatively light. Generally speaking, our ability to penetrate & perform short-term missions is high, but our ability to claim & hold territory against enemy vampires is near zero.

TYPICAL ENEMY UNITS:

Conventional mechanized infantry. Company-scale forces. Armament: Rifles, grenades, body armor, Jeeps. High loyalty. High prevalence.

Vampiric officer cavalry (VOC). Operate individually, within 1-5 miles of conventional CUS units. Armament: Motorbike, rifles, grenades. Low prevalence. High loyalty. Note: A vampire is fully capable of firing one rifle in each hand. Note: A vampire can throw grenades & light vehicles up to 1000 yards with extreme accuracy. Note: Vampiric officers often command precision artillery fire on their own position when engaging in CQC.

Vampiric espionage asset (VEA). Individual nighttime operations. Armament: Poisonous substances. Low prevalence. Low loyalty. Note: Do not engage.

Vampiric air squadron (VAS). Squadron-scale force plus 1 vampire commander. Armament: Bomber aircraft, wingsuit, rifles. High loyalty. Rapid-response air unit. Vampiric component is deployed at altitude then descends or falls onto target. Air components then provide recon & fire support to ground-deployed vampiric component. High prevalence. Note: Occult phenomena response protocols advised.

Canadian vampiric agent. Individual combatants. Armament: Long metal spear and/or vampiric head weapons. Note: May use spear for throwing, vaulting, or even deflecting bullets. Note: Head weapons are the severed heads of enemy vampires, mounted to a handle, with the lower jaw removed. Teeth are extremely sharp. Low prevalence. Assume hostile to all factions.

TYPICAL FRIENDLY UNITS:

Conventional airborne infantry. Platoon- to company-scale forces. Armament: Rifles, grenades, body armor, Ospreys. High prevalence.

Conventional helicopter gunships. Individual- to squadron-scale forces. Armament: Kinetic, explosive, & white phosphorous munitions. Can harass vampiric targets from above their jump height.

Conventional armor. Individually-deployed tanks. Armament: HE & incendiary munitions. Low prevalence. Note: Cannot quickly be disabled by enemy vampires. High explosive munitions useful for removing cover around a vampire such as buildings, or for distracting vampires.

Choir platoons. Armament: Rifles, body armor, close air support. Human infantry with occult abilities, group by similarity of ability. Low prevalence. NOTE FROM CO: THIS IS YOU, AEGIS PLATOON.

Neomorph infantry. Platoon-scale forces, 50% conventional 50% neomorph. Armament: Rifles, grenades, body armor, Ospreys. Low prevalence. NOTE FROM CO: THEY TURN INTO WOLVES.

HOW TO KILL A VAMPIRE:

Neomorphs

White phosphorous munitions

Concealed explosive at point blank

Ceiling weight traps (CWTs)

Carpet bombing

[grimdarkandhandsome]

I just posted my first how to play video for my card game, Complicity! It's a game adaptation of the unhinged & magnificent novel, Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer. It features quick turns & deliciously unpredictable negotiations between players. Ever wanted to be a scifi senator who sells criminal favors to secure votes, then escapes to Mars before the police can arrest them? This game is a noncommercial fan project that is free for anyone to print & play :) https://alexpear.github.io/tabletop/complicity.html

[grimdarkandhandsome]

Or, rather than victim-blaming, we could reframe this in terms of human achievement: Judas as the world's most accomplished servant of Satan.

New Christian heresy idea: Jesus was supposed to be the Messiah, but he fucked up and got executed. Everything since then has been cope.

[grimdarkandhandsome]

Every day I walk past IRIDESCENT BLACK DOVES to ride on the SECRET INVISIBLE TRAIN that you cannot see unless you DESCEND BENEATH THE EARTH. As I type this I am under the ground. The world is magical.

[grimdarkandhandsome]

Airbraking < enemybreaking

A SECOND GOLDEN WOMAN HAS HIT THE WARHAMMER FANDOM

and she’s just as completely insane as the first one