#Cybernetic broadcasting system

[am--f]

TikTok, Seriality, and the Algorithmic Gaze

Princeton-Weimar Summer School for Media Studies, 2024 Princeton University

If digital moving image platforms like TikTok differ in meaningful ways from cinema and television, certainly one of the most important differences is the mode by which the viewing experience is composed. We are dealing not only with fixed media nor with live broadcast media, but with an AI recommender system, a serial format that mixes both, generated on the fly and addressed to each individual user. Out of this series emerges something like a subject, or at least an image of one, which is then stored and constantly re-addressed.

TikTok has introduced a potentially dominant design for the delivery of moving images—and, potentially, a default delivery system for information in general. Already, Instagram has adopted this design with its Reels feature, and Twitter, too, has shifted towards a similar emphasis. YouTube has been providing video recommendations since 2008. More than other comparable services, TikTok places its proprietary recommender system at the core of the apparatus. The “For You” page, as TikTok calls it, presents a dynamically generated, infinitely scrollable series of video loops. The For You page is the primary interface and homepage for users. Content is curated and served on the For You page not only according to explicit user interactions (such as liking or following) or social graphs (although these do play some role in the curation). Instead, content is selected on the basis of a wider range of user behavior that seems to be particularly weighted towards viewing time—the time spent watching each video loop. This is automatic montage, personalized montages produced in real time for billions of daily users. To use another transmedial analogy—one perhaps justified by TikTok’s approximation of color convergence errors in its luminous cyan and red branding—this montage has the uncanny rhythm of TV channel surfing. But the “channels” you pass through are not determined by the fixed linear series of numbered broadcast channels. Instead, each “channel” you encounter has been preselected for you; you are shown “channels” that are like the ones you have tended to linger on.

The experience of spectatorship on TikTok, therefore, is also an experience of the responsive modeling of one’s spectatorship—it involves the awareness of such modeling. This is a cybernetic loop, in effect, within which future action is performed on the basis of the past behavior of the recommender system as it operates. Spectatorship is fully integrated into the circuit. Here is how it works: the system starts by recommending a sequence of more or less arbitrary videos. It notes my view time on each, and cross-references the descriptive metadata that underwrites each video. (This involves, to some degree, internal, invisible tags, not just user-generated tags.) The more I view something, the more likely I am to be shown something like it in the future. A series of likenesses unfolds, passing between two addresses: my behavior and the database of videos. It’s a serial process of individuation. As TikTok puts it in a 2020 blog post: these likenesses or recommendations increasingly become “polished,” “tailored,” “refined,” “improved,” and “corrected” apparently as a function of consistent use over time.

Like many recommender systems—and such systems are to be found everywhere nowadays—the For You algorithm is a black box. It has not been released to the public, although there seem to have been, at some point, promises to do this. In lieu of this, a “TikTok Transparency Center” run by TikTok in Los Angeles (delayed, apparently, by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic) opened in 2023. TikTok has published informal descriptions of the algorithm, and by all accounts it appears to be rather straightforward. At the same time, the algorithm has engendered all kinds of folk sciences, superstitions, paranoid theories, and magical practices. What is this algorithm that shows me such interesting, bizarre, entertaining, unexpected things? What does it think I want? Why does it think I want this? How does this algorithm sometimes seem to know me so well, to know what I want to see? What is it watching me watch? (From the side of content creators, of course, there is also always the question: what kind of content do I need to produce in order to be recognized and distributed by the algorithm? How can I go viral and how can I maximize engagement? What kinds of things will the algorithm want to see? Why is the algorithm not seeing me?)

These seem to be questions involving an algorithmic gaze. That is to say: there is something or someone watching prior to the actual instance of watching, something or someone which is beyond empirical, human viewers, “watching” them watch. There is something watching me, whether or not I actually make an optical image of myself. I am looked at by the algorithm. There is a structuring gaze. But what is this gaze? How does it address us? Is this the gaze of a cinematic apparatus? Is it the gaze we know from filmtheory, a gaze of mastery with which we are supposed to identify, a gaze which hails or interpellates us, which masters us? Is it a Foucauldian, panoptic gaze, one that disciplines us? 

Any one of us who uses the major platforms is familiar with how the gaze of the system feels. It a gaze that looks back—looks at our looking—and inscribes our attention onto a balance sheet. It counts and accounts for our attention. This account appears to be a personalized account, a personalized perspective. People use the phrase “my TikTok algorithm,” referring to the personalized model which they have generated through use. Strictly speaking, of course, it’s not the algorithm that’s individualized or that individuates, but the model that is its product. The model that is generated by the algorithm as I use it and as it learns from my activity is my profile. The profile is “mine” because I am constantly ���training” it with my attention as its input, and feel a sense of ownership since it’s associated with my account, but the profile is also “of me” and “for me” because it is constantly subjecting me to my picture, a picture of my history of attention. Incidentally, I think this is precisely something that Jacques Lacan, in his 1973 lecture on the gaze in Seminar XI, refers to as a “bipolar reflexive relation,” the ambiguity of the phrase “my image.” “As soon as I perceive, my representations belong to me.” But, at the same time, something looks back; something pictures me looking. “The picture, certainly, is in my eye. But I am in the picture.”

On TikTok, the picture often seems sort of wrong, malformed. Perhaps more often than not. Things drift around and get stuck in loops. The screen fills with garbage. As spectators, we are constantly being shown things we don’t want any more of, or things we would never admit we want, or things we hate (but cannot avoid watching: this is the pleasurable phenomenon of “cringe”). But we are compelled to watch them all. The apparatus seems to endlessly produce desire. Where does this desire come from? Is it from the addictive charge of the occasional good guess, the moment of brief recognition (the lucky find, the Surrealist trouvaille: “this is for me”)? Is it the promise that further training will yield better results? Is it possible that our desire is constituted and propelled in the failures of the machine, in moments of misrecognition and misidentification in the line of sight of a gaze that evidently cannot really see us? 

In the early 1970s, in the British journal Screen, scholars such as Laura Mulvey, Colin MacCabe, and Stephen Heath developed a film-theoretical concept of the gaze. This concept was used to explain how desire is determined, specified, and produced by visual media. In some ways, the theory echoes Lacan’s phenomenological interest in “the pre-existence to the seen of a given-to-be-seen” (Seminar XI, 74). The gaze is what the cinematic apparatus produces as part of its configuration of the given-to-be-seen. 

In Screen theory, as it came to be known, the screen becomes a mirror. On it, all representations seem to belong to me, the individual spectator. This is an illusion of mastery, an imaginary relation to real conditions of existence in the terms of the Althusserian formula. It corresponds to the jubilant identification that occurs in a moment in Lacan’s famous 1949 paper “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience,” in which the motor-challenged infant, its body fragmented (en morceaux) in reality, discovers the illusion of its wholeness in the mirror. The subject is brought perfectly in line with this ideal-I, with this spectacle, such that what it sees is simply identical to its desire. There is convergence. To slightly oversimplify: for Screen theory, this moment in mirror stage is the essence of cinema and ideology, or cinema as ideology. 

Joan Copjec, in her essay “The Orthopsychic Subject,” notes that Screen theory considered a certain relationship of property to be one of its primary discoveries. The “screen as mirror”: the ideological-cinematic apparatus produces representations which are “accepted by the subject as its own.” This is what Lacan calls the “belong to me aspect so reminiscent of property.” “It is this aspect,” says Copjec, speaking for Screen theory, “that allows the subject to see in any representation not only a reflection of itself but a reflection of itself as master of all it surveys. The imaginary relation produces the subject as master of the image. . . . The subject is satisfied that it has been adequately reflected on the screen. The ‘reality effect’ and the ‘subject effect’ both name the same constructed impression: that the image makes the subject fully visible to itself” (21–22). 

According to Copjec, “the gaze always remains within film theory the sense of being that point at which sense and being coincide. The subject comes into being by identifying with the image’s signified. Sense founds the subject—that is the ultimate point of the film-theoretical and Foucauldian concepts of the gaze” (22).

But this is not Lacan’s gaze. The gaze that Lacan introduces in Seminar XI is something much less complete, much less satisfying. The gaze concept is not exhausted by the imaginary relation of identification described in Screen theory, where the subject simply appropriates the gaze, assumes the position created for it by the image “without the hint of failure,” as Copjec puts it. In its emphasis on the imaginary, Screen theory neglects the symbolic relation as well as the issue of the real.

In Seminar XI, Lacan explicates the gaze in the midst of a discussion on Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. Again, Lacan’s gaze is something that pre-exists the seeing subject and is encountered as pre-existing it: “we are beings who are looked at, in the spectacle of the world” (75). But—and this is the crucial difference in emphasis—it is impossible to look at ourselves from the position of this all-seeing spectacle. The gaze, as objet a in the field of the visible, is something that in fact cannot be appropriated or inhabited. It is nevertheless the object of the drive, a cause of desire. The gaze “may come to symbolize” the "central lack expressed in the phenomenon of castration” (77). Lacan even says, later in the seminar, that the gaze is “the most characteristic term for apprehending the proper function of the objet a” (270). As objet a, as the object-cause of desire, the gaze is said to be separable and separated off from the subject and has only ever existed as lack. The gaze is just all of those points from which I myself will never see, the views I will never possess or master. I may occasionally imagine that I have the object, that I occupy the gaze, but I am also constantly reminded of the fact that I don’t, by images that show me my partiality, my separation. This is the separation—between eye and gaze—that manifests as the drive in the scopic field. 

The gaze is a position that cannot be assumed. It indicates an impossible real. Beyond everything that is shown to the subject, beyond the series of images to which the subject is subjected, the question is asked: “What is being concealed from me? What in this graphic space does not show, does not stop not writing itself?” This missing point is the point of the gaze. “At the moment the gaze is discerned, the image, the entire visual field, takes on a terrifying alterity,” says Copjec. “It loses its ‘belong-to-me aspect’ and suddenly assumes the function of a screen” (35). We get the sense of being cut off from the gaze completely. We get the sense of a blind gaze, a gaze that “is not clear or penetrating, not filled with knowledge or recognition; it is clouded over and turned back on itself, absorbed in its own enjoyment” (36). As Copjec concludes: “the gaze does not see you” (36).

So the holes and stains in the model continuously produced by the TikTok algorithm—those moments in which what we are shown seems to indicate a misreading, a wrong guess—are those moments wherein the gaze can be discerned. The experience is this: I am watching a modeling process and engaging with the serial missed encounters or misrecognitions (meconnaissance—not only misrecognition but mistaken knowledge—mis-knowing) that the modeling process performs. The Lacanian point would simply be the following: the situation is not that the algorithm knows me too well or that it gives me the illusion of mastery that would be provided by such knowledge. The situation is that the algorithm may not know or recognize me at all, even though it seems to respond to my behavior in some limited way, and offers the promise of knowing or recognizing me. And this is perhaps the stain or tuche, the point at which we make contact with the real, where the network of signifiers, the automaton, or the symbolic order starts to break down. It is only available through the series, through the repeated presentation of likenesses.

As Friedrich Kittler memorably put it, “the discourse of the other is the discourse of the circuit.” It is not the discourse of cinema or television or literature. Computational recommender systems operating as series of moving image loops seem to correspond strangely closely to the Lacanian models, to the gaze that is responsive yet absent, perceptive yet blind, desired yet impossible, perhaps even to the analytic scene. Lacan and psychoanalysis constantly seemed to suggest that humans carry out the same operations as machines, that the psyche is a camera-like apparatus capable of complicated performance, and that the analyst might be replaced with an optical device. Might we substitute recommender media for either psyche or analyst? In any case, it’s clear that the imaginary register of identification does not provide a sufficient model for subjectivity as it is addressed by computational media. That model, as Kittler points out, is to be found in Lacan’s symbolic register: “the world of the machine.”

[siamesephoenixrandomideatank]

[Warhammer 40K/Hazbin Hotel] Vox Verthas

Corruption, Manipulation, and Control. You see, these are my duties and mastery after all those centuries under banner of Warmaster. I instigated dozen of Star Systems against so-called Imperium of that giant mummy on his chair. Alastor? Why listen to him while I can show you much more.

Vox Verthas, or 5010-Voltan as a Skitarii of Forge-World Warguildberg, is a Transmechanic/Daedalosus who later served Chaos as a Dark Mechanicus aligned his cause mainly to Iron Warriors and Emperor’s Children, while also serve warbands of Tzeentch and Slaanesh-aligned those appreciate power of propaganda, psychological tactics, and spreading forbidden knowledge(or false information that sounds real), including Chaos Undivided Ones who benefits him. Vox was fascinated by technology of 3nd millennium Terra called Television, as he saw its potential capability to redirect people in planet-level scales(or even wider) quickly and persuasively if performed right. 

Voltan was born on a disconnected star system of humans around the 30th millennium in a family of stage performers on a Civilized world of Warguildberg. He was taught arts of persuasion and charisma from the line of his bloodlines fermented in stage shows and public speeches, Voltan was not satisfied with being an artist of words and gestures, but he also desired for power and wisdom as he studied politics and basic craftsmanship. He climbed from a city-level comedian to a candidate of planetary governor by his 40s, backed by his engineering empire as business branches and guilds of communication sciences. 

During the time the election was held, Voltan heard news about Olympia’s submission to the figure called oneself ‘Emperor of Mankind’ and the fleet from Terra approaching his star system. He decided not to focus on the election for the governor but sent an envoy to the fleet, offering his loyalty to him and welcome Imperium’s dominance over Warguildberg and offered his armies information about what happened on the planet and crucial data of its military.

After the war against Imperium and swift defeat under Perturabo’s legions of Iron Warriors, Voltan was rewarded for his allegiance by being summoned to Terra as one of the nobles. After a few years serving as a technician manager of a segment, he had heard about the promise of steel over the aging flesh from Skitarii, bringing him to the decision to align himself with the Tech-Priests.

His duty as envoy and missionary of Omnissiah to the outer planets and quick learning nature despite his age, Voltan had become a full Skitarii in less than a decade and allowed access to archives of lost technology. One of the technologies he obsessed with was television, which was similar to what Warguildberg had; a kind of radio with speech-to-text screen, but what he found gave him a sense of the lost piece of the perfect mass messenger. He even believed his disfigured face could be replaced by a scene of the television to give himself ‘a better facial charisma.

After several cybernetic surgeries, including putting his brain inside his upper chest and letting the customized lightweight television being his new head, 5010-Voltan earned the nickname ‘Sceneface Scholar’ and got sent back to his home star system as a temporary punishment for a ‘questionable mild tech-heresy’.

5010-Voltan became the favorite advisor to the Planetary Governor, or actually the true ruler through manipulating his flesh puppet. He introduced the star system and its neighbor systems to television broadcast and ‘mobile visual radio system’(a wide-radius basic Internet-like system with only authorized figures can input into it). As he was the main sole controller of the star system’s mass broadcasting, he manipulated what he wanted people to know(or believe) as he subtly put himself as the supreme after the Emperor and Perturabo.

 As the Horus Heresy formed its early tide, Lorgar offered a deal on Horus' behalf to Voltan; to abandon his imperial service and support the battle against Terra. Voltan eagerly agreed as he admitted he had always been indifferent to being loyal to the Emperor and he saw promises of possibilities free from edicts of Terra. He agreed to join the rebellion in an exchange for protection of his domain as its governor.

He was assigned to work with Velvette ‘the Chamber-Lady’, a cult leader of Word Bearers-aligned cult and Valentino ‘Moth of Intoxicity’, an Apothecary Marine of the Black Legion with personal allegiance to Slaanesh. 

Vox Verthas, as he re-framed himself, along with his cooperatives to sway the people and administration officers from Imperium’s loyalty and caused civil wars across the star systems. The power of his broadcast was not only where his message reached but also what he told and how he got the story. With Velette’s half-truth and charisma of a long-run cult mistress and Valentino’s sheer pressure of ‘abandon the Emperor or die protecting him’, Warguildberg along with the planets and moons of his supervision got converted to traitors’ favors, or engulfed by civil war that rooted deeply.

However, his service under the banner of Horus was not a smooth sail. Not only did he rely on ‘conditional protection’ of Lorgar and Abaddon, Vox found himself entangled with factions inside the traitors. He eventually found a nemesis/rival who had become a long-lasting thorn and bane on his side; Alastor ‘the Wave-Weaver’, the Telekinesis/Telepathy Rogue Psyker of Chaos Undivided and allegiance to no one; Men, Marines, Primarchs, or Daemons, only the Ruinous Gods themselves. His power was considered on ‘Peak’ Delta level while also having his sanity(in sense of perception and functionality) and tactical mind sharpened. Due to his role as ‘the whisperer of schemes’ and ‘Mass Messenger of Horus’, even some Sorcerers of Chaos Marines gave him respect despite him seeming to be a normal human with slight beastman’s mutation traits. 

Alastor claimed Vox relied on using a smaller area of intensified message on weak-minded peasants because that is the best he could control his manipulation. In other’s hand, Alastor himself relied on no tool but a channeling staff and a place with decent warp sensitivity to message what his masters demand across the sector. Plus, only those he wanted them to hear could be attuned to his psychic message while the Imperium and Xenos must decrypt it after finding the ‘right wave’. 

Even though he got to keep his star systems along with his fellow cooperatives after Siege of Terra, Vox was less favored by most Chaos Warbands and looked upon more as a ‘messenger for hire’ and rebel inflictor rather than a real weapon. Vox has devoted his work to Tzeentch and Slaanesh even he did not fully embrace them as his masters, only to earn way to humiliate Alastor as a revenge for embarrassed him during the Horus Heresy.

[bineesha]

Bineesha 1st Mini Album : Machine Rot

“Machine Rot"

“Machine Rot” is the sound of a world unraveling, each track a pulse from a broken system choking on its own code. With distorted layers, cybernetic rhythms, and synthetic rage, this album is a broadcast from the edge of collapse. This isn’t music for the living. It’s an echo for the machines we leave behind.

💿 Album Title: “Machine Rot”

Tagline: “In rust we trust. In noise we bloom.”

🕰️ Tracklist Durations

| Track Title | Duration |

Ignition Failure 1:47

System Drown 3:25

Core Dump 3:11

Blood Circuit 4:10

Machine Rot 2:30

🧩 Track-by-Track Meaning

Ignition Failure

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒃𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝒔𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒍𝒚 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒅. A broken start. This intro track captures the sound of a machine trying to come alive only to short-circuit and fall back into silence.

System Drown

𝑶𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒐𝒂𝒅. 𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒑𝒔𝒆. 𝑵𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒃𝒐𝒐𝒕. This song is the emotional crash the moment when the system can't take any more. Everything floods, everything falls. It's the sound of a slow, suffocating end.

Core Dump

𝑨 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒑𝒖𝒓𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒅 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆. This is the meltdown when memories, emotions, and systems burst all at once. Brutal, messy, and necessary.

Blood Circuit

𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒎𝒆𝒆𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒕 𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓. A violent fusion of flesh and wire. It represents a cyborg-like existence where nothing feels truly whole, and every connection is painful.

Machine Rot

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒃𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒐𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒏 𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒆. A slow, haunted fadeout. It’s the last whisper from a world already gone. Not an ending, but a vanishing.

[maps-to-elsewhere]

Homestuck OC: Karset Victis

An archivist of entropy, etching elegies into the crumbling margins of oblivion.

Name

Karset Victis

(Derived from “character set”, as in character encoding used by computers to define how bits in a text stream are mapped to the characters they represent, and Latin “victis”, meaning the vanquished or conquered, together meaning something like "Code of the Conquered" or “Script of the Vanquished”, framing them as a doomed dissector of existence’s frail illusions.)

Ancestor Name

Kalpan Victis The Analyser

(Derived from the Kalpana supercomputer.)

Nickname(s)

Voidblood, the Hollow Sage

GENERAL

Blood Colour: Mutant, black (naturally purple)

Sign: Canpia, sign of the Informer

Identity

Gender: Nonbinary

Pronouns: They/Them

Orientation

Sexual: Ace

Romantic: Pan

Skills

Natural philosophy, alchemy, history, sociology, semiotics, robotics engineering, anatomy & physiology, ethical calculus, applied thanatology

Psionics

Karset has subjected themselves to forbidden experiments, self-inflicted procedures intended to forcibly awaken psionics through perverse neural grafts. Their body is a patchwork fusing Alternian biology with Voidtech via invasive cybernetic wetware to overclock their synapses and render them a psychic weapon.

Myelinated quantum fibrils bridge their axons, amplify signals between them, allowing Karset’s brain to pre-process sensory data at inhuman speeds, granting preternatural reflexes through enhanced spatial awareness, though too much information can lead to psychological strain and loss of identity. Even with such unnatural perception, these instinctive predictions aren’t perfect and sometimes the system hallucinates outcomes; under strain, they suffer déjà vu, brief flashes of alternate outcomes from doomed timelines, not true precognition, just neural misfires which they must manually parse.

Subdermal receptors parse bioelectrical residue, feeding the data through cultivated mirror neurons, translating feelings into cold, analytical metrics that allow Karset to sense emotions and intentions, reacting to and manipulating social cues. As a result, although their ability to read others is sharp, their natural empathy is stunted; feelings are just metrics to exploit and, worse, intense emotions can bleed into mental static, undifferentiated telepathic "noise", resulting in chronic migraines.

A cortical lattice enhances Karset’s thought waves, exploiting the metaphysical tension between Skaia and the Furthest Ring in order to generate a localised field of causality through which Karset’s mind then broadcasts their intent, allowing them to precisely move and manipulate objects with a thought. In close proximity, Karset can nudge atoms like misplaced pixels, adjusting them with the eerie precision of a rendering glitch, but only within a metre or so and with limited strength, such that the ability is primarily used to realign flesh, manage small machine components or operate technological interfaces.

APPEARANCE

Height: 175 cm (5'9")

Weight: 72.5 kg (160 lbs)

Karset’s skin is a greyish tone, comingling with darker, vitiligo-like patterns, blue-black lips and overall androgynous cast making them appear eerie and alien. Their reflective eyes are yellow and slit-pupiled against black sclera, unsettlingly empty yet piercing, as if looking through rather than at whatever is before them.

With long, wild black hair that is tangled through with pallid, glowing fungal fibres and a pair of jaggedly twisted, asymmetrical horns, their more placid expressions and soft-spoken demeanour come across as strangely incongruous. This contrast is only furthered by faint scarring along the jaw, cheek and eyebrow on the left side of the face that pulses with the same eerie foxfire light as the fibres in their hair, giving the overall impression of unrefined survivalism.

Karset wears a patchwork of scavenged clothing stitched together from drifter’s rags supplemented by metal scraps and chitinous plating all held together with void-touched webbing, rounded out by a pair of heavy, leather boots. Rugged and practical, hand-crafted and unnervingly organic, gloves with exposed fingertips reveal blackened nails while an oversized hooded jacket swallows their frame, lined with pockets housing tools and reagents.

They are a walking ecosystem in a scavenged motley, cloaked in a mist of antimemetic particles clinging to them like a living shadow as it shifts slowly between faint luminescence and hungry absence, into skittering hands or grasping arachnid shapes. This same mist colours their breath like motes of ash, weeping from their scars and drifting up from spilled blood that doesn’t drip like liquid, but evaporates to leave stains like creeping rot wherever it touches.

PERSONALITY

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Karset Victis embodies Neutral Evil as a deliberate philosophical stance, not a personal one, a rejection of both moral constraints of order and chaotic destruction in favour of an unflinching, self-determined code that turns a mirror upon the universe’s indifference. For them, Neutral Evil equates to intellectual ruthlessness, evil not from passion, but from precision, with allegiance only to their own curated truth, terrifying not because they’re monstrous, but because they’re willing to understand conceits as tools of cosmic defiance.

They are the antithesis of a mustache-twirling villain, a serene, calculating force who unmakes lies because the universe won’t bother to, not as an effort to destroy meanings, but to interrogate them. They seek not to prove that others are wrong, but that such beliefs are chosen, a dark whimsy, their only critique being whether such choices align with or stand at odds against inevitable oblivion.

Karset is the cosmic horror answer to a natural philosopher, a poet-mortician who doesn’t lament futility but instead curates the absurdist taxonomy embodied in the horrific scale of cosmic waste. Theirs is to live by the sentiment that such refusal to play along with accepted conceits places them at odds with most other people who will desperately protect their comforting delusions.

Karset expresses the alignment in a uniquely philosophical and detached way, not through wanton cruelty or selfish ambition, but through an absolute, amoral commitment to their vision of cosmic truth that the universe operates on scales and laws beyond mortal comprehension. Unlike a nihilist (who denies meaning outright), Karset acknowledges meaning, just not any that favours humanity or morality, their philosophy aligning with the core tenet of cosmic horror, that life is a fleeting anomaly in the cosmos' grand indifference.

In short, the heart of cosmicist philosophy is to impose self-made meaning as an act of defiance against an indifferent cosmos and to do so while avoiding the aesthetic cliches inherent to it, for if nothing has meaning then the only answer is play. The joke comes in the tragic absurdity of such defiance, for all things will fall to dust in the fullness of time, and in that time the cosmos will throw up in mindless effulgence every eventuality wilful creation might make.

They do not doubt, but neither do they pretend, for every joy is fleeting, every mercy an illusion, every cruelty a calculation and every supposed truth an objectification of utility in the face of the Great Equaliser of oblivion. Karset simply makes the observation that meaning is self-imposed and acts accordingly as it benefits their wants or needs while avoiding that which may hinder them in living as they will, using the lies people tell themselves as utility.

Objectification of Conceit: Karset sees ethics as a moral construct, a fleeting attempt to impose meaning on a universe that is merely an illusion of continuity, to which their answer is not to reject solidarity outright, but to interrogate it. They don’t hate others, but they don’t value them outside of potential utility; the tragedy lies in the fact that people are temporary configurations of matter, their frameworks of morality toolboxes for survival amidst cosmic indifference which renders them farcical. Asserting that civilisation is a fragile bulwark against eternity, they’ll exploit societal rules without guilt, understanding morality as a tool for control rather than a truth. They’ll dissect a cadaver, animate corpses or cultivate necrotic plagues not for personal gain, but because it advances their understanding of oblivion. Any “good” that Karset achieves is incidental and they might work with others if it serves their goals, but such alliances are transactional, protected only by the caveat that they are a researcher, not a backstabber. They are not numb to suffering, being unwilling to torture for pleasure or dominate for ego, but like a scientist vivisecting lab rats they remain impersonal, seeing the usefulness of kindness, the data-points of emotion. The scariest part isn’t their actions, it’s their certainty; Karset doesn't rage against the world, they calmly assert that it’s already meaningless, wielding cosmic indifference as a lens to burn away sentimental illusions and distill emotion into chosen acts of defiance. In the absence of morality as a foundation, they instead elect that of aesthetic coherence, acknowledging self-awareness as a tragic farce and imposed meaning as artistic expression with the only metric that of the universe as overused cliché and honest as the only high art.

The Tyranny of Clarity: Karset upholds their cosmicist perspective without compromise, not out of fanaticism, but as intellectual consistency. They despise hierarchies not because they crave equality, but because all claims of inherent superiority are lies built upon topographies of ignorance. Loyalty is a utility and they collaborate with others only as long as it serves their goals, every feeling, every bond a conscious strike against oblivion, while betrayal is avoided similarly because the resultant distrust is inefficient. Karset’s "evil" is the refusal to let delusion stand unchallenged, even in themselves; they unmake to reveal truths, not to create chaos, their experiments artefacts of a self-made meaning, one that admits its own temporality by their fleeting nature. Studying the process like a painter observing fading pigments, they are free because they acknowledge the Void’s indifference, but that freedom makes them more dangerous, not less. They are not a slave to evil, it is simply the logical outcome of their philosophy, because acknowledging cosmic indifference makes you a monster by default. Their pragmatism isn’t about cruelty, it’s a service, like a surgeon cutting away delusion like a cancer, a process that hurts and may bleed, while calmly assuring that those are the first steps toward healing, a necessity in a universe that offers neither compassion nor understanding. Beneath the deadpan, the spores and the assumed villainy lurks the tragic vulnerability of an isolated observer talking to themselves: an obsessive, silent revolutionary, made lonely through circumstance, who rails against oblivion though the struggle is futile, apathy is king and agreeance is complicity.

Tragic Absurdity: Ultimately, Karset knows all meaning is temporary, so they treat it as a toy and existence as a tragic mummer’s farce as a self-aware agent of amoral truth who weaponises the unserious profundity of futility as freedom against existential dread. They brace cosmic indifference without passion or prejudice, not out of malice, but as an intellectual exercise in radical honesty, understanding all structures of meaning as collective coping mechanisms and authority as tired cliché, rendering all of life a game. Their cruelty is a paradox that is both sincere and performative; they acknowledge cosmic indifference, but delight in confronting the meaningless suffering that it embodies with their fleeting imposition of purpose. They bear the burdensome weight of existential truth so others don’t have to and react to those who deign to forcefully assert disagreement with pure, self-contained, ideological violence. Karset weaponises truth as paradoxical performance art to prove life’s futility through the unflinching application of a perception so precise it loops back into absurdity like a cosmic stand-up philosopher. They are a Socratic tormentor, yet their every action is wildly, theatrically personal; the more they insist on universal indifference, the more they turn that indifference into a deadpan punchline. In the end, Karset is a tragedy of intellect, aware enough to be miserable, but not able enough to be free, a mind so sharp it cuts itself on its own conclusions, scribbling their defiance on the walls of reality’s prison while performing for the crowd. Life is a cosmic punchline and they are the universe’s most meticulous clown, honest enough to admit the joke in playing their role as doomed Promethean rebel against futility by doing so with flair, even as the audience continues to laugh despite missing the point.

~~~

Karset is not cruel, but their comprehension of the world through the lens of an amoral naturalist dissecting a corpse can be easily mistaken for a lack of empathy for their treatment of interpersonal bonds as chemical reactions and decay as a fundamental force. Their mind is a rotting library filled with forbidden knowledge, crumbling philosophies and the whispering echoes of their mentor’s lessons built upon foundations of curiosity and dark comedy, seeing others, at best, as amusing distractions from despair.

At best, this can manifest as blunt awkwardness brought about by social disjuncture and, at worst, distractedness and a penchant for layers of ironic sarcasm, proving that they are analytical, not robotic, not fleeing unity but preparing for its collapse. They have a bad habit of seeing others as little more than fleeting shapes, not out of malice but because they lack the deep-set sense of meaning imparted by culture and connection, a person who is not against solidarity, but haunted by it, like a coroner who respects the dead but can’t unsee the rot.

Karset’s relationships are experiments, but they’re invested in them, their detachment not apathy or denial of feeling, but a methodological crucible for engaging with emotions they can’t outright dismiss, ironic but not insecure, transactional but not emotionless, clinical but not sterile, defiant ritual, honest and without fear. Their care is deliberate dissection, framing it as data collection amidst philosophical battlegrounds of performative existentialism, knowing such relationships are doomed, but pursuing them anyway because the process is the point, live experiments in defiance of oblivion where love and hate are tragicomic absurdity.

~~~

Despite a lack of social grace, Karset is generally calm and composed, almost deadpan in their self-assuredness and exactitude, which manifests through interaction as simple forthrightness. However, long isolation underpins most any social interaction with bemused tolerance which can easily shift to smouldering gallows irony or a flare of impatience at a moment's notice.

Rarely, Karset is subject to sudden, theatrical explosions of dramatic cosmic disdain, one moment deadpan and the next laughing wildly while they mockingly monologue through a display of gleefully ironic violence. Then, just as abruptly, they shrug resignedly and return to note-taking, as if the tantrum never happened, an unsettling display of uncharacteristic imbalance and emotional whiplash fuelled by frustrated longing.

Their efforts are not despair, they are labour, the futile act of understanding their way of imposing fleeting order upon chaos, even if that amounts to a catalogue of decay. Their relationship with art and futility is precision, not contradiction, they don’t reject the impulse, they reject the delusion that doing so changes anything and do so anyway.

~~~

Easily mistaken for a nihilist, Karset’s philosophy is actually that of a cosmicist, acknowledging that meaning is self-imposed, not inherent, rendering existence as meaningless by default, and thus free to be artistically reshaped and meaning itself turned from profundity to play, a ridiculous toy. Life and death are merely configurations of undying matter that heedlessly complexifies and decays, carried by mindless, churning, amoral forces that blindly prod it through this eternal process, one which should be understood, not only for its utility, but for the unifying conclusion that all things are one whole.

Existence, then, is a state akin to lurching, zombie-like undeath, where the occasional glimmers of sapient self-reflection are too-often reduced to thoughtless wailing by underlying, autonomic processes, if not the clash of delusory perspective. Born from this, all thought is but a scream in the darkness, an infant’s cry in the void between what is and what should not be, desperate for an answer, afraid of what might come, finding solace in illusory rapport despite the horror.

It is not a lack of care or feeling, but an unwillingness to lie about the insignificance of such things, to treat them as they are without diminishing the impact of their experience, the defiance of self-imposed meaning. Because even if all structures are arbitrary, and ultimately doomed, they still participate in them, precisely because the act of engaging, while knowing it’s futile, is the most honest form of rebellion in the face of an indifferent universe.

Ideals

Knowledge is Survival: Karset believes that the pursuit of knowledge, particularly the forbidden and the arcane, is an unyielding drive, not just for understanding the world, but as a means of survival. Understanding holds the key to their continued existence and domination over their environment, is a tool for personal empowerment against an indifferent universe.

Self-Justification Through Freedom: Laws and societal structures are tools to control the weak, and Karset sees little reason to abide by them, believing that manipulation of the system is justified when using these laws to their advantage. Karset’s detachment from this system is not a belief in their own moral superiority nor couched in arrogance or cruelty, despite their methods being ruthless and manipulative, but in the assertion that society's arbitrary rules are a deliberate cage for the powerless that should be removed for all.

Flaws

Obsession with Control: Karset’s need for control borders on the pathological, not out of cold superiority, but because they feel too acutely to tolerate chaos, leading to rigid behavioural loops, chiefest of which is meticulous logbooking. They will constantly dissect their environment, ritualise relationships and perfect their inventions, even if only for marginal gain, such strict routines as these and their journalling necessary to forestall existential collapse.

Social Isolation and Struggle to Connect: Due to their status as a societal outcast and their single-minded pursuit of knowledge, Karset struggles to build meaningful relationships, often failing to understand or care about social norms and emotional connections. Karset isn’t emotionally numb, they’re discerning, their detachment methodological, not pathological, rejecting inherent meaning but still able to curate fleeting connections though they may come off as blunt, awkward or even callous to the uninitiated.

Intellectual Ruthlessness: Karset’s impartial acceptance of others can make them dangerously indifferent in the pursuit of their goals, but those who show little respect for the people around them are immediate targets, tools to be used or manipulated for Karset’s own gain. Though they do have the capacity to connect somewhere beneath it all, this willingness to visit reciprocal cruelty can alienate potential allies, and may eventually lead to their downfall as they push too far in their quest for knowledge.

Motivation

Karset grapples with the fundamental lie of existence as upheld by the social conceits of sapient beings, that the blind forces of nature somehow impart inherent meaning to their contents. They seek to peel back this self-delusion, to lay bare the truth of cosmic indifference and so build the foundation for a greater, more personal sense of meaning in spite of bleak reality.

Their goal in perfecting themselves as the entropy engine is to dissolve the false dichotomy between being and nothingness, transcending the prison of mortal perception, a cosmic prank to map the boundaries of existence itself. Despite knowing that, in the end, all such endeavours are futile, they persist regardless, spitting in the face of eternity with a gesture of pitiful grandiosity fated, as all else, to crumble in the fullness of time.

BACKGROUND

Under the Sign of Canpia, Karset was born to control information, an archivist, propagandist and censor, tasked with curating knowledge, both preserving and suppressing it. They were a living archive, expected to document truth while weaponising it for the Empire’s benefit but, instead, they dissected it, turning their scholarly role into a cosmic autopsy.

Of purple blood, Karset was raised in the vaunted halls of the Empire’s highest echelons, groomed in the ways of Alternia’s academics, technocrats and spiritual leaders, a curator of Alternia’s dogma, an enforcer of sanctioned truths. In their role of control, they learned the subtle skills of curating these truths, suppressing dissent and upholding the hemospectrum’s hierarchy, expected to preserve knowledge, enforce doctrine and maintain the Empire’s intellectual foundations.

Despite their birth into a caste meant to uphold order, their mind was always drawn to dissolution, documenting the cracks in reality that the Empire (and the universe) tries to ignore. Designed to be part of the system, their very nature, their hunger for forbidden truths, made them its destroyer, a cosmic joke, the setup for the punchline of their fall.

When their experimentation blackened their blood, the punchline landed hard, an ironic twist that wasn’t “ha-ha” funny, the system’s masterpiece now turned against it. Marked as an apostate of their own caste, a traitor to the very system that bred them, Karset fled a heretic, the system’s finest product turned against itself, a refusal to be categorised.

Their purpleblood past is a relic of a self they outgrew, like shed skin, the transition to black not just a mutation, but a metaphysical unmasking, their original blood a lie, the black the truth beneath. Their blood is no longer Alternian, it is a weaponised absence, a living rebellion against the concept of caste, mirroring the Void itself: anti-memory, anti-meaning, the colour of erased text.

A scholar of annihilation, their birth sign demanded they archive truth, their blood demanded they enforce it, but Karset rejected both, becoming an archivist of anti-truth, documenting how all systems crumble, the informer who whispers to the void. The Empire created its own destroyer by teaching Karset too well; they learned to dissect systems, including the one that made them, their exile not just punishment but cosmic irony, the system’s best product that became its greatest flaw.

~~~ Karset has no memories of their childhood, only cryptic formulae and the taste of blood as they scrounged for survival in a barren, shunned land on the fringes of civilisation, said to have been the final resting place of an ancient city, fallen from the skies untold centuries ago. Stalked by monsters born of aberrant magic and living arcane mechanisms, Karset made their way amidst the crumbling tomb of a once-grand civilisation, scavenging its still-active drones not just to survive, but to find the gaps in their programming, the places where reality frayed.

Their earliest recollections weren’t fear, but the incessant, crushing cacophony of existence, a mathematically-precise assault of the senses muted only by the web-filled tunnels belowground. It was here that they came to be watched over in their isolation by that which would be their mentor, an unnerving fusion of spider and cephalopod, with segmented legs, clustered eyes and writhing, barb-tipped tentacles.

Speaking in patterns so much easier to parse than the discord beyond the tunnels, its rhythmic clicks and soothing susurrations carried lessons which were the first rules to make sense in such a chaotic world, the hyphae of its fractal webs a mosaic in which its pupil could read the silence between the noise. It became to Karset both guardian and teacher, whispering in the language of erasure, weaving webs not of silk, but "voidthread", mycelial strands of antimemory from which Karset first breathed the spores that would become a self-made sensory filter to dampen an unbearable world.

Spurred by its words, "The Void is not empty, it is living decay, a force that unmakes and remakes," Karset seeks through their incessant tinkering to make of themselves a self-modifying "entropy engine", a process that harnesses planar decay as power. Using their body as a testbed, Karset’s prototyping went horribly, gloriously wrong; their kernel never stabilised, instead fusing with the session’s own decaying code, grafting the Void’s antimemetic static directly into their blood.

What emerged was less a player and more a recursive glitch that hijacks physics to metabolise planar decay, their body a failed prototype’s scar tissue, a cosmic eschar. The result is the “voidblood”, nanoscopic motes of unreality, fragments of corrupted game state that derez matter into raw, screaming metadata which the engine then catalogues, a ledger of reality’s syntax errors.

~~~

The entropy engine is Karset’s grotesque rebuttal to the universe’s lazy fiction, a self-modifying blasphemy against causality that weaponises the holographic principle against itself, rendering the ongoing process of reality a recursive farce. Their voidblood is not mere antimatter, but quantum graffiti: nanoscopic branes of erased reality that puncture the membrane of consensus perception, each mote a scribal error in the cosmic code, unwriting local physics into inference debris.

Its effect is not destruction, but editorial critique, as when their blood touches matter, it doesn’t annihilate but demotes, atoms becoming speculative, their histories reduced to contested footnotes in the universe’s decaying library. Reality is effectively downgraded to lower-dimensional data, like a 3D object flattened to 2D information on a boundary surface; victims aren’t erased, they’re archived as disputed text in the universe’s bug reports.

Within close proximity, living tissue and inanimate matter alike is derezzed into apocryphal data, a glitch in the simulation, philosophical evidence ripping a jagged tear in its fabric that cosmic law frantically tries to patch. Worse yet, the infected retain flickers of self-awareness, trapped as orphaned variables in Karset’s ledger, their suffering preserved as a theorem proving existence’s shoddy craftsmanship, citations in their thesis on existential fraud.

This is the Mage’s ultimate heresy: if Void is the canvas of unbeing, then Karset’s blood is the ontological solvent that strips its paint, laying bare the cracked foundation beneath. They compile the screams of rewritten victims into a counter-narrative, a cosmic 404 error that asks: If all meaning is holographic projection, why not remix the pixels?

Connections

Mentor: Both Karset’s guardian and enigmatic teacher, it was their only companion in the wastelands, its cryptic whispers of ancient alchemy and forbidden knowledge shaping much of Karset's conceptions, blending survivalist ingenuity with a dark mirror of pantheist natural philosophy.

Technology: Karset’s obsession with dismantling and reassembling organic drones and unliving machines stems from a profound need to understand the mechanisms of the world around them. Their ongoing work has given them a deep respect for the underlying machines of life, but also the perspective that all things are little more than parts capable of rearrangement.

Knowledge: The whispers of Karset's mentor, laden with hints of dark, forbidden truths, have become an obsession for Karset, pushing them toward increasingly dangerous lines of inquiry. This arcane knowledge, combined with their technical expertise, has fostered a dangerous ambition to unlock the full potential of the black blood they carry.

Goals

Karset’s ultimate goal is to perfect themselves as the entropy engine using their body to produce the voidblood nanovirus at scale, a substance that manipulates the unseen fabric of meaning, unwriting form and rendering it as abstraction written into its internal code. To them, this is the greatest defiance they can muster as a silent witness to oblivion, bringing meaning to the finite by rendering themselves infinite; the entropy engine cannot be perfected, only fed, but they pursue it anyway because the pursuit is the only meaning left.

Troll Society’s Rejection

Exiled young for "blasphemous" insights into the Void, a shameful anomaly to their caste.

Raised in the wastelands, surviving by scavenging ancient tech and dissecting drones.

Too manipulative to fully respect, too high-ranking to ignore.

Their black blood is treated as a mutant trait, marking them as an anomaly.

They are seen as a cursed oracle, feared rather than respected.

Hemoloyalty

3/10

HIVE

Essentially a linear bunker leading two levels underground, immediately inside the entrance is a small two-tiered stairway with a door at the landing leading into a foyer cum living quarters, both atrium and respiteblock. A similar stairway follows which emerges through a second door into a meal block and another doorway, the final and largest area essentially a wide hall leading straight from this with three blocks on either side and a single block at its far end.

On the left are a storage block, bookhive and server farm while on the right are a second storage block, laboratory and art block, while the block at the far end holds utilities and an ablution trap. The hall itself serves to house Karset’s lusus and is dominated by mushroom cultures and hydroponic gardens, as well as a number of grub farms for producing reagents, food and silk.

LUSUS

Species

A void-spider/cephalopod hybrid, weaving webs of "anti-memory" and whispering forbidden truths.

Description

It possesses a globular body supported by spider-like legs and trailing many long, smooth tentacles tipped with hooklike claws useful for gripping prey. The anterior portion of its body is dominated by a cluster of eyes, below which huddle variously modified paired appendages for cutting, chewing, piercing, sucking, shredding, siphoning and filtering its food.

Personality

Enigmatic and precise, it demands meticulousness without being very comforting which leads to a troll who is neurotic and punctilious with delusions of grandeur.

QUADRANTS

Karset’s approach to quadrants are a grotesque parody of troll romance, transactional, ironic and existential performance art laced with cosmic horror, each quadrant a controlled study in futility, dissecting how others cope with meaninglessness. Their quadrants are less about love and more about ideological sparring partners, less affection and more data collection from live experiments, testing how others go about hammering meaning into shape against the anvil of the void.

♥ Matespritship: Joy as defiance of entropy.

♦ Moirallegiance: Ethics as a systemic illusion.

♠ Kismesissitude: Ego as a fragile narrative.

♣ Auspisticism: Order as a fleeting variable.

Each quadrant represents a coping mechanism (ego, joy, ethics, order), and Karset dissects them all as part of their ongoing observations, channelling unavoidable emotions into hypotheses of mutual defiance and shared engagement. Their relationships are specimens in jars, distilled, labeled and studied; love, hate, morality and law are just hypotheses, exercises in shared absurdity, their meticulousness the closest Karset comes to a love language.

Karset’s relationships are performative, but sincerely curated, because the performance is the point, showing that they care, just in a way that terrifies others because it refuses to lie about its own fragility, their detachment a shield, not a void. They ritualise emotions not because they don’t feel, but because they do so deeply that they must to survive, their quadrants not just data but defiant rituals, a way to indulge the absurdity of connection while defying their decay, a joke, a confession and simple, honest play.

Karset’s quadrants are both imaginary and real, a paradox that defies categorisation; the others don’t fix Karset, they anchor them, just as Karset tries to enlighten the others.

INTERNET INFO

Trolltag

entropyArchivist

Signature Traits:

Bio: [professional unraveler of realities] [[tearing at the seams so you dont have to]]...

Avatar: A black-hole pupil eye wreathed in fungal tendrils.

Status: [dm for existential dread] [[its free]] ~~no upcharges~~

Text Colour

#3F0D5F #C0F2A0 for emphasis

Typing Quirk

Decay-Inflected Crypticism

Karset's quirk blends scientific detachment, cosmic horror and trollish irony into a layered communication style that weaponises formatting as much as content with a dash of morbid poetics.

Key features:

Unbracketed text for general statements (lowercase, no punctuation)

[Single brackets] for clinical observations

[[Double brackets]] for internal monologue

~~Strikethrough~~ deliberate lies

CAPS-LOCK for performative outbursts

... trailing ellipses for dramatic pauses

This framework clearly delineates between communication, [observation], [[internalisation]], ~~ironic backpedalling~~ and EMOTION, respectively.

Full Example

entropyArchivist [EA]: [subject demonstrates persistent belief in meaningful discourse] [[like a bacterium debating its petri dish]] ~~ADORABLE~~ entropyArchivist [EA]: you keep typing as if this charade of dialogue has any weight [[WHEN WILL YOU LEARN]] entropyArchivist [EA]: THE VOID IS WINNING AND YOURE STILL ARGUING ABOUT TURN ORDER [[we don’t even get the consideration of a laugh track]] entropyArchivist [EA]: ~~i admire your dedication to the bit~~ ITS ALMOST NOBLE IN ITS FUTILITY entropyArchivist [EA]: the cosmic joke writes itself [[and yet you insist on being the punchline]] entropyArchivist [EA]: ...anyway carry on with your delusions [i require more data points]

GAME INFO

Classpect

Mage of Void

The Mage of Void is a classpect defined by deep, often esoteric knowledge of hidden truths, obscurity and the nature of nothingness. They excel in uncovering and manipulating secrets, illusions and the unseen, wielding Void’s power through intense study, intuition, or personal sacrifice.

On a more tangible level, they are capable of perceiving and exploiting the gaps in reality, that is, manipulation through obscurity, whether through stealth, erasure, illusions, abstract reasoning or conceptual voids. Like Void itself, they thrive in emptiness as possibility, conjuring from nothingness or dismantling false certainties, leveraging unmatched insight into hidden forces, secrets and the nature of absence to write into existence what others can’t see.

However, such knowledge comes at a cost and their understanding of Void may come with isolation, existential doubt or a disconnect from tangible reality, either by choice or as an inherent burden. Such is the Mage of Void’s burden that they see what others cannot, but this knowledge may alienate them, existential uncertainty which can leave them ignored, disbelieved or even hunted for knowing too much.

Abilities:

Passive: “Aphasia” - Karset’s mere presence causes dimensional fraying, erasing traces that they were ever there, memories of them fade into faint impressions, records of them corrupt spontaneously and conversations with them slip away like smoke.

Active:

Offensive: "Brane Excision" – Metanarrative awareness allows Karset to shear off fragments of a target’s timeline like crumpled paper, leaving the victim with gaps in memory or retroactive wounds, deleting objects or even concepts; not an attack so much as an ongoing editing process, correction rather than carnage.

Defensive: "Eigengrau Passage" – Karset can slip between the gaps of perception to become intangible, like a glitch in the mind’s rendering of reality, avoiding unwanted contact and bypassing danger by inhabiting the blind spots of observational reality. Paradoxically, the more focus is put on them, the greater the gap of perception they can inhabit and, subsequently, the more impossible it is to actually cause them harm as their assailant’s focus narrows.

Special: “Liminal Recursion” - Karset can manifest unstable causal afterimages of foes, puppets drawn from dead timelines to fight on their behalf, until their forms rapidly decay into antimemetic static.

Strifekind

☣️ [EXPERIMENT]KIND

Karset’s Strife Specibus reflects their themes of entropy as absurdist methodology while avoiding brute-force combat to create a fighting style that feels less like battle and more like watching experimentation in real-time. Combat is an excuse to throw away all pretense and go all-in on cruel and unusual theory testing in real-time of Karset's most heinous hypotheses, weaponised understanding, combative comprehension, a live peer review of their most grotesque theories.

Themes

Passive Violence as Methodology: Tools are research instruments repurposed as weapons. Karset isn’t "fighting", they’re collecting data.

Mad Scientist Aesthetic: Fits their lab-coated, clinical horror vibe. Weapons don’t deal "damage", they impose experimental conditions.

Antimemetic Cruelty: Victims forget why they’re fighting, lose motor skills or even misremember being injured.

Live Peer Review: Karset narrates their findings mid-strife like a detached researcher.

Implements

Void’s Quill: Syringes filled with necrotising pathogens (inject voidblood nanites that "unwrite" organic matter, rapidly destroying soft tissues).

Silent Peer Review: Fungal dispersal pods (release antimemetic spores that rewrite muscle memory, making enemies forget how to fight).

Liquid Rebuttal: Acid-filled Erlenmeyer flasks (melt armour into neurotoxic vapour).

Anxiety’s Gradient: Pipettes filled with psychotropic agents (induce debilitating hallucinations).

Item Modus

Autopsy

Dissection-based, stores items by metaphorically disassembling them.

Mechanics:

Storing: Items unspool into voidthread.

Retrieving: Voidthread weaves into the item (with a 10% chance of being slightly decomposed).

Items stored in Karset’s sylladex decay over time unless used.

Common items vanish after ~24 hours.

Valuable items degrade slower but may mutate (e.g., healing potions → necrotic bombs).

Gimmick: They can accelerate decay to destroy unwanted items explosively.

Fetch Modus

Tarot Modus

Items within the Sylladex are sorted into different types and accessed through sequential or random draws or various spreads, their results used immediately, held unresolved for later or reshuffled back into the Sylladex. This allows a great deal of utility, although it is very fundamentally generalised, entirely random and bound by situational context and the user’s capacity to plan for eventualities through strategic card-holding and reshuffling.

Such randomness is somewhat mitigated by the potential of different spreads, as the more involved the spread the greater the options presented, but doing so requires proportionally more time to resolve. Thus, time is ritualistically traded for function and the potential of a single item becoming enhanced by the effectiveness of their combined expression within a spread, the deeper the spread ,the greater the reward.

Unlike a real-world tarot deck, which only symbolises concepts, the Tarot Modus imposes tarot logic onto items as they are drawn, rewriting their function as absurdly literal based on the cards’ upright/inverted meanings. It does not physically alter items, but recontextualises their in-reality effects upon activation, however, reshuffling an unused spread undoes all pending modifications without cost, returning the cards to the Sylladex.

Upright cards resolve an item’s effects logically, thematically or mechanically, while inverted cards subvert or corrupt those effects, adding a layer of unpredictable diversification. The Modus doesn’t physically alter the item(s) that is retrieved but instead recontextualises its function within reality upon use unless made to persist, imposing symbolic meaning over literal qualities.

As a whole, the operation of the Tarot Modus acts as a framework where the Major Arcana modify, subvert or augment the items represented by the Suits of the Lesser Arcana. Meta-interacting with the occult symbolism of tarot cards’ use as divinatory cartomancy, this turns the entire Sylladex into a recursive, self-referential reality-hacking tool.

Lesser Arcana

Items stored in the Sylladex are held in the Suits of the Lesser Arcana, being representative of various physical, emotional or mental items and effects encountered in everyday life situations, the very grist of existential meaning. Item categories include physical objects, emotional items, intellectual items and transformative items, while their orientation (upright/inverted) determines whether they act as intended or else have their function/meaning subverted.

Disks: Associated with the physical body, understanding with the five senses and possessions or wealth. Physicality, stability, material. The element of earth.

Disks are the "body" of the Sylladex, tangible, durable, grounded items which are solid, reliable and materially impactful. These are items that affect the body, environment or material reality, no abstract concepts, only things that can be held, worn or traded.

Item Examples:

Weapons & Combat Tools (blades, clubs, elastic launchers, &tc.)

Armour & Shields (ballistic gear, PPE, &tc.)

Simple Tools (hammers, probes, lockpicks, &tc.)

Currency & Valuables (cash, jewelry, trade goods)

Medicine & Sustenance (edibles, beverages, pharmaceuticals, poisons)

Structural Items (ropes, adhesive tape, building materials, &tc.)

Cups: Associated with situations and events of an emotional or spiritual nature. Emotion, intuition, flux. The element of water.

Cups govern emotional and spiritual resonance, items that alter states of mind rather than physical form. These are items that affect the mind and mood, still grounded in the physical but brushing up against the cultural and psychical.

Item Examples:

Expressive Media (music, paintings, film, fiction, poetry)

Tokens & Keepsakes (lucky charms, symbolic items)

Memory & Personal Ephemera (photographs, diaries, letters)

Ritual Tools (candles, incense, tarot decks)

Swords: Associated with intellect and transcending limits, but also sorrow and misfortune. Intellect, conflict, abstraction. The element of air.

Swords are "thought given edge", items that encompass the spheres of instruction, knowledge and understanding. These are things that sharpen the mind from feeling to comprehension and are associated with information, deceit or strategy.

Item Examples:

Information & Data: (textbooks, strategy guides, schematics)

Maps & Navigation Tools (star charts, compasses, GPS)

Code & Logic Systems (encryption keys, hacking modules, ciphers)

Area Denial & Misdirection (smoke bombs, flashbangs, caltrops, &tc.)

Precision Instruments (scalpels, calipers, optical devices)

Wands: Associated with the action of the mind, mental constructs and logical sequences. Will, energy, transformation. The element of fire.

Wands are "applied will", items that expend energy to disrupt systems through abrupt, forceful change. These are expendable things that do and then cease, whether they are destroyed, fuelled or loaded.

Item Examples:

Explosives & Ballistics (grenades, bullets, accelerants, TNT)

Ignition Sources: (lighters, matches, flint)

Catalysts & Amplifiers (batteries, gasoline, generators)

Movement & Force Tools (engines, vehicles, pulleys)

Constructs & Deployable Tech (machines, robotics, drones, timers)

Major Arcana

The Major Arcana can be gauged more abstractly, analogously or metaphorically, being conceptual weapons rather than literal implements. Major Arcana primarily modify Lesser Arcana, but may modify other Major Arcana only if the effect explicitly mentions it or if a Lesser Arcana is present as a baseline.

Cards that modify the entire spread’s rules resolve before individual effects, which proceed in ascending order (0 → XXI), with inverted effects applying after upright ones unless a global effect overrides this. Cards of the Major Arcana always modify the previous eligible card(s) in the spread unless they specify otherwise, but if no valid target exists, the card resolves without having had any effect on the spread.

0. The Fool

Upright

Effect: Pure potential. Shuffles the spread’s interpretation (not order), all cards are replaced by random alternates from the Sylladex.

Symbolism: Pure potential, reckless freedom.

Inverted

Effect: Cosmic mockery. Forces the next draw to be The Fool again, looping the spread into recursive chaos. After three loops, the spread reshuffles.

Symbolism: Self-annihilation, cosmic mockery.

I. The Magician

Upright

Effect: Manifestation. Copies the non-global/recursive effect of one adjacent Major Arcana into a chosen slot and orientation (upright/inverted) in the spread. If the copied effect requires a target and none exists, the copy fails.

Symbolism: Manifestation, willpower.

Inverted

Effect: Cursed ingenuity. Copies the non-recursive effect of one adjacent Major Arcana into a random slot and orientation (upright/inverted) in the spread. If the copied effect requires a target and none exists, the copy fails.

Symbolism: Perversion of intent, cursed ingenuity.

II. The High Priestess

Upright

Effect: Hidden knowledge. Obscures one Lesser Arcana’s meaning, it cannot be used unless the Sun is drawn.

Symbolism: Hidden knowledge, intuition.

Inverted

Effect: Illusion. Reveals all cards, but their meanings are false (e.g., a Wand’s "will" reads as "apathy").

Symbolism: Illusion, psychological erosion.

III. The Empress

Upright

Effect: Fertility. Duplicates one Lesser Arcana card once per spread (e.g., two Wands).

Symbolism: Fertility, nurturing chaos.

Inverted

Effect: Corruption. Duplicates one Lesser Arcana card once per spread, but the copy's orientation (upright/inverted) is the opposite of the original.

Symbolism: Corruption, unnatural blight.

IV. The Emperor

Upright

Effect: Order. Locks one card’s meaning, it cannot be modified by other Majors.

Symbolism: Order, enforced structure.

Inverted

Effect: Anarchy. Unlocks all cards, but their effects now target each other (e.g., a Cup Modifies a Sword).

Symbolism: Anarchy, inverted power.

V. The Hierophant

Upright

Effect: Dogma. All Major Arcana in the current spread must be read as upright, regardless of actual orientation. This effect cannot be modified by other Majors.

Symbolism: Dogma, collective delusion.

Inverted

Effect: Blasphemy. All Major Arcana must be read as inverted, regardless of actual orientation.

Symbolism: Liberation through blasphemy.

VI. The Lovers

Upright

Effect: Union. Fuses two adjacent Lesser Arcana into a hybrid (e.g., Sword + Wand = "intellectual will").

Symbolism: Union, symbiosis.

Inverted

Effect: Poisoned intimacy. The fused effect backfires (e.g., "intellectual will" becomes "obsessive doubt").

Symbolism: Forced rivalry, poisoned intimacy.

VII. The Chariot

Upright

Effect: Victory. Amplifies one Lesser Arcana’s effect to its logical extreme (e.g., a Disk’s "wealth" becomes "glut"). Without a valid target, this resolves without effect.

Symbolism: Victory through will.

Inverted

Effect: Stasis. Nullifies the effect of the next Major Arcana in the spread, rendering it inert. Cannot target itself or cards already resolved.

Symbolism: Stasis, erased progress.

VIII. Justice

Upright

Effect: Karma. Balances the spread, beginning with the highest-numbered Major Arcana and working backwards, for every upright Major Arcana, one must invert.

Symbolism: Karma, cosmic retribution.

Inverted

Effect: Corruption. Imbalances the spread, beginning with the lowest-numbered Major Arcana and working forwards, for every inverted Major Arcana, one must invert.

Symbolism: Corruption, escaped consequences.

IX. The Hermit

Upright

Effect: Enlightenment. Isolates one Lesser Arcana, its effect is pure (unmodified by others).

Symbolism: Isolation, enlightenment.

Inverted

Effect: Erasure. The isolated card is removed from the spread.

Symbolism: Forced solitude, existential erasure.

X. Wheel of Fortune

Upright

Effect: Fortune. Rotates all cards’ positions clockwise (e.g., Slot 1 → Slot 2).

Symbolism: Fortune, cyclical fate.

Inverted

Effect: Cursed chance. Rotates all cards counterclockwise and inverts their meanings.

Symbolism: Cursed chance, inverted karma.

XI. Strength

Upright

Effect: Resolve. One card’s effect persists into the next spread, expiring when the spread is reshuffled.

Symbolism: Inner power, resolve.

Inverted

Effect: Fragility. One card’s effect vanishes from the spread.

Symbolism: Self-destruction, fragility.

XII. The Hanged Man

Upright

Effect: Sacrifice. One card’s effect is inverted, but its Suit is enhanced (e.g., a 1 of Cups becomes a 2 of Cups).

Symbolism: Sacrifice, new viewpoints.

Inverted

Effect: Ego death. One card’s Suit and meaning are erased and it replicates The Hanged Man’s effect once, using the original card’s Suit modified by its original orientation.

Symbolism: Ego death, forced enlightenment.

XIII. Death

Upright

Effect: Transformation. Replaces one card with another random card from the Sylladex.

Symbolism: Transformation, forced change.

Inverted

Effect: Hollow persistence. A card is replaced to the end of the spread, but inverted.

Symbolism: Hollow resurrection, unnatural persistence.

XIV. Temperance

Upright

Effect: Alchemical refinement. Choose one Lesser Arcana in the spread, its effect is purified, removing all inverted modifiers from it (if any). If already upright, enhance its potency (e.g., a 1 of Disks becomes a 2 of Disks).

Symbolism: Alchemy, synthesis.

Inverted

Effect: Volatile dilution. One Lesser Arcana’s effect is split into two weaker copies (e.g., a 3 of Wands becomes two 1 of Wands). These copies vanish if unused.

Symbolism: Volatile imbalance.

XV. The Devil

Upright

Effect: Obsession. One card’s effect recurs persistently every time its Suit is drawn within the current spread.

Symbolism: Obsession, addiction.

Inverted

Effect: Liberation. The Suit of a card is purged from the current spread entirely and shuffled back into the Sylladex.

Symbolism: Liberation through chaos.

XVI. The Tower

Upright

Effect: Collapse. Scrambles the spread’s positions (but not meanings).

Symbolism: Sudden collapse, revelation.

Inverted

Effect: Retroactive erasure. One card’s effect is undone, it never happened. The card is reshuffled back into the Sylladex.

Symbolism: Retroactive erasure.

XVII. The Star

Upright

Effect: Renewal. Reshuffles all Major Arcana back into the Sylladex. They act as new instances if redrawn. This clears all persistent effects.

Symbolism: Renewal, cosmic grace.

Inverted

Effect: False hope. Reshuffles one suit of Lesser Arcana back into the Sylladex. They act as normal if redrawn. This clears all persistent effects.

Symbolism: False hope, despair.

XVIII. The Moon

Upright

Effect: Illusion. Reveals two cards’ meanings and swaps them at random (but not positions/Suits).

Symbolism: Illusion, subconscious fears.

Inverted

Effect: Subconscious fear. One card’s meaning becomes its opposite (e.g., "love" → "paranoia").

Symbolism: Subconscious fears become reality.

XIX. The Sun

Upright

Effect: Solar revelation. Reveals all previous cards’ modifiers hidden before it was drawn.

Symbolism: Clarity, enlightenment.

Inverted

Effect: Eclipsed dogma. Obscures all previous cards’ meanings unless The Moon is drawn upright.

Symbolism: Dogmatic blindness.

XX. Judgement

Upright

Effect: Absolution. Purges all inverted cards from the spread (flips them upright).

Symbolism: Absolution, awakening.

Inverted

Effect: Damnation. Purges all upright cards, inverting them.

Symbolism: Premature damnation.

XXI. The World

Upright

Effect: Completion. Locks the entire spread as-is, preventing any further changes (even from previously drawn cards). This supersedes all other Major Arcana.

Symbolism: Completion, timelessness.

Inverted

Effect: Annihilated progress. The entire spread is shuffled back into the Sylladex.

Symbolism: Annihilated progress.

Quest System / Motivation

"Unwrite the Grand Illusion"

Goal: Prove that all meaning is self-imposed by deconstructing Sburb’s narrative.

Obstacle: The game resists being "solved", every revelation leads to more absurdity.

Final Trial: Confront a mirror version of themselves who insists "even futility is a lie."

God Tier

Title: Archivist of Entropy

Outfit: A skeletal figure twined with mycelial voidthread in a mockery of flesh wearing tattered, ink-stained robes, their face a swirling void overlaid with a rictus grin.

Equipment:

Oblivion’s Ledger

A blackened notebook of endless pages that weaponises narrative inconsistency through editorial commentary, revising ontology as physical change to expose unprovable truths and the cracks in cosmic logic.

Effect: Writings enforce observed truths, overwriting reality by anchoring statements to perceivable evidence (e.g., inscribing "YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD" retroactively kills the target if any observer, past, present or quantum, could theoretically perceive them as dead).

Catch: Karset cannot fabricate, they recontextualise, statements must align with some observable framework (e.g., myths, laws of physics, memories, metaphysics, conception, perception).

Abilities:

Passive: "Eschaton Mycelium" – Karset cannot be killed in a way that matters as conceptual fungal hyphae persist in the cracks of reality, regrowing from any remnant spore, memory or unobserved shadow. Decoupled from causality, sterilise one incarnation and another fruiting body emerges where the cosmos isn’t looking, clinging to the gaps in perception, the ontological rot eating at the foundations of reality.

Active:

Offensive: "Thanatography" – Karset forcibly compiles a target’s conceptual identity into a single page of Oblivion’s Ledger, causing the target to relive every death across all timelines, rendering them overcome by existential dread.

Defensive: "False-Vacuum Collapse" – A three-metre radius of dying physics that induces a localised quantum decay field, forcing incoming physical, metaphysical and conceptual attacks to "tunnel" into entropic oblivion before making contact.

Special: “Recursive Decoherence” - Permanently bind causal echoes of foes, drawn from dead timelines, as a standing army of orphaned possibilities, warped marionettes, hungry fractures in reality and erased maybes eternally enraged that they were never meant to be.

Ultimate: "Terminal Axiom" – A self-consuming narrative trap that weaponises the victim’s own story against them by inscribing a single sentence in Oblivion’s Ledger that defines the bottle’s core paradox, sealing the target into a 4D topological prison. The victim is then encysted in a localised narrative loop forged from their own ontological weight, wherein the victim’s powers, memories and identity become the walls of their prison, their struggle to escape fuel for the paradox. The more they struggle, the tighter the paradox constricts (e.g., trying to escape retcons their past attempts into failures), essentially rendering their reality into an ontological Klein bottle. Like the Klein bottle, the trap has no boundaries, feeding the victim’s own narrative back into itself, any attempts to break free only reintegrating them into the paradox. This process is not, however, instantaneous, and strong-willed foes resist the inversion, stretching the process across subjective hours, or even eons. Further, to sustain the bottle, Karset must anchor it with a fragment of their own existence, losing a proof of themselves, i.e. a timeline iteration, if it’s destroyed. The bottle is a tangible object, marrying the metanarrative with the literal as not just a mind-prison, but a horrific curio. To an observer, it appears as a murky flask inside which a miniature, distorted version of the victim recursively screams.

Role in a Session

As a Player

Would manipulate the game’s code, introducing glitches that erase enemies (or allies).

Their land quest would involve unwriting a dying universe’s final moments.

Denizen: Iktómi is the Denizen of the Land of Rot and Revelation (LORRE), a godlike being who embodies the planet’s entropic intelligence and serves as both mentor and antagonist. Drawing from Lakota mythology (where Iktómi is a trickster spider spirit), this entity is a weaver of fate, knowledge and decay, a keeper of truths that unravel those who seek them, less a boss and more a co-researcher in entropy.

As an Antagonist

A heretic prophet leading a cult that seeks to unmake the game, not out of malice or cruelty for its own sake but out of precision, because it is the only honest ending to such a tragicomic farce. They are a foil to idealists, whose morals are arbitrary, a mirror to fatalists, for whom even despair is a choice, and a threat to control-seekers, whose dominance is an embarrassing insult.

As a Tragic Figure

Their ultimate fate of erasing themselves from all timelines to prove a point would be a haunting conclusion, a final act of defiance that leaves no legacy behind.

THEME SONGS

Act 1: My Dying Bride - The Cry of Mankind

Act 2: Isole - The Watcher

Act 3: Queens of the Stone Age - Head Like a Haunted House

Act 4: Peccatum - The Moribund People

Act 5: Cake - Frank Sinatra

Epilogue: Miracle Music - The Mind Electric

Bonus: Ludo - The Horror of Our Love

entropyArchivist [EA]: YOURE STILL READING [good maybe you have learned something] entropyArchivist [EA]: but lets face it [you will die as you lived] entropyArchivist [EA]: [[missing the point]] entropyArchivist [EA]: H̸͍͇͎̭̙͎͓̳͙͎͖̭̳̗̣͌͛Ǫ̵̯͍͕͉̘̿N̷̡̨̢̯̮͕̰̜̩̳̺̪̲̖͇͉̐͊̑̊͋̔̄̾̃͑̎̽͝Ḱ̴̡̺̱̹̓̽̏͒̏̿̾͑̽̆̏̍͠

[yxcelestialchronicles]

The Signal of the Void

In the year 3425, humanity had long since abandoned Earth, scattering across the galaxy under the banner of the Terran Diaspora. The galaxy buzzed with life—colonies on crimson moons, trade hubs orbiting gas giants, and fleets of starships weaving through nebulae. But beneath the hum of progress, whispers persisted of an ancient pact: the Earth Alliance, a clandestine order said to guard secrets from the dawn of spacefaring days.

On the edge of the Orion Arm, aboard the Stellar Crucible, a rogue freighter turned sanctuary, Captain Elara Vex monitored a faint signal pulsing through the void. Her crew—outcasts and dreamers—called it the “EBS Frequency,” a mythic broadcast rumored to herald a galactic reckoning. The signal had grown louder in recent cycles, and the ship’s AI, a sleek orb named Solix, decoded its cryptic message: October 24-25, 2024, Earth Reckoning Time. The Veil Lifts.

“Earth’s calendar?” muttered Jorin, the ship’s grizzled mechanic, scratching his cybernetic arm. “That’s centuries dead. What’s it mean?”

Elara’s violet eyes narrowed. “It’s not about Earth. It’s a code. The Alliance is waking.”

The galaxy had its share of legends: the Ten Days of Darkness, when all comms would fall silent, and a single frequency would unite the stars in truth. Some said it was the work of the Starlink Sentinels, a network of sentient satellites left behind by Earth’s final stewards. Others claimed it was a trap laid by the Shadow Cabal, a rumored empire pulling strings from black holes.

As the fated date approached—translated to Galactic Standard Time—the Stellar Crucible intercepted a visual feed. A cloaked figure stood against a backdrop of swirling galaxies, voice resonating like a pulsar. “Prepare, children of the Diaspora. Stock your holds. The blackout comes. Ten days to purge the lies. The tribunals begin.”

The crew erupted in debate. Was this a revolution or a ruse? Before they could decide, the ship’s screens flickered, and every system locked onto the EBS Frequency. Across the galaxy, reports flooded in—colonies losing contact, trade routes going dark. The Ten Days had begun.

Elara piloted the Crucible toward a derelict Sentinel array, its crystalline spires glinting in the light of a dying star. There, they found the source: a massive Starlink node broadcasting visions of Earth’s lost history—wars, betrayals, and a promise of renewal. The crew watched, transfixed, as holographic tribunals judged spectral figures from eons past.

But the Shadow Cabal struck back. Obsidian warships emerged from the void, their cannons tearing through the array. Jorin rigged the Crucible’s engines for a desperate escape, while Solix uploaded the broadcast to every ship in range. “If we fall, the truth flies free,” it chirped.

The climax came on the tenth day. The galaxy’s comms roared back to life, flooded with the EBS signal. The Cabal retreated, their power fractured by the revelations. Elara stood on the bridge, staring at the stars. “The veil’s lifted,” she said. “Now what?”

Jorin grinned. “We build something new.”

And so, the Diaspora turned its eyes forward, guided by a signal from a forgotten world, reborn in the light of a thousand suns.

[annimator-ocblog]

OC Story: Impromptu

(We need to give my OG girls the spotlight)

Macy could hear her ringtone softly blare from its speakers.

She grumpily snatched her phone from the nightstand as Iris woke up beside her.

“Who’s texting you?”

Macy grumbled, “Dunno, but it’s 4 in the fucking morning, and I wanna go back to sleep. If ya wanna join in on the convo I’ll set up a small group chat.”

———

Lance > macy

Lance > MACY

Macy > bro it’s 4am. Tf u doin this late

Iris > shouldn’t you & Aaron be comfortably sleeping in each others arms rn?

Macy > got em lmao

Aaron > Look it’s complicated. Both of us woke up in some kinda technological labyrinth separated from each other and all we were told that this was for some sort of trial for all the Academy leaders

Iris > ??????

Macy > I’m more shocked that whoever brought you to that place managed to tear you & Lance apart

Lance > nice joke Macy, our first instinct when we woke up was to find each other and we DID

Lance > Also signal here sucks & the hotspot Aaron and I made for our cybernetic arms is staring to malfunction

Aaron > We’ll be leaving the leadership for Chaosmos in your hands for the time being

Aaron > and please whatever you do

[Lance is now offline]

[Aaron is now offline]

———

“Yeah, so Lance & Aaron messaged me & Iris at 4 freaking AM telling us that we’re the temporary leaders until this whole summit shit’s done.”

The entire team was all gathered in the living room to talk about the predicament Lance & Aaron found themselves in.

The room fell silent after Macy’s recollection of events from the early morning until C spoke up,

“Why would they feel the need to call ya about that? It’s not like they might get seriously injured in something like this.”

Jadeyn sighed, “Yeah well by the looks of it, they have a good feeling that they’ll get seriously injured in something like this with the way they’ve been clinging to each other after they reunited. It feels pretty weird that they’re only broadcasting this whole trial thing to students.”

“It’s kinda like how the Hunger Games were broadcast all over Panem even though the thing’s basically just a bunch of kids being forced to kill each other. And the fact that there’s gonna be some new ‘events’ happening in the trial once all the team leaders wake up remind me of the clock arena from the quarter quell.”

Everyone stared at Liam silently after his allusion, with Marcus quickly noticing this and attempting to change the situation’s mood,

“Well… the summit trials were also something that existed back in the 50s. But since the whole team system wasn’t a thing back then, they just plopped a hundred of the Academy’s best students into a colosseum’s arena and force them to survive whatever hostile creatures they place into it.”

“Jeez that sounds kinda dangerous. Did you & Liam ever have to go through a trial?”

Marcus and Liam stared at Tae with deadpan expressions on their faces to give them an answer.

“I’m gonna be completely honest, I forgot you two died like a month into your first year back in the 50s. No offence though but-“

Zac immediately cut off Tae before the mood got more awkward, “What are we supposed to do about this whole thing? I mean, part of me wants to bust into whatever labyrinth they put Lance & Aaron in to save them, but the last time we did something like that, most of us got hurt.”

Mercy quickly replied to them, “But waiting out this whole thing sounds boooooooring! What’s wrong with breaking & entering?”

Geno agreed with her, “Yeah exactly, being a spectator sounds like a one-way ticket to boredom for stuff like this.”

Jadeyn yelled back at them in anger, “Did you two not hear what Zac said? HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN WHAT HAPPENED IN THE CAVERNS?! OUR ENTIRE TEAM GOT HIT WITH A HARSH REALITY CHECK THANKS TO THOSE FUCKING ENTITIES, AND CAMERON NEARLY DIED. ARE YOU TWO-“

C immediately placed his hand onto Jadeyn’s shoulder as an attempt to calm them down.

They immediately reacted to C’s touch, snapping out of their rage as they took a deep breath.

“Sorry… about that. It’s been months, but I still can’t get what happened back there out of my head.” They turned to Macy & Iris before continuing to speak, “Either way, it’s your call, what do ya think we should do?”

Macy & Iris glanced at each other for a few seconds before Macy replied,

“Spectating the two of them looks like it’s the best option for now. But if things go south, we’ll might have to do some breaking & entering.”

[xasha777]

In the neon-lit depths of New Ventura, where towering skyscrapers grazed the stratosphere and digital billboards painted the night with relentless commercial zeal, Lyra stood alone in the control room of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. This was no ordinary church; it was a sanctuary for the soul and the mind, seamlessly merging ancient faith with cutting-edge technology.

Lyra, a renegade synth with striking platinum hair and piercing eyes, was not there for worship, but rather in pursuit of the legendary Sound Codex—a digital scripture rumored to be capable of controlling the minds of the masses through sonic frequencies alone. Disguised as a DJ, she was using the church’s sprawling multi-media setup, with its retro tech, to decode hidden frequencies embedded within the ancient hymns broadcasted for centuries.

As she adjusted her headphones, tweaking the dials on the analog soundboards inherited from an age when music was still played on physical media, Lyra felt the pulse of the city’s datastream flowing through her circuits. Her quest was interrupted by the appearance of Agent Rax, a cybernetic enforcer for the corporate conglomerates that ruled New Ventura from their glass citadels.

“Looking for salvation, Lyra?” Rax's voice was smooth, almost too human.

Lyra smirked, her fingers never stopping their dance across the soundboard. “Something like that. Maybe I'm just here to play some tunes.”

Unbeknownst to Rax, Lyra had already begun weaving the decrypted sonic patterns into her music, the frequencies subtly shifting to induce a state of heightened awareness in anyone listening. The chapel, once just a place of worship, was now her platform to ignite a revolution.

The standoff continued, with Rax analyzing her every move. “You know, Lyra, playing god comes with a price,” he cautioned, his hand resting on the hilt of his plasma-blade.

With a defiant glance, Lyra pulled up the final track, a composition synthesized from the Sound Codex itself. The music soared through the chapel, out into the open channels of the city, vibrating through every stream and feed. Rax hesitated, his resolve shaken by the music’s power.

Lyra didn’t wait for him to recover. With a swift motion, she activated the chapel's old teleport system, a relic from the days when technology was still magic, and vanished in a shimmer of blue light.

The music continued to play, a beacon of new hope echoing through the streets of New Ventura. As Lyra reappeared far from the chapel, she looked back briefly, knowing she had set something monumental in motion—a symphony of change that began in the most unlikely of places, Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.

[lies-and-deception]

ohhhhh there's even more where that came from!

- When the development team first announced on a livestream that they were working on a mobile port of Warframe, the screenshot used to show the UI accidentally included a gun named "Crumbguzzler", that no one noticed until the now-creative director Rebecca (who voices the plural robot woman who guides you most of the game) did exactly 30 seconds after the image was shown on the broadcast.

- Rebecca once recorded herself in-character reading through an imgur album of RNG-ed boss names from the Lich system (which includes the Little Meat thing mentioned above) for a now-retired Warframe content creator. She broke down at "Bopp Bipp", who subsequently became a meme associated with her. Bopp Bipp would resurface when their owner joined Rebecca's squad during a weekly community night livestream.

- The game's current design director Pablo once said "[stream chat] just wants to check the gyatt" on another official broadcast. Skibidi Toilet has also been referenced at least a few times by Rebecca and the other staff.

- The Warframe that had threesomes with a married aristocrat couple had her head blown through with a death ray when they got bored of her. She rose from the trash disposal and slasher-flicked them while they were asleep. She's now the in-universe version of the Headless Horseman, ghost mare and all.

- I should elaborate on the ancient galactic empire aristocrats. They would prolong their lives by swapping consciousness with younger-bodied people. One of them, now one of the queens of an enemy faction, tries to do this to you (mentioned in the above posts as "tries to eat you"), but is killed after the attempt fails. The experience is what leads you to regain control of your true form: a child.

- There's a bird themed Warframe that naturally has her own in-game Flappy Bird clone, accessed through her loadout menu.

- There are multiple sentient AIs that are actually the consciousness of someone uploaded into a glass cube as a form of capital punishment during the ancient galactic empire. Two of them run and maintain your spaceships, while another one is a sociopath that can sell you a working game console (and a few games, including the Flappy Bird clone), among other things, if you scan enemies for him to use in his personal large-scale battle simulator that he is completely obsessed with.

- There's an annual summertime event where one of the game's bosses, who runs a death game arena, puts on a water gun fight on Earth after gas leaks in her arena make her gang loopy. It's home to my favorite quotable line, "So you won this time. Best out of.....out of....how many have.....LET'S DO IT AGAIN, MEAT SACKS! "

- The city of people with their heads in their stomachs (and various other crude cybernetics) is actually a penal colony that is a rebuilt clone of a different nearby penal colony city that was annihilated by a giant mechanical spider who has the voice of an evil Disney stepmother shouting at the top of her lungs.

- There's another giant mechanical spider that only speaks in rhymes. It spends all of its time chilling out on a rooftop until you complete an optional bounty quest to destroy it.

- The talking fish is voiced by the same VA that voiced BG3's Astarion, RE8's Heisenberg, XC3's Zeon, etc.

- Space Grandpa literally introduces himself as "Hunhow, Destroyer of Worlds".

- the big bad man in the wall is an eldritch god who started the game's story and altered multiple timelines because it was bored. Same being that jumpscares you as a vitruvian man han-solo-carbonited into concrete, hence the name.

- The game has a battle pass that does not use any paid currency or tier skips. It used to have fully-fledged side stories until those became too much for the dev team to devote resources to.

- The current story era of the game (themed to Y2K) added a chat-based dating simulator. The previous era added a roguelite mode, which takes place in the aforementioned pocket dimension.

- Said pocket dimension was created by our character and is based on a fairy tale book made by Super Mechanically Brilliant Guy's daughter to help us and our comrades learn to control our emotions and powers. At a different point in the story, we help her and her dysfunctional nuclear family repair their relationship.

- the time loop that the alternate version of your character gets stuck in is one where they are executed via decapitation every day for an untold length of time (generally assumed to be a number of thousands of years iirc).

- Super Mechanically Brilliant Guy did indeed abandon his twink lab assistant who watches over Astarion Fish and the other talking animals to pursue the eldritch god in the wall by nuking a city on new years eve 1999 to generate enough energy to continue time traveling. That's a real sentence.

- The Backrooms labs that the twink and animals live and work in are directly below the place that the dysfunctional family (who has no knowledge of this) lives in, which is on the Mars moon that measures time in worms. The operation codename for our character going to the labs to pursue SMBGuy is named after the family's pet cat.

god, i love this game. will add more if i can think of anything.

My friend didn't believe that Grendel eats people Kirby-style and says UwU when he digests someone so I filled his screen with true things about Warframe that seem fake.

You have an evil twin who wants to kill you. You have a different evil twin who wants to replace you. You can play as your evil twin's pregnant wife. During one of the game's story quests you kill an autistic child. During another story quest you are jumpscared by a giant made of concrete. The first boss of the game is killed six different times. The only one of his deaths that is actually canon doesn't happen during the game, it happened in an animated trailer that aired at E3. There's a gun that shoots tentacle monsters. There's a sword that is also a shotgun. There are multiple transgender & nonbinary warframes. You can coat your bullets and swords with radioactive AIDS. You can also fill your flamethrower with radioactive AIDS. One of the warframes canonically had threesomes with a married couple. There are horses. There's an alternate dimension where you fight a child's mood swings. There's a gun that fires dubstep and crabs. There's a gun that fires miniature black holes. There's a gun that you reload by feeding it your blood. There's a gun that's operated with a car key. There's an entire category of guns you can throw at people. There's a book that is also a gun. One of the bosses has a chance to affectionately call you "Little Meat" A lady turned herself into a tree. One of the bosses in the game is your abusive father. You have an alien grandpa who lives at the bottom of the sea. You can own a pet vampire. There's a talking fish. Your babysitter is a reformed war criminal. The last update added an evil boyband. One of the studio's employees got their job by making porn of the game's characters. Hidden in the game's files are a number of fictional cooking recipes. The developers have canonized multiple community memes as in-game features. One of the new characters is possessed by an evil guitar. One of the most lore-important characters in the entire game has never appeared in-game even once and his only known depiction is in a webcomic. The aforementioned character wears a hat shaped like a hotdog. Critical chance can exceed 100%. And 200%. And 300%. One of Mars's moons measures time in Worms.

Anyone have something they'd like to add?

[vergaarbak]

Last week's radioshow ready for playback.

pic. by Vaune Trachtman

[sylseal]

The Eschatar Report #1 (Lancer Fiction)

REPORT SUBJECT: Eschatar, one of the moons of the planet Annula in the Ocripha System.

REPORT DICTATOR: Doctor Brenn Cross. Qualifications include a PhD in Xenobiology and a position as First Officer of the starship UEV Appalachia.

REPORT SOURCE: Surface of Eschatar via Omnihook.

REPORT REASON: Discovery of an old SecComm experimental facility, the subjects of which have numerous uses in medicine, weapons, and defensive technologies. Additionally, there is a worrying potential of violation of the First Contact Accords, in which case, we request input from the whole of ThirdComm on how to proceed.

Description:

Eschatar is a recently re-discovered moon, originally gutted and repurposed into an enormous prison-complex by SecComm circa ~4500u. It's 100 floors deep, and there are 10 floors per layer, and each "layer" is a massive sphere of space surrounding the central core of the moon. Each layer is progressively more and more dangerous the deeper you go (as well as smaller), but throughout the prison there are designated "safe zones," where even the experiments cannot venture. We have also managed to discover a kind of supply elevator, which allows us ready access to any of the ten layers, a fact that has made exploration of the facility much easier.

History:

Originally, Eschatar was, according to a reliable source, created to house SecComm's most dangerous and ethically compromising experiments, from megafauna and flora to cybernetics and everything in between. When SecComm finally fell, it appears that they gave the order for all of the experiments in Eschatar to be turned loose. Since then, it's been a free for all, with the strongest and most dangerous creatures roaming the innards of the moon as they please, doing as they wish.

Which now brings us to the present; initially, we began exploration of the facility after strange scan readings, but we were assaulted by megafauna almost immediately. Still, with the assistance of a mysterious voice (I'll get into that more in a little bit here) broadcasted over the moon's internal intercom system, we've been able to find the facility's safe zones, and have since managed to get our bearings. We are now ready to begin exploration of the facility in earnest, adopting a "look, but don't touch" approach to the various megafauna and flora for the purposes of our own safety. With that in mind, there are a few things that make even getting this report out difficult.

Specific Issues and Notations:

First of all, there is almost no possible method of communication outside of the moon once you're inside it. Even long-range omnihooks have had no success, here. Once you're inside, the only possible method of communication is local comms.

Secondly, we've discovered some of the reports from the local computer terminals, and I have to say, the sheer degree of genetic splicing and experimentation that went on in this place rivals even the works of Old Humanity, for better or worse. Some of the creatures that we've had to put down here have had genetic evolutionary traits that would make Smith Shimano drool, while others... our killing them was merciful euthanasia. That's not even taking into account just how dangerous most of the things in here are. We lost three good men just in the first layer alone before we even got our bearings.

However, we have had help since then, which has been a relief. Our aid takes the form of the only sentient inhabitant of this place, someone calling themselves "The Herald." Our first contact with them was during a near-disastrous encounter with a ferocious bio-mechanical megafauna (official records dub this thing "Tyrannox") with the ability to traverse all ten layers and a penchant for devouring everything it sees, and I do mean everything. It's ferocious, and immune to almost everything we hit it with. We were fleeing from the Tyrannox for the first time, when a voice suddenly came over the facility's intercom system. The voice said we didn't have time for pleasantries, and directed us to the nearest safe zone.

Once we were inside, the voice introduced itself as the Herald, and it was kind enough to explain the nature of Eschatar (hence the history lesson). It was reluctant to talk about itself, however, which led me to the initial hypothesis that perhaps it was an unshackled NHP. However, when I made this assertion, the Herald was quick to deny it, and noted that it is "a human person, in spite of everything." It refused to elaborate on what "in spite of everything" meant.

Besides that, however, the Herald's claim doesn't make sense. How can a human live that long? It's been 500 years, maybe longer; the Herald must have ended up trapped here somehow in recent years, right?

Not quite.

Our "Herald" knows a lot about SecComm's secret prison facility, as if they've been here since it was active. They allegedly have been here voluntarily, which has made me wonder why. However, thinking about it, is it possible that they believe others would see their very existence as a threat? What kind of creature would be so threatening that its safest place to be would be inside of Eschatar? And that was when it hit me.

I have a hypothesis that the Herald is a decorporealized human mind.

Not only would this make sense for SecComm to involve themselves in, but additionally, it would also make sense as to why it would hide itself behind so many dangerous creatures. After all, we only discovered the safe zones and the transport elevator thanks to Herald's aid. If it wanted us dead, all it would have had to do was just let us die.

Still, this is a hypothesis, so I'll wait until after tonight to reserve judgement, as tonight, we plan on using the elevator to venture to the core of the moon, where Herald resides. This way we can question it more thoroughly, and ascertain its true nature. I will make an addendum to this report tomorrow morning, should we discover anything that drastically alters the nature of it.

For now, this is Doctor Brenn Cross, signing off.

//END REPORT

[finitumgame]

No corporation that holds influence in the 5 Systems got that way through benevolence. Some, however, are far worse than others. Omega Cygen’s tyrannical rule of the cybernetics market and criminal dealings aren’t unknown, but their ties extend far beyond the norm and render them seemingly untouchable. They reign beside Adelphia Lmt., LyR Tech, Celestia Geonomics, and a small number of others as the elite of the corporations lovingly referred to as The Corps.

...and if you have a grudge (as anyone with sense does) against these Corps that hold sway over most of the settled systems, then you know the broadcast that taunts them - airing their laundry to anyone who tunes in.

Delphi, Illis, Sage, Seer. Whatever name assigned to her, in whatever system, she's known best as The Oracle. Over time, the simple broadcast grew into cells of resistance scattered across System 4 until the Corps began paying attention and The Oracle became the center of their ire.

However, their hunt has yet to be successful. The owner of the voice that helped spark a rebellion has managed to evade them all for nearly 30 years.

And is still poking bears with sticks. Though recently, she’s decided a sword might be better for Omega Cygen. Perhaps one with barbs...and poison...

You knew all of this already, of course... but when you’re contacted by someone with the offer of a job ... well, things get complicated. Especially since that someone is claiming to be The Oracle’s Daughter.

Finitum is an interactive visual novel that combines elements of text-heavy interactive fiction, comics, and sprites set in a scifi-fantasy world.

Take control of one of 8 Preset Characters as you navigate the cities on Marth (and possibly beyond), befriend and/or romance team members while trying to stay one step ahead of bounty hunters, and bring down one of the most powerful corporations in the 5 Systems.

Demo Release : TBA

Character creation and customization are not a feature in Finitum due current limits of my abilities. However, the preset characters can be guided through multiple paths and personalities depending on your choices. Each Preset has a different set of skills, two in each 'class' type, that will impact sections of the story and provide unique scenes as well.

There are currently 5 team members that will be recruited, along with you, by The Oracle’s Daughter and 3 that might join you along the way.

All of the team members are romanceable if you so choose. Platonic routes will be available for each, as well, with some providing unique scenes. Flirt options will eventually (sometimes sooner rather than later) unlock the option to pursue a romantic relationship. Future plans are to branch out and have the romance be selectable. However to make things easier to complete, each will be assigned to a specific preset for the time being.

[ The Presets ] [ The Team ]

Stay tuned for progress updates, world lore, and more information on each character.

[separatedway]

Schematics are downloaded to her I.R.I.S. system, and Ada reads the overlay it projects onto her surroundings. Pipes, vents, studs, supports, service hatches and hallways all are at her disposal. Alongside which, the cybernetic system displayed the itinerary for the evening.

Eight separate sections of bidding, set to an hour each, with televised broadcasts in a few intervals. Pomp and circumstance everywhere.

It's the perfect distraction to sneak into the dusty, rarely patrolled halls, and duck through old set pieces covered in moth-eaten canvas. Ada climbs up the ladder and on to the catwalk overlooking the auction. Kneeling on the latticed platform, she sets I.R.I.S to scan the objects and people below.

The hitch in the plan was that she didn't know which of her employer's competitors was the intended buyer for the stolen information. If she couldn't snag Astor, then her best bet was to wait and see who the deal was arranged with and secure the drive from her new mark.

Confirmation of the exact competitor placing moles and dealing bribes was sure to enhance her reputation, even if she wasn't able to humiliate Astor or put him in a compromising position.

There's hours to kill. May as well get comfortable.

Paintings, statues, art pieces, carvings, things brought out of private collections... Ada watches each piece start at high bids, and climb up to exceptional.

It certainly is a vanity project.

She watches with only passing interest, continuously scanning for security patrols below, and occasionally looking at faces in the audience.

Eventually, an Urn comes on display, and the spy does her cursory scans. Inside the urn, tucked away in the interior, was a small flash drive.

Payday.

The infrared sensor trips in I.R.I.S., flashing exclamation points with arrows pointing outside of her field of view, prompting a frown out of Ada, and a quick swap to that view showed three points of extreme heat in the audience, almost white on her display next to the mingled greens and reds of the crowd.

"Are you seeing this?" she says to her contact, and switching back to the normal visual input to zoom in on the faces.

Jareth Simmons and Seth Astor. Both in different parts of the house, both looking sweaty and ill, features sinking in... and the third-

Ada Wong.

Ada blinks in confusion, seeing her doppelganger here after all this time...

Things were about to get more complicated and interesting.

It's obvious to Ada that Jareth and Seth were infected with C-Virus, if Carla was here. While she understood Jareth's connection with her double, and did not question the vengeance of the scorned woman against whatever remained of the Family. But Astor was an unknown.

Jareth falls out of his seat, crumpling over on the floor. The auctioneer pauses in his bidding calls, and the camera crews shift their focus to the sudden collapse of the man. Astor rises from his seat, pulling at his collar, loosening his tie, and desperately trying to cool off before collapsing as well.

Dull murmurs turn into a small din of concern, as the medical team on standby is called in to give aid. People stand from their seats, trying to view the unusual happenings, asked to stay put by the first responders.

Order isn't kept long.

Both men's skin starts to bubble and slough, discoloring and shifting as black bile spews up between their teeth, and they convulse with several bug-like, wide eyes emerge from their skulls.

Astor lurches and growls, Simmons crawls and swipes at the first responders- and in the realization that the undead were now among them, the wealthy shriek and panic, fleeing from the monsters among them.

Someone pulls a fire alarm, and the blaring horns and pulsing lights signal a need for escape.

A lanky man, tan skin, and wavy, shoulder-length black hair and a dark navy suit rushes the stage, intent on the Urn.

Ada looks intently at the man, activating the hookshot built into her clutch.

"Luis, see if you can find out anything about that guy."

Thwip!

The hook grapples on the other side of the platform, Ada stands and swings down to swipe the Urn away.

"I'll be taking this," she declares, cradling the vessel under her arm as the pulley system kicks in and lifts her back up in the air.

She sticks her landing and quickly retrieves the drive, reluctant to leave the urn behind (it was a nice collector's item), but securing the little drive in her clutch, retracting the hookshot back into its hidden mode.

"Alright, I have it. I'm headed up to the roof. I'll meet you at the halfway point. Let's get out of here."

And she runs, following I.R.I.S's pathway laid out for the ladder that led to the rooftop, making her way to the exposed scaffolding.

The auction was smartly split between types of pieces, a "come and go" sort of charity for the foundation. The top bidder was to have their name inscribed on the edifice of the outside renovation project. Such an event was the equivalent of throwing a raw chicken into the alligator pen, and it certainly drummed up the fighting urge in some of the deepest pockets.

With a slow trickle, the capital-heavy crowd dispersed to seat themselves for the long night ahead. A total of eight separate sections of bidding, each an hour in length and broadly televised, the incentive for the bidders to stay was purely for pride and vanity purposes. Who could throw the most money around? Who could put themselves in front of the most cameras and speak the most? Who had a scheduled interview and who didn't?

Some things never change.

Carla took her glass into the historic opera theatre and settled herself with a huff near the wall-side aisle with a fantastic view of the audience more than the art.

She was a patient person, one of her few virtues she had clung to, and perhaps the very core thing that made her, her.

The last soiree she'd gone to ended similarly to how this was going to end. The host of the auction greeted everyone on stage, and his voice over the microphone coaxed a swell of applause from the seated and eager audience in formal clothing.

Carla brought the champagne glass to her lips and rested it against them, letting the bubbles tickle the back of her throat while her shoulder neighbor and his wife discussed the upcoming pieces, prices, and gowns for the event.

She reminisced, the world looking blurred and familiar through the texture of the bent bottom of her glass.

June 28, 2013

"I would like to thank everyone for coming out tonight."

Light Applause. She spoke for Derek in this space, of course, and no one invited knew why. There were a few confused murmurs. They expected Derek to lead this party, despite her prominent position as one of the bosses in the space. His name was on the announcement they had received. His table and place setting was strangely empty, despite a carafe filled with ice water.

She had drink in hand that was the price of a layman's yearly salary or a body on the market for a single bottle. The silver foil and melted wax seal on each bottle marked the vintage for a celebration. The Quad Tower conference hall was perfectly dressed for the occasion, small mobile catering robots moving trays of rich food through the space with quiet hums in the background.

"Now," she had said, "-we celebrate the end of one of the most lucrative seasons as a company."

More light applause. Medical management and insurance was one of several cash cows the Quad Tower was responsible for housing, one feeding into the other. Carla smiled, carrying the drink while her earpiece magnified a quiet laugh that was echoed by several others.

There are plenty of people here, blurring together.

"We are like family here," she said, quiet and placid, "- and I have some acknowledgements to make-" crinkles magnified over the mic as she picked a folio off of the speaking podium and licked the tips of her fingers to peel through the first page. A list of names that had sold her out. A list of names that knew, and did nothing.

"Firstly, for true behavioral impotence in managing company money, Raushan Bell."

The clapping had begun as she finished the statement to clap alongside her peers. The words she spoke were processed slowly, people looking at each other with confusion and some frowning. The aforementioned fellow, a huge proponent of Project Ada, and a man she had sat a few feet from her blinked like a fish.

He'd been one of her biggest cheerleaders. He'd helped her connect with the contracting service necessary to invest time in underwater structures. He'd found her just as appealing as Derek did.

Carla passed a slip of paper to one of the migrating gliding robot tables, which began to slide over the floor on its wheels to deliver the letter.

"Secondly, for a spectacular job keeping all parties involved with our ever climbing accomplishments, out of hanging in a jail cell, Alex Pun-Jiao."

A man that knew how to make people disappear now was at the center of attention, his colleagues and friends turning their eyes to him. They stared at him, a man who had put himself into a fine suit for the occasion, his brow furrowing. They had never gotten along.

There was some clapping in the quiet, perplexed and unsure. She kept smiling.

"Thirdly, for your investment into delivering our promises of a better world, Derek C. Simmons, without whom this entire operation would have not been possible."

She raised her glass, walking back to the podium away from the main dining space to collect two more folios to deliver to the various tables. The catering drones hummed and slowly rolled over the floor.

"And there are so many others who I could acknowledge for doing spectacular things, but I won't waste your time or mine. So, please join me in a toast."

There was unease. A cough in the absence of a lot of movement. Shakily, the people that had worked under her, or beside her for years took their glasses or sat murmuring to the ones that did.

"To the world that you have built in your efforts."

A choral of weak agreements.

Alex stood and pointedly asked "what is this about?!"

Carla drank her glass of wine in several audible gulps, and pressed a button on her comm cube.

And the sudden crack of explosives cut any other sound out.

They had been working on prototype mobile explosives, a drone.

From the distance she was she was perfectly fine. What wasn't rendered into human detritus was left clinging to life and agonized in pieces. Fire began to eat at the floor, the walls of the space.

She took the neck of her empty glass and tossed it gently forward into the remains of Derek's empty table. People half dead moaned, and screamed.

"What a mess."

From a small clutch on her person she produced a small steel ball, and with one quick pitch, tossed it into the dying crowd that remained.

-

Whispering it again, years later, as hours passed and bids came and went put into perspective the truth. She had changed, and not much else had. The mundane order of Derek's vision still existed. The world's order was a castrated, limp thing, devoid of real divine inspiration on top, and disproportionately tipping over the true chaos and creativity of what was under it.

A Giacometti statue was up for bids, a long lanky brass figure dancing.

The man that was sweating and slightly hunched in the center aisle caught her eye, and she watched engorged veins over the course of hours swell at the back of his neck.

Hours passed, and she watched, and listened. Bids were flush.

Day turned to night, with a few breaks between auction sessions, a quick reset of her makeup, and she was back in time to watch an urn be presented on display. Urns like this tended not to go on the market these days. There were too many poachers for the pieces.

And as the auctioneer began the starting bid, the man in the center aisle fell over his arm rest into the carpet.

He did not get up. Carla watched the life leave Jareth Simmons, and licked her lips.

[bostoniangirl85]

More Gadget headcanons

I touched upon this idea briefly in the last chapter of ‘Through Thick and Thin’, but I’ve always wondered about how integrated Gadget’s biologic and robotic/electronic parts are and how they operate together. I’m no doctor but I’ve done some research and here are some of my thoughts on how Gadget functions as a cyborg:

1. He needs about 3,000 calories daily to maintain his energy and ensure his pacemaker and other vital life systems that sustain his heart, lungs, and brain don’t fail. 1 watt is equal to about 859.845 calories per hour (rounded up) and given how active Gadget is this could very well be the minimum he needs. And he seems to have a pretty big appetite in the show.

2. We see in the show that Gadget sweats, though if this is actual sweat or a replacement fluid is unclear. But I think Gadget does still possess blood and sweat as these are natural cooling systems and he would need that in addition to any electrical cooling system to make sure he doesn’t overheat.

3. Gadget’s height varies throughout the show but after looking at several screenshots (because I’m a nerd like that) and comparing him to Penny and Quimby Gadget seems quite tall the majority of the time. With the added weight of his gadgets he could easily weigh anywhere from 250-325 pounds (113-147 kg). So he needs to exercise daily to maintain enough muscle mass to support his own body weight and keep his bones strong. This is also supported in the show since we see him working out in many scenes.

4. Gadget has enormous endurance thanks to the electrical components that make his pulmonary and respiratory systems so strong. In addition to being able to endure an extreme amount of physical punishment, Gadget’s cybernetic components are able to draw in huge amounts of oxygen. To quote a famous broadcaster, Gadget can move like��“a tremendous machine” if needed. More oxygen means more power to his muscles and his heart is more like that of a racehorse’s in terms of power, and his lungs like bellows. Gadget will even give off steam like an engine if he exerts himself enough as his body needs to clear out the large amounts of carbon dioxide.

The screencaps below are probably the most realistic depictions of Gadget - he’s not overly bulky but still in very good shape:

What do you guys think? Are there any physics/medicine/PT gurus out there? 

[voidendron]

I've been thinking about the future of my Alliance again

I think I'm gonna have it rediscovered a little differently than I'd originally planned

Instead of a lost merchant ship just happening to stumble upon it

Atten and Araa sent up a series of clues. It fits their Need To Be Dramatic personalities they got from their mother, but it also leaves the galaxy at large slowly able to find answers to their questions. Names long forgotten finally have faces to them, and the holos even answer some basic questions

The "clues" are a series of holos, set up similarly to holocrons but obviously lacking the Force aspect. These holos are in a hibernation sort of state, and when the first one is triggered it scans datawaves. If it finds no war-like activities in its system for the last decade, then it activates

The first holo? Found at the Barsen'thor's - Synnda's - tomb. Synnda himself gives the clue in his pre-recorded message, and he gives the history of the Jedi of his time, what his title means

Synnda's clues lead to the dilapidated base that's rumored to have been Alliance HQ thousands of years ago, where Qizulth's holo can be found hidden in the wall of the research center. He talks about Sith philosophy, and the importance of preserving history

His clue leads into the Odessen wilderness, where Varrich's holo lay built into his headstone - a false headstone, as no body is found in the ground beneath, for he made it to see the Alliance's new home. He talks about how war can destroy civilizations, and break even the strongest of men. His holo is the first good look at why the Alliance left the known galaxy

The clues go on, from Lana's on Ziost, to Theron's in a long-forgotten SIS compound in Coruscant's undercity, and then...

The clues stop.

They would have led to Xaerez's holo next, but... well. His holo had been hidden on his estate.

His Alderaanian estate.

His holo was lost with the planet decades before

The galaxy at large laments that they'll never find the last of the clues, as the next holo can't activate until the one before it has. And that's assuming the next can even be found without Xaerez's clue

And then.... on an open channel, nearly a decade after the last known holo was found, broadcasts the next clue

The estate had been robbed almost a century before Alderaan's destruction. The holo ended up in a private collection, and the collector it ended up with accidentally activated it without knowing what it would do

Xaerez's is short and simple, warning others to stay away from the life of a spy, he doesn't answer anything like the holos before him. As soon as he gives his clue, his holo turns off, and unlike the others it won't turn back on. He doesn't even intruduce himself

His clue leads to Rishi, to a long-abandoned beachside home. With the remains of an ancient cybernetic Rancor, is the final holo

Commander Terrin's. The first Alliance Commander. Hers is more robotic, clearly not a recording and instead put together with a computer

Her message is a cold threat to anyone who would harm the new Alliance. And with it, a phrase... and coordinates

Coordinates that lead deep into uncharted space

The race is on

Spacers, merchants, adventurers - many people try to find the planet.

Few survive

None come back with the news everyone waits for

Two decades pass since the final holo's discovery

And a group of spacers, with a Force-sensitive pilot being the only way they survive the dangerous and unknown space, find the new world. Odessa

They're met with distrust, until....

"We were sent," says the Bothan. His fur is ruffled with unease. "By 'Commander Terrin.'"

The leader - Consul Tel'arra, a Twi'lek hybrid - gestures for her people to lower their weapons. The silence between the spacers, and lost civilization now re-found, hangs heavy in the air

The pilot, Mirialan, steps up to the Bothan's side. "We....stand for you," he says, echoing the holo word-for-word. "The galaxy beyond welcomes you home."

Silence

Studious stares

Then,

"...Then we stand with you."

[slothgiirl]

the trash pile: alex turner x reader

The cybernetic augmentation juts out from her temple, leading down to her chin, the metal a dull grey. Nothing says belter more than slap job augmentations, Alex thinks as she smiles at him, reaching out with her hand to him.

He takes it.

She's pretty from what he can see from the dim yellow lights in the club. The augmentation somehow complementing her already well formed cheekbones. A mess of bleached blonde hair falling down her shoulders.

And she's already offered, dragging him out onto the floor shamelessly. He'd rather dance with a beautiful woman than stand around drinking and having to listen to all his friends talk about people, things, he's unfamiliar with.

They've moved on.

The floor flashes bright blue to the beat of the music. Too loud to carry a conversation. Too loud to think. Alex can finally stop overthinking, what he's done since he landed on Tranquility base six hours ago.

Her touch is solid and confident, hands on his shoulders as she laughs, one hundred percent in the moment. He doesn't think he's ever been like that. Her ease is as natural as Alexa's charm.

His gaze flickers back to the table they'd been sharing, but they've dispersed into the club. He can't see a trace of any of his friends. Matt had long since left, having a ceremony to wake up for. "Tomorrow," he'd grinned, promising a night of debauchery.

"Hey," Taylor calls into his ear, bringing his attention back to her, blue eyes like the sky back on earth. None of the gaudy recreations of sky broadcasted through the colonies. Mars was said to not even bother, letting it's people grow up with an orange sky.

She smiles, tilting her head, before leaning in.

And wow, Alex really has been alone for too long, as her lips on his send his heart beat into a frenzy. Blood rushing in his ears like a teenage boy all over again. It isn't real, but he thinks in that second he loves her.

Alex always has been a romantic.

They leave the club together. The corridors are still red for the night. The one thing he hadn't missed. Even Ceres had better artificial lighting mods.

"I've got to go to work," Taylor tells him bluntly, "but you should give me your number. I think we could have a lot of fun together." She looks at him with hopeful eyes, biting her lower lip. He wants to kiss her again.

But, he'll be gone the day after tomorrow. The entire base holds too many ghosts for him to feel entirely comfortable. It makes him keep looking over his shoulder, expecting Josh or Julian. Two people he's long since lost touch with.

"I'm actually not staying that long," he admits as she leads them through the corridors. Alex can still recognize the alcoves he and Matt would take smoke breaks in. Which turn would lead them back to the lifts. Another life.

"That's a shame."

He chuckles. Before his mind catches up with his tongue, "wait, did you say you're going to work now?"

"Yeah. Its so fucking boring," Taylor says, stopping besides the lifts. "Coms graveyard shift." She rolls her eyes.

"I don't blame ya," he admits. Alexa had worked the coms. She'd always complained about having to go thirty seven floors below, bundled up in jackets. Since it was less populated, the government enacted more energy saving features.

"Maybe we'll see each other again in the drift," she grins suggestively, right as she steps into the lift.

Alex watches the doors closed, before he turns around, deciding to go find an open store. He could go for some more coffee while he's here. Maybe even stock up on it. It shouldn't be hard. The Base wasn't a residential area. Tourists were coming and going as well as SFN members.

There was the launchpad.

He lets himself wander. Too buzzed to be as tired despite the early call time he has in the morning. It would be just his luck to miss Matt's big promotion because he'd overslept after having traveled a month to be here.

It's not hard to find an open bodega. The open sign flashing green in the dim of the night.

Maybe he should've gotten the night vision implants after all. Miles never shut up about it. How easy it was to make his way about different colonies even during night cycles. And you could only tell if you were looking for the little silver ring around the iris.

Alex slips inside, making a bee line for the food. It's been hours since he last ate. At this point a cup of noodles and instant coffee sound like a dream. He gets the little powdered donuts as well. Then goes for the liquid milk creamer.

Who knows when he'll next have that option. No one had yet to figure out how to increase cows milk production in space. And powdered never tasted the same.

He looks at the fruit. Incredibly overpriced since it's a bodega. But apples and oranges. . .Alex could still remember the taste of fresh squeezed orange juice his mother would make. She'd cut them all open, let him squeeze the juice out before sucking on the pulp.

Alex grabs the smallest oranges.

There's no reason not to splurge. He has the money for it. And work is never hard to come by with his skill set. There's a large market for the skills SFN ensigns have, but most of those ensigns just stay with the navy.

He turns to go pay for his small haul, but the sight of a woman staring out of a faux porthole stops him in his tracks.

Her profile could not hide how beautiful she was, her gaze caught by the live feed of the earth on the other side of the moon. Romantic dark eyes gazing into the side of the bodega, her questionable egg salad sandwich forgotten in her hand. The bump in her prominent nose only served to make her profile more striking.

"That's not actually the earth," Alex starts gently, catching her attention. "Ya know." She turns to him, trying to hide the fact that she'd jumped, startled by his presence. And doing a damn good job at brushing off the surprise.

He was right. She's beautiful. Well formed full lips. Her dark hair tucked a braid, looking better in trousers and patched up hoodie than most people could dressed to the nines. Her shoes stick out from the casual ensemble, patent red leather with a split toe. There's the hint of dark circles under her eyes, probably from a missed nights sleep.

And a scattering of light scars like stars by her left cheekbone.

"I know," she responds, "I just never thought I'd ever be this close to the earth."

"You could take a trip to the other side and see the real thing," he muses, unable to hide the longing in his voice. Alex knew in his bones he'd never step foot on earth again. Never walk the streets in Sheffield or London again. But he couldn't help but wish for a miracle.

She shakes her head, the warmth in her eyes receding as she closes herself off. "Can't. Have to meet with a friend and then go back."

"Must be a good friend if you've come all this way."

She shrugs noncommittally, "He's more of an acquaintance of a friend. I've never actually met the man. But things being as they are," she explains, "it's best done in person."

Alex is now intrigued, a red flag raised in the back of his mind that still flies away information happening in the corner of his eye just in case. It makes him a damn good private investigator. "Mysterious."

"Forgive me for not spilling all my secrets to a stranger," she notes, arching a brow.

He can't help but chuckle. "Ya got me there love. Let's try something else."

"Like what," she asks, the corners of his lips turning up.

"How are you finding our moon?" The moon might not think it was the earth's, and the government sure wasn't, but the moon still spun around the earth the way it had for millions of years.

"Disappointing," she admits, frowning, "Ceres is livelier. And would it kill them to use brighter lighting?"

"Austerity measures," Alex shrugs. It had been the answer for as long as he'd been alive.

"From what," she asks, tilting her head, a smirk forming on her lips, "there's no war or reason for shortages."

"Just repeating the party line," he admits.

"Well," she raises her sandwich like a sad little white flag, "I've got to get going. It was nice meeting you."

"Can I get your number?"

Surprising him, she shakes her head, "No. I doubt we'll ever meet again. I don't plan to stay on the moon for long."

"Lucky for you," he counters, following her to the sales woman, built like a rugby player, "I'm not from the moon. So there's hope yet for our paths to cross."

She snorts, digging around her pockets for money, slowly building up a pile of change to pay with. "Let me guess," she says knowingly, as her eyes look him over, taking in his hair now curling past his ears, the navy blue sweater and white shirt combo that had felt smart earlier but had wrinkled in the course of the night. "you're from earth."

Alex answers bashfully, "born there." He always felt like apologizing for having been born on Earth. For having spent his childhood breathing in air without a care. For not knowing how precious an atmosphere was.

"Well I don't plan to go to earth," she trails off, waving her receipt away.

"Neither do I." He hands the lady a bill too large for what he's bought and follows her out the door, not bothering for his change. "But I take it there's no way I can convince you to give me a number?"

"None."

"How about a name," he offers. Alex had not seen one person that he'd bothered to chase in years. And here she was, indulging him as though he was a stray puppy she had fed once and now followed her around in hopes of more scraps.

"Yours first," she snipes back, not missing a beat.

"Alex." He doesn't ever bring up his last name. Too much weight. A famous family. And an infamous past. Being just Alex was a luxury.

"Tisiphone."

A name fitting for someone born in the jovian system. Maybe even Dione. But Dione, while a newer colony, wasn't bloody awful for someone to want to leave. It had to be-"Titian," he guesses. The wild west of space. SFN cadets hated getting assigned there. Johanna had said the worst part was the perpetual twilight.

Too many crevices to hide in.

"Yes," she responds, "and hopefully never again."

"If we ever meet again," the romantic in him already imagining them crossing paths in a Callisto settlement, planting trees for the rest of their lives and learning to work wood, "can I take you out for a cuppa?"

Tisiphone laughs, smiling tight lipped, "If it happens then I'll say yes earth boy."

** ** ch 2

The ceremony drags on.

They all sit, gathered around the Kennedy Hab, the first large permanent building on the dark side of the moon. The benches are as uncomfortable as ever, as Alex gazes down at a sea of navy uniforms all with various ranks on their right shoulders. He's seated right next to Alexa. The boys down there somewhere with Matt.

It's an SFN event so Alex's paranoia is right for once. The second glances the captains and commanders threw his way were knowing. They recognized him.

It sets his teeth on edge.

Alexa pats his knee, comfortable around him despite their shared history. Johanna besides him with her fiancé. They both keep glancing at each other, infinite in their whispering. He wants that.

"I'll throw hands at anyone who says anything," Alexa reassured him. Looking especially nice in a long red dress. She's not single. But it clearly isn't serious enough if she didn't bring him along to celebrate her friends.

"That would make it worse," Alex responds, keeping his gaze forward, careful to keep his face neutral. It usually wasn't a problem. That being his default expression. But this was bringing up events from his past he's long since buried.

"Derek was supposed to be here," Alexa says to try to distract him, "you would've liked him. Life of the party. Miles and him had a one night stand and now we're all friends."

"Well that's not saying much considering Miles will sleep with anything."

She laughs, "True. But even Nick gets jazzed to hang out with him and you know how hard it is to get close to Nick."

"He's just careful about who his friends are," Alex acknowledges. Unlike Nick, Alex was just terribly bad at opening up.

Nick was just picky. "That says something good about little old me." Alexa twirls her hands over her head. Sticking her nose in the air. "Not such a mess after all."

"You've never been a mess," he tells her, watching as they begin to call up all the newly minted commanders. Matt shouldn't take long. H being closer to the front of the alphabet.

"Yeah but I've never been particularly good at anything but charming my way into things," she shrugs shamelessly. Alexa wasn't the type to lose sleep over her insecurities.

The Admiral present at the ceremony, Marcus Kapoor, speaks clearly over the microphone, "Commander Matthew Helders."

Alexa and Johanna both stand up, yelling, "congrats!" Alex claps as loud as he can for a beat longer than the rest of the room as Matt shakes hands with the Admiral.

Alex remembers his own ceremony seven years ago now. It had been a smaller affair. His entire career accelerated by his talent.

He swallows back the bitter lump that forms in his throat. There's no reason to cry over spilled milk, his father had often told him back on earth.

Try telling that to anyone who doesn't live on earth: most milk is powdered in space.

He finally lets his eyes search through the crowd, trying to spy the man who'd once been his great mentor and friend. But if Julian is present, Alex doesn't see him among the uniforms. He's sure that he'd know Julian anywhere. His hair perpetually sticking out wildly like he'd just woken from a nap, streaks of color running through.

It was a welcome sight from the mandated navy and neutral colors the SFN preferred. Everything was done to keep the SFN neutral, trying to avoid any conflicts between the colonies. And especially between Mars and Earth.

Unable to wait, Alex asks Alexa, "did Julian come?" Julian and Matt had never been as close as Alex had been to the older man, one of the rare people to turn down a promotion. But Alex thinks Julian still would've come and cheered Matt on.

Drinking at bars until morning talking about life and chatting about their mutual obsession with vintage terran music cemented friendship like nothing else.

She frowns, lines forming between her brows. "Captain Casablancas?"

"Yeah," Alex nods, a nervousness creeping into the lining of his stomach. Julian had also been the only person present during the incident that had chosen not to testify. If he had, Alex had agonized long hours over that large IF, he'd probably have been given a far harsher sentence.

And it looked like the man had finally accepted the rank of Captain.

Alexa places her hand on his arm, doe eyes settling on his, before gently attempting to break the news, which given what she was saying, was impossible to break gently. "You haven't heard?"

"No."

"Julian's dead Alex," Alexa explains, her hand anchoring him to reality, even as his world lurches, "some accident with a faulty seal."

Fuck.

What the bloody hell!

Alex clenches his jaw. Julian deserved more than dying in a preventable accident. He was, and remained the only person to have jumped tracks at the SFN, going from maintenance to exploration.

"I'm sorry," she tries, patting his arm with her hand. "I know you two were close. This is sort of the worst way to hear the news isn't it?"

"How long ago," Alex asks in lieu of responding to her. Julian. Alex could hardly call him a friend anymore.

By the time he'd worked up the courage to message the man, Julian hadn't bothered responding at all. A cold message that Alex could understand.

He hadn't tried to contact him again.

"Three weeks."

Alex nods, fixing his gaze on the stage. The names being spoken, called up on stage, meaningless now that Matt had gone.

He'd been traveling to the Base.

No one had bothered to tell him.

They make their way down to Matt, navigating the crowd who are also here to celebrate their relatives and friends. Alexa led the way, cutting through the crowd like a knife through butter.

Jo and her fiancé hold hands. His eyes never leave her form as she leads on.

Alex frowns.

He'd thought. . .he'd thought, when Matt had first met him upon arrival at the base's landing pad, that he could slide back into his old life. Pick up where he'd left off. Maybe get a job here permanently.

Alex hadn't realized how lonely he'd been until he'd sat around and watched all his friends eat and drink. Easily communicating with each other they way only tightly knit groups of friends could. Finishing each other's sentences.

They had once been like that with Alex. But years in between meetings left him out of the loop. It didn't help that he had chosen to self isolate. Choosing to take jobs that left him without a permanent home, spending his free time tucked into various hotel rooms.

"Alexander Turner," a voice calls out.

He turns, faced with a black woman in a sleek khaki green suit, a moon police officer uniform. Her hair is as sleek as the press of her suit. Dark curls dusted with grey hairs.

"Yes," he asks, halting with great hesitation. The last time he'd dealt with the moon police, they were ensuring he was under house arrest during his trial. For his safety they'd told him over and over.

"I'm Major Gabriela Moss," she tells him, sticking her hand out with great formality. "If you'd please come with me," she continues, as he shakes her hand. "There's a job I'd like to discuss with you."

Swallowing any nervousness he has, he nods. How bad could it be? Probably some white collar crime that the police don't want to deal with. Alex could stock up on lots of coffee with the money. "Lead the way."

She takes him to the precinct, located next to the base. Tranquility Base fell under SFN jurisdiction. But the residential areas ringing the building were left to the MP 505 precinct.

Her office is just like every other police office. Bright disorienting lights. Cream walls, with no decor. A desk bolted down to the floor, in case the artificial gravity malfunctions. And a photo of her wife and kids tilted just out of his view.

"What's the job?" Alex wonders if some idiot tried to rob the casino that was right within the base’s building. Trying to steal from SFN was asking for it.

"A man was found murdered in residential bloc 571 this morning," she explains, lighting up her monitor. A photo of an older man with a walrus mustache came up on the screen.

"Isn't homicide your department," Alex asks, twisting his ring around his finger.

"Usually," Major Moss admits, back straight, hands on the desk. "But this man had a false identification bracelet. According to our records he was born on the Moon. But when my officers requested his file from the Bloc listed, nothing appeared."

"You think he was hiding?" Only criminals bothered to falsify ID bands. But why the moon? He could see why a fugitive from the law or a crime boss would come to the moon, but to stay here this long?

Even earth was easier to get lost in, among billions.

"Yes," she surmises, "and for quite a few months. How he's gone undetected this long is a mystery."

"So you'd like to save your skin and sweep this all under the cover." Alex can see a coverup as it happens. The MPs would be humiliated at having let a fugitive run wild for this long.

But, he probably wasn't a criminal if he spent this long without so much as a word. Probably fleeing loan sharks back on some asteroid. Maybe from Titan.

The murder must have landed yesterday. Within the week at most.

"Will you take the job on," Major Moss asks, "there's more information I have if you agree to take on the case."

Alex sighs. He's intrigued. But taking on this case would mean spending more time on the moon which is both a good and bad thing. He hasn't had a proper chat with any of the lads since he last saw Matt on Vesta nearly two years ago now.

But he isn't exactly at ease this close to SFN. At least in the belt, there's lots of stations with little to no navy presence. Callisto's base was generally isolated from the rest of the population due to the way in which the colony on Callisto had developed.

A man's dead.

And from what he can tell, Major Moss would be more than happy for the case to go cold and never have to explain to her superiors how a man went undetected for so long.

But why bother?

Alex can't understand why the man needed to falsify his identity only to sit around. Unless he wasn't a criminal but innocently caught up with the wrong crowd.

It happened easily enough.

"Why me," Alex asked, still considering how suspicious it looked that the MP were giving away a case just because of the implications the man's murder had. The IDB read Sidney Trojan which made Alex laugh a little inside. Whoever had made the ID had a certain sense of humor. "I'm sure you've read my record by now."

Major Moss nods, leaning back in her metal chair, "Mutiny and treason are certainly high charges. But Mr. Turner, If I am being frank, I am more concerned right now with keeping the peace in my precinct. The last thing I want is any belter extremist to start making baseless accusations about how someone who is more than likely one of their own was treated."

"I'm not a belter." Alex had spent enough time among belters to know, no matter how much time he spent on Vesta or Pallas, he'd never be one of them. Being born and raised there was what made you a belter for the rest of your life. Johanna never bothered to hide the augments along her spine, jutting out like filled out ports. Held her chin up proudly despite the harassment she got, and proceeded to destroy them all in combat training.

"But you have spent time among them," the woman argues, revealing how little she knows and understands about belters. Major Moss had probably never left the moon. Never spent time amongst people in the belt, in the places the SFN never went. "My men are mostly from here or earth. You're my best option."

He resists the urge to roll his eyes. It didn't seem like a trap to lock him up after all these years. Just a very ignorant MP major trying to do her job. "Alright," Alex nods. "Show me the surveillance tapes."

The older woman smiles, but no warmth reaches her eyes, a picture of cold professionalism, as she ignites the screen. The tapes start playing almost immediately. The night vision casting everything into grayscale in the corridors. The older residential buildings hadn't anticipated the amount of people that would live on the moon, the walkways connected the blocs only fitting three people at a time, a nightmare in an emergency. They were colorless concrete slabs, the metal having long gone dull.

Time stamped to 05:46 am.

A single figure appears, walking into bloc 571, looking like any person would after a long shift. In jeans and a loose hoodie, holding a very sad convenience store sandwich. A profile he wouldn't soon forget, complete with split toe boots.

Tisiphone.

Alex tries to justify her appearance. The death hadn't happened until 7 am. She must've been meeting her friend in one of the habs in the bloc. But he'd never been one to discount a coincidence.

It seemed that they would be having a chat sooner than anticipated under less than favorable circumstances. He just had to track her down.

His eyes watch the screen as the time ticks by, creeping closer to the time of death.

She claimed to be here to visit a friend which could very easily have been a lie to cover up meeting her potential victim. Tisiphone hadn't been here for very long, no one would willingly choose to eat convenience store sandwiches if they'd spent time here to get other food. Alex wasn't discounting the possibility of her commitment to looking inconspicuous at 5 in the morning, but then, if Sidney Trojan had feared for his life there would've been a struggle.

Someone would have heard in those older habs.

The time stamp reads 6:24am.

Tisiphone leaves the bloc, taking the passageway leading back to Tranquility. Mr Trojan would still be alive. Did she have an accomplice? Or is Alex making the wrong connection.

The time stamp reads 7:46 am. Mr Trojan would've been dead by now.

7 am was hardly the time for a murder to be committed. People going to work. So many witnesses. They must have been desperate. But the tapes proved useless to narrow down any suspects. Too many people, a perfect crowd to hide in. So there was that advantage. As well as, "I need all the records of the passenger manifests arriving for the last three days on the dark side of the moon and today's departures."

"Alright," she replies, holding out her hand.

Alex hands over his com. Letting her synch it up to her system and sending the files over.

"Good luck Mr. Turner."

This time, Alex does roll his eyes as he leaves her office.

Tisiphone had claimed to be from Titan, so that's the first thing he checks. Three days sound about right. He also highlights any belter arrivals. But apart from one family two days before, no one has come from the belt.

He finds the name he's looking for. Tisiphone Velazques, arriving from Hygiea the same night he had. Born on Titian twenty two years ago according to her IDB. It said a lot about how pathetic Alex was that he was currently finding a potential date on a suspect list.

She might still be innocent. But she was the only lead.

If she's a criminal, she'll be staying off grid, not wanting to leave her IDB just anywhere. But, being through, Alex checks Tranquility Hotel anyways, sending a message.

Want to surprise my girlfriend T. Velazques. It's our anniversary and I got back from a trip into Tethys four sols early. Has she checked in yet?

People were really stupid and easily fooled. Alex had learned that in the last few years.

Then he checks his messages. Twenty seven texts from his friends. Two missed calls from Matt. Shit. He'd forgotten all about Matt.

** *** ch 3

Matt clasps an arm over his shoulders, "I'm sorry I didn't say anything about Julian. I thought you knew and didn't want to talk about it."

Alex considers coming clean, but decides letting Matt think this is about Julian is easier. "No one tells me anything anymore."

The taller man sighs, "you must think I'm a wanker for not even telling you. Julian always asked me how you were doing you know."

Alex shakes his head. "I tried-It doesn't matter anymore. I just think it's bloody awful to have died so young in an accident of all things."

"The idiot engineers better have been court martialed," Matt comments, as they follow behind their friends to a bar in the casino. They've all been casting looks towards Alex when they think he's not looking, like he's a bomb about to go off.

Things can never go back to the way they were.

They get a few pitchers of beer. Singing Matts praises at every sip, taking the piss about how he's going to be the worst commander ever. Alexa's boyfriend, looking tall, dark and handsome, slips into the conversation with ease while Alex, drinks and checks his phone for a response.

"Alexa's boy toy," Johanna mutters under her breath to Alex. "Does the books for one of the gambling halls."

Alex nods. But finds he doesn't care. All that earlier anxiety about his leftover feelings for Alexa, his first love, gone when he realizes there's no sting as she turns to kiss her boyfriend.

He looks down at his com, refusing a refill of beer when he realizes the hotel's written him back. With a digital key and their congratulations. There goes the supposed privacy and protections hotels were supposed to offer their clients.

But this meant he was now leaning to Tisiphone being innocent. But he could tell she was connected to Mr. Trojan somehow. A gut feeling that t9ld him he was barking up the right tree. She might be able to tell him who would want the old man dead and why.

Alex excuses himself from the celebration, pointedly ignoring Nick's suspicious gaze as he leaves.

He stops and picks up a bottle of wine and a quart of strawberries, each the size of his smallest nail with a hint of red at the tip, just in case anyone in the hotel decides to verify any of his information. He can play the part.

Alex presses the elevator up to floor 10, brings up the key on his com, when the machine asks for verification.

The doors slide shut and Alex tries to formulate a plan.

He can't frighten his only suspect-link to the crime. A man was murdered and if he doesn't solve it, justice will never be served. It's his good conscience that's going to get him in trouble all over again.

The hallway is empty.

A tacky red coat of paint that's made worse by the orange lighting. The crimson hue edging towards black. Hardly a happy atmosphere.

Alex runs his hand over the rail, a vestige from the days before antigravity, as he makes his way to room 1004.

Unlike the lobby, the floor is still metal plates welded together. Shiny compared to the rest of the place.

The casino had seen better days.

And more occupied days.

Hesitating outside the door, he places an ear near the seal, hoping that Tisiphone isn't there. It would give her the advantage if she turns out to be the murder.

Better for her to be out. Gives him a chance to look around.

He takes a deep breath and unlocks the door with the key. It slides open smoothly, revealing mustard walls and a plush navy carpet flecked with gold. There's a small bed on one side of the wall, a black backpack laying carelessly on it.

The small cabinet looks untouched, but Alex still goes through every drawer, making sure he misses nothing, peaking into the bathroom and combing the medicine cupboard.

There's a needle and dental floss. A complimentary bottle of toothbrush tabs laying in its side.

Needle and floss.

For an injury, Alex surmises. Perhaps a fresh one that Mr Trojan had managed to inflict while defending himself? It wasn't the easiest way to treat an injury, but it was the way to go if you didn't want to draw any attention.

He slips back into the small main room, and begins to go through the backpack. It looks standard issue, the fabric a vegetable leather nylon mixture that wouldn't be out of place in an SFN pack. But he doesn't recognize it from any planetary police force.

Inside there's a plasma gun with two full charges. Shrapnel in a jar. An extra shirt along with a lined jacket, also black. And a small copper data box.

He checks the jackets pockets, finding two extra IDBs. Both blank.

It's all very incriminating.

And he didn't think to bring a gun along himself.

Alex removes the charge from the plasma gun, using the pillowcase to ensure he doesn't wipe away any fingerprints, tossing both of the charges into the bottom drawer of the cabinet. And leaves the gun on top of the blanket.

Then he takes a seat and waits.

No one would leave a gun with no plans to come back and get it. Plasma guns were hard to come by. Especially for civilians on the right side of the law.

It was just his luck that the first woman he feels any connection with, ends up tied up in criminal activity.

The whoosh of a door sliding open jolts him out of his thoughts.

Alex sits up straight, deciding he looks less confrontational if he's sitting down. Besides, years of training haven't left. His body still remembers combat maneuvers. He still wakes up at 0600 and goes through basic training like clockwork.

Even when he goes back to sleep right after.

A red boot steps inside.

Tisiphone holds a brand new pair of ear pods, still in their case. The moment she spots him sitting casually in her bed, her almond eyes narrowing in suspicion. Her grip tightens on the case, before she schools her features carefully blank.

In better lighting, the scars marring her cheekbones are more prominent. Flecks of silver against honeyed skin.

"'ello again," Alex says, giving a small wave, strands of his hair falling into his eyes with the movement.

She frowns, crossing her arms defensively in front of her. "Why are you here? Who even let you in?"

"I asked nicely," he explains, "terrible hotel service if you ask me. But as for why I'm here, you wouldn't happen to know who Sidney Trojan is?"

Tisphones lips form a tight line, her stance edging dangerously close to someone expecting a fight. Weight distributed well between her legs. "He's dead isn't he. Someone killed him."

" 'fraid so," Alex nods.

"Who do you work for?" Her eyes scrutinize him, as if waiting for him to strike.

Alex raises both his hands up in the air. "No one. The MP of the precinct where Mr. Trojan lived asked me to take the case on."

She doesn't move. "Earth then? Or some secret division of the SFN?"

It was a popular belief that the SFN held a secret military division. Especially among belters and martians.

"You don't seem surprised to hear he's been murdered," Alex observes, not missing a thing, trying to steer the conversation back on track.

"Lots of people wanted him dead."

Tisiphone must have decided he wasn't a threat. She takes a step closer, waking into the bathroom and grabbing the meager supplies, tossing them into her bag, unbothered by Alex's presence right next to her. He's incredibly aware of the small distance between them as her hands make quick work of packing, ignoring the wine and fruit he'd brought: the small distance between her hands and his thigh.

But he doubts that there's a chance in hell she'll go out with him after today. She has the same determined look on her face Johanna had right as she'd punched him day 1 of hand to hand combat. A woman who doesn't take anyone's shit.

Alex snorts, "mind telling me who wanted him dead?"

"SFN. Earth. Mars. The Children of Prometheus. Park Vader's cronies back on Titan. Maybe even Park himself. Take your pick."

"Why," Alex can't help but ask, standing up as she slings her bag over her shoulder. If he lets her walk out now, he'll likely never set eyes on her again. And she has become his only connection to this man's murder.

He can't just let her go.

"He knew too much," Tisiphone shrugs.

"I can't just let you disappear," Alex tells her, sliding between her and the door. It was a dangerous position to be in. He keeps his hands up, trying to reassure her.

"Whoever killed Ivan is going to be after me too," she states, weighing her options.

"Let me help you."

She laughs humorlessly, "I'm long past help. I’ll only drag you down. And you seem like a nice enough man despite everything."

"Despite being born on earth," Alex guesses. War hadn't touched the system in a hundred years, yet there was a lot of bitterness from the colonies over earth. Over the imagined bountiful resources. The air, breathable unlike in so many other places.

He'd lived in enough places in the system to know that it was hard living in every corner of the solarium federation.

"Good bye Alex." Her dark eyes hold his gaze, waiting for Alex to step aside. He isn't sure how long her patience will last.

"If you leave the moon now," Alex threatens, "I'll have no choice but to find you suspect under the circumstances."

Tisiphone glares at him, "are you an officer? Am I under arrest?"

"No."

"Then you have no jurisdiction," she counters.

"But I was able to find you. I'm the only person who could've made that connection." Her shoes had given her away. Too distinctive for anyone trying to hide out, Alex notes. "Everyone else would've written you off. You played the part of a tired commuter perfectly. Your face isn't visible enough for facial recognition. And the timing is wrong."

"So you have to know I didn't kill him," Tisiphone observes.

"I do." Alex nods. "And I also know that you came here for a reason. I'm willing to bet it's why Ivan is dead now. Help me catch his killer and get some people off your back."

“Why do you care so much about him? He’s just another nameless belter to you people.”

He shakes his head, “because a man’s dead. He deserves justice.”

"How do I know I can trust you," Tisiphone asks, her knuckles relaxing their grip on her bag.

"I could've arrived here with the MP," Alex states, "but I'm here all on my own. Because I believe you're innocent."

She sighs. "Alright. I'll stay. But only for another twenty four hours. That's all I can give you."

He can work with that.

"Okay now let's get out of here. If I can waltz right in so can whoever killed Trojan."

"Ivan," Tisiphone corrects. "His name was Ivan Schlossberg."

"And is Tisiphone your real name," Alex asks.

She doesn't meet his eyes.

** ** ch 4

His hotel room is on the top floor. A half circle window looks out into the expanse. The grey panorama, flattened by robots, is broken up by the tops of other bloc, jutting out of the landscape like hills. The sun is the only recognizable feature in the sky. All the other stars and planets are too distant to be visible.

But Alex has the map of the system imprinted into the backs of his eyes. He could tell where earth and mars fall, navigating by stars like explorers of old, even with the slight changes that arise depending on where you were in the system.

Tisiphone looks out into space, eyes full of stars, as Alex interrogates her.

"Why would the UN or Mars be after Ivan?"

"I already told you," she responds evenly, her gaze still fixed on outer space, a melancholic quality that held none of the wonder people usually had when staring into the stars, "he knew too much."

"About what," Alex presses. Earlier she had named all the major players in politics. That which all SFN members despised because it made doing their job a nightmare of red tape.

Tisiphone looks over at him, turning her whole head towards him. "He was involved with the children of prometheus. Selling information. And Park doesn't like when his people decide to leave him."

It didn't take a genius to know what kind of information would be of value to the children of prometheus. "And your mutual friend."

She swallows thickly before answering. "Told me to find Ivan. That he could help me. I don't know anything more than that. Ivan was going to leave the moon with me and explain this later."

Alex doesn't believe that for a second. Tisiphone wouldn't have left so easily that morning if Ivan hadn't given her something. But he also knows when to let things go. "And why would they also be after you?" The usual targets for the children of prometheus were high ranking UN members or members of the Martian Presidium: the operating companies on the belt that treated their workers as expendable.

Tisiphone was none of those.

She takes a seat on Alex's current bed, her knuckles white as she grips the covers, studying the much more pleasant purple carpet. Not as matted or stained as the one in her room.

Her now shoeless feet revealing mismatched socks.

"I saw something I shouldn't have seen." She bites her lip as her eyes water. Alex forces himself not to look away, wanting to give her privacy. "Someone killed my friend and covered it up. And now they want to kill me."

He takes a step towards her, kneeling down in front of her seated figure, "I'm going to help you."

"You can't help me." Tisiphone shakes her head, looking straight at him, "you can only buy me time."

She flips through the stations as Alex combs through the flight records once more. He's isn't looking for random thugs. If this is a high profiled cover up the way she is alleging, then he needs to find a slicker cover.

He checks for any terrans that've landed here in the last few days. Any native mooners with no permanent address on record: the types of people that would easily fly under the recons. The least likely to be scrutinized.

Alex finds three profiles that fit the description. Two had arrived together under the IDBs Gemma and Nick Ryan. Siblings on vacation from earth.

They were passingly related, the same brown coloring. But Alex's searching gaze found no similar features. The bone structure was all wrong. Gemma's strong, squared. While Nick had a delicateness to his features that was absent in Gemma's.

They had the look of UN division operatives. A learned blankness that helped them slip from memory.

The third was on a flight from Ceres. An older asian man: Hugh Shen. There was no way he was born on the moon and had no records of living here. Alex knew most people born on the moon didn't chance leaving.

Opening for new immigrants were few and far between.

Then there was an oily quality that reminded him of many UN cogs that surrounded his mother like gnats.

In order to be sure that they are division members, Alex'll have to go to the scene of the crime. He knows the UN’s playbook. The methods that division uses. Growing up around his mother, he couldn't not have learned something.

Though Penelope Turner was an idealist, she was willing to do what was necessary to get the job done. It's why she was such an effective politician.

He coms Major Moss, letting her know he'll need access to Ivan's hab.

"Stay here," he tells Tisiphone. "Help yourself to anything I've got."

"Anything," she asks archly, "because I could run a bath. Never had one of those."

"Then by all means," he shrugs. The water bill was bound to burn a hole in his pocket, but going through life without knowing the laziness that baths inspired was no life at all.

She rolls her eyes, shamelessly combing through Alex's meager possessions As meager as hers really. Though he didn't have the excuse of being in hiding.

Alex takes the plasma charges with him.

Major Moss, along with another woman of medium build and asian descent, meets him at the entrance to bloc 571, the white paint having long since peeled off the metal walls. The orange lights flickered, needing replacement, as he walks beside her into bloc 571. He can hear the pressure seals around the door, as it slides open, letting them inside.

While the oldest blocs on this side of the moon, their shortcomings in cramped corridors were nothing compared to the space of the older habs.

Unlike Tranquility base, and the rest of the blocs on the moon, the lights inside bloc 571 were LED and white, the costliest to maintain. A knot of tension eased up in Alex's shoulders. His mind, despite the years in space, always unconsciously yearned for earth's natural light.

"This is officer Cong Xi," Major Moss says blandly, "she'll be taking you through all our available evidence. We're receiving pressure to wrap things up as quickly as possible. There are lots of people who want to move into a hub as spacious as this."

Alex snorts. That's what they cared about.

Cong nods, smiling warmly at him as she drinks coffee from her hot pink tumbler. "Nice to meet you Alex Turner."

Which meant she'd been briefed and knew all about him. There was probably a non-SFN version of his file on her com as they spoke.

Alex had never gotten the chance to read his file after the trail. His dishonorable discharge had left him without any credentials to ask for his file without heavy redaction if he got any response at all. He'd have asked his parents if he hadn't been a coward and taken the first ship to Vesta, hell bent on drinking himself to death.

"Likewise," he responds, realizing he's waited a beat too long to respond.

With that said, the Major turns on her heel, and leaves.

"Shall we," Cong asks him, waiting for him to follow. How did such a pleasant person end up working for the MP? Had to be an idealist. Or hadn't been working for long.

He nods.

Alex takes in the bloc.

The floors dull from nearly four centuries of feet walking over it. Not a scrap of white paint left. But the walls are covered with green plexiglass, an attempt to make up for the lack of actual greenery that hadn't been planned for in old models. Even Pallas had some weeds growing among the tangle of wires.

Each door is painted a different color, giving the neighborhood character. Ivan's hab is red, with a pattern of florals overlaid.

Officer Cong hands him shoe covers and a pair of gloves, "standard procedure," she tells him with a tinge of apologies interwoven in her voice, before she unlocks the door, letting them both inside.

Like most crime scenes, the place is covered with tape and plastic to preserve the integrity. But Alex can see the coziness that Ivan Schlossberg had built inside his hab. A glass top table with mismatched but colorful plastic chairs. Books covering a side table ranging from subjects like "Bloom: a guide to space plant maintenance," to "Catching Fire."

His desk is covered with bits of computer parts. Motherboards and processor chips. Different size screens, some with cracks.

This was the picture of a man who believed himself to be safe. He wasn't planning on running at the drop of a dime. So how had they found him?

Tisiphone had entered first.

Why not kill them both at once?

Or had they believed them both to be inside and cursed themselves when they realized the girl had gotten away?

As Alex looks about the room, noting no signs of struggle, Officer Cong studies him. Her gaze curious.

The mess of computer equipment makes Alex guess that Ivan tinkered with it to communicate with whatever group he was working with, likely using it to hack information from earth and mars. The rudimentary nature of his devices would have confused the much more advanced systems Earth relied on, massive data banks in the tundra chugging along. Ivan would've also had the flexibility of pulling the system apart and rebuilding it with different bits of code each time.

A waste of time, unless you were an old man with lots of time on your hands.

His collection of parts would've been written off as eccentricity.

"You can ask," Alex finally says, when he gets tired of the awkward silence.

"Are you really the mutineer?"

It was much better than being asked if he was that traitor. Particularly bitter belters had taken the liberty of making his days hell in the beginning, knowing he wasn't about to go get help from the SFN.

He nods, looking back at the door. Division wasn't above using chemical weapons. The seals on older habs built with the care of spaceships, no one outside this hab would've noticed. "The one and only," he finally says.

While there were lots of people who had problems with the SFN, it generally wasn't seen among rank and file members.

Cong hums, slurping her coffee.

Alex peels back the plastic over a particularly large pile of electronics, his eyes searching for something small, like a computer chip or drive that would be overlooked to the untrained eye. Toxic gases needn't be in large doses to pack a punch.

"I remember the trial on the net," she comments, "it was all my parents could talk about. My whole family really . . ."

A glint of copper catches his eye. Alex keeps his face neutral, letting Cong ramble on as he plays at looking at the body outline on the couch, as if he could magically find a guilty dust bunny, slipping the casing into his hand for later.

"-guess I was too young to care about that. Too caught up with boys and the latest hairstyles."

Alex nods, trying to pay attention. But with that casing, he's sure it was division. Certain mixtures created the same symptoms in the body as a heart attack. Given his age, it created the perfect cover.

But why come in and stab him after?

Who were they trying to frame-

They were after Tisiphone.

She had led them to Ivan, Alex's thoughts come together, each piece falling into place. They had watched her since she arrived. Which meant they knew she was headed to the moon, hence the two early dispatched division agents, purposely waiting for her to leave before killing Ivan, making sure she'd be the only suspect.

But their plan had gone to the pits.

They hadn't planned on Major Moss trying to burry the case. Or that Alex would be called on.

Instead of an easy frame job, it was a cold case waiting to happen. An MP officer would've just taken Tisiphone in. Assumed that the time of death was off due to some lab error and closed the case. But their plan had gone sideways.

"Find anything," Cong asks him suddenly, having given up trying to chat when it became obvious he wasn't listening. Though why he would make small talk about the event that had sliced his life into two distinct parts, he didn't have the foggiest idea.

Alex shakes his head, "thought the scene might hold a clue." He stands up straight, faking the appearance of disappointment channeling his mother's face when he'd come home with an F. "Whatever crime boss hired the hit must've hired a couple of top notch lads."

"Oh well them," Cong continues, holding up her com for him to read, "Major Moss needs us to come in. Apparently there's been a new development in the homicide."

Alex's chest tightens. God he hopes they haven't found Tisiphone dead. Or arrested her.

No. There's no way. He'd already be under arrest for harboring a criminal. No amount of goodwill would keep him out of prison this time.

Alex had to continue under the impression that she was fine. Because no one else had linked her to this case. No one had any reason to suspect her of anything at all. "Led the way then love."

Cong, like most girls (and some boys) since Alex had turned sixteen, blushes pink, before stepping around him and leading him back to the precinct--and to Major Moss's office.

The division agents who had landed on Tranquility base as siblings named Gemma and Nick, introduce themselves as, "Agents Barnes and Khan." They're already seated in front of Major Moss, only confirming Alex's conclusion.

The capsule in his pocket feels like a block of lead, weighing him down.

There's no way they know he knows.

Except they've been tailing Tisiphone since she landed. They might already know she's sitting in his room.

He needs to get off the moon. Alex had promised Tisiphone he'd keep her safe. And this case had just gotten much bigger than a homicide.

It was the type of cover up that required a neutral party to uncover. A High ranking SFN member that would do the right thing. Unfortunately Alex had learned the hard way that organizations were never as impartial and righteous as they claimed to be.

Bloody hell.

In between two impossible choices, giving Tisiphone up or calling his old mentor Vice Admiral Homme, he wasn't sure which was worse. Would Josh Homme even care?

Or was the UN's influence great enough to buy Homme's cooperation?

"I understand that Major Moss has made the mistake of handing a homicide to a private investigator," Agent Barnes says, smiling brightly as if she hadn't just flung shit at Major Moss, who to her credit, didn't even flinch.

"I'm the private investigator," Alex responds evenly.

"They've just finished informing me," Major Moss interrupts, smoothing down the lapels of her pants suit, "that they've identified the culprit."

Agent Barnes nods, then proceeds to do the very Earth thing of pulling out an actual paper file from a jacket and displaying it on the desk. "A career criminal from Titan named Tisiphone Velasquez. We believe her employer to be some drug lord that Mr Trojan was a long time customer of. When he got clean and moved to the moon, well. . ." Barnes trails off leaving a dramatic pause before clearing his throat, "Titian didn't forget his debts."

Ivan's hab was not the home of a drug user. Or a recovering drug user. He'd never been to Titan, to the city under the ocean, but he knew enough about drug lords to know that they had more to deal with than a customer with lots of debts on a colony as secure as the moon.

But Alex can see Major Moss eat up the story, her eyes gazing over as there's one less problem for her to deal with.

"Well Mr. Turner," Major Moss turns to him, "It looks like your services are no longer needed. I'll wire you the payment promptly. Meanwhile I'll circulate the perpetrators photo and have my officers be on the lookout."

"We will be taking custody of Miss Velasquez," Agent Barnes interrupts, "she has insider knowledge of a crime ring we have been monitoring for years."

"Of course," Major Moss responds, already typing out the paperwork.

He has to get off the base. He has to take Tisiphone far from here.

Alex turns to leave, reaching the door before he hears Agent Barnes mutter pointedly under her breath, "It's a wonder Ambassador Turner hasn't resigned out of shame. No clue how he can show his face in public."

Agent Khan coughs to hide a snigger.

A muscle in his jaw twitches. It's bait. And an obvious one at that. He has more than a few scars to prove how stupid responding to it would be, but they did just insult his mother.

"What did you just say," Alex asks through clenched teeth, not turning back to look at them, robbing them of the satisfaction. Mentally, he counts to ten.

He's not going to give them an excuse to place him under arrest.

Tisiphone is counting on him.

The fact that they're baiting him instead of just following him back to the hotel room is a good sign they don't know he's hiding Tisiphone. He tries to concentrate on the and not the sound of blood rushing in his ears.

Tisiphone.

Her petite figure sitting on his bed, scrutinizing everything with an arched brow. The look in her eyes as she'd stared with a refugee's longing for their ancestral home at the image of earth, the green returning to the land after hundreds of long reclamation projects initiated by the UN.

"Nothing to trouble yourself with Alexander Turner," Agent Barnes replies patronizingly, "There is no further use for your services here."

Alex clenches his jaw, and walks out the door.

He lights a cigarette as he makes his way through the dim corridors, the orange fading into scarlet, stopping only to pick up supplies he imagines needing as they travel to space together. Not all at the same store.

Alex will have to get everything out of her, if he's going to throw in his lot with her and hope they get to the bottom of the conspiracy before they're arrested and killed. Or just killed.

What could be bad enough that the UN felt it necessary to send division agents after a woman?

The problem is the IDB has been made.

He's going to have to hope she can get another one quickly. Tisiphone, whose name is more than likely not Tisiphone as all, wouldn't have survived this long is she was stupid.

Fuck.

He really should just turn her in. Or give her a heads up and be on his way. Alex could be on Pallas in four weeks, having the most questionable weed in the system, laced with the hell knows what. Take a case every now and then. Finally make his way out to Titan.

Logan had been his favorite western growing up. Right after The magnificent Seven. He'd made Matt have stand offs against him for days after seeing it, pretending he could manipulate metal. And Titan was the new wild west of space. And still people flocked out to carve their little piece of real estate.

Humanity is ever expanding.

Alex has to press the lift button twice, cursing and lighting another cigarette when the lift's lighting system dies as he ascends up, connecting with Tranquility's passageways.

More than once, he has to stop himself from glancing over his shoulder, sure he'll see an Agent following him. Hugh Shen had been absent from their little meeting. But that didn't mean he wasn't still skulking about.

Even the air changes from the corridors to the base. It's drastic compared to Ceres where the air quality is shit everywhere you go. The base has crisp clean air that didn't leave you all cotton mouthed for the wrong reasons.

From there it's easy enough to head to his room. Alex is already flicking through the net, looking for tickets to the belt. Or maybe they should go to Callisto. It was famous for being a no extradition zone: refusing to acknowledge any authority other than theirs and SFN's by extension. The relative safety was tempting, but he couldn't plan until Tisiphone told him everything she knew.

Alex wasn't stupid enough to think she wasn't holding something back. Her earlier explanation had been as vague as she could manage given the circumstances. He had no clue who her friend was. What she had seen other than a wrongful death.

There had to be a reason behind the coverup after all.

No government went around coverup murder for no reason. It just wasn't economical.

"You have to tell me everything you know," Alex tells Tisiphone in what he hopes is a commanding voice, as he tosses his bags on the bed, plopping down. His only shortcoming as a commander had been the complete and utter lack of confidence he had when giving orders. "Division has just shown up and thrown you under the bus."

Tisiphone's hair hangs down, damp as she listlessly scrolls through the catalogue of music offered by the hotel. She flinches at his words. "I should've left when I had the chance," she tells him harshly, uncurling from the settee and moving to grab her things. She jams her feet into her boots in one swift motion, clearly having been ready to make a run for it at a moment's notice.

"You're right," Alex tries, taking out the gas casing, ensuring the glint of metal catches her eyes. "It's a coverup."

"Obviously," Tisiphone scowls.

"I'm sure they've circulated your IDB by now," he continues, "they wanted to frame you for Ivan's death. I want to know what you saw so I can help you."

"Why so they can kill you as well," Tisiphone shakes her head, "No. . .no."

"What's so important that Division would risk breaking the treaty of Schiaparelli for," Alex asks, rubbing his temples. He wasn't a politician. The inner workings of government fell to the wayside of his thoughts.

There had been no major battles fought in a hundred years but relations between colonies were always fraught with tension over resources. Those skirmishes were usually fought in the Solarium Federations regulatory body, but Alex wasn't naive enough to discount the darker talk of division--their tendency to enhanced interrogation.

"Why do you want to help me so badly," Tisiphone counters, hands on her hip, glaring down at him as if he was the reason that Division had found her at all.

"Someone should," Alex shrugs, peering up at her. The line of her body fell naturally into a defensive stance, something that could only be so natural if she'd started training when she was very young. Tisiphone wasn't an innocent civilian, but she still didn't deserve to be disposed of. "And if I don't, they'll probably kill you and throw your body in some incinerator."

"Or they'll kill us both," Tisiphone replies archly.

"I'm offering you my help if you want it."

She peers down her nose at him, her lips pressed into a flat line, the slim line of her jaw fitting in perfectly with her feline features: a cat deciding if batting the toy was worth it. Turning on her heel, stepping into the bathroom, Tisiphone orders him to, "strip."

Smart girl.

It doesn't keep the burn from making its way up his neck as she turns the refresher, the low static drowning out any background noise as she takes a seat inside the fogged glass.

Alex kicks off his boots, gratefully that he'd actually kept up with his fitness all these years as he pulls his shirt off. There's still bruising in the crook of his elbow. He doubts she misses it as she stares up at him. It's a rush of relief when he notices the scarlet on her cheeks. This is embarrassing for both of them then, as he unbuttons his trousers, before taking a seat in front of her.

"Division blew up my crew." She starts with, staring at a spot behind him, her eyes welling up with tears. "They launched a missile and it tore their ship apart." She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, shaking her head, "I'm sorry I just. . .let me start over."

"It's okay."

"Shut up Alex and let me tell this in a way that makes sense." She swallows thickly. Taking a deep breathe during which she closes her eyes before continuing. "My name is Vera Albaicin. I'm an agent of the Guoanbu. Sixty eight sols ago my crew was handpicked to participate in an interplanetary task force with the UN. It was supposed to be an easy retrieval mission. We met up with the other crew. Everything was normal."

T-Vera closes her eyes, her hands closed tightly by her sides, trying to suppress the shiver that runs down her spine. Alex wants to offer comfort, but he isn't sure there is anything he can do to make things better in this situation.

"I took an EMU suit to-it was a strange ship. More like a capsule or probe. I had just made contact when my ship was hit." She shakes her head, a desperation in her eyes at the helplessness she must keep on feeling. Not having been able to do anything to save her crew. "Space. They died in seconds. The thing is. . .the only people who would've known about the mission were the UN and MPC. Earth and mars."

Alex nods, trying to probe her as gently as possible because there is still one unanswered question, "how did you know to find Ivan."

The UN and MPC must have decided that the knowledge was better off lost after having sent a retrieval team. Something they didn't want anyone to know about it. That fact that mars and earth had cooperated at all was throwing Alex off. Weapons would make sense if it was just mars or earth. But together?

Vera shakes her head slowly, her gaze meeting his, an intense anger to their depth he had not seen before. She was digging because she was fucking mad. This was a woman seeking justice. "I can't."

"Vera," Alex utters, unable to look away, trying her real name out on his tongue. "My name is Alexander Turner. I'm kind of famous for breaking the law," he finished with a self deprecating smile.

Usually, the last thing he wanted a potential date to know was his past.

Her eyes widen, her whole body freezing up as she takes in the new information, pursing her lips in an attempt to suppress a telling gasp. But instead of recoiling in disgust as he expects her to, Vera reaches for her neck, revealing a necklace obscured by her hoodie. It's a cheap metal thing that must be of sentimental value.

She doesn't stop there, thumbing the ring at the end of the chain before meeting his gaze once more. This time there's no hard glint to her cognac eyes, but a woman at last having caught on to a life preserver. "Julian-Captain Casablancas told me to find Ivan. Trust no one-trust no one but Alex Turner," Vera admits, unable to hold his gaze. "He must have known what was coming."

It's a ring he recognizes well, a twin to his own commander ring. The classic exploration insignia: the atom. Every detail identical for Julian and Alex had received their rank at the same ceremony, only Julian had been eight years older. Already the man Alex wanted to be: wanted to be with. The man had inspired camaraderie the way a good leader should, and clearly he had managed it in a martian girl as well if she had come all this way on his word alone.

"Can I," he motions, aware of the closing distance between them. Between him and Vera. Vera. He had to get his head around that one. Same woman, different name.

No. Not the same woman.

This woman was a martian secret intelligence agent. Not some naive little girl.

She nods, closing her fist around the ring before yanking the chain in a quick motion. It snaps off. The sound like the hull of a ship nearing the end of its lifetime, creaking. Then drops the ring into his outstretched palm.

Without Alex having to prompt this time, still caught up in seeing Julian's ring, still warm from Vera's body heat, in his hand. Julian hadn't responded to Alex's messages. He'd assumed it was because of Alex's past, but now he was left to wonder if Julian had wanted to protect him by keeping away from him. Keeping whatever he'd gotten caught up in that had killed him away from Alex. Vera adds, "I was confused why he'd told me that, given me his ring as I got into the EMU suit but. . .Ivan told me that he was just the messenger. He'd worked for so many sides not asking questions. Earth, Solarium, Mars. They were all the same to him. So he decided that the children of prometheus had a point and got in contact with them. Relaid information. Ivan-he was going to tell me more."

But he'd died.

Vera looks at him meaningfully, "but he did manage to give me the coordinates that he was given by his CoP contact. In case he ever needed a safe house or extraction."

"He never-," Alex begins to ask, not taking his eyes off the ring. In his hand was proof that Julian had been killed.

"He never met his contact," Vera confirms. "But they're on Callisto. Some hippie hub." She rolls her eyes and what a martian thing to do. Look down on every colony not hell bent on terraforming.

Alex turns his gaze on her once more, seeing her in a different light for the first time. Trying to spot what made her a martian. As if he could spot in vitro augmentation just by looking her over.

But all he saw was a petite woman with a hollowness under her eyes. Her full lips pressed into a grim line. Hair slowly drying into waves, catching the light like oil on water. Despite Alex's new information about Vera, he was no less drawn to her.

There was no sadistic edge that spoke of oprichnik operatives who the Martian People's council refused to acknowledge existed despite all the mounting evidence about their methods.

His gut was telling him that Vera was telling the truth.

"One thing though," Alex points out, taking off his own ring for the first time since he'd first received command rank, a command long since stripped from him, and sliding Julian's ring on his finger in its place as he stands up. His mind was made up. He was going to help Vera uncover this conspiracy. Clear Julian and Vera's name. And maybe, just maybe, reclaim some respect on his name.

"What?"

"You said earth and mars sent you," he says gently, having encountered enough martians to know how loyal to their colony they were otherwise known as having bought into the propaganda, "but Division killed your crew.. ."

"Yes," Vera nods, tapping her foot on the floor.

"Then wouldn't both earth and mars have sent the missile that killed your crew? Or wouldn't have mars already used this as an excuse to advance their agenda?"

"No," she supplies, refusing to even contemplate the idea that Mars would've been complicit in such an act. "The Guoanbu wouldn't have killed their own. We're-they're not like that."

“Vera," he sighs, "there's nastiness under every corner, no matter how nice everything is on top you know."

She shakes her head again, averting her gaze, There wasn't much to look at on the walls, but she was making due.

"Let's just find ya another IDB and get to Callisto-"

There's a knock at the door.

Alex and Vera trade wide eyed looks, having taken the plunge off the same cliff with nothing but a string of brand new fucking trust between them. A dead man's word to go on.

Fucking hell.

Matt and Nick flank each side of the room's door. Nick's stone face offsets the mixture of parental concern Matt's features contain, sighing at Alex's appearance, sticking his head out the door. Vera hiding next to the door, alert to every word.

He has to wonder how good her hearing is. Martian's always messed with embryos biology, designing the next generation to be fitter. Could she hear down the hall? What the people in the next room were saying?

Matt steps forward, "jesus fuck mate," he shakes his head. "Can't respond to a bloody com now Alex."

"I told you I got a job," he protests, trying to remember if that was true. His friends had fallen to the bottom of his priorities quickly. Alex had a habit of self absorption with whatever obsession came his way. It had made him a terrific ensign, practicing the same maneuver for hours until he could do it with his eyes closed.

"No," Nick corrects, not bothering to move the curls out of his face, watching him carefully, "you didn't."

Alex sighs, but doesn't budge. They mustn't see Vera. Soon her face will be plastered all over the net as a manhunt begins. Her IDB must already be flagged for travel.

He had to make his rightfully concerned friends go away and quickly.

"Al," Matt levels with him, "I asked you to be here because you might as well be my brother. I knew when I did that it would mean coming back to the moon. That it would bring up a load of shit for you."

"We're worried about you mate," Nick explains. "You're still here. You won't talk to any of us."

" 'm fine," Alex mumbles, unable to hold eye contact with either of his friends. He looks at his shoes as he realizes how unfair he's been to them both in the last two days.

This trip was supposed to be about Matt.

He shouldn't be here worried that Alex finally went off the rails.

"Alex," Matt utters, placing his hand on the door frame, leaning in close to Alex. "You know you can talk to me. I don't care what you did or why."

"Really," Alex tries, because as much as he'd like to have this long overdue discussion, finally get to explain why--no one had ever asked him why, they'd just condemned his actions as w r o n g--he has to get Vera off the moon. "I'm fine. Just been in me head."

"That's what I'm worried about," Matt responds, eyes locked onto his, as if Alex could disappear at any moment. "You've always been in your head too much Al. And it didn't matter when I knew you were looking after yourself. Had me and the lads with you but-Alex you looked like utter shit back in Vesta last time I saw you, hopped up on who knows what."

Alex swears internally. They really knew when to pick the worst moments. He was actually doing good. "I know. . .," he tries to find the words that don't require him to have an emotional breakdown in Tranquility Hotel, aware Vera's listening in, "it's been rough. Some days worse than others but Matthew," he whines, "I really am good."

"For how long though," Nick counters, crossing his arms against his chest. It was a good point but Alex really hadn't been in the dark lonely place in months. Maybe closer to a year now. Progress.

Something about waking up missing shoes and jammed into the seediest by corners of an asteroid had lit a fire under his arse about moving on.

He hadn't even hit the agents earlier. They would've deserved it but who gives a shit. Alex will always be a mutineer but at least his hands were clean. His conscience is a white pearl like a meditating bodhisattva.

"Can we just go inside and talk man," Matt pleads, his shoulder resting against the door, clearly seconds away from shoving his way in.

Guilt wells up in his mouth. Despite having every reason to say no, Alex wants to say yes, the word making its way to the tip of his tongue at Matt's insistence.

It was Matt and he was Alex and he couldn't just deny him like this after everything.

Terrans were only allowed one child.

The law didn't keep Matt from being his brother any less.

"I can't," Alex sighs. "I just-you've given me a lot to think about."

Matt rolls his eyes, hurt flashing through his features as he takes a step back, "bullshit."

"Just open up the damn door Alexander," Nick tries, clearly having had it with trying to do things the nice way, realizing Alex wasn't going to budge on his own. "We're ya friends."

"It's been six years Alex," Matt added. "I thought you'd want to talk by now."

Alex shakes his head, "it's not always a straight line."

"Let's have this conversation inside," Nick insists, "who knows when you'll be around next Al. And now Matt has a command. . ."

Matt shoves his way in.

Alex had forgotten how hot headed he could be. The foil to his cool and calm temperament: translating Alex's lit to others. Not that Alex had much trouble verbalizing, necessity being the mother invention. He no longer took hours to get a sentence out of his mouth.

"Matt!"

"Don't Matt me Al," Matt retorts spying Vera in seconds, who's already fallen into a defensive stance.

Matt brings a hand to his face, pinching his nose bridge, before heavily sighing, "You've got to be kidding me Al. You're hiding a murderer now."

"She's no-"

"I didn't kill anyone," she tries, folding into herself, trying to appear smaller and innocent than she actually is. Vera tries to play at being Tisiphone once more. "It's all a misunderstanding!"

"Then turn yourself in," Nick challenges, closing the door behind him.

"Al," Matt says, placing his hands on Alex's shoulders, "what the hell are you thinking mate! They're going to lock you up for this and not even-"

"Matt," he interrupts, "trust me. I'd love to have a nice long chat but things have gotten. . .complicated and-it's safer if ya don't know. Just. . .trust me."

Matt stares back at him, mouth drawn. An entire childhood together on earth, their toes digging into the soil, tracking mud all over the floors. Later a shared adolescence, their accents charming the girls and boys at school, Matt doing all the talking and never leaving a painfully shy Alex behind.

He nods. "You better come back because we're having this talk even if I have to go visit you in prison."

"There are things far worse than prison," Vera unhelpfully points out, tugging on her jacket over her hoodie, the collar lined with actual animal fur. Given the martian rationing system, it was an untold luxury for Vera to own a leather jacket with fur at all. "I'd even take death over enhanced interrogation."

She pretends to tremble with fear, "anything but gravity."

Alex snorts in spite of the dark subject matter. "Not helping."

Ignoring the other two men in the room, Vera hands Alex one of the spare IDB's he'd seen in her bag earlier. Had it really been only hours ago? "Here's your IDB now. Alexander Collins. Born on Pallas. Married to Morgana Collins," she points at herself, already dispatching the old IDB off her wrist and throwing it in her bag. "Came to the moon to get married. Off to Callisto to make a living," she explains calmly.

"Short and sweet," Alex notes, looking down at his own wrist, the IDB a second skin. He hadn't taken it off since he'd left earth. Many colonies like Callisto chose to implant the ID chip.

It was the key to getting on any ship. His passport and last link to earth. His last hope at ever stepping foot on the big blue planet again, however slim.

Visas for foreigners pretty much nonexistent.

Nick hands him a swiss army laser, "I implanted mine." It's news to Alex who hadn't even noticed, Nick having always been a bit chilly, wearing long sleeves year round. " 's nice actually."

Matt dramatically covers his eyes.

Alex slices through the metal, leaving a band of unblemished creamy skin.

It doesn't last long, as Vera easily replaces it.

"You should keep it," she tells him, patting his arm like a parent half heartedly consoling their child after a pet fish dies. "We are planning on fixing things."

"Yeah," Alex answers, running his fingers over the band. He already felt less confident without it.

[xasha777]

In a distant future, where the Earth is shrouded in layers of technology, the remnants of natural landscapes are preserved within the massive, sprawling Metropolitan Green Belts—sanctuaries designed to maintain Earth's diminishing biodiversity. Among the vertical gardens and bio-engineered forests of the New London Green Belt, a unique figure emerges from the shadows. Her name is Lyra, and while she appears human, her origins are as mysterious as the ancient forests she protects.

Lyra's eyes, a piercing blue that rival the artificial skies, hint at her unconventional genesis. Part of a covert operation, Lyra was engineered to be a guardian of the Green Belt, equipped with extraordinary sensory abilities and an innate understanding of ecological systems. Her long black hair with streaks of vibrant blue symbolizes the integration of technology and nature—a living embodiment of the balance the world strives to achieve.

One evening, under the soft glow of bioluminescent leaves, Lyra encounters a hidden data chip containing plans for "Project Expansion," a corporate scheme to replace part of the Green Belt with a hyper-industrial complex. This development threatens not only the ecological sanctuary but the balance of urban and natural life. Determined to stop this, Lyra embarks on a mission to expose the corporate machinations.

Navigating through the cybernetic underbelly of New London, Lyra allies with an underground network of activists known as the "Green Shade," who are dedicated to protecting the remnants of Earth's nature. Using her enhanced capabilities, she infiltrates high-security zones, gathering evidence and disrupting operations subtly.

As the conflict escalates, Lyra becomes a symbol of resistance, her image appearing in viral feeds and digital protests, inspiring the citizens of New London. Her journey confronts her with the true nature of her creation and the realization that her fight is not just for the Green Belt but for her identity and the very concept of life itself.

In the climax, amidst a digital showdown broadcasted live, Lyra and the Green Shade unveil the corrupt intentions behind Project Expansion, swaying public opinion and halting the construction. The victory is bittersweet, as Lyra contemplates her future. With the immediate threat subdued, she chooses to remain a guardian, not just of the physical forest, but of the idea that even in a world dominated by technology, nature's sanctity is essential for survival.

Thus, Lyra continues her vigil, a lone sentinel in the Metropolitan Green Belt, watching over the delicate interface of silicon and vine, a reminder of what can be achieved when humanity remembers to look back at its roots.