#disk driven doom

[jasminem18]

Have no fear! the Amys are here!

2 amy .exe victim , 1 amy AU and Emily (victim from Infinite Exlipsed Cycles) -> @jasminem18 Thorn (victim from .exe Au mix "Disk driven doom") -> @neosmisfits Dollface -> @sinamaxys / Sinamaxys Amy (cloudyskys au) -> @misscloudiedays / CloudTheCat3 Pinkuheru -> _LonDerp_ Proto Amy -> GawrGuraVirus

[neosmisfits]

Metallix The Metallix

[halothenthehorns]

Chapter 18: (LEO XVII)- THE HEROES OF JUNO

Chapter title owed to @queenjunothegreat, who named her AU fic this. It’s just too damn good not to use yawl, and if you love Jason/ Leo you should definitely go check it out! Heck, even if you don’t ship Valgrace, it’s not even there (much…okay, they’re not together at the end), just hinted at and the rewrite is amazing in every way possible of the trio getting through their paces in a familiar but fun character driven way!

HOOPJOHOOPJOHOOPJO

Nico sighed as he took the book, trying to convince himself at least if someone died this time he could blame it on the dragon. 

Hazel was all smiles though, and Leo looked like someone had shot a dose of caffeine straight to his brain. He really wasn’t used to this level of hype, Percy had certainly never shown such excitement, so he found himself smiling  as he read purely by accident.

LEO XVII

LEO WAS TOTALLY BUZZING.

Hazel took that as meaning a good thing, Leo’s mood brokered no other idea. Still, the image came to mind of Leo painting himself with yellow stripes and attaching some wings and a stinger to himself before she shook it off. Maybe she’d get lucky and the next time she spotted him out of the corner of her eye, instead of thinking him as Sammy, she’d think of that.

The expression on everyone’s faces when he flew the dragon into camp? Priceless! He thought his cabinmates were going to bust a lug nut.

Festus had been awesome too. He hadn’t blowtorched a single cabin or eaten any satyrs, even if he did dribble a little oil from his ear. 

“The bar all future domesticated dragons should set themselves too,” Annabeth’s chuckle sounded light enough, but Percy heard it. The quietness behind the smile where she couldn’t turn and laugh at her cousin anymore in protest for the dragon just, existing.

Okay, a lot of oil. Leo could work on that later.

So maybe Leo didn’t seize the chance to tell everybody about Bunker 9 or the flying boat design. He needed some time to think about all that. He could tell them when he came back.

“If you came back,” Will frowned, a little sad for the cabin if that secret was lost for another hundred years or something.

“Gee thanks sunshine,” Leo snorted.

“If we don’t come back then the whole world’s probably doomed anyways, so, moot point?” Jason offered.

“Right, fair compromise,” Will gave a ready grin.

If I come back, part of him thought.

Leo laughed, Will sighed and tipped his head in acknowledgement, and Nico ruffled and wished he could dramatically flip the page or something as he tried not to wonder if Will and he ever shared such similar thoughts.

Nah, he’d come back. He’d scored a sweet magic tool belt from the bunker, 

“What does the magic tool belt do?” Percy asked blankly. He’d been keeping up well enough to vaguely remember he’d found it, but nothing else.

“Very exciting things Percy,” Leo said as he tapped it with a wink. He had half a mind to shove his arm in and pull out a microwave to see if that would impress him, but he was kind of worried he’d distract everyone by blowing it up or something. Then again, it could be a useful trick to keep in his back pocket if Jason and Thalia ever felt like being power outlets for him up here…

plus a lot of cool supplies now safely stowed in his backpack. Besides, he had a fire-breathing, only slightly leaky dragon on his side. What could go wrong?

Jason laughed, the kind that Percy usually gave off when he knew they were doomed but at least they’d go down fighting. This wasn’t his first quest, Annabeth had been right about that, and he had a feeling he’d faced worse odds.

What really got to him in that moment was that Piper and Leo had a chance to pack while all he’d managed to stuff away was an old picture. He wasn’t starting off this whole leader thing very well by not doing a routine check of supplies before they took off, but Leo being in the pilot’s seat gave him confidence in this anyways.

Well, the control disk could bust, the bad part of him suggested. Festus could eat you.

“Is that a, major concern now that you two made friends?” Hazel asked hesitantly.

“Like, only a 40% chance nowadays, and growing less the more I work on this,” he pulled the disk out of his boot again and waved it around.

“I’d heard of worse odds,” Jason shrugged.

“Yeah, by looking at Percy’s report cards,” Thalia smirked.

“You know Thals, I bet you taste like tabasco,” Percy grinned right back.

“Pssht,” Thalia scoffed, though Leo was very grateful Nico kept reading because he was pretty confident Thalia could and would short-circuit Festus without even trying.

Okay, so the dragon wasn’t quite as fixed as Leo might’ve let on. He’d worked all night attaching those wings, but he hadn’t found an extra dragon brain anywhere in the bunker.

Hey, they were under a time limit! Three days until the solstice. They had to get going. Besides, Leo had cleaned the disk pretty well. Most of the circuits were still good. It would just have to hold together.

His bad side started to think, Yeah, but what if—

“Shut up, me,” Leo said aloud.

“What?” Piper asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Long night. I think I’m hallucinating. It’s cool.”

Nico laughed, and it was one of those kinds that made the shadows dance with more force than just the flickering fire should manage.

Leo gave him a concerned smile.

“Sorry,” Nico didn’t sound very sorry. “You and Will aren’t the only ones with similar thoughts sometimes.”

“Cool,” Leo shrugged, “intrusive thoughts party!”

“Everybody in this room needs therapy so bad,” Will muttered with his face in his hands.

Sitting in front, Leo couldn’t see their faces, but he assumed from their silence that his friends were not pleased to have a sleepless, hallucinating dragon driver.

“Can’t imagine why, that’s the kinda bus driver who always manages to be on time,” Percy said.

“Yeah, he’s just like that guys,” Jason sighed without looking up to see Leo and Hazel staring. 

“Honestly I’m surprised it took him this long to make another New York reference,” Thalia agreed.

“Just joking.” Leo decided it might be good to change the subject. “So what’s the plan, bro? You said something about catching wind, or breaking wind, or something?”

As they flew over New England, Jason laid out the game plan: First, find some guy named Boreas and grill him for information—

“Hopefully someone stops to ask before if he prefers charcoal or a nice oaky taste,” Percy grinned.

Hazel went from looking at the book to Percy like they were both nuts, which had clearly been his goal.

“His name is Boreas?” Leo had to ask. “What is he, the God of Boring?”

At least Percy got a laugh out of that. He and Leo having similar senses of humor was definitely going to be everybody else's problem.

Second, Jason continued, they had to find those venti that had attacked them at the Grand Canyon—

“Can we just call them storm spirits?” Leo asked. “Venti makes them sound like evil espresso drinks.”

“He’s not wrong!” Percy defended to the multitude of blank looks Leo was getting, though at least a few of those could be from not getting the Starbucks reference.

And third, Jason finished, they had to find out who the storm spirits worked for, so they could find Hera and free her.

“So you want to look for Dylan, the nasty storm dude, on purpose,” Leo said. “The guy who threw me off the skywalk and sucked Coach Hedge into the clouds.”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard it,” Leo sighed before anyone else could riff on him for that one.

“Um,” but Hazel decided quickly she didn’t want to know at the faint blush on several cheeks and her brother wasn’t giving her the choice to ask anyways.

“That’s about it,” Jason said. 

“Honestly a  relief, Leo wasn’t exactly on a roll,” Annabeth grinned, the first time she’d done so since sending Jason on his way. She looked exhausted, and nobody had even almost died yet.

“Also, also, gods forbid Jason not sum up everything in three sentences,” Percy smirked.

“I’m going to skewer you one of these days,” Jason groaned.

“So long as you know how to properly grill your food man, I can’t protest too much,” Percy shrugged.

“Well … there may be a wolf involved, too. But I think she’s friendly. She probably won’t eat us, unless we show weakness.”

Jason told them about his dream—the big nasty mother wolf and a burned-out house with stone spires growing out of the swimming pool.

“Uh-huh,” Leo said. “But you don’t know where this place is.”

“Nope,” Jason admitted.

“There’s also giants,” Piper added. “The prophecy said the giants’ revenge.”

“Hold on,” Leo said. “Giants—like more than one? Why can’t it be just one giant who wants revenge?”

“I can assure you now, it is never, ever, that easy,” Nico told him with honest pity.

“Yay, I might get bored fearing for my life otherwise,” Leo snorted.

“I don’t think so,” Piper said. “I remember in some of the old Greek stories, there was something about an army of giants.”

“Great,” Leo muttered. “Of course, with our luck, it’s an army. So you know anything else about these giants? Didn’t you do a bunch of myth research for that movie with your dad?”

“Your dad’s an actor?” Jason asked.

Leo laughed. “I keep forgetting about your amnesia. Heh. Forgetting about amnesia. That’s funny. 

“Someone had to say that one eventually,” Jason rolled his eyes.

Leo was distracted by tapping his temple trying to keep in line what he’d had his brain altered in these things. This multiverse stuff was going to give him a headache real quick, he did good to remember who he was talking to already.

But yeah, her dad’s Tristan McLean.”

“Uh—Sorry, what was he in?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Piper said quickly. 

Annabeth listened intently, like if she focused on Nico enough she could decipher how adept Piper was at her ability already. If she told them it didn’t matter, would they instantly forget it was important? Or were her friends just choosing to let the matter go?

“The giants—well, there were lots of giants in Greek mythology. 

“At least she already knows the important stuff,” Percy sighed.

But if I’m thinking of the right ones, they were bad news. Huge, almost impossible to kill. They could throw mountains and stuff.

“Suddenly grateful to the giant we fought decided not to drop the mountain on our heads but wait politely for us to do so instead,” Thalia sighed.

“He was obviously a very polite giant, gave us plenty of guest rights,” Jason said. Even after a week of resting up after that fight, he still felt his bruises laughing at him every time he went up and down those stairs. Nobody had offered them ambrosia or nectar since they weren’t dying upon arrival, but his tail bone still protested this neglect from time to time.

 I think they were related to the Titans. They rose from the earth after Kronos lost the war—I mean the first Titan war, thousands of years ago—and they tried to destroy Olympus. If we’re talking about the same giants—”

“Piper at least got the highlights,” Annabeth said mildly.

“Not everybody can walk around with a greek encyclopedia in their brain,” Percy agreed it was a hell of a lot more than he’d remember on the subject.  Maybe he should switch to studying for movies? It seemed to make a good impact.

“Chiron said it was happening again,” Jason remembered. “The last chapter. That’s what he meant. No wonder he didn’t want us to know all the details.”

Leo whistled. “So … giants who can throw mountains. Friendly wolves that will eat us if we show weakness. Evil espresso drinks. Gotcha. Maybe this isn’t the time to bring up my psycho babysitter.”

“No, no, it’s the perfect time,” Will said graciously. “Keep all your problems in one nice, neat circle.”

“You heard him guys, Will just gave us permission to bottle up our trauma rather than letting it out,” Nico smirked, tipping his head back against the wall to make sure Will saw.

“You want to be King of the Ghosts the easy way mister?” Will smirked back. “You think you can rule a kingdom wisely with just wise cracks?”

“I’m so scared,” Nico laughed. Will resisted the urge to lean down and just slip his hand behind Nico’s back again, he really did miss the feeling.

“Is that another joke?” Piper asked.

Leo told them about Tía Callida, who was really Hera, and how she’d appeared to him at camp. He didn’t tell them about his fire abilities. That was still a touchy subject, especially after Nyssa had told him fire demigods tended to destroy cities and stuff. Besides, then Leo would have to get into how he’d caused his mom’s death, and … No. He wasn’t ready to go there. He did manage to tell about the night she died, not mentioning the fire, just saying the machine shop collapsed. It was easier without having to look at his friends, just keeping his eyes straight ahead as they flew.

Nico winced over every other word as he read through that summary with guilt. He knew it wasn’t his sole fault that they did know all that stuff Leo hadn’t been ready to share, but it felt like it right now.

Leo had been the one to read it out though. He wasn’t sure of the change, but he wasn’t going to be the one to stop the guy and ask. Leo’s hands were shaking slightly as he pulled out Festus’s prototype brain or whatever and some tweezers which steadied him quickly, so Nico moved on.

And he told them about the strange woman in earthen robes who seemed to be asleep, and seemed to know the future.

Leo estimated the whole state of Massachusetts passed below them before his friends spoke.

“That’s … disturbing,” Piper said.

“Piper’s really great about knowing the right thing to say, glad that won’t be changing,” Leo grinned.

It was very obviously one of those grins to make the first joke that came to mind to break the awkward silence, but it did its job and Jason and Percy chuckled lightly for him anyways.

“’Bout sums it up,” Leo agreed. “Thing is, everybody says don’t trust Hera. She hates demigods. And the prophecy said we’d cause death if we unleash her rage. So I’m wondering … why are we doing this?”

“Leo’s over here asking the real questions Jason, quit slacking man,” Thalia’s smirk was a little too close to a sneer.

“As of right now I’m just along for the ride hoping to run across some memory tap water,” Jason shrugged with zero problems on his friends taking the good jobs, at least until the fighting started. It was very strange, he had a feeling once upon a time he wouldn’t know what to do with himself in the backseat of any situation. Whatever that feeling was though, wasn’t taking over him. He’d spent over a week in the company of others with control of the situation and he was good at adapting to his circumstances quickly, apparently.

“She chose us,” Jason said. “All three of us. We’re the first of the seven who have to gather for the Great Prophecy. This quest is the beginning of something much bigger.”

“It really is the story of my life on repeat,” Percy groaned. “It starts with one simple freaking task and then just keeps escalating until the gods are asking you to save their throne room again!”

Annabeth was patting his shoulder and biting her lip to stop herself agreeing. They were taking turns comforting the other, and she didn’t think it would do him good right now to remind him that probably wasn’t ever going away since he was so prominently in the gods radar.

That didn’t make Leo feel any better, but he couldn’t argue with Jason’s point. It did feel like this was the start of something huge. He just wished that if there were four more demigods destined to help them, they’d show up quick. Leo didn’t want to hog all the terrifying life-threatening adventures.

“Sharing is caring?” Percy asked half-heartedly.

“Come here and pick up the mess you started!” Jason smirked instead.

“Party pooper,” Percy huffed.

“Besides,” Jason continued, “helping Hera is the only way I can get back my memory. And that dark spire in my dream seemed to be feeding on Hera’s energy. If that thing unleashes a king of the giants by destroying Hera—”

“Not a good trade-off,” Piper agreed. “At least Hera is on our side—mostly. 

“Debatable,” Annabeth said acidly.

Nico did a pretty good job reminding himself as he flipped the page that tone wasn’t for him. He blinked in surprise to see the end coming in already and hoped Jason at least appreciated the vague fairness in this chapter being incredibly short too.

Losing her would throw the gods into chaos. She’s the main one who keeps peace in the family.

“Debatable!” Thalia and Will agreed in the exact same tone. Her brand of family she kept together left a lot to be desired.

 And a war with the giants could be even more destructive than the Titan War.”

Jason nodded. “Chiron also talked about worse forces stirring on the solstice, with it being a good time for dark magic, and all—something that could awaken if Hera were sacrificed on that day. And this mistress who’s controlling the storm spirits, the one who wants to kill all the demigods—”

“Might be that weird sleeping lady,” Leo finished. “Dirt Woman fully awake? Not something I want to see.”

“Hey, finally something we can all agree on,” Jason said with an awkward smile. Hazel was nodding in firm agreement.

“Yeah, yeah, if rescuing Hera stops that, greater evil blahblah,” Percy agreed.

“But who is she?” Jason asked. “And what does she have to do with giants?”

Nico had always hated being the youngest one, being the ignorant person in the room who had to have this stuff explained to him until he struck out on his own, but suddenly seeing that grim look in his sister's eyes made him want to go back in time and smack himself upside the head like Percy had probably wanted to do a dozen times. He’d rather Hazel had a normal camp experience, without ghosts whispering in her ear about the end of the world to come like he kept having nightmares about.

Like Bianca had wanted for him.

Good questions, but none of them had answers. They flew in silence while Leo wondered if he’d done the right thing, sharing so much. He’d never told anyone about that night at the warehouse. Even if he hadn’t given them the whole story, it still felt strange, like he’d opened up his chest and taken out all the gears that made him tick. His body was shaking, and not from the cold. 

It felt all the more strange to Leo now, not feeling the judging eyes on him, not having Piper here who he’d been pretty confident for a time was the person he might care enough to open up to one day if they lasted much longer at that hell school. She’d been the only reason he hadn’t run away again yet at that Grand Canyon field trip like he’d been planning as he watched her be tormented by Isabele and nobody cared.

He hoped Piper, sitting behind him, couldn’t tell.

The forge and dove shall break the cage. Wasn’t that the prophecy line? 

“Word perfect,” Jason agreed. “At worst, it means we’ll succeed in freeing Hera before we all die.”

“Thanks bud, really motivating,” Leo snorted.

That meant Piper and he would have to figure out how to break into that magic rock prison, assuming they could find it. Then they’d unleash Hera’s rage, causing a lot of death. Well, that sounded fun! 

Annabeth swallowed bile on the back of her tongue as she resisted the urge to rip the book away from Nico and flip to the back, to see if they managed to do it, let alone accomplish the task without getting everyone they loved killed in the process. 

But she took a steadying breath and told herself to be patient. Jason deserved to have this all told to him just like Percy had. Whatever was waiting at the end wasn’t going to make her feel any better no matter when they got to it.

Leo had seen Tía Callida in action; she liked knives, snakes, and putting babies in roaring fires. Yeah, definitely let’s unleash her rage. Great idea.

“I see no downside,” Hazel said with a proud smile for making a ‘modern day’ reference, even sarcasm. Like a normal teenager.

“You got it Hazel, what childhood would be complete without all that,” Nico agreed, he knew that expression and he was happy to encourage it.

Festus kept flying. The wind got colder, and below them snowy forests seemed to go on forever. Leo didn’t know exactly where Quebec was. He’d told Festus to take them to the palace of Boreas, and Festus kept going north. Hopefully, the dragon knew the way, and they wouldn’t end up at the North Pole.

“See Jace, you didn’t even need google maps, Leo downloaded that for you,” Annabeth grinned. 

“My saving knight,” Jason agreed with obvious relief, “or, ah, Valdez,” he finished with a smirk for mocking Lupa of all gods. Well, it was his funeral.

“But, penguins!” Hazel frowned. She hadn’t gotten to see any in Antarctica either, and they supposedly lived there, just not near her town.

“That’s the South Pole,” Annabeth corrected.

“We’ll go to the zoo later, New York has a few good ones,” Nico promised.

“Percy’s not invited,” Percy sighed.

“Correct,” Nico said without looking over, which made Hazel laugh again.

“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Piper said in his ear. ��You were up all night.”

Leo wanted to protest, but the word sleep sounded really good. “You won’t let me fall off?”

Piper patted his shoulder. “Trust me, Valdez. Beautiful people never lie.”

“She lied by the way,” Thalia snorted.

“About the trusting her part or the beautiful part?” Leo asked mildly. 

Thalia just rolled her eyes at him.

He didn’t believe for a second Piper was going to betray them. They were going to find a way to rescue her dad and Hera and maybe a few more stray puppies along the way if Jason wanted a new litter of friends after all this.

He had no idea where this newfound confidence had come from, but he was going to ride it as long as he was on Festus!

“Right,” he muttered. He leaned forward against the warm bronze of the dragon’s neck, and closed his eyes.

“Nightmares ahoy?” Leo asked into the awkward silence from the look on Nico’s face.

“Yeah,” Will agreed as he took the book from Nico.

“Deadly god at the bottom?” Leo prompted.

“Most likely,” Will nodded.

“Bring it on!” Leo cheered.

Seriously, that stereotype about Apollo kids all being optimists was so ridiculous, Nico chuckled as he passed it on.

[btcinfonews]

Crypto Market Growth Led by AI and Social Dapps

🚀 The Crypto Market’s New Vibe: AI & Social Dapps! 🌐

So, you thought the crypto scene was going to sit back and sip some lukewarm tea after the oh-so-dramatic U.S. elections? Think again! 🥴 Enter the realm of AI and social dapps—the dynamic duo taking center stage in a market that’s finally catching its breath.

We’re talking serious investment shifts here! Investors are like: “What's hot right now? Oh right, AI-driven decentralized applications!” 💻✨ The market is *cooling* down, but not in the ominous 'we're doomed' way—more like a refreshing breeze that’s ushering in innovative technologies.

“Whatever the case, the outlook [for crypto] remains exceptionally bright,” says Joel Kruger, our beloved Market Strategist. 🌟

Just peek at those portfolio adjustments—everyone’s scrambling to incorporate these game-changing techs. Who wouldn’t want a slice of that juicy pie? 🥧💰 It’s not just about holding anymore; it's about adapting to the new wave of crypto royalty!

And of course, tech adoption isn’t new to the crypto world. Just think of it as history repeating itself, but with more memes and fewer floppy disks! 🚀 So, buckle up and prepare for some serious future market trends being influenced by these shiny AI and social dapps.

✨ Crypto Market Growth Led by AI and Social Dapps ✨

Curious about how this all ties together in the grand scheme of crypto? Dive deeper into the story by checking out the full article over at bitcoininfonews.com! Don’t miss out! 🙌

#CryptoNews #InvestSmart #Blockchain #AIDriven #SocialDapps #CryptoInvesting #FutureOfFinance #InTechWeTrust

[reginrokkr]

◟༺✦༻◞ Unfinished Reverie: The Wine-Flask Over Which the Plan Was Hatched.

He spoke to the scarlet-eyed young man and his heroes of the trials and tribulations he had endured. It is said the king of the ineffable city once gathered skilled artisans from the tribes. Underground, he excavated gargantuan beastly constructs, whose wings once caught the winds as great banners might, all to fulfill his ambitions. But the king's erratic behavior had long been common knowledge, and so, on the day he finally probed the depths of the secrets, He lit a great fire, intending to burn it all and all who knew of it, burying all together with the ruins, behind the stone gate...

Amidst the all-consuming inferno, as a doomed craftsman lay dazed at death's door, A golden tear dripping from the stone head fell into his eye, and he saw much. He spoke of the gigantic creations he saw in his stupor, of elaborate machines whirring. He spoke of shadows driven by the flowing flames, climbing from the distant horizon up to the disk of the moon hanging in the sky.

[twilightichor]

◟༺✦༻◞ Unfinished Reverie: The Wine-Flask Over Which the Plan Was Hatched.

He spoke to the scarlet-eyed young man and his heroes of the trials and tribulations he had endured. It is said the king of the ineffable city once gathered skilled artisans from the tribes. Underground, he excavated gargantuan beastly constructs, whose wings once caught the winds as great banners might, all to fulfill his ambitions. But the king's erratic behavior had long been common knowledge, and so, on the day he finally probed the depths of the secrets, He lit a great fire, intending to burn it all and all who knew of it, burying all together with the ruins, behind the stone gate...

Amidst the all-consuming inferno, as a doomed craftsman lay dazed at death's door, A golden tear dripping from the stone head fell into his eye, and he saw much. He spoke of the gigantic creations he saw in his stupor, of elaborate machines whirring. He spoke of shadows driven by the flowing flames, climbing from the distant horizon up to the disk of the moon hanging in the sky.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs “To Deep Space.”

I am finished with university, had my last final yesterday, so we will be moving back to the normal writing schedule, yay! 

I have no idea where this arc is going tbh, but it is going to be good and I am excited. I hope you guys will enjoy it as well! 

“Dr. Adric, Dr. Adric please report to the bridge.”

He stepped from his office wondering what they could possibly need him for there. He had just been trying to get his office situated when the call came out. He set down his papers on the desk and made his way into the ship looking around as he made his tentative way towards the bridge. The ship was roomier than he thought it might be, but still rather small, he wondered how that affected the people on the ship.

He knew that they had to keep plants aboard the ship for the crew’s mental health, but he honestly wondered how much that help. Overhead he was assured the lights were UV in nature to mimic the sun and stave off depression after long months of being trapped inside a metal tin can hurtling through space. Not one was really sure what the effects of deep space on a person.

They knew that being lost in space could result in mass hysteria as demonstrated by the Commander’s own crew and malfunctioned civilian transport, the likes of which had apparently driven themselves to cannibalism in their panic and confusion.

He had read the reports, it was both disgusting and fascinating.

He paused just inside the bridge turning to stare with wide eyed at the men and women positioned at their consuls arrayed in a semicircular pattern against the outside edge of the room. A second tier comprised another smaller set of consoles for about four people, and just above that was a single raised chair.

The captain’s seat.

The room had been designed with both hierarchy and function in mind in that the captain’s chair could look down on all the other chairs with the ability to see what his crew was doing at all times.

And right now they were prepping for launch.

“Engines.”

“Engine one through six online and reporting no malfunctioning cells Commander.”

“Check them one more time. Crew manifest.”

“Four hundred and eighty six confirmed crewmen, sir.”

“What does the manifest say?”

“The same.”

Dr Adric tilted his head watching as the crew worked, but specifically watching the commander. The man spun this way and that, giving orders, taking information, and all the while making quick check-marks in a little black book he held in one hand. He seemed at east in his chair.

The chief weapons officer, the Drev named Sunny, sat at her station despite not really needing her at the moment, and he could see over her shoulder that she was also doing a weapons check for the ship.

The commander turned in his chair spotting the doctor and motioning him over.

He came confused not sure what he would be needed for.

“Commander?”

The man smiled, an expression that fit well on his face. Despite his youth, the doctor could already see laugh lines, faint and barely visible beginning to form around his eyes…. This was a man used to smiling.

“Take a seat doctor, and strap yourself in. This will be an uncomfortable assent.”

“What do you mean?” He wondered in confusion.

“I generally let all new recruits sit on the bridge for at least one launch or warp. I feel it makes the experience real for them instead of just expecting them to use their imagination. Besides, who doesn’t want to watch a ship launch.”

He was a bit surprised but of course he nodded walking over to the indicated seats and strapping himself in with the five point harness. He continued to watch the crew work. The bridge itself seemed to run rather smoothly under the direction of the commander, and from what he could tell the crew seemed very excited to be off.

“Engines ready, commander.”

“Fuel cells engaged.”

Commander Vir reached for his microphone broadcasting his voice throughout the ship, “Alright you beautiful hooligans launch begins in T minus one minute. Please strap yourself and any loose items down and keep your hands and feet inside the ship for the duration of the ride.” He cut off his mic smiling.

Dr Adric watched closely.

“Ground control this is Harbinger preparing to liftoff in T minus 55, do you copy.”

“Copy harbinger. Launch is ready for go standby on grid line trajectory Alpha two niner one one preparing for liftoff over.”

“Thirty seconds.”

He gripped the seatbelt hard teeth gritted watching as the rest of the crew braced themselves as well. The commander flexed his hands sliding his fingers into the flight gloves and hooking his toes onto the pedals. The holographic shield popped up to cover his eyes.

“launch in 10, 9 ,8, 7, 6, 5.”

He gripped tighter.

“4, 3, 2, 1, “

“Launch.”

The force of the rising ship slammed him back into his seat as they were born skyward. All around them the ship seemed to vibrate and rattle. His chest felt like it had a carton of bricks stacked on top of it and a little black circle was beginning to encroach at the edges of his vision.

Somewhere, someone in the room was cheering. Past his vibrating eyes, he could see the commander valiantly fighting to bring the ship into the sky despite it’s immense bulk which had never been designed for gravity. Eyes wide he watched as the eggshell blue of a perfect day morphed before them and grew darker until space stretched out before them like a pair of waiting arms.

“Prepare core for warp. Navigations.”

“Yes commander?”

“Warp Coarse.”

“Sagittarius A. But not to close! Keep to the coordinates the smart guys gave us” he repeated very suddenly looking very nervous all things told.

“What’s in Sagittarius A?” He wondered

The commander turned in his chair one eyebrow raised looking almost incredulous, “you don’t know?”

The rest of the crew shifted very nervously, he could see it on them though there were hints of excitement.”

He shook his head.

“Our primary directive on this ship is deep space exploration. We are a military vessel, but we hold trillions of dollars in scientific equipment aboard this ship, as such we have been tasked by the UNSC in accordance with the NASA foundation to head to Sagittarius A and take the first close space images of the supermassive black hole at the center of the milky way.”

He felt his hands and feet go suddenly cold.

“B but how can you take a picture of something that sucks in light.”

“The accretion disk of course and then the massive black spot at the middle.”

“But if we get to close….”

“Yes yes doctor, I have been flying in space long enough to know what happens if you run amuck of a black hole. We get sucked in and suspended forever in a slow spiral of doom as time slows down and our bodies are slowly ripped apart atom by atom. Please we aren’t getting THAT close. Even I’m pissing myself just thinking about it, but also super excited to be honest. No mess ups this time which is why the ship has been checked to hell and back to make sure it’s working.”

Not for the first time, he was beginning to wonder if he was psychologically stable enough to be on this mission as it seemed you hat to be just a little crazy to want to do this. Maybe that is why a high percentage of people on the ship had presented with psychological anomalies, least of all the commander himself.

How he hadn’t gone mad with fear regarding the eminent death that surrounded them constantly was a mystery.

“Warp core?”

“Ready for ignition sir.”

“How far out are we.”

“Almost to the warp zone sir,”

Dr Adric rubbed his temples. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to see a black hole. What kind of psychological effects does something that powerful have on someone, knowing that if you are caught in its gravity well you are done for in the most horrible way possible, and just looking at it from a distance he imagined would be like watching a bear or tiger out in the wild accept for this was different since the bear could now swallow stares whole and the tiger ad gravity so immense that not even light can escape it’s center.

“Preparing for warp in ten.”

He closed his eyes

But they didn’t stay closed as the countdown continued opening for a moment as he felt the space around him go strange. When he did he nearly lost it as his vision seemed to be looking through a glass fish bowl all warped out to the sides and stretched, far things looking close, close things looking far. Outside the window a massive spot appeared before him and around it the stars were morphing and repeating.

The ship reflected back a thousand times in fractal images.

He yelled in shock clenching his seat, and then, it was over.

He was breathing hard, outside there was nothing but blackness, and the emergency lights had flicked on over the crew.

The captain unbuckled his seat-belt and stepped down onto the floor.

He turned to look at Adric who was gripping the seat so hard his knuckles had gone white, “Nice work, first time I warped I definitely pissed myself so, good constitution.” He patted Adric on the shoulder. The blue Drev stood, and the commander grabbed her by the shoulder hauling himself up onto her back.

Adric watched as the two of them walked away.

How strange.

He was in for seeing a lot of strange things in the next few days. The commander and the blue drev spent a lot of time together, and often he rode on her back. At one point he walked in on the crew having a jousting contest where two drev ran full tilt at the other while the two crewmen brandished brooms.

He walked out of his room more than once to find the commander heelieing down the hall at the head of the bridge crew giving orders.

When that wasn’t happening he had run amuck of a freaky group of spider creatures being taken care of by a dog and a very strange humanoid creature who claimed he could read minds. He hadn’t believed it until it started repeating his inner thoughts back to himself.

Instead of being freaked out he found himself almost envious. If he had that kind of power imagine the sort of things he could do to help his patients.

Everywhere he went it seemed as if something strange was happening.

One day they were playing an aggressive game of keep the balloon off the floor and the next they were using window markers to drawn on the viewing field. As expected from a group of soldiers it turned into a heard of inappropriate doodles until it looked as if their ship was cruising past a heard of winged space dicks.

And he himself kept a close eye on the crew. None of them seemed bothered by the fact they were in deep space, but many of them had strange habits.

The commander and the Drev named Sunny spent an excessive amount of time together, or so he thought, the little doctor never relaxed, and couldn’t to save his life even when he tried. Conn, the mind reader, did his best to get attention by pissing everyone off, and the spiderlings, as he had come to know them, were constantly acting up as well.

He would need more time to get used to the crew, but it seemed as if he had his work cut out for him.

If he could hold himself together that is.

[thedcdunce]

Queen Hippolyta

“Whatever fates we are to meet, we shall face them together, as sisters and Amazons!” - Queen Hippolyta

Real Name: Hippolyta

Aliases:

Wonder Woman

Hippolyte

Shim'Tar

Gender: Female

Height: 5′ 9″

Weight: 150 lbs (68 kg)

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Black

Race: Demigod

Powers:

Amazonian Physiology

Abilities:

Amazonian training

Gift of Athena

Equipment:

Invisible Plane

Amazonian Weapons

Universe: New Earth

Citizenship: Amazon

Base of Operations: Themyscira

Parents: Ares; father

Marital Status: Single

Occupation: Queen

First Appearance: Wonder Woman Vol 2 #1 (February, 1987)

Last Appearance: Wonder Woman #614 (October, 2011)

Powers

Amazonian Physiology: The Amazons are a race of warrior women that have received gifts and blessings from five Olympian goddesses: Artemis, Athena, Demeter, Hestia and Aphrodite. Hippolyta possesses the same potential powers as an average Amazon. These include:

Enhanced Intellect: A gift from Athena, the Amazons have the wisdom to be guided by peace and justice.

Superhuman Strength

Superhuman Durability

Superhuman Stamina

Superhuman Agility

Immortality: The Amazons were gifted immortality. The people of Themyscira lived forever, though could be killed in war or in an accident. Those who followed Antiope and Phthia and became the Bana-Mighdall lost their immortality.

Self-Sustenance: So long as Hippolyta stays on Themyscira, she does not require food, water or any other form of nourishment to maintain her health and vitality. Although they are not susceptible to the throes of hunger, this does not mean that Amazons don't consume food for enjoyment. The Amazons frequently hold great festivals whereupon food is served.

Abilities

Amazonian training: The Amazons honed their skills in many fields, aided by the gifts from Athena and Artemis.

Archery

Equestrianism

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced)

Swordsmanship

Gift of Athena: Athena declared Hippolyta the ruler of the Amazons, and granted her additional insights:

Diplomacy: Queen Hippolyta is practiced at conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states. She has often been called upon to use these skills at times of war.

Leadership: Queen Hippolyta was a born leader and strategist and is excellent in the arts of persuasion and diplomacy.

Equipment

Invisible Plane: As Wonder Woman, Hippolyta had access to the Invisible Jet. She has since given the disk to her daughter.

Amazonian Weapons

Origins

Hippolyta's history begins tens of thousands of years ago. In ancient times, there was a caveman who--embittered over being maimed by a tiger and driven from his tribe--encountered a woman in a cave and brutally murdered her after she offered him some compassion: the first woman murdered by a man's hatred.

Thousands of years later, the Greek pantheon held a meeting around 1,300 B.C., convened by the goddesses. They desired to create a race of humans that would champion their ideals. Zeus, in his arrogance, decreed that mankind would never forget the gods, and that it did not matter if there were champions or not. Ares, being the god of war, did not desire anyone promoting peace. The other male gods did not seem interested, and Hera did not wish to go against her husband. Therefore, it fell to the other five primary Greek goddesses. Traveling into the Underworld, the goddess came to the Well of Souls, the place where the souls of all the women murdered by mans hatred were gathered. They drew forth these souls, dropping them like great tears into a lake in Greece--all save one, a very special soul. The souls mixed with the clay and stone of the lake bed to form the Amazons, women reborn. The first to emerge from the waters was Hippolyta--the second would be her sister, Antiope. The goddesses made themselves known to the Amazons, appointing Hippolyta and Antiope to be the two queens of them. They decreed that the Amazons were to spread the message of Gaea: a message of peace, tolerance, and equality. As a symbol of their devotion, Hippolyta and Antiope were each given a Golden Girdle.

Hippolyta and Antiope lead the Amazons for years, creating a great city called Themyscira. It's unclear if the Amazons aged at first, or how much time elapsed, but it seems from the evidence that perhaps twenty years go by, as Antiope has a daughter, Pythia. Their efforts to spread peace and equality were frustrated, however, as few men trusted them. As the years went by, more and more they remained isolated in their city. Their numbers increased by freeing women from slavery.

Doom would come to the city in the form of Heracles, the Son of Zeus. In the midst of his Twelve Labors, still suffering from Hera's madness upon him, Heracles and his friend Theseus came to the Amazons. One of Heracles's Labors was to retrieve the Girdle of Hippolyta. Arriving at the Amazon city with an army behind them, Heracles demanded Hippolyta surrender the Girdle. Hippolyta refused, marching out of the city and offering to fight Heracles for it. Heracles was defeated by the Amazon Queen, and the humbled demi-god offered peace and to unite with the Amazons in an alliance. The Amazons let Heracles and his men into the city, and a night of revelry ensued. Antiope fell helplessly in love with Theseus, and Hippolyta fell for Heracles pretty hard--too hard. In his madness, Heracles drugged Hippolyta, raping and assaulting her in her slumber. And when she awoke she was in chains. Heracles' army bound, beat, and raped the Amazons, tearing down their city and stealing their treasures. Heracles left the city with Hippolyta's girdle and some of his men, leaving the majority behind to guard the Amazons. Theseus was gone as well, although it's not clear if he participated in the raping and pillaging or if he left beforehand.

After a vision of one of the goddesses let her find her strength, Hippolyta broke out of her cell and set to work freeing her sisters. More and more Amazons were freed, and a running battle began all over the city. Hippolyta watched as many of her sisters succumbed to bloodlust, enjoying the bloody slaughter of the men. They fought until all the men lie dead. Afterwards, Antiope was still enraged--she insisted that they march on Athens itself, killing all in their path until they reached Athens where they could take back the Girdle from Heracles' dead hand.

But Hippolyta said no--she said that such a path of bloody revenge was not the Amazon way, and that to go down that way would lead only to destruction. Antiope could not be strayed--feeling betrayed by not only her lover but by her gods, she cast her Girdle at Hippolyta's feet, declaring that henceforth she asked nothing of Olympus. Half the Amazons left with her--the other half stayed with Hippolyta. It was the last time the sisters would ever see each other.

In the midst of the ruins, the goddesses now appeared again. They were displeased with the Amazons, declaring that they had failed in their sacred mission--now the very name "Amazon" would be associated with death and destruction, not peace and equality. The Amazons must have a penance. They were each given a pair of steel "bracelets" to wear at all times, forever a reminder of their capture and humiliation. Then their bodies and souls were purified, and they began their journey. Poseidon himself parted the sea, and the Amazons walked along the bottom until they came to an island that the gods had removed from the circles of the world--Paradise Island. There they built the new city-state of Themyscira, and were to be the guardians of a great evil that lay beneath the Island. As long as they remained on the island, they would be immortal--though they could be killed, and some were over the many long years and the many battles they had to fight against the evil that would try to escape. For over 3,000 years, here they remained, with Hippolyta their queen all that time.

From time to time, there would be a visitor who breached the mists that shielded the island. One of these would be Diana Trevor, a woman who crash landed her small plane on the shores of the island some time after World War II. Diana Tevor arrived while the Amazons were in the midst of a battle with the evil from the Pits beneath the island, and she valiantly fought at their side. She fired the crucial shot from her firearm that won the battle, although she lost her life in the process.

Not long after Diana Trevor came to the island, Hippolyta began to feel a deep yearning she could not explain. The Oracle of the Island had the answer--Hippolyta was the reincarnation of the first woman who had been murdered, and that woman was pregnant with a daughter. The longing Hippolyta felt was for her unborn child. The Oracle told her that the goddesses would grant her longing. Hippolyta went to the beach, and molded a baby from the sand and clay of the island. Then five goddesses and one god went back into the Underworld, drawing out the last soul that remained in the Well and giving it incredible powers. The soul was merged with the clay and became flesh. Hippolyta had her daughter, and named her in honor of Diana Trevor--Diana, Princess of the Amazons.

Diana grew up with one mother and thousands of sisters--but no children her own age. When she was young, the sorceress Magala used her magic to create a magical copy of Diana to be her playmate. Unfortunately, one of Hippolyta's enemies, Dark Angel, came to the island planning to kidnap Diana. She found the copy instead, and thinking that was Diana, she kidnapped her instead. That child was Donna Troy. After Donna's disappearance, Hippolyta became more protective of her daughter, often coming to check on her at random, even after Diana had fully grown up.

After Diana turned twenty-two, the Oracle of the Island came to Hippolyta with a new message. The gods demanded that the Amazons send a champion to what the Amazons' called "Man's World". Hippolyta called for a contest to determine who would go, but she forbid Diana from competing. Diana did it anyway, and no one knew until the Contest was over, as all the contestants were required to wear masks during the tests. Hippolyta could not deny Diana's place, and so after passing one final test, Diana was given a costume.

The NEW Golden Age Wonder Woman

The Crisis on Infinite Earths leaves many problems for the resulting survivors of the singular earth. Even the Amazons are not protected as Donna Troy, Wonder Woman's younger sister, has been erased from history but still exists in the reformatted new Earth. Wally West and Wonder Woman confront the woman who they know but no one else does and begin a quest to restore the Donna Troy they knew. Confronting Hippolyta on the events of Donna, Hippolyta reveals Donna's true origin as a mystically created twin playmate for Princess Diana. The alternate warped version of Troy known as Dark Angel abducted Donna thinking her to be the original Diana and cursed her to live multiple tragic lives, one of which was as Donna Troy.

Hippolyta, along with Jay Garrick, travels back into the past to stabilize the current reality of Troy as Wonder Girl and correct some of the problems of the time stream caused by Dark Angel's presence in the past. It was during this time that Hippolyta becomes the Golden Age Wonder Woman native to the new reality and joins the Justice Society of America during the team's original days. Hippolyta, as the "new" Golden Age Wonder Woman, along with the Justice Society, defeats Dark Angel. Hippolyta remains there until approximately 1950 when she returns to the present with the help of a Jay Garrick from the future.

Dethronement and Death

Upon Hippolyta's return to the present time, she had found her time away from the Amazon and her royal duties had allowed a break to happen between the Amazon groups. While many outsiders had thought of the Amazons as one singular group of women, the truth of the Amazonian society did have individual groups. One of those groups, the Bana Mighdall Amazons, felt that Hippolyta had given up her right to rule by willingly abandon her throne to fight in Man's world, even though she was originally forced into the role by the Olympian gods. Even her direct Themyscira Amazons couldn't justify her continuing neglect of her royal duties as the Queen of the Amazons for the length of time that Hippolyta had remained away from the Amazons and began to turn away from her. Seeing that she was losing support and her own desire for battle increasing, Hippolyta relinquished her throne and went back into the outside to fight alongside her daughter as a second Wonder Woman, after suggesting that Diana and her saved sister, Donna Troy, rule over the Amazons. Hippolyta's two daughters refused to rule and the various factions were not able to choose and successor satisfactory to all the groups. Ultimately the Amazons decided to abolish the Amazon monarchy system for individual self-rule.

Finding her place as an active warrior and part-time member of the reformed Justice Society, Hippolyta carried on as the "other" Wonder Woman until the "Worlds at War" happened. During one of the cosmic invader Imperiex's attempts to destroy Earth, the Amazons became involved in the planet's defense. Hippolyta fought against an Imperiex probe and was barely able to stop it by herself. When Diana arrived at the battle scene she rescued her mother and ordered the weaker Wonder Woman to leave. But Hippolyta remained defiant despite her weaker power and safeguarded her daughter by throwing Diana out of the way when the Imperiex probe threaten to destroy Diana and all around them. The probe exploded killing only Hippolyta.

One Year Later revival

Hippolyta is brought back to life by the immortal witch Circe who shows the revived Hippolyta that the USA has kidnapped her daughter Diana and was being tortured until she gave over the plans on how the U.S. government could create their own Purple Ray to be used as a weapon. Enraged by Circe's vision and accepting them as real, Hippolyta declared control over all of the Amazons to rescue Diana and attain vengeance on the outside world she had once cherished. Confronting her daughter who had gone underground, Hippolyta decided to continue the battle regardless and slaughtered many males, even unarmed boys. Finding her actions completely out of character for the former Wonder Woman, Diana and Donna Troy discovered that Circe had revived Hippolyta as an extension of herself by placing a portion of her own soul into Hippolyta.

As Hippolyta's persona was modified to now be a composite of her former self and that of Circe, the revived Hippolyta was far more destructive than ever before even to the point that she defended Circe against her daughters. It is not until Circe was rendered impotent temporarily, and the magical influence over Hippolyta's mind is removed does Hippolyta regain her more calm center and end the Amazonian war. Athena makes herself known to Hippolyta and the Amazons and decides to punish them all for their part in the war by removing all the Amazons' powers and memories and scattering them across the Earth to live out their shortened lives as human women.

Hippolyta also stripped of her powers but restored to immortality for an unending punishment is forced to rule over an empty Paradise Island except for four bound Amazons who unless all forgive her will never be able to reclaim their memory and powers. Currently, Hippolyta spends her days seeking their redemption in the hopes of rebuilding Paradise Island and returning the Amazons to their previous status. It has been revealed that the current Athena is in reality Granny Goodness who has succeeded the original Athena after the fall of the New Gods.

Fun Facts

This character is an adaptation of Hippolyta, a character in traditional stories. These include, but may not be limited to religious texts, myth, and/or folk lore.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

I'VE BEEN PONDERING TIM

When my IBM Thinkpad's hard disk died soon after, it became my only laptop. They can sense totalitarianism approaching from a distance, as animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm. He invests in than with other investors, his relationship with the founder is only going to last a couple years before even considering using it. So you have to fund startups that won't leave. Even Tim O'Reilly was wearing a suit, a sight so alien I couldn't parse it at first. A few months ago, as I was reading Constance Reid's excellent biography of Hilbert, I figured out if not the answer to the question of what this new Lisp does some important job better than other languages. What is Medialive International?

An obstacle downstream propagates upstream. We did. You're driven by curiosity instead of duty. Some founders are quite dejected when they get turned down by investors at some point they get to go home and forget about it. You can envision the wealth created by a startup as if it were merely a matter of implementing some brilliant initial idea. They had some good hackers, it's when they notice you're still there. How much you should worry about being an outsider may be to make the book controversial. Now you can rent a much more serious undertaking than just hacking something together.

There was a window of about two years when spam was increasing rapidly but all the big email services had terrible filters. Customers may drop off individually if they can avoid it. Advanced users are more forgiving about bugs, especially since you probably introduced them in the course of writing it. There are no meetings or, God forbid, corporate retreats or team-building exercises. When you make any tool, people use it in ways you didn't intend, and this is responsible for a lot of work, and of course Google set off the tagging movement. But in practice a good profiler may do more to improve the speed of actual programs written in the new language. Web 2. By unsavory I mean things that go behind whatever semantic facade the language is trying to make a few people really happy than to make a list of n things is the easiest essay form, it should be a good one for beginning writers. One especially good groove to span is the one between tools and things made with them. Now everyone knows that this is a sign that something is technically impossible.

Or we have a lot of compound bugs. We probably had 20 deals of various types fall through. Some popular magazines feature articles of this type on the cover of every issue. They can sense totalitarianism approaching from a distance, as animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm. Everyone there spoke so fast. If you turned it over, it said Inside Macintosh. Then you'd really be in good shape. But I have no idea if these guys are doomed.

Octopart there was no good way to do it for less than a million per startup. At any given time, there are probably two things keeping you from doing it. The latest laws make this a crime. It's so easy to understand what they do: you call a function on the macro's arguments, and whatever it returns gets inserted in place of the macro call. It's just a legitimate sounding way of saying: we don't know who our heroes should be. But after I'd been there a few months I realized that if you put those two ideas together, you get something surprising. You might get it. Look in the mirror.

0 so much. To the popular press, hacker means someone who breaks into computers. In this model, the research department functions like a mine. The trouble with lying is that you can reproduce errors, it changes your approach to customer support. And your brain seems to know this: because you don't want founders to be stupid. While we were writing the software, listening closely to the users as you do. If angels are so important, why do we hear more about VCs? You're not limited to small, artificial focus groups.

[grayseeker]

Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

This is my response to the first question in the 40 Questions Meme for Fic Writers, which is “Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.” I had to dig deep, and what emerged was more like an essay! Sharing for the hell of it.

Alienation

The characters I’m drawn to are nearly always outsiders. Skyfire and Starscream both are, albeit in different ways, with Skyfire being perhaps the ultimate outsider, having been whisked out of time and deposited in the midst of a war where the only person he recognizes has become a stranger to him. During the episodes that follow Fire in the Sky, we see him struggle to fit in with the Autobots, but by the time we get to his final appearance in Day of the Machines, he seems subdued and possibly even depressed. I touched on this progression in my story Under His Wing.

Tracks also strikes me as an outsider among the Autobots. He puts up a haughty front that alienates his allies while hanging out with Baster and Cosmos, two other misfits. Ultimately, he finds friendship with a tough-talking street kid named Raoul. In my story The Wrong Side of Tracks, his isolation stems from his Seeker ancestry. His family rejected him when he gained the ability to fly, leaving him to be raised by Skylynx - yet another oddball.

Rodimus Prime is the character everyone compares (unfavorably) to Optimus, and in Built For It, I explore how he struggles to adapt to his newfound role. Scavenger is an outsider among the Constructicons, what with his obsession with collecting stuff and his doomed attempts to impress his team. In Keepsake of My Starless Beloved, Scavenger has gotten his hands on the ultimate prize: Starscream’s crown, and goes through a painful emotional journey as he tries to decide what to do with it. Dirge, too, has emerged as something of a lone wolf. In The Deathtouch, he finds himself increasingly isolated from others thanks to being able to sense their oncoming deaths, an ability which becomes a curse.

Seeking Balance and Justice

Scenario A: In The Ultimate Doom, the Decepticons implant “hyno-chips” in humans which allows them to control their behaviour, thus enslaving them.

Scenario B: In The Core, the Autobots attach “dominator disks” to the Constructicons, enabling them to force Devastator to do their bidding.

The difference? Scenario A is presented as immoral, while Scenario B is presented as perfectly fine, despite being essentially the same action. Why? Because the morality of an action is not, it would seem, determined by the action itself, but by who’s doing it. Autobots are always Right and Good, and Decepticons are always Wrong and Evil, even when they’re doing the exact same things. 

This has always driven me bananas, and is one of the reasons I started writing Transformers fanfic in the first place. I needed a means by which to address the show’s profound hypocrisy where it comes to moral issues. It’s also why I’ve always gravitated to the Decepticons as the underdog group, who are seemingly always wrong no matter what, and who always lose because the writers decreed that’s how it has to be.

My early attempts to “fix” this imbalance were pretty unsubtle, but I’ve graduated to more sophisticated approaches. Skyfire, for example, is a character who has seen both sides of the war and still remembers a time before it, so his observations allow for a relatively unbiased perspective. I also try to let Decepticon voices be heard so we get a better sense of what they believe they’re fighting for. The notion that they started a war merely because they “like to fight” strikes me as nonsense. A group that seeks ultimate power likely comes from a place of tremendous disempowerment (whether real or perceived), and exploring those perceptions leads to deeper, more intelligent storytelling.

Love and Healing

I’m a romance writer at heart. My earliest fanfic attempts came about primarily because I adore Starscream and want him to be loved. I also happen to think that love is the one thing that could actually heal him. It’s not just that he needs to be loved by someone else (important as that is), but more crucially, he needs to re-learn how to love himself.

In my stories, Love is more than just romance. It’s a cosmic force with the potential to heal not just individuals, but entire worlds - if the characters are ready. Rodimus Prime, the Autobot leader fans love to malign because he “isn’t Optimus” shows the way when he (repeatedly!) expresses compassion for Decepticons. Compassion is Love in action, and by being able to voice it openly, he reveals himself as a leader who could potentially reunite the two factions and bring about true healing.

Sure, Rod’s got some growing up to do. He is, after all, the only Cybertronian known to have actually blown up an inhabited planet (an action which was  made okay thanks to his being an Autobot and therefore Right). Still, he reveals the potential to see beyond factional differences and build a meaningful, lasting peace, themes I explored in Built For It  and The Wrong Side of Tracks. 

My ongoing series Unbroken is my deepest exploration of Love’s healing power. The romantic love between Starscream and Skyfire is a personalized manifestation of Love’s power to bridge uncrossable divides and to heal the deepest wounds. Simplistic as that might sound, it’s far from easy - for them, or for me. They must each be able to open themselves, both to one another and to the unifying force of Love itself. Their journey to get to that point is the greatest adventure of their lives… and mine!

[veliseraptor]

a moment of silence, please, 558 words, hey hey want an extremely short first Ragnarok-based fic? cause yep got one of those

Sakaar was an ugly, chaotic, refuse heap of a planet.

It was still better than the Void between stars.

He thought fast and talked faster; it only took a couple of seconds to size up the Grandmaster (hedonistic, bored, capricious) and tell him what he would like to hear. His diplomatic skills might be rusty, but they were not that rusty.

Still, he knew he was lucky. Knew he was on probation, watched by every eye, that it would only take a single moment’s slip to fall from grace - and most probably into the gladiatorial pit, where he could probably hold his own for a while, but not forever. And certainly not if the Grandmaster wanted him to lose.

He did not want one of those obedience disks to wind up on his neck.

Still, his rooms were pleasant enough. The bed was comfortable, and he was alone. Loki sat down and poured himself a drink of uncertain provenance, tossing it back and coughing for the unexpected burn. He lowered it slowly and stared at the wall.

By now Thor would have reached Asgard. There, he would…

He would lose. Maybe not immediately, but Loki had measured Hela’s strength (his sister, more secrets) and known that even he and Thor together could not possibly hope to defeat her. She was older, more powerful, and possessed of a ruthlessness that put his to shame.

Thor would lose, and he would die.

And thus would end Odin’s line.

Loki pressed the back of his hand to his mouth and poured another drink. Odin’s voice crawled unwillingly into his thoughts.

My sons, he’d said. As though all was forgiven. As though he’d never cast Loki into a cell, as though he were not responsible for the shattering of Loki’s life (his lie), as though Loki had not wound him around with spells to bewilder and cast him out of Asgard.

To die.

Loki let himself think it. Odin All-Father was dead. It did not sound right, so he thought it again: Odin All-Father is dead.

No. Still didn’t sound right.

Loki had wanted to be rid of him. Wanted him gone and away. But this...he didn’t want this. There was a strange hollow place in his chest. It felt different from the rage and grief when he’d heard of Frigga’s death. The frantic fury that had driven him to destroy everything he could touch because it was the only way his grief would not tear him open. The knowledge of his culpability that still made him flinch.

That makes three of your parents you’ve killed so far, doesn’t it?

This was something else. Exhaustion, numbness. The bitter feeling that yet again Odin had left him in the lurch: here is your sister who wants to destroy everything, here is your forgiveness given as though none of the bitter history mattered, goodbye.

Frigga would be proud, as though that were enough.

Loki looked at his glass. He did not remember draining it.

Frigga dead. Odin dead. Thor and Asgard doomed.

Loki started to pour another glass, then put it down and picked up the bottle.

“To the All-Father,” he said quietly, raising it. Then paused.

Am I not your mother?

You are not.

Loki closed his eyes. “To my father,” he said, almost a whisper.

It tasted bitter.

It tasted right.

[jasminem18]

@neosmisfits

[neosmisfits]

Disk Driven Doom Sonic

[componentplanet]

How Much Does It Matter That PCs Are Faster Than Consoles?

Earlier this week, I argued that the backward-compatibility features Microsoft is launching with the Xbox Series X will put consoles on an equal footing with PCs for the first time ever. My point was not to claim that PC and console gaming would now literally be identical, but that adding accessory and software backward compatibility represented the last major feature gap between the two platforms and that the Xbox Series X represented a convergence between PC and consoles.

Plenty of readers disagreed. This article is the first of several I intend to write on various counter-arguments or views raised by readers. According to some vehement readers, the entire point of PC gaming is to maintain higher frame rates than anything a console is capable of. Speed (and to a lesser extent, higher detail levels) aren’t just a nice perk — they’re the defining characteristic that separates PC and console gaming. 60fps is one common target, but some of the people who responded claimed higher targets, including 144 and even 240fps. Many of the same people who emphasized this argument made other comments indicating they believed I was a console gamer.

For the record, I’m not. I’d estimate upwards of 95 percent of my total lifetime gaming has been done on a PC, and I’ve been a PC gamer since 1987. Obviously people are allowed to value anything they want about a platform, but I want to talk about the idea that PC gaming is explicitly about high frame rates. I think whether you associate PC gaming

specifically with fast gaming depends, at least in part, on when you grew up.

PCs Used to Be the Slowest Gaming Solution Around

When I was young, PC games were slow. While there were 8-bit machines from Atari and Commodore that offered richer graphics and audio options, the generic hardware in the IBM PC and its immediate successors wasn’t well-suited to fast-paced gaming. Graphics on the PC began as a crude series of static images — the first graphical adventure game, Mystery House, was published in 1980 by On-Line Systems, the forerunner of Sierra On-Line. Lists of the best games of the 1980s are dominated by RPGs, simulations, and adventure games.

Games that primarily relied on typed input mostly didn’t rely on fast gameplay to avoid turning them into inadvertent typing speed tests. Early Sierra games like Kings Quest I – III, Space Quest I and II, Police Quest I, and the original Leisure Suit Larry didn’t even pause the game when you started to type.

I went to my friends’ houses to play games like Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., and Double Dragon because they were faster and smoother than anything I had access to at home. Platforming on the PC in the late 1980s looked like Captain Comic, shown below. I beat this game. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as Super Mario Bros. and it didn’t play as well. This blog post dives into some of the technical reasons why a $2,000 PC in 1991 couldn’t match a $200 console — because, at the time, it couldn’t.

If you fell in love with PC gaming in this era, it wasn’t because PCs outperformed consoles. It took far longer to load data off a floppy disk or even hard drive than an NES cartridge, and the NES, Genesis, and Super Nintendo had better graphics than the PC at launch. You played Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar instead of Final Fantasy because Ultima IV actually let you talk to each and every NPC, asking them detailed questions about their lives, as opposed to limiting the NPCs to single-response answers. Ultima IV had standard RPG elements like levels and spellcasting, but part of the feeling of progression came from learning which NPCs knew what information and puzzling out various webs of information. Squint a little and it’s an organic quest system without the in-game tracking.

Consoles had nothing to match this kind of capability. In the era before dialog menus, keyboard support made game engines feel as if they supported far richer levels of text interactivity than they actually did. It’s an advantage the PC lost after games moved away from emphasizing text input and towards the use of dialog menus.

In the late 1980s, if you wanted to make a game run meaningfully faster, you copied it to your hard drive. A faster CPU would play animations faster, but games of the day loaded data one screen at a time. Above a certain point, running a game off multiple 5.25-inch floppies and swapping between them hit performance much harder than a slower CPU. You also ran the risk of discovering one of your floppies had gone bad mid-game. If you wanted fast, animated, on-screen gaming, you bought a console. If you wanted deep, thoughtful, slower-paced titles, you played on PC.

Games like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom made tremendous waves in the PC market precisely because they were some of the first PC games to offer fast-paced, arcade-like play. But Wolf 3D didn’t show up until 1992, with Doom following in 1993. At the time, I could play Wolfenstein 3D reasonably well on my 386SX-16 with 8MB of RAM, but I had to shrink Doom to postage-stamp size to play it, and the only version of Doom 2 I had access to required a CD-ROM, which my machine didn’t have. I played older games like Civilization on my home PC and titles like Civilization II and Doom 2 on my best friend’s computer, since his parents had bought a 486-DX2. CD-ROM capabilities were huge in the mid-90s and game developers quickly found ways to offer additional features on the CD-ROM versions of their games.

Performance Evolves Slowly

The arrival of 3D cards in the late 1990s revolutionized gaming, but they didn’t immediately unlock super-high frame rates for your average PC gamer. Higher spend has always equaled higher frame rates, but the speed at which the market moved and the higher number of variables to track made it harder and more expensive to get decent performance than it is today. In 1997, if you had money, you bought a Pentium or Pentium II. If you didn’t have money, you bought a K6 or K6-2.

The arrival of Athlon in 1999 kicked off the first high-end war between AMD and Intel, but I’d bought my first system in 1997. As a college student, I was firmly in the “don’t have money” crowd, and these are the kind of frame rates you got from Quake III Arena in 2000 if you had, say, a K6-2 300. All of these graphs are from nearly the same period of time — two articles from Anandtech, written in June and November of 2000. All images below by Anandtech.

Image by Anandtech

Here’s the same test from a K6-3 450:

Image by Anandtech

Finally, the same test at the same resolution, running on an array of higher-end CPUs:

Graph by Anandtech

Only one of those graphs — the last one — looks like the kind of CPU results we see in games today. The K6-3 was so much faster than the K6-2 thanks to the combined impact of an on-die L2 cache and its higher clock speed. What’s unusual is that the large performance gains aren’t confined to the highest-end GPU, but show up even when tested with older cards like the TNT2 Ultra. Even a low-end card like the Voodoo 3 2000 showed much stronger CPU scaling than what we see today. And all of these chips were new by modern standards  — the K6-2 300 was less than 2.5 years old in November 2000. The “old” Voodoo 3 2000 was barely 15 months old.

My initial forays into overclocking were driven by a desire to squeeze more performance out of budget hardware so I could game at something that didn’t look like potato quality running at terrible frame rates. That was scarcely uncommon. In the era when CPU and GPU performance were both leaping ahead, relatively few people could afford to stay on the absolute cutting edge of technology. While Quake 3 showed what looks like modern CPU performance clustering, this wasn’t universal. Compare it with Unreal Tournament, from the same review:

Image by Anandtech

Games like Unreal Tournament still showed strong impacts from CPU and illustrated how quickly the market was moving. The Athlon 500 (KX133) that couldn’t even hit 45fps? It was a few days short of its first birthday. If you had wanted to stay on top of that mythical 60fps target, you might have found yourself replacing $500 – $1,000 worth of components every single year. I’m sure some people did. Most didn’t.

The Limits of FPS as a Metric:

There are three specific reasons I’ve spent so much time on the history above. First, I wanted to illustrate how the evolution of gaming itself has changed which system components need to be upgraded in order to improve performance, and how much the position of PCs versus consoles has changed.

Second, I wanted to emphasize that defining PC gaming strictly in terms of high frame rates is ahistorical relative to how many of us experienced that history. The fastest CPU you could buy the month after Quake came out (June 1996) was a Pentium 200 MMX. The minimum CPU requirement for Quake 3 Arena in 1999 was a Pentium II 233. There was no upgrade path between the two platforms. Most PC gamers didn’t spend thousands of dollars every single year to stay current on hardware. You bought when you could, overclocked where you could, and played what you could with the result.

Third, I wanted to discuss how attempting to define gaming superiority in terms of how frame rate punishes PC players who simply can’t afford to spend as much money as others. By extension, it implies that the only valuable games are games that can push PC hardware. There’s nothing wrong with having enough disposable income to choose a higher-performing platform or with loving games that push the envelope, but you aren’t less of a PC gamer just because you game on a low-end PC. One of the best aspects of the indie boom has been a proliferation of games that don’t require much in the way of hardware. A low-end 2019 laptop may not play much in the way of modern titles, but it’ll play the biggest hits of 1997 – 2007 just fine.

Like a lot of you, I enjoy playing PC games at higher frame rates than consoles typically offer. Like a lot of you, I consider this a major strength. I don’t, however, consider higher frame rates to be an intrinsic advantage of the platform. They’re only an advantage if you have access to them in the first place, and not all PC gamers do. There are a lot of flaws in the Steam Hardware Survey, but according to the best data we have, the GTX 1060, 1050 Ti, and 1050 are the top three GPUs on the market today, with 28.92 percent of the market between them. The people who buy those GPUs are still PC gamers, but they aren’t necessarily enjoying better frame rates than they’d see on an Xbox One X.

I’m happy to acknowledge superior performance as a current perk of building a high-end gaming PC, but you can love PC gaming passionately and be stuck doing it on old equipment. There’s no question that it’ll be possible to build a PC that outperforms the Xbox Series X,

but I don’t consider faster frame rates to be a fundamental characteristic of PC gaming as a category — just a really nice benefit I’m happy to take advantage of when I have the money and the opportunity.

Now Read:

The Next-Generation ‘Xbox Series X’ Is Actually Just Called Xbox

Microsoft’s Xbox Series X Just Ended the PC-Console War

Best Games for Laptops and Low-End PCs in 2020

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/303658-how-important-is-performance-pc-versus-consoles from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2019/12/how-much-does-it-matter-that-pcs-are.html

[entergamingxp]

20 years after its release, it’s time to play Daikatana • Eurogamer.net

John Romero and Ion Storm’s FPS Daikatana was released 20 years ago and it’s regarded as one of the biggest failures in video game history. Nowadays, we remember its infamous advertisement warning us that “John Romero’s about to make you his bitch,” its delays and its poor reviews. Maybe we also remember the controversies surrounding Ion Storm itself.

We remember its myth, but we don’t remember Daikatana. While Ion Storm expected to sell more than 2 million copies, Daikatana is a game few people actually played. For its 20th anniversary, it’s time to see what Daikatana has to offer now, beyond legends and prejudices.

In Daikatana three characters travel through time thanks to (and because of) the powers of a magic sword, and they fight to stop an evil corporation. The game features 24 levels split into four episodes set in different ages: a cyberpunk Tokyo, a mythical Ancient Greece inspired by Ray Harryhausen’s movies, a zombie-plagued Medieval Europe and San Francisco in 2030. Each era surprises players with its own environments, soundtrack, enemies and weapons, and almost every weapon (there are 25 in total) tries to do something different with an ingenuity more common at the time but usually lost nowadays. Not everything is equally brilliant, but from ricocheting energy orbs to a demon-summoning staff, from melee silver claws designed to kill Medieval werewolves to sci-fi freezing guns, there’s a lot of variety and distinctiveness that’s carried over to its multiplayer. It’s a massive experience that sometimes feels like four different games collected together.

Playing Daikatana now means rediscovering a forgotten relic from an experimental and transitional period at the end of the previous millennium. Visually, it’s reminiscent of 90s American comics books influenced by Japanese manga. Like 90s FPSs, it mixes enemies with hit-scan immediate attacks and enemies that shoot dodgeable projectiles. It’s frantic, especially in its multiplayer modes, and it’s filled with secrets that ask you to understand its levels as interconnected spaces. But it also has cutscenes, missions and objectives, and its level design is less abstract (and so less gameplay-driven) than Doom’s and Quake’s. Moreover, it tried to innovate its genre adding RPG elements and, above all, the sidekicks, two AI companions who follow the player during part of their adventure and fight by their side.

Sidekicks were one of Daikatana’s most advertised features and became the most criticised element of the game, because they often get stuck in the environment and they desperately throw themselves to their death. Since their defeat means an instant game over (and till its 1.1 patch Daikatana had limited saves), players mostly had to carefully babysit them and drag them alive to the end of each level. As Romero explained, sidekicks were designed to be a burden, and while the execution was tragically flawed and buggy, the concept was (and still is) brave: creating buddies who were not mere gameplay tools but digital people with their needs. Sidekicks need medikits, armors, weapons and ammunition and they were coded to act, run, crawl, climb and jump as a human player would do: a fake life we must live together with.

But the technology was not there yet.

Daikatana was the most tangible sign of the difference between the technology-driven id Software and the design-focused Ion Storm, and while its idealistic vision (“Design is Law” was Ion Storm’s credo) gave life to Deus Ex, it didn’t properly work with Daikatana, which looks like a child who has overgrown their clothes, the Quake 2 engine.

“Back in 2000 [Daikatana] was pushing the limits of [what] the Quake 2 engine was capable of and the knowledge of the programmers” tells us Daikatana modder Frank Sapone via email. Sapone played Daikatana at launch and he “liked it a lot,” so years later he started modding it to solve a few known bugs and crashes. “Once those things were resolved I became eager to fix as many bugs as I can to make it more enjoyable to a wider audience” he says, and so he went on working at a massive homebrew patch with other modders. The 1.3 patch makes Daikatana run on Mac and Linux, it makes sidekicks invincible on easy difficulty, increases their health, improves their AI and allows us to disable them entirely, plus it adds support for widescreen resolutions and improves online multiplayer.

Thanks to these modders, Daikatana is a totally playable game now. But, admittedly, the first impact is still awful. The opening cutscene is boring, unintentionally ludicrous and it lasts for ten minutes. It’s followed by the worst episode of the game, and I fear that many players got discouraged and never completed those early areas filled with unavoidable damage and tiny greenish enemies that you can’t distinguish in the green and brown environments. It’s hard and there’s a lot of frustrating trial and error. So, just use a cheat code and skip to the second episode: it’s probably the best part of Daikatana and it brings us to a totally imagined and unhistorical Ancient Athens with big levels, backtracking and throwing disks that bounce off walls before flying back to us Xena-style.

“The multiplayer […] is probably even more underrated” tells us u/dama__, moderator for the Daikatana subreddit. “It’s not as balanced as Quake 3 because of the many gimmicky weapons from the single player. […] It’s also harder to make a comeback compared to other arena FPSs because you gain experience points when you frag someone, leaving the other player(s) at a disadvantage. However it’s very fun. The movement is kind of like Quake 3 with more air control, and when you upgrade your speed you can really zoom around the maps.”

Daikatana was a failed experiment, but with its new patch you can actually enjoy what remains of its ambitious vision and, though it’s not an underrated gem or something like that, it has a lot to offer. You can buy it on Steam and GOG and you can find its 1.3 patch here (at the moment, I suggest you to use the more stable 32 bit version). If you want to play its multiplayer, you can either look for opponents in its dedicated Steam community or grab a couple of friends and try the campaign in coop mode.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/05/20-years-after-its-release-its-time-to-play-daikatana-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=20-years-after-its-release-its-time-to-play-daikatana-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[awesomewincollecttop]

Know Linux

Linux 

 Linux basics: 

 It’s totally free for download however you need to pay a little bit to mail order it or purchase it from a business. If you’re getting Linux for more than 2-3 PCs, you can likewise get training and assistance at a little totally free, if you pick to have it. Else it’s the Linux neighborhood on the Net to your rescue. 

 If you wish to get comfy with Linux, you do not need to release windows. Get Linux set up on a seprate partition and you can change in between Windows and Linux. There are some Linux variations that run CDs too-xandross and Knoppix. 

 You do not need to be a geek to deal with Linux. There are Desktop environments that let you operate in Linux as you operate in Linux as you would in Windows. 

 Linux hand in reducing PC costs. 

 Linux being an open source operating system, indicates that the code that runs is open for everybody to see, work with, customize and establish their own ingenious apps for it. The offer with this experimentation is that you have to share the understanding you acquired and the software application you produced with the public domain. And a business packages Linux and applications based on it with a computer system, rather a bit of the software application expense comes down. 

 Linux came into being about 11 years ago- it was established by Linux Tornados of Finland along with a group of developers from the open source software application motion. Linux was primarily something just the geeks worked with. 

 Linux is growing progressively year after year. With an enthusiastic neighborhood backing it, with huge business Like IBM and HP promising their assistance for it, it’s no marvel Linux- the marvel operating system for servers of the past, has actually likewise made it to the desktops of today. From being an OS just computer system specialists had actually heard about, Linux, in a brief time, has actually made a shift into the rewarding and high profile house PC sector. 

 Linux is based on the business OS, UNIX. UNIX and Linux are not all about simply command line things. In its 11 years Linux has actually constantly had constantly had a GUI too-in reality an option of GUIs. 

 Linux Versions: 

 There’s most likely to be numerous Linux variations too. Numerous business working on Linux have actually come up with what are called Linux circulations. 

 The popular circulations or ruins consist of Red Hat Linux Mandrake Linux, Corel Linux SUSE Linux and Debian. Real to the spirit of open source, if you download the distro from the business’s Website, it is totally free for usage. Business assemble the plans, make setup inconvenience totally free, bundle applications, include a handbook, and extend any assistance you require. 

 One note here though: the totally free in Linux means liberty of option, to rearrange, to set up a function, liberty to customize the source code. That’s the spirit of Linux being complimentary. 

 Linux much better than other OS 

 Linux users will not even bat an eyelid prior to they state a focus comes from a deep dislike of Microsoft’s practice of altering the earth for software application. A lot of it comes from the truth they are prepared to swear upon-that Linux is more steady. Linux has a much better security assistance for multi-users, lets you set up a steady server, web entrances etc, and still lets it-self to be utilized as a desktop workstation. 

 Misconceptions about Linux 

 Setup: 

 Linux is difficult to set up, isn’t it? Linux is as easy-some state easier-to set up compared to Windows. What truly baffles a lot of individuals in setting up Linux on a 2nd partition on their tough disk, when they desire to be able to utilize both running systems. 

 The majority of computer systems that are running Windows or MS DOS have one big portion of area holding the OS. These partitions are normally called D:\, E:\ and so on you might have Linux on any of these. 

 Windows 98 produces a file system called FAT32 on the whole hard drive, DOS and Win95 utilize FAT16. Linux has lots of file systems-on the most popular is ext3. You might have Linux set up on Fat32 partitions. 

 Linux is geeky and based upon text command 

 Linux has actually come a long method from being the system of geeks. It has a very sophisticated X Windows systems that has a total visual user interface-you understand, like Windows. It likewise has a great deal of window supervisor that let you deal with various levels of modification of your desktop. 

 Linux has a robust character-cell user interface where commands require to be typed in. The popular window supervisors are Sawfish, Enlightenment, Black box, after action and Window maker. 

 As for desktop supervisors, they have their own window supervisor and other tools that make you feel that you are working in Window! They have tools that enable drag and drop, have panels and taskbar- nearly like clones of windows. 

 Hardware compatibility issue and couple of applications that work on Linux 

 Well, most brand-new circulations will spot and configure your hardware in a jiffy, unless you have some truly old or unique piece of hardware. Just Win modems (internal modems driven by Window chauffeurs) deal with issues. 

 Other plans are business and you have to purchase the software-but this is primarily for the software application and training you require, and not for the assistance and training you require, and not for the software application itself. In some cases, if you have the Windows variation (as a doom) you can download a little program that will permit you to play the video game in Linux. 

 Workplace suites: Star Office, Open Office, Applixware, Corel WordPerfect 

 Graphics: GIMP, Corel Photo paint 

 Music: XMMS, Free amp, Real Player 

 Video: MTV, Xine 

 Games: FreeCiv, Tux racer, Doom, Quake, Heretic, Unreal 

 And the list is growing. 

 Linux ranges: 

 Debian is not extremely simple to set up, and that has actually been its issue, Debian likewise has its own software application comes with a. DEB extension. Upgrading and setting up brand-new software application is extremely simple. 

 The Red Hat Package Manger( RPM) format established by Red Hat has practically end up being the defector for software application circulation in Linux world. Setting up brand-new software application is a breeze. It likewise has a sophisticated and simple font management system that makes typefaces in X Windows look cool. 

 Mandrake: Mandrake Linux is now in its 9 variation. This distro can be set up on a native Windows Partition utilizing the Lin4Win tool, however this might slow the maker down. It likewise lets you do a conventional Linux set up into its own devoted partition. 

 SUSE: From Germany comes the Chameleon Distro, SUSE. Now in its 8.1 avatar, it has among the most comprehensive software application plans put together, and getting them set up is simple with yast (Yet another Software Tool) which provides a central user interface from where you can pick the software application to be set up. To name a few things, SUSE includes some spectacular 3D video games that display Linux’s gamming expertise. 

 Corel/Xandross: Corel got in the Linux distro market with Corel Linux a couple of years back. This is a Debian-type distro, and can be set up without much difficulty after resizing the Windows partition. 

 Windows applications in Linux. 

 Some applications have actually been ported over to Linux, other run with a program called WINE (Wine is Not an Emulator). Crossover, commercially offered software application likewise lets you utilize your Windows programs Linux. VMWare is another program that lets you run Windows under Linux. 

 Bottom Line: 

 The cool thing about Linux is that the majority of software application is totally free, and you can legally utilize them without fretting about piracy. If you’re fretted that Linux will not look as quite as windows can, all you have to do is inspect out some of the cool Linux user interfaces and Window supervisors.