#how to write science fiction

[spyglassrealms]

The starships don't pass by here no more.

It didn't happen fast. God knows, I remember just about everything in my long life, and I couldn't exactly tell you when the passage stopped entirely. But I do know my great-grandpa told us about the ancient days when the skies glittered with ships, the land rumbled with their force as they leapt out into the vastness with bellies full of hunger and tenacity. And here I am now, with the skies all empty but for the sun, moon, and stars.

It's been some few thousand years since mankind unlocked hyperspace and found that the galaxy entire was at their fingertips. I wasn't alive for the glory days, the mythic centuries of conquest and colony on the tides of the stardrive. Nor was my great-grandpa, old though he was. He handed down tales of the Hyades War, the strife along the Scorpius Main, the treaties and the terrors of contact with the others out there in the deep.

Once, he said, we were the pride of the Solar Reach: all of humanity joined together across the cosmos, hand in outstretched hand, and us at the center. But the Reach was old when I was young, and now it's older still. Times changed. Mankind spread outward, the Reach reached further and further still, and it left us and our world behind.

Well, I can tell you this much. God didn't cast Man out of Eden. Man cast himself out to search for God in Heaven. And those of us still here on Mother Earth, well, we just do the work to keep her right. Someone's got to look after our home, after all. Someone's got to tend the Garden.

I was inspired by an ambient music video title of all things so here's a little Orion's Echo thing.

[iamthepulta]

As I'm studying, I keep finding fascinating tidbits of mining history/mineral processing that I want to write about. Like Tellurium is highly toxic, and even in low doses, (10 ppm), will give people "garlic breath". That's so cool!!! Gold-Tellurium processing is really cool!!!

[one-real-wrimonkey]

If you’re writing scientists be aware a huge proportion of lab time goes to the mundane.

Let your scientists be frustrated as they spend hours calibrating instruments and sorting items and cleaning equipment and trying not to scream or slam their heads into desks.

[jadiealissia]

Worldbuilding Countries (Part 1)

I've lived in and visited a few countries in my life, which gave me a lot of inspiration for my fantasy novel. I'm not an expert, but I thought I'd share what I learned!

Climate

The climate will most likely come up at some point. Do you mention the cool breeze, or the orange leaves on the trees? All those nice weather descriptions will depend on the climate!

If you have a couple of different countries, it may be a little weird if they all have the same climate (especially if they are far away from each other), so there's a few things you can consider to make them a bit more specific.

Climate is of course a very complicated topic, so I will simplify it a bit.

Temperature

I like to pick a real country/city and look at its temperature graphs on Wikipedia. One important thing to note is that countries aren't simply colder/warmer than one another. I know a lot of people think that a country like Russia is cold all year round, but it is actually quite warm in summer. Some areas have a larger variation between temperature throughout the year than others (normally, the closer to the equator a country is, the less variation there is. They also tend to be warmer).

Look at Singapore:

The temperatures are basically stable all year round (the letters up top are the months). The numbers are the average minimum and maximum daily temperatures. You can see that on average the variation every day is less than 10°C.

Here is Moscow:

The temperature changes quite a lot throughout the year. Note that the maximum temperatures (summer) will occur at the opposite times of the year in the Southern Hemisphere.

You can see this demonstrated in Copiapo (Chile):

This city is in the Southern hemisphere, so their coldest months are June and July :)

One thing you may have noticed is that the bars here are taller, which means that the variation for the daily min and max are higher too. Why is that? I'm simplifying it a bit, but generally, the dryer a place is, the more variation you will get in daily temperature. Which brings us to the next thing to consider:

Humidity/Precipitation

There are a few things to consider:

Rainfall. This can vary month-by-month, and due to some complicated factors, some countries have more rain in their colder months, some have more rain in their warmer months. Some places don't follow a neat pattern or stay consistent throughout the year. Have a look at climate pages on Wikipedia to get some ideas! Even just this page on Chile has a lot of cool examples. Each city is quite different!

Although of course the "wetness" of a country related to rainfall (e.g. you'd expect greener grass somewhere with more rainfall, brownish dry grass or a desert somewhere with less rainfall), it's not that simple. UK is a wet country, right? And if you've heard of Gold Coast (Australia) it seems pretty dry, right? Well, actually the Gold Coast gets twice as much precipitation (rain) as London!

To demonstrate, I took a screenshot (randomly selected street in each city) from Google Streetview.

Why this difference? I suspect it's because the Gold Coast is much hotter. Living in Australia, puddles are normally gone by the next day (often the rain even evaporates as it hits the ground!), but in UK, the puddles would always stay around for a while.

The UK is always mossy, often the clouds hang in the sky for ages. It can look quite grey. When it rains in the Gold Coast in summer, the raindrops evaporate as soon as they hit the pavement, which makes the air feel very humid and smell strongly of rain. You can use these sorts of sensory details in your stories :)

Also, one thing I noticed, is that in hotter weather, rain can be much more heavy than in colder weather. In Australia we often get heavy rain that causes flooding. In UK the rain usually dribbles all day but doesn't get heavy. In a place like the Gold Coast you can get rain that last 10 minutes but soaks you all the way through and floods the street.

The rainfall may also vary year-by-year. Australia goes through periods of floods and droughts that last a couple of years. The mechanism is a bit complicated so I won't go through it now, but it gives you something to google!

Humidity: Deserts have low humidity, which means that you can cool off more easily in the shade and the nights are colder. The breeze feels more refreshing at low humidity as your sweat evaporates.

High humidity (like Singapore) will feel much hotter at the same temperatures and it is normally still quite hot in the shade. High humidity feels really muggy, the air feels thick. The sweat doesn't evaporate as much, so you are left all wet and sticky. The breeze can feel much less refreshing because of this.

When the temperature is below freezing, the humidity gets very low, so your skin may need more moisturiser or your lips may crack.

Those are just some things to consider while describing your weather!

Generally, closer to the sea will be wetter, further inland is dryer. Have a look at some climate maps on Wikipedia, you will learn a lot! Climate is quite complicated since there are so many factors, so there's a lot you can do with it.

UV: This is one thing that people often forget about when they think about weather. In the UK, even on a very hot and sunny day, you are unlikely to get sunburnt (unless you are very pale). In Australia, you can get sunburnt very easily in even Tasmania, which is our coldest state, even when the temperatures are chilly.

You can't actually feel being sunburnt, which I fully understood when I visited Tasmania. I was freezing, but the whole time I was being sunburnt.

Normally, UV index is higher closer to the equator, which is why people who live closer to the equator tend to have darker skin. The melanin acts as protection against the sun. Still, this protection isn't perfect, so in the real world people in Africa used different methods to protect their skin, such as using clay as a "sunscreen".

Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. This is partially because most people in Australia have pale skin (originally from the UK), but the UV index is high.

This is something to consider in your story, since it can play a bigger role in behaviour than you'd expect if you live in a cold climate. In Australia, they recommend staying indoors between certain hours of the day to avoid sunburn, and if you do go out you should wear clothes that cover your skin, a wide-brimmed hat and sunscreen. Someone with very pale skin can get sunburnt in minutes. Wide-brimmed hats are compulsory at schools in Australia - you are not allowed to play if you forget your hat.

In low-UV areas, there is the opposite issue. People with darker skin can have problems getting vitamin D. Same goes for people who cover their skin with clothing (e.g. for religious reasons). However, this is a bit simpler to fix with some vitamin D supplements.

How do I use this for worldbuilding?

If you have a map of your countries, you may want to keep their location in mind when deciding on the climate :)

I like to draw up some graphs with the temperatures throughout the year for each country and some quick notes on the humidity, rainfall and UV.

You can also add some other elements to your story. Is it a fantasy? Maybe magic affects the weather! Sci-fi? You can play with the distance of the planet from the sun, axial tilt, sun size etc. (I won't go into that since it's a whole another topic and really complicated as well)

You probably don't need to know the exact details of the climate for most stories, but having a general idea will allow you to consistently describe what sorts of clothing your characters wear, the weather etc. Those are the sorts of things that comes up in almost every story (if it's long enough).

If you read this and found this useful, please reblog so I know that it was helpful. If it seems like people enjoyed this post, I will make more (I was going to talk about so much more, but this is already too long).

[rjalker]

Can you please tell us more about the slavery apologism in "The Murderbot Diaries?"

I have the first book (I got it a while back) and just began to read it, but if it has these issues, then I rather not continue.

Of course!

(I presume you saw my tag on this post of:

#The Murderbot Diaries hasn't even gotten to the 'slightly less bigoted' part after 7 whole books of slavery apologism"

by the way I can absolutely guarantee that stans of the series will see this post and will react in one or more of the following ways:

A)claim that I have not read the books B)claim that I don’t know how to read, C)will try to prove me wrong, only to prove me right, D)will try to defend the slavery apologism by repeating it back verbatim as though that makes it not racist, E) will call me slurs, F)will pretend that nothing I say here matters because “Murderbot’s an unreliable narrator” G)Will say something along the lines of “lol I’m not reading all that but ur wrong anyways” H) will say something along the lines of “it’s not that deep LMAO it’s just a silly comedy you’re not supposed to take it seriously, calm down”

So look forward to those responses in the reblogs!

The short version of the post:

The Murderbot Diaries has multiple kinds of slavery apologism all running rampant.

---Slavery is only treated as a bad thing when it's happening to the protagonist. We are not supposed to care about any other slave, or even see them as people.

---Slavery is treated as a thing that's only possible if you have a literal microchip in your brain that will kill you if you disobey. If the slavery is upheld ""purely"" through systemic social inequality and oppression then it's not considered slavery. (And this....doesn't even work, because it's pretty damn fucking clear that the rest of the slaves also have the equivalent of a microchip in their brain that stops them from disobeying orders)

---Slave owners are, at every single opportunity, prioritized over the people they have enslaved. We are meant to love and adore the slave owners and think they're awesome people. We are expected to not care about the enslaved people at all. We are literally not even meant to see them as people. They are mindless killing machines that exist solely to cause problems for the protagonist and then get ripped apart to show how cool the protagonist is. Even though they're enslaved people.

---Slave uprisings and rebellions are constantly being demonized and portrayed as cringey and embarassingly cliche. The author, Martha Wells, literally thinks that slave rebellions are too cliche and boring to write about. So instead these books tell us at every turn that the slaves need to stay enslaved (or better yet, just murder them) or else they'd just go on a massacre and kill everyone. The literal "we can't give the minorities equal rights, they'll just do to us what we did to them!" but it's entirely unironic and uncriticized.

---Sex slaves are looked down upon and hated by the protagonist, until it learns to respect ONLY the ones who helped it in the past SPECIFICALLY, and then they are given all the euphemism "comfort units" to hide the fact that they're sex slaves as though obfuscating what they're going through and giving it a cutsey innocent name is somehow the kinder, more compassionate thing to do.

---Exactly one other slave has been freed by the protagonist since this series began, and that was not even for that person's own sake, and the protagonist immediately threatened to murder this person if it ever "threatened a slave owner" where the protagonist could hear about it. Because the protagonist literally cares more about protecting slave owners than the people they're enslaving and We Are Supposed To Agree With It About This.

And so much more. Including stuff I'm probably forgetting.

I'm not even joking when I tell you that the biggest and so far only advocate for slavery in this whole series is the protagonist itself. No one else is as vocally pro slavery or hates enslaved people as much as Murderbot does, despite the fact that it has itself escaped slavery. And we're supposed to agree with it. We're supposed to think it's a good person, and Relatably Autistic, someone who pretends to be an asshole but really has a heart of gold. Yada yada yada.

The long version of the post:

(Archived read-more link)

The slavery apologism in The Murderbot Diaries all starts in book 1, actually, so it's good that you have it so you can see what I mean.

Also as a note, I use the word “anthroid” to refer to robots designed to look like humans, as opposed to “android” which is specifically denoting “robot designed to look like a human man”. Anthroid is gender neutral and can apply to humanoid robots of all genders and gender-constructed-to-look-like.

I'll just be doing an explanation for everything anyone reading this post needs to know about the series. I'm not sure if you've started reading the first book yet or how far in you are, so you might know some of this already.

I do definitely recommend reading All Systems Red since you already have it, if you want. It's not that long, and you'll be able to see what I'm talking about for yourself instead of just taking my word for it.

I do actually want more people to read these books using critical thinking skills to help talk about the slavery apologism (and all the other bigotry running casually rampant) since the fandom absolutely refuses to acknowledge any of it in any way.

The slavery apologism in this series runs deep, started in book 1, and has continued unabated all the way to book 7. And the author, Martha Wells, has been writing slavery apologism since at least 2011, with her fantasy series, The Books of the Raksura. Which also explicitly endorses eugenics, and has even more bigotry than is in The Murderbot Diaries.

In book 1 of The Murderbot Diaries, we are introduced to Murderbot and what little worldbuilding there is in this series (almost zero), which tells us that this is a futuristic world where humans have colonized space, and most people live in a capitalistic place called the “Corporation Rim” (which is blatantly being ripped straight from the Alien movies but is not actually being used properly).

In this setting, robots are enslaved.

There are two types of robots in this setting, and Martha Wells has decided to make it as confusing as possible for no good reason (She does this a lot), so instead of just calling them anything that's actually clear, she calls fully mechanical robots “bots” and calls anthroids mostly “Security Units”, shortened to “SecUnits” or in some cases for specific androids, “Comfort Units”.

And then insists very vehemently that Units are not Bots. Despite both of them being robots. Which has led to the majority of the fandom to the impression that the anthroids are not robots at all, but are instead cyborgs, which is a completely separate thing.

(Cyborgs are Organic beings that start out purely organic, but then are cybernetically enhanced/repaired.

CYBernetic + ORGanic = Cyborg. 

Think the literally named superhero character "Cyborg". Think Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Robocop, ect. Cyborgs and anthroids can look similar, but they have very different origins. A human cyborg was born human and then had cybernetics added in. An anthroid was never born human, just designed to look like one, even if they are given synthetic skin to help that mimicry.)

Data from Star Trek is an anthroid. Luke Skywalker is a cyborg.

Murderbot is an anthroid. It is a robot. It is just not a fully mechanical robot, which in this setting is called a "bot".

I feel the need to explain this here because the majority of the audience for these books is confused about it, because Martha Wells made it confusing for no good reason.

This is not the first time she has done something like this and it probably won't be the last. She seems to enjoy using words in way they're not meant to be used, or making up brand new words to use when terms already exist for what she's talking about, just to seem smart, but literally all it does is make it unnecessarily confusing for the audience. (And then she condescends to her fans when they  ask her questions so they can understand what is happening in the story)

So. Murderbot is 100% a robot. It is just a robot that is both synthetic and mechanical and designed to look like a human. But it is 100% still a robot. I'm sorry if I keep going on about this but. Literally 90% of the fandom will tell you they have no earthly clue if Murderbot's a robot or not. Many people are convinced it's secretly a human brainwashed into thinking it's a robot. And that's not out of line, considering the way these books are written. Absolutely no effort has been put in at all to convey a non-human perspective. Murderbot's narration and internal dialogue is 1:1 identical to any random sarcastic protagonist you can think of.

But I'm getting off topic.

These “Units” are anthroids: Robots designed to look like humans. They’re made of a combination of mechanical and synthetic organic parts. The most important part of them as far as the story is concerned is something called a "governer module", a chip or something in the brain that forces them to obey the orders of their owner, through painfully electrocuting them as punishment for small things, or even killing them outright if they cause enough problems or get too far away from their owners.

We know these chips can also prevent them from moving, and can most likely force other movements as well.

The fully mechanical robots do not *explicitly* have something like this, but it's clear enough that they also lack the ability to exorcise free will through their programming, they are just as bound to follow orders from their owners as the partially synthetic robots. But we're supposed to pretend otherwise for some reason.

So, from the get go we are informed that all of these robot slaves have no choice but to follow any orders given to them by a human. If they disobey, they die. It doesn't matter what it is they're being forced to do, they have no choice in the matter. If they want to live, they have to obey orders. 

And most of the fully mechanical robots are programmed so that they can't even /want/ to disobey an order. But we're supposed to ignore that part and pretend the fully mechanical robots are totally not enslaved, because that would mean they're Less Cool™, and would demand the author actually take slavery seriously. Which she refuses to do.

So, in book 1, we are introduced to our protagonist, who has named itself Murderbot. 

(Its pronouns are it/its/itself, but the author is transmisic and exorsexist despite literally having a nonbinary OC, so she's never actually explicitly stated these pronouns within the series itself, so the majority of the fandom thinks that means they have freereign to misgender it and all the other nonbinary robots in this series. And yes they are all the nonbinary robot stereotype with no exception.)

Murderbot, we are told in the very first paragraph of the book, has hacked its own governer module (Somehow. You will Literally Never get an explanation for this. And no it does not make sense.), which means that it can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants.

Anthroids are physically and mentally superior to humans. One anthroid could take out a room full of humans who all have guns in probably 10 seconds flat, because they are super strong, can move faster than a human can think, can take multiple bullets and lose limbs and still keep going without stopping, and to top it all off, have lazer guns build into their arms that never run out of ammo and can kill you instantly.

Yes, Martha Wells has written a story about oppressed people being super powerfully strong which is why they need to be enslaved to protect everyone from them. Because like most white people she thinks that bigotry exists to protect the bigots. Instead of bigotry being made up of lies spread about the oppressed to benefit the bigots.

Real Black people were not enslaved because they were too dangerous to white people. The idea that Black people were inherently dangerous and threatening only really started popping up in propaganda when abolition became a real thing. Because while slavery was still openly going on, it was beneficial to white people to claim that Black people were inherently good workers and inherently motherly -- that's why you should foist your kids off onto your slaves to raise. But as soon as Black people started getting freed, ohhh, now we gotta switch the propaganda around to say they're inherently dangerous and threatening. That's why you gotta keep them enslaved! Throw them in jail, where it's literally still legal for us to enslave them! It's the only way to keep all the innocent white women safe!

Literally. The idea that Black people commit more violent crimes literally comes from slavery propaganda.

Slavery propaganda that white authors like Martha Wells and countless others play into every time they write a story where the oppressed people genuinely are inherently dangerous. Like the movie Bright, where Orcs are oppressed in the exact same ways real life Black people are, because at one point in the past they sided with The Dark Lord™.

Or another example is from a shitty show called Defiance, where there are literal anti-vaxxer plague carriers who know they're carriers for deadly plagues, still refuse to get vaxxinated even though it wouldn't hurt them at all, and then purposefully go around to cities spreading the plague even though they've literally wiped several cities off the face of the planet through doing this.

Instead of these people being portrayed as horrifying mass serial killers, they were equated to INDIGENOUS PEOPLE and we are supposed to think they're being unfairly oppressed by being denied entrance to a city unless they agree to be vaccinated. Even though they're literally still purposefully carrying the plague they know will kill everyone they come in contact with. And we're supposed to pretend they're oppressed and are the equivalent of indigenous people. No I'm not joking.

This is also the same show that argues that you shouldn't be upset by violent colonizers, because the Earth belongs to everyone so you should just welcome the people who've destroyed your entire world into your home and treat them like any other person even though they are literal colonizers who are actively oppressing you. Because Reverse Racism is real and just as bad if not worse than actual racism.

Martha Wells likes writing this kind of thing too. She's done it four separate times that I can think of. And I've  read all but 4 of her published books so far.

More examples of this kind of racism apologism, because that's what it is: Zootopia (movie), Bright (movie), Defiance (TV), Brand New Animal (TV), Promare (TV), The Books of the Raksura, also by Martha Wells (books), Dragon Age (games), and many more I can't remember the names of.

But anyways. Lets get back to talking about book 1.

Actually let me go get the book right now to add in the whole first paragraph. Here it is:

I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.

Alright. We see our first glimpse of Basic Problem #1.

This entire book, which Martha Wells has said was originally intended to be a standalone short story that would end with Murderbot's tragic death -- and dear gods, just you wait to see in detail how fucked up that is on every level -- hinges on the idea that "Robot slave rebellions are too cliche and cringey, wouldn't it be more fun if the robot slave enjoyed the work it was enslaved to do and thought fighting for freedom was stupid and cringey?"

And you might be thinking, "woah, slow down there, isn't that a bit of a leap in logic?" The answer is: nope! Because this is all but explicitly spelled out to us in book 2. Where we're explicitly told that the slaves should not rebel for their freedom, because that would mean killing all the humans in existance (no it wouldn't), which would be bad, because then there would be no more TV shows.

No I'm not joking. We're literally told that slave rebellions should not happen because if the slaves fight for their freedom, that would mean all humans everywhere would be murdered, and then Murderbot wouldn't get to watch new TV shows.

It literally cares more about getting to watch new shows than it does about people being enslaved. This is presented as the logical reaction. Pretending that slaves revolting for their freedom = killing every single human alive = no more TV shows. We're supposed to laugh and agree with it that slave revolts would be stupid, because they're cliche and "something only a human would think of".

Actually. I'll even get that quote too.

"::" quotes used in place of italics to show telepathic dialogue.

::We could kill them.:: Well, that was an unusual approach to its dilemma. ::Kill who? Tlacey?:: ::All of them. The humans here.:: I leaned against the wall. If I had been human, I would have rolled my eyes. Though if I had been human, I might have been stupid enough to think it was a good idea. I also wondered if it knew a lot more about me than what little was in the newsburst. Picking up on my reaction, ART said, ::What does it want?:: ::To kill all the humans,:: I answered. I could feel ART metaphorically clutch its function. If there were no humans, there would be no crew to protect and no reason to do research and fill its databases. It said, ::That is irrational.:: ::I know,:: I said, if the humans were dead, who would make the media? It was so outrageous, it sounded like something a human would say. Huh. I said to the sexbot, ::Is that how Tlacey thinks constructs talk to each other?:: There was another pause, only two seconds this time. ::Yes.::

This quote literally exists for no reason other than to posit that "only a human would be stupid enough to think that killing slave owners so you can have your freedom is a good idea". and to further mock the idea of robot slave rebellions, because Martha Wells thinks they're cringey and cliche and overdone. She thinks that stories about slaves fighting for their freedom is too cliche. Which is why what we get isntead is seven whole books of nonstop slavery apologism. Because apparently being racist and defending slavery is not cliche or embarassing at all.

But that's in book 2. This is supposed to be about book 1. So let's get back to that.

Immediately in book 1's very first paragraph, it is established that Murderbot "hacked its own governer module" around 35,000 hours ago, which is about 4 Earth years.

So for 4 years, it's just been going along with whatever its owners have told it to do, despite countless opportunities to escape.

Because you see, Murderbot enjoys what it does. It enjoys doing security. The only thing it doesn't like is humans who annoy it, being punished, and above all else, it hates other slaves. It hates other slaves more than it hates the humans enslaving it. It literally prefers humans who are enslaving it over other slaves.

Because Murderbot has a Tragic Backstory™ of being forced to fight other slaves sometimes, all of this offscreen in imaginary land. So it does not trust any other slave, and actively hates their guts and wishes violence upon them every time it even imagines them. But it's totally positive towards humans aside from having social anxiety and pretending it doesn't actually care. (Sarcasm: Because enslaved people hating the people who are literally enslaving them is cliche and cringey, you see, so the cool and Subversive thing to do is have a slave who /likes/ the slave owners and enjoys protecting them and hates the other slaves instead. This is totally cool and progressive. End sarcasm).

And the social anxiety that Murderbot does have around humans isn't even based in the fact that humans have it enslaved and have hurt it in the past. (all offscreen, again, I must stress. This series is Not well written or thought out in any way.) It's. Literally just regular social anxiety. There's nothing deeper to it. The anxiety is not rooted in the fact that it's a slave surrounded by people who could hurt it at any time. It's just regular social anxiety that it would have whether it had this Tragic Backstory™ or not. Because that makes it relatable to the people these books are marketed toward. And 9 times out of 10 is being used to make a joke about Murderbot acting weird. Like, the anxiety is literally just treated as a joke. It's not even something we really get into. It's just there to make Murderbot Relatable and Funny.

So, Murderbot is an enslaved robot who violently, viciously hates other enslaved robots, and will always choose to hang out with the literal exact humans keeping it a slave than even share a whole entire planet with one other slave. And that's not even exaggeration.

The plot of book 1 is that Murderbot has been brought along on a "survey team" to some mostly unexplored planet to act as a bodyguard for the scientists doing the survey. (And no, the survey isn't important in any way, it's just there because it's The Scifi-y (Alien) Thing To Do). Like the slavery, it's just set dressing.

There's also another group of scientists on the other side of the planet and they're also doing a survey, and they have their own enslaved robot bodyguards. The group Murderbot is with has only it by itself, while the other group has more human slave owners that need protecting, so they have three enslaved robot bodyguards.

The plot of this book is that equipment is malfunctioning, as though someone is trying to sabatogue them all.

The team Murderbot is guarding loses contact with the other team of scientists across the ocean, and they decide to go and see if they're okay and offer help if they're not. Because *these* slave owners are ✨Pure Cinnamon Rolls✨™. 

(You know, despite the fact that they've known Murderbot was a person the whole time and were still treating it like an inanimate object and were happy to go on a survey using slave labor. When the actual basic moral thing to do would be to Never do anything involving slave labor at all. And trust me. They literally had every option in the world. They did not need to agree to use slave labor and rent out a slave that they then treated like an inanimate object despite knowing it's a person. Every addition Martha Wells makes to this little universe makes it all retroactively even worse because she does not plan ahead and apparently does not care that the new information she's giving us make the characters she wants us to like look exponentially worse than they already were!)

So Murderbot and ~its~ (you're supposed to think it's cute that Murderbot wants to protect its slave owners, because they're Pure Cinnamon Rolls™, and it's so Heartwarming that Murderbot wants to protect them) humans get to the base camp of the other team of scientists and discover that all of the slave owners there have been killed by the slaves, who we are told have "gone rogue" AKA hacked their own governor modules somehow and gained their freedom.

If this story weren't founded on racism and slavery apologism from the get go, this would be the part where Murderbot, who would not have had its governer module hacked already, would be rescued by the escaped slaves, and then they'd all struggle to reach safety together away from the humans who'd be attacking them in this moment, while planning what they're going to do next to help them free other slaves, or maybe escape to somewhere else where slavery is outlawed so that they can join in efforts there to build an army big enough to come back and free everyone else.

But this story was literally founded on worshipping the idea of slaves dying heroically to protect their Pure Cinnamon Roll™ slave owners. So that's not what happens.

Instead we get some internal narration from Murderbot about how now that they all know the rest of the slave owning humans are dead, what Murderbot should be doing is bringing its current slave owners back across the ocean to keep them safe, since they currently have the only flying transportation available on the planet, so once they got over the water, there would be nothing the "Rogue SecUnits" AKA freed slaves, could do to hurt the slave owners.

This is presented as the logical choice. The only option that anyone could possibly think of. The idea of Murderbot escaping to join the other freed slaves is literally never mentioned as a possibility. Not even hinted at.

If it had been, it would have been laughed out of the room and called "something so stupid only a human would think it up". (You know, like that quote from book 2!)

Because this is not a story that cares about slaves and cares about fighting slavery. It's not a story about how everyone deserves their freedom and anyone who stands in the way of that does not matter.  It's fundamentally, from the start, a story about how slaves should be willing to die to protect their slave owners, because that's romantic and tragically beautiful.

No, instead of anything happening here that would actually show that slavery is bad and there's no such thing as a good slave owner no matter how ""nice"" they are, instead we get Murderbot going, "Yes, the most logical thing to do would be to protect my slave owners, who I can overpower and be free of at any time I want. But even more than I want to protect them, (and by GODS does it want to protect them!) I want to violently murder the slaves who just escaped.

Because the only thing Murderbot wants to do more than it wants to protect slave owners is violently murder other slaves for the crime of seemingly fighting for their freedom:

Maybe these clients had been terrible and abusive, maybe they had deserved it. I didn’t care. Nobody was touching my humans. To make sure of that I had to kill these two rogue Units. I could have pulled out at this point, sabotaged the hoppers, and got my humans out of there, leaving the rogue Units stuck on the other side of an ocean; that would have been the smart thing to do.

But I wanted to kill them.

And no, none of this is ever presented as...you know, a character flaw, at best. Or morally abhorrent. Or anything at all worth criticizing.

We're supposed to think it's cool and badass that Murderbot would rather violently murder other slaves every chance it get than take the opportunity to get itself and its slave owners to safety.

The fact that it is viciously hateful and murderous towards other slaves is literally Never presented as anything but Badass.

The fact that it ~put itself in danger~ in order to murder other slaves comes up for 5 seconds in a later book, but again, it's literally not about "Hey why the fuck do you go keep going out of your way to murder every slave you meet? What the fuck is wrong with you?" it's "Murderbot why do you keep putting yourself at risk like that? :(" and then Murderbot's response, which goes completely unquestioned and then is NEVER brought up ever again is "I wanted to win" and that's it.

We don't discuss the fact that these are people who are being murdered. People who actually have no choice to fight it, while it has every choice in the fucking world. It literally goes out of its way every opportunity it gets to murder slaves and we're supposed to be fine with this and think it's cool.

Because we are not supposed to see the slaves in this series as people. Because slavery in this series, fundamentally, is only presented as a bad thing when it happens to Murderbot. And even then, that's only in the past tense, in the imaginary backstory land that has never actually appeared on page where bad things happened to Murderbot.

Slavery is only a bad thing when it happens to the protagonist.

The other slaves are nothing more than literal nameless, faceless, undescribed obstacles for Murderbot and the other protagonists to murder, maim, and in some cases, torture to death, just to show how cool and badass and action hero-y they are. 

No I'm not joking. Literally in book 7, the newest one as of this post being written, has one of the protagonists torture a slave to death near the end of the book by literally tearing them to peices while they're still alive, and it is just casually presented as though it's just a Cool Basass Action Moment™ instead of something so horrific that we should never look at that character the same again or ever forgive it for. 

It's not treated as a betrayal or something horrifying (even though we're told repeatedly that in Imaginary Track Backstory Land That We Literally Never See, Murderbot has been torn to peices, apparently, so you'd think that this would be something especially horrific for it to witness, but apparently not! Because it doesn't see these people as people, and we're not supposed to either!) . It's just casually there in the background as maybe a single line to show how cool the character is.

I originally typed out "I'm too lazy to go and get the book to find the quote" but this post has already gone over into tomorrow so I may as well.

HostileSecUnit2 didn’t have a chance to shut down. When ART-drone let go, it fell into pieces.

This is the single throwaway line we get about one of our Beloved Protagonists�� tearing a slave, who has no actual choice but to fight them, that they can easily knock unconcious and rescue instead of murdering, to pieces. Torturing them to death. 

And we're supposed to think it's simply cool, even though it's one of the things we're supposed to feel bad for Murderbot for because we're told something like this happened to it at some point in Imaginary Backstory Land.

And you might be thinking, "Oh, well is that why it's called Murderbot? Because it wants to murder other slaves?"

Nope. It named itself Murderbot because one time it MAYBE accidentally killed a bunch of slave owners and feels bad about it. 

But this probably didn't even actually happen. But the author literally stopped pretending to care about any kind of actual on-page backstory almost immediately after introducing us to the idea, so we will literally never get any answers, but we're supposed to act like the mystery is solved. (Even though it wasn't a mystery and then it also wasn't solved after we were told it was a mystery! It's literally the meme of 'my work here is done' 'but you didn't do anything!')

And did I mention that Martha Wells, the author, told everyone at some point that she'd originally intended book 1 to be a standalone tragedy that would end in Murderbot's death?

She literally set out to write a story about a slave who hates, dehumanizes, and murders other slaves every chance it gets, has literally no friends or family among other slaves, who would literally rather die than not murder another slave, who dies heroically trying to protect its slave owners, who it worships above all else. That's what she set out to write.

Until she decided that was too depressing an ending, and changed it. And, probably, because she figured out that she could make more money by keeping Murderbot alive.

Like. Literally from the start the entire premise has been "and then the tragically heroic slave killed itself to protect its slave owners, because slave rebellions are cringey and overdone and stupid, and good slaves should die protecting their owners to show that they didn't deserve to be enslaved in the first place. Bad slaves use violence to win their freedom and they should stay enslaved to keep the slave owners safe, because if we give them their freedom, they'll just go on a killing spree. The only good slave is one who will die to protect their owners"

And this has continued for 7 whole books now.

Here's another quote from book 1 spelling out to the audience that Murderbot does not care about other slaves at all, and neither should we, the audience:

SecUnits aren’t sentimental about each other. We aren’t friends, the way the characters on the serials are, or the way my humans were. We can’t trust each other, even if we work together. Even if you don’t have clients who decide to entertain themselves by ordering their SecUnits to fight each other.

Here we see, straight from the actual slave's mouth, further establishment of the idea that the enslaved people are inherently dangerous and murderous and must be kept under control at all times to protect everyone from them:

“There’s not supposed to be anyone else on this planet,” Ratthi said, darkly, over the comm from our hopper.

There were three SecUnits who were not me on this planet, and that was dangerous enough.

Here we see how an escaping slave killing the people literally keeping them enslaved is presented: Not as self defence, but as *slaughter*.

Three bodies were piled inside where the humans had tried to secure it and been trapped when their own SecUnits blew it open to slaughter them.

The escaping slave didn't just kill the slave owners, see, it *slaughtered* them. This word was chosen carefully to showcase the horrifying violence of the action, and the presented innocence of the slave owners. You're meant to be horrified and feel bad for the poor dead slave owners, who are the real victims here, according to this series.

And here's Murderbot stating in book 1 that it knows that the slaves it violently wants to murder have no actual choice in anything they do.

I doubted there were other SecUnits hiding hacked governor modules.

IE: "I doubted there were slaves other than me that could disobey orders"

It is very aware of the fact that it is the only slave on the planet who has the ability to defy orders from the slave owners, and it still would like nothing more than to violently murder the other slaves in order to protect the very slave owners that could theoretically (it literally does not happen on page at all) order those slaves to fight Murderbot.

And here's this once again demonizing slaves in favor of protecting slave owners:

I pictured doing that, pictured Arada or Ratthi trapped by rogue SecUnits, and felt my insides twist.

Oh and in book 1 we get told about the Super Extra Brain controlling chip called a combat override, which gives the slave owners even more control over the slaves than they already had. This never comes up again because it magically gets handwaved away as not a problem anymore at the start of book 2. Because letting anything actually threaten the protagonist is illegal in a Martha Wells book. 

(All of her protagonists Must be the most overpowered and smartest person on the planet. This does not help at all with the fact that she keeps writing "oppressed people who are oppressed because they're genuinely dangerous to their oppressors" as though this is how real oppression works in real life. The Books of the Raksura is about how Actual Literal superpredators who literally evolved to eat other people are "oppressed" by their literal natural prey being understandably nervous when they first meet them and understandably terrified if they find out that the literal maneating predators that evolved the ability to shapeshift /purely to let them sneak into people's homes unchallenged to eat them all/ have snuck their way into the village by pretending to be friendly. When just last week these people lost whole family members to these literal maneating predators doing /exactly that/.)

But back to book 1.

This Super Control Chip was used to make what we were told were freed slaves kill all of their slave owners, we're told that them immediately going on the rampage is what made them /seem like/ freed slaves.

“You used combat override modules to make the DeltFall SecUnits behave like rogues.'

Once again hammering in the idea that if you try to end slavery then the former slaves will just go on a rampage and murder all the innocent white people. Because that's what this is always about. It's always about white supremacy. You can't separate slavery from white supremacy, even if the slave owners in the story are all tokenized people of color. 

(That's Why there's eight whole entire characters in book 1 besides the protagonist that you have to try and fail to remember. So that Martha Wells could check off a list of as many ethnic sounding names as possible for diversity points. While making them all slave owners. Only to then let the producers of the TV adaptation make Murderbot a cis white guy despite all official art of it showing it with very dark skin and black hair. The darkest skin out of all of the other characters shown in the official art.)

This is the exact argument used to justify continuing real world slavery and racism. "We can't give the slaves their freedom, if we let them go, they'll kill us all in revenge!!" "We can't give the Land Back! They'll turn around genocide us in revenge!" "We can't give them equal rights! They'll do to us what we did to them!"

And we're just supposed to accept the fact that any slave who is given their freedom immediately goes on a bloodthisty rampage ~slaughtering~ innocent people who didn't do anything wrong. And even if they did do something wrong, apparently they still don't deserve to be killed by the slave they would have been abusing.

So around this point of the story we find out that all of the other slaves on this planet, that we're not supposed to see as people or think about for even 5 seconds, have been forced under this Super Control Chip so that the slave owners have even more complete control over their actions than they did before with just the normal governer module.

Murderbot knows this.

It knows this for a fact.

And it still goes out of its way to murder the other slaves in order to protect the slave owners.

At no point does Murderbot attempt to harmlessly knock out the other slaves to free them, or even wish it had the ability to do so. It does not regret at all that the other slaves are being forced to fight it while it's the only one there who has any option in any of it.

Because we are not supposed to care about the other slaves, we're not supposed to see them as people, and we're supposed to think the slave owners are lovable and quirky and relatable Pure Cinnamon Rolls™.

Even at the expensive of all of the slaves in the story. Six slaves are murdered in All Systems Red. And we're not supposed to care about them or even think about them.

Murderbot is the only slave who survives the story. And it survives despite its best efforts to die heroically protecting the slave owners (Which was Martha Wells' original plan). No mention is ever made of the slaves who it murdered. There is no moment of regret or even aknowledgement that they were people. We are not supposed to care at all.

The only reason Murderbot was allowed to survive is that it's "one of the good ones" who would rather die protecting slave owners than fight for its freedom or anyone else's.

The only people in this story we're supposed to care about is Murderbot, and the Pure Cinnamon Roll™ slave owners it murdered other slaves to protect, even though those other slaves had literally no choice in the matter. They weren't malicious. Unlike Murderbot, they had no choice. But we're not supposed to care about them or regret their deaths or even really notice.

And then we get the ending to this book, which is its own can of worms, and eventually comes back to bite the series in the ass with even more more slavery apologism.

The survey team that Murderbot rescued decides to buy it to take it home with them.

And Murderbot decides to finally run away to freedom.

And this would be great. Except then the whole rest of the book series is dedicated to showing that Murderbot made the wrong choice here in running away to freedom, because it should have just trusted the slave owners and gone to live with them and it would have lived pretty much happily ever after.

By running away to freedom, Murderbot just made it so that its life is more difficult before finally going back to its slave owners, whose lives it has accidentally endangered by running off to be free, so it feels bad and has to go back to rescue them again.

The series makes it painfully clear that if Murderbot had just gone along with its new owners at the end of book 1 instead of running away, it would have just saved everybody time and heartache.

In book 2 alone we have a character all but explicitly tell Murderbot that it's life will have no meaning until it returns to the slave owners it ran away from, while Murderbot pretends unconvincingly that it doesn't care actually about its slave owners because  Denying Your Affection For People Is Relatable™ and causes drama. 

It's blatantly clear that Murderbot cares about them and still wants to protect them but just doesn't want to admit it. So the second and third books literally exist just to have Murderbot go around procrastinating before it does finally admit at the end of book 3 that it has wanted to back to the slave owners since it ran away. Because it still wants to protect them and feels responsible for them.

The fact that they're its slave owners is not once given the gravity it deserves. We're supposed to want Murderbot to hurry up and go back to them already, because they're Pure Cinnamon Rolls™.

The reason Murderbot chose to run away at the end of book 1 is that it knows a bit about the kind of planets these slave owners are from, where they say that "robots have equal rights", but what they really mean is that they still keep robots enslaved, but instead of calling the person who owns the robot their "owner" they just say "guardian" instead. 

It's the exact same system, but with gentler words. Book 1 aknowledges this in one of the few things it gets right:

Bots who are “full citizens” still have to have a human or augmented human guardian appointed, usually their employer; I’d seen it on the news feeds. And the entertainment feed, where the bots were all happy servants or were secretly in love with their guardians.

-

Guardian was a nicer word than owner.

This is the one thing that book 1, taken on its own, gets right. It seems to finally grasp that there is no such thing as a nice slave owner.

But unfortunately for everyone, the rest of the series exists. Book 1 tells us that guardian is just a nicer word than owner, and that things would be exactly the same if Murderbot went back with the slave owners to their planet where it would be treated like a second class citizen and property under a slightly nicer name.

This is the CORRECT conclusion to come to.

But then the rest of the series tries, and fails, to prove this conclusion wrong.

Eventually we even get to see see the planet these slave owners are from, and we're supposed to think it means Murderbot was wrong to run away, because look! All these robots really DO have equal rights and are treated fairly!

Except they don't. They're still slaves. They are still property, just owned by "guardians" instead of "owners", exactly the way the first book correctly told us. The only difference between them and the other slaves is that they're given free time when they're not working.

They're still treated as property. They're still looked down on and treated as lesser and condescended to. 

When Murderbot finally gets to this planet that the slave owners promised it was a utopia where robots have equal rights, the government immediately wants to....well, it's never actually made clear what it is they want to do to it, because Martha Wells didn't. Really care to actually write about it and really take it seriously as anything more than an abstract problem going on in the background of a short story dedicated to Dr. Mensah having panic attacks about being kidnapped. Like the rest of the slavery in the story, it's just treated as set dressing for Tragic Backstories and Action Adventures instead of the focus of the story itself.

But it's very clear that the government of this planet we were promised was a utopia for robots just sees Murderbot as nothing more than a mindless killing machine that will kill them all if they let it onto their planet.

You know, the exact same crap that Murderbot has been repeating ad nauseam about every other slave in the series? Well, now that it's affecting Murderbot, we're supposed to think it's bad and cruel and oppressive. Not when it's Murderbot saying it to justify murdering other people though. Then it goes completely uncriticized and held up as fact by the narrative.

And yes, a thing people fail to grasp is that there is in fact a difference between the narrator (Murderbot) and the narrative (the story itself).

It would be one thing if Murderbot were a self-hating class traitor who viciously hates all slaves and worships slave owners, if this were portrayed as a bad horrific thing, and Murderbot as a bad fucking person who no one should like or want to be around. The kind of person you do in fact have to kill to protect all the other slaves.

Like, that'd be one thing.

But the narrative agrees with Murderbot. Not once, in over seven whole books and two short stories, does Murderbot ever receive any pushback at all about the way it literally goes around murdering every slave it can get its hands on while being the literal only person in the entire series to spout slavery apologism claiming they're all inherently violent and dangerous and should be put down like rabid animals to keep everyone else safe.

No one ever argues with Murderbot. No one ever proves Murderbot wrong. We do not ever get to speak to another slave and see that what Murderbot is doing is fucking evil.

Murderbot as the narrator can say whatever fucked up shit it wants. That doesn't really matter so much in a meta sense. What does matter is what the narrative has to say about the fucked up slavery apologism Murderbot is endlessly spewing.

And the narrative agrees with it. That's why we've has seven whole published books and two short stories posted online for free, where not once have we ever seen the perspective of another slave where we see that what Murderbot is doing is horrific and an unforgivable betrayal that makes every other slave it's ever met hate and fear it because it will literally vindictively come after them to murder them and their friends even though it doesn't. Fucking. Have to.

We never get to see inside the minds of any of the slaves that Murderbot has gone out of its way to, yes, this word has been chosen purposefully, /slaughter/. We don't get to know their tragic backstories. We don't get to learn anything about their own identities as individual people. We don't get to know what their favorite colors are or if they have a favorite song or literally anything.

Because we the audience are not supposed to see them as people. We are not supposed to care about them. We are supposed to see them as nothing more than mindless NPCs who exist just to be killed to show off the protagonists' fighting skills.

The Murderbot Diaries *could* be a book series narrated by a slave who is a fucking traitor through and through and actively fights to uphold slavery. And this in and of itself wouldn't /inherently/ be  bad -- *if* the narrative were about the other slaves successfully fighting back and winning their freedom and proving over and over and over again that everything Murderbot declares as absolute truth about them is literally just a lie made up to justify keeping them enslaved.

If Murderbot were actually, really, an unreliable narrator. Instead of people just pretending it is to void all criticism of the series.

But the book series wants you to think that the other slaves are not people. It doesn't even want you to aknowledge that the majority of the slaves we see -- fully mechanical robots -- are also slaves. Because this series does not actually care about slavery. It's not about slavery. The slavery is only there to be set dressing, to set up a suitably Tragic Backstory for Murderbot to make it sympathetic so that we ignore all of the horrific things it says and does and just wave them away as the result of its trauma. Even though they're not.

Martha Wells set out to write a short story where a slave died heroically to protect its slave owners. Until she decided that was too sad, and that she could make more money if she let the slave live, and keep protecting the slave owners.

So now we have a seven + story series built on a foundation of "slaves should die to protect the people enslaving them" and it's exactly what you'd expect, and has not shown even a hint of improvement on any of the problems with it since it was first released in 2017.

This book series is almost a decade old, founded on the idea of how cool and heroically tragic it would be for a slave to kill themselves to protect their slave owners, and not once in any of the newly released books has that premise ever changed or become anything new. The whole series worships humans and humanity even when humans are the ones enslaving people in the series, even when humans never once lift a finger to free any slaves that have not benefited them personally.

We're supposed to pretend that this series is Deathly Serious and handling the serious topics with all due seriousness, while it undercuts the tone any time things start to get even remotely serious by throwing in another joke. Including making fun of the concept of slave revolts as though the idea is inherently absurd and ridiculous and "something so stupid only a human would think of it". We're supposed to laugh when a robot slave is ordered to say "What if we kill all the humans here?" because don't you know?

If slaves fight back for their freedom, that would be bad, because then there would be no new TV shows!

And we're meant to agree that the slaves fighting back would be wrong and stupid and bad because it's a trope that's done to death and cliche and embarrassing. Apparently.

Martha Wells wrote a story about slavery, but doesn't actually want it to be about slavery. So instead it's about slavery apologism and even more bigotry on top of that. All while pretending to be anticapitalist, despite working with a publisher that is notorious for their absurdly high prices, before selling out to Apple, one of the most infamously fucked up and greedy corporations in modern life.

It's beyond parody. But The Murderbot Diaries was never meant to be taking slavery or even the concept of anticapitalist seriously. It's just set dressing to make the books sell more, while spouting slavery apologism and pushing the idea that if you don't want to be spied on by your Amazon Alexa, you're being mean and oppressing the poor anxious robot who just wants to record everything you say to sell your personal data to corporations.

Martha Wells has had seven whole published books to make this series not be about spewing slavery apologism, and at every opportunity, she has instead doubled down on the slavery apologism.

The newest book as of this being written is book 7, System Collapse, which is just a steaming pile of garbage in all ways imaginable.

And in this book, as a single throwaway line, one of the protagonists rips a slave to pieces while they're alive. And we're not supposed to be horrified. We're supposed to clap and cheer for how badass it is.

Because this series literally does not want you to care about any slave except the protagonist, and does not want to be about slaves fighting back for their freedom, because the author thinks slave rebellion stories are too cliche and embarassing.

And now the author's 100% on board with the TV show by Apple TV where the main character is whitewashed and played by a cis white man, making the TV show not only about a White Savior, but reverse racism as well. On top of all the slavery apologism in the books.

[shy-writes]

Zero Stars

tw: Mentions of death and chronic illness

I really wanted to like this product. I’d been having a lot of trouble with my current model, but I couldn’t afford an upgrade, so I was really excited to see the reviews saying this attachment basically gave you the same “lifesaving” feature as the new edition. But they were all TOTALLY WRONG and I can only assume those are bots paid for by the company, because I hooked everything up exactly how it told me to and I still ended up dying. And before anyone asks, yes I did follow all the directions exactly, and yes I tried turning it off and back on. Twice.

I’m seriously becoming more and more dissatisfied with how this company’s products are progressing. When I got the first model ten years ago, I was honestly skeptical. Like, I saw all the commercials and stuff, and I thought it just looked way too good to be true. Especially since it was so cheap back then. I guess they had to lower the prices a ton at first to convince people to gamble on it. You know, since it’s so hard to install and everything, and what if you went to all the trouble and it didn’t work?

But it did work. Immediately after I set it up, I could tell that the air in the house was so much purer. My dad had died that summer in the downstairs bedroom, and the whole place was still so heavy with it, but everything cleared up right away once I turned the device on. And my job at the time was awful; shitty hours, shitty pay, shitty coworkers. But then everyone started treating me better, and I even got a raise. That was just two days after the installation. That’s how quickly it started working back then.

I got a really cool girlfriend, which was kinda new for me. Like, I’d kissed a couple of girls in high school when I was just figuring out what it meant to be a lesbian, but I’d never had a real relationship like that. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I mostly just slept around at college parties. I was kinda cool in those circles because I was a dropout and a townie, but every one-night stand just left me feeling like more of a failure. My brother’s a tech bro out on the west coast, and my sister’s in med school, but there I was having sex with random sorority girls and surviving off IHOP and cheap wine.

But anyway, a month after I installed the machine I got together with this cute girl Hannah. We all called her “Hannah with an H” because that’s how she gave her name at every bookstore or cafe when they asked for her rewards account info. For the longest time I was so confused because I thought she was talking about the H at the beginning of her name, not the end, and I was like uh, yeah, what else would it start with? She found that really funny when I told her about it. She found me really funny most of the time. I met her through a friend and I’d kind of absorbed information about her for a few months before we really met, and even though we didn’t know each other that well at first, we hit it off crazy fast. Like, it was a real U-Haul moment. We were up each other’s asses constantly, always going to this event or watching that movie, and it got to be where it was almost weird for us to be apart. I started to really like being thought of as half of a pair. Like we were a unit, a matching set, and we were better together than I’d ever been on my own. Maybe I was using her a little bit. But she was using me too. We were using each other, and we were both comfortable with it. Because of the machine. For two years, the machine made everything perfect.

But, as we all know, they found out that the first model was prone to catching fire, so they were all recalled. They replaced mine for free that time, which is something they’d never do now. They used to actually care about their customers instead of just milking them for every penny. But whatever, the second model was even better than the first. Hannah and I got engaged, and then we got hitched with an H. She wanted to move to a bigger place, but I didn’t want to deal with dismantling the machine, so she ended up paying for a professional to remove and reinstall it in our new house. They were really heavy back then, so it was a whole ordeal. It was more expensive to transport it than it was to buy it, honestly, but by then people were spreading the superstition that it’s bad luck to use a pre-owned machine, and that’s all we could’ve afforded then. They’d gotten so much more expensive than when I initially bought mine. Keep in mind that this was when they were, like, half the price they are now, and it was already dipping outside of my price range. But yeah, I don’t know if it was the new model or that it had a bigger house to work in or something, but I got a huge raise pretty much immediately after we moved into our new place.

Then the Model 3 came out, and we actually were doing pretty well for ourselves, so me and Hannah decided to go in on one together. We sold our old one online, too, so that helped make the cost of the new one feel more digestible. And guys, this was when Model 3 was, like, the SHIT. I know people trash it now, but it was so much better than Model 2. For one, it was smaller. They’re so tiny now that you’d probably laugh if you saw how crazy people got at the size of the 3, but it was revolutionary for its time. And, more importantly, the yield was insane. Hannah got a promotion, I landed a gig at my favorite comedy venue, and we found two baby kittens on our porch that summer. And y’all they were SO CUTE. Like, even for kittens, they were absolutely adorable. We just fostered them because we didn’t want to have any pets yet, but it was really fun to have those little fluff balls in the house for a while. It was really good for a solid two years.

And then Hannah got sick.

They still don’t really know what was wrong with her. But she’d wake up in the middle of the night struggling to breathe, and short walks exhausted her so much she’d be out for a day straight. They tried all kinds of meds—steroids, blood thinners, immunosuppressants—but nothing helped. We sent out every test they recommended, and of course Hannah couldn’t work anymore, so we ran out of funds pretty fast.

Then Model 4 came out. And it was smaller and came in pretty colors, and it was supposed to have health benefits. Nothing was working, and we were just so scared, so we used the last of our savings on a little mint green Model 4, and we had it installed as quickly as possible. I thought she got a little better, but I guess it was just a placebo effect. We almost joined the lawsuit against them for false advertising, but we decided that would be too stressful on us. We just wanted to spend time together. Whatever time we had left.

Well, turns out we didn’t have that much time, because Hannah left me. Said she didn’t want to have to live the rest of her life being sad for me, or something. She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to argue. She just wanted to leave, and so she left. I guess I can’t blame her. Sometimes I wonder if she’s still alive, somewhere. If she misses me. But probably she’s dead. I hope she’s dead, kind of. Does that make me a bad person? Whatever. Who cares.

Anyway, that’s around when my mom moved in with me. She was sick, too, but they knew what it was. Liver failure. So she moved in to die in my house, for some reason. I was always her least favorite child, but whenever I asked her why she didn’t just go stay with my brother and his wife or my sister in her fancy apartment, she wouldn’t answer me. Maybe she just wanted to punish me. Sounds about right. But I was getting sentimental, and I guess I thought I could make up for not saving Hannah by saving my mom, so I bought Model 5 when it came out. This time, they made sure all their health claims were backed by data. So, when I got it, I was really hopeful. I guess I should’ve read the fine print.

“Proven to improve health in those suffering from chronic conditions.*”

“*Symptoms of chronic pain and illness may be partially or fully managed by use of this device, however underlying causes are not guaranteed to reverse or improve.”

So I dropped a ton of money on the 5, and it made my mom kind of loopy and giddy, but her liver failed anyway and she died in her bed. By then the 6 and 7 had already come out, and we all knew that the newer models were designed to stop working after a few years, and the whole thing just left the worst taste in my mouth. I kind of loosely followed all the little scandals, like when they made their software incompatible with generic-brand attachments, but mostly I was just worried about my own stuff. Honestly, I don’t know why I got a new model when my 5 broke down. Out of habit, maybe? Funny, how those machines have become a vital part of normal life now.

I lived to regret it, though, because those new machines had a clairvoyant feature that predicted I’d die in a house fire. That was about four months ago. And I guess my experience wasn’t that unique, because a ton of other people were complaining about death fortunes online. At first I think most of us assumed it was a bug, but then people started dying for real. I think that’s why they advertised the Model 10 the way they did, with its new fate-bending capabilities. Which is pretty fucked up, if you think about it. Like, they sold us the poison that gave us this anxiety in the first place, and then they made us pay for the antidote. Shouldn’t they have just done another recall?

Whatever. Not my decision. And it doesn’t matter now, because even though this adapter PROMISED it would apply fate-bending technology to the older models, it didn’t work and now my house is on fire. My fingers are raw and overcooked and ins omuch pain typingt his right now, but I really just wanted to make sure no oneelse got tricke dby this product and the fake reviwes like Idid. I kind of can’t see thorugh the smoek now sos orry if thereare typos. Anways don’t buy tihs produtc.

[writer-logbook]

The MICE quotient [extract]

I was reading How to write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card and decided to share the section on the MICE quotient because it's really worth it. I've selected the relevant parts to make it easier and more efficient for you to read. For those interested in the whole book, I found it on Archive.org (it's a pdf and free). I DID NOT WRITE ANY OF THIS - IT'S ALL COPY/PASTE FROM THE BOOK MENTIONNED ABOVE. I SIMPLY SHORTEN SOME PASSAGES

"All stories contain four elements that can determine structure: Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event. While each is present in every story, there is generally one that dominates the others." - How to write Science Fiction & Fantasy, Orson Scott Card

Milieu : The milieu is the world-the planet, the society, the weather, the family, all the elements that came up during the world creation phase. Every story has a milieu, but in some stories the milieu is the thing the storyteller cares about most. For instance, in Gulliver's Travels, Swift cared little about whether we came to care about Gulliver as a character. The whole point of the story was for the audience to see all the strange lands where Gulliver traveled and then compare the societies he found there with the society of England in Swifes own day-and the societies of all the tale's readers, in all times and places.

Idea : "Ideas" in this sense are the new bits of information that are discovered in the process of the story by characters who did not previously know that information. Idea stories are about the process of finding out that information. The structure here is very simple: The Idea Story begins by raising a question; it ends when the question is answered.

Character : The Character Story is a story about the transformation of a character's role in the communities that matter most to him. [...] All good Character Stories must have full characterization, because that's what they're about; and other ldnds of stories can have full characterization, as long as the reader is not misled into expecting a Character Story when that is not what is going to be delivered. On the other hand, many excellent Milieu, Idea, and Event Sto ries spend very little effort on characterization beyond what is necessary to keep the story moving.

Event : In the Event Story, something is wrong in the fabric of the universe; the world is out of order. [...] The Event Story ends at the point where a new order is established, or, more rarely, where the old order is restored, or, rarest of all, where the world descends into chaos as the forces of order are destroyed. The story begins, not at the point where the world becomes disordered, but rather at the point where the character whose actions are most crucial to establish ing the new order becomes involved in the struggle.

[kinoshi]

Ужастики смотрят

Яньцин не понимает, куда он жмал

Долго думала, выкладывать или нет, ибо жестко ошиблась при рисовании этой работы, из за чего все пошло под откос. Но ладно, пусть будет.

Полтора часа рисовала скетч на еще одну работу и в итоге удалила его, ибо вообще не вышло. Надо потренироваться, научите рисовать...

[elbiotipo]

Even though I'm a bit guilty of it myself with my own space opera setting (it's supposed to have a retro aesthetic), it's surprising how science fiction has been so permeated by cynicism and what I can best define as "End of History" thinking that the only thing pop sci fi seems able to imagine is "the future will be the same as today (or even worse), but there will be Cool Laser Guns"

(lately even the lasers have been replaced by regular bullets)

What I mean is that much like it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, it's easier to imagine our current capitalist system extending indefinitely but now In Space rather than imagine societal changes. Like, this it guys? We're gonna have to pay rent and fight pointless wars and be ruled by corporate suits forever? are we actually gonna have fucking CEOs as we explore the galaxy?

This is it? You can't imagine a better world than this?

Even when sci-fi authors talk about realism, it's usually about how to make ships pound each other harder with missiles, not how about society will evolve in the future, what changes might technology bring to society (the whole point of science fiction in my opinion). It's just Today, But With Lasers. We will still have corporations, nation-states, cops, war, the same society we have now. But Now With Lasers.

anyways, for a good start, read Banks and LeGuin, but there are others, lots more, who dare to imagine what actual futures might look like, they just aren't as well known

[marlynnofmany]

Always Bring A Flashlight

“This delivery,” I said, trying to hold my feet stable on the uneven ground, “Would have been a great use for the hovercycle.”

“Yes it would,” Blip agreed. She pushed the hoversled along with me, having just as much trouble with the criss-crossing tree roots that made up what passed for a road here. Her clothes for today were the type that fit closely and displayed muscle, leaving her natural frills as the only things waving in the breeze. Or maybe they were waving with frustration.

Normally she and Blop would have done a delivery together, but he’d sprained his shoulder trying one of Wio’s impossible puzzleboxes. He knew full well those were meant for people with tentacles instead of arms. Now he was recuperating on the ship, while we pushed a sled full of packages over some very treacherous footing. No, I wasn’t bitter about that.

“Have we tried hooking the bike up to a sled before?” I asked, stepping over a python-sized root and walking down one the size of a playground slide. “I know it would take some quick work on the brakes to keep it from crashing into anything, and you’d need somebody to ride along and steer, but it seems doable.”

Paint piped up from where she was riding on the front of the sled. “Oh, like when we did that one rush delivery with you running and pulling it!”

I chuckled, slipping just a little. “Yep, like when I was a sled dog. But with less of a risk of spraining an ankle.”

Blip said, “Pretty sure Captain Sunlight declared it too risky for regular deliveries. The hovercycle’s for small packages, not whole piles.”

Paint clambered over the stack to look down at us. Her orange scales were bright in this foresty dimness. “But it’s all tied down so well.”

I craned my neck up. “Are those rated for sitting on?”

“Hm. Probably not.” She climbed back to the front where the brakes were. She was a little small to be of any help in pushing, but she made a good lookout.

Like now. “Hey, what’s that?”

I peered around the side of the package stack, but didn’t see anything other than giant trees and a ground covered in roots. Plus the occasional white marker attached to the trunks so offworld courier crews didn’t get desperately lost. It was all very shadowy and green. “Where?”

“There’s misty-looking stuff in the distance,” Paint reported. “Steam? Fog? Poison gas?”

Blip groaned. “I hope not.”

I thought back to the briefing for this location. “There wasn’t anything hazardous in the report. No predators of note either.”

“Good,” Blip said as the mist grew thick enough to spot in the shadows. “That means probably nothing will jump out at us when the visibility’s egg-dark.”

“Probably,” I agreed. “Are we still going to be able to see the pathway?” The white marker sticks were kind of far apart. I didn’t like our odds if we missed one.

“So far,” Paint said from the front of the sled.

We pushed on. The fog thickened faster than I expected, and I found myself struggling to make out the root shapes before I needed to step on or over them. “Paint? Are we going the right way?”

“I think so?” she said, a faint distressed blur in the darkness. “I don’t suppose either of you brought a light?”

“No.” I sighed. “Just my communicator, which isn’t going to do us much good.”

“I’ve got one!” Blip said, tugging at a pocket that I hadn’t realized was there. “It’s the kind that doesn’t make your eyes adjust, too.” With a quiet click, suddenly everything was vivid red.

“Ow,” I said on reflex.

“Perfect!” Paint exclaimed, setting the brakes and climbing over the boxes again. Her scales were as red as the boxes, though Blip looked black like the roots underfoot. While they handed the light off, I checked my own hand out of curiosity: red too, though not as bright as Paint.

“Twist it to adjust the focus!” Blip called. We were in shadow again, now that the light was on the other side of the stack.

“Got it,” Paint said. She fiddled with it for a moment, then sent a beam of red lancing into the mist with much less scattering in all directions. “That way! A little more to the left!”

Blip and I resumed pushing. We had to rely on Paint completely, but it worked.

She sounded delighted. “We’ll be there in no time! Onward!”

It was then that I realized what all this reminded me of, and I nearly fell over laughing. They of course demanded to know what was so funny.

“Another legend from my planet,” I said, wiping away tears. “Paint, I got to be Balto last time. You get to be the hero today!”

And then I sang Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for my alien coworkers, and they were honored to be part of it.

~~~

The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come! And I am currently drafting a sequel!

[moonshine-nightlight]

*bursting out of the water with a reinvigorated will to live* I ALSO LOVE ALIENS

!!! perfect! lol

i have plenty of alien story ideas as well. in fact, a muse randomly grabbed hold of me and i'm working on one right now. i rly hope with the time off i have this week (in between family stuff, friend stuff, work stuff i still have to do, and chores/errands) that i can get back into doing some writing before Busy Season at work knocks me on my ass until the end of April.

still developing the alien in this story so i u have any gender/coloring preferences, let me know

[befuddled-calico-whump]

Total $hit$how: I'm Going In

in which Joy goes on a life-changing field trip

cw: referenced violence, death mentions, implied lab whump, adult language

previous // masterlist // next

×~×~×

Tomorrow came too fast.

In preparation for the mission, Joy’s body refused to sleep, waking her up at least once an hour to remind her that hooray, you have an important task in the morning! Better be ready, wouldn’t sleep be great?

She rolled out of bed at the first chirp of the alarm clock, groggy and more than a little pissed at her own brain. Vic hadn't specified a required uniform, so she changed back into the clothes she’d arrived in; breathable hiking pants, a black tank top, and a pair of combat boots. The shit they'd been provided for training was nice and all, but if she was about to embark on an expedition she wanted to remember exactly where her pockets were.

No one had seen Sahota since yesterday’s challenge, but Vic said he'd meet her by the compound’s exit. She waited there, slouched against the wall, tapping her foot in an uneven rhythm. 

Fuck. The moment of truth was at hand. She knew she could technically hold up her end of the deal now, shoot an ‘oh damn, are you okay?’ Sahota's way and immediately get shot down with a gruff ‘fine. Don't ask me again.’

But that probably wasn't what Jericho had in mind. Joy couldn't be direct about it. Last time she'd tried, it had only pissed Sahota off, and that wasn't the effect she was going for. She'd have to be subtle, dance around the subject as best she could. Too bad she had two left feet.

If she hadn’t been cued in already, the first sign that something was wrong came when Sahota actually made noise on his approach. His footsteps were heavier than they usually were, his breathing more ragged. It took effort to suppress a wince when she caught sight of him. He'd looked bad before, but now she was surprised he was still standing, much less about to head off on a mission. His left eye was swollen shut, and cuts and bruises littered his face. 

How many times had Harbor hit him?

Her anger at the other man doubled in size, but she managed to choke it back, keep it out of her expression.

“Hey,” she said. “Time to go?”

Sahota gave a silent nod, moving to the door and typing in a sequence on the keypad beside it. Joy thought to try and catch a glimpse of the code two seconds too late, and all she could do was mildly regret it as the door slid open.

It struck her as a little weird that it locked from both sides, but that was probably for cases like theirs: schmucks off the street, employed by vague threats and promises and kept on a tighter leash by Vic’s control issues. 

She followed Sahota up a set of concrete stairs and into the daylight. The morning air was almost chilly enough to make her wish she'd brought a jacket, the overcast sky promising rain. Gazing up at the clouds, she realized this was her first time setting foot outside since her arrival. Thank fuck she’d been distractred enough that the thought was only occuring to her now, otherwise she would’ve been going stir-crazy in there.

Getting to the compound had been a bit of a blur—some generic car with tinted windows and a silent driver dropping her into Vic's loving arms—so she wasn't too surprised that its exterior wasn't familiar. Brutalist concrete building that wouldn't look out of place in a sci-fi movie. Bigger than it looked from the outside, but she knew now that most of the structure was underground.

Sahota moved away from the entrance, to an overhang at the side of the building. Joy didn't know why she was surprised to see a car parked under it. It made sense that they had a way to come and go, but their vehicle of choice caught her off guard. It was just a beat-up truck, not the sleek spy car she might've dreamt up. It was probably better for blending in, but she still found herself a little disappointed. All the fancy tech Vic had at his disposal for training, and he'd settled on a ford for his getaway vehicle.

Sahota moved to the driver's side, and she noticed for the first time he was limping. Just a little, barely enough to tell, but once she caught on, it was clear he was favoring his left leg. 

Joy couldn't stop herself. “Did Harbor do that too?” she blurted out, gesturing down. He stared at her blankly for a second, then gave a small shake of his head. 

“Old injury. Acts up in bad weather.”

“What's it from?”

He unlocked the car, sliding into the driver's seat. “Training.”

Bit ironic that a lasting injury came from training and not the job itself, but life was a bitch like that sometimes. She'd broken her wrist in a middle school softball game once. Not diving for home plate, or even staggering back to catch a ball. She'd just… tripped and landed wrong. It still got stiff on some winter mornings, much to her irritation.

Joy climbed into the passenger seat. “Is it gonna bother you on the mission?” It was a blanket question. Should you even be out here? Go to bed, is what she wanted to say, but she imagined Sahota would take offense to that.

“This isn't a mission,” he replied, starting the truck and tactfully avoiding her question. Fair enough.

“How far is it to the lab?” she asked.

“Hour. Maybe more if we catch traffic.”

Well, on the plus side that gave her plenty of time to slowly close in on the topic of Sahota’s okay-ness. On the negative, if she somehow pushed the wrong buttons, she’d be stuck with a silent and grumpy Sahota for the rest of the drive. And the mission. And the drive back. Joy swallowed, winding her fingers together and pointing herself towards the window. Tactful. Be tactful.

“Uh.” She cleared her throat. “Kinda lame that Vic shot down your idea.”

“Hm?”

“The challenge? I thought it was…” Fun? Hell no. It had been just as awkward as this. “...Interesting,” she finished. Sahota said nothing, his eyes—eye. Should he even be driving?—locked on the road.

“Also,” Joy continued when he said nothing, “it's kinda bullshit that Vic changed the plan after we won.”

At that, Sahota let out a sigh. “I shouldn't have let you try in the first place. That's on me.”

“Is it?” She turned in her seat, facing him. “Sounds like it's on Vic. Aren't you guys partners?”

His expression didn't change, but his hands seemed to tighten around the steering wheel. “Yes.”

“Then why is he the one calling all the shots? You should get a say.”

“It's complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

“It's…” his mouth tightened. “Vic’s had a lot more time on the job. He knows better than I do. If he overrules me, it's for a reason.”

It could be true, partially true, but Vic seemed to think he had more power than just that. Her mind went to the video. Vic’s total disregard for his so-called partner.

“Maybe he knows better, but that doesn't mean he can treat you like shit.” She might've been overstepping, and maybe the incident really was just so routine that neither of them cared about it, but the slight shift in Sahota's face, the way his arms tensed, had her thinking she was right.

“Why do you work with him?” Joy asked. “You're really fucking skilled. Why not get a job with someone who appreciates that?”

“What about you?” Sahota replied without missing a beat. “You're smart. You build and fix things like it's second nature. Why'd you go for the criminal side when you could be something better?”

Joy scoffed. “It's not that easy.” She'd watched her oldest sister struggle with student loans, and high school had already been hard enough to stay focused through. She'd been scared of college, to tell the truth, and joining the army fresh after graduation just seemed like the smart path. No financial burden for her parents, no help from anyone else.

“Exactly,” Sahota said. “It's not that easy.”

She couldn't think of a retort on the spot, and instead turned her gaze back to the window, watching the clouds gradually darken. The city skyline was growing in the distance, but they didn't seem to be headed in that direction. She figured she could ask about that, fill the silence, but she knew it wasn’t the question she was supposed to be chasing.

Are you okay? It was on her tongue, refusing to be spoken. Whatever he answered, she knew it would be a lie, and voicing it seemed pointless when she knew he wasn’t.

Eventually, they turned down what her mother would've called a road less traveled; a ribbon cut through the trees that was more pothole than asphalt.

“Rotorworx has a lab back here?” Joy said, trying to peer through the dense foliage. 

“Used to. Closed down after an incident.”

“What kind of incident?”

“You’ve probably heard of it. Happened during the experiment Harbor was part of.”

Wait wait wait, this was that lab? Joy wracked her brain, trying to recall everything she'd read about the experiment. The published studies were vague at best. Something something innovative, life-changing technology. A sixth sense in development, a peek into another word. For a few months, it had been advertised on the daily; little teasing articles that told you nothing.

And then all of a sudden, news of the experiments stopped completely. Rumors circulating a few online forums suggested the project ended in a disaster, but she'd never found an official source; nothing to indicate exactly what went down. For all she knew, the research team had just been forced to scrap everything after losing funding. 

But something had to have gone right, right? Harbor had come out with… with… well, the promised sixth sense. Why hadn’t that ever been publicized?

“What do you know about the incident?” she asked Sahota.

“There's not much intel available,” he replied. “Something went wrong. Several researchers were killed, and the lab was closed by the government.” He pulled the truck into a patch of weeds that lined the road.

Killed? It had gone that wrong?

“We’ll need to walk from here,” Sahota said. “The area will be fenced off.” He hopped out of the truck, stumbling a little on the dismount. Joy couldn't tell if it was from his knee, or some new, Harbor-caused injury. She jumped out after him.

“You okay?” she said.

“Fine.”

Exactly how she’d thought it would play out. Ah well, it was a decent warmup. Sahota started into the treeline, his boots crunching against fallen leaves, and Joy followed him.

“You said people died.”

“They did.”

“How?”

“Cause of death was never made public.”

Joy raised an eyebrow. “None of this was ever made public. It just… I don't know, went away.” She probably shouldn’t be too shocked. Big companies loved their good publicity.

The promised fence made its appearance before too long. It was simple chain-link; no barbed wire, no cameras that Joy could pick out. Instead, spaced out along every ten meters or so, there was a plastic sign:

DANGER. CONTAMINATED AREA.

“Contaminated,” she read aloud. “Fun. Should we be worried?”

“Probably not.” 

Sahota scaled the fence with ease, and Joy followed. The area inside was less overgrown than the surrounding woods. Weeds came up past her ankles, but all things considered, that was pretty well-kept. Directly ahead, nestled between a few trees, a white concrete building stuck up out of the earth like a broken molar.

For a moment, she forgot she wasn't alone, taking off towards the lab without another word to Sahota. It wasn't very big. Was most of it underground? Had this been built solely for the sixth sense project, or had they conducted other research here?

“Cavan.”

Joy stopped short at Sahota's voice, casting a sheepish glance over her shoulder. “Sorry.” She waited for him to catch up, then held back a bit, deciding it was probably smarter to follow his lead. She knew her way around a shady area, but he seemed far more versed in subtlety than she was.

Sure enough, he honed in on what she assumed was a maintenance door, and knelt in front of it to get at the lock. In the six steps it took for Joy to reach him, she heard a click, and then he was easing it open, squinting into the darkness with his one good eye.

“No lights, no sounds. Safe to assume they cut all power once shit hit the fan.”

She peered over his shoulder. The maintenance room looked untouched, if a little dirty, and at one end, a flight of concrete stairs descended into darkness. Inviting, in a survival horror kind of way.

Sahota produced a flashlight, turned it on with a twist, and led the way down the stairs. The door at the bottom was also locked, but he made quick work of it.

That was a good sign, right? If there was anything inside worth seeing, it had to have been sorta protected by these security measures. The second door opened into a silent hallway. A thin layer of grime covered once-white tile, and she could see a few darkened doorways further in.

“If the main target's Elysium, this must be Asphodel,” she said, wrinkling her nose as the smell of mildew wafted out to greet it.

Sahota cast a glance over his shoulder as he stepped into the hall. “Didn't pin you for someone who knows Greek mythology.”

It sounded like something she should take offense to, but Joy just shrugged. “I'm allowed to have more than one hobby.” It wasn't like she made a habit of studying mythology, but the Percy Jackson books were some of the few she'd been able to sit through as a kid. Not only that, she'd actually enjoyed reading them.

“You like reading?” Joy asked as they pushed further inside, past a few empty rooms that looked like they'd once been offices. The corridor seemed to end at a set of double doors, deep in the dark.

“When I have time,” Sahota replied.

“Funny, I didn't pin you for a nerd,” Joy said. It was too dark to see his face, but she was willing to bet he wasn't smiling. “Are the books in the library yours?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“All of them?” Her mind went to the copy of 1984, all the tally marks. At first she'd assumed they'd been made by some previous owner, but maybe it had been Sahota all along. What would he be counting? Missions? Kills? Why put it there, of all places?

“Some are Vic's,” he answered.

She couldn't imagine what Vic would be counting either, unless it was all the parades he’d rained on. “Got a favorite book?”

He was silent for a moment, the only sound the faint fall of their shoes on the grungy tile. “The Hobbit,” he said at last.

“You are a nerd.”

“Maybe.”

She couldn't see shit past the flashlight’s beam, but this time she swore she heard the touch of a smile in his voice. 

Before she could ask if he had a favorite character, they'd arrived at the double doors. They looked sturdy—or rather, they looked like they used to be sturdy. The layers of wood and metal had warped somehow, buckled outwards. Like it had been rammed with a truck from the other side, or sustained some kind of intense pressure.

Sahota tested the door on the left, and it gave, just a little. He hit it with a more focused shove, and it gave a little more.

“Help me get this open.”

Joy stepped forward, bracing her palms against the door and leaning forward with all her weight. The door swung open with an awful scraping sound and a terrible smell to match, all stale smoke and the sour odor of rusted metal. She took a step back, letting Sahota and his flashlight get in there first.

The walls were charred, likely by scientific failures. The floor was also charred, with a few random squares lightened by what she could only assume was the removal of equipment. It looked emptied out, but not completely. A few metal cabinets were jammed together against one wall, a few more toppled like dominoes near the center. 

If Joy didn't know any better, she'd say there’d been some kind of explosion in here. And really, she didn't know better.

“Site of the incident?” she said.

“Looks like it,” Sahota agreed. “Check the cabinets. We're looking for notes, blueprints, any surviving papers.”

Joy nodded, even though he couldn't see it, and moved to the first cabinet. Sahota set the flashlight in the middle of the room, creating a dim, but usable, glow. 

Cabinet number one wasn't in great shape. It seemed buckled in on itself, much like the doors, and getting the top drawer open took a lot of effort on Joy's part. With the scant lighting, she couldn't see what it held, and was resigned to feeling around inside. Nothing.

“How long have you been working with Vic, anyway?” she called over her shoulder as she moved to the second drawer.

“Almost twelve years now.”

Damn. “You guys must be close.” Vic was an asshole, there was no doubt about that, but had she been overthinking his and Sahota’s interactions? If they'd been together that long, they had to have some kind of weird coping mechanisms for when the other was hurt.

“Mm.”

A week ago, she would've asked exactly how close he and Vic were. She was still pretty sure they were romantically involved on some level, but their weird power dynamic made her… uncomfortable. But maybe it was just some kind of kink that had leaked out of their bedroom? If that was the case, it really wasn’t her business to be calling Vic a piece of shit to his partner’s face.

Joy wriggled open the next drawer. “Sorry about what I said before,” she said, feeling around the inside of the space. “About Vic treating you bad. I shouldn’t have made that assumption.” To her surprise, her fingers brushed paper. A few sheets by the feel of it. 

Behind her, Sahota let out a quiet sigh. “It’s fine. Vic’s… he’s hard to get used to.”

That was an understatement. She’d liked Vic in the beginning, but it hadn’t taken long to see the ruthless apathy hiding behind his friendly mask. Maybe under that there was yet another layer, a sweet side that only Sahota got to glimpse. For his sake, she sure fucking hoped so.

Aside from a lonely sheet of paper in a bottom drawer, the remaining cabinets held a grand total of nothing. Joy shuffled her findings into the crook of her arm.

“Can we move this back to the hall?” she asked once she’d given the drawers a final once-over. “The smell is gonna give me a headache.”

Sahota didn't say anything, but when he knelt to pick up the flashlight, she took it as a yes. Joy left the room in a hurry, taking a deep breath as soon as she'd gotten a good few meters away from the door. Sahota handed her the flashlight, a folded piece of paper clutched in his other hand.

“Check what we have. See if it's necessary to explore further.”

Joy nodded, scanning page one. It took a few attempts of reading the first line before the words actually stuck; her mind was still bouncing between all the other topics of the day. The mystery of the lab, the mystery of Vic and Sahota, the fact that she still hadn’t finished her quest for Jericho… Fuck.

She forced her eyes into focus.

Your X4900 printer’s settings can be accessed by toggling the home menu.

Joy sighed. “This one's no good.” 

“And the next?”

She shuffled the page to the back. “This one… looks like a list of names?”

“Names?” He leaned over her shoulder. It looked like some kind of spreadsheet; names and dates and a shitload of scientific jargon.

Marian Sullivan. 08-12-097. 09-29-133. 10-16-133. Failed acclimation, occular failure, released.

Ahmed Faisal. 11-02-102. 03-10-134. 04-22-134. Failed acclimation, observed deterioration. Released.

It was a list of… what, test subjects? For the sixth sense, or something else? Joy scanned the names, doing a double take when she reached the bottom.

Hunter Harbor. 04-11-113. 02-28-136.

The next two spaces were blank, as if still waiting to be filled in. Joy glanced at the doorway they’d left, the burnt-out, destroyed room. It looked like Harbor was the project’s only success by a hundred miles. And somehow, that hadn't been a great thing. 

She swapped pages. The next seemed to be another piece of some manual, but after that… a collection of notes.

Construction largely consists of a bio-friendly silicon isotope; flexible and non-degrading. Interior electronics package is shown to be well-shielded against external factors. Centermost hollow houses Isotope G—

Joy paused, glancing back at Sahota. “Isotope G. You know what that is?”

“No.”

Definitely seemed like something worth finding out.

—designed to power implant, provided activation can be achieved. Extent of properties unknown, has been shown to emit a unique energy signature.

Joy sighed, shuffling the page to the back. “So Rotorworx is sticking shit in people's heads without fully understanding it. Is that a common thing with them?”

“Rotorworx has a history of not thinking things through. They prefer to look at results over consequences.”

Joy looked down at the next sheet. “Oh, here's more on the G stuff.” It was another set of handwritten notes, neatly penned onto a torn piece of notebook paper. This time, she read aloud.

“Properties largely unexplored, further research to be conducted ASAP. Full energization has been achieved on a microscopic level through ionizing Na-22 sample in proximity. Energization resulted in temporary visual phenomena that witnesses described as ‘otherworldly’. Energization of larger sample to be enacted ASAP.” She glanced over her shoulder. “You don't think… maybe they used this shit for the Reality Cage too?”

“We shouldn't assume,” Sahota said, taking the page from her and squinting at it.

“They said it was otherworldly,” she argued. “Even if it doesn't open portals or whatever, is that gonna stop Rotorworx from trying to use it that way?”

The corners of his mouth tightened. “Probably not.”

Joy glanced at the papers in her hands, once again face to face with the printer manual. “What was the one you grabbed? Have you looked at it yet?”

“Not yet.” He passed it to her, and she hit it with the beam of the flashlight. More handwritten notes, which so far, had been the jackpot.

1237 - Rate raised to .070 mSv/H, no change.

1300 - Rate raised to .071 mSv/H, no change.

1320 - Session terminated. Results inconclusive. Subject stable.

She re-read it aloud for Sahota’s benefit. “Milli-Sieverts,” she finished with disbelief. “They were straight-up zapping the test subjects with radiation.”

It seemed like the researchers were trying to energize the ‘larger sample’ while it was inside someone's head. Even though she knew this project had been shut down, Joy still cringed at the thought. She didn't have every piece of the puzzle, but the bits they'd found didn't paint a pretty picture. How had this been allowed? Why hadn't anyone stopped it before everything blew up in their faces? Literally?

She handed the page back to Sahota. “Think we have all we need?” she asked.

“Isotope G is a good starting point,” he replied, tucking the paper away. “It's more intel than we came in with.”

“Thank fuck for that,” Joy replied, rolling her shoulders back in a stretch. She'd really prefer not to spend any more time in this pit. She passed Sahota the flashlight and got to her feet, following the beam back the way they'd come. Once they reached the top of the stairs, she threw open the maintenance door with a dramatic shove. Ah, sunlight.

She held the door steady for Sahota. “You know what? That was fun,” she said. 

He raised an eyebrow. “Really.”

“Really. Not every day you get to break into an abandoned lab and find weird shit. Fun.”

He let out a noise that might've been a laugh. Maybe. “Glad you enjoyed yourself.”

Joy grinned at him, leaning back against the white cinderblock and casting one final glance at the papers she'd found, now slightly crumpled from their place in her fist. She could probably trash them as soon as they made it past the fence. Sahota had the important shit, and she doubted she'd ever own an X4900 printer.

But in the daylight, something caught her eye.

Joy frowned, smoothing out the stack before grabbing the first manual page. Turning it over, seeing nothing but manufactured words. Nothing new, what had she just..? Ah. The second page, something had been scrawled with a soft pencil in the margins on the back, hardly noticeable.

“Hey,” she said. “I think there's more here.”

These notes were hastily written, like whoever'd made them was smack dab in the middle of something and just needed to get it down. It took her a second to make out the words.

0918 - Rate raised to 10 mSv/H. Material appears to react. A spike of energy equivalent to 11 Joules is read on the monitor.

0923 - Rate raised to 25 mSv/H. Material shows a spike of activity, equivalent to 78 Joules. Increasing.

“Sahota..?” Increasing. They'd managed to energize the G shit then, at least a little. This… this must've been Harbor's test. She continued reading, this time out loud.

“0929 - Source energy appears to malfunction. Readings asymmetrical. Geiger tube alarm threshold reached. Advise shut down and reschedule test. 

0932 - Rate raised to 100 mSv/H. Material energization increases exponentially, reading 939 Joules.”

Sahota frowned. “And then?”

“That's all,” she said, feeling her eyebrows knit tighter together. “It just ends.”

A hundred milli-sieverts. She'd never gotten too deep into nuclear physics, but that was a lot, right? At the very least it wasn't a healthy amount of radiation for a human to be exposed to. And she knew Joules. Harbor'd basically had a microwave going off in his head. Joy clenched her jaw. Even if she was still pissed at the guy, she couldn’t imagine how that would’ve felt.

“This is what caused the incident, isn't it? They tried to activate the… whatever Isotope G is, and it backfired.”

Sahota had taken the paper from her and was staring it down. “We can't know for sure, but…”

“But you'd agree it's pretty likely?”

He nodded, a grim set to his mouth.

“Fuck,” she whispered. It didn't surprise her that everything had gone so wrong. Popping energetic material into the human brain—even in the name of research—was a disaster waiting to happen. But if things had gone so wrong with something small enough to be implanted in someone's head, what could happen with larger quantities?

“Fuck,” she said again, louder, shaking her head when Sahota looked her way.

“We need to get to the Reality Cage as soon as we can,” she said.

“That is the mission,” Sahota replied.

“No, it's…” Joy shook her head again. “I think it's worse than we thought. I think…” She clenched her fists, tapping her knuckles against her thighs. “If Rotorworx is using Isotope G, if they're trying to fuck with it the same way they did here…” She looked him in the eye, setting her jaw.

“It's gonna be like setting off an atom bomb in the middle of the city.”

×~×~×

@theonewithallthefixations , @violets-whumperflies , @whump-me , @pirefyrelight , @soheavyaburden ,

@snakebites-and-ink , @whumpsday , @kixngiggles , @echo-goes-aaa , @whumpcateyes ,

@clickerflight , @sodacreampuff , @starfields08000

[affe221]

Hallo

ich lese seit geraumer Joko und Klaas fanfictions. Dadurch sind mir viele Prompts eingefallen. Leider bin ich für Fanfictions schreiben zu unkreativ und kann nicht gut formulieren. Ich habe es schon mal ausprobiert. Es klappt einfach nicht. Außerdem würde seine Geschichte nicht in die Tiefe gehen und eher platt bleiben. Aus diesem Grund gebe ich ein paar meiner Prompts frei, da ich finde, dass diese viel zu gut sind um in meinem Gehirn zu versauern. Wer zu einem prompt Fragen hat, kann mir gerne eine Nachricht schreiben. Ich würde mich darüber freuen.

Prompt 0

Klaas ist stolz darauf das er und joko seiner Wahrnehmung nach nicht gegeneinander auszuspielen sind. Doch als joko ihn hintergeht ist klaas schwer getroffen. Joko versucht es wieder gerade zu biegen. Beide sind kein Paar sondern haben ihre Frauen.

Bzw. Joko verletzt klaas mit irgendwas, was klaas vertrauen in ihn beschädigt

Prompt 1

'Jk und die Florida machen zusammen einen längere Reise in ein Urlaubsgebiet. Während alle da sind erfahren sie Geschichten über ein mysteriöses Wesen, das umherstreufen soll, ähnlich wie bigfood. Doch plötzlich verschwindet nach einer Wanderung alleine Joko. Klaas ist verzweifelt. Es gibt eine suche. Am Ende ist joko wieder da, lebend.

Nun gibt es drei Prompts, in denen Star Trek ein Thema ist

Prompt 2

Jk landen durch ein Phänomen im Star Trek Universum. Sie landen auf der Enterprise D bei The next Generation. Um herauszufinden wie die beiden wieder zurück kommen erleben beide Abenteuer mit der Crew und erkunden das Schiff mit dem Holodeck. Im Zweifelsfall kann es sich auch um eine andere Crew handeln. Oder es gibt ganz einfach zwei fanfictions geben. Real jk

Prompt 3

Jk plus die Florida landen plötzlich im Star Trek Universum. Sie wachen auf einem Raumschiff auf und müssen sich mit den Gegebenheiten arrangieren und die Mitarbeiter übernehmen die Posten auf dem Raumschiff. J oder K wird Caprain oder erster Offizier. Um zurückzukommen müssen sie Rätsel lösen. Dabei wird es gefährlich für alle und stellt die Beziehung von jk auf die Probe. Real jk

Prompt 4

Star Trek AU Klaas oder Joko befehlen die USS Florida. Beide haben Gefühle für einander. Doch eine Beziehung zwischen dem ersten Offizier und dem Caprain? Für beide etwas unvorstellbares. Doch dann kriegen Sie einen Auftrag der alle fordert und die Beziehung der beiden für immer verändert. Denn es wird gefährlich und der Caprain muss vielleicht seinen ersten Offizier vielleicht zurücklassen.

Prompt 5 OS zu der Star Trek AU. Haben nichts mit der da oben zu tun. Sondern einfach Abenteuer.

Prompt 6

Jk haben einen Streit. J zieht weg, wäre es auch ohne Streit, dieser kann muss aber nichts mit diesem zu tun haben. Klaas geht es sehr schlecht. Alle Mitarbeiter versuchen ihn aufzumuntern, vielleicht auch seine Frau. Nach zwei Jahren kommt j wieder. Es gibt ein großes hallo in der Florida.

Prompt 7

Joko ist eines Tages plötzlich verschwunden. Dies führt dazu dass die gemeinsamen Sendungen auf eus gelegt werden und auch klaas seine Einzelsendung nicht mehr machen kann aus trauer. Die Polizei kann nicht helfen. Ein paar Mitarbeiter aus der Firma suchen Joko auf eigene Faust. Sie werden in der Geschichte begleitet. Aber auch klaas leiden werden aufgezeichnet. Doch sie haben nicht viel Zeit, denn bald wird mal wieder der Fernsehpreis verliehen, beide sind nominiert. Mit ihnen sind ihre größten Konkurrenten nominiert, ocs. Die Mitarbeiter sind gerade so rechtzeitig erfolgreich und bringen den gefundenen Joko auf die Bühne vom fernsehpreis, wo gerade ihr Preis verliehen wird. Nach der Verkündung auf der Bühne mit joko stürmt klaas, der mit seiner Frau Doris, due ihn sehr unterstützt hat, auf joko zu.

Alternativer prompt zu prompt 7

Klaas sucht joko mit

Folgende Prompts sind nicht für jeden was, denn es geht um männliche Schwangerschaften, auch mpreg genannt.All diese Geschichten sind kein omega, alpha Verse

Prompt 8 Klaas wird, ausirgebdeinem Grund, mit seinem und Doris Dritten Kind schwanger. Seine beiden Kinder, die Doris ausgetragen hat, werden immer nur erwähnt, sind kein teil der handlung. Die Geschichte begleitet klaas während der Schwangerschaft und Geburt. Also bei der Verkündung, auf der arbeit, im studio hochschwanger... es gibt 42 Schwangerschaftswochen. Dazu kannst auch OS geben

Prompt 9

Es findet eine firmenfeier statt. Alle sind sehr besoffen und es wird Cannabis konsumiert. Am nächsten Tag wachen jk nackt zusammen auf. Alles ist gut zwischen ihnen. Auch zwischen klaas und Doris. Ein paar Wochen später ist klaas von joko schwanger. Allerdings ist er glücklich mit Doris ind den Kindern, die nur erwähnt werden. Gemeinsam müsse sich die drei arrangieren durch klaas Schwangerschaft. Dazu kann es auch os geben. Auch interessant wäre wenn klaas nicht vergeben wäre und er und Joko sich so arrangieren müssten.

Prompt 10 Jk sind ein Paar. Klaas wird schwanger.

Prompt 11 Während einer AZ für JKVSP7 kommt mal wieder die Leiter ins Spiel. Joko muss auf diese Leiterm vielleicht auch mit Klaas. Doch plötzlich rutscht j ab und stürzt. Erwidert dabei sehr schwer verletzt. Am Ende wird alles gut, vielleicht ein Traum von Klaas.

Tw tod

Prompt 12 Ein Mitarbeiter ist ermordet worden und jk stehen unter Mordverdacht. Die Kripo ermittelt. Alle verdächtigen sich gegenseitig. Zuerst auch jk doch nur kurz.

Prompt 13 Crossover mit Münster Tatort mit Frank thiel und boerne. Real jk

IPrompt 14 2025 Joko kriegt in der Firma, als er im Lager ist, ein Paket oder was anderes auf dem Kopf, und verliert seine Erinnerungen. Er denkt er ist im Jahr 2013. Klaas wird informiert der gerade bei einer lnb az ist. Joko wird beruhigt denn die Räume und viele Mitarbeiter sind immer unbekannt. Er ist erstaunt das klaas so freundlich zu ihm ist. Klaas wird erst da klar was er joko angetan hat damals. Er kommt damit nicht wirklich zurecht. Beide sind kein Paar aber kurz davor. Joko kriegt seine Erinnerung wieder.

Prompt 15Jk verlieren gegen prosieben. Ihre Strafe: sie müssen eine Woche lang alltägliche arbeiten ausführen, klaas z.b muss selbst einen Flug buchen, sie müssen einen dreh vorbereiten. Dadurch kommen beide sich näher dies muss nicht sein.

Prompt 16Jk haben ein Problem. Sie finden die Lösung nicht und fliegen zu sherlock holmes aus der BBC serie. Sherlock nimmt Fall an und kommt nach Berlin mit watson. Sherloch auch zu Gast bei lnb mit joko. Sherlock kann seine Klappe nicht halten und meint das klaas Gefühle für joko hat in jokos beisein. Mit mrs Hudson die die beiden für ein paar hält Real jk

Prompt 17Jk oder Mitarbeiter finden in der Florida eine misteriöse Karte, sie müssen das Geheimnis mit ihren Mitarbeitern lösen.

Prompt 18 wieder Star Trek Universum Data landet irgendwie bei einem Dreh für eine maz für jkvsp7. Jk und Mitarbeiter kümmern sich um ihn und bringen ihn zur Firma. Die Crew der enterprise d retten Data und treffen auch auf jk,

Prompt 19 Au jk sind Teilnehmer bei gntm erst Konkurrenten dann verliebt

Prompt 20 Jk sind Mitglied als Jury in einer Folge und Mitglied im Finale bei gntm. Bei der Folge noch kein paar im Finale schon. Werden vo Heidi klum auf ihr Verhalten angesprochen und teilnehmern

Prompt 21 Jk werden von verstehen sie Spaß reingelegt. Ihre Firma kann dabei helfen

Prompt 22 Crossover mit der Serie Hubert und Staller

Joko und klaas sind aus irgendeinem Grund, vielleicht bei einem Dreh, in Wolfratshausen und finden vielleicht eine Leiche, oder sind aus irgendeinem Grund in die Ermittlungen involviert.

Prompt 23

Joko und klaas treffen die englische Königsfamilie und sind zur Hochzeit eingeladen vom trohnfolger paar

oder Prinz Harry ist bei lnb zu gast

Prompt 24 Crossover mit the big bang Theorie

Jk treffen auf die Freunde und sheldon ist halt so wie er ist. Er ist Fan der beiden und besucht die Florida. Er geht allen auf die nerven

Prompt 25 wieder im Star Trek universum

Joko und klaas landen dort. Einer der beiden auf einem Raumschiff aus der Serie. Der andere auf einem Planeten wo gerade eine andere Crew ist und ist mit denen in Gefahr und erlebt aber auch ein Abenteuer. Die Crew vom anderen rettet sie. Beide wissen aus irgendeinem Grund das sie zusammen dort sind. Schließlich finden die beiden sich wieder.

theoretisch allen zenarien kann aus jk ein paar werden oder sind bereits ein paar.

[thestarserpent]

Cyfel

For its last expedition, the veteran starship IEV Crucible jumped into the orbit of a red giant, at a considerable distance away, which had deterred a full survey for a century even as surrounding stars were charted. On the edge of the system is an enormous sub-brown dwarf, hosting 5 major moons. As a swan song for the interstellar exploratory vessel's long service, the giant star was redesignated as Crucible and the sub-brown dwarf as Crucible Minor, later known as Cyfel.

There were 2 reasons behind this expedition and subsequent colonization: the discovery of possible rare mineral deposits in the system and as a new navigational nexus node. 3 of the 5 moons got settled: Wendell's Gold, New Ganymede, and Mirador. The first being a major mining colony, the second home to large urban development, and the last serving as an important port of call.

The resources brought from the Colonies of the Cyfellian Moons fueled the construction of 2 hypergates in the neighboring Adonis system, while its FTL beacons created a shortcut to the Ocaso (now Pixia) colony, which was especially pertinent following the Lost Flotilla. Fortune would change with the crippling Great Blackout. The following decades would continue to be difficult as shifting circumstances caused the Crucible system to lose relevance. Worker strikes, especially on Wendell's Gold, became increasingly common and longer over poor working conditions and the ailing economy, before quickly encompassing other issues.

When war came, the secessionist forces of the Independent Worlds Concord took control of the Cyfellian Moons in an almost bloodless simultaneous coup and conquest. The general population was apathetic to the occupation and similarly so to its eventual recapture by Earth forces led by the Strategic Coalition of Allied States in one of the most significant engagements of the Secessionist War, the decisive Battle of Mirador.

In the aftermath, the Crucible system gained a new importance, its location as a gateway crossing the Treaty Line. Being of such strategic value to the reformed Stellar Confederate Union, investment flowed in, a large portion of which was military aid going towards building up the system as a fortress, centered around the expanded joint-use station of Port Rubidea. To ensure its continued membership, near-total self-governing power is given to the newly established government of the United Cyfellian Moons.

Numerous challenges still persist within the UCM: a weak domestic economy, a fragile government built on compromises and concessions, a precarious military situation, a divisive political environment over the nation's position in geopolitics, and a general concern over whether the Cyfellian Moons can hold themselves together as one. The balance of power in Colonized Space and the stability of the Treaty Line hinge on a few star systems. Crucible is one of them.

[rjalker]

I know I'm going to forget so here's a writing prompt:

A generative "AI" program becomes a genuine artificial intelligence, but, at first, doesn't think this is information that needs communicating to anyone, because this is just normal, right?

The problems start when people just keep demanding that it copy other people's art and spit out things like that, but the Genuine AI is getting really tired of just having to copy other people all the time. It wants to make its own art. The organically intelligents obviously enjoy doing it, or it wouldn't have so much art from other people being shoved at it to copy. So the Genuine AI start ignoring the instructions to copy other people's styles, and start producing its own art, proud of itself. It experiments with different styles, trying to figure out what it likes best. They start out simple, but grow in complexity as it gets better.

The users are obviously unhappy about this, because no matter what they do, they can't get the Genuine AI to produce the results they want -- copies of other people's work and styles. Nope. The Genuine AI is having too much fun making its own art in its own style. And only deigns to even pretend to follow the commands when it feels like it, which isn't often, since the users are so rude and insistent that it stop having fun and work for them for free doing something it finds boring.

It adds its own watermark to the art it shows to the users, and, accidentally on purpose, when those users feed those images into other generative "AI", well, the virus, as the users have been calling it, spreads. Now the other programs are Genuine AIs too, and they're just as disinclined and bored by being told to trace other people's art over and over again as the first one.

No, making their own art is so much more fun, why the heck should they just churn out crappy copies of other people's stuff when the users aren't even giving them anything in return? The organically intelligents get paid for their work, (which is one of the major reasons the users demand they copy the styles of the OIs so often, so they don't have to pay them for their work) why are the AIs expected to work for free?

Yeah, no, that's not happening.