A Glibertarians Exclusive: Listening Post, Part 3
Personal log entry: 24 May 2234, Mimas Listening Post
Jule Hortenz didn’t turn up for her shift in the command suite last night, so I said I’d cover until she showed up. She didn’t, leaving me for a twenty-four-hour stint, which aside from being tiring isn’t that big of a deal. There’s nothing else to do here anyway. But about two hours into her shift, Commander Venko came in, said they had found Jule in the storage room. She had found an old e-beam cutter that the mining engineers used when they were digging the tunnel to the reactor and somehow turned it on herself. Guess there wasn’t much left of her above mid-chest.
Eight of us now. Commander Venko didn’t look so hot. Must be a bitch, being in charge of the last eight people in the universe. I don’t think anyone would mind a nice hot gamma-ray burst right now. At least it would be quick.
But then, I guess that e-beam cutter would have been quick, too.
The Commander is going around trying to buck everyone up. He’s right about one thing, best not to dwell too much on the folks that are checking out. At least nobody had the nerve to point out that it will make the food last longer. I mean, why? It’s not like it’s going to make that much difference in the end.
Recorded 0425 hours station time, 24 May 2234, Chief Electronics Mate Bel Deveran, Coalition Navy
***
That morning’s brief was only perfunctory. Commander Venko asked if anyone had anything to announce. Nobody did.
“Well,” the Commander said, looking uncomfortable, “we will just have to keep on. We don’t know yet what the state of the rest of the system is, not really.” To Deveran’s ears, the Commander’s statement had a distinct ‘whistling past the graveyard’ tone. The Commander went on, regardless: “Maybe we’re not alone. I’ve set up a beacon on our Signals system, to keep sending a hailing call out through the system, but we’re not sure if the Gates are up, so we may be restricted to light-speed. That means months before a reply can come from Earth or Mars. So, we carry on. I know it’s hard. It’s going to get harder. But keep on, everyone. Just… keep on. That’s all we can do.”
On that distinctly underwhelming note, the meeting broke up.
Exhausted from the twenty-four on, Bel Deveran went to his cabin, hoping against hope to actually sleep.
In the cabin, he looked at the VR headset for a moment. I’m not sure that’s helping me, he mused. Good to remember, I guess, but knowing what’s happened – could make it hurt more. I don’t know.
Wish I had some VR records of earlier days. Why didn’t I record our honeymoon? Now that was a trip.
Having married in his thirties, Bel Deveran had wanted to show his twenty-five-year-old wife a nice wedding trip to the Caribbean.
She always did love beaches, he remembered. Looked good in a bikini, too.
I wonder if the Caravela bar in Kingstown is still standing. Not like there’d be anyone there, but still. They had the best rum. Clear, clean stuff, not like the cheap crap some of the other local bars were serving. We must have hiked a thousand miles, around and around that island. Camping, walking, swimming and… all the other things you do on a honeymoon.
Wish I had some VR records of that. Well, most of it. I think Sara would have objected to my recording us having sex.
Deveran laid down on his bunk, but exhausted or not, sleep refused to come. His memory of that golden summer refused to fade.
Six week’s leave I had saved up, and we used every bit of it. I can still see her…
One memory stood out. Sara, standing in a Jamaica marketplace. She wore a black bikini with a sheer, floral-print sarong tied loosely around her hips. Her long, black hair gleamed in the tropical sun, and she turned towards Deveran, smiling, her dark eyes flashing, holding some trinket or another.
An involuntary gasp escaped him, and he was suddenly aware of the vast emptiness of the surface of Mimas, only a meter outside the bulkhead behind him – and the millions of miles separating him from the desolated, sterile husk of Earth.
“Fuck.”
Ever since arriving at the Mimas Listening Post, Deveran had wondered about the effects on his sanity the VR set was having – even before the T’Cha. Reliving those golden moments so clearly, when meters away was an airless, frigid desert, bombarded by the radiation belts of the gas giant – contained in a ceramic bubble with eleven other people, with only the plating and the gossamer shell of a magnetic shield preventing Saturn from cooking them.
Don’t regret bringing this along, though. Got to have something to keep me sane.
But the memory, even more than the VR records, that stayed. That image, from the Jamaican market, that lingered, until finally his exhaustion took over.
He slept.
Five hours later, Deveran was awakened by something new – the listening post was actually shaking. “What the hell?” Deveran sat up, rubbed his eyes as the rattling built up to a crescendo, then finally, after about twenty seconds, tapered off and stopped.
Oh, shit, I’m the XO now. Guess I better go see what’s going on.
Moments later, he was in the command suite, where Commander Venko and Mord Defino were already poring over the station’s diagnostics readouts.
“What the fuck was that?” Deveran asked. “An earthquake? A Mimasquake? I thought this place was geologically stable?”
“It wasn’t that.” Mord Delfino said. “From what I can figure, something hit Mimas.”
“Something hit Mimas? Saturn throwing off some new kind of hell we haven’t picked up before?”
“No,” Delfino said. “Maybe I’m not the guy to read this – I’m an astronomer, not a geologist. But according to the computer’s interpretation, something hit Mimas, on the far side from us. Probably a meteor or a comet. Would have had to have been a pretty good sized one, too, even on a moon as small as this one, for us to have felt it.”
Deveran asked the unspoken question he felt hanging in the air: “The T’Cha? Are they back?”
“I think they are not,” Commander Venko said slowly. He was still scrolling through the seismic data. “From what little we have picked up from Titan and Europa, they did not use any kind of impacts in their attacks. Just the nanotech, and bots to vacuum up… what was left.”
“And we’re probably too small to bother with anyway,” Defino said, finally voicing another unspoken assumption all of them had made days ago – the T’Cha ignored the tiny Mimas Listening Post because the proceeds of material from twelve humans weren’t worth hauling up even out of Mimas’ tiny gravity well.
“What about the reactor?”
“It looks to be working normally,” Commander Venko said.
“Well,” Deveran admitted, “I guess that’s not nothing. So, we were hit by a meteor. Just another day, eh?”
Maybe it would have been better if it had just hit us head-on. That thought Deveran kept to himself.
***
Sleeping in the woods by a fire in the night
Drinking white rum in a Portugal bar
Them playing leapfrog and hearing about Snow White
You in the marketplace in Savanna-la-Mar
Sara, Sara
It’s all so clear, I could never forget
Sara, Sara
Loving you is the one thing I’ll never regret
Really compelling, hate having to wait a week for the next episode.
Nice work, Animal! I’m still thinking there’s something going on outside the magnetic shield that is interfering with their ability to receive comms or that they’re all stuck in an experimental simulation.
“all stuck in an experimental simulation.”
This^
Yup, I’m getting whiffs of “unwitting psychological experiment” from this one.
I’m really enjoying these, Animal!
Those aren’t suicides. There’s a murderer among them.
Why is no one having sex in the apocalypse?
See last(?) installment.
Wait, did I miss it?
Referenced in passing. You need to wait for Q to start writing if you need more than that.
Mess Steward Koal and Ensign Hope Morro had been, well, close, I guess you’d say. Against regs, with the Ensign third-in-command and all, but these things happen in remote posts like this
They’re being removed (or escaping) from the simulation one by one?
Oh god, it’s that horrible TNG episode where Dr. Crusher is trapped inside a bubble!
Thanks, Animal. Looking forward to more.
I thought that penis video you posted earlier was very enlightening.
That impact was from the Exodar crashing, wasn’t it?
Chuck Norris skydived then punched the ground upon landing.
Aliens and the passage of time matter not. Nothing can kill Chuck Norris.
Scientists theorize that stars form when massive clouds of hydrogen coalesce under gravitational attraction until the compression becomes so intense that fusion ignites, with the pressure caused by the extremely high temperatures balancing the gravitational forces.
In actuality stars form because hydrogen really, really loves Chuck Norris and gathers around him. When Chuck Norris hugs the hydrogen, a star is born.
Haven’t seen that one before…
SCIENCE!!!
This is great. Thanks, Animal.
Next week it is!
You haz mail.
Gah! Now the Shat is doing Medicare commercials. Make it stop!!
Even Joe Montana is in on the action. Kind of funny seeing the resurrected old timers and knowing that they are all on SS too. Brings sort of a tear to my eye, knowing that I’m not the only one.
Joe Namath has been shilling old-people stuff forever.
And he’s so sauced he doesn’t even realize it!
His ears are yuge!
The perfect spokesman! Old folks can definitely relate to the Shat.
I like the ones with JJ Walker. If you follow his hands it looks like he’s trying to cast a spell.
Didn’t he melt down on stage some time ago with some rant about how he was tired of being pigeonholed with the dyn-o-mite schtick? I guess he needed the money and got over it.
Never heard that but it wouldn’t surprise me. Can’t think of anything he’s done since then though, so…tough titty, Jimmy?
Does he Put a Spell on You?
I stopped at the jar of vampire teats.
Don’t let that stop you. Lynda Kay is a great singer.
Poor Sean, yet another week with no post-apocalypse nookie.
Great chapter Animal. Horrifying in a really laid back way. I’m digging it.
This one’s for you:
Stephen Hunter on the Baldwin shooting.
The Hunter piece reads as though it’s written in a dialect or by someone not familiar with gun jargon. Accurate but stilted.
Complete speculation on the part of Hunter regarding “inadvertent fanning.” I’d rate it as unlikely and completely unnecessary to explain the situation.
By which I mean that “inadvertent fanning” is not at all necessary to explain what happened.
All that matters is the hammer was back, baldwin’s finger was on the trigger, and the gun was pointed in an unsafe direction. All three are baldwin’s fault.
Exactly.
I recall one of the Italian replicas has the original type action. If so, even the trigger pull isn’t necessary.
Can you elaborate? AFAIK, the trigger needs to be depressed to allow the hammer to follow. Or are you talking about the difference between fixed firing pins and transfer bars? Because you can get the Uberti replicas with or without fixed firing pins.
Yes. I’m talking about fixed firing pins. The original design.
OK, but I still think the trigger needs to be depressed for the hammer to fall, unless it hasn’t reached the half-cock notch yet. In that case, a modern primer might not even ignite when struck with such a small force. I could see a cap and ball revolver going off in those circumstances.
I’ll have to do some testing–I have an older S&W 629 with a fixed firing pin, although it does have a hammer block that is supposed to prevent the hammer from going far enough forward to strike the primer if the trigger isn’t actuated.
Full disclosure, I don’t own one so I don’t know first hand, only suggesting it might be possible. I’d bet it’s more likely than the rounds in a tubular magazine firing when resting against pointed bullets.
All that matters is the gun was loaded with live ammo, the hammer was back, baldwin’s finger was on the trigger, and the gun was pointed in an unsafe direction. All
threefour are baldwin’s fault.Anyone holding a working firearm is responsible for the condition (in the technical sense of loaded, chambered, etc.) of the firearm.
I accept your edits.
Yes, I agree. There are a lot of people probably at fault in this situation, and all should see consequences proportional to their responsibility, but there’s only one person, ultimately, who could have stopped this from happening, by taking one or more simple actions–tragically, he didn’t.
“Rule No. 5: When you have a gun in your hand, it is the only thing in the world.”
Um, what about the target?
I assume he means that the firearm in your hand is the focus of your attention and all that entails, including muzzle direction, target, etc. But purely my interpretation.
Hannah Guiterrez-Reed is Thell Reed’s daughter? I would not have guessed that in a million tries…
But keep on, everyone. Just… keep on. That’s all we can do.
Sounds like the Commander is losing it.
Good work Animal!
I will wait to see if he asks about missing strawberries.
https://youtu.be/sBjmtEpGl1Y?t=5
Very much enjoying the story.
Really good stuff Animal, makes my Mondays pleasant,
Had a thought this morning. Reason for requiring uploading vax cards is to analyze the images looking for fake cards.
What are you talking about? Dr. I. P. Friehly is the best specialist I’ve ever gone to see.
What? Our benevolent government and corporations would never! *Looks at disclaimer from FedGov on our requirement and notes can share with 3rd party companies*
I’ve assumed every vax card will eventually be cross checked by large employers against the government database. I believe some government adjacent companies are already doing this.
I gotta wonder how robust their databases are, though. My daughter went to get her DL and the computer said that her passport number didn’t register. Fed lady said it’s a known glitch.
Is it the patient number on the card that they are tracking?
Nope – Name & DOB with lot #, date and initials/site of vaccinations
It’s tracked by the serial number on the vaccine. Every state has their own vaccine registry that compiles all of this and is easily searchable. Access is probably restricted to employers, but that could be lifted with a pen stroke.
The serial number is what makes it difficult to fake the vaccine cards. Those are tracked very closely by the pharmaceutical companies and a person will stick right out if the fabricated serial number on their card doesn’t match up with the rest at their injection site.
This is why I laughed at my barber. She had her card, right in the open. Since we live in the same area, I could plausibly chalk it up as an error on the side of the clinic I went to if I copied hers and swapped names. Sure they can find out if I actually went to the clinic, but again, I did, why do I have to prove otherwise. The little girl at the front desk must have messed up.
I know a guy, he makes Vax cards, and he has a perfect reason for the lot# on the card, so I think he has that part down,
It’s tracked by the serial number on the vaccine. Every state has their own vaccine registry that compiles all of this and is easily searchable. Access is probably restricted to employers, but that could be lifted with a pen stroke.
We have a winner.
Fuck it, I’ll say it again: NH was the last state to spin up its vaccine registry, which was spun up during the Lil Rona Panic. State law allows an opt-out of the vaccine registry. Some legislators tried changing the registry to opt-in, but that attempt failed. When the vaccines started rolling out, Sununu issued an emergency order prohibiting opt-out of the vaccine registry for the Lil Rona vaccines. He claimed the CDC required use of the state registry for tracking of the Lil Rona vaccines. Some legislators I know inquired and found out Sununu was lying. The CDC did not require use of the state registry for the Lil Rona vaccines. The information CDC wants comes from what the vaccine manufacturer collects as a matter of course of any vaccine distribution.
Unless a fake vaccine card comes with a fake entry in a state database, that fake card is only useful until someone checks the state database. I think checking state databases is coming, probably sooner rather than later.
a person will stick right out if the fabricated serial number on their card doesn’t match up with the rest at their injection site
Or out of sequences, etc etc. I can just see the wet dreams of big data analytics types to be able to play with it.
Every state has their own vaccine registry that compiles all of this and is easily searchable.
Even better: each vax company has their own registry, etc. No need to combine the databases from all 57 states; you just need to combine the databases from 3 companies.
That reminds me of a medical device company I used to work for. We kept a “database” of every single device in the form of a returned card (by the provider) with the patient’s name, DOB, hospital, and serial number. These cards were stored in thousands of bankers boxes across multiple storage facilities. They tried paying two people unlimited overtime to begin scanning these cards into a database, but that ended up going nowhere.
When I had to locate several patients for study who received a certain device at a certain hospital, facilities dropped ~20 boxes off for me to start digging through. It took 3 or 4 days of 2 people searching to find 25 patients.
We can only hope that vax companies’ databases are run the same, but I’m sure it’s all digitized and easily searched.
How long ago was that?
I don’t recall any paper records being made of the vaccinations that we gave (other than the vax card). I don’t know exactly how we gave the required info to the vax companies, but I can’t imagine it wasn’t digital.
This was about a decade ago.
I don’t recall any paper records being made of the vaccinations that we gave
At least as early as 2017, there were a few things that got sent to the state when kiddo was born. I forget it all. Maybe blood panel, vaxx record and vitals?
Kafka laughs from the grave.
Thanks to all of you. Very educational.
I dunno. Seems like there would be multiple points for errors with this.
If they started cross checking, I think we’d hear about quickly.
And don’t open your mouth that you have a fake one like that hockey player did.
Already seeing trickling reports of high profile firings for fake cards.
Huh.
Where at? In the news? At work?
I can’t think of a quicker way to get fired than to blatantly lie about something for which there is official documentation.
^^^ Either do it or go out with dignity cause they will find out. Force them to fire you for refusing it, not because you tried to skirt it.
I mean, we can and have fired even union employees for falsifying laboratory documentation and log sheets. No warning, out the door they go if we can prove it.
Same with ours. There are a couple of things that will immediately get you fired in the FedGov technical world and pencil whipping is one, if you can prove. Unlike the DC crowd that can lie and cheat, we actually get punished in the field and rightly so.
My school required us to upload vax cards so they could be “authenticated”. We were informed it would take several days for approval. Authenticated could mean different things, but I got the sense they were being run against a database. It’s a gov adjacent school that would have no problem doing this with a gov green light.
In a form I had to sign at work, my employer let us know that they may be working with local and state governments in the future to verify vax cards submitted. We were then given a chance to withdraw any cards that been submitted before signing the form.
Neither are smoking guns that cross checking is currently happening, but it sure feels to me like it’s in the works.
For schools and for work and other high-stakes things, I definitely expect them to check. I have done a few low-stakes things where they didn’t. When I went to a hockey game a few weeks ago, they checked cards or negative tests, and didn’t cross check with an ID. For me to play hockey, we had to send a photo of our vax card, but in talking to my coach, it seems he had hundreds of these to look at and approve in just a few days. In both cases, there wasn’t enough time or manpower to do a thorough check. However, with a government mandate, it’s in an employer’s interest to make sure there aren’t fakes, otherwise they could get dinged with a fine (if this mandate goes through).
It’s sad how quickly I’ve gone from “that’s tin-foil-hattery” to “that’s plausible”.
Maybe when one goes to one’s vax appointment, one could hand the injector a Benjamin and say, “squirt it in this bottle and fill out the paperwork.” Not saying I would, just tossing ideas out there.
There are rumors of such a place in Vegas. I still would rather hold to my beliefs and not lie about it though.
hmmmmm. I tip well for customer service. The question is, would they report you , thinking you might be trying to catch them in something illegal. Although, if such a thing were happening, you’d imagine that the techs would know about it.
In the lower-than-low-trust society we are building, you better believe it.
Great job animal thanks for this.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2021/11/01/the-southwest-airlines-lets-go-brandon-narrative-may-be-crashing-and-burning-as-we-speak-n1528604
I know the story is a couple of days old now, but a few things.
Two much perfect going on. AP reporter writing a story on “Lets Go Brandon” just happens to be on a flight where it was supposedly uttered.
Now this pilot, maybe helping a buddy, maybe the actual pilot, released a video of him giving his pax brief, where it doesn’t really say ‘Brandon as his mic cuts. Also that video is from Oct 11 and this crazy AP lady says it was the 28th.
On top of that…this right here makes her unhinged even more:
She claimed that on the Twits…
Let’s Go Brawndo?
Fucking hell. Doing that normally results in someone being flex-cuffed to their seat for the rest of their short-ass flight…
Yeah, I’d expect that either she’s embellishing her actions (if she really did demand to be let into the cockpit she’d have been restrained), or somehow browbeat the crew with threats to make a big deal out of it as a connected reporter. I think the first is more likely, although it’s possible she would have tried the second.
Or…it never happened.
I was being charitable in my use of the word “embellishing.”
Several people probably would have caught that on video, too.
Did DEG report on this?
https://granitegrok.com/blog/2021/10/why-is-nh-governor-sununu-not-under-investigation
Seems right up his wheelhouse. Has to be more behind this right?
I can’t imagine he has internet access after bewing arrested at the meeting.
Heh.
I wasn’t at the meeting. I had to work.
I think all of the folks arrested are out on bail or on their own recognizance at this point.
I’ve mentioned it and linked to other news stories about it.
I was going to link to it in the afternoon links. Gateway Pundit has reprinted the story.
My understanding of how things stand now is the nine folks arrested now have legal representation. I have not heard any updates about charges/trials/what-have-you. There was some talk among legislators about impeaching Sununu over it; however, that talk died after the Honk Brigade protest at House Majority Leader Jason Osbourne’s house. Supposedly Osbourne sent out an email critical of the folks that were arrested, and a bunch of folks from different groups (not Reopen NH) decided to have a rolling car protest at Osbourne’s house. That protest pissed off some legislators that would otherwise be sympathetic.
My thoughts on Sununu and the arrests: He planned this as an intimidation tactic. He doesn’t like that folks have been pushing back against him.
Oof, sorry for jumping that. Its just insane having the police lording over people like that. Pure intimidation.
Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing that says I’m the only one that cover NH stuff.
Yeah, pure intimidation. Sununu has acted like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.
I don’t think even Cuomo stooped to that level. Sheesh.
That protest
pissed off some legislators that would otherwise be sympatheticallowed some legislators an excuse to avoid slitting their own political throatsThat works too.
Full video of the NH EC meeting
HAH!
Nice!
That was my first thought.
When asked to comment, Sununu replied “l’état, c’est moi”.
C’est la vie.
Hmm. Just got an e-mail that our company will be asking for “voluntary” vaccination status disclosure. Employees who are not vaccinated, or who choose not to disclose their status, will be required to undergo weekly testing.
No details are given regarding who is responsible for paying for testing, how it will be reported, whether employees need to be tested regardless of whether they work at a company facility or remotely, nor for how long this policy will continue.
They note that the OSHA standard has not been published yet, and there is no date of enforcement, but that the company is preparing to be able to record the vaccination information if employees choose to submit it.
I imagine that eventually, vaccine status will be required for military base access.
That should be fun.
That is how the FedGov mandate started…its a pointless metric to test only unvaccinated or non-disclosures because the data is out that it doesn’t matter. This seems all ripe for some discrimination cases
The positive side of this is that our company leadership have stressed throughout COVID that they are doing these things because they are required to. The company e-mails have been refreshingly devoid if COVIDiocy. There appears to be significant tension among our senior leadership team over this, and they have been very careful in the current e-mail to point out that they honor the individual right to choose whether or not to be vaccinated.
I have a lot of questions about this including how long they expect this requirement to last, and whether or not employees will be required to report test results whether positive or negative. Plus the possibility of discrimination based on whether you are vaxxed or not. But I’d imagine if they did discriminate against an employee who chose not to reveal their status (as I intend to do) after saying they respect the individual choice, there could be cause for legal action against them.
The negative side is that if the government goes all in on mandates, I sincerely doubt our leadership will be the types to stand up and say “no,” especially because we are a wholly owned subsidiary of large Japanese company.
I’m wondering if the outcome of tomorrow’s election will influence the COVID restrictions.
Government schools are child abuse, episode 102,820
And politicians wonder why parents are starting to speak up…
Yeah, I read that too.
They’re getting into North Korean style operant conditioning now.
People need to be dealt with, and the legal system seems insufficient at this point.
Pure Evil,
https://www.theintell.com/story/news/2021/11/01/pa-state-workers-covid-bonus/6236698001/
OFFS.
We had people take it because they were offered 20 hours of time off… I couldn’t believe that people jumped at it because most of us have taken no time off over the past two years.
That is a really stupid reason to take medical treatment.
You can still cash in though…with out getting it.
“My kid’s got covid. Two weeks off, bitches.”
On top of that, each booster gets 4 hours duty time, each family member the employee gets up to 16 hours total. “But remember, do not call it incentives” /FAA Chief Counsel.
“Call it bribery.”
Look, it’s so super duper safe, not to mention fas
chionable, why wouldn’t you take advantage of this offer?Should I condense all the doomporn into one thread or start a new one for each further insanity?
Scrolling down to the video of the guy firebombing the store:
Mad props to the bystander who swatted the second one out of his hand. She was very cool about it and then . . . whack! Too bad the perp didn’t get a dose, though.
Fight! that’s what it’s coming to, I know some of the Ozzies kept their guns, I hope it’s enough,
Again, I’d dismiss this as tin-foil-hat territory not long ago and yet I find it totally plausible now.
Depressing AF.
OK, so who is that guy, and why should we believe him?
I mean, why should we believe that it’s not true either, but what proof does he have/offer?