A Glibertarians Exclusive: Listening Post, Part 2
Personal log entry: 23 May 2234, Mimas Listening Post
One more overnight. 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, and last night, Ensign Morrow hanged herself in her cabin.
Nine of us left now. Nine human beings in the entire universe. As far as we know, anyway.
This morning there was an odd magnetic anomaly that penetrated the post’s shields. Not from Saturn, it wasn’t any of the usual radiation spikes or magnetic fluctuations from the gas giant. This one came roughly from the direction of Titan, but without our chief astronomer it’s hard to determine the exact vector. The anomaly only lasted a few seconds, and there weren’t any dangerous radiation spikes in the post facility itself, so in the end it apparently wasn’t that much of a much. Curious, but under the circumstances, nobody really cares.
Commander Venko is trying like hell to keep everybody focused and functioning, but it’s starting to wear on even him. Funny to see that old adamantine bastard showing signs of stress, but these are hardly normal times.
Recorded 0942 hours station time, 23 May 2234, Chief Electronics Mate Bel Deveran, Coalition Navy
***
When the remaining staff filed in for the 0800 morning brief, Chief Deveran noted a new roster on the main screen at the front of the briefing room:
Post CO: Lieutenant Commander Ion Venko
Post XO: Chief Electronics Mate Bel Deveran
Post Adjutant: Chief Pharmacist’s Mate Qul Abend
Astronomy: Astronomer’s Mate Fist Class Mord Delfino, Astronomer’s Mate Second Class Jule Hortenz
Food Service: Steward’s Mate Second Class Rober Vorta
Maintenance: Chief Engineer’s Mate Kip Featre, Machinist’s Mate First Class Golan Trev, Machinist’s Mate Third Class Anna Simpco
Wow, Deveran mused. All the officers gone but the Old Man, I guess that does make me the next highest in rank. I’ve got six months’ time in grade on Chief Abend and two years on Chief Featre. Not as though I’ll get a raise in pay or anything. Unbelievably, he chuckled, making Qul Abend, seated next to him, stare in disbelief.
Lieutenant Commander Venko entered then and strode confidently to the front of the room.
“All right,” he said. “Listen up. You’re probably all aware of the odd little magnetic anomaly we picked up last night, but Chief Deveran and Chief Featre assure me that it’s nothing to worry about and no damage was done to the station, so let’s not worry about that. Saturn is still out there doing its thing, and this is probably just some kind of storm or another even we haven’t picked up yet.”
He consulted his pad, apparently referring to some notes he had made.
“We’re in a bad spot,” he said, somewhat unnecessarily. “I’m sure you’re all feeling the loss of Lieutenant Foxx, Mess Steward Koal and Ensign Morro. But it looks like all we have to rely on now is each other, so for the time being, let’s at least hang on to that. Speaking of, Steward’s Mate Vorta, can you give us a rundown on the food situation?”
Rober Vorta stood up, his normally dark face ashen. His voice shook slightly as he spoke. “Well, sir, we’re actually a little better than you might think. Our stored stocks will last us about a month, maybe six weeks with iron rationing. We were supposed to get a supply ship in four or five days, but I’m guessing it’s not coming now. But when I was going through inventorying everything, I found a starter Chlorella kit that will work in our little hydroponics setup, and there are enough organics that the post’s processor pulls out of the ice harvested for water and O2 that we can support the algal strain for a while. We could live two, three years, as long as you don’t mind eating dried algae cake.”
“Oh, great,” Anna Simpko muttered. “Three years on drycake, and then we die anyway. Wondrous.”
“Quiet in the back there,” Commander Venko snapped. “Thank you, Steward’s Mate Vorta. Can you start the Chlorella immediately?”
“Already have done, sir,” Vorta replied. “It will be a week or two before stocks are up enough to yield anything we can process for eating, but this Chlorella strain has really good yields in fats and proteins, so it will keep us alive, for a while.”
“Good work.” Venko looked around the room. “Anything else?”
The room was silent.
“Very well. Let’s get back to our posts, one and all. Dismissed.”
With a little over an hour before his trick in the command suite, Deveran went back to his cabin, laid down and put on his VR headset. “Resume,” he commanded.
Back on the barrier island beach, the sun had grown low behind them. It was time to go.
“Come on, kids,” Sara called. “Time to go back to the house.”
The children had been running back and forth with little plastic pails, filling them with seawater and dumping them into their sand tower’s ‘moat,’ which drained away into the sand as fast as they could fill it. At their mother’s call, they stopped and obediently marched up the beach to where their parents were rolling up towels and putting things back in the lunch basket.
“Look, Da,” Jin said. She opened her pudgy little hand, revealing some broken bits of clamshells. “I found these.”
“You can bring them along with us,” Deveran told her. “Have you got all your toys?”
“Yes, Da,” the kids chorused.
“All right. Come along.” The family walked up the beach, over a small windblown dune, to the trail that led them to the tiny cottage they rented every summer.
As programmed, the VR headset turned itself off at 1045, station time to allow Deveran to prepare for his shift. He took off the set and sat up, unaware of the tears in his eyes. He hadn’t – wouldn’t – allow himself to think about what state the Carolina barrier islands were probably in now. He hadn’t – wouldn’t – allow himself to think about what had happened to his family. He hadn’t – wouldn’t – allow himself to think about what had happened to the radiant woman he had married, had loved beyond anything else in the world.
Fragmentary reports had filtered in the week before, from Earth, from Luna, from Mars and the other outposts. The nanotech devices the T’Cha used were truly horrible, reducing any living material to an amorphous gray sludge that was suctioned up by gathering ‘bots that descended from the great globes of the conquest ships.
Everybody on the station had family on either Earth, Luna, or Mars. Nobody wanted to talk, or even think, about what had happened to their loved ones. That way lay madness – or the airlock.
Deveran splashed a little water on his face, straightened his coverall, and headed off to start his shift.
***
I can still see them playing with their pails in the sand
They run to the water their buckets to fill
I can still see the shells falling out of their hands
As they follow each other back up the hill
Sara, Sara
Sweet virgin angel, sweet love of my life
Sara, Sara
Radiant jewel, mystical wife
A nasty bunch, someone needs wipe them out,
Great work Animal,
Like, with a cloth?
I would have imagined more sex in remote outpost, more so at the end of civilization.
Still, an interesting premise so far.
Is dried algae cake keto?
It’s a weird question: when is the time to call it quits? Are you so filled with hope that you try to live a couple more years? Or are the early suicides the smart ones?
Great chapter, Animal!
Apocalypse sex.
Don’t even think like that, at least not yet!
Not a weird question at all, I think.
Neville Shute wrote a whole book about it, On The Beach
Of course, it was nuclear fear-mongering, but the point stands.
I like that movie. Didn’t realize it was a book.
Read it when I was little; I don’t even know where the paperback came from. My mom, I suppose.
But I loved it. Set me on the path to liking all kinds of dystopian, speculative fiction.
Interesting.
Especially at that MSRP.
I love the HP, but I can’t shoot mine very long before it chews up the web of my hand. Hopefully they’ve done something about that.
You know what’s funny? I just realized that all the pistols I’ve shot have been non-metric – .380, .38, .40, .45
The only 9mm I’ve fired has been from a hi-point carbine, which was $120 at the time if I recall. Now that’s the cost of the ammo.
I have a longstanding love for the P-35, despite having the same problems with it pinching the web of my thumb.
For $700, I might be tempted. And I don’t often get tempted by guns I’m not gonna carry or compete with…
Finally, a return to the best John Browning design. I cannot understand how anyone would go back to shooting the brick which eats hands, the 1911.
Accept no substitutes.
I found the 1911 to be quite comfortable, and my hands had no issues after firing it. Maybe you have weak hands? No shame, fire what you can handle.
I love shooting my .45 1911, never had an issue.
My other favorite is a steel IWI Baby Eagle .45, so maybe there’s something wrong with me.
I get the same reaction from that clumsy, horse pistol that others here seem to get from a BHP, namely the pinching.
I also have a visceral reaction to anything loved by cpl. Jeff Cooper, as I hate that blowhard.
OT: A really good thread from a real movie set armorer.
What’s the TL;DR? I have issues reading threads of twits.
I read the first few. Basically there are several safety procedures in place on a set, and they are redundant and involve multiple people so for someone to get shot on set, there had to be several big failures.
There are many safety measures (unspecified by the author) that should prevent this from ever happening. He and his colleagues can’t think of a way this could happen under normal procedures. “Prop gun” is a term meaning a rubber model or replica or demilled “real” gun rendered incapable of firing. “Blank firing gun” is a real gun, adapted for blanks in the case of automatics, but that can still expel a projectile.
A daughter of a professional armorer that was trying to follow in daddy’s footsteps given the opportunity without apprenticing first seems like the one thing that they should think of on why this happened.
I have a feeling that is a detail being seized upon by people looking for a scapegoat rather than a full accounting of the problems that led to the tragedy. A significant factor? Quite probably. The main issue without which it wouldn’t have happened? Unlikely.
True, not the only factor. Lots of failings and the universe lined up at that moment.
I’ll summarize:
1) The media is lying when they call it a ‘prop gun’ since prop guns can’t shoot anything. If it can fire a blank, then it can fire a projectile and is therefore called a ‘gun’.
2) If best practices are followed, even a drooling moron like Alec Baldwin can handle a gun without killing anyone. It’s likely many people fucked up to the point where the last line of safety was the drooling moron Alec Baldwin.
I waded through it. One thing I’ve had to explain to people.
I’ve always wondered if some shots are filmed with real live ammunition if a director wants to be extra realistic and show the effects of recoil. Most of the time I can tell they’re shooting blanks because the recoil effects on the gun, actor, clothes, etc. are minor and very unrealistic.
There is a Forgotten Weapons episode that gets into some detail about the machining required to make things function with blank ammunition. BONUS – Ian gets to fire movie guns.
https://youtu.be/GnOUrRTf6jg
Waiting for movie to come out where instead of pointing and firing a gun at another character, they point it straight up, fire and yell “safety kill”, and the character collapses to the ground.
It’ll be a walkie-talkie, not a gun.
Words are violence, yo.
assure me that it’s nothing to worry about
Narrator: They should indeed be worried.
So just got an interesting third-hand report from a friend, that the Rust movie set was a shit-show and Baldwin was an asshole. I’m sure everyone is shocked by this.
<monotone>I am so shocked, I cannot portray how surprising this news is</monotone>
*falls out of chair*
Don’t even need that third-hand account. Looks like they are all (the crew) talking about how shitty things were going.
Green armorer, practicing cross-draws with any type of ammunition, ‘accidental’ discharges, supposedly mixed ammo, it was basically “when we gonna shoot someone for reals?”
In which the case the only misfortune is it wasn’t Baldwin being shot at.
Initially, I felt sorry for all the people killed, injured or reputationally ruined by Alec Baldwin’s negligence.
Then I remembered that nobody pointed a gun at their heads and forced them to work on a production with Alec Baldwin. It’s no secret that he is abusive and nasty. They chose to work there with him. Little sympathy.
This is some dark material, but I like it. There is no good answers on what to do.
It is very much like the 60-70’s nuclear apocalypse novels and short stories. I had a book of short stories I bought as a pre-teen called beyond Armageddon every story was about what to do after the world as you know it ends.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/627938.Beyond_Armageddon
There was also a fantasy of a similar vein called “This is the Way the World Ends” about the “never were” people of the future putting the people of the present on trial for preventing their creation. This is more of a comedy if you can believe that.
https://www.amazon.com/This-World-Ends-James-Morrow/dp/0156002086
What to do when all seems lost? Pack my bags and leave now, knowing death is around the corner and the suffering will be for naught? Or keep going, endure the pain waiting for a miracle that may not come?
But am I not already on that outpost? The future does not look promising, yet I choose to ride it out to the unavoidable conclusion. The rest of my days will surely bring suffering, but also the joys of spending time with loved ones and miracles even more astonishing than the ones I’ve already seen. I don’t want to miss any of that.
Thanks for bringing out the shitty philosopher in me, Animal.
I have always expected that, faced with such a situation, I’d keep on fighting as long as possible in the hope that a cure, fix, or some relief is found for whatever the problem is, or that by fighting, I could contribute to helping understand and overcome the problem for others. I guess some day I’ll find out.
What if they get rescued by another alien race?
Then you get the apocalypse sex with aliens!
Spoiler: you’re the bottom
Further spoilers
Why’d you have to go and make it weird?
*kicks pebble*
Working through the Neal Asher books & I’m thinking of the Prador females.
Plus, The Brood from X-Men/Marvel
Hey, where is it written that the bottom doesn’t have any fun?
Topping from Bellow, or, the fruit in a parfe.
That Saul in how you look at it I suppose.
Hey, where is it written that the bottom doesn’t have any fun?
See my second spoiler.
You’re not the Tower of Pisa?
+1 Slaughterhouse-Five.
“That biped wants to do what with what?”
“Revolting. Nuke them. No one will notice.”
Missile goes where?
Obligatory.
“Oh, that’s just wrong!”
/Guy
Also obligatory
Greg Bear wrote a end of the world book “Forge of God” followed by a book about survivors and their eventual offspring taken by another group of aliens and given the means to enact revenge for the earth on the aliens that built the planet killers (Anvil of Stars).
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074C55LGS?binding=paperback&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_tpbk
Overall a great series of books. I’m rarely disappointed in Bear.
For years I was worried about missing the SHTF scenario. Now I’m worried that I won’t miss it.
A true SHTF or worse, societal collapse scenario, is a lot of work. When I was a lot younger I wrote off a lot of the modern world as unnecessary trappings. Can people live off the land without support and modern advances? Yes, but not easily, not with extended life spans, and not with any sort of guarantee of happiness.
It’s a mass die-off. The cities would almost immediately turn into Hell on Earth. The suburbs would be in serious trouble and the rural areas would be unpleasant.
James Burke from the 1970’s on how serious the shift would have been back then. It would be even worse now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XetplHcM7aQ
I loved “Connections” when I first saw it.
IIRC, he takes the NYC power outage and extrapolates from there?
Now I’m worried that I won’t miss it.
On the other hand, being old enough not to worry about the long term repercussions, the field of action is a little more open. So there is that.
Great story. Looking forward to more.
Related to the story: https://gardencollage.com/nourish/farm-to-table/simple-guide-eating-algae/
I think it’s a simulation by an unethical government doing psych experiments on remote and isolated outposts. The magnetic shield is being used to prevent them from getting the fake news that the aliens don’t exist.
That’s a good take. to double down on the depression, it could be a PKD style “Were in a simulation of this awful reality because the the real world we’re trying to escape is even worse”.
That is the function of fiction. I don’t like downer endings because I use fiction to get away from the downers out here.
I like a depressing ending if it is done well. I never liked the forced happy ending in movies.
Some times everything if shit. Good example is the ending of Time Bandits. That movie was one of the first I saw that was kind of a kids movie, but with a really depressing ending.
FYI I also like silly and happy movies as well. It depends on my mood. Sometimes you want a depressing movie, song, or book to make your currently shitty life feel not so bad.
When things are shitty in my life, the last thing I want is depressing media. At best it will make me angry and I’ll break stuff.
And a forced ending of any type is just bad storytelling.
Wait a second. This comment is about Animal’s story and not Alec Baldwin, isn’t it?
Interesting (to me anyway) opinion piece on the SEPTA sexual assault/outrage that happened recently.
https://www.theintell.com/story/opinion/2021/10/25/perhaps-urban-legend-da-refutes-septa-riders-filming-rape/6117920001/
I saw a documentary on the Kitty Genovese case a few years ago.
Is there anything the corporate media can report on honestly?
The current date?
Calendars are cisheteropatriarchy.
How does the old saying go? ‘Bullshit, bullshit, sports, weather, bullshit…’
I think sports may be in “bullshit” territory now.
I trust them to at least get the scores correct. Most of the time.
Watch the 30 For 30 documentary on the soccer riots if you want an double helping of bullshit from the cops on scene and the reporters.
Is there a 30 for 30 on Hillsborough?
The cop coverup was massive. And there was no riot.
As much as I dislike Liverpool, it doesn’t go that far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster
Yes, it was called Hillsborough. I saw it many years ago.
Really well done and infuriating. Like the one they did on the Duke Lacrosse team.
I’m still amazed they did one on the Duke Lacrosse team.
And for soccer riots, there’s this for everybody’s favorite servator. Sorry I couldn’t find a report in English.
Hey, apparently the NYT has updated their coverage. Proving the adage about a lie traveling around the world while the truth hasn’t gotten out the door.
I suspected the media outrage was most likely bullshit the minute I read about this.
And IIRC some here were not immune to the media’s version of events, either.
Let’s not let facts get in the way of the narrative here.
The Kity Genovese story is fucked up, coming and going. From The Intel piece:
So, it did happen, maybe, and no one tried to stop it or intervene, and those who tried to call the cops were ignored. But, and this needs to be remembered, it was sixties NYC, under mayor Wagner and it was a shit hole. And a shit hole that was still getting bigger. And look where we are now.
OT- (Great story Animal)
There was a commercial for Larry’s Lemonade, who sponsors Brandon, that was all “Let’s go Brandon”.
They have to know, right?
Just clowning around.
I’ve never heard of most of them. I will defer to them as to the accuracy of their measurements.
I think the Congressclowns need to be placed way higher on the vertical axis.
Man, I had no idea about Ronald.
And no John Wayne Gacy? I am disappoint.
You know how they had to advertize that the McNugget was ‘now made with 100% … chicken’?
“Hey kids, it’s Gacy the Clown! Honk! Honk!”
Mmmm… no Shakes. And, as we all know, Shakes the Clown is the Citizen Kain of alcoholic clowns.
“I got that peanut butter pussy – brown, smooth and easy to spread”.
Sigh. As if the screaming children in the apartment below me weren’t enough… Now some workers are tearing down the building next door and they just started the jackhammering.
I can look down past where the taekwondo studio and the pool hall used to be and into the basement.
It also occurs to me that the constant banging on the walls over the last few weeks might not have been the little angels after all, but the construction workers tearing up the insides of that building before they starting pulling off the roof a couple days ago.
I’m glad I’m out of an apartment.
Now I just need more distance from my neighbors.
At least if it was the construction workers, the noise will stop.
” I just need more distance from my neighbors.”
Metoo
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1452459627187216388
“Any member of Congress who helped plot a terrorist attack on our nation’s capitol must be expelled. This was a terror attack. 138 injured, almost 10 dead. Those responsible remain a danger to our democracy, our country, and human life in the vicinity of our Capitol and beyond.”
I always say this but she’s the perfect representation of my generation: Dramatic, doesn’t understand the extent of her own ignorance, false confidence, and arrogance.
“Almost 10 dead”? They keep upping the number of people who theoretically could be related to the mostly peaceful protests and died some time later under mysterious circumstances.
What bothers me is that she knows that this is a lie but if confronted about it, she’ll cry and claim that she’s being picked on by white supremacists. It must be great to say what you want even if it’s a lie or based in ignorance and not be challenged on it.
1 is almost 10.
10 almost dead?
Scroll down, there’s plenty more where that came from.
Fine. Let’s start expelling members of congress who violated their oaths of office..
Now I’m more certain than ever that Nancy plotted this, using her memories of the Reichstag fire for inspiration.
Sara, Sara
Sweet virgin angel, sweet love of my life
Sara, Sara
Radiant jewel, mystical wife
Shouldn’t it be:
Sara, Sara,
Storms are brewing in your eyes?
Just put a new post in line from my trip to Front Sight last week for more shotgun training. Woo-hoo!
I’m sorry, but the coverage, even from the conservative media about the whole Alec Baldwn fiasco is just pathetic. This wasn’t an accident in the sense that it was an act of God or something, this was a consequence of Alec Baldwin’s bad behavior. As a producer, every indication I’ve seen suggests he cut every corner possible and put the safety of those working for him at risk. As someone handling a gun, he seems to have ignored the most basic points of firearms safety. All accounts are that this woman is dead because Alec Baldwin acted like an irresponsible little shit. At the end of the day, everything about the prop master, everything about the armorer, everything about the Assistant Director is all details to the fact that this woman is dead because Alec Baldwin acted like an irresponsible little shit.
I’ve got two issues with Alec, maybe three.
(1) He didn’t personally confirm whether the gun was loaded only with blanks.
(2) He pointed it directly at a person, which is a no-no even on movie sets. I gather they always designate a place to point the gun when “shooting” it when the camera is rolling. A place that doesn’t have a person.
(3) This one probably goes to what level of negligent homicide he should be charged with (because based on (1) and (2), he should be charged). What was going on when he shot? Was the camera rolling on a scene where he shoots “at” the camera? Or was he just fucking around?
As for his role as producer, I can’t be arsed to get into his vicarious responsibility for what the others involved were doing.
Agreed. He has enough personal responsibility as the trigger puller alone. Though if the chain of events that led to a live round being in the chamber were also his fault, that could lead to setence enhancements or additional counts.
Three words that will define the outcome of this:
No. Reasonable. Prosecutor.
As I’ve said before, expecting Alec Baldwin to confirm the status of an icky evil gun is probably not realistic. That doesn’t make him any less liable for what he did, it just means that the rest of the production needs to have robust safety procedures in place to protect the production itself.
I have not read a lot of details yet, but I think someone mentioned it was a single-action revolver. This means “someone” manually cocked the gun, and it means that Alec Baldwin had his finger on the trigger when he was “practicing”. We can start with charging Baldwin with negligent homicide and then figure out who also fucked up in the chain of putting a loaded gun in Baldwin’s hand.
There are a lot of producers that get a credit for financial reasons but aren’t actually involved in production. Not sure where Baldwin fits in.
Candidate for mayor just knocked on my door (looking for the wife). I’ll give her credit for getting out there.
She is, of course, a hair-away from being a full-blown communist.
https://katjana.org/
As are all the candidates, for that matter. Save for the lone Trumpkin tilting at windmills.
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2021/09/08/meet-the-candidates-running-to-be-somervilles-next-mayor/
I’d be happy to see the voters get what they want, good and hard, except I’ll be along for the ride.
Once again proving my belief that candidacy for any policial office should be limited to native born Americans. Possibly native born in the specific jurisdiction but at least multi decade residency.
The Trumpkin had surprisingly many of his signs displayed by various businesses around the town. And the candidate you met has been endorsed by Ayanna Pressley.
Yeah, lots of Tauro signs in the less-woke parts of town, too. I may vote for him as a purely defensive, “least worst” option, though he strikes me as a grifter.
He’ll be opposed at every turn, so I’ll take gridlock over the “progress” the other 3 would bring.
You’ll have to write in his name. He didn’t finish among the top two in the preliminary round that took place in September.
Ah, right, I had forgotten that was the format. Still might, won’t matter though.
I was the first in my family to go to college.
Funny thing to tout when you are an orphan.
I heard the last 10 minutes of Biden at lunch time. Chappelle has some serious competition.
“Best of all it’s gonna cost zero. Zero. Zero”.
A lot of zeros and only a 1 or 2 on the front end
I had to tap out of that second article. The bias is strong with that one.
The whole “one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong” vibe is a nice touch.