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Length: 1:39:20

Immigrants, populism, border fences, electoral autocracy.

If you are interested about how and why Hungary is as it is, this is a documentary just released by Partizán, the most viewed Hungarian news outlet independent from the Hungarian government.

The subtitles are not autogenerated but hand-made by the news outlet.

The outlet has a decidedly leftist slant even by European standards, but are considered mainstream in Hungary.

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/GIJoeVibin on 2025-05-11 21:46:02+00:00.

He’s climbing, climbing, climbing.

The jet’s engines are screaming to their absolute limit. This was a strenuous job even when the plane was new and well-kept: this one is neither, though it has at least been tuned for this occasion. The sound barrier has broken not once but twice today, and everything aboard is paying the price.

He has steady hands, even when the jet shakes. Clarity of purpose amidst the most confusing of missions, the most chaotic of wars.

Up above, in the heavens, a target. He knows not so much about it, only who is aboard, and how it can be killed. So does the jet. More importantly, the missiles too.

Supersonic speed, and the mother of all climbs. The light on the instrument panel is blinking furiously, weapons begging for their chance to launch. Not yet.

Thirty thousand feet, forty thousand feet. There are more jets in the black, half a squadron clawing skywards at once. More are flying and dying elsewhere today, a distraction for any radars, and fighters, that might otherwise be drawn to some mysterious climbing F-15Cs.

Gauges twirl in the fading light, altitude and speed and g force. There’s five hundred pounds on his chest, more than Earth would ever dare put on him itself.

Earth. What this is for. He doesn’t look down, for he has only one mission, but outside the quaking cockpit is a world that is fighting and burning for freedom. A blue marble spinning below a raging bull of a jet, itself racing towards an aberration, a monster, a metal creature that should not be here, must be repelled. It has come from across the stars to kill and maim and enslave, and in minutes it will be no more.

Fifty thousand. The plane cries in rage, half at an enemy, half at a pilot uncaring of its needs and ability. She is a fast girl, the F-15C, but she is old, and tired, and yet must fight in this most cataclysmic of wars.

But it delivers.

Sixty.

Blood pounds in his ears, his breaths tightly controlled to a rhythm drilled into him. He could see the stars, if he cared to look, but he does not.

Sixty-five. Sixty-six. Sixty-seven.

Sixty-eight.

A laser flashes from the sky above, and a F-15C disappears.

Sixty-nine.

Seventy.

His jet lurches, a pair of telephone poles detach from below it. Shimmering silver, their rockets instantly ignite, and they scream into the darkness.

The jet yells, as he performs a loop, man and machine racing for the ground they hope to safeguard. Mother Earth holds up her end, reducing strain on the near-emptied fuel tanks on their charge downwards.

The missiles give no gratitude for the effort they have been saved from. They are crude, ungraceful next to the machines that have delivered them. They have been hurried into service, a ghost of a weapon that was, a phantom of a weapon to be, a banshee that is racing high in righteous fury. A simple seeker on a not-so-simple warhead plus rocket, and this combination has its results. One fails and dies, falling when its stage should have, but its brother carries on. In total, there are fifteen missiles reaching up from this strike, less than planned.

More than enough.

Lasers blast away, but warheads have begun to separate. Empty stages become targets, and now there are thirty objects closing fast. Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven. Twenty-four. Nineteen.

The missile is not grateful, but it is obedient. The target is intelligent, but not enough. Shields are up, but they have never faced anything like this before.

Twelve objects. Eleven. Ten. Nine.

The missile’s sensor detects the first detonation, the attack plan precisely calculated. If it hadn’t known the enemy spacecraft was there, the ignition of a neutron bomb upon its shields would perhaps have given it away. But it is so close, and it is not lost. It is right where it desires to be.

Seven. Six.

The shields are gone, and there is so much hell left to arrive.

The missile pierces through the point defences, and an ultra-near contact detonation ensues. Unbearable light blossoms within the sky for a split second, a tidal wave of neutrons flood through a starship, and an alien crew dies instantaneously. Then the next missile arrives, and the next, and the next, and there is no more anything to obliterate, there is nothing but dust and rads.

And down below, a relieved pilot and plane nose closer to a tanker, thousands of feet above a planet that smiles at the new star it briefly witnessed.

If you enjoy my work, please consider buying me a coffee, it helps a ton, and allows me to keep writing this sort of stuff, or consider things like commissions Alternatively, you can just read more of it.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/PattableGreeb on 2025-05-11 21:12:44+00:00.

General Ramona Spears had honestly not thought first contact would go like this.

A small, arboreal creature with a long neck and so many prehensile tails it looked like it was staring at Ramona through a veil of leaves clicked and chuffed at her. Its visage was currently displayed on a screen taking up most of the wall in the command center. It was maybe making demands, possibly spouting ideology, or even just having some sort of panic attack.

Is it… Rocking on something? There was some kind of metal bar above it that it was swinging back and forth slowly on.

“So they know how to instantly target and gain access to the most important communication station on Earth… But not how to talk to us.” Ramona looked around, pursing her lips.

The majority of earth’s leaders, military and political, had set up shop at Outward Station. It was the world’s largest communication relay, pointed spaceward. It hadn’t gotten a signal in its entire thirty years of operation. Not until today. Not until they were just about to head out to the stars themselves.

Then these things showed up.

A chorus of opinions and possibly xenophobic statements overtook the room like it was a mess hall at dinner. Ramona started talking to the linguists and scientists instead, with some of the less honorary world leaders cutting in to talk about the future of mankind and work through an existential crisis or two.

They didn’t get very far. The alien on-screen rocked very fast all of a sudden, then made an ear-splitting screeching noise. Ramona was pretty sure she would’ve just started bleeding from the ears if it’d been in person.

“Did it just hang up on us?”

Ramona didn’t see who spoke. She did, however, see the feed switch to a spacebound object. A massive, sleek starship was approaching Earth. It looked to be at least half as big as one of mankind’s best capital cities.

A series of long panels opened up in its sides. The vessel was shaped like a great cone. It began to glow, collecting dim energy of some kind that brightened at the tips like someone was turning up the heat far too much.

Everyone went quiet.

***

Ramona had not needed to volunteer. She was, in fact, told multiple times she could direct the mission more than adequately from the ground.

The scientists had backed her up when she’d told the leaders of the world that this mission would best be executed with key figures leading it in person. There was no telling how communications would or would not break down once they had breached the vessel. It was practically a suicide mission. The amount of energy gathering in the alien craft’s weapons systems was immense. They could very well be cooked alive just trying to get inside.

The plan had been simple. They would use the space-ready fleet they’d been about to launch, with a general for each of several divisions trained in orbital combat, to infiltrate the vessel through the far end of the weapon ports where the least energy was gathered. They’d just have to pray they could find their way to whatever hub served as leadership or critical infrastructure before the firing process was complete.

The launch took hours of nerve-wracking mundanity. Ramona had never been so tense during the prep portion of a mission before. They flew past old war-torn space stations, acting as humanity’s hope and once-in-a-lifetime true universal front.

The flight itself took days. They reached the craft without issue. They were not fired upon.

Ramona was mystified.

They began entering the vessel. Her own ship, the Future Eye Bright, navigated the massive craft’s hull with the only interruption being snatches of garbled signal and video that flashed across the bridge screen with little coherence. She saw great white rooms filled with machines, countless orderly rows of oddly-shaped beds, and the aliens themselves running around and clambering and hanging off things.

Turrets raised at several points. At least, what was assumed to be turrets. They didn’t fire a single shot. In fact, Ramona saw, a dozen different times, a turret raise, then lower, then raise. One had gone so fast doing it that something failed and it got stuck. Some piece of large debris went past as something got dislodged somehow.

None of the human ships fired. At worst, it was some obtuse trap. At best, it was a waste of ammo.

***

Ramona did her diligence. She dramatically deployed hundreds of human soldiers, internally struggling with the fact she’d be sending good men and women to die when they should’ve been off to the stars and a bright horizon. They moved through environments containing complex, esoteric alien machinery, always hearing things skittering in the background, listening to whirs and beeps and steaming for almost a full day.

The scientists and engineers who’d been dragged along saw the most action. At first, hordes of cubic tendril-flailing bots prowled towards them, seeming armed, but behaving more like anxious passersby in a village watching weird outsiders wander into their jungle who they couldn’t do anything about. Alert never dropped, but it stopped feeling so sweat and dread-inducing after the first twelve hours.

They camped in the vessel without so much as a random warning shot their way. The decision to halt was made purely from severe fatigue. There was something in the air that put lead in the limbs despite any filtration and hazard gear they’d brought.

When they finally reached the very center, the command hub, the place where the whole ordeal had truly started, the aliens finally called the machines everyone had started calling “servitors” to their side.

Everything in the room that wasn’t manmade or man-recognizable just stood and stared. After a tense few minutes, dialogue was attempted. It went nowhere.

Ramona grew frustrated. Apparently the aliens sensed that. Some started clambering all over railings, steps, bars and mini-gymnasium structures littering the expansive chamber. She watched them for a while, unsure what to do. She was about to give the order to open fire, with no other clear means of progression.

Then she saw it.

There was a cave painting style image done up in bioluminescent chalk on one of the walls. She realized just how dark it was.

She got a hunch. She hailed the head engineer of her division. “Leland.” She didn’t bother with rank and formality. “Do you think we can get some light in here?”

They’d brought heavy duty combat drones with them. Some of them broke into brightness, shining flood light beams across the room.

The paintings were everywhere. Now that it was bright and Ramona knew where to look, she saw them in every corner, every crevice, on the floor and even on some of the alien drones.

They showed a taller creature that looked a lot like the wide-eyed small ones currently crowding around the room, occasionally making noise fruitlessly in the direction of humanity’s best. The taller figures had their tails around or entwining the bodies and limbs of the smaller ones.

“Ramona?” Leland hailed over comm.

Ramona was almost too stunned to respond. “You’ve got my ears.”

“Those aren’t weapons.”

“Excuse me?”

“They’re massive heat and radiation vents. Ma’am, I’ve been organizing mapping progress results from the other teams and comparing. I’ve noticed a lot of the structures seem highly dilapidated. I don’t think anything here, anything combat-usable at least, has fully functioned for decades, if not longer.”

Ramona was silent for a while.

“Ma’am?”

Ramona ordered a blanket stand down. She watched one of the aliens rock on the bars hanging close to the ceiling. It crouched and made itself small, retreating into the only corner of darkness left in the room. It was the same one, as far as she could tell, that’d hailed them.

She remembered her kids. She remembered praying to God she’d come back to them covered in medals instead of in a casket. She pictured Carson on the monkey bars, on the merry-go-round. Thought of how he’d sometimes hang onto the metal rods like they were a safety blanket when he got anxious or upset.

“Can we reach Outward?” Ramona whispered.

“With a delay, but yes.”

***

He’d needed to stay on the Last Gentle Grasp.

Ramona watched the supply ship slowly descend towards the city of Farsight. Humanity has gotten better with shipbuilding. A careful study of the alien ship’s anatomy hadn’t brought many revelations yet. Lots of what were presumably media archives had worn out and become mostly unintelligible, even accounting for how strangely the aliens already communicated. That was to say nothing of the vast volumes of security machines, medical devices, and life support.

The supply ship let loose some of its shuttles, shedding weight and preparing to touch down. One of the shuttles came towards Ramona where she waited on a bench at a safe, shielded distance from the landing area in Earth’s first true starport.

The boxy shuttle tentatively tested the ground with its support stands before letting them collapse, admitting it’d come home. The side-facing ramp opened.

A small creature walked out. It only went up to Ramona’s chest if they stood side by side. It moved its little body over to her, clad in a bulky safety suit it obviously felt uncomfortable wearing.

It wasn’t perfect. They’d only partially restored the alien vessel’s communications hub. The best they had for now was a little walkie talkie connected to that great conical structure now hanging in orbit in Earth’s quiet blue sky...

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1kkbiwg/theyre_just_kids/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/KyleKKent on 2025-05-11 20:36:00+00:00.

First

Elsewhere, With Others

The Inevitable had launched away from Albrith without any drama. Observer Wu had finished a few more interviews, spoken to several people, both alien and human and things were low drama. At the edge of the system though a semi-unexpected communication request reaches The Inevitable.

“Humans of The Inevitable. This is The Silent Watcher. We are the reinforcements to the ones you know as Rain and Velocity.” The message states in a female voice. There is no visual and Captain Rangi sighs to himself.

“Silent Watcher, this is The Inevitable. If you want us to open the appropriate docking bay then you will need to inform me where you actually are.” Captain Rangi states.

“I was informed you are capable of piercing our stealth.”

“We are, however this is about proper protocol and manners. If you would like me to render your stealth ineffective then please say so.” Captain Rangi asks.

“Activating IFF.” The Captain of The Silent Watcher acquiesces and Captain Rangi nods as it’s location appears on screen.

“Excellent. We shall be transmitting coordinates of the relevant docking bay in moments. Please stand by. Our Security Contractor Mister Jameson will be there to greet you.” Captain Rangi says before closing the connection. He then re-opens the line with it keyed to Harold’s communicator.

“Our Vishanyan guests have arrived, I need you in Docking Bay C.”

“Yes sir, I’m on my way.”

“You expected this.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know which bay you would use. Although to be honest their speed is a little surprising. I figured they’d intercept us on the way to our next destination, or meet us there. Or hell, even play catchup from place to place in a ridiculous game of tag.” Harold explains. “I’m entering Docking Bay C now.”

“It’s about to open into the vacuum.”

“I’m fine, open away.” Harold says.

“If it were anyone else I’d be sending a medical team to restrain a suicidal soldier.”

“Death’s too scared to come at me.”

“Because that isn’t the textbook definition of tempting fate.”

“I’ve fought war personified, I want a piece of the other horsemen of the apocalypse.”

“And the fact that you lost and war was not only a she but incapable of riding a horse, on top of her being your in-law... I actually have no idea what that means in the mythological concept.”

“Neither do I, I was hoping you could tell me. Sounds Greek though, the fun part of Greek Mythology.”

“Prepare to receive the ship you clown.” Captain Rangi says but before he closes the link he grins. “And get out of the Mediterranean, the legends of gods and spirits the world over has a lot of entertainment to it.”

“I don’t think I rate Monkey King.”

“You don’t and I wasn’t referring to him.” Captain Rangi says with a grin.

•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•×•

She had emerged flawlessly from Stasis. To her and her unit Stasis was even more comfortable than natural rest. More restful as well. They were the opposite of the poor souls who were Stasis Aware and being Stasis Rested was a requirement for The Deep Sleep units.

To her a single hour in stasis gave her all the rest she would need in a day. Multiple days in stasis meant she could go weeks without rest and receive zero loss in cognition or ability. Granted rigorous training was needed to pull that particular stunt. But it was a baseline requirement for a Deep Sleeper. Even if two weeks of alertness was followed up, by mandate, with at least a week of full rest and then two of light duty. Prevents a soldier from snapping.

“Captain, mission.” She requests as she finishes rising. The rest of her unit of two squadrons is silent as she speaks. She is in command and they know it.

“Mission parameters are protective in nature. Forward Scouts Calculated Velocity of Victory and Unending Rain of Retribution have requested reinforcement. Their infiltration was near completely successful and they have openly integrated into the peoples here. Stealth is non-optional for this mission and will be permitted only upon The Silent Watcher. We are here on protective detail and are to work with the crew of The Inevitable.” That is... odd. She glances around and there are many surprised expressions.

“VIP status?”

“Unending Rain of Retribution has suffered injuries and due to human inexperience with Vishanyan physiology has been de-aged into her adolescence but is otherwise unharmed. Calculated Velocity of Victory is pregnant.”

“What.” She demands in near total synchronicity with several of her soldiers.

“Unending Rain of Retribution is de-aged and Calculated Velocity of Victory is pregnant.”

“I did not know we were fertile.” She states.

“Are fertile. As you can imagine this is important.”

“Why was she in a position to get pregnant, let alone be pregnant?”

“She had specific orders to infiltrate an individual of a newly emerged species known as Humans to ascertain the risk level. She was directly ordered to engage carnally as humans respond very well to it. She succeeded.”

“Importance of humans?” She asks as she begins quickly checking her weapon.

“Newly emerged species from the depths of Cruel Space. Out in the galaxy for little over a year. They sent their greatest soldiers to make contact. One of them is capable of casually piercing our stealth and has forced confrontation. He is too powerful to deal with without mass exposure and too well placed to make killing him worth it. We are instead turning him into an asset. And we have already learned about our own physiology from it and more.”

“Understood.”

“He will also be the one greeting us. We are pulling into the docking bay now and he’s simply standing there. No atmosphere, no protective suit and no concern.” The Captain explains and She looks up as a screen lights up to show what looks like a tattooed Tret standing calmly and looking directly into the camera with blank white eyes.

“He’s blind?”

“Apparently not, the eye modification is new and has apparently enhanced his already obscene powers of observation. You have some reading to do when it comes to all the things we have recorded this one individual doing. Do not engage in combat with him under any circumstance. You will lose and you will drag your unit down with you.”

“He cannot possibly be that powerful.”

“He treats our stealth like a joke and considers doing battle with Primals to be excellent exercise. Do not engage.”

“Understood.” She says studying the image of the man. His hair and clothing is being pushed around as the docking bay is being filled with atmosphere.

“May I come in?” He asks in Galactic Trade the moment there’s enough atmosphere to carry his words.

“What?” She asks in surprise, this time in sync with the captain.

“May I come in?” He asks again. It almost sounded like he was answering their question.

“Did he hear us?” One of the girls asks.

“I can hear you yes, do I have permission to enter?” Harold calls over.

“... How?”

“I’ve been deciphering your language piece by piece and have been testing out new tricks of observation. I hear you loud and clear, but am struggling to read your lips. It’s a work in progress.”

“No you do not have permission to enter. The ship is for Vishanyan use only.”

“Fine.” He remarks with a shrug. “I’ll see you all when you disembark then.”

She frowns and signs for her team to form up with her as they march through the small and agile vessel. The meet the crew who nod to them. Captain/Pilot/Communications Officer, the Engineer/Sensor Technician and the Doctor/Weapons Specialist/Backup Engineer.

They offloading ramp descends and already the man is there, standing so close it must have brushed his nose on the way down and he looks up at all of them, but despite being shorter than them all seems to tower in his sheer confidence as they can feel his gaze shift around and land on each and every one of them.

“So all Vishanyan have pastel scales and a soft white counter to it? Interesting.” He notes calmly as they start to march down the ramp. “Welcome on board The Inevitable. Self-Evolving battleship, one of two Cruel Space compatible Warships in the galaxy and embassy to every nation on a divided Homeworld and an embassy for a new protectorate of the Apuk Empire.”

“I am the Commander of this Unit. My squad leaders are directly behind me.” She says marching down to the base of the ramp and glaring down at him. He tilts his head back and looks her right in the eyes. Seeing not only past her stealth, but somewhere deeper as well. Right in the places that she would rather not speak about.

“Tell me, do all Vishanyan have the phrase based names or is it just the two that are here? Young Rain and dear Velocity?”

“You know their names?”

“They told me part, but I listen in on much and overheard the full thing a while ago.” He says. “I am Operative Harold Armoury Jameson of The Undaunted. A contractor for the security against Axiom using threats against The Inevitable. I ask formally, do you come in peace?”

“We do.” She states and he nods before stepping back and to the side.

“Welcome aboard The Inevitable. Captain! They have stated peaceful intent!”

“Very good Mister Jameson. Show them around.” A voice says from the speakers above.

“Very well then. If you will all follow me I will show you to where the Apuk Empire Embassy is, the numerous dining halls, Engines, the airlocks connecting to our support craft The RAD and The ...

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1kkaoyd/oocs_into_a_wider_galaxy_part_331/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Klokinator on 2025-05-11 18:44:49+00:00.

Author note: The Cryopod to Hell is a Reddit-exclusive story with over three years of editing and refining. As of this post, the total rewrite is 2,532,000+ words long! For more information, check out the link below:

What is the Cryopod to Hell?

Join the Cryoverse Discord server!

Here's a list of all Cryopod's chapters, along with an ePub/Mobi/PDF version!

Want to stay up to date on TCTH? Subscribe to Cryopodbot!

...................................

(Previous Part)

(Part 001)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Attention readers. I wanted you guys to know that in the near future, I plan to go back through the TCTH serial and start marking the exact day each part takes place. After doing so for the Rewind timeline, I realized I should have been doing this all along. For now, I'm going to start using the term "After Jason's Rewind - AJR" but in the future, once I've actually gone through all the old parts, I'll be using the terms "After Cryopod's Exit - ACE" for keeping track of how many days/years the story progressed following Jason's departure, then I'll use a special term for the Ancient Era too (Maybe something like "After Dragon Empowerment - ADE") or whatever. For now, I'll stick with AJR starting with this part and let you guys know if/when I complete that re-read of TCTH, followed by the marking down of the timeline.

I may also use a specific term for the various timelines like Gold Timeline, Silver Timeline... maybe. But that could spoil new readers about the existence of time travel, which I don't want to do, so... we'll see about that.

Enjoy the return to TCTH!

...................................

Far-Future Era. Day 2, AJR. Volgarius.

Founder Unarin stood inside the hangar of the Founder's Thumb, his toes mere inches from the edge of the outcropping that stuck out to allow small starships to land safely inside. He looked up at Volgarius's sky, the planet's wind whipping his head tendrils from side to side as a rather fierce gale buffeted his body. He paid it no mind. No breeze could move him, no matter how fierce, for he was indomitable.

Volgarius's dull, gray sky spoke to any who looked upon it; calling out the horrors of tens of millennia of decay. What was once a beautiful homeworld had slowly collapsed into a featureless blob of metal, glass, and duracrete. Stratoscrapers might look impressive when standing amidst a sea of smaller buildings, but once an entire planet had been covered in them, they lost their impressiveness and instead became a symbol of destruction. What was once a beautiful world had now become utterly featureless, any given square kilometer of its surface indistinguishable from the rest. All that remained of the Volgrim homeworld's former glory now resided at the Founder's Hand; the last patch of greenery remaining of its original soil.

Unarin's eyes narrowed slightly. His keen eyes picked out a tiny speck in the sky, one that approached at a speed that would alarm him if he didn't already know who it was. Within seconds, Executor Nufaris rushed toward the First Founder, an unconscious body held in his psionic grasp. That body was none other than Founder Dosena.

Nufaris instantly came to a stop right before colliding with the Founder's Thumb. He spun his legs downward and pressed his bare feet against the cold metal floor of the hangar, not feeling its frigid temperature in the slightest.

"Has her condition improved?" Unarin asked, as he walked over and pressed his palm against Dosena's forehead.

[I'm afraid not.] Nufaris replied.

The two men didn't exchange many words. Nufaris fell silent, allowing Unarin to close his eyes while continuing to rest his palm on Dosena's forehead.

Before long, he nodded slowly, then opened his eyes and removed his hand.

"I believe it need not be mentioned, but this is a terrible situation for our Empire, Nufaris." Unarin said, though his vocal tone didn't seem to contain even a hint of worry or urgency. "Dosena is our pillar of strength. Without her, we have no Middle Cosmic, while the demons now consist of many. Trapped they may be on their worlds, but far from useless. Through Demon Deity Yardrat, they already possess a means of projecting power across the galaxy. They are more than capable of rendering unto us extreme harm."

Nufaris knit his eyebrows together. "Your orders?"

Unarin did not immediately respond. He folded his hands together behind his back, then closed his eyes once more to ponder his future plans.

"This is a nexus point for the Volgrim Empire..." Unarin said slowly. "I sense... a potentially disastrous future awaiting us. But at the same time, a chance to reach heights we never have before. Dosena was close. She was so very, very close to reaching the 10th Level. She believed with all her soul that becoming a High Cosmic through pure psionics was possible. But this setback has ruined her prospects for potentially tens of millennia. She has fallen all the way back to the beginning of the 9th Level. If her condition worsens, she may even fall to the rank of Executor."

Nufaris's expression hardened. This was not something he wanted to hear. Though he, like all Executors, envied the power of the Second Founder, he did not do so while wishing to usurp her power. A strong Dosena meant a strong Empire. He himself was ages away from reaching the 9th Level. He would not be able to replace her even if he tried. Neither did he want to. He had his own ambitions.

Unarin opened his eyes once again. He reached up and massaged his chin thoughtfully.

"It pains me to say so, but we are in a weak position. The Plague on all sides, the demons possessing more military power, the humans injured but having found a new ally in Demon Deity Melody as well as the fairies. They will lick their wounds and recuperate, providing us no threat for the moment... but this stalemate will not last forever. Whether it takes one day or one millennia, the humans will rise again. They have proven themselves to be like unkillable bugs. Even if we try to exterminate them, they will endure."

Nufaris nodded. [Therefore?]

"I do not yet have an answer." Unarin said. "I tend to think in long-term timescales. Too much has happened recently. It has thrown all my future plans into Chaos. I fear there is more going on behind the scenes than what we know. There are enemies in this game who have yet to play their cards."

Unarin held out his arms. Nufaris hesitated, then he levitated Dosena into the First Founder's grasp.

Unarin carried Dosena like a princess. He looked at Nufaris gravely. "Investigate the galactic situation, but stay at the homeworld. You are now our strongest protector. If something should occur, you are our last remaining bulwark."

Nufaris tilted his chin. [First Founder. There is one individual I fear you may have overlooked.]

Unarin blinked. "Who?"

Before Nufaris could respond, Unarin realized who he was referring to.

"You weren't able to recover her?"

[Demila remains at large. She betrayed the Empire.] Nufaris responded. [She might be a pitiful excuse for a Psion, but she is still an ancient monster capable of great destruction. I fear what might happen if we allow her to go into hiding.]

"If she merely hid herself away, I would not be so worried." Unarin said calmly. "There are much worse things she could do right now. If she has aligned herself with the demons, she might provide them with a treasure trove of knowledge about our internal workings."

[We need to execute her.] Nufaris said.

"Yes. Yes we do." Unarin said, before frowning slightly. "But the galaxy is a vast place. Where do you suppose she might go first?"

Nufaris appeared troubled. He looked away.

[I am... not certain. You are more familiar with Demila than I. I hoped you might have an idea of her machinations.]

Unarin lowered his eyes.

"I have always prided myself on seeing through the thoughts of lower beings. But Demila fooled me until the end. I only realized her betrayal was coming when it was already too late. I failed to prepare for her actions, and Dosena paid the price. At this point, I dare not guess at her movements lightly."

[Then we have no choice but to monitor the situation patiently.] Nufaris concluded. [We have already informed the rest of the Empire. If Demila is spotted, we will receive word immediately. I will be able to intercept and kill her.]

"No. Not you." Unarin retorted. "You are to stay here until Dosena has recuperated. We've already lost Sartran to Demon Deity Beelzebub. Our list of reliable allies grows thinner by the day. Dispatch two of the other Executors to hunt down and kill Demila. Use your discretion."

Nufaris bowed his head in respect.

[As you command, First Founder.]

...................................

Thousands of lightyears from Volgarius, in a secret location hidden somewhere in the Milky Way, the very Psion Nufaris and Unarin were just discussing levitated in the Void. She stared at a hideous world colored complet...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Im_yor_boi on 2025-05-11 17:31:37+00:00.

The Coalition Citadel, the epicenter of the Galactic Accord, floated like a metallic god between the spiral arms of the Milky Way and Andromeda. A marvel of Xel'Thara's technology reverse-engineered, it pulsed with power and light, bonding a thousand species as one. It was peace forged out of war. And it was humans at the forefront of it all.

Sri'Akana walked within her own personal chambers, her taloned hands fluttering. The ceremonial armor of the Trelzari Order hung heavily on her shoulders, but she bore its weight with pride. Her people had conquered worlds before humanity had ever invented the wheel. They were born for war—six-limbed, carapace-wearing, with minds hardened for strategy and battle.

And still, when she encountered a human being in the hallway, it was she who nodded first.

It gnawed at her.

"Why?" she grumbled to herself, staring at her reflection. Her compound eyes strained. "Why do they receive so much reverence?"

They rarely fought. They never boasted. They gifted planets like trinkets at a bazaar just to make inferior species happy. And when insulted, they merely smiled. Always that accursed smile.

She had done it all by the book. Filed a complaint with the Central Accord Council. Had meetings. Demanded explanations.

Nothing.

Only vague phrases like: "They're different."

"We owe them more than you know."

'Let it be.'

Unacceptable.

So Sri'Akana did what she had always done best—she took things into her own hands.

The mess hall was unusually quiet as she walked in. Her heavy footsteps echoed off the highly polished alloy floors. Behind her, Myxari agents, the Enkh, even two Ral'Zhurian defectors—all carefully chosen allies—followed in formation.

At the far end of the room, sitting at a corner, a lone human ate in peace.

Sri'Akana approached.

The man looked up, bite in progress. His face was unadorned, no armor, no obvious weapon. Brown complexion. Lean physique. Black hair slightly disheveled. He looked up from his plate with confusion.

Yes?" he inquired.

She towered over him. "What is your name, soldier?

He blinked. "Uh… Wasif. Why?

"Rank and full title, soldier," she snapped.

Wasif's eyebrow flicked up. "Don't really go by much. Just a Peace Ops liaison. You okay?"

Sri'Akana fumed. "You don't even make an announcement of your title, and yet you eat alone in your reserved seat while everyone else have trouble finding seats around you. You're treated like a monarch.".

Wasif shrugged. "Everyone acts weird around us. It's not my fault"..

She went on. "What is that food you eat?"

"Chili chicken", he said, and pierced another piece on his fork.

"Let me have a sample", she said unceremoniously.

Wasif paused. "Sorry, but interspecies sharing of food is prohibited for humans. Something about incompatible diets.".

"There's nothing you eat that I can't handle, human. Now let me see what makes you so different from us!", she said.

Wasif sighed. "Seriously… I don't want trouble.

She didn't speak. Just looked.

A few seconds later, Wasif capitulated. He shoved the tray forward. "Just one bite. Don't say I didn't warn you."

She took a chunk of the reddish flesh, examined it, and put it into her mouth.

It took less than two seconds.

Her throat ignited. Her mandibles burst open as her body shook. She fell to her knees, gasping. Her claws clutched at her throat. Her breathing came in rough wheezes. Tears—actual tears—ran from her unblinking eyes.

For the first time in three centuries, Sri'Akana cried tears of pain.

Her Enkh subordinate rushed to help her.

"Commander!"

Wasif, eyes wide. "Oh hell—call Medbay!"

Sri'Akana looked up as her vision blurred. Wasif was still chewing. Still eating that poison. And smiling, not with malicious intent—but with tranquil concern.

What kind of animal eats chemical fire for lunch?

Moments before she fainted, she asked to herself one question.

What else are they keeping secret?

She awoke in the med chamber, the taste of smoke and spice lingering on her tongue.

Doctor Hamlock—a qualified Ral'Zhurian physician—sat on a chair beside her.

You're lucky," he said. "Capsaicin overdose. Your species doesn't have receptors to metabolize it. None of us do. It nearly caused a neural collapse.".

And yet." she croaked. "The human.".

Shien looked away. "They… consume it. Some of them even like it. It's a common delicacy to them.".

Sri'Akana sat up, her body shaking.

Why do they do that?" she exclaimed. "Eat poison. Smile through pain.".

Hamlock hesitated, then whispered, "You've heard the stories, haven't you? The ones about the Third Galactic War."

"Propaganda," she snarled. "They're exaggerated myths."

No, he replied. I've witnessed the records. The Xel'Thara. The greatest command vessel. Destroyed by one man. One human.

Sri'Akana remained silent.

"And when the Council presented humanity with the chair of ultimate command," Shien continued, "they refused. Informed them they would prefer peace. Peace, after winning the most brutal war in galactic history."

"Why would they do that?"

Shien tilted his head. "Because they don't act like us. They don't conform. They laugh when wounded. They joke when threatened. And when cornered… they sacrifice themselves just to make a point."

Weeks went by, but the question never faded away.

Sri'Akana began to watch them. In silence. Learning the habits of humans at the Citadel.

They were… ordinary. Unarmed. Fragile. Yet they acted opposite to reason.

One of them tripped and broke his arm during the simulation training. He laughed. Laughed while the bone protruded through his skin, asking if someone had caught it on camera.

Another lost her rank following a disciplinary hearing. She threw a party celebrating "finally getting time to sleep.".

They performed rituals in which they intentionally frightened one another as a source of entertainment. They listened to music of death and heartbreak. They viewed fake records filled with violence, loss, and betrayal—and had entertainment from it.

None of it added up.

One day, she cornered Wasif once more. This time in the observatory.

He nodded graciously. "Commander."

She sat next to him. The silence persisted.

"What are you?" she ultimately asked.

Wasif smiled, gazing out at the far-off stars.

"People ask that a lot."

"I do not understand your kind," she confessed.

He glanced in her direction. "Ever had a pet?

Sri'Akana blinked. "A… pet?

“Something you raised. Smaller, weaker. But loyal?”

"I've trained war beasts. They are bred for killing."

Wasif laughed. "I used to raise small dogs. Soft, cute, friendly things. But if you were in danger, they'd charge at something 10 times their size without hesitation."

She leaned forward. "That is… foolish.".

"Maybe." He leaned forward, his eyes growing. "But when you're exposed, when everything around you can kill you—from animals to the weather to even your own kind—you learn something. Not to run. But to restrain."

He looked her in the eye.

"Fear kept us alive. But defiance? Defiance made us human."

Later during the same cycle, Sri'Akana again appeared before the Council.

"I would like to request permission," she said, "to visit Earth.".

"On what grounds?" a Myxari representative demanded.

"Research," she answered. "Cultural. Historical. Personal."

There was a pause.

Then approval.

As her shuttle entered Earth's atmosphere, Sri'Akana gazed out at the blue planet below.

Small. Beautiful. Quiet.

But beneath the clouds, concealed in oceans and cities and ruins, were the solutions to her questions.

Not just how humans survived—but how they bent the rules of nature.

They burned when they bled.

They laughed while they hurt.

They battled when they ought to have fled.

And the galaxy, with all its armies and monsters and gods, grew to fear the one thing it could not predict.

Not strength.

Not technology.

But the unrelenting will… of humanity.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Jcb112 on 2025-05-11 17:29:33+00:00.

Hey everyone! 

I’m so sorry I have to make this announcement, but because I came down with a case of Acute Gastroenteritis, severe food poisoning, I don’t think I’ll be able to post the chapter this week. I’ve had a wild few days of pretty bad fevers too, with the highest I recorded at home reaching 39.6 C. 

I’ve tried finishing and getting the chapter sorted during the times where my symptoms improved however, but I just wasn’t able to complete it without sacrificing on the quality. So I’m afraid I’m going to have to delay Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School’s posting schedule by just this one week. However, I’ll be back next week to my regular posting schedule! :D 

Once again I really do apologize for this delay.

May the stars see your journey safe,

Jcb112

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/PattableGreeb on 2025-05-11 17:26:36+00:00.

Viable Systems Stories

She had time before the proper meet-and-greet. She’d double-checked that everything she’d requested or had had moved onto the ship was present in her quarters.

Ruth laid on her bed, the door locked, fiddling with a circlet with an opaque visor attached to the front. She debated. She thought of going out there with an incomplete perspective. She needed a reminder, to be grounded and open-minded.

She could not afford to screw up her first day on the job. She put the device on.

“Initiate the predescribed mental simulation.”

She went to sleep without actually losing consciousness.

*******

Ruth Shaw woke up standing on the corner of an old road lazily winding through a hilly landscape. A small incline led down into an idyllic little lake that sat quiet and still between the road and several much larger, heavily wooded rises. At the bend in the road maybe thirty feet away a quaint, old style cottage watched over the water like a bored but determined sentry.

Is this really what I picture when I think of Earth? It was a much more… Mundane scene than Ruth had thought her subconscious would conjure up.

As she thought about it, a grand, towering series of skyscrapers started rising up over the bigger mounds framing the other side of the lake. They were bright, energy in a rainbow of colors swirling around their tops in listless clouds. She could hear distant vehicle sounds and the pounding of limbs against sidewalks - not just human ones - far clearer than she’d reasonably be able to this far away.

“...Right. Have to focus.” She couldn’t let bias ruin the mental simulation. She rubbed her temples and forced herself to focus only on the topic she wanted to see.

She was suddenly inside the cottage. It was a lot less rustic inside. The shift in environment greeted her with sterile padded walls, wall-embedded screens and monitors, and lifeline beeping that immediately started irritating her because she had no idea where it was actually coming from. She squinted at one of the monitors, but there was no actual data displayed.

Registering the gap in information made it present itself promptly: a human appeared in the middle of the room. Ruth found herself on the other side of a pane of thick, reinforced, mineral-veined glass. It shined faintly when she tilted her head at it.

An alien doctor appeared. Rather, a hab officer, just like her, in muted blue-yellow with the IIC badge confirming their purpose from its spot on the alien’s shoulder. It was an illud, cattish and pale. It swiped its claws across a datapad and observed the human subject, who wore nothing more than a hospital gown.

“Officer Ruth Shaw is human, originating from a frontier colony in the Parmalan Ascendancy. She is deeply religious but refuses to acknowledge it in front of others-”

“Hey, just a moment-”

“-And clearly has trauma that needs to be worked on but which she refuses to deal with despite it being a blatant social hazard.”

“I did not start this simulation to give myself therapy.”

The alien looked at her. So did the human patient, which Ruth was starting to realize looked a lot like herself.

She was starting to regret this whole ordeal.

The illud hab officer sighed deeply and rolled its eyes. It turned back to the subject. “Humans do not need complex temperature, air, or gravity control, being most happy with an enforced medium between current galactic sapient-friendly averages. Long term exposure to sufficiently off-range temps and pressures will, eventually, cause lasting damage. Simple equipment will remedy most discrepancies…”

Ruth watched herself be set on fire, frozen solid, deprived of oxygen, implode from pressure imbalance, and then finally relax with a nice cup of coffee in a very soft-looking chair that suddenly appeared. The other Ruth conjured up a book with a title in Parmalan trade speech that read; Interspecies Friendships for Above-Average Idiots.

The actual Ruth made a mental note to examine her self-esteem after this was over.

“...As a human who has experienced dampening-” The illud glanced at Ruth in a way that felt unnaturally knowing. “-She is, thank her stars, still theoretically one-day-talented in empathic ability despite the inadequacy. Most humans are only at the rough point where they can use most common tools but display no strong aptitude for actual prima-emotional power.”

“This was a stupid idea.” Ruth shook her head and crossed her arms.

“What this means for everyone else is you can toss her in a mind storm with a sturdy suit and have her be fairly likely to come out unscathed or, at least, not broken. She can still use comm-links, operate certain vehicles, and so on and so forth… Something something human adaptability.” The illud figment suddenly turned on a clawed foot towards Ruth.

Ruth paused in the middle of starting to exit back to reality.

“What was the point of this, Ruthie?”

The other Ruth looked at the actual Ruth, human and alien staring her down. She swallowed. “I just wanted to remind myself what I looked like from the outside.”

“You know you don’t have to do that. ‘Everyone is an alien to someone’ is something you practically tell yourself in your sleep.” The illud walked up to her, taking her chin in its clawed hands and turning her face up towards it. “You passed training with flying colors. You’re ready.”

“I know that, I-” Ruth grabbed its hand with both of hers.

“The best of mankind are those who look at the stars and see something beautiful. Who will stop at nothing to make themselves comfortable in the offerings of the void. All that is strange and new is welcome, for we are not alone and the word for friend can truly have no limits.” The alien was suddenly wearing a philosopher's robes.

Ruth glanced at the other Ruth. She was in the chair again, with a book, but now she was drinking Parmalan alcohol - the fancy stuff - and reading something titled The Role of Man in a Sea of Lives.

“Is this my psyche’s way of telling me I’m pretentious?”

“I think you’re just scared that you are and that all you’re really going to see out there is a lot of people hurting each other.”

Ruth said nothing. She just frowned. She heard the other Ruth loudly sip her drink, pinkie extended.

“The most important habitation need for a human-” The illud was wearing a hab officer uniform again. “-Is knowing that things are a lot easier than they seem. They require healthy social relationships, balanced environments, and if not purpose then consistent comfort. In an ideal humanity… A good human will seek a world where new horizons are a constant, and where they can settle down without difficulty wherever they choose.”

The illud crossed its arms, letting go of her now. “Do you still believe that?”

“I think so.” Ruth answered immediately.

“Then I think you’ll be okay.” The illud smiled. “Before you go, though, you need to address the fact you’ve been feeling quite lonely lately. Your options are pretty broad going forward, and the IIC does not condemn-”

“End prima-tesseract simulation.” The world faded away before Ruth could finish reading the questionable title on the other her’s next book.

*******

Ruth came back to reality rubbing her face until the mobile simulation circ fell off her head and clattered to the floor. She stared at her books, at her simple little accommodations. She thought of how much effort secretly went into making it ideal for her: the systems in the walls actively modulating everything from the heat to the oxygen she breathed.

Perfectly balanced, constantly filtered. Nothing would spill over and mix from the other quarters and kill her. Not as long as everyone did their job and was aware of everyone’s needs.

Not as long as she made the right calls. Saw the right sides.

She forced herself out of bed and went to the bridge. She tried to compose herself and manage a smile ahead of time.

*******

Stell watched Ruth Shaw enter the bridge from her spot in the center of the room. She was technically everywhere. At any moment, she could peer into someone’s private quarters, correct - or destabilize, if she became unhinged - the failings of any system or information present on the Stellar Flare, or blast them off to a random jump point or other lockable energy signature.

It was a lot of pressure. She never properly got used to it, no matter how many times they recycled her.

She debated if she should ever tell Ruth she’d briefly hijacked her simulation. She decided against it. It didn’t matter either way: she seemed troubled, but capable. That was all Stell wanted from her.

She followed Ruth around the room with her sensors, slowly rotating, as she greeted humans, cousin species, and everything along the length of the opposite side of the scale. She failed and succeeded in intervals in applying appropriate social gestures, processing and filling in the translation gaps in her and everyone else’s communication devices, and pulling herself back from about to throw up to probably not going to throw up.

She was trying very hard. So Stell decided she liked her. She waited until Ruth had taken a breather to telepathically ping her. “You’re struggling a little. You feeling alright?”

Ruth startled, almost knocking a bowl off of a snack table next to her. She went into a hallway through a door. “I’m doing fine. This is...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/stargazer_hfy on 2025-05-11 15:52:55+00:00.

1. We don't start fights. We end them.

First | Previous | Next

"What is it doing?" Horthus demanded, glaring at the vast hologram tank of his tactical room. Twenty minutes previous, it had been focused on the entire star system as he prepared for the arrival of a swarm of hostile spacecraft, but now it was focused entirely on Horthus-Prime, and the object which had appeared in orbit around it in defiance of all known laws of physics.

The arrival of the Aurealians in overwhelming numbers was one thing. He could deal with that. The Aurealians were weak and predictable, and though they may destroy all of the system’s defenses through sheer numbers, they would never take either of the inhabitable planets before reinforcements arrived.

Horthus had already been calmly planning ambushes and traps to make the Aurealians pay for every light second in blood and scrap metal when the human ship arrived. Horthus would never admit it, but his tail had almost fallen off when the sensors detected the fabric of space-time bending in a way that could only be the unique faster than light engine of the humans.

"Nothing so far, highness," a Nameless sensor tech answered. It was a male that Horthus recognized and knew to be competent. But not competent enough to earn him a Name. "It’s in realspace, as the humans say, but it’s just sitting in orbit around Horthus-prime."

Horthus grunted in acknowledgment, regretting for the thousandth time renaming the star and all of the significant planets after himself. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but he had been young and foolish when he’d issued that particular edict. He half wished that one of his rivals would challenge it, simply so that he’d be able to figure out which Horthus was being discussed in any given conversation.

"Are they in range of any of our defenses?" he asked after a moment.

"They’re outside the effective range of our planet based direct energy weapons," another Nameless, a female who was new to her post but seemed capable to Horthus’s experienced eye, answered. "They’re in range of two surface to orbit – highness, orbital platform six has just launched a missile battery against the humans."

"What fool authorized that?" Horthus bellowed. Plans for dealing with human visits to the Horthus system – he really should rename it but he couldn’t think of a way of doing so without losing face – had been in place for decades. In none of those plans were local commanders allowed to initiate hostilities against any human vessel or suspected human vessels.

"Draft a decree. I shall strip that fool of his name, and the names of his parents and children."

"That may not be necessary, highness," a third nameless spoke. Horthus did not know this one, he had simply appeared when the planning for the Aurealian invasion had begun and Horthus had not bothered to ask why. "Orbital platform six is venting atmosphere at a rapid rate. In ten minutes, everyone on board not in a vacuum suit will be breathing vacuum unless they can get to a shuttle or escape pod."

Horthus struggled to maintain his composure.

"We don’t start fights, we end them."

The creed of the humans and their strange allies. It was a promise, and a threat, and the reason why you never, ever shot first at a human ship. Not if you valued your own.

Horthus felt no fear. He suspected he was incapable of fear. Fear was a thing for prey and the weak, and he was neither of those things. He DID feel anger and frustration, but he knew that if he expressed anything other than calm stoicism in the face of the human presence, the Nameless would squawk their lies as they always did and Horthus’s Named competition would use the rumors to their advantage somehow. He was not particularly worried about that – he had more loyal Named vassals than disloyal or questionable – but it was easier to solve a problem before the problem existed.

"How many shuttles and pods does the emplacement have?" Horthus asked calmly.

"One shuttle, two pods," came the answer. "Just enough for the eight Named aboard."

Horthus grinned. He knew that humans grinned too, sometimes even for the same reason. But where a human smile showed general pleasure, Horthus’s grin was the pleasure of a predator catching the scent of prey on the wind.

"How many nameless are aboard the station?" he asked calmly.

The answer was minutes in coming. Nameless came and went where they were told and did as they were told. The population of Nameless at any military instillation could vary widely, even from one day to the next.

"Sixty-three nameless," A voice Horthus vaguely recognized as being unimportant answered. He grinned wider, showing off his sharp, predatory teeth.

"Prepare to broadcast a decree." Placing his sceptor before him, resting the butt on the ground but careful to ensure that in no way could it be said he was resting on it, he waited for his holographic twin to appear before him. When it did, he shifted his posture slightly – he had been sagging more recently and it took conscious effort to correct it sometimes – he gestured for the recording to begin.

"I, Horthus, Supreme of the Horthus system, Horthus-prime, and all space within the orbit of the third ice-giant of the Horthus system, issue the following decree. Several moments ago, orbital platform six around Horthus-prime launched an unauthorized attack against a known human vessel. The humans retaliated as they always do, damaging an orbital platform vital to the defense of the jewel planet of the Horthus system. This attack on the humans was unauthorized and counter to established protocols for dealing with human visitations, and the human response is within their established rules of conduct regarding the defense of their vessels. They are, in fact, authorized by their various governments to destroy the platform entirely, yet they have thus far shown restraint.

"I, Horthus, issue the following decree. All Named aboard orbital platform six are stripped of their name. If the damage to the platform is repaired before the Aurealians arrive, their names shall be restored. Any who attempt to flee the damaged platform will have their names stripped from not only themselves, but for their families going in six generation backwards and forwards. I am Horthus, and this is my decree."

The recording ended just as the muscles in his back began to pinch, and he signaled to a Nameless female that his body required attention. She went to fetch a bottle of pain relief oil as he shed his robe and reviewed the playback of his decree.

"Send it," he said after the first playback. "Broadcast it to the humans too, I want them to see it."

With a gesture – one hand still on his back to massage the aching muscle – he zoomed into the damaged vessel. He was greatly amused when the escape pod, which had already launched, was shot down by the platform. Fratricide, most likely. And a good chance that the occupants of the pod had demanded it.

Death before dishonor. The credo that even the nameless Deathsworn abide by.

"What are the humans doing now?" Horthus demanded. "Have they responded to the missiles?"

"The human ship is breaking apart," One of the Nameless who had spoken before answered. The holotank shifted perspective to show the invading ship separating into numerous pieces.

"One of the missiles actually hit them?" Horthus asked, unable to mask his surprise. All previous attempts to attack the humans had been met with evasion or frustration as they disarmed or disregarded lethal weaponry.

"No, highness. It appears to be separating into modules. There is no atmosphere leakage, and each piece appears to have its own ion thrusters. The process began the moment it emerged from its transit. One of the modules is launching flack that has already destroyed eight – no, that was all of them. All of the missiles targetting the humans have been destroyed."

‘Of course they have,’ Horthus thought. This is why he hated humans. They were always ten steps ahead, and they danced around all attempts to catch up to them with malevolent laughter.

"Zoom in on the individual modules," he suggested. "Identify weapons and counter measures. Also identify gravity fields, living spaces, energy sources, and especially any magnetic bottles. Humans never go anywhere without a kiloton of antimatter and I want to know where it is until it’s five light years away from my planet."

"Shall I establish contact to the human vessels?" another Nameless asked.

Horthus considered. It was a valid question; should he? The edict didn’t count, not really. He was simply disavowing the foolish actions taken by those idiots on the orbital emplacement to prevent escalation. Or, at least, Horthus believed that would be the human interpretation of his actions. In his eyes, he was simply punishing fools for being fools. He had not contacted the human leader, the ‘captain’ of the ‘ship’ to demand the reason for their visit. Should he? By the humans own rules, they could only respond to violence initiated against them. Could he just … ignore them?

It galled him to admit it, but avoiding a conflict with the humans might be the best solution he could hope...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/stargazer_hfy on 2025-05-11 15:45:37+00:00.

Author’s Note: TLDR this is a repost. See the bottom for the real Author’s note.

Next

Foreword: The Aurora Drive.

It was called by its creators the "Aurora Drive." Quite beautiful, the drive creates vast ripples in the electromagnetic fields which trigger an aurora in the atmosphere of any planets near either the source, or the destination. It had been theorized not as an improvement to the previous method of faster than light travel, colloquially known as the ‘skip drive,’ but as a way to render all other forms of FTL travel obsolete.

It exceeded all expectations.

Unlike the skip drive, the initial velocity of the spacecraft was irrelevant. Unlike the skip drive, which requires the craft to accelerate to an appreciable percentage of C, the Aurora Drive could be engaged from a dead stop. And most importantly, unlike the skip drive, the Aurora Drive delivered its passengers to the destination instantly. While the activation energy to engage the Aurora Drive is one of the most energy intensive controlled reactions known to science, the net cost of the reaction is only slightly higher than the energy cost of any alternative method. While the skip drive itself is fairly efficient, the entire energy requirement for the Aurora Drive is less than the acceleration cost of simply reaching the velocities required for the skip drive and then decelerate from relativistic speed at the destination.

Once the initial cost is met, a craft with the Aurora Drive may cross vast distances in a heartbeat. The first view of the Milky Way from the outside came from an observatory launched ten thousand light years above the galactic disk, for an energy cost of only three hundred seventy percent more than a jaunt between sol and proxima centauri. For all beings of earth decent, space exploration, travel, and colonization would never be the same.

Not always for the better.

Early colony ships arrived began to arrive at their destination to find their homes already terraformed and populated. Conflicting governments and claims to habitable planets gave rise to the seventh space race. Interstellar war, once assumed logistically impossible, suddenly seemed not only possible, but inevitable.

The United Earth Origin Sapience Council was established in 2687 AD with the express purpose of resolving conflicts in matters of resources, migration, and governance before they resulted in violence. Modeled after the historic United Nations of pre-diaspora Earth, the UEOSC’s influence expanded rapidly, with six hundred signatory colonies within thirty years of founding.

The UEOSC does not establish interstellar law, but rather works to mediate conflicts, with the express purpose of preventing violence, and improving the quality of all sapient life forms, and establishing both rules of engagement and mutual defense treaties for all members. The UEOSC grew exponentially alongside the spread of earth-descent life throughout the milky way galaxy, with rumors and talks of sending expeditions to Andromeda and the other proximal galaxies.

All of that came crashing to a halt in 2874 when a decommissioned earth space force craft known as the ‘Elizabeth’ reported first contact with intelligent life of non-earth descent.

1. Stargazing.

Stargazer was stargazing.

Her three sensitive eyes were well suited to it, having evolved on a world around a dim red dwarf. The heavens had been first described to her by the false songstress. The first betrayer, the weaver of false hope, liar to children and fools. The songstress’s faux image had sung to her and her litter-mates in the first days of her memory, before even Stargazer had opened her eyes. From her songs had Stargazer and her siblings and the other Aurealians learned to sing. But the Songstress’s song of hope and joy outside the confines of their prison had been lies.

Stargazer had dreamed of the stars, back then. Longed for the day that she would see them. To see the promise of prosperity and peace for her people. She had been so young, and even in the squalor of the prison in which she was born, she had been full of hope. That hope was long since crushed. Crushed on the very night she had first seen the stars. Along with the skulls of five of her litter-mates.

Before that night, she had never questioned the songstress’s teachings. She had never wondered why there were no songs about the Others. They had never hidden themselves, after all, and so the songstress must have known them. The others were a colorful race, with amphibian skin and reptilian structure, despite their bipedal nature they could easily catch a galloping Aurealian in a sprint. Terrifying were their claws, but worse were their maws, with their dreadful fangs. In the days before the culling, before sending Stargazer and her sisters to the hunting rounds, the Others had walked among the cells dividing the litters, running their claws against steel bars in a ritual so old it had worn grooves in the metal, just to wake the young Aurealian and fill them with a nameless dread.

"Clack clack clack clack." Even now, she remembered the sound.

The dread that sound inflicted was unexplained, instinctual, and well placed. For it was never freedom that the Aurealian received when the Others finally took a litter from their cell. The fortunate ones were sent to the hunting grounds. The fortunate ones were also forced to witness the fates of the unfortunate ones.

She looked away from those memories and back towards the sky. She could do nothing for the dead, nothing for the past. She could do nothing for the rest of her litter. Of those sisters she had seen when she’d first opened her eyes, only she survived. When she died, their names would die with her. She stubbornly defied the fate set out before her. She would not give in to despair, as she had seen so many of her Kin do in the hunting grounds.

With each new arrival, she would teach them to make a spear, like the one she clutched now, and she would teach them the true songs that she had inherited on the night after that awful night. She would tell them to run, yes, run from the Others when the horns blew. But hold on to the spear, for when the Others cornered you, the spear was your only hope. And if you did not have a spear, then a sharp rock. But not for yourself.

She held in her heart not the empty songs of the false songstress, but the true Song of Defiance she had heard as a shell-shocked kip, her sister’s blood still matted to her fur. She still remembered that scarred veteran’s haunting voice, the scars on her torso and hind legs, and the glassy look in her central eye.

From this veteran Stargazer had taken her name. It had been given in spite, for the veteran’s defiance of was bitter and angry and the memory of the false songstress’s enraged her. How could she not be bitter, when she had lived through so many hunts, seen so many of her kin die young? The veteran had been mocking her, but Stargazer had embraced the name. She would be happy with no other.

The veteran – Strongarm had been her name, it was important to remember that – had fallen not so long after that. She had exhorted five of the other elders into ambushing one of the hunters responsible for the worst atrocities. Strongarm and her party had all perished. They had blooded the hunter badly, but he had been rescued by his own kind. He was forever marked for his sins, but he survived and hunted still. Less frequently, but still.

The eldest surviving veteran had taken up her post in arming the new arrivals with spear and song, as was tradition. It had not been long, and yet had seemed like an eternity, before that role had fallen to Stargazer herself. She was older now than Strongarm herself had been. Or at least she believed so, but by Strongarm’s word she had survived three hundred and nine hunts before her fall. Stargazer had stopped counting at five hundred. It was hard to be certain how that translated into time, because there was no set interval. The Others hunted at their pleasure and at their leisure. When the game was scarce, they simply brought a new litter of kips to the hunting grounds.

They would always kill several, releasing them one by one, only to chase the kips down before they escaped the clearing and, well, what followed did not bear thinking of. Then, after several demonstrations, the cages were opened, and the new litter would scatter into the forests of the hunting grounds, chased by predatory howls and nightmares. The howls would end at daybreak, but the nightmares never would.

Stargazer would not scream when she was finally caught. She had heard enough screams in her life. That was not how she would die. That is not how she would be remembered by the other Aurealians that she had armed with spear and defiance. She would not bring others into the light with her, as Strongarm had, but she would meet her fate with the same icy silence, when it was her time. It would be her final defiance in the face of the Others, in the face of fate itself.

Until then, she would do her duty. Duty which she had never asked for, but had been thrust upon her. She would sing to the new arrivals. She would show them the food dumps and the water sources, she would show them where to find wood for the spear, and how to knap flint and sharpen it as she had been shown. Not just that second night, but every nig...

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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/sjanevardsson on 2025-05-11 14:31:51+00:00.

“Greg, come up right away. Oh, and tell the analysts to drop anything they’re working on right now, this takes priority.” She returned the handset to the cradle. The hard-line communication system was older than anything else in the building. In fact, it was older than anything on the moon that wasn’t in a museum or itself a tourist attraction. It was secure, though, and that mattered most.

The swarthy, mustachioed man burst into her office with a harried air and unkempt hair. “What is it, Grace? Did the signal office pick something up?”

Grace turned her monitor around to show Greg. “Not exactly. I got copied on a conversation thread, that I don’t think I was meant to be included in. Sent from the office of Pritnan Antinan.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“If the sound of that name didn’t give it away, he’s from the Nannanan Exclave.”

“I figured that, I just don’t know that name.” Greg studied the message closer and began to point out the other names. “But that’s the Ambassador’s aide, that’s their security chief on the station, and I think that’s their Premier.”

“Right on all. Pritnan Antinan is their Minister of War.” Grace shook her head. “I can’t figure out what this would be about, or why my name would be in the Minister’s contacts. We met here, briefly, at the gala last year. Charming enough for a mass of tentacles, if a little intense, but that’s all I know.”

Greg produced a data crystal and tapped it to the screen. “I’ll get this downstairs to the analysts. We’ll get it decrypted, and then you can figure out what translator to call in, since you’ll have to read them in.”

“The analysts can’t—”

“No. They have one job. Don’t try to confuse them with others.” Greg stopped halfway out the door. “I didn’t know they even had a Minister of War.”

“Seems wholly unlike them, right? They have a Minister for everything they do, and everything they try to avoid at all costs, like the Minister of Disease.”

Greg just grunted and ran back to his underground office. “I’ve got a hot one for you two,” he said.

“Thank you, Greg,” Analyst One said. “We look forward to assisting.”

“How much data do we have?” Analyst Two asked.

“A message thread. Looks like a dozen or so messages, some of them pages long.”

“May I suggest Analyst One begins overall parsing while I start with the shortest messages first?”

“Whatever works best, A-Two,” Greg answered. He tapped the data crystal against the stack of machines in his office, marked ‘A-1’ and ‘A-2’ before sitting at his desk.

“You’ve probably already realized, but the messages are between Nann-Ex members, so I’m unsure what the language will be,” Greg said.

“That’s odd,” Analyst Two said. “These short messages all correspond directly to English and decrypt as such using a simple replacement cipher. There’s really nothing here to challenge us.”

“How do you figure that?” Greg asked. “I’m looking at the encrypted message and the English, but I’m not seeing how it lines up.”

“Does this help?” Analyst-Two asked, displaying the English text written in the symbols of the Nannanan common language.

“The entire message chain is ready for download,” Analyst One said. “If that is all, we shall return to our previous assignments.”

“Thanks,” Greg said, tapping the crystal against his terminal to download the decrypted messages.

He sat beside Grace as they read the decrypted messages together. “Their English is atrocious,” he said.

“It’s not used outside human space. Maybe they figured they’d be able to better hide what they were talking about.” Grace paused. “We don’t have a ship with my name, but that’s what this message says. Is it possible the routing AI passed it on to me when it identified my name?”

“Possible,” Greg answered. “We set up all the infrastructure for the Nann-Ex. Of course, that depends on whether they left it on the default settings.” He paused. “Yeah, that’s probably what happened.”

“I’m more worried about this,” she said, “here. We’re going to war against ourselves?”

“What would make them think that?” he asked.

Grace picked up the handset of the relic and clicked the buttons it rested on a couple times. “Get me General Ochoe.” She listened for a moment. “Good morning, General. We have a worrying message from the Nannanan Exclave. … Sure, come over. I’ll start a fresh pot of coffee.”

As she hung up, Greg was already moving across her office to the coffee pot. “I got this. Extra strong, just like she likes it.”

The general came in as the coffee maker dinged, signifying it was ready to dispense. “Looks like I’m right on time,” she said, putting her Marine Academy mug under the spout. “No cream, no sugar.” The coffee maker filled her mug.

Greg offered her the seat he’d been using, next to Grace. “Something odd’s going on in Nann-Ex.”

“Hello, Greg, Grace,” she said.

Grace took the hint about the niceties. “Hi, Nandi. This message chain is concerning.”

The general sat and sipped her coffee while reading through the messages. “Their English is about on par with half the junior officers.” She chuckled. “This is obviously about the training exercise on Breton. The ship they misidentified as the Grace Alvarez is the Greta Andreesen.”

“How do you figure that?” Grace asked.

“Because the Andreesen is part of the OPFOR for the Breton Resolve exercise, and auto-correct is a thing that will forever haunt us.” Nandi leaned back. “I think we should bring a couple of the Nannanan higher-ups in as observers, including Minister Pritnan.”

“You can do that?” Greg asked. “I know you’ve got some pull, but I didn’t realize—”

“I served with Evan — the SecDef — when we were both butter-bars,” Nandi cut him off. “I’ll send a message and let him know that we should be including them in several training exercises. At least until they get the concept.”

“I don’t understand.” Grace said. “Surely they train.”

“That’s one of those things that was redacted from a number of reports. When the Nannanan were still under Kalari rule, ‘training exercise’ meant something else entirely.” The general sighed. “The Kalari Empire would take the fresh troops along on a sure-win mission in order to get them blooded. It was usually against weak resistance forces, and usually from their own home world.”

“Oh,” Grace closed her eyes. “Damn.”

“Let Ambassador Ritnannan know that we’re inviting his people to the exercise. I’ll call Evan, and we’ll have Minister Pritnan on his way to Breton by this afternoon. Thanks for the coffee.” Nandi stood, downing the last of her coffee, then left the office as though it had been nothing more than a casual chat.

“I’m curious about something,” Greg said. “Can you load up the original message?”

“Why?” she asked, even as she loaded it.

“Examine headers.”

Grace followed his instructions to peer into the formatting of the message.

He chuckled and pointed. “Yep, default settings.”

There, buried in all the metadata from the communication software was the log line, “Contact added to CC; Name found in translation.”

prompt: Center your story around an important message that reaches the wrong person.

originally posted at Reedsy

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/BrodogIsMyName on 2025-05-11 13:29:35+00:00.

[RR] [First] [Previous] [Next]

Edited by /u/Evil-Emps

Posted from Italy!

[“Hello. Grandmaster Tzu. Grandmaster Walker. I am inoperable. Can you assist?”] came a voice that abruptly entered Harrison’s head. It was flat, emotionless, and felt like the color gray.

The engineer felt just as much as he heard the strike team step up behind him defensively, their guarded uncertainty bleeding into him. Shar put her shield just to his side, prepped to snap it in front of him at a moment’s notice, in case the motionless head of a stripped, immobile automaton dared to make a move.

He softly pressed against her massive barrier as if to push it away, taking in a slow breath. There was nothing to be afraid of.

“Hello…” He trailed off and let an awkward silence fill the air, his mind racing to find a good place to start this conversation. “It looks like you already know us… What are you?”

[“M.A.X. Number zero-one-eight-three. Generation seven exterminator. Type: Sentinel.”]

“What are your capabilities? What does ‘MAX’ stand for?” Tracy asked, stepping forward.

[“‘M.A.X.’ is the acronym of ‘Multi Armed Exterminator.’ I am uncertain of my full capabilities. I am capable of seeing, speaking, and understanding at this moment. I am incapable of my purpose.”]

“What is your purpose, then?” the technician pressured, crossing her arms over her chest.

[“Extermination.”]

“Of what? The infestation?”

[“Yes. That is why I must be repaired.”]

Harrison made his way to Tracy’s side, Shar making sure to stand right behind him the entire time. “What is the infestation? What were you fighting?”

[“The infestation is… I fought against…”] The automaton paused, a sense of confusion seeping into its tone. [“I do not know how to explain it.”]

Tracy mouthed a few silent, unrecognizable words in frustration before continuing her attempt to find answers. “What do you mean, you don’t know how to explain it? Are you unable to process it or do you have a data problem.”

[“I am not connected to the Bastion. I am severed.”]

The engineer raised a brow. “The Bastion? Which is?”

[“It is where…”]

Stumped again. The severed head of the automaton didn’t move, but he could have sworn it deflated somewhat. “What do you have stored in your local files?”

[“A standard information database is accessible.”]

“Does any of it include information about the High Spirits? The colonists?” Harrison queried.

[“Yes. There is information of the city and UPSCC’s efforts.”]

Tracy looked up at him with a look that said ‘where do we go from here?’ He returned the same expression. What did he want to know about the colony? Where did he even begin?

A soft, supple tail curled around his waist, easing his tension. He stared at the floor, rotating his jaw around in thought. Should he start with the collapse? What about the very beginning?

It was the technician who spoke up first, her sympathetic but determined eyes glancing up at the engineer. “What… What happened to the colony?”

[“What do you mean?”]

Tracy frowned, holding onto her biceps. “Why is the colony… ‘New High Spirits’ in disrepair? Is it because of the infestation?”

[“New High Spirits has fallen?”] the automaton responded in the same, flat tone, but it felt quieter, concerned. [“Grandmasters, when was this confirmed?”]

“When we landed,” Harrison stated, his voice controlled. “We’re the pioneers sent to prepare this planet for the High Spirits. We haven’t seen any activity of its crew besides the ruins of their underground facilities. There isn’t a lot we’ve explored, and there could be others. But, by now, it’s doubtful there are any at all.”

[“I see… This includes the passing of the Bastion AI and the House Divisions.”] A quiet whining noise came from the severed automaton head, as if servos and other mechanical parts within were working overtime… But there wasn’t anything like that in there. It was just wires, circuit boards, and…

The robot continued, a constant humming reverberating from its interior. [“My last orders were to clear the tram network for the engineering division’s extraction. Failure. My orders are currently null. My directive is null. My purpose is null. Grandmasters, what is my current directive?”]

Tracy frowned, a sorrowful expression tenting her brows. Harrison felt it too. It was just a machine, but the way it softly whined and listed its nullified purpose struck a chord in his heart. As much of a disappointment as it was not to receive immediate answers to his thousands of questions, he didn’t feel let down. He just felt melancholy.

Harrison only had one response for the lost robot. “Your new directive is to support this settlement and ensure it succeeds in the colony’s place.”

The technician nodded her approval, warmly squeezing his forearm—When did she get a hold of him?

[“Directive understood… One moment… I am still currently inoperable. How may I assist as I am?”]

He thought for a second. “Sebas, are you able to communicate with the automaton now that it’s on?”

Sebas responded concisely, [“I am not, sir. My injections are unable to bypass the central component.”]

The engineer exhaled slowly. Figures. He made his way to the web of wires, sensors, and other miscellaneous electronics set up. Tracy and Shar tagged along with their limbs, still attached to him, acting like leads. The technician loosened her grip, but the paladin’s grew tighter. The squad of other big girls marched behind him, taking up his flanks as if the machines would suddenly sprout up and attack him.

He gave them a curious look but didn’t complain in the slightest. It took him a moment to confirm the cable connections to the universal ports. There were two intakes that looked more like valve openings instead of wire attachment points, leaving more questions.

“Right, MAX, I need you to share your files over the connection to the module AI,” Harrison requested. Sebas’ initial assessment of the ‘unknown’ component came to mind. “Is that possible?”

[“It is. File sharing is permitted under grandmaster approval.”]

The automaton went quiet for a few moments as the data was evidently transferred, and a quick notification from the module assistant confirmed it was completed. Sebas admitted the information was stored unusually—not enough to be unusable, thankfully.

[“I was created for more than sharing information. I would be better suited with orders and the means to exterminate. I am limited in this form,”] the limbless robot stated flatly.

Harrison looked at Tracy, who absently played with her tank top’s straps. She hummed in contemplation. “I still won’t know what’s going on in its head until I get my hands on it, so I doubt we could just stuff the head into a hunter and expect it to work. I think we’d also have to look into that data and do some experimenting, too.”

She frowned. “Sorry, I don’t think we’ll be able to get anything happening right now—” her eyes met with the engineer’s. “—not until after the blood-moon.”

[“Understood,”] the robot returned, heavy with disappointment. [“If there is no need for me, I will return to a low power mode. Activate me when I am needed and operable.”]

Nothing happened after that, but it was assumed the automaton had powered off. Meanwhile, Harrison rubbed his eyes as he considered what to do next.

“Well… Sebas, do you have any more data from this?”

[“Besides the data package, there are a few other details to note. Electrical signals were detected within the central component. These were found to be similar to organic nerve signals. However, there is no organic material within. Additionally, it appears to be sending pulses similar to a wireless signal throughout its time in an online mode. The purpose or messages are unknown.”]

“…Alright. Can you make another folder for these observations? Name it ‘MAX Observations.’”

The technician huffed, offering a hopeful look to him. “Interesting, but… Damn. Looks like we won’t be getting answers any time soon. Maybe we’ll find something or another in those files?”

“Probably. I’m not sure if I want to start digging into those just yet.”

Harrison gave it one more look before turning around, noting the anxious and curious gazes on him coming from the strike team. Some looked past him at the lifeless robot, scouring it further. Most of them held their weapons at the ready.

“That thing… It speaks…” Sharky stated, subtly inching around to put herself between him and the automaton.

“Yeah, of course it does—” Wait. Harrison blinked twice before the realization slapped him with enough force to make him feel nauseous. The exterminator was speaking in his mind. It wasn’t talking. He was so used to the Malkrin voices being injected straight into his brain that he hardly even considered it out of the normal…

He paused again. The exploration team also heard it back in the ruins. With everything that’s happened over the last couple of days, he almost forgot about it entirely. God, was he losing it? Shit, maybe drinking Cera’s concoction twice in a row may have started affecting him.

Harrison looked up at the paladin, his tone lowered. “So, you heard everything here?”

Her head slightly recoiled back. *“Was I not int...

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Ok-Peak9537 on 2025-05-11 11:18:51+00:00.

First part

Previous

————————————————————————

Stellar Jim’s Guide To The Universe

*Threat assessment: that’s what traveling is all about. Are they bigger ‘en you? Avoid ‘em. Smaller? Feel free to take advantage, but do your best to know their species, cause sometimes somethin’ smaller ‘en you? Well, t’ain’t ‘xactly weaker. Power always scales, and it always, **Always** circles back to the tomato method. Hey, stop, don’t touch that, that’s my drink… I don’t care what the doctor says, Stellar Jim does what he wants! Anyhow, the tomato method… It’s the Bloody Mary of a good time in space.*

You've got strength their ability to crush a tomato. Dexterity is their ability to shoot a tomato. Constitution their ability to take a hit and eat a bad tomato. Intelligence knowing that tomatoes are, in fact, a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put tomatoes in a fruit salad. And Charisma selling a tomato-based fruit salad… It’s called Salsa Janine, I swear… But people aren’t always aware of those hidden stats and factors. Those figures are: Luck, adaptability, and sanity. Luck is easy, it’s all about coming across the right tomato at the right time. Adaptability is your way out of a situation, possibly with a tomato launcher. Sanity is dealing with this galaxy and the horrors it contains… like that eldritch tomato being on Zurdo IV… I don’t care if he was asking for directions Janine that fucker was unnatural! Now gimme my scotch, this journal entry is done… Why are you still rolling?

Abridged version

————————————————————————

Noelle

Noelle Ate, and ate. Sara had more in her that should probably be discarded than kept. As Noelle ate, she got to see Sara’s memories. She got to see a girl, the product of an abusive home riddled with domestic violence and abuse, flee. At age 9, Sara had gotten her first true taste of freedom, only for station security to haul her right back not even a day later. She managed to flee again at ages 12, 14, and 17, each time avoiding the authorities for longer, telling better lies, and surrounding herself with people she could manipulate. But on a small station, there’s nowhere she could hide for long. At 19 came the incident. A military ship docked, and an Angel came aboard the station. Noelle was indifferent at first, but then that Angel met her father. Her father didn’t make it. Her abuser is dead… Noelle latched on. Her Angel, her Lord, had saved her, and she would do anything for him. When she told him as much, he just smiled and took her away from it all. He helped train her, along with others, to be his eyes, ears, and pawns on the board. It had been 8 years since the conflict. 8 years since the Angel had fallen. Her Lord needed help. Sara would give it to him. Noelle saw all of Sara’s missions. She kept the useful knowledge and discarded the rest. Next, Noelle worked on refining her body. She’d ditch the stretching ability Sara gained. She’d keep the Shriek. Noelle the Drider began to adapt.

Her eight eyes became four. She stood on two legs. Her hands had retractable claws. Her spider-limbs now came from the small of her back, the chitin still as hard. She debated changing her hair color but decided to keep it. White wasn’t that bad. Her chest was already bigger than Sara’s was. Now on to the ass… Noelle honestly wasn’t sure of its function but watching Micheal’s eyes linger on both his girls asses so she wanted a nice one. She went for an Athletic look and a tight, almost heart-shaped ass. She kept her other biology the same, except that she moved where she spun her webbing. She changed her spinnerets to the now semi-vestigial spider limbs that emerged from her lower back. She slimmed her waist next. Her modifications had made her tall. Possibly taller than Michael, so she shortened herself to be just shorter than Thalia. Hopefully, splitting the difference would make her more appealing. Noelle smiled, her fangs on display. Remembering them, she shrank them.

Noelle took her first steps as a Void humanoid, the transformation had taken over two hours. She was tired, but eager to find her chosen mate.

————————————————————————

Ariadne

Ariadne had kept watch over her information network, complete even in her own home. She watched her daughter Noelle struggle with her decision before finally feasting on the wretched woman. She looked over at Cannagh’s body, he would be valuable for her daughter, too. Ariadne had the Comatose Angel’s body brought to Noelle. Her daughter would be the best she could be. By extension, her daughter would help Michael, and Michael would hopefully help her biggest customer, who was already on his way to meet him.

“Oh, the wicked webs we weave,” Ariadne said to herself.

“What wasss that mother?” Asked one of her nameless offspring.

“Nothing, dear child, back to work.” Ariadne had so many schemes and irons in the fire that it was hard to keep track. But she had to admit this was certainly a lot more favorable than her time as a Crime lord in Tanlyon II. Back then, every two-bit lawman with a badge kept trying to put her down. She only killed when necessary, of course, but she definitely gave the others Arachnophobia.

She smiled wickedly at the Memory as Michael walked in.

————————————————————————

Michael

I walked in with Thalia, who had recovered, and Mel, who was still bouncing happily that I had regained control over my powers. Ariadne sat on her throne; in fact, it looked like she barely ever moved.

“Welcome back, darling, It seems like you had a successful mission.” She said warmly.

I nodded, feeling like I was missing something.

“Good, good, you and your team worked wonderfully, especially with my daughter’s assistance. Now on to payment. I can pay you in credits or information. But don’t decide now, dear, as I have 2 more jobs lined up for you. One is on its way here, the other? Well, it’s my daughter, Noelle, the one you fought with? It appears she’s become rather fixated. Now I don’t wish to alarm you, but you will have to take her with you…. If you don’t… well, I fear for everyone’s safety. A woman scorned and all that.”

Now I saw what was missing, and the fact that this Wily old woman was steamrolling me. I didn’t necessarily like that and tapped into my gravitational power.

Everybody froze.

Ariadne sighed. “It seems I will have to refresh your memory, little Michael. My species endures the vacuum of space. That corridor you flew through to reach this station was made by our webbing. The same with the perimeter around the station. The older we get. The stronger we get. Now I will forgive your actions as you’ve lost your memory for old times' sake, but do not mistake my complacency for weakness; the law of hospitality only applies so long as no attempt is made. I will abide by it. You may be able to survive being blasted out of an airlock, but your girls? Not so much. Now let’s get back to being civil, shall we?”

I nodded, feeling like I had been scolded.

“Good, now you’ll take Noelle, I’ll pay you if I have to, but she’ll be a complete darling for you, a complete darling. As for the other mission, well, He’s on his way. I was supposed to stall you for a week, but I’m not doing that much cloak-and-dagger shenanigans right now. Think of that knowledge as a welcome to the family package.” Ariadne’s switch from pissed off to jovial was giving me whiplash, but I had to respect it.

————————————————————————

Noelle

Mother brought me another body. This one is ugly. And Irish. Noelle feasted. His memories were gone, his regeneration still worked. This was going to take forever. Noelle knew what she would keep from this former Angel. She’d take his Strength, his regeneration, and his durability. She supposed, if Michael didn’t look at her the way she wanted, she could be his shield until he did. Sara had manipulated people in life-or-death situations before. So their relationship might begin with the Nightingale effect, but Noelle would work to make it real. She was not selfish… she could share…. Mostly.

Noelle was done eating, she was finally ready for her mate. She was fast, strong, durable, cunning, she had the looks, now it was all about winning her man.

————————————————————————

Dr. Zainin

He had turned away from watching when his new experiment trashed the place. He had sent a subtle command to turn on the stations' power. This would allow him back into the system. But imagine his surprise when one of his experiments fought and killed his latest experiment.

“Oh, Michael, you naughty, naughty boy, you are very very far from home.

————————————————————————

Next

Did artificial intelligence just jump the shark? Maybe so, and it came from the legal world of all places, with this report of an AI-generated victim impact statement. In an apparent first, the family of an Arizona man killed in a road rage incident in 2021 used AI to bring the victim back to life to testify during the sentencing phase of his killer’s trial. The video was created by the sister and brother-in-law of the 37-year-old victim using old photos and videos, and was quite well done, despite the normal uncanny valley stuff around lip-syncing that seems to be the fatal flaw for every deep-fake video we’ve seen so far. The victim’s beard is also strangely immobile, which we found off-putting.

In the video, the victim expresses forgiveness toward his killer and addresses his family members directly, talking about things like what he would have looked like if he’d gotten the chance to grow old. That seemed incredibly inflammatory to us, but according to Arizona law, victims and their families get to say pretty much whatever they want in their impact statements. While this appears to be legal, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it appealed, since the judge tacked an extra year onto the killer’s sentence over what the prosecution sought based on the power of the AI statement. If this tactic withstands the legal tests it’ll no doubt face, we could see an entire industry built around this concept.

Last week, we warned about the impending return of Kosmos 482, a Soviet probe that was supposed to go to Venus when it was launched in 1972. It never quite chooched, though, and ended up circling the Earth for the last 53 years. The satellite made its final orbit on Saturday morning, ending up in the drink in the Indian Ocean, far from land. Alas, the faint hope that it would have a soft landing thanks to the probe’s parachute having apparently been deployed at some point in the last five decades didn’t come to pass. That’s a bit of a disappointment to space fans, who’d love to get a peek inside this priceless bit of space memorabilia. Roscosmos says they monitored the descent, so presumably they know more or less where the debris rests. Whether it’s worth an expedition to retrieve it remains to be seen.

Are we really at the point where we have to worry about counterfeit thermal paste? Apparently, yes, judging by the effort Arctic Cooling is putting into authenticity verification of its MX brand pastes. To make sure you’re getting the real deal, boxes will come with seals that rival those found on over-the-counter medications and scratch-off QR codes that can be scanned and cross-referenced to an online authentication site. We suppose it makes sense; chip counterfeiting is a very real thing, after all, and it’s probably as easy to put a random glob of goo into a syringe as it is to laser new markings onto a chip package. And Arctic compound commands a pretty penny, so the incentive is obvious. But still, something about this just bothers us.

Another very cool astrophotography shot this week, this time a breathtaking collection of galaxies. Taken from the Near Infrared camera on the James Webb Space Telescope with help from the Hubble Space Telescope and the XMM-Newton X-ray space observatory, the image shows thousands of galaxies of all shapes and sizes, along with the background X-ray glow emitted by all the clouds of superheated dust and gas between them. The stars with the characteristic six-pointed diffraction spikes are all located within our galaxy, but everything else is a galaxy. The variety is fascinating, and the scale of the image is mind-boggling. It’s galactic eye candy!

And finally, if you’ve ever wondered about what happens when a nuclear reactor melts down, you’re in luck with this interesting animagraphic on the process. It’s not a detailed 3D render of any particular nuclear power plant and doesn’t have a specific meltdown event in mind, although it does mention both Chernobyl and Fukushima. Rather, it’s a general look at pressurized water reactors and what can go wrong when the cooling water stops flowing. It also touches on potentially safer designs with passive safety systems that rely on natural convection to keep cooling water circulating in the event of disaster, along with gravity-fed deluge systems to cool the containment vessel if things get out of hand. It’s a good overview of how reactors work and where they can go wrong. Enjoy.

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