A Singularity

Source

A Dr. Who and Back to the Future mash-up trailer that is hilarious.

Questionable Content: #2423: Fairy Tale

Do these kind of exchanges happen in real life? I kind of hope they do.

Flaky Pastry: #38: Tactical Espionage Action

Anyone who has been a stealth rogue in a D&D party has felt this pain.

Questionable Content: #2430: No Scaring The Customers

Hannelore, how I love thee.

Something Positive: 2013-06-04: Do Not Want

I’ve all but decided to make my second cat, who won’t stop meowing, internet famous. This is sure to backfire on me too.

Hyperbole and a Half lives!

For those of you who have never stumbled upon the blog Hyperbole and a Half, let me provide you some quick links:

Hyperbole and a Half: Dog

Hyperbole and a Half: Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving

And now that you are laughing hysterically, let me assure you that this blog is not just about dogs, here’s her introduction to Texas.

Hyperbole and a Half: Texas

Alright. So if you didn’t know. Hyperbole and a Half hasn’t updated in a long time. And it is because the author was suffering (and is still recovering) from depression.

Now I’ve heard descriptions of depression but this series of words and images prehaps nails it home for me so well, that I felt it must be shared. People who don’t suffer from depression could benefit highly from the perspective this provides.

Hyperbole and a Half: Depression Part Two

Welcome to Free Writing! Quick fiction written for entertainment purposes. This week we have another piece of flash fiction. We’re continuing the story from the last few weeks. So if you haven’t read the others, click here to see them all. Enjoy!

Well this is the final chapter, guys. I hope you enjoyed it. Like I said above, if you haven’t read the series before, I recommend starting on an earlier chapter than this one. Also as I have been warning, Free Write will be retiring for a time while I focus on finishing up my novel.

—

The next few cycles were very boring for Prime. General White visited several more times with Paul to ask a series of questions, usually related to the Malcontents, or the Form in general. Prime was forthcoming but not always able to answer every question. Occasionally Paul would come alone and they would socialize. Paul had his own questions but they were more scientific in nature and that was a topic Prime was happy to converse about. It also helped it practice its English.

After several cycles, the female ally who had been under the control of the Malcontent recovered and reported to the General. According to Paul, she had very little memory of the prior cycles, perhaps the length of time that she had been under control, but her fuzzy recollections helped corroborate some of Prime’s speculation, somewhat. Paul had no idea what was going to happen now but he suspected everything was going to filter up the chain of command to the ruler of the human’s social governance system, which was called a president.

Other humans of a caste or profession that was not immediately obvious by their garments were brought to visit. They were likely singulars as they often offered elaborate greetings and titles which Prime only partially comprehended, and often chuckled in a non-affectionate manner when Prime attempted to ask questions. Prime was not fond of these humans but they were yet another aspect of the human race. If Prime was to be held in one place, it could at least attempt its surveying mission by analyzing the humans that were brought to it.

After a decacycle Prime began to grow impatience, requesting information on the human’s plans regarding its incarceration. Paul gave him no answers. He hadn’t been allowed home either since the incident started and was worried about his cat, which was apparently an organic sub-sentient being that lived with Paul. The General did not visit Prime after he started asking questions, and the humans in the strange garments, which Paul named as suits, were evasive or incomprehensible in their answers.

Prime could have easily gotten out of the containment. Now that it better understood human offensive capabilities and did not have to maintain stealth, Prime felt confident it could simply burn its way through the walls to escape, however it wanted to stay on good terms with the first organic intelligent species ever encountered, and opted for more diplomatic means of getting what it wanted, it began to ignore the suit wearing humans, reconfiguring into its rock form when one refused to answer its questions or was evasive. They attempted to use Paul to get their questions answered and eventually Prime was forced to use the same tactic on him, however Prime apologized before each reconfiguration.

Then came the seven cycles where nothing visited it. Luckily by this point Prime had managed to decipher the wireless traffic humans used to connect their computer devices. Some of it anyway. It was able to decipher text and determine the difference between image, video, and audio streams, but wasn’t able to decode those yet. It spent the decacycle working on this problem, intercepting text communication, and monitoring hyperbands. There was a medium to high probability that the Malcontent was not the only one on the planet. Rather than give away its position, Prime had not attempted to use a hyperband but simply listened. If there was another Malcontent it would likely attempt to use a hyperband to communicate with its now deactivated compatriot.

Understanding human behavior required more processing power than Prime had at its disposal. At times they acted without any reasonable stimulus, such as when the General finally visited after the seven cycles, informing Prime that it was being released. This surprised Prime greatly. It fully expected that it might eventually be released but more likely it would be slowly released into decreasing secure facilities while it introduced or the humans had assimilated Prime’s capabilities. However the General said it was being released by its request but there would be an envoy to greet it when it was ready to leave the base. Prime asked if it was Paul and was told no. Paul had also been released and was traveling home.

Prime wasted no time to be released. It figured it could track down Paul’s home far quicker once it gained proper access to the internet. It was escorted by soldiers out of the building. As it did, it felt a ping in the hyperband. Before it could react, a white light filled its optics.

~~~

We interrupt your programming to give you this important news bulletin. There has been a series of explosions at the near by Army base. Authorities have issued a warning for all citizens to stay in their homes or places of business and report any strange activity to the number displayed on the screen. There is no information as to the cause of the explosion at this time but we will bring you up to date coverage as we receive it. I repeat…

~~~

It awoke to a hyerband transmission. The source of the transmission identified itself as a Form that it was familiar with. A Form that had been sent on a long distance surveying mission millions of light-years away. That required a significant energy to transfer a hyperband message that far. It took time to wake itself up from its hibernation before it read the message, then it began waking everything up while it also dedicated time to re-broadcast the message. Repeatedly. At high energy.

The message contained one concept, and background locational metadata. The message translated as such.

Malcontent Army. Backup required.

I was just having a discussion with some friends the other day about stale and derivative movies. This was well-timed.

Welcome to Free Writing! Quick fiction written for entertainment purposes. This week we have another piece of flash fiction. We’re continuing the story from the last few weeks. So if you haven’t read the others, click here to see them all. Enjoy!

We’re getting close to the end folks. Just a reminder Free Write will be going on hiatus after this story concludes.

~~~

War
By Nojh Livic

“Complicated,” Paul offered, and Prime nodded its head.

“Yes. That is a complicated,” Prime corrected. Paul shook his head slightly but didn’t offer any further corrections. Prime filed away the statement for further error analysis later.

“Please, just explain as best you can. You can interpret, Doctor,” General White said.

So Prime did.

Explaining interstellar politics to a race that had yet to expand beyond its planet was difficult for Prime. Prime was a scientist, not a historian nor a singular. It also quickly became apparent that humans had a limited concept of time, or rather had a hard time comprehending events that scaled well beyond their life spans, which was a significant percentage smaller than that of a Form in good repair. There was also the issue of English, which Prime believed it had grasped a fair competency at including non-verbal cues, but it quickly became apparent that it required more skill than it had to get across certain concepts. Yet with Paul’s help, Prime persisted.

Prime’s race, for lack of a better word, called itself Form. Like all the other sentient races the Form had encountered, it was an inorganic life form. Form differed from the other races encountered in that the intelligence of a Form was housed in a single body, with some limited variation. The other intelligent races had different chassis configurations, if any at all. The Form called them the Formless. This difference between Prime’s race and the others created some conflict, as they did not place as much emphasis on the individual as the Form and as such, many individual Form were lost. The Form retaliated for a time, until it became obvious to a growing faction that the conflict between the Form and the Formless that the war was accomplishing very little other than destroying more Form. (continue reading…)

Welcome to Free Writing! Quick fiction written for entertainment purposes. This week we have another piece of flash fiction. We’re continuing the story from the last few weeks. So if you haven’t read the others, click here to see them all. Enjoy!

We’re getting close to the end folks. Just a reminder Free Write will be going on hiatus after this story concludes.

~~~

Interrogation
By Nojh Livic

“I was sent here to survey your planet,” Prime said simply. “Not invade conquer take samples. I was to landing on benign little planet, surveying for scientific and exploit purposes.” When General White raised an eyebrow at the word exploit, Prime looked to Paul, who was also expressing anxiety in his facial features. Prime quickly added, “Exploit resources. Elements. Materials. Energy. Benign little planet was not to have life upon it.”

“Right,” the General said, to which Prime nodded his agreement with the statement, although he wasn’t sure how the General really could determine the truthiness of his statement. “Who sent you?”

“Automind survey device,” Prime answered immediately, to dull expressions. Human communication was so complex it was almost requiring an entirely dedicated process just to handle the non-verbal aspects. “It visited system approximately 1,125,733 local solar cycles, scan all planets for possible survey attempts and relayed this information. I was in stasis and received the relay and decided to survey. Selects planets with high resource content. It did not report any intelligent life.” General White and Paul both frowned but it did not seem to be a hostile frown. It had aspects similar to confusion.

“Do you mean days?” Paul asked. Over a million days ago?” Prime nodded its head in agreement.

“Could you translate that into years please?” the General asked. Prime shook its head to indicate negative. “Why not?”

“I do not know what year is,” Prime offered helpfully. This elicited a verbalized grunt that did not match any particular word or prescribed verbal communication. Prime once again glanced to at Paul, however Paul offered no clues as to what this communication meant but instead explained the ratio of days to years.

“Ah. Interesting. That is close approximation to Earth’s rotation around the star,” Prime noted, to which Paul nodded. “It carries with it discrepancies-”

“Yes, but please calculate i-,” the General interrupted.

Prime nodded and answered immediately. “3082.154808 years, approximately.”

“Wait. Humans inhabited on this planet three thousand years ago,” Paul said, looking at Prime. “But you said your auto.. Your probe did not detect intelligent life.” Prime was growing to like Paul. He was more intelligent than some Forms it knew. The General, however, gave Paul another nonverbal communication via facial expression. It looked hostile or at least aggressive and Paul sat back in his chair.

“Yes. It is, deficiency? Of the probe. It can not think organic life to have intelligence,” Prime explained, ignoring the communication between the humans. Prime chose to shrug. “It is unknown. No. Unset. Unusual? Unusual.” This discussion was starting to stretch Prime’s vocabulary. It would like to have access to the information network again but it suspected that would not happen.

“Unusual. Organic intelligent life is unusual?” General White asked. Prime simply nodded. “How unusual?” The General’s tone was different for this question and he leaned forward slightly in his chair. Prime was not able to identify the tone but it likely indicated some form of interest beyond the urgency of the usual questions.

“It has never been discovered with credible sources in my existence,” Prime stated.

“I don’t understand,” the General stated. Prime nodded and tried to determine what it mistranslated.

Paul, however, spoke up. “It means we’re unique. Its race has never found another intelligence organic species while exploring space.” Prime considered this and then nodded. The General sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, grunting again. Paul looked down at the floor. Neither human seemed to like this information.

“I am not sure I believe you,” the General finally said. Prime responded by mimicking a human shrug. “However let us assume you are just a surveyor. Your probe sent you? No leader? Or government? Or group?”

Prime shook its head again but did not wait for another question to explain. “I am not apart of that. I range lonely until I decided to embark home. The Forms are not organized like that. We collective but mobile.”

“That made less sense than usual,” the General muttered. Prime nodded and would frown but it did not design its face to be able to replicate that level of human detail.

“I am low on vocabulary. Sorry.” Prime said, hoping that it modulated its tone to sound apologetic.

“Doctor?” the General prompted.

Paul nodded and thought about it. “I’m not sure. I guess they’re just, not as much of a herd animal as humans are? How long were you in stasis?”

“Translated for Earth local, 27,145.120048 years,” Prime calculated audibly. Both humans were visibly surprised. Prime realized that it would be considered a relatively long time compared to the average life span of a human. Prime nodded. “It is long time compared to human seeing. Lonely Forms travel slowly.”

“Even at approaching the speed of light we couldn’t make it to our nearest neighboring star in under a few hundred thousand years,” the General stated flatly.

Prime once again shrugged. “Form slow is human fast?” it offered as an explanation. This elicited a chuckle from Paul and from one of the soldiers at the doorway. Prime turned its attention to look at the solider, who quickly tensed and straightened, as if he expected Prime to edit its memory and assume that was the position he had been in all along. The General was slower to turn and look, and only saw the two soldiers standing straight.

“Okay we’ll discuss scientific breakthroughs later. I want to know why one of my labs has laser burns all over it and why several of my people are in the medical ward,” the White said with force in his tone. Prime could not determine if the human was simply re-living the aggravation of the prior events he was talking about, or if he was aggravated by the levity of the humans around him.

Prime mimicked a sigh. “That is a complication,” Prime began.

The author of Dresden Codak, inspired of the  Video Game Tropes vs Women series, decided to design a Legend of Zelda story idea with Zelda as the primary character, and it sounds awesome.

A fan made concept of a Zelda game where Zelda is actually the main character.

Source

Aaron, the creator of Dresden Codak, does a little bit more than just make a cover but also goes as far as to describe and draw the main characters (Zelda, Prince Link, and Ganndorf) and explain the mythology of Hyrule, and layout the items and magic that Zelda has access to.

A fan made imaging of Zelda as the main character of her own The Legend of Zelda game.

And more. Please check out his post to read up about it.

I mention that this would be a game I’d love to play. It isn’t just because it is Zelda in her own game. That’s actually beside the point. It is the gameplay described in the details of the game. Weapons, magic, enemies, and the plot all sound very compelling in a two-dimensional or three-dimensional third person video game. The plot could be re-written to be a completely original set of characters for all that it matters, if the gameplay is solid.

Welcome to Free Writing! Quick fiction written for entertainment purposes. This week we have another piece of flash fiction. We’re continuing the story from the last few weeks. So if you haven’t read the others, click here to see them all. Enjoy!

We’re getting close to the end folks. Just a reminder Free Write will be going on hiatus after this story concludes.

—

Security
By Nojh Livic

It was at this point, with at least one human dead, several injured, and Prime standing in a humanoid configuration that several more warriors pushed their way into the room via the metal door wearing more weaponry and armor than the previous warriors had. When the general told them to stand down, they took up defensive positions in the room, with two inserting themselves in the space between the general and Prime, their weapons pointed but not firing.

Paul who was rubbing at his ears and his left wrist, had sat down in his chair and was watching the entire situation with little to no reaction. The general began giving orders. Several of the new warriors were told to escort the assistant and the conscious warrior out of the room while humans that wore slightly different coverings than warriors and scientists arrived to look over the woman and other warrior.

“Prime. Are you capable of making agreements?” the general asked, distracting Prime from its observation of the new type of human.

“I can agree or disagree with concepts, ideas, and courses of actions, yes,” Prime stated, turning to face the general.

“Will you agree to not attempt to escape, remain under guard, and answer my questions?” the general asked.

Prime considered this for a moment. “For what period of time?” The general smiled slightly.

“The next few days at least but an indefinite period of time, until I can ascertain if you are a threat and talk to my superiors.”

Prime looked over at Paul. “I can agree to these courses of action with a limit of ten cycles. After ten cycles I will want to re-ask the agreement. Additionally I will agree to these courses of action if the Paul remains undisciplined for his actions related to my existence and remains as my interpreter,” Prime looked over at the scientist, who was the only non-warrior left in the room. He too was being guarded by two other warriors. “If the Paul agrees.”

“Hell yes I agree,” Paul said immediately. “I want to know what the fuck is going on.” Paul was clearly agitated.

“I believe I can agree to those conditions,” the general said, glancing over his shoulder at Paul. “Assuming Paul is willing to agree to answer questions as well, truthfully, about his activities the past few days, and agrees to never point a gun at me ever again.”

Paul lifted his hands into the air and shrugged. “Sure. Unless everybody suddenly starts shooting each other randomly again and talking about invasions. Then all bets are off.” The general chuckled. Prime was not sure why it was funny but elected to mimic the human, which drew the General’s attention. The general’s smile faded.

“We need to get you to a secure location,” the general stated.

“I agree. I also suggest you only use warriors currently in this room. It is possible any of your warriors could be reconfigured,” Prime advised. “Since none of them have attacked, the likelihood that they are is low but not impossible.” The general did not seem happy by this suggestion but nodded

“Sir, we need to get both of them to the clinic immediately,” the non-warrior human interrupted, standing up from the now prone female human. The general nodded. He ordered several of the warriors in the room to go with them and to keep on the look out for a possible attack from anyone, including the hospital staff. The female was carried out on an expandable table, along with the other unconscious solider. The general began arranging their transfer.

~~~

Prime, Paul, and the general White sat in a larger but more secure laboratory about a decicycle later. Two warriors, which were called soldiers according to Paul, stood at the lab’s entrance, instead of outside the door. Paul and the general had been brought food. Prime had declined any organic matter.

“Okay. Lets start from the beginning. Why are you here?” White asked.

Citation Needed: 2009-08-06: Self Marketing Food 2

I’ve never actually noticed this. I’ll have to try it…

 Junior Scientist Power Hour #32: And Now I Have Rabies

This is why you don’t go into tall grass alone!

Junior Scientist Power Hour #56: Tales of Young Abbey

I never connected flat tongues with dogs before. Huh.

Girl Genius: Volume 13, Page 048

That should totally be a new rule in the Evil Overlord book!