It's "help me find that fic again" time, people.  This one got a reference here just a few months ago but for the life of me I can't find it now.  Synopsis:  Agatha Heterodyne gets thrown into the Stargate universe via lab accident, before she discovers she's a Spark.  It was being posted on SpaceBattles.
Can anyone point me at it again?  Thanks.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Experimenting with a new style of story... hope you like it. Feel free to comment!

***************

Mindtech lab, private memo of Cathy, 20. March 2024

We called it ‘The Third Eye’.

While Quattros mind interface system was either a large tube or at least a tight helmet, the 3E was the first success to miniaturize it. Most of us calling it the best augmented reality interface we know.

The first Third Eye was a more limited and specialized design without the ability to read and write the memory and personality of a person. Its circuits and effectors were focused on reading and writing the sensor processing part of the brain. It allowed an external computer to project optical and acoustic data into the brain or recording incoming data.

With some training, a catgirl could learn to use the Third Eye to focus her thought in a way the computer could record, which allowed to use it similar to a neural link of a cyborg. As soon as they became available, the Third Eye quickly replacing other augmented reality systems used by Catgirl Industries. Improved versions could even read the mood and stress levels of the user and projecting them to another 3E user, enabling some kind of voluntary empathy.

Unfortunately, while we thought the device was safe to use in 2021, we also discovered a few pit traps during the further development of the technology.

-----

“Cathy, you better come down to the Mindtech lab right now. Something strange is going on here!”

Vivio’s voice sounded concerned and Cathy quickly hurried towards the lab area where they were experimenting with the Mind Computer interface tech they had acquired from Quattro years ago.

When Cathy arrived at the door of the lab, Vivio was already waiting for her.

“Something bad happened?” she asked, but Vivio just shrugged with her shoulders.

“I am not sure, they had planned a test with an improved Third Eye today... but when I entered the lab, I noticed something was off” Vivio answered. “Just ask Jenny what is going on, you will see what happens.”

Jenny was a special case among the catgirls of Jenga, the first and only successful Alpha Fork of a catgirl. Her "sister" Jerry had been both a successful Eezo and Mindtech researcher, which put her into a difficult situation when most of the Eezo research moved to Nostromo.

In an acute fit of Mad Science Jerry had locked herself into her private lab for a whole week in Mid 2019, trying to implement the methods of a paper about medical cloning from the Vesta Institute and sidestepping problems by running the result through a modified catgirling machine. When the catgirls broke the doors of the lab a week later, they found two identical catgirls sleeping in the burned out remainders of the laboratory. Jerry had successfully copied her whole mind content into the clones empty brain, duplicating herself effectively. But neither of them could remember what happened during the week.

In the end Jerry moved out to Nostromo to continue her research on Eezo while Jenny stayed on Jenga, working with the Mind Tech team. Both catgirls were still exchanging ideas and news on a regular basis and Jenny stated she wanted to transfer memories between each other.

“Jenny, I heard there are some issues” Cathy stated as she pushed open the lab doors and looked around. “Maybe you can tell me why Vivio is a bit concerned?”

Two catgirls smiled as they heard Jenny’s name and Cathy had the feeling both wanted to say something. They looked at each other for a moment and then one of them chuckled.

“Don’t worry Cathy, everything is working fine. We are just testing a new Third Eye” one of them said. “I can assure you there is no need to worry about.”

“Neither of you are Jenny.” Cathy stated flatly and looked through the room where the catgirl she recognized as Jenny was working. “I'd like to hear from Jenny herself!”

The two catgirls looked at each other again with a confused look.

“Are you sure?”

----

I tried to talk with Jenny a few times, but it was a frustrating experience. She seemed to be distracted and looking just confused when I asked to talk with her in private.

But it wasn't looking that they had a bad time... everyone in the lab was focused on their work, smiling about some insight I could not even see.

The lab was much more quiet than usual, but their speed of work was astonishing. I was feeling a bit frustrated not being able to follow them quickly enough. This was one of my major research areas too!

From time to time one of them was smiling at me or patting on my shoulder, telling me that everything was fine and I should not worry. But nobody was willing to stop working, not even for a short walk into the Cafeteria to get a snack.

I finally gave up and asked Vivio to help me setting up some measurement equipment. We had to find out what was going on in the lab.

----

“How could this have happened Vivio” Cathy said and sighed. “I thought we were a bit more careful, how could a large part of the team develop completely new hardware and test it on themselves without telling anyone?”

“I do not think its new hardware Cathy” Vivio replied, “they are just using the newest iteration of the Third Eye hardware. I checked it myself, they just decided to use it in a different way than normal.”

“Different way? Vivio, we have a group of researchers who still can do successful research but are not sure who they are anymore!” Cathy spit out. “Thats a little bit more than the Third Eye should be able to do.”

“I agree, but they let me look through their logfiles. They started this morning with a new software that allowed direct mind-to-mind communication in voice and images. Seems to be very easy, almost reflexive to use. Think about it, instead of asking your team members a question you just think it and you get a visual answer within the blink of an eye.”

“Okay, I can see that this is a little bit unusual” Cathy said, “but that doesn’t explain their current behaviour!”

“No, it doesn’t... but they kept working through the day and the whole communication network somehow became synchronized. Thoughts flying back and forth without much conscious thinking.” Vivio explained. “And then this noon the group wrote a patch to increase the bandwidth of the Brain-Machine interface. Instead of sharing images and text, they were able to push whole blocks of memory through their Third Eye. It seems to require a special kind of concentration, but they say its easy to do after getting used to it.”

“Wait a moment... you say they use a small clip-on interface to extract and integrate full memories?” Cathy asked as her hairs stood on edge. “Where do they get the storage space to filter them?”

“I am not sure, they are using the connection directly brain to brain, no filter involved. Which meant they didn’t even need to formulate an answer to a question, they just send the experience they would use themselves as a reply” Vivio said. “But they quickly ran into a well known problem. You cannot just send raw knowledge without its context, it takes time to integrate this kind of data into your own experience. But they found a solution for this, they just transferred the context too.”

“They can’t, there is not enough unused memory in a metahuman brain to add this much data that quickly” Cathy protested, “not without overwriting parts of your own knowledge and memory.”

“You are right, but there is a horrible elegant solution for this” Vivio acknowledged. “You don’t copy the knowledge and context to someone, you swap it with something you know. Which got them into the mess they are at in. Somehow their thought processes began to distribute themselves through the network.”

“And now we have to find a way to separate them again” Cathy said and sighed. “That will be difficult.”

“First we have to persuade them that we may separate them at all Cathy! They are excited, they are feeling good. I am not sure they will agree to stop their little experiment!”

----

Vivio was right, they were feeling well, almost ecstatic. We tried to talk them into slowly dropping their connections, but they just refused.

They were still working on some details of the Third Eye, increasing the scalability of their link and allowing more catgirls to join them. Luckily they were running into a couple of hardware issues with the wireless link, otherwise the number of affected catgirls could have grown quite quickly.

After wasting an hour trying to persuade them to stop the experiment, we started bringing in more equipment to the lab next door to get a better look at the communication details that were happening. The situation looked stable enough so we had enough time to setup everything.

At least we believed we had.

Just an hour later the train wreck we were watching began to speed up again.

----

"Cathy?" one of the catgirls asked, "can you maybe do us a favor?"

"Sure... did you thought again about the arguments to stop your link in a controlled way so we can work on replicating it later?" Cathy answered. "We are all worried about you, we just want to help!"

"No no, Cathy... you should try it yourself, you would understand why we don't want to stop. We are doing great work here, it is exciting and fun!" she answered. "But we are still working on a few small quirks on the network... which is the reason why we need your help."

"Few small quirks" Cathy murmured, but then she nodded. "Tell me what is the problem and we can see how we can solve it."

"No, they are not really quirks... but they are annoying. You have to understand, we store everything we share between each other in short term memory, otherwise we wouldn't have enough memory" the catgirl said, "but it degrades fast unless you allow it to become long term memory."

"But you are not losing anything at the moment, right?" Cathy asked carefully.

"No, we do not loose anything. Think about it like juggling, we just keep the memories up in the air, transfer them between each other before they can degrade. Its a great solution, but it has a drawback."

Cathy folded her arms and looked skeptic at the catgirl.

"Cathy, we just have a little transmission delay problem. As long as we keep together, everything is fine. But if we split up and some of us go to the Cafeteria the connection will lag... and we will get errors in the swapping procedure!"

Cathy thought about this for a moment, then she suddenly looked horrified.

"You are in trouble and we don't have much time!" she said. "You are worried about a trivia and don't recognize the wall you will hit soon!"

"Cathy, its okay... if you can just get us some food from the kitchen we can stay together. Give us some time and we will solve this problem, do not worry."

"Oh yes, the food..." Cathy said and sighed. "Forget the damned food! If getting out of distance is a problem, I want to see how you get through the first night of sleep without messing everyone up!"

AKA Battle of the Planets if you only know the North American dub:

//www.youtube.com/v/LVKaIFxQa98?hl=en_US
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Recruitement
April, 2024

Quote:4.35 kilometres an hour.

That's what the anemometer read. The display flashed yellow, projected on top of the hellish vista beyond the transparent carbon of his helmet bubble.

"Yume', It's getting a bit blowey out here," he said.

"We've another half hour until the front arrives," the voice in his earpiece answered. "At least, that's what TokyoMet are saying."

Yumeko Hino, pilot of Ball One. Loser in the name lottery and forever annoyed about it.

"We'll Pull it when it starts getting above 5."

Four kilometres an hour at near a hundred atmospheres was already enough to start rolling pebbles along the surface. He trudged on, barely aware of the crunching pebbles under his boots. There were no shadows. There was no sunshine overhead to cast them.

It was technically night on Venus. It was still a balmy 735K outside - according to his helmet - hot enough that the clouds themselves were glowing a sickly orange. The closed in from above, pressing him into the seared rock surface.

He didn't bother to take a look around to appreciate the view. Roasted rocks, scorched stone, blasted boulders - it all looked the same. It was hell. It was his job.

Markas worked for the terraforming project. He lead one of the maintenance teams responsible for making sure the city's moorings didn't break. It was an utterly thankless job, taken only by those who found a thrill in being somewhere so utterly inhospitable to human life.

An unprotected human could survive for maybe thirty seconds in vacuum - up to a minute if he or she was lucky. On the Venusian surface - if his suit failed - he'd have mere moments to choose between being crushed entirely or being flash-roasted. His pressure-hardsuit weighed over a ton. It made him look like a dirty red Michelin man, sealed spherical joints keeping the hell outside at bay while still allowing him to move. Power assistance made it possible to walk. Heatsinks and heat-pumps kept the temperature inside at a balmy 33 degrees.

For the two days the batteries would hold out. Then the wearer got a chance to slow-cook.

Another voice crackled in his ear. "Skippy's done at beta-3-9. Skippy ready for pickup."

"There in five, Skippy."

Kay Sera. Pilot of Ball Two. Had the sense to choose his own name. Skippy had no such luck. His name had been earned.

"Five what, hours?"

"Wasn't my fault Skippy."

"Yeah, I know. Shelter in place. But I ain't staying out here all night." He paused. "Well, you know what I mean,"

"Yeah, I gotcha. Five minutes, when I finish this accumulator fin."

"Roger, roger,"

Markas arrived at his destination - a corroded lump of metal bolted hard to the ground. It'd once been shining alloy, but a year under the atmosphere of Venus had taken its toll. A mixture of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and searing heat had grown a thick case of brown corrosion on the seismograph. Only a single aerial and some straighter than natural edges differentiated it from the boulders strewn around.

"I'm here. Alpha-2-4. "

"Markas, TokyoMet revised their forceast. The front'll be here inside twenty minutes. "

"Shit. Copy that Yume'." He growled under his breath. "Remind me to kick JD's ass for taking today off."

"Hey. Look at it this way. More kudos for us."

He grumbled to himself, then clicked a switch inside his right manipulator that turned up the air-conditioning on his face, to keep the sweat off.

The replacement seismograph strapped to his hardsuit back had already begun to tarnish across its polished surface. He crouched down, lowering it to the ground. The breeze pressed against his armour, a thousand hands trying to turtle him over onto his side.

Getting back to his feet would be a real pain in the ass in such a bulky outfit. Just walking upright was a challenge. A drill strapped to his hip allowed him to crank down the bolts to lock it solidly into place on the rock. Three kicks made sure it was solidly fixed down.

"Yume, check the new box."

"It's transmitting," she answered. "Good signal. Give it another kick."

The shock of it rattled through his suit, strangely distant from his body yet still shockingly loud in his ears.

"Get it?"

"Got it."

"Great. Now come on in and get me up to that strain gauge."

"There in thirty!"

Twenty seconds later, he was pinned in place by a pair of stark spotlights. Filters on his visor automatically adjusted for the change in illumination, bringing the spherical craft behind into view. A single circular porthole in the centre of the sphere allowed him to see Yume inside, brushing purple hair off her face as she guided the craft down to meet him. A short crane jib was mounted on the top of the Ball, two smaller grabbling arms augmenting it from beneath the pilot's porthole. Crash frames mounted the thrusters and emergency equipment allowing for a rapid ascent.

It floated above him, hovering on thruster power alone. A specialise lock dropped from the crane-jib on a carbon cable.

"Hands up, Markas,"

He reached up, locking his manipulator onto the . heavy-duty latches engaging with a solid snap.

"Good to go," he broadcast.

"Alley-oop!"

He was hauled into the air by roaring thrusters, leaving the blasted desert behind. Above, loomed the tether itself, half-slack and stretching away up into the clouds.

The tether was formed from hundreds of thousands of heatpipe elements, loosely bound together into a cable that was superstrong, and capable of transmitting megawatts of heat and electricity. It was anchored into solid rock, pilings driving down over a hundred metres. The tether itself was fixed to the anchor by a flexible coupling, allowing for the natural drift of the city far above. High above, through the clouds, it met the city's rock base. It was one of a dozen such cables holding Crystal Tokyo in position.

All this work was to monitor the stress on the cable. Seismographs monitored the ground under the anchor. Strain gauges reported the tension in the cables. It all kept the city from drifting in the upper winds, monitored and controlled by redundant computers to keep the cables from being overloaded.

It was a monument of engineering genius. It lay beneath the notice and concern of all except those who had to work on it.

It was enough to make a man feel unappreciated.

"Markas," said Yumeko. "I've got a message coming through for you from head office."

He braced himself for impact. "Let me have it."

"They want to see you at head office ASAP."

"Anything else?"

"That's everything." She answered. He could hear her working switches in the cockpit. "Just orders go to head office."

He took a deep breath, looking down at the tether beneath him.

"When HO gets enigmatic. I get worried."

-------
Head Office was based in the old part of the city, in the lunar base. The lobby walls were cut from stone, then panelled with plaster and painted a pale white. A few green plants making the best of the flourescent light helped kept everything feeling far more spacious than it was.

Paintings of the city amidst arcadian surroundings reminded everyone what they were aiming for, far in the future. A pastel-coloured sofa gave visitors somewhere to sit and wait. A heavy fire-door locked behind him as he stepped inside, appreciating the cold air blowing from the overhead ventilation.

He let himself soak in it for a few seconds before finally revealing his presence to the secretary behind the desk.

"So, what's so urgent that I had to come straight here without taking a shower."

The secretary raised his head just barely above the top of his computer monitor. A single red pen indicated towards the Director's office.

"She's from Great Justice. Here to speak with you."

It was clear by his tone that he'd already shared that scandalous fact with his entire social networks.

"Oh boy."

He felt himself stiffen just a little.

"Yeah man. She took the Director's office too."

He looked at the secret behind the desk, the man more interested in the karma pouring in to his computer monitor than himself. Markas walked up to the door, braced himself for what promised to be an interesting experience, then knocked on the door.

"Come in."

It wasn't the director's voice. Her accent was wrong. He opened the door - hinge squeaking as it usually did - and stepped inside. Behind the Director's desk was a woman who wasn't the Director. His first impression of her was that her eyes were made of glass. There was something .... offputting about how they seemed to stare right through him. She was short, and almost young enough to be a teenager, with perfectly straight dark hair hanging down behind her head. A.I, he guessed. She sat far too rigid. She wore the standard Great Justice staff uniform - conspicuously absent rank insignia or an identifying name.

"Please, take a seat," she offered, with an open hand towards the single chair that'd been set up for his benefit. He looked at her for a moment.

"What's this about?" he asked, giving her a dubious look, before deciding it'd be rude not to sit.

" I'm a Troubleshooter from Great Justice, and I'm here to offer you a job."

He took a sharp breath in through his mouth. Troubleshooters came with a certain reputation.

"So, how do I know you're the real thing?" he asked fighting to keep his voice even. "How do I know you're not some imposter trying to swindle me?"

She didn't even blink. Her face remain doll-like and impassive. She reached in to her breast pocket, removing a small square of metal. Still looking right through him, she placed it on the polished desktop and slid it towards him.

"This card will let you get in contact with the Troubleshooter actually leading the mission. It includes a handle she will answer to, and a one-time code. "

He picked it up, turning it over in his fingers.. It was cold and metallic, about the size of a credit card. The details were embossed into it,

"So, why me?"

He was, after all, nobody really special in the grand scheme of things. No military skills or experience. His sole contribution to GJ had been the Crystal Osaka wreck survey - and even then he was as just one suit-driver in a much larger team.

"I've been looking at your reading materials. If I told you this was the sort of mission that involves special circumstances, what'd you say to that?"

"I'd ask what the fuck you want with a goddamned terraforming maintenance team."

"I can't tell you that unless you take the job. Classified. "

A small fire of anger lit somewhere deep inside.

"You want me to go in blind?"

"You have to. You've got skills Great Justice needs."

Her voice was still calm and mild - more like a bored telephone cold-caller than anything especially dangerous. That answer led to one obvious question.

"And if I find I don't like the job after I agree?"

She took a breath, looking momentarily disappointed.

"We'll cross that bridge if we come to it. The Classified Information Order applies. "

The threat was there. Calmly made. He knew enough about the CIO to know that it basically allowed Great Justice to do what it thought was necessary to keep the secret. He felt his body go cold.

"That's a bit of a Catch 22, isn't it?"

"It is," she confirmed. "We won't be asking you to bomb a submarine, or do anything 'messy' like that, that I can tell you. It's not a military mission, just something that's best left unacknowledged by all involved - an elephant in the room that somebody has to quietly sneak outside while everyone decides not to look."

She paused for a moment. Part of his mind was almost tempted by it anyway, if only to do something really exciting. The rest of him was happily kicking that part with what he knew of Troubleshooter reputations.

He looked down at the metal card for a second, before returning his gaze to the woman behind the desk. His mind was steadily starting to catch up with what she was telling him

"Submarine?"He questioned. "So it's under water?"

"I'm looking for people used to working under pressure."

She evaded giving the direct answer, but the implications were clear

"Deep water?"

No response from the Troubleshooter. Her expression remained Impassive.

"Europa?"

No response from the Troubleshooter. But it made logical sense to Markas. It had to be Europa. He turned the card over in his fingers, aware of the shitstorm that'd happen if somebody was caught doing dirty deeds on Europa.

"I assume you want my team was well?"

"Yes. Ideally. "

He relaxed back against the backrest of the chair, exhaling a soft sigh. "I'll discuss it with them, then if we go for it, get in touch with this card."

"We're on a short schedule. I'll need and answer in five days."

"You'll have it," he said. He was certain of that at least.

"If that is all," she said.

"Yeah," he nodded. "All I can think of right now. I'll be in touch"

"We look forward to it."

He stood up, adjusting his jacket. She was still watching him with glass eyes as he left. He crossed the floor, still aware of her gaze on his back. He opened the door and stepped outside, letting all the stress escape in one long sigh.

"Problem?" inquired the secretary.

"I'm going to the bar," answered Markas. He could still feel her looking at him through the door.

The worst part of it?

The fact that the chance to go deep-diving in the Europan Ocean where no human being had ever been before was worryingly enticing, despite the best efforts of his common sense trying to dissuade him.

Something cold, carbonated and malty. That would help.

-----

They'd taken a table for themselves in the back, away from the crowd who'd come in to watch the race. The television over the bar was showing the live feed from the Fides 500, camera focusing in one a black jet with forward-swept wings. A few were getting loud, cheering the pilot on. Apparently she used to be a member of the City Militia or something - a nobody from a nobody team that'd frightened everyone at the first few races. Markas was only half-paying attention to it all, just to make sure nobody was paying attention to him.

Yumeko sat back into her seat before sucking a mouthful of cola up through a straw. Her hair was cut short to fit inside a pilot's helmet. Her jeans were well worn and broken comfortably in. - just like the vinyl jacket she wore.

"So, some AI takes the Drummers desk and gives you this card, and you're seriously thinking of going for it."

"I think we all know what working with a Troubleshooter means," said Markas, calmly.

"Money. Lots of money!" Skippy grinned. He was the shortest of the group. Shorter than Kay. He'd shaved his head to win a bet, and kept it that way because he thought it made him look good.

"Only you," Kay sighed. She held her gently with the tips of her fingers. She was the only one who bothered to actually dress up. A red Chinese dress and long, dark chocolate hair made her stand out in a small bar. She was the ruby in a mountain of rocks.

Markas took a sip from his glass. Cheap Sapporo, nothing special. But refreshing nonetheless. "The question is. Do we want to do it or not?"

Dave - Just Dave - was staring into his empty glass. He was still drinking soda - his broad face still looking just a little pale after the previous night. His short black hair was slicked down by sweat, a soft smile forming on his lips.

"It's Europa, man. Man, nobody's ever been down there." he said. " Even if it's not Europa, I'll take that chance. There're very few places underwater where humans have been, that you'll need our skills to get to."

And that was a very hard thing for any of them to deny. A few wordless looks were exchanged between the crew. Nobody was shaking their heads. No vehement objections.

Markas took a deep breath. That was the bait they offered. He down the last of his drink. It was ultimately irresistible to anyone who'd come up to Fenspace with ambitions beyond the mundane.

"So, we're doing it then?"

Nobody said no.
-----

Original Author Verified.
Quantum Signature Verified.
No interception Detected.
Message confirmed Authentic.

To: [[Undisclosed Recipients]

Operation CAMERON Status Report. May 2024

The recruitement of the team is a go. They got in touch with me using the card three days ago. They'll be briefed on the full details when I get them out here somewhere private. Kudos to her on pulling that off. I owe her one.

Compartmentalisation-wise. I see no reason thus far to tell them what they're actually digging up. As far as the majority of people on the boat'll be concerned it's nothing more than a rare alloy. They're more likely to keep the secret if they don't know. They'll be given full control over their own equipment specifications. I'll need confirmation on the budget and appropriations details before they get here.

Preparation of the Explorer is a week behind schedule. We' re being held back by a high mundane workload. On top of that, an intelligence awakened inside the old missile computer systems - ones we were planning to remove to make space for crew cabins. We've had to do a quick emergency revision to our schedule. We're rushing hull and propulsion preparation to make the thing spaceworthy. We can fly the ship to the rock the old fashioned way and get the mind to a more stable system. Two tons of discrete electronics and core memory are not a nice place to live.

I'll enquire with Scarlet Angel about moving up the fit-out times on sensor array. I've asked Pink here to finalise the equipment specifications early - she should have them finished within three days. If we can get both transfer and retrofit done at the same time it'll save us a week and get everything back on schedule for a mid-October mission.

The ongoing Millenium move's proving to be as much a help as a hindrance. Blue's gotten approximately 50% of the crew together out of militia members. It's also giving us good cover for moving people out here. I've arranged for the specialist team to be on the next transport.

Assuming it's possible to correct the schedule with the Explorer, we hope to begin design work on the wet-gear by the third week of June, with a view to completing the construction process by the second week of August.

Our cover for this mission is a post-racing holiday. That's not going to hold out once the redshirts see we have people on the Ocean bottom. We need a researcher. It'll give credence to the claim that we're just conducting a little amateur research on the side. Ideally, the scientist will be someone with security clearance. If not, a low-level graduate student interested in some foreign travel.

If someone has any contacts in Vesta they think might be suitable - or who might know someone suitable, forward the details to me and I'll vet and arrange to make contact. I've no objection to them publishing any research provided it's properly cleared and sanitised. It'll help legitimise our cover story if it brings results.

I'll need them within a month.

Barring no change in circumstance, next update will be the end of June.

END.

I made an aside in another thread about how the wiki needs to be updated to bring the state of affairs up to Season 2. Yes, I know we still need to fill in a lot of Seasons 0 and 1.

Could folks please go through the wiki and identify their pages as to what season they apply to? (I'll have to do this as well.) Once the active pages are tagged and updated, we can assign the untagged pages to active writers...

(Maybe somebody could make some small, unobtrusive icons for this: S0, S1, S2, I, and A.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

http://m.technologyreview.com/view/4219 ... universes/

tl;dr: Astronomers find signs of concentric circles in the universal background radiation.

If you believe that the universe is cyclic - that there's been a series of Big Bangs starting off each cycle - then this shows there have been many Big Bangs.

If you believe the universe is always expanding, then this shows our universe has bumped up against other universes when they were forming...

Of course, the "evidence" might just be data artifacts. There's a better data set coming soon.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Hi,

seems to be that irc.sandwich.net is down. Someone knows what is going on?

This isn't fanfiction, per se, although you could call it a deconstruction, of sorts, of the planetary romance genre and particularly Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover stories.  The empire here has minimal interest in the natives' world.  So why are they here?  Enjoy it -- or laugh at it -- as you choose.
It's set, by the way, in a 'verse I originally developed as a customized background for the Traveller role-playing game ... that I wound up never playing.

In the waning days of the Terran Hegemony, Terrans (of no more specific ethnicity) colonized Dwimordene, third planet of a G0 V star.  It was decidedly Earthlike save for lesser gravity and thus a thinner but still breathable atmosphere, its sea level comparable to approximately 1.2 kilometers above Earth sea level.  The settlement was less than two centuries old when the Hegemony fell.  Not quite two hundred years after that, the government that had replaced the Hegemony cut Dwimordene off from interstellar commerce.  Though self-sufficient enough to not actually die out, the colony decivilized to a large extent in the centuries immediately following. 
When rediscovered just slightly less than three millennia later, Dwimordene had redeveloped a technology more-or-less comparable to Earth’s early Renaissance.  It had, however, nothing the Stellar Dictate particularly wanted … except for its location, useful for transshipments throughout a desolate portion of the Arm.  So the Dictate, in its 826th year and the 3373rd (T-standard) of the Dwimordene colony, otherwise 4568 of the Stellar Era and 6809 Common Era/Anno Domini, built its starport at Dwimordene almost completely in orbit. 
Only a few facilities were installed on the planet surface, their use restricted to port personnel — and they were as remote as could be managed from any centers of the society that had developed among the colonists’ descendants.  The Dictate had no desire to trade with the locals and, in keeping with its typical stance of benign neglect, no interest in “civilizing” them, either.  It confined the starport’s “Down” component to a barren island near the planetary equator.  The nearest Dwimordené population was some 1080 kilometers away, through reef-strewn seas, and the scorching climate at the port’s location made it seem improbable that explorers would ever venture near simply to “see what they could see.”What the Dictate failed to consider properly, however, was that although Dwimordene had lost (and rebuilt) much of civilization, it never fell so far as to lose language or literacy.  Even after three thousand years of isolation, its people retained traditions — and copies of old texts — concerning ships from the stars.  On top of this, their technology had by now recovered to the extent of constructing efficient telescopes and making astronomical observations with them.  It therefore came as rather more of a shock to the port’s local administrators than it should have when after 271 T-standard years (268 local) a small fleet of native ships approached the island on which Dwimordene Down was sited.  Stargazers in several Dwimordené nations had detected the orbital port and ships docking there; they’d also tracked the regular transfer of personnel to and from the surface installation and worked out a precise idea of where that facility must be.  Various native expeditions set out independently, but chose to cooperate when they encountered each other on the way (one satiric wit among the Dictate personnel commented that this proved the people of Dwimordene had ceased to be truly human).  Their captains jointly expressed the desire to open diplomatic and trading relations with the starfarers.  Unfortunately, the administrators were, perhaps, somewhat too blunt about the Stellar Dictate’s lack of interest in anything Dwimordene had to offer, and a great deal of wounded pride and bitterness resulted.  Later officials tried to be more tactful and conciliatory, but the damage was done, and most Dwimordené at best resented the offworlders.  At worst, they dreamed of overrunning Dwimordene Down with slaughter and pillage, and even pirating shuttles in which to raid the orbital port as well.Just over a century later, however, an unforeseen situation arose.  No one at the starport knew for certain whether the difficulty resulted from a vessel malfunction, some sort of foul play, or a combination of both, but a small group of Dictate civilians landed in Dwimordené territory, nearly six thousand kilometers from the port.  One of the Dictate’s covert agents, hurriedly briefed on local socio-political conditions, was sent to rescue the innocent and/or capture the guilty.  The briefing couldn’t, in the time available, be made sufficiently comprehensive to let the agent blend in with the local populace; the Dictate had to settle for passing him off as a minor functionary of one of the rare liaison efforts.  He was also to retrieve or destroy the landing vessel and all equipment it’d carried, lest the locals obtain technological knowledge for which the Dictate felt them unready.  Of course, no Dwimordené was noticeably inclined to cooperate with this mission….
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Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

Apparently, I'm the only one on right now.
Happy Birthday, Bob!

Cartoonist Ed Piskor has been pre-publishing in the web the pages for a planned graphic novel about the history and evolution of hip-hop culture.It's well researchead, well drawn and never boring. Well worth a look.
You can find the whole collection here: http://boingboing.net/tag/hip-hop-family-tree . It updates (almost) every tuesday, there is a link to the latest one on the BoingBoing main page