#SciFiSat [1/7] [And so my future history continues as I told you it would, from Chapter 14 of The Termite Queen v.1. Note especially posts no.6-7 below – the death of our internet.]

#SciFiSat [2/7] The TWLs also used more conventional weapons. Budreau attacked the Islands of Britan with radiant bombs, destroying both Kambridge University, which was conducting research into the neutralization of nanobots, and the storied Old City in the heart of Lunden;…

#SciFiSat [3/7] …the seat of British government was wiped out in an instant, killing the last British King. Even more lethal radiant weapons left longer lasting effects. Thus, areas which had escaped nanobot assault, like the Middle East and coastal areas of North Ostrailia,

#SciFiSat [4/7] had been saturated with a kind of radiation that had a very long half-life. And certain parts of the world, like the east coast of North Ammerik, had received double doses of destruction from both radiant bombs and nanobots.

#SciFiSat [5/7] In the midst of all this a human population poured its last energies into the primeval drive to stay alive – existing barely above stone-age level, dependent on the grudging largess of local tyrants. Social, religious, and cultural institutions succumbed, …

#SciFiSat [6/7] leaving only oral tradition to inform and restrain human behavior. In the 21st century most of the world’s knowledge had been embedded in a complex web of digital hardware,

#SciFiSat [7/7] … but when the worldwide power grid and satellite system failed in the mid-22nd century, this web turned to smoke and vanished. By the 25th and 26th centuries global communication and transportation, including ocean and air shipping, had become extinct.

#SciFiFri [1/4] “I really thought Hurtline couldn’t be as stupid as he seemed. Surely he would look at the results of the tests and come to understand that creeping jumps couldn’t be made safe! But it seems I was wrong. People that stupid and narrow-minded and stubborn really do exist.”

#SciFiFri [2/4] [I realize the preceding has nothing to do with #money, but in light of our country’s current predicament I thought it was appropriate. I knew nothing about DT when I created the Hurtline character, but afterwards I thought one was a perfect model for the other.]

#SciFiFri [3/4] Engraved on the back were the words, Cmdr. Kolm MaGilligoody, in recognition of his heroic death on the Darter, 10.5.2761. “Mmm. Exquisite workmanship. Is that twenty-two karat gold?”

#SciFiFri [4/4] “I think so. Gov paid out a few credits of the public’s tax money for these two trinkets. The price of – one man’s life and another man’s sanity … ”

#1linewed “I’ll tell you something in confidence – I tried to proposition Lt. Tulu once and she told me in no #uncertain terms where to get off.” Wally whooped, then sobered hastily. “Oops, sorry, Captain, sir. It’s just that – no, I really doubt the two of you would make a good match.”

#1linewed [Dana’s cats] [1/2] Queenie, the long-haired ruler of the house, was nearly a year old now; the close-furred Varlet was perhaps two, black except for one white hind paw, some white patches on his belly …

#1linewed [2/2] …and another off-center patch on his head that half surrounded one yellow eye, giving him an air of slight derangement. His demeanor suggested an #uncertainty that he could sustain the kind of deportment that would ensure him his next meal.

#1linewed In private Kibby said quietly to the Captain, “Do you sense the crew is feeling a bit … well, #uncertain about our fate?” “Yeah,” said Robbie. “It’s suddenly occurred to everybody that there’s a real possibility we might not get back to Earth.”

#SciFiSat [1/6] [More of my future history, from Chapter 14 of The Termite Queen v.1]

#SciFiSat [2/6] Historians call the last half of the 24th c. the “Apocalyptical,” after an archaic word for the end of the world. Planet Earth had already endured numerous TWLs, but the worst of the lot came to power in that period: Jean-Jaq Budreau, the “Butcher of Strasberg.”

#SciFiSat [3/6] He and his minions invented self-replicating nanobot weapons – microscopic pseudo-organisms that proliferated by extracting the proteins from the DNA of the cells of any biological entity they encountered and using them to manufacture more of their own kind.

#SciFiSat [4/6] They were lethal to all life in any place where they appeared; their advance was almost impossible to stop except by destroying all living things in their path, causing them to go dormant in the sterilized soil & wait for an unwitting living organism to wander in.

#SciFiSat [5/6] Budreau unleashed this weapon on Uropia, wiping out the Franco-Jerman Federation as well as small independent nations like Nederlend. The use of nanobot weapons spread to other parts of the globe,

#SciFiSat [6/6] rendering large swathes of Afrik and of the Western Hemisphere uninhabitable. Only in the 200 years prior to the 30th century had progress been made in neutralizing the danger of these self-replicating assassins, a process assisted enormously by the Krisí’i’aidá. [To be continued]

#SciFiFri [1/5] [Navigating the Closing Gate] The local lore was full of tales about the #passage of Ek’dai’daim’a, although when its voyage had taken place varied from two-antennae count of years earlier to as many as five.

#SciFiFri [2/5] The krin’shka’zei held a ritual, with priestly prayers & appeals to the Sea King & the Highest Mother for safe #passage. [And Bu’gan’zei summons the White Bird]: "Sweet fierce bird of the air, beautiful white flyer, "Fate tells us to be guided by your feathers!...

#SciFiFri [3/5] “Rise now and seek the path! Rise high above the twisting path and see – See what we cannot and bring us safe, Safe through the wrack of space and time, Unto the End of the World – Unto our destination!"

#SciFiFri [4/5] Swai’fol’zei and Tro’tei’a both called out, “One notch to starboard – ahead slow. Narrow #passage! Stroke – one, two, three, four … ” We barely made it between two sand banks, but Ko’vok’zei seemed unerring in her judgment of the width and we scraped through.

#SciFiFri [5/5] And the cliff face was approaching, enlarging with alarming speed. After more sharp twists to starboard and then to port, we found ourselves staring down the narrowest #passage any of us had ever seen in all our voyaging.

#1linewed “Do you know you are an idiot?” Za’dut said cheerfully to A’zhu’lo, and we all began to gibe at one another, and the conversation flowed into a lighter channel. But I knew that in its gut the twin of Ki’shto’ba still #yearned to be other than it was.

#1linewed Is’a’pai’a cried, “I will fight w/ you, Ki’shto’ba! I #yearn to be your liegemate – to fight at your side & learn from you how to fight well!” Ki’shto’ba huffed ambivalently. “The Chieftain may be right – this may not be the kind of battle in which a neophyte shd first dent its head.”

#1linewed [1/2] But that sending! All my life I will remember it. It was wordless but yet seemed to carry some kind of import. Words, or the #yearning for words, seemed embedded in it – words …

#1linewed [2/2]…that shivered on the sharp edge of meaning, that wanted to yield up their burden but could not. It was terrible – isolated, lonely, longing … lost ... [The wail of Rash’ta’rak (Grendel)]

And so I will be largely fabricating this character out of nothing, and yet I think I can portray him with a fair degree of accuracy … Yes, it is something like what we discussed before – made from the imagination, yet #revealing truth … #vss365

“It would not tell me its name, saying that I might be tortured into #revealing it if things went awry. I replied that we visitors were appalled at the way this place is governed, and it said I did not know the half of it.” #vss365 [Sound familiar?]

“You are also called the Seeker and perhaps the Finder – that remains to be #revealed – and also the Never Satisfied. Ai-i-i – something in that troubles me … What is it, Twa’sei, that you are so impatient to learn?” #vss365

#SciFiSat [1/6] [Continuing my summary of future history, from Chapter 14 of The Termite Queen v.1]

#SciFiSat [2/6] To add to Earth’s misery, the ensuing couple of centuries saw a series of catastrophic natural disasters. In the year 2290 earthquakes destroyed the civilization of almost the entire western coast of the Old Ammeriken States …

#SciFiSat [3/6] … while the Yellowstone Supervolcano erupted in 2410, spreading a layer of ash over the entire north central and northeastern half of the Ammeriken continent and halting significant agricultural production in that region for nearly a century.

#SciFiSat [4/6] Simultaneously, extreme climate alterations, the result of the overuse of fossil fuels and the destruction of forests, were causing the atmosphere to warm and sea levels to rise, changing the configuration of coastlines and drowning the population of many small islands.

#SciFiSat [5/6] Ocean currents were reconfigured as the polar caps shrank; Uropia shivered in an unfamiliar chill and the white bear of the north polar regions became extinct, along with many other lifeforms that could not adapt quickly enough to an altered environment.

#SciFiSat [6/6] Oceans were degraded by overfishing and by the pollution produced by the technology of too many billions of people; many species of fish either died out or became too infected with toxins to provide a safe food source. [Again, to be continued next week]

#SciFiFri “This island has had a city on it for a 1000 years, but by the 25th century it was a complete ruin, so all of modern Sinnapor’s buildings are under 150 years old. PDA, it was a #nation unto itself, with a rather autocratic but successful and enlightened government."

#SciFiFri “EarthGov likes to proclaim that our planet has eradicated war, and they HAVE eliminated world-wide #nationalistic and imperialistic conflicts, but they still haven’t completely stopped people from killing each other for smaller causes.”

#SciFiFri “Old Nederlend carries the dubious historical distinction of being the first #nation to suffer assault by nanobot weapons – those insidious, self-replicating, microscopic DNA-eaters. Did Budreau and his technological assassins understand what they were unleashing?”

#1linewed [1/2] “There are far too many problem spots, not just here in South Asia, but in Southwest Quad, East Uropia, Afrik… Some are even more dangerous than the present example, particularly where people are seeking political power rather than cultural and religious autonomy.

#1linewed [2/2] “The #desire for secular power grips and destroys souls even more insidiously than misguided religious beliefs, which, at least in their beginnings, had moral underpinnings. And of course when the two combine … well, that’s the most dangerous of all.”

Yes, plants! Their flowers sit atop pads of leaves in the nastiest of the pools and exude a smell like rotten #carrion. Apparently some insects and little lizards like that smell. When these animals venture onto one of the leaves, it closes up over them and swallows them. #vss365

“This one I also saw before,” quavered Bu’gan’zei, “but not so close up. It is the #carrion bird eating the shackled Warrior on the cliff.” “Thru’tei’ga’ma, this bird,” said Ki’shto’ba. “What is it?” “Not yours, but one might say that this one, too, is very angry.” #vss365

#SciFiSat [1/6] [I promised to continue each Saturday my Future History from my summary in The Termite Queen, v.1, so here goes!]

#SciFiSat [2/6] The militant religionist movement that began early in the 21st century resulted in a succession of conflicts known as the Zealot Wars. Fundamentalist believers took over the organizational structures of all ancient religions, which fought openly …

#SciFiSat [3/6] … both among one another and among splinter groups within themselves. The fanatical Romish Letin Revival of the 22nd century led to the first bombing of the holy Islemist and Judish sites in Arbia and Israil. This movement in turn saw its last Pope assassinated …

#SciFiSat [4/6] … in 2310 by a faction of Kristen Scripturists. Later reconstructions of the Middle Eastern holy sites were ultimately obliterated in 2341, not by Kristens but by radiant bombing perpetrated by insane Islemist and Judish tyrants.