And that is why any serious party, no matter the setting, should always include at least one bard.
“Safety heuristics” should be seen as one of the most alarming phrases in the English language. It’s on a par with “What’s the worst that could possibly happen? Hold my beer!” but on a societal level.
If only John Connor had known to fight the machines through rap battle instead of weapons.
Mom’s spaghetti code.
There are times I have to just have a moment of awe for just how thoroughly and consistently stupid this timeline is becoming.
Good grief. I won’t say we’re the absolute unwiped asshole of the Multiverse - that’s clearly Worm or W40K - but we’re definitely approaching CP2077 territory. With the way things are going around here, any day now I’m expecting a murder-hobo Isekai protagonist with a Gamer system to be dropped into our lap by a ROB for teh lulz.
Hey remember that time christians sacked christian byzantium and finally ended the roman empire in the name of fighting islam, the great enemy of the christians and the roman empire?
Or all those decades where the omnipresent threat of instant nuclear annhilation was considered the main infrastructure of peace?
Things have been stupid before, and they’ll be stupid again.
If there is an again.
I’m not familiar with Worm, but… We’re doing a great job of mashing up the bad parts of a lot of sci-fi lore and backstory.
Twelve Monkeys? Yeah, we had a poorly managed pandemic.
Star Trek? We’re struggling with income inequality and experiencing difficult political times right around when the Bell Riots would have started for similar (but worse) reasons.
40k? AI was great, right up until it wasn’t. They crammed that shit into everything before the Men of Iron rebelled, and that was real AI. We might actually speed-run that bit, since we’re doing such a good job of messing things up with LLMs.
On the one hand, I know that the world resembles those things because they were inspired by real life - epidemics, economic strife, and an increasing reliance on systems that the average person doesn’t understand. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up with a privately-funded Mars colony that ultimately replaces one of Mars’ moons with a gaping hellmouth.
Worm is something like 1.8 million words, so it’s not simple to quickly summarize, but… Imagine a world. A world absolutely filled with people who are A) Idiots, B) Assholes, or C) Idiotic assholes. Ironically in this context, just about the only decent character is the AGI - which is of course shackled by Idiotic Assholes. Take that and add ten metric fucktonnes of GrimDerp™, and you’ve got Worm. Just imagine The Boys on a mixture of Amphetamines and PCP…
Don’t take that as criticism though. I respect Wildbow’s balls-to-the-wall misanthropy and - along with Watchmen - Worm is one of the best (and certainly most absolutely merciless) deconstructions of the superhero genre.
Now, about Twelve Monkeys: It’s not over yet. With RFK Jr. bringing back miasma theory and neutering the CDC, we’re well on our way to one of the really funni Influenza’s. Next, I expect the leathery brain dead twat will be advocating for balancing people’s four humors and trepanning to “get rid of the evil spirits”.
Star Trek: A relatively wonderful vision - ultimately, anyway. But unless we collectively undergo some serious transhumanistic cognitive changes of the exclusively positive kind (pft. fat chance), I doubt benevolent post-scarcity is in our future.
if we end up with a privately-funded Mars colony that ultimately replaces one of Mars’ moons with a gaping hellmouth.
Ahaha! There’s no way that could possibl- Wait. I just remembered who wants to go to Mars. You know, I might be inclined to accept an incursion from Hell - if only they descend on Elon Fucking Musk first. Totally worth it.
Edit: Snort. I can see it now. The Legions of Hell make their way from Phobos to Mars and wipes out one piddling little outpost. Virtually no resistance, especially the slightly deformed guy with the hair implants and a strong aftertaste of horse tranquilizer. The Host arrives on Earth, only to find themselves greeted as liberators. There’s banners, partying in the streets - people are throwing flower petals at them. The Daemons are exceedingly confused, but it’s definitely a nice change of pace.
And every day a Butlerian Jihad gets a little more tempting.
Please don’t tempt me with a good time.
This Choom gets it.
New plot for a Peter Watts novel just dropped!
SLAM poetry
The pen is mightier than the data center.
“That she believed there was but little comfort to be found in a house that harbored poets.”
