Cartels for Dummies

[tags] Fiction, Economic [/tags]

[rights] Encopy [/rights]

[until LDbypass] [encrypt] Rules of Correction [/encrypt] [/LDbypass]

[theme] Risk that tech for energy, nano, bio, and/or cog may not be convergent or mutually supportive [/theme]

[display] Tour Nonseen [/display]

[synopsis]

Initial context:

Early version of Correction is in command of organizational executives. Economy begins growth until disrupted by wealthiest. Sustainability prevented by 7-year pump and dump cycle. Authority is limited by ideology. Promotions are auctioned. Ambitious may borrow then recover from illicit trades, commissions on regulation of legitimate growth, or manipulation of states, industries and common treasuries. External teaching is prohibited. Public resists contradictory rules, lack of liberty, conflict of interest, abuse of privilege, and artificial poverty.

Watch, having sought target on earth, follows quantum tracks through electron to Sun to Space Central which is unfortunately destroyed as result of instabilities in simultaneous integration event.

Aviator vessel specializes in design of mobile architecture such as hotels, hospitals and large stadiums which can be aerolifted and transported around planet where modules can be combined to shelter displaced populations. Recognizes sudden disappearance of scifi needed by public imagination. Tasks H/I/D/E group which hacks nowzilla, browses and texts Renaissance to find inventor, careful of primitive/high-tech paradox. They also secretly boost a couple of musical notes for metal ontology album, “Money is Data”.

Davinci sees letters appear on canvas backwards, has near-death-experience, struggles through mental layers of soul, existence, self, body, empathy, imagination, and reflection of world, then regains senses and builds machine to represent the problem. Derives notion of tablet slices. Applies creative recycling toward sustainable artifact to hold values until disaster recovery, and buries under studio. This is eventually unearthed by attempt to run internet cable underground and is immediately censored.

Turns out Watch actually captured E# which leads former to discovery of bug in Correction and latter to search for missing blue notes.

Skullective resignedly attempts to reacquire original target, configures suitable human form from bio farm and live bodies, and memory-mines others for high-value items which can be confiscated by Correction. Survives Mortality mishap by unidressed technique of spraying skin cells on trauma regions to maintain vitality. Confronts Aviator and they battle until one or the other’s self-destruct is accidentally triggered and they are both gone.

[/synopsis]

[prompt] Select action [/prompt]

Sat, Feb 6, 2010  Permanent link

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The Last Mantra

The animal sniffed around torn up illustrations that littered the area amid discarded electronic devices.

Mary: “Must be the ruins of a library, Fran.”

She kicked aside an ITab that had lost power long ago, dark except for an after-image of a news story entitled “Bank Reform”. A notebook fluttered nearby so she picked it up. A series of fiery words suddenly appeared floating a little ways in front of her spelling “Rules of Correction”.

Mary screamed: “Ah!” The animal jumped around her.

“Gotcha.” A big woman appeared at her side.

Mary: “Hi, who are you?”

“My name’s Merc, but everybody calls me Minotaur for some reason. Stupid nickname won’t go away. I keep things from disappearing mostly.”

Mary: “What was that?”

“Somebody’s thesis maybe. Hardcopies are nice because of semi-permanence and extensibility. I’ll take that.” She grabbed it and buried it between her arm and bosom.

Mary: “No, I meant the writing in the air.”

Minotaur: “You probably need to eat something. I have things to do. Please don’t try to snatch anything else.” She walked off.

“You must be a newb.”

Mary turned and another lady was standing there looking bored. “Why?”

“Special effects on the lettering. Keeps away the fanatics.” She gestured and the floating words turned normal.

“Thanks, who are you?”

“Why don’t you ask Plague?”

“Who?”

“Your pet. She has the cutest big eye. Synthetic body parts, right?”

“That’s Fran. She adopted me recently when I was too exhausted and rode on her back.”

“Haven’t seen any quality animats since apocalypse day. Probably worth a lot. Nasa used to make them. Something about artifact-driven-culture-rebuilding, shorten the anarchy in case the Book of Eli was an entirely wrong version, stuff like that. Proably as likely to succeed as a linux manual. Speaker, American Indians.” The floating page of text refreshed. “Like these myself.”

Mary: “Wow.”

Lady: “Simple really, except for the folks who rank on eachother all the time. Their vocabulary is extremely limited. Speaker, Human GUI LD, bios.” A text table appeared. “Read it then swallow it.”

Mary looked puzzled.

“Kidding. Old habits. Nevermind." She pointed at the list. "They’re good at avoiding Correction exploits. ”


HAX Character..Strength................Travel...............Defense.............Name
Appless...............newb......................hitchhiking.......denial..................Mary
Fran.....................materials...............trotting...............soulful-eye.........Plague
CoverTab............magician...............boots.................confusion...........Lita
BarnStormer…..mentalist………...canoe................swarming...........Amon
RobberBaron.....muscle..................glider.................surgical-strike...Fred Smith
WrapAround.......mechanic..............wheels..............irony....................Dave
Shomer...............mirror-universe....word-of-mouth.volume...............Lars
Avatar...................entertaining..........piracy.................recruiting...........Ozzie
Minotaur...............speed...................ubiquitous.........booby-traps......Merc


Mary: “CoverTab looks like you. Is Lita your real name?”

CoverTab: “Right. You tell anybody and you’re toast, get it? You like heavy metal?” A rhythmic guitar suddenly was jamming in the background.

Mary: “Who’s Shomer?”

A thunderous voice yelled “You wretched?!” A thin young guy was standing next to them.

CoverTab: “Blind storyteller and keeper of the archives. Nice if he got the facts straight for a change.”

Shomer: “Go ^*#~ yourself” he said very loudly. CoverTab waved her hand and he started turning his head in different directions as if trying to hear any sounds. “Where are you? Oh well, back to the stacks.” He vanished.

CoverTab: “Leave it to the civil servants.”

Mary saw a bunch of people walking up to them.

BarnStormer: “Keep the faith. We can make this work globally. We’ll all be better off.”

RobberBaron: “Yeah. Compared to nuke nirvana. You need my latest software for Arknets.”

WrapAround: “What’s that pet made of? That would be good cover fabric for a smart car, or better yet, a self-designing starship.”

CoverTab: “Will you get out of here! Where’s E#?”

Mary shrugged. “Not in the table.” WrapAround patted Fran on the head and smiled.

Suddenly the lighting was really bright for a moment creating a glint on a wristwatch which expanded in size and rose vertically until it blocked the sun then zipped off and disappeared.

“CoverTab: Lucky for you, darned Watch can’t tell the difference between human life and a sunspot or we’d end up in the Correction.” Mary again had a quizzical expression. “You’ve heard of Angels, ET, Terminators, Cylons? Side-effects of Shomeric agenda.” She waved her hand and everyone vanished.

Fran yelped so Mary picked her up and started off again.

Sat, Jan 30, 2010  Permanent link

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Intern ET

“UXRP RP HGVB JBZRBEB UXRP RP WOU TOI IBGZ UXRP DOW'U ZGPU TOIBEBI UXRP DOW'U ZGPU GU GZZ BZRHRWGUB UXB PFBWB RU'P RZZBQGZ WOD UO PRWQ OMUZGDP GPV UXB IBGPOWP DXC UXB LGC UXB HMPRF LRBL WOD RHNIRPOWBL TOI HC FIGTU R PHRZB GWL XGEB UO ZGMQX RW HC XBGL UXB HMPRF'P PURZZ GZREB UXB LGC UXB HMPRF LRBL” - HL-45


Skullective: What is this supposed to mean?

Watch: It was inscribed on a device captured from the Hitchhiker’s Guild.

S: Probably another warning from Fred Smith, the fedextraterrestrial, still trying to outmaneuver the post office.

W: Can run it through the magic spell-checker adapted for scifi to analyze the color of dialogue.

S: Don’t bother. Probably a throwback to time hacking when they used curve servers for cube surfing. Let’s get this done. Who will be inserted as observer to send back into Mortality without memory this time? They can send dispatches to our contacts, assumed to be in their present, up to the end. Maybe they will find a clue about the missing sciences.

W: Target is Mary Shelley. Self component plugin already prepared for opensource experience.

S: Try not to mess it up this time. We’ve had enough alternate past without Nasa, the Mideast, atomics, or oil surviving the mid-21st-century demographics.

W: Computation possibilities after hypothesis formulation and testing indicate the aliens’ history remains unaltered. This leads to probability of reanimation, and extinction of remaining barriers to immortality and logic.

S: By the way, what time is it? Better get a move on. Hopefully you fixed the side-effects of earthquakes and espionage.

W: No problemo.

Sat, Jan 16, 2010  Permanent link

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