Eric Soriano

[asher-the-diaster]

the sister planets part 9

the penner project

this is part of a ingoing humans are space orcs series that i'm not totally sure how i ended up writing, as always the link to the part index is here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DYMuKK5CIgJgDapNbu5sBqr_b5uT1Yz4pJoJ2fuAk4w/edit?usp=sharing

Earth was in chaos, and I had never felt this useless in my whole life.

After first contact with extraterrestrials, the government tried to keep the information classified, which did not work. And when footage leaked and people discovered that the Canadian prime minister had been at diplomatic contact soon the fact that i was the one who made contact was out of the bag too.

My crew was on leave to recover from the ordeal, and deal with the fact that ourship exploded, so I was on earth witnessing the chaos first hand, unable to do anything.

Aliens.

Everyone was up in arms.

Riots in the streets, death prophecies, just general incoherent panic.

My crew ended up in a secure facility, partially to monitor our health both physical and mental, mostly to keep us safe from being targeted by the riots outside.

Governments went largely silent on the issue. Censorship cut off information from the general public in an attempt to curb the chaos, it did not work.

After three weeks of non stop general panic a nurse told me that there was someone who wanted to see me.

I got dressed as professionally as you can in a hospital with a broken leg and walked out on my crutches, now a human model. I was kinda sad they didn’t let me keep the one twee-ake had given me.

The nurse led me into the common room, then handed me a translation device.

“The fuck? I thought this was my family or something.”

“They’ll call you in when they're ready.”

“Okay...” i put on the device, it looked like a pair of over the ear headphones someone had removed one ear from and pushed the other one out, the point to that was to ensure that you could still hear your environment during translation, i put it on and pushed the bottom that let the mic pick up my voice to translate.

Soon after I had the device on, the other members of my crew started to arrive in the common room. Unsurprisingly Olivera looked the most put together, how she had gotten her uniform in here I don't know. Davoin wore jeans and a t- shirt, and Richardson was in sweats.

None of us seemed to have any clue what was going on.

I was called in first, they led me to a conference room type place at the end of the hall.

Inside was my platoon leader, the nato and spto generals, a rep from the UN, and my brother, the prime minister of canada.

“Should I be in uniform?” I asked.

“It's fine captain, we understand that you are recovering from your... ordeal.”

“Right.” get abducted by aliens one time and everyone puts the kiddy gloves on around you, “May I ask what is happening here?”

“Sure, so you are obviously aware of our first contact with extraterrestrials, and the problems that have arisen on their front and ours.”

“Yeah.”

“Well our delegations and their contact crew, I believed they were called, have come up with a solution to the problems that have arisen due to these particular circumstances.”

“You mean the fact that the two most advanced species in interstellar life happen to be martians and venusians who are terrified of us because they think they were children of a death god? Or the riots about aliens existing?”

The UN rep looked at Mathew, “don’t look at me I've seen her cuss at a president, that is filtered for her.”

“Anyways. The spto rep said, “the solution that was reached was a joint study in interstellar space, we send a crew on a interspecies ship that will run odd jobs in order to help with the galaxy and they also send crews to join us, we get to study and learn from each other.”

“That sounds like a plan but why tell me?”

“Because,” Matt said, putting his head in his hands, “they want you to run it.”

“Well you too captain the ship, not necessarily do the study.”

“Why me? I stuck at improving humans opinions on humans, why woud anyone want me to represent the planet?”

“The martians and venusians, twee-ake and titita? Asked for you by name.`` Mathew said, rubbing his temples.

“Ok,” i trusted those too, they had saved my life, if they were involved i trusted the project.

“What?”

“As long as my crew can come I'll do it.”

“Catain,” the nato general said, “we are talking about being light years from your home, at the wimes of a race and we know nothing about, I implore you, think this through.”

“I have, these people saved me and my crew's lives, that bodes a lot of trust for me, plus they legitimately think we are children of a death god, they won’t try to hurt me. If my crew is allowed to come and is willing, I'm in.”

“Your crew, if willing, were on our list of potentials, along with an even number of citizens from the spto, we refuse to let nato do this without our input.”

“Understood.”

“Can I talk to my sibling out in the hall?” Mat asked, “great” he said not waiting for an answer, he pulled me by the arm and into the hall.

“What are you doing?” he asked in a whisper yell.

“Agreeing to help my people advance, how is this different from you running for pm, this is my way of helping earth.”

“This could end badly, we don’t know anything about these people. What if they hurt you?”

“Did you miss the part where they saved my life?”

“You could get even more hurt.”

“My leg wasn’t there flaut, and even if it was you can get hurt walking down the street, the possibility of injury is nothing new to me matthew.”

“Sam please.”

“I love you, but this isn’t your decision to make.”

10 minutes later me and my crew were in front of the brass, as they finished the project's explanation.

“Well?” i asked, “we can’t force you to go but i’m not doing this without you, what do you say?”

“Let's blow this popsicle stand.” Richardson exclaimed.

“In 5 weeks when the ship and your broken bones are ready.”

“Am i the only one who is wondering how this is going to stop the riots?” Oliveira asked.

“We are keeping the interior mission declassified, we are working for open information and familiarity to stop the panic.”

“I feel like that logic is flawed but okay…”

As we discussed the details I caught a glimpse of Mathew, he looked worried sick, but he would come to understand, wouldn’t he? This was what the oracle started, and what our remaining members would finish.

[chaoticevilbean]

Sometimes, she thought she could hear it. Sometimes, the voices would ring in her head, echoes of something done and gone. Sometimes, she would be back in that moment, surrounded by black and navy and that stupid neon orange.

"I'd heard that Humans had strong memories."

She could feel a phantom wind blowing through her hair. She could smell salt, even though she knew there was none in the air. She could see small flashes of movement in her peripheral.

"Do you... do you believe you are able to recall the Battle of Stil'mon?"

She heard the humming of the blade, the warcries from the enemy, the song that never ceased. She smelled copper, the dampness of metal and dirt. Her mouth was dry, but she could taste the soup from dinner. She could feel the strange weightlessness, the fabric rubbing on her skin, the compression of her shoes.

"We didn't know that much about our enemies. We knew they were older than us. More evolved and more advanced. We knew they were superstitious. They thought music was magic. It is, but they thought all music was of war and danger. It's not. Not for us. We knew they were scared. Scared that we kept going.

They recruited the children. There were rules, of course. Testing, restrictions, the same as always. But they recruited us. They said to run at the first sign of a true assault, of violence along with the fear. They told us that we could fight, but we couldn't actually fight.

Our jobs were simple. Sing. We were to sing and dance, to do it in unison, to do it wild and strong and loud. We were meant to be summoners. To our enemies, we were summoning ancient magicks, calling upon our world for protection. To our allies, we were summoning them to the battle.

We were singing everything from professionally made songs to those we would sing around a fire while sleeping in our wilds. We sang and we danced and we ran when they raised their swords at us. We laughed and we cheered even as we retreated, and not once did we ever stop singing. We counted it as a loss, a further defeat, to end the songs, to end our terror tactics. It was our job, and we would not fail.

The children were hired to guard things. We were on a boat. The Still Man. That's what we called it. We were to warn the adults, the soldiers, of when our enemies boarded.

I remember the night it happened. Darker than it should've been, and we didn't notice enough. Quieter than it should've been, and we didn't notice that enough either. I was patrolling the upmost levels. I was on the top, the very top. My friend was there. I'd known her for years.

We were boarded. I remember the first thought in my head was that they were ugly. Not because of structure or style. They wore armor that was this hideous color. It made my nerves act up and was far too bright for a stealth mission. We learned later that they can't see what we call neon colors.

We sang a camp song that time. Yogi Bear. A silly song, about a silly animal. They were terrified. Everyone that could hear us started singing along, rushed up to join us. We were summoners, calling to our brothers-in-arms.

The inevitable moment came. Our enemies had realized we would indeed flee from their weapons, even if we continued our magic. A bold one swung early. They hit their mark, injured one of us. They didn't know we were children, that that's why we ran. They wouldn't have attacked, then.

Everyone kept singing. And for once, for the first time, none of us moved. None of us fled or started a retreat. We sang. We sang and we danced and we scared them off the ship. They carried word back to their leaders, a message that we were unstoppable now. Our magic had come to fruition.

We won that battle, easily. And the Battle of Still Man was the last one of that war, because they knew they wouldn't defeat us. To do so would be their undoing, for we do not falter. Even when faced with death, we keep singing and we keep dancing and we stay wild.

I recall the Battle of Still Man, because it is etched into the minds of everyone who was there."

She smiled, small, calm. The past was behind her. The wind was the vents. The soup was from lunch, not dinner. The sweat and blood she smelled was from biting her lip and generally being nervous. The movement was like all the other illusions her brain conjured. She could not hear the voices singing, only the song she sang during rainstorms, playing in her head.

"You said they hit their mark. What... what was their mark, Ambassador?"

Her smile got a little smaller, but she kept it up. Even as she tugged up the fabric. Even as she pressed at the seam. Even as she let her prosthetic glow purple and green.

She walked away, the black cloth falling back down. There was no mechanical whirring, no clunks of metal on metal. She was broken, bruised, damaged, and she kept smiling. She bore the marks of one who had seen Death, and yet she was alive. Alive to give help. Alive to give advice. Alive to be more than the warrior she had no doubt become.

The Battle of Stil'mon was the last of that war. There were more wars after it.

[llamagoddessofficial]

[This idea has been rattling in my brain and I had to share it.]

I know we all love the ‘humans are space orcs’ concept… but imagine, onboard the new ship they’ve been assigned to, the human meets an actual space orc. A massive monster… fangs and tusks and scars and a battle-hardened stare, looming over all the other life forms on the ship in its thick indestructible armour it refuses to remove. It barely drinks, it doesn’t need sleep, its massive shoulders are heavy with the terrible things it has experienced. Compared to the squishy & delicate human body, this thing is a walking tank.

… Except instead of hating/ignoring one another, the human and the monster start bonding over both coming from death planets. The human is excited to find a life form who doesn’t quiver with fear at the vague description of a jellyfish and the monster is ecstatic to meet someone who understands the feeling of being bitten by a qua’lem (cats are pretty close). They sit together and compare dangerous animals and locations as the other aliens look on in confusion and fear… oh, you also have dense jungles of deadly hidden predators, boiling acid lakes, tamed predatory killers, and areas with horrendously high and low temperatures? Sick!! 

It doesn’t take long before the two of them become totally inseparable. The human loves not feeling like some kind of crazy outsider and the monster is overjoyed they’ve finally found an equal in this unkillable marshmallow.

Monster: When I was a youngling, a grol-lik stung straight through my armour. The pain lasted for approximately 16 human hours. Human: Oh yeah man, I get that. As a kid I got a wasp stuck in my shirt. It stung me like four times, it was awful, and all my cousins just laughed at me… Monster: [using their arm screen to research human courting methods] I see.

[driiaz]

Not quite an ‘Orc’ per-se, but eh, close enough. See here giant spiky Deathworlder simping for tiny shouty Deathworlder.

[marlynnofmany]

This art is amazing and makes it so much better.

[thefalloutdiaries]

Permed

“Is recorder on?”

“Yeah it’s on.”

“Recording?”

“Yup.”

“Live feed or..?”

“Nah it’s just recording. We’ll edit this out later.”

“Really?”

“Probably not.”

“Fine, let’s just get started then.”

“Please state your name for the record.”

“My name is Professor Mohammad bin Hukukk”

“What is your profession?”

“I am a professor of Xeno Culture at New Harvard University.”

“Was this your profession during the Texar-Hakara war?”

“No, no my profession was a Orbital Drop Trooper, Sergeant, First Terran Marines.”

“Can you give us an explanation of what your job entailed?”

“We drop in, we fight our way out.”

“You took part in the fighting?”

“Yes.”

“During the assault on Rygel Nine, were you with the Marines?”

“Yes, yes I was.”

“Can you describe it for me?”

“Long. Muddly. Bloody.”

“Come on Professor Hukukk, you can do better.”

“You’re making a documentary?”

“Actually we’re making a movie. We want it to be as close to reality as possible. From what we’ve heard even the folks back at Galactic Studios won’t need to embellish much.”

“How much sway do you have with the studio?”

“I’m a Senior Producer.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

annoyed sigh from off camera

“I have a lot of influence. I’m pretty much in charge of this production.”

“Then I want your personal assurance that the names and places I tell you won’t be changed. These men deserve that, and much more besides.”

“You have my word.”

“I want a copy of this transcript immediately after the interview.”

“Fine. Can we please move on to what I came here for?”

“Alright, ask away.”

“Professor, tell me about the lead up to, and the battle at, Rygel Nine.”

“As I said I was with the First Marines. Specifically with Third Company, Second Battalion.”

“The infamous Riley’s Rangers.”

“The very same. Our CO was Captain Hank Riley. Tough old bastard, like a father to every man in that Company. Underneath him were the three Lieutenants. Jacobs, Stern, and Gibbs. Gibbs was a First Lieutenant, second in command of the Company. I was transferred to them two weeks before drop. Just enough time to learn the names of the Captain and Lieutenants, get used to my unit, then suddenly we’re in orbit over Rygel Nine. Texar-Hakara world. The first of their original worlds we were invading. Earth was… she gone by that point. Burned by the bugs. Some of the men talked quietly about what their plans were for when they went home. Most considered that bad luck.

“I was sitting with my squad when Captain Riley gave us his speech. Hold on I brought a recording of it…”

a new voice enters the conversation, only the slightest hiss of static mars the audio file

“Men, today we’re dropping into enemy territory, real enemy territory. It’s fortified and they’re waiting for us. We have never dropped onto a world like this before. All Texar-Hakara are to be considered armed and dangerous until the local hive mind is taken out. That’s our job. We’re Riley’s Rangers for a reason. We drop into the meanest parts of enemy territory to do the most damage. That’s what we’re doing today. Stick together, work with your squad. You’ll come out of this just fine.”

the voice stops, as does the faint static

“When Marine Shock Troops drop into enemy held territory the CO sometimes plays some heavy metal or hard rock or something to get the men pumped up. It works too, wipes away some of the fear. Just enough so that the men can still function as they strap themselves into what is essentially a big bullet, that’s going to be fired out of an under powered railgun directly at the planet’s surface. Captain Riley always played Hard Corps . Old song, but damn good. The Captain came on, told us he’d see us on the other side.

"The Captain never made it down. Anti-air took out the command pod on the way down. Captain Riley and Lieutenants Jacobs and Stern were wiped. Never even heard a peep. Thankfully SOP said Gibbs had to be in a different pod, and he was.

"Lieutenant Gibbs took command. Good man, solid. Exactly the right guy to replace the Captain in combat. He got us up, armed, and organized, and he did it fast. My squad was on the far left flank with the rest of First Platoon. Our job was to hold the line and secure an exit line for Second Platoon, who would be handling the assault on the hive mind.”

“Is this where things started to go wrong?”

“Things started to go wrong when the goddamn brass decided that they wanted to drop us in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the middle of a goddamn Texar-Hakara staging ground.”

“Jesus.”

“Damn straight. The first we realize that we’re in the middle of another grand cockup is when Third Platoon got hit by fifty Texar-Hakara warrior drones. They took sixty percent casualties in an hour. We were told to reinforce them and dig in while First Platoon scouted the area. First platoon got jumped two hundred meters out, every last one of them dead, including Lieutenant Gibbs. Now I’m in command of what we can only reasonably call ourselves an over-strength platoon. And we’re smack in the middle of a staging ground for the Third Hakaran Army.

"We radioed for support, and of course the nearest supporting elements were five klicks away. Through the largest concentration of Texar-Hakara on the continent. And we didn’t even have a direct line to them, because we were supposed to be linking up with another force twenty klicks to the north, and our communications were only keyed to Orbital Command and transmit a confirmatory ping to other Terran forces. Originally it was intended to keep us beneath the radar, so to speak. To allow us to get close to the hive mind without giving away our position. Instead what it did was effectively cut us off from the rest of the Army. Orbital was too busy to relay our messages for us.

"I was working with our tech guy, Corporal Swanson, to bypass the block on the radio when the first wave hit us. We knew the Texar-Hakara were out there, and we’d dug in feverishly. We weren’t equipped to hold the line against hundreds of enemies, but each soldier had been issued the standard anti-tunneling package. Slam a spike into the bottom of a foxhole, and the SATUFP, Strategic Anti-Tunneling Unit for Fixed Positions, shoots out thousands of nanomite cables throughout the ground, sets them firmly in place, connects them, and runs a million volt current through them. Try and tunnel into the foxhole, and you get an ugly zap. It had forced the bugs to engage us on the surface, and we set up a few some meters in front of our position. It was a good way of encouraging the bastards to come up in front of us.

"And holy mother of god did they come up in front of us. Hundreds of them came charging out of the forest, no warning, no sound except the clicking of their legs and their blasts of plasma. We had entrenched defenses, some light plasma machineguns, and the rest of us had laser carbines, plasma grenades, the usual outfit. It was a brutal fight, they kept coming even when they should have been dead. We mowed them down by the dozen, and they swarmed over the bodies of their dead. We started to take casualties as they got closer. Their accuracy was shit, but the hive mind keeps them on task, and their sheer weight of numbers often carries the day.

"It got to hand to hand at one point. They were just coming faster than we could shoot them. Vibroblades and Power Armor versus rock hard chitin and mandibles. Four Privates were MIA after that, just too ripped up to be positively IDed or POWs, the bugs were still taking prisoners at this point. Power Armor can stop a lot, plasma, lasers, bullets. Knives just bounce off. But bug mandibles have crushing force the likes of which our suits just can’t handle. I was hunkered down with Private Tulman and Corporal Swanson. We’re pouring fire into the bugs. Tulman’s Plasma MG is really what kept them off us. Then they swarmed over their corpses, and on top of us. Swanson got ripped apart. Three of them grabbed on and pulled. He was screaming and swearing and shooting to the last, but he died bloody. Tulman lit those three up the second Swanson’s vitals went flat. One of them jumped on me. These things are ugly up close. They look like short ants. Two main body pods instead of three, six big legs, six beady eyes, spikes everywhere, a plasma rifle attached to the underside of the head. I stabbed into the eyes with my combat knife. Despite what some idiot writers will tell you, a nanometer edge on your blade just makes it that much easier to break. It doesn’t matter if it can slide through titanium, in combat you’re not cutting titanium, you’re fighting a living being that is going to be moving, and when your edge breaks off, you’re dead.

"I was a Sergeant. I had a responsibility to be better than my men. Cleaner, smarter, tougher, meaner, and everything in between. Part of that is having your gear perfectly stashed and equipped. So when I say my knife had a perfect edge on it, not too thin not too dull, I’m not kidding. I stabbed straight through that bug’s eye and into its bug brain. And that bastard kept coming. So I shoved my plasma pistol up against it’s torn up eye and pumped six shots into the brain. It collapsed halfway through cutting my arm off. The connectors to my left arm were shot. My helmet’s HUD was flickering in and out and the faceplate was cracked. I was bleeding, not a lot but a little. And the bug had shredded my injury suppressants, so it hurt like hell.

"Most of my men weren’t much better. We couldn’t take another wave like that, but moving was damn risky. The way I saw it, the bugs knew we were here. It was only a matter of time until another force came by to wipe my three quarter strength company off the face of the universe. So we had two options. Stay and die, or leave and die when we ran into a bigger bug patrol. The men made their voices clear. They were prepared to die. And the way they saw it, they had a better chance of killing more bugs here than they did moving around. So we hunkered down. We piled up bug corpses to use as sandbags. We stripped the bodies of our comrades for parts and ammo. We envied the bastards actually.”

“I’m sorry?”

“We envied them. By this point in the war-”

“Revival tech.”

“We traded the Yungling for it. Standard issue on every fleet ship. Upload your neural patterns, and when your body died you got a new one, right off the printer. Commercializing DNA sequencing, one thing the twenty first century did right. As soon as those bastards were confirmed KIA, they were regrown. A hour later they were safe and sound back up on the ship. Dying isn’t fun, I’ll tell you that. But there’s a certain peace that comes from knowing it isn’t final. More likely to throw yourself on a grenade and save your squad. More likely to hold the line against impossible odds, or volunteer for a suicide mission. Best thing to ever happen to the human war machine.

"We hunker down, shore up our defenses, and we kill another group of bugs that wanders by. Fifty odd insects in that one, all dead. Along with fourteen men. Quarter strength now, about fourteen of us total. We keep doing the same thing. Kill a few bugs, a few of us buy a ticket back up to the ship. It gets to the point where it’s just me and Tulman left, out of an entire company. But we’re surrounded by bug corpses. Must have been two hundred at least.”

“Four hundred thirty.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Official after action report says at this point it is estimated your Company had killed four hundred and thirty bugs.”

“Never read it.”

“It was declassified sixty years ago, when revival tech went public.”

“Wasn’t interested in reading it. Dying isn’t fun, and remembering death… it changes you.”

“I’m sorry, please continue.”

“Next wave is about a hundred of the six legged freaks. They come at us like bats out of hell. Tulman dies quick, plasma to the face. I’m left manning the plasma MG with one hand. It clicks dry, no more charge. I can’t change the ammo by myself. It’s made to be completely operable by one man, but one man with two working hands. I charge up four plasma grenades, prime them, slap them onto two ammo boxes for the plasma MG, and run full tilt at the bugs. I jump on top of one, and the box blows. Plasma everywhere, burning the hell out of everything and everyone. That’s when I died.

"I wake up on the UHS Washington DC. She was named after the battle in the old earth capitol, back when she represented the United… Statues I think it was.”

“United States.”

“That makes more sense. Anyways, that was my part in the Battle of Rygel Nine.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nope.”

“Nothing about the awards you received?”

“They were after the fact.”

“You received the Medal of Honor for recording the deaths of over twenty men. Without that they might not have been confirmed KIA, and never revived.”

“I did what any man there would have done for me.”

“Thank you Professor, that’s all I have.”

“Don’t forget these names, those men that were torn to shreds by the Texar-Hakara, the ones that were MIA? If you can’t be confirmed as KIA we can’t revive you, having two of the exact same person in the universe, the exact same memories, the exact same fingerprints and DNA. Same loved ones, same bank accounts. What do you tell the one that turns out to have been a POW for ten years. Sorry, there’s another one of you that’s been with your family the entire time? No, no we can’t do that. They were permed.”

“Permed?”

“Permanently killed. Permadeath. Never revived. Privates Rodger P. Ackleman, Reginald Puller, George H. Killroy, and Yassah B. Hukukk.”

“Any relation?”

“My son.”

[thefalloutdiaries]

And the Heavens Wept

Gather around my children and you shall hear of the most terrible, most implacable, most improbable friends ever met by our people. They came from the third planet of a tiny system, surrounded by desolate space. Not one sentient species for hundreds of lightyears, and they managed to propel themselves into space.

We watched from afar as they developed slowly. We watched as they warred among themselves, brutal and savage. We watched as they rendered regions of their planet uninhabitable to themselves, a hardy species able to adapt to even the most hostile of environments. We watched as suddenly and without warning they united under four banners, the rest falling by the wayside. We watched as they expanded into what we had begun to use as a buffer zone, to allow these humans to burn themselves out in.

But they did not burn themselves out. Despite their warring among themselves. Harsh people. Humankind is a race of warriors, do not be fooled by the eloquence of their diplomats. In their own words, “All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means”. Their greatest artists and philosophers were born from blood and conflict. I had the privilege once to view a painting by one Pablo Picasso, entitled Guernica. It was a savage piece, with not a drop of color. It showed the horrors of war, and the irony of it all was that the painting hung in the office of one of humankind’s generals.

It was sudden, when they burst from the containment zone. When they realized they were not alone. And we, with heavy hearts, prepared to fight them bitterly and to the last. Imagine then, our surprise when humanity embraced us among the stars as long lost brothers. They were overjoyed to discover they were not alone in the darkness. Despite their brutal and warlike culture, despite their glorification of death and violence, their people do not seek out combat. An ancient general of theirs once put it thusly “Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a means of peace”.

For centuries humanity worked to better itself. They unified under a single Interstellar Empire, the Empire of Man, the Human Empire, however you called it. They enjoyed art and music. They became leisurely at home, exploratory in the field. Their weapons of war were long gone, beaten into plowshares as they say. Humanity was finally at peace. There was no conflict among them, a few border skirmishes for certain, and they kept a small standing military, but nothing more than that. We considered them domesticated.

At first we were surprised at their transformation, then overjoyed. We welcomed them into the fold of the cosmos, embraced them as they would embrace us. We thought we knew humanity then, that we had seen them at their best and their worst. We were wrong, so very wrong. We did not truly understand humanity until the Texar-Hakara came into the void between the stars.

Seemingly more brutal, more bloodthirsty than even the humans, they swept into our region of space like conquerors. They smashed whatever feeble resistance the Yungling managed to put up, took their planets, enslaved the survivors, and pressed on. The Junti were next, utterly destroyed. The four great races left, ourselves, the Itaxa, the Kukrama, and the Illnaa, banded together to try and stop them. In our arrogance, we did not include the humans in our pact. Too few in number, too weak in frame, too backwards in technology we thought.

The Texar-Hakara hit our borders like the great wave that sweeps life from the beach. We hardened our hearts and prepared for the worst. Seeming without pause they crushed our border defenses. They obliterated the first fleets we sent to them. The Itaxa fell to the Texar-Hakara, enslaved, killed, scattered to the corners of the galaxy. Then the humans sent us an offer, a request really. They asked to fight alongside us.

Bemused, we accepted. What else could we do? Deny them the right to fight with us for their very survival? We thought to assign them as rearguards, to ferry our people to safety after our fleets fell. We thought wrong.

Humanity swept into the stars with a fury unmatched by any other. Their fleets were not the heaviest. Their guns not the most accurate. Their soldiers however. Their sailors. Their warriors were unmatched by any others in the cosmos. I remember the first battle in which the humans fought the Texar-Hakara like it was but a single solar cycle ago. Our forces were on the brink of breaking and fleeing. Our ships were gutted ruins. Our fighters exhausted and out of missiles. Then humanity fell upon the flank of the enemy, and the full force of the Human Empire was unleashed in a single moment of utter fury. Landing craft spat across the distance in an instant, slamming into enemy hulls and disgorging humanity’s greatest weapon, their Marines. In close combat humanity is unstoppable, and so they took the vast distances of space combat out of the equation.

Their ships belched fire and plasma. Lasers crossed the vast distances in the blink of an eye. Half the Texar-Hakaran fleet was obliterated in minutes. The other half turned to face this new enemy, only to be wracked by internal explosions as the Marines did their work. Their greatest ships turned on the rest of the fleet, a handful of humans holding the bridge against waves of enemy attackers to turn the tide of battle.

The Interstellar War came to a screeching turnaround. The advance of the Texar-Hakara halted, like it had hit an immovable wall. In many ways that is what humanity is, an immovable, implacable wall. Then, with the ferocity humanity is alone capable of, they routed the Texar-Hakara. Not from that lone battle. They pushed them out of Itaxa space, liberating the slaves. The space of the Junti and the Yungling was swept clear of invaders. Then the Texar-Hakara committed the gravest of sins in humanity’s eyes. They warped a fleet to Earth, jewel of humanity’s empire. They burned that blue and green world. They destroyed it, and the trillion people it housed.

Humanity is a forgiving race my children. Even their most terrible of wars have resulted in lasting friendships between nations. When they left millions dead and broken on the muddly fields of their world, they rebuilt the aggressors. They raised them from the mud, dusted them off, and welcomed them back into the fold. But there is one thing that humanity cannot, will not, tolerate. It is abhorrent to them my children. To strike at their home, to strike where they raise their young ones. Where they leave their mates and non combatants. To strike there is to raise the ire of the human race, truly.

Humanity raged. Their attempts at obtaining the surrender of the Texar-Hakara halted. The war turned from a righteous war of liberation to a furious and hateful war of retribution. We begged the humans to stop, to leave what few planets the Texar-Hakara had alone. Our pleas went unanswered for months, until a single human ambassador came to us. His face was cold and emotionless. He told us, in no uncertain terms, that the Texar-Hakara had doomed themselves and that any trying to aid them would suffer the same fate. Quietly we watched then, as humanity wiped the Texar-Hakara from the stars. The Texar-Hakara pleaded for mercy. They offered their unconditional surrender. They came to us and begged on bent knee for us to reign in the mad dogs we had unwittingly unleashed into the universe. Humanity had for so long repressed their warrior culture. Tried to become better. Then we had given them back into the fires of war, and humanity had awakened it’s warrior past.

The Texar-Hakara ambassadors were taken from our halls by grim human Marines and thrust out airlocks. Finally there was but one planet left, and we came to the humans, we pointed to our own losses, our own dead friends some of whom had lived for longer than humanity had been among the stars, and we begged the humans not to take the last of the Texar-Hakara’s lives.

I watched, children, I watched as the Texar-Hakara’s world burned. As humanity left but one of their planets alive, a simple backwater colony of no more than ten million. Ten million, out of the trillions. Then the leader of the human military turned to me, and with no emotion in his voice, told me that humanity accepted the unconditional surrender of the Texar-Hakara, and walked off the bridge of my ship.

My children, the lesson here is that a warrior past is never truly gone. Only buried, mayhaps even wiped from living memory. But gone? Never. Humanity showed us that.

[bartwelchii]

I’m reminded of Krigsgaldr, by Heilung.

“What am I supposed to do

If I want to talk about peace and understanding

But you only understand the language of the sword

What if I want to make you understand that the path you chose leads to downfall

But you only understand the language of the sword

What if I want to tell you to leave me and my beloved ones in peace

But you only understand the language of the sword

 I let the blade do the talking…

So my tongue shall become iron

And my words the mighty roar of war

Revealing my divine anger´s arrow shall strike

 All action for the good of all

I see my reflection in your eyes

But my new age has just begun

The sword is soft

In the fire of the furnace

It hungers to be hit

And wants to have a hundred sisters

In the coldest state of their existence

They may dance the maddest

In the morass of the red rain

Beloved brother enemy

I sing my sword-song for you

The lullaby of obliteration

So I can wake up with a smile

And bliss in my heart

And bliss in my heart

And bliss in my heart

Coexistence, Conflict, combat

Devastation, regeneration, transformation

That is the best I can do for you

 I see a grey gloom on the horizon

That promises a powerful sun to rise

To melt away all moons

It will make the old fires of purification

Look like dying embers

Look like dying embers

Look like dying embers”

[sixpenceee]

[doctorbluesmanreturns]

[one-time-i-dreamt]

A career for a career - Megan Fox deserves to have hers back. Michael Bay deserves to be blacklisted, something he had no problem doing to her when she exposed him for his awful, predatory behavior.

[mcapriglioneart]

how to draw arms ? ? 

[swagginsloths]

holy fuck

[shoutsofthunder]

holy fuck is right… but… does it work with legs???

[mcapriglioneart]

yes !!

[empresspinto]

but how much extend

[thunar]

^^^^^^^^^^

[kvothe-kingkiller]

[gabbyzvolt25]

I NEARLY CHOKED

[lifeofcynch]

ENJFDFNFATFVFDF

[deactivated-blog]

finally. i can be accurate

[shiny-charming]

This is too fucking great to not reblog

[wishem]

I give it MASCLES

BIG MACHO

[keithislactoseintolerant-deacti]

🤣🤣

[urhella-gaychloe]

LMAOOOOOO

[fernacular]

Okay but for anyone who legit wants to know how to calculate it correctly:

The elbow joint on average rests a couple inches higher than the navel, so if you measure how long the distance is from the middle of the shoulder to that point then you have the length of the upper and fore arms!

[fernacular]

So if anyone’s wondering about legs too, the simplest rule of thumb is that the length from the top of the leg to the knee is equal to the distance between the top of the leg and the bottom of the pectorals:

And I wanna stress that when i say “top of the leg” i’m not talking about the crotch (please don’t flag me tumblr it’s an anatomical term) i’m talking about the point where the femur connects to the pelvis, which is higher up on the hips:

It’s easier to see what I’m talking about in this photo of a man squatting: 

So yeah if you use that measurement when using this technique you should get fairly realistically proportioned legs:

But remember! messing with proportions is an important and fun part of character design! Know the rules first so you can then break them however you please!

[im-a-hyperion-vault-hunter-deac]

HOW THE HELL DID I FIND THIS POST OMG

[erasaure]

[i-am-corbin-dallas]

Licherally in the midst of drawing a guy and crying at how bad the arms are. Thanks Tumbles

[drrockbell]

I only ever saw the part where people started drawing the limbs outrageously long and genuinely wanted to know how to fix that, so I’m really thankful to see the rest.

[midnight-spectrum-again]

Love this

[popsunner]

Listen, I’m part of the generation that uses humor to cope, I love all the memes about 2020 just as much as you guys do. I laugh at the “we got the real roaring 20′s”, “we wanted 2020 to be a movie but we got the wrong genre”, “we really thought 2020 would be our year” sardonic tweets.

But to the people like me, who really thought 2020 would be their year?

Love, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you walked into this year with a smile and hope, and that smile immediately fell, and that hope was immediately crushed

I’m sorry that every day there’s something else, I’m sorry that you’re scared, I’m sorry that you’re angry, I’m sorry that you’re tired.

And I know, I know that you’re having a hard time hoping again. Trust me, I know.

But this year, Adam Castillejo became the second person to be cured of HIV

This year, James Patterson art up a fund to help Indie bookstores

This year, scientists finally managed to record the narwhal 

This year, White Storks have hatched the first wild chicks in 600 years

This year, the worlds largest open-air gallery was opened with paintings by individuals with learning disabilities

This year, an eleven year old skateboarder landed the worlds first 1080 degree turn

This year, scientists mapped the entire surface of the moon for the first time ever

This year, Sweden and Austria closed their last coal plants

This year, White Tailed Eagles are spotted flying over England for the first time in 240 years

This year, NASA launched astronauts to a US space station for the first time since 2011

To all the people like me, who thought 2020 was their year: We’re here. We’re alive. The world will grow. The world will heal. Maybe 2020 isn’t our year of stress free fun and memories, but it can be our year to learn and stand up and fight, so that next year? We get everything we hoped for.

Don’t give up, don’t leave. There’s a world waiting for you.

[katsen13]

Things kinda suck right now so for more cute, funny, or comforting stuff check out my tag Fuzzies and Feelings.

[cillianmurphy]

I AM ABSOLUTELY LOSING MY MIND AFTER READING THIS PLEASE READ IT

[cillianmurphy]

READ PART TWO AND THREE BELOW !!!!!

[thefaultinourchickennuggets]

there is a VERY chaotic Cupid running around this village

[broomchickabroom]

The Original Man here 

[katsen13]

Things kinda suck right now so for more cute, funny, or comforting stuff check out my tag Fuzzies and Feelings.

[jaubaius]

A bird explaining to a hedgehog crossing so it doesn’t die.

[katsen13]

Things kinda suck right now so for more cute, funny, or comforting stuff check out my tag Fuzzies and Feelings.

[blackness-by-your-side]

The sign of high quality is the fact the book was banned by the government. Trash literature NEVER EVER had any troubles with the law.

[cuntybearjamboree]

FARENHEIT 451 IS ON THE BANNED BOOKS LIST??? IT’S LITERALLY ABOUT THE SOCIETAL DANGERS OF BANNING/OUTLAWING/BURNING BOOKS ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

[dancing-coyote]

That’s the reason it’s on the bloody list.

BECAUSE IT’S ABOUT HOW BANNING AND BURNING BOOKS IS WRONG.

[unlimitedgamesbutnogames]

HERE’S ALL THE PDF VERSIONS I COULD FIND SINCE WE’RE ALL IN QUARANTINE AND WE CAN’T PHYSICALLY GET THE BOOKS WE DON’T HAVE

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Beloved

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (this was the only free version I could find, and it’s a downloadable thing, so do so with caution)

The Call of the Wild

Catch-22 (it was either this version or one where the entire thing was in comic sans font)

The Catcher in the Rye

Fahrenheit 451

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Gone With the Wind

The Grapes of Wrath

The Great Gatsby

Howl

In Cold Blood

Invisible Man

The Jungle (personally I don’t like this formatting, but the site doesn’t look sketchy so…) - there’s also this which is the proper book format in a pdf, but it’s directly photocopied so it might be hard to read some of the print

Leaves of Grass

Moby Dick

Native Son

Our Bodies, Ourselves (we learned about this one in APUSH!)

The Red Badge of Courage

The Scarlet Letter

COULD NOT FIND Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (the ebook is 47 fucking dollars??? and i can’t even find sketchy websites that’ll let me download a pdf. if anyone manages to find a link, lmk please)

Stranger in a Strange Land

A Streetcar Named Desire

Their Eyes Were Watching God

To Kill a Mockingbird

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Where the Wild Things Are (this is a slideshow!!!! how fun)

COULD NOT FIND The Words of Cesar Chavez (however I did manage to download the first 71 pages of the book from EBSCO and I put it here but I couldn’t get the rest. sorry y’all)

[tinkerman29]

Okay folks I just had a very weird conversation with my daughter. I somehow went from talking about Big O the anime, to talkin about the archangels Lucifer, Michael, Raphael, Azrael, and Uriel. When I explained that according to one set of lore, heaven and hell are in the same plane of existence and are split down the middle. That got us talking about how there are other planes of existence, I explained that there is the unified field theory that requires 11 dimensions for existence to exist, I explained my belief that heaven and hell exists within the seven dimensions that we do not perceive in our day-to-day life. She got lost around there and I sent her off to bed.

I wanted to share because of the absolute chaos that this conversation was.

[katsen13]

You know the rules. And so do I.

Rule one: Don’t talk about fight club.

Rule two: Don’t trust a Dutchman in a tulip fight.

Rule three: It’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.

Rule four: Never involve lawyers.

Rule five: Know when to hold em, know when to fold em...

Rule six: When meeting a llama, where a raincoat.

Rule seven: Don’t wear a straw hat to a petting zoo.

Rule eight: Never tell me the odds.

[luthorsandsupers-blog]

[goblinsnufkin-deactivated201905]

same energy

[bloodyborsch]

[fairyfawm]

another Same Energy: so ive asked my family to refer to me as they/them bc im nb, and a few times ive corrected my cousins when theyve misgendered me. and so when my little cousins were playing superheroes, one of them said i could be supergirl, and my four year old cousin immediately pipes in with “but sams not a girl” and then, after a bit of thought, “you can be superthey!”

[schrodingers-fyke]

Theydies and gentlethem

[rot-gospel]

Same Energy ™️: my good close friend didn’t want to call me queen or king, so they ended up calling me monarch, which was funny as fuck cause my brain instantly went to “the butterfly???”

[saint-batrick]

one of my friends calls me madamonsieur and i love it so much.

[jesin00]

See, THIS is how you make gender jokes!

[greenslime69]

Same energy: my mum often gets stuck on trying to find a gender neutral way to call me her daughter and one time she settled on “my mature child”

[capt-wildbill]

Capt-wildbill

[katsen13]

To Whoever Needs This Tonight

Here is a hug, a high-five and a smile. I know things are hard right now but hang in there. You may not see it yet but you’ll get through this, I promise. If you need to talk, I’m here to listen. Love you and stay safe.