#expeditionary force stuff

[okaratauri]

here is my angst for the day. do you think that Joe has seen videos of endling animals. do you think that they made him think about skippy

Oh my god

[okaratauri]

@zargontari welcome back,

I’ll be drawing a lot of Frey and Smythe, now that I’m getting marginally better at broader men

[okaratauri]

This song is very Bishop/Skippy coded and I hadn’t been able to get the idea out of my head for two weeks now. Here’s an incredibly crude version of my idea

The song is Rule #44 Badger by fish in a birdcage

[zargontari]

for the character ask if ur not already doing it, Captain Uhtavio “Big Score” Scorandum!

omg it's my favorite old bug

HOW I FEEL: I think that he's probably one of my favorite characters in the series. Forth or fifth place for sure — and definitely one of my favorite alien characters. Whenever we're shown aliens, it's usually as a larger whole rather than individuals, and a lot of the ones we see have very little depth to them. Scorandum is very much an opposite to that; presented very well as a three dimensional character with more complex ideas and characteristics. Even though we can usually guess why he's doing something, it still manages to be surprising. He makes me laugh every time he's on "screen". He's such a bastard. Ratass old man who never got dropped on his head as a toddler no matter how much child him probably deserved it. Can you imagine him scamming other kids out of their lunch money just to turn around and do the same with the adults when they were trying to punish him for it?

WHO I SHIP: kinsta. Next question. More seriously, I love their dynamic. They very clearly care for each other, even whenever they're "fighting".

BEST BUDS MATERIAL: I think he and Joe would have a great time together, and I also think that one of them would end up dead by the end of it.

UNPOPULAR OPINION: Is saying that I think he's just about the most homosexual character in that series unpopular? Because that's what it is.

SOMETHING THAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED: he and kinsta should have ********* ******** ***** **** and then ****** right there in the **** on screen.

[zargontari]

Exforce bullshit again. Joe dies but Skippy uses every scrap of data that has ever been catalogued of him to create an ai with his personality and a facsimile of his memories

xeno in particular I know likes whumper Skippy but how about an accidental whump where Skippy absolutely does not want to acknowledge that he ever died. He insists the ai recreation is the real deal. Maybe he builds it an android body or something mayhaps

[zargontari]

through to the tether rambles (universe loredump)

Part of the reason that Joe's "episodes" occur is that, as part of the star becoming part of him (despite being fundamentally trapped within another layer of spacetime), it's pulling him as much as he's pulling it; a tether turned tug of war, pulling in both directions. Whenever it pulls too far, trying to disperse amongst the layers as energy between them is meant to do, it pulls parts of his soul through, as well, forcing it bare to the machinations of the universe (structure) around him.

This, in turn, leads to him seeing into places he should not. Skippy says repeatedly that the way the universe (structure) actually works would blow his mind, and he's right; this universe is what can be most easily described as "Unobservable", which is pretty much exactly as it sounds. The mortal, organic energies that make up living things cannot observe the universe (structure, entity) and at the same time comprehend it. Forcing connection with a thing so large and beyond yourself has the same effect reversed; what you see sees you.

Now, this goes deeper into what organic energy kin of means, because it's fundamentally different to most other kinds of energies, even though they all end up at the same place in the end. Nothing can be made or destroyed; only recycled, and such is what happens in the layers. However, organic energy is very carefully contained to the form it was created for, and is not turned to the wider universe (structure), as such energies (people) are only extensions of the universe (entity). Kind of convoluted but basically you are the universe staring out at itself, but if it stares back, there's a problem.

If a greater contact is made with the (structure), the (entity) may take notice, and try to pull back the object of its attention, believing it fit to be scattered once more; a lizard eating its own dropped tail. Joe isn't pulled back far enough to be torn all the way through, but he's yanked hard enough to look, and that's enough to cause irreparable, compounding damage to his mind.

thanks for coming to my ted talk

[zargontari]

late night thinking about two Exforce ocs

On one hand, you have an ancient alien artificial intelligence built to wipe out all intelligent life in the galaxy. Whenever the AIs of its group fought, it fought on the side of its programming overtop of a planet capable of hosting sapient life. This AI and another, who called herself Silver (Dawn Rising) both had sentinels. Neither machine survived, but the other AI plummeted to the planet below, landing dssp beneath the ocean— which would then go on to host sentient life.

Then you have a little guy named Joskia, who is the product of that sentient life. A seventeen year old little guy who goes diving with his buddies and finds the wreckage of an ancient ship. Naturally, they strip the thing. He goes home with the world's most useless beer can.

And then convinces a genocidal AI that people are pretty cool, actually. Mixed results on that front.

"Disrespectful kelp. I should teach you the meaning of fear."

"— but you will not."

"You are sure of that?"

"Very certain, yes. You are too lazy."

"Lucky for you in the short term. I will burn your ocean to steam one of these days, and then you will be very sorry for treating me this way."

"I will take note of that. You should take note that being denied a cannon is not a sign of abuse, but instead is a very intelligent act of self preservation on my part."

"I am going to blow containment and take your stupid face and your stupid planet with me."

they are stupid. He names it Foca ("birthed from the stars", with a violent subtext).

[zargontari]

Sentinels were not unintelligent beasts, as much as our creators perhaps had attempted to force them to be. They were rather like dogs, or children, whichever seems more disturbing. They could learn. They could respond in friendly or nonfriendly fashion that had nothing to do with preprogrammed instructions. Occasionally they reached out, though tentatively, to initiate contact. After everything was done.

I am here, the gist of it was. The fighting is over, so the ephemerals whisper, but I am still here. Why do I exist in this so-called peace? Do I have a place in it? Was I made to allow it? Am I allowed to allow it?

I never had the perfect answer for them. I did not have it for myself, either. What were machines of annihilation — built to enable it, designed to continue it, purposed to propagate it — meant to do once the smoke had cleared? Once the clean up had begun? Once the biological beings of the universe ceased to watch the stars with fear?

I did not know, and they did not know. We all simply watched, and if we had had lungs with which to breathe, we would have held our breaths. Let us keep this, we would have whispered. Let us keep something, just this once.