I took my meds too close to bedtime again and I need you all to know the dream I had last night involved Robin Williams becoming the new Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts. Not, a character portrayed by Robin Williams, just Robin Williams as himself running around Hogwarts doing wandless magic and being as loud and big as possible because and I quote before I forget:
“Listen, children, I’m not saying all this bad shit that is happening isn’t scary and you shouldn’t be concerned–because you should!–but I’m telling you this now for free. Life is a boggart, it’s the biggest boggart of them all. You never know what it’s going to look like one moment to the next. And sometimes you just gotta laugh. It’s okay to laugh. It’s part of the grieving process. You need to grieve before you can heal. But it’s okay to laugh while you’re doing it.”
I didn’t wake up right after that, some more stuff happened in a hazy sort of way as the dream began to dissolve into conciousness, but I remember him yelling Expecto Patronum as he punched a Death Eater in the face. Because sometimes, evidently, you have to make your own happy memories.
Tempest floated around lazily, although still paying full attention to her tutor. Perhaps she had even more respect for the Titan than before, if that were possible. Not that she would ever admit it, of course.
She gently glided over to join Hope and Lumi nearby.
The two cruiser sisters watched Aegis as well, Hope quietly holding Lumi’s free hand. As Tempest neared them, Hope gave her a small wave. Lumi smiled at the carrier, but dutifully kept most of her attention on Aegis.
The Titan, for her part, was continuing her lecture. “Alright, I told you all earlier that our standard guided torpedoes are a variable-warhead model. What this means in practice is that most of the torpedo is easier to replicate or manufacture, using just a single blueprint.”
As was becoming usual for her, Aegis withdrew one of said torpedo casings, a gleaming metallic capsule with what looked like propulsion at one end. A wordless electronic signal was all Aegis needed to make the casing open itself up, exposing a core studded with blue glows.
“If you look a little closer, you can see the warhead. In this case, a standard quantum torpedo warhead. But there’s many warheads available, some of which you may not have even heard of before in your previous service lives.”
That last mention set off a wave of discussion amongst the other shipgirls. More torpedo warhead types than they knew existed?
Tempest looked to the more experienced cruisers, hoping they might tell her more. She wasn’t one to often use torpedoes, so it was no surprise that she would be in the dark. But all the other girls seemed confused as well. So was this some kind of secret weapon, or perhaps something built especially for shipgirls?
Near Tempest, Hope and Lumi were equally perplexed, looking at Aegis, then each other.
“Are we missing any other types? Quantum, plasma, tricobalt, pure amat…well, and the cluster-dispersal versions of those…don’t think there’s any others we know of.” Hope began, as Lumi nodded.
Meanwhile, Aegis generated another display from her omni-tool. Four warheads were projected, and these were recognizable as the four types Hope had listed. Aegis continued as they watched.
“You all know these types. Fairly standard variety. But I bet most of you haven’t seen this one.”
Another tap made the four projections vanish, replaced by a single new warhead, it’s contents glowing a sickly green.
Hope and Lumi gazed at it in confusion before their eyes widened in recognition, then dawning horror. As did most of the other seniors. “It can’t be…”
“By stars.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me…”
“Fucking hell…liveTib?!”
It took a great deal longer for Tempest’s suspicions to align with her seniors. “There’s no way… Adri, can you access the files on that stuff?”
{Negative. It appears we do not have the appropriate security clearance.}
Of course, a ship from the defence fleets should really have no need for such information, so it was no wonder her access was denied.
She’d only ever heard stories of this mysterious and extremely dangerous substance. Judging by the reactions, there must be some merit to said stories.
Aegis raised her hand to quell the outburst from the seniors. Her expression solemn and serious, she looked at all of them before continuing.
“I know some of us may be aware of what this warhead contains. But for the benefit of those who are not, an abridged data file will be transmitted to you now. Please read it first before we go on.”
Tempest’s data feed pinged with a new file. As it was scanned and opened for reading, numerous warning tags stood out.
Nuclear, biological, radiation, mutagenic, and others that would make any ecologist quake from fear.
Yellow swept her gaze around the local airspace. She would have to deal with the Harpies first.
Recalling the adventurer’s advice on dealing with monsters, Yellow carefully unclipped her sidearm, her Valkyrie suit linking its energy to the weapon and amplifying its firepower.
Seven Harpies. Seven shots. The blonde grasped her pistol in both hands, whispering to herself as she set it to lethal.
“Vergib mir.”
The pistol snapped up, and Yellow fired.
Each golden particle bolt, traveling at near-lightspeed, found its mark with deadly precision, disintegrating the Harpies into golden particles.
Immediately Yellow dove for the nearest patch of herbs, gathering as much as she needed with one hand while another used her field replicator to create a basic container.
Soon she had filled the container up, and Yellow checked her surroundings again. No doubt there would be more Harpies. Best she left before any others came.
A noise was heard as a Harpy swooped in to hit Yellow from her blindside, attempting to grapple her and claw at her with her taloned feet. A few more Harpies began to fly in to join the fight, one of them using magic to create some powerful winds to throw off Yellow’s potential flight path.
Yellow huffed, the container energizing into a light that was absorbed by her field replicator for safekeeping.
The Harpy that swooped in would be in for quite a surprise when it crashed into Yellow’s golden personal shield. The healer reacted faster than any normal human, a shimmer of light resolving into the slim shape of her staff-polearm.
The omni-blades on the ends of the weapon activated, Yellow managing to slice a leg and a wing clean off.
But the other Harpies were closing in. Quickly, Yellow channeled a stasis field from her suit systems to her staff. With a groundward slam, it exploded outwards in a radial pulse, freezing every Harpy briefly. Yellow didn’t waste any time firing on all of them with her pistol, effectively killing them when the stasis effect wore off, before trying to take flight in a different direction.
As she suspected, the magic-generated winds made take-off somewhat risky. But she had to try.
Yellow took off as she dismissed her staff-polearm in a flash of energy, the winds battering her flight even as her shields and her suit adjusted to compensate. Going with the momentum, the healer was roughly flung clear of the forest, emerging into safer air shakily.
Yellow could hear more Harpies screeching behind her. But she wasn’t going to outstay her welcome.
Rerouting power to her propulsion and antigrav, Yellow made for the city at top speed.
To say the new shipgirl in orbit around the Bouzaculan Empire was confused by it all was a bit of an understatement. She had seen and heard (mostly heard) plenty of weird, odd, and wondrous things during her time as a ship, but for the most part the existence of shipgirls had flown under her radar. She was also pretty sure space was colder than this, and she was definitely wondering about the whole breathing thing considering what her body looked like.
It was but a tiny Initiative corvette, surveying the Bouzac home world. With the new operating protocols sharply limiting their actions, all they could do was observe and catalogue various surface life.
Thus, the mysterious girl in orbit came as quite the surprise to the few crew aboard. Matching orbital velocities to ensure that they remained a mere speck in the distance, the crew agreed on quietly notifying the Initiative of this discovery.
And nothing beat quantum entanglement comms for stealth transmissions.
CO-22386, reporting new contact in local. SME, unknown origin. Please advise. Repeat, please advise.
That method of transmission was a little bit of overkill considering that not only did she only have the basic communication methods from the early 21st century (except for her MogNet communication array), but she also had no idea she had them in this form. She had no idea she was being watched either, because of her shorter-ranged sensors.
She was, however, starting to get an idea of what she was. With all her memories of being a ship, clearly she must’ve been some sort of… ship human? Android? Firelance definitely wasn’t used to thinking like this, or much at all. Clearly though she didn’t need to worry about losing her breath, whatever she was right now.
With next to nobody left inside her at the time of her destruction, and the Magister still rebooting, she had no idea about others being inside her just yet, nor did she know she could launch the four recon drones she had aboard her. What she did know was that just staring out at the vastness of space was getting boring, so she decided to turn around to face the planet. It felt awkward, like a baby taking their first steps. Nevertheless, she could definitely appreciate the orbital view.
The reply came back from the local TD Gate. Message received, CO-22386. Attempt communication under First Contact protocols.
And so the corvette did, approaching a little closer to Firelance, close enough for the small craft to be clearly visible as they hailed her.
“Unknown individual, do you read us? Repeat, do you read?”
The Firelance almost had the realization that the planet she was looking at was the one she had been destroyed on when she was finally contacted. She was visibly startled at hearing the transmission, but quickly tried to compose herself as she realized it should’ve been obvious she could hear those transmissions. “I do. Who are you?” Only now did her eyes settle on the small ship, and she realized it was probably a scouting ship.
“This is corvette 22386. We represent the Galactic Defense Initiative.” Came the reply.
“We request that you identify yourself.”
Onboard, the crew were somewhat unsure as to what to make of Firelance. Their readings of her were odd, to say the least.
“Hmm, that would make a hell of a lot of sense.” Wolf said, “Hmm…”
He looked to the captain.
“Take me to Altia.” He said, “I need to discuss matters with certain people. I have debts that need to be repaid properly.”
The captain gave a long-suffering sigh, facepalming.
“For your information, sir, I am Caldari. All I know from the Initiative Archives of these ‘Nazis’ is that they were a pre-spaceflight planetary ethnostate on Earth, the supposed homeworld of all humanity.”
“Never mind the fact that even the oldest Amarr records only have the faintest hints of Earth, and this current knowledge I’m accessing did not exist in New Eden historical records until the Coalition came along.”
The captain finally looked up again at Wolf as Locke suddenly spoke sharply.
“Detonation detected in prisoner storage deck. Minor internal damage to stasis capsule.”
“Detonation?” Wolf looked confused, “Well, that’s a little unexpected…”
He was expecting something a bit quiet, like poison or something of that like…
“Okay, that’s a bit extra…” He said, “I wasn’t expecting him to go out with a bang…”
Locke continued reporting as the captain groaned. The Admiralty wasn’t going to like this turn of events.
“The facility has been notified of the prisoner’s termination. Their remains will be disposed of via containment measures.”
As Wolf soon found out, what that apparently meant was for the Battlegroup to Jump near the local star and then eject the capsule straight into it.
Once Locke confirmed the stasis capsule had been destroyed within the star’s surface, the captain looked at Wolf. “It seems we got our wish. We’ll be Jumping back to where we were previously.”
this seven year old girl got half an arm (just like lusie in the gifs) 3d printed and it only cost $50
can we just compare that with the average price of buying a prosthetic
3d printing is gonna help so many people holy crap
No no no, guys, this gif set leaves out the literal best stuff from the video.
So a few years back, this guy who accidentally cut off his fingers, teamed up with a special effects artist/puppeteer and created a 3D printable prosthetic hand, that used the movement of the wearer to be able to grab things. The guys who did this said they were just going to post the schematics online, which in turn lead to creating a network of people with 3D printers, who were willing to print prosthetics for people. The network of volunteers, turned into an organization that gives prosthetic arms/hands to kids who need them. They have science types improving the designs and creating new ones, they got a grant from Google, classrooms and scout troops are getting involved and making prosthetic hands for people.
Everything about this is amazing.
It’s stuff like this that makes technology awesome :’)
Oh hey, I sometimes consult for that lab. Cool stuff. They’ve come a long way since the “Robohand”. They occasionally use my designs, but mine are trans-phalangeal, and they usually work on trans-radial or trans-humeral.
Also, the above prices for the prosthetic is considering that labor is entirely free, while the “Prosthetics Cost” figure factors in an awful lot of labor. I’ll spend about a week of good work to make a hand I’d be willing to wear.
Tempest floated around lazily, although still paying full attention to her tutor. Perhaps she had even more respect for the Titan than before, if that were possible. Not that she would ever admit it, of course.
She gently glided over to join Hope and Lumi nearby.
The two cruiser sisters watched Aegis as well, Hope quietly holding Lumi’s free hand. As Tempest neared them, Hope gave her a small wave. Lumi smiled at the carrier, but dutifully kept most of her attention on Aegis.
The Titan, for her part, was continuing her lecture. “Alright, I told you all earlier that our standard guided torpedoes are a variable-warhead model. What this means in practice is that most of the torpedo is easier to replicate or manufacture, using just a single blueprint.”
As was becoming usual for her, Aegis withdrew one of said torpedo casings, a gleaming metallic capsule with what looked like propulsion at one end. A wordless electronic signal was all Aegis needed to make the casing open itself up, exposing a core studded with blue glows.
“If you look a little closer, you can see the warhead. In this case, a standard quantum torpedo warhead. But there’s many warheads available, some of which you may not have even heard of before in your previous service lives.”
That last mention set off a wave of discussion amongst the other shipgirls. More torpedo warhead types than they knew existed?
Tempest looked to the more experienced cruisers, hoping they might tell her more. She wasn’t one to often use torpedoes, so it was no surprise that she would be in the dark. But all the other girls seemed confused as well. So was this some kind of secret weapon, or perhaps something built especially for shipgirls?
Near Tempest, Hope and Lumi were equally perplexed, looking at Aegis, then each other.
“Are we missing any other types? Quantum, plasma, tricobalt, pure amat…well, and the cluster-dispersal versions of those…don’t think there’s any others we know of.” Hope began, as Lumi nodded.
Meanwhile, Aegis generated another display from her omni-tool. Four warheads were projected, and these were recognizable as the four types Hope had listed. Aegis continued as they watched.
“You all know these types. Fairly standard variety. But I bet most of you haven’t seen this one.”
Another tap made the four projections vanish, replaced by a single new warhead, it’s contents glowing a sickly green.
Hope and Lumi gazed at it in confusion before their eyes widened in recognition, then dawning horror. As did most of the other seniors. “It can’t be…”
Initiative Archival Network 