Yay, I wrote something!
Jul. 24th, 2004 06:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forsythI wrote something! Yay! It's a rough draft, and I really don't know where, if anywhere, it's going, it's just sorta a random scene, but I wrote something, so yay. it's behind the cut here so I don't spam up everybody's friends page. The first 500 words or so are basically random rambling, they could pobably be tossed, and it really needs revising, if I'm gonna do anything with it, which I kinda doubt.
Infinity lies just beyond the edge of sight. Literally, in this case. A few hundred light-years beyond the edge of the universe visible from the little planet the folks on it call Earth, lies another planet. This planet, naturally enough, orbits around a star, as planets are wont to do. And by this accident of placement, the people who live on this planet, whose name, in their own language, pretty much means "Home" also, have no idea about the people on the other little planet called Earth. And won't, for at least thousands of years, if not longer. Which is sad, because the people there were lonely, in the middle of a universe where they seemed to be the only ones around. And so, pretty much like humans on Earth, they figured they were the center of the universe (1).
This story, like all good stories, touches on theology, morals, economics, philosophy, bowling, what it means to be alive, and many other grand themes that will make excellent excuses should you be reading this book in a class where you should instead be doing something else and the teacher catches you. (2) But mostly it's about Coolness, and things the Author thinks are cool, so feels excited enough to tell everyone about them. Which means, yes, there's gonna be airships. If you don't like airships, go write your own story.
Back to the planet. Narrative can travel faster than light, which is how we got here in the first place, but for the moment, speeds only a significant percentage of light will be enough, as we zoom in from empty space toward the star. Despite the popular views propagated by star maps and nifty space posters, planets don't actually orbit stars on clearly defined white ellipsoid lines. So the outer edges of the solar system are quite dull, a few frozen rocky comets lurking nearly invisibly against the darkness of space. And we'll just skip right from there to a nice picturesque view of the planet Home, and contemplate for a moment the delicate beauty of a ball of rock circling a giant fusion reaction, with a thin skin of air and water supporting life and making it look like a blue and green marble.
...
There, that's long enough for the philosophical view thing, let's get to the action, shall we? Please remain seated until the story has come to a full and complete stop. *bwip*
* * *
Two Miles Above the Former People's United Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune of Flurbania
The grey bulk of the Indefensible Atrocity hung in the sky like a giant armored six pack held aloft by metal balloons. (3) It was, to be frank, a graceless, awkward, clunky, and downright ugly machine, with only one thing that could be said about it, it was frightfully good at the purpose it was designed for.(4) A purpose it had been fulfilling quite well for the past few months, as the Former People's United Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune of Flurbania was, in military terminology, "pacified." This isn't quite how they'd put it on this world, of course, with the language differences and all, but the words they used had the same feeling and purpose, and to that point, we'll simply use the appropriate English words from now on, as these asides can be quite distracting and detract from the point of the story, unless it's a concept that really and truly needs extra explanation.
And so there it hung. The ground below it, actually, was a beautiful and fruitful field, not the destroyed wasteland one would expect to discover beneath such a behemoth. That was a few miles back, the former capital of the Former People's United Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune of Flurbania, of which a large portion was now craters, rubble, smoking ruins, or a combination of all three. The rest, which was militarily valuable, strategically valuable, economically valuable, or just lucky, was in the hands of the Imperial Army, which followed in the wake of the Indefensible Atrocity, because that's the whole point of shocking fortresses of destruction, to break the resistance before the actual army arrives and so make their lives easier, simply rounding up shellshocked survivors. A strategy that worked quite well, frankly.
The Former People's United Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune of Flurbania really hadn't presented much of a challenge, being a quite small and mostly peaceful collection of idealists, artists, disillusioned college students, and professional leeches(not the right word...grifters...no...crap, fix it later). The Indefensible Atrocity was waiting for the rest of the Army to catch up, so it could refuel, resupply, and rearm, before moving against a few tougher targets, groups of survivalists camped up in the foothills. The survivalists hadn't particularly liked the Former People's United Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune of Flurbania, due to issues ranging from political, philosophical, theological, and the fact that the Former People's United Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune of Flurbania had all the good parties, but they reserved special hatred for the now-expanded Empire. They suspected the Empire of greed and aiming to take over the world, and if there's one thing bullies like the Empire can't stand, it's people who were right. So the survivalists were next.
Out of the mountains, a dozen small streamlined shapes came scudding, practically silently at first, skimming low over the trees. The crew of the Indefensible Atrocity, enjoying some hard-earned rest after blasting apart a mostly harmless city, didn't notice the shapes. After all, they were in the greatest marvel of Imperial engineering, an airship nearly the equivalent of a flying fortress, with more guns than two divisions of the army, who would challenge them?
Then the fighters kicked in their combat engines, a dozen loud roars shooting nearly straight up at the lurking fortress. A semi-alert lookout hit the panic button, making squealing alarms try and out-loud the roaring fighters. Now, the thing about having lots of guns is, it's all well and good, but big guns, mostly pointed downwards, do little to slippery fighters that dive and dance like a school of shimmering fish around the Atrocity's grey bulk.
The air fortress's builders had not been stupid men,(5) they had expected people to fight back and shoot at their engine of death and had equipped it appropriately. Inches of metal armor, which the relatively tiny guns of the fighters plinked harmlessly off of, along with over a hundred turrets to shoot at pests such as tiny maneuverable craft. Unfortunately, the turrets were manned by people, who were surprised, drunk, or had been otherwise pleasurably occupied until not two minutes ago, and so their minds hadn't quite caught up with reality and their shooting was less than precise. But the Indefensible Atrocity had weathered attacks from hardier opponents, and longer, the officers and crew weren't really worried. Fill the air with enough flaming bits of metal and just by sheer odds, somebody's going to hit.
Normally, this would be true, even with the smaller number of turrets up above on the balloons, but the fighters split off as one, and each swarmed a balloon, lancing bright thermite missiles into the (relatively) vulnerable balloons. Which, the builders not being stupid beings, were not filled with something explosive, like hydrogen, and this would all have ended as dozens of other assaults on the giant fortress of shooty death, had one of the pilots not made a lucky shot with a thermite missile that burned straight into the ammo supply of one of the sections of turrets. The fire and explosions tore a great rent in the balloon out of which invisibly poured the supporting gas of the Atrocity. The fortress tipped and began listing, starting to sink toward the hills below. The sleek fighters, reduced to about half their numbers, decided they'd done enough and flipped over and off, out off to wherever they had come from.
The Indefensible Atrocity's fall speeded as the tiny rents torn by the other attacks took their toll too, and tons of fortress set down, none too gently, in the hills, tearing great rents in both, though more in the hills than the fortress. Perhaps, in retrospect, naming your flagship Indefensible was not quite the most auspicious of omens.
1: As it happened, both these views were, in large part, correct. The Universe, despite the best efforts of astrophysicists, priests, and various other people with a penchant for order, refuses to stay in a single nice smooth shape. Especially once you add in relativity, too, which basically says that everwhere is actually the center of the Universe. This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, since almost everyone goes about thinking the Universe revolves around them, the irony in this case is they're right.
2: The Author, Editor, and Publisher hereby disclaim all claims that this might actually work and prevent you from, say, being sent to the principal's office. So if you get caught, you're on your own.
3: See? Airships already, like we promised. Aren't you happy now?
4: Which was, rather obviously, raining nasty hurty death down on people, but you're all smart and coulda guessed that already, right?
5: Though they were almost certainly vain, petty, and callous, or more liklely terrified out of their minds, to work on such a thing.
Infinity lies just beyond the edge of sight. Literally, in this case. A few hundred light-years beyond the edge of the universe visible from the little planet the folks on it call Earth, lies another planet. This planet, naturally enough, orbits around a star, as planets are wont to do. And by this accident of placement, the people who live on this planet, whose name, in their own language, pretty much means "Home" also, have no idea about the people on the other little planet called Earth. And won't, for at least thousands of years, if not longer. Which is sad, because the people there were lonely, in the middle of a universe where they seemed to be the only ones around. And so, pretty much like humans on Earth, they figured they were the center of the universe (1).
This story, like all good stories, touches on theology, morals, economics, philosophy, bowling, what it means to be alive, and many other grand themes that will make excellent excuses should you be reading this book in a class where you should instead be doing something else and the teacher catches you. (2) But mostly it's about Coolness, and things the Author thinks are cool, so feels excited enough to tell everyone about them. Which means, yes, there's gonna be airships. If you don't like airships, go write your own story.
Back to the planet. Narrative can travel faster than light, which is how we got here in the first place, but for the moment, speeds only a significant percentage of light will be enough, as we zoom in from empty space toward the star. Despite the popular views propagated by star maps and nifty space posters, planets don't actually orbit stars on clearly defined white ellipsoid lines. So the outer edges of the solar system are quite dull, a few frozen rocky comets lurking nearly invisibly against the darkness of space. And we'll just skip right from there to a nice picturesque view of the planet Home, and contemplate for a moment the delicate beauty of a ball of rock circling a giant fusion reaction, with a thin skin of air and water supporting life and making it look like a blue and green marble.
...
There, that's long enough for the philosophical view thing, let's get to the action, shall we? Please remain seated until the story has come to a full and complete stop. *bwip*
* * *
Two Miles Above the Former People's United Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune of Flurbania
The grey bulk of the Indefensible Atrocity hung in the sky like a giant armored six pack held aloft by metal balloons. (3) It was, to be frank, a graceless, awkward, clunky, and downright ugly machine, with only one thing that could be said about it, it was frightfully good at the purpose it was designed for.(4) A purpose it had been fulfilling quite well for the past few months, as the Former People's United Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune of Flurbania was, in military terminology, "pacified." This isn't quite how they'd put it on this world, of course, with the language differences and all, but the words they used had the same feeling and purpose, and to that point, we'll simply use the appropriate English words from now on, as these asides can be quite distracting and detract from the point of the story, unless it's a concept that really and truly needs extra explanation.
And so there it hung. The ground below it, actually, was a beautiful and fruitful field, not the destroyed wasteland one would expect to discover beneath such a behemoth. That was a few miles back, the former capital of the Former People's United Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune of Flurbania, of which a large portion was now craters, rubble, smoking ruins, or a combination of all three. The rest, which was militarily valuable, strategically valuable, economically valuable, or just lucky, was in the hands of the Imperial Army, which followed in the wake of the Indefensible Atrocity, because that's the whole point of shocking fortresses of destruction, to break the resistance before the actual army arrives and so make their lives easier, simply rounding up shellshocked survivors. A strategy that worked quite well, frankly.
The Former People's United Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune of Flurbania really hadn't presented much of a challenge, being a quite small and mostly peaceful collection of idealists, artists, disillusioned college students, and professional leeches(not the right word...grifters...no...crap, fix it later). The Indefensible Atrocity was waiting for the rest of the Army to catch up, so it could refuel, resupply, and rearm, before moving against a few tougher targets, groups of survivalists camped up in the foothills. The survivalists hadn't particularly liked the Former People's United Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune of Flurbania, due to issues ranging from political, philosophical, theological, and the fact that the Former People's United Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune of Flurbania had all the good parties, but they reserved special hatred for the now-expanded Empire. They suspected the Empire of greed and aiming to take over the world, and if there's one thing bullies like the Empire can't stand, it's people who were right. So the survivalists were next.
Out of the mountains, a dozen small streamlined shapes came scudding, practically silently at first, skimming low over the trees. The crew of the Indefensible Atrocity, enjoying some hard-earned rest after blasting apart a mostly harmless city, didn't notice the shapes. After all, they were in the greatest marvel of Imperial engineering, an airship nearly the equivalent of a flying fortress, with more guns than two divisions of the army, who would challenge them?
Then the fighters kicked in their combat engines, a dozen loud roars shooting nearly straight up at the lurking fortress. A semi-alert lookout hit the panic button, making squealing alarms try and out-loud the roaring fighters. Now, the thing about having lots of guns is, it's all well and good, but big guns, mostly pointed downwards, do little to slippery fighters that dive and dance like a school of shimmering fish around the Atrocity's grey bulk.
The air fortress's builders had not been stupid men,(5) they had expected people to fight back and shoot at their engine of death and had equipped it appropriately. Inches of metal armor, which the relatively tiny guns of the fighters plinked harmlessly off of, along with over a hundred turrets to shoot at pests such as tiny maneuverable craft. Unfortunately, the turrets were manned by people, who were surprised, drunk, or had been otherwise pleasurably occupied until not two minutes ago, and so their minds hadn't quite caught up with reality and their shooting was less than precise. But the Indefensible Atrocity had weathered attacks from hardier opponents, and longer, the officers and crew weren't really worried. Fill the air with enough flaming bits of metal and just by sheer odds, somebody's going to hit.
Normally, this would be true, even with the smaller number of turrets up above on the balloons, but the fighters split off as one, and each swarmed a balloon, lancing bright thermite missiles into the (relatively) vulnerable balloons. Which, the builders not being stupid beings, were not filled with something explosive, like hydrogen, and this would all have ended as dozens of other assaults on the giant fortress of shooty death, had one of the pilots not made a lucky shot with a thermite missile that burned straight into the ammo supply of one of the sections of turrets. The fire and explosions tore a great rent in the balloon out of which invisibly poured the supporting gas of the Atrocity. The fortress tipped and began listing, starting to sink toward the hills below. The sleek fighters, reduced to about half their numbers, decided they'd done enough and flipped over and off, out off to wherever they had come from.
The Indefensible Atrocity's fall speeded as the tiny rents torn by the other attacks took their toll too, and tons of fortress set down, none too gently, in the hills, tearing great rents in both, though more in the hills than the fortress. Perhaps, in retrospect, naming your flagship Indefensible was not quite the most auspicious of omens.
1: As it happened, both these views were, in large part, correct. The Universe, despite the best efforts of astrophysicists, priests, and various other people with a penchant for order, refuses to stay in a single nice smooth shape. Especially once you add in relativity, too, which basically says that everwhere is actually the center of the Universe. This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, since almost everyone goes about thinking the Universe revolves around them, the irony in this case is they're right.
2: The Author, Editor, and Publisher hereby disclaim all claims that this might actually work and prevent you from, say, being sent to the principal's office. So if you get caught, you're on your own.
3: See? Airships already, like we promised. Aren't you happy now?
4: Which was, rather obviously, raining nasty hurty death down on people, but you're all smart and coulda guessed that already, right?
5: Though they were almost certainly vain, petty, and callous, or more liklely terrified out of their minds, to work on such a thing.
