A Glibertarians Exclusive: A Glibertarians Exclusive: Riding the String IV
A World of Wind
It was a howling maelstrom of winds, buffeting the Transiter about like a toy boat in the bathtub with a rambunctious two-year-old. The ports were dark, lit only by sudden flashes of lightning that seemed to emit from everywhere.
“What the hell is it now?” Anne demanded. She seized the Transiter’s gravitic controls and tried to stabilize the craft’s sudden flight.
“I think we came out inside a gas giant,” Will said. “Take us up! Vertical axis, as fast as we can go. I can’t program another transit to anywhere until we get out of this mess.”
“I’m trying!” The winds shook the Transiter like a rat in a terrier’s jaws. “I don’t want to climb too fast, not in these winds; I’m using half of the field just trying to stay upright and keep us from blowing away.”
They shook and rattled their way, slowly, up through the clouds. Outside the howling winds gave way to a sleeting spray of methane slush, then up through another band of howling wind and cloud, until finally…
“Hey,” Will observed, “the wind is dying down. I know that’s relative, but still.”
“Feels easier to hold her in place,” Anne agreed.
Will looked out the port. “It’s clearing up. We must be in some kind of a calm area, between belts, maybe?”
Anne locked in the climb rate, set the auto-control, and went to the other port.
“Will,” she said in a low voice, “Come look at this.”
Above them, flashes of lightning still lit the cloud layers, moment to moment, and visible in the flashes…
“Jellyfish?” Will asked, amazed.
“Jellyfish,” Anne confirmed.
They looked like jellyfish, with gelatinous bodies and trailing tentacles, drifting along in the relatively mild winds of the clear level of the gas giant’s clouds. They glowed with some pale-yellow inner light that brightened and dimmed at random intervals.
“What do you suppose they eat? They must be eating something, right?”
“Who knows? Maybe there are smaller creatures we can’t see. Some kind of gas giant plankton, maybe, or just smaller animals of some kind. Maybe there’s something that uses methane as an energy source,” Will replied, trying to remember the college biology courses he hadn’t really paid much attention to. “To have any kind of ecology at all, there must be producers and consumers. But down here, in a gas giant? Who knows? These… jellyfish, they could be either one, or both.”
They heard a dim thump from outside. Will went to the viewer and angled two of the cameras downward. One of the jellyfish collided with the Transiter. It flattened against the surface of the craft and began to spread out.
Then another flattened against the side, then another, the third one blocking Anne’s viewport.
The Transiter shook. An alarm started to hoot.
“Anne,” Will said, his voice raising, “They’re doing something to the hull. We’ve got to get out of this level, fast!”
Anne let out a frightened squeak, but she moved, hitting the gravitic controls, turning off the auto-control, and increasing the rate of ascent. The Transiter rattled and shook, but it climbed, moments later leaving the inexplicably clear zone and rising into another belt of cloud and howling wind. Now the Transiter shook for another reason as the winds closed in, but Will was still watching the display.
“There,” he said. “They’re dropping off. They must have to stay in that clear zone.”
“Were you recording?” Anne asked.
“The whole time. This is going to rattle some cages when we get back.”
“If we get back,” Anne said softly.
“I’ll get us back,” Will reassured her, although he was none too confident himself. “Remember all we went through to get to this point, right? Everyone said it was impossible. Nobody wanted to invest a penny until Roman Main came along. And if his AI hadn’t looked over our plans and thought it was reasonable, even he wouldn’t have put in anything.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, even Roman Main wouldn’t have been in…”
“…if his AI hadn’t looked over the plans. Remember his AI, right?”
“Yeah.” Anne was calmer than she had been since they left Sutter High Orbital; she was thinking hard. “A big salvage ‘bot, but with a high-end self-aware AI brain. A CRS series, I think, but Roman called it ‘Charlie.’ Always thought it was funny, a guy who owns a wrecking and salvage service having a top-shelf AI ‘bot like that.”
“You’re thinking that maybe Charlie saw something we’d missed? And that he either chose not to mention it or figured we’d done it on purpose?”
“I’m not sure. An AI, even a sentient, self-aware AI, wouldn’t think like we do. It’s just a machine.”
“The higher-end ones have partly organic brains,” Will objected.
“Most of them, I hear, use rat brain cells. But yes. Still, though…”
Will looked at the port. “Let’s strap in. We’re coming out of the clouds.”
They sat and watched out of their ports as Anne manipulated the gravitic controls to bring them out of the raging winds. Beneath them, to all sides, the chaos gave way to the slowly receding view of a gas giant, with the typical cloud bands of the same.
Will checked a detector. “Radiation all up and down the band,” he said, “which, I guess, we should have expected. Gas giants throw off all kinds of hell up and down the spectrum. Look, up there – moons, at least two.”
The short-range comm suddenly crackled to life. Will hadn’t even remembered it was still turned on. It squawked, hissed, and then a voice came out of the grille:
“Unidentified craft,” the voice said, “this is Europa Base. Identify yourself, please.”
Will grabbed the mike. “Continua craft Transiter,” he said, “out of Sutter High Orbital, Earth. Boy, are we glad to hear from you guys!”
“You’re a long way from Earth, Transiter. We saw you come up out of the upper gas belts down there at Jupiter. What the hell happened to you? How did you get way down there? How the hell did you survive?”
“That,” Will answered, “is a long story. But now that we’re here, we’ll be heading back to Earth.”
“Very well, Transiter. Advise if you need assistance.”
Will angled the cameras downward again and examined the viewer. “Holy crap,” he breathed. “Look there, hon. That’s the Great Red Spot. We’re orbiting Jupiter.”
He reached and took both of Anne’s hands. “I can get us home from here!”
“You can get us to Earth,” Anne replied. “But when? Will it be our Earth?”
“You heard the guy on Europa,” Will said, “and he knew about Sutter High Orbital. Now that I know where we are, I know I can get us home. I’m sure going to take a shot at it. We can’t get any more lost than we were.”
“All right,” Anne said. “Go ahead, then.”
***
Who are these people who are walking towards you?
Do you know them or will there be a fight?
With their humorless smiles so easy to see through
Can they tell you what’s wrong from what’s right?
Do you remember St. James Street
Where you blew Jackie P.’s mind?
You were so fine, Clark Gable would have fell at your feet
And laid his life on the line
I am looking forward to Evil Mr. Spock with a beard greeting them when they land on earth.
I was thinking apes — or that everything would be the same except pizza wasn’t invented or somesuch.
😱
All pizza is deep dish Hawaiian with extra pineapple. Cut in little squares.
I was going twist ending — not sheer unmitigated horror. 😉
Hah! Forget pineapple on pizza, how about chili-infused hot honey?
Sounds more like a Bogart era femme fatale.
I refuse to believe it was that easy.
What’s plus or minus 20 years?
Ditto. Great story, but I’m expecting a tie in with the space vampires from a previous story.
Shouldn’t they dock, maybe do some repairs/resupply/download their data?
Crowder has the Nashville shooter manifesto. Worth a look.
I’ve forgotten — wasn’t the shooter white? If so… that girl was seriously confused in more ways than one. If not… maybe they should get it out there to tone down the “blame a Caucasian month!” rhetoric since the BLM riots.
Yeah it’s not exactly a shocking reveal, but I might be too dumb to understand the bigger reason behind keeping it a secret for so long.
The white privilege stuff and the way they like to jump on the right for supposedly acting on racial rhetoric would be my bet.
Girl? It was an M2F tranny.
I couldn’t get all the way through. Like all mass shooters that person was a bark at the moon lunatic.
I don’t think there was an actual Y chromosome in there Suthen.
I thought I read he was born Adrian but trannied and changed his name to Audrey….or did I get that backwards?
You got it backwards I think. It’s hard to keep track on the insanity no doubt.
I think you’re right about the names – but Adrian was definitely a she presenting as a he.
And all the news articles (regardless of the “misgendering” crap) immediately went to “she” to try to keep a lid on it once that was realized.
Of course…looking it up I get an article entitled “Details about Nashville shooter’s identity sows confusion.”
After reading the article 3 times I got it untangled. It seems I had it backwards. Born girl, identified as an it? Whatever…still crazier than a shithouse rat.
According to NBC there are only two possible causes of the shooting – hard right wing extremists mistakenly blame tranny or it was caused by guns. Guess which one NBC chooses.
Trump?
I may not be as smart as those NBC guys, but it seems to me the causes were racialist and trans indoctrination having a serious effect on a fragile mind.
I was never sure what the truth was back in the original reporting. The idiotic fad of referring to them by whatever they were pretending to be instead of biological sex was on full display.
Still don’t know whether M2F or F2M or some other kind of delusion.
But yeah, “white” is just slur to the Proggies now, replacing “racist”. There are plenty of white people who use it that way to show they’re a troo bleever. He/she/whatever was just playing along with the current rules.
I thought the BLM riots were whitey’s fault too. I get confused.
It is all either us or (((them))) these days, I expect. Someone seriously wants to foster one or more race wars to tear down society.
Yeah okay — she was as white as if I stayed inside all day, barely seeing the sun.... oh, wait… So yeah, I think “self-loathing in many ways” seems likely here. Sorry she didn’t get real help instead of pandering to her delusions and building up her fantasy world view.
I wish people would pander to my fantasy world. I would blow through it leaving every woman on their back, flushed and breathless with their skirts up.
No? Dammit. I guess I will have to deal with the world we have. Bummer.
The idea I’d be physically capable of pleasing more than one woman would be the fantasy there. A man’s got to know his limitations — and I damned well know mine.
Nice, the Oliver Reed approach:
“My only regret is that I didn’t drink every pub dry and sleep with every woman on the planet.”
For Animal, Tonio, Grzzly, et. al., sad news:
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/11/04/63-grizzlies-some-drunk-on-fermented-grain-killed-by-trains-in-montana/
Trains, plural?
The Trains community is spreading, man.
Keep an eye out for the transsexuals, they like to gang up on you.
Whoops, “trainssexuals”-damn autocorrect
Figure that was where you were going — no need to rail on about it.
Well, that’s not as strange as one grizzly getting hit by multiple trains.
Better than grizzlies pulling multiple trains, I suppose.
Don’t you kink/slutshame!
“You’re not really here for the hunting, are you?”
Trains, plural?
One cryptid train would be more than enough, even for a grizzly.
Drunk bear lives matter.
https://www.pennlive.com/crime/2023/11/man-not-allowed-to-have-guns-used-3d-printer-to-make-them-police-say.html
That’s a sad evidence photo.
So, any given Masshole?
☝️
Driving up there next week – after making sure I purge my car of guns, ammo, and anything other common items the peoples Republic has forbidden.
You lived in NJ so you have plenty of practice.
Stopping there too. Like a vacation in purgatory.
No comment what the search warrnat was for, why he might have been prohibited from fire arms (prior drug dealer convictions? red flag laws? Crazy ex spreading lies?)
Quality journalism there, pennlive.com…
https://www.meme-arsenal.com/memes/d068135641b4b56aa75ef10ee65183a9.jpg
Sad indeed. No steak!
Heh
Well, for starters, he wasn’t using the printer to make guns, at least based on the photo. Just a few handles for, I guess, his AR.
Second, he had one whole rifle round, and it looks like a total of 5 pistol rounds in three (?) different calibers?
The important thing about the Nashville shooter story is not the shooter but the cover up and propaganda.
Crowder had a list of 4 or 5 shooters that we mysteriously never got a motive and the press quickly dropped. They added in the Waukeshaw parade “red SUV” (left plenty of writings about motive).
Then contrasted with a half dozen instances when they had the motive published the same day… within just a few hours.
Crowder went through a bunch of old episodes where they discussed the Nashville shooter and YouTube took them down for reporting that the shooter was trans and suggesting that this might be a part of the motive.
While doing that part of the story, they pulled up YouTube and showed that their coverage of the Manifesto was actively being suppressed. Was the number one trending… and suddenly blocked. Put up a page that said this story is changing quickly so we are blocking it.
Wanna see provocative? Here is what Elon Musk said in response to the Crowder tweet showing the pages from the manifesto.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1721589984317034913?t=WNeKJ2As0U5cGpUI_SP3-g&s=19
“Clearly mentally ill, but also clearly brainwashed into being a mass murderer by the system”
Also, don’t forget that the White House response was
“Our hearts go out to the Trans Communitu, as they are under attack right now”
https://twitter.com/MatthewVocke/status/1721590941075529931?t=ok5lNDnWDaLRv0nO4xlywg&s=19
Perfectly in keeping with their current laser-like focus on Islamophobia.
“Attacks on political opponents == good, anything negative towards
useful idiotspolitical allies == bad”Although most Jews were pretty reliable Democrat voters. I wonder if that will change much.
Like the African American community — my only interpretation is they think they’ll say “Nowhere else to go” and keep pulling the lever regardless. Trusting in the programming and group think to keep them all mindlessly fearing the scary “right”.
These are the same people that without shame ran articles of Larry Elder as “The black face of white supremacy” and not just suffered no pushback, it worked in California… so can you blame them?
I guess the tribalism and groupthink are too entrenched for any kind of realignment to happen.
Re: voting alignment lock:
Texas and the South used to be solidly Blue. New Jersey and Chicago were the swing states when Kennedy got elected. Black voters used to be lockstep Republican. Reagan won every state except Mondale’s home state. Florida and Ohio are no longer swing states.
Things change.
As I recall . . . .
The last political realignment (the 70s/80s) had the southern democrats turning into republicans and the northern republicans turning into democrats. The Jewish basically stayed put and the democratic party changed around them.
Once again they proclaimed the exact opposite of reality.
1984 was really quite prescient.
It’s a cookbook . . . .
wrong show.
They had this guy locked and loaded for a big mass shooting – but the brainwashing didn’t take.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/heavily-armed-man-found-dead-apparent-suicide-colorado-amusement-park-rcna122895
That’s one of my favorite amusement parks too.
ZOMG! How DARE they misgender her! She was in a woman’s restroom, that makes her a woman!
Could be another one.
Two additional instances of how Feds are doing propaganda with these types of things: The guy who rammed the White House outer gate and they posed all the belongings neatly in the street for the media and the guy in Utah where they displayed his body for the media.
These? No no, can’t show this! Those pages are from a deranged human being but nothing so ‘shocking’ or ‘dangerous’ as they led to the public to believe and why they buried it.
I guess one might say people might equate all trans to having that same mindset which is wrong but they have no issue stringing together that thought process for every white male that as right-wing leanings.
Another murder, non-shooting, that was instantaneously a hate crime – the 6 year old Muslim kid. Even when in the article it stated the police had not established a motive.
One more episode, or is this the end?
The End
Too far for whatever conventional propulsion they have. Plus he’s brimming with confidence now that he got close.
Close? Is he, though?
Close in distance, if not in universes.
Close as in horseshoes, hand-grenades and seventh-grade sex?
He is in the right solar system, if not necessarily the right timeline.
Trained professionals.
U.S. Park Police officer unintentionally fatally shoots fellow officer at Virginia gathering
I’m sure no alcohol was involved.
“Unintentionally”
Hey, he said he thought it was unloaded! How dare you imply he was lying!
I am glad that these happen. Sorry for the loss, but it helps at least slow down the gun-grabbers that continually claim only the State should have guns.
Really? Show me one that it has slowed down even a little.
Don’t burst my bubble.
Would you say that their commitment to that idea is approaching religious faith?
Faith is not exclusive to religion, though religion is quite dependent on faith. And maybe that’s where we are hanging up.
The Ending:
Three options: John Candy and Buck Henry
“Were in a Zoo!!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S-fcg63l_I
Good news! If only I cared.
Venture Is Overwatch 2’s First Non-Binary Hero
Is Overwatch a triple A title?
*shrug*
Blizzard died years ago. I haven’t paid much heed to what’s been crapped out by its shambling undead corpse. But they were once important, so the residuum carries over. And they might have spent triple-a sized dollars on development because that’s what bloated old development studios do.
They had robots in #1, wouldn’t those be non-binary by default?
No, Robots are always binary.
01001001 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101
Quantum Robots?
Trump spars with judge during testimony.
I’ve got to give Trump credit for not curtsying to those pompous frauds. It must drive them bananas.
+1 contempt of court.
+1 pencil-neck geek with Judge Dredd fantasies
So damn busy today. No time for supportive comments. So I must quickly snark abd get back to work.
Pull my finger for a World of Wind.
Case in point
Randy Zelin is a New York City-based trial attorney specializing in white-collar criminal defense and is also known for his numerous appearances on the right-wing news channel Newsmax, where he provides legal analysis. In reaction to Eric Trump’s earlier comments, Zelin lambasted the former president’s son and accused him of “taking a dump over the system.”
“Do it in the courtroom,” Zelin said. “If you’re so sure that you’re going to win, if you haven’t done a damn thing wrong, then do it in the courtroom. This abject lack of respect that people have for our system of justice, for our judges, for our prosecutors, for our quasi-prosecutors. Shut your mouth, keep it out of the media, show a little bit of respect, particularly if you’re a last name you want to be attached to, being the most powerful person in the world. Do it in the courtroom, and stop taking a dump over the system that you want to preside over.”
When pressed by Newsmax host Michael Grimm, who said that James was more at fault for bringing the case in the first place, Zelin said that Eric Trump and others inclined to make such comments “have to be the bigger person” and let voters punish the New York attorney general by potentially voting her out of office.
Boo fucking hoo, you pathetic ass licker.
Note that there’s no suggestion the party who took an oath to uphold the Constitution should be a bigger person.
Eric Trump is not an officer of the court, and it isn’t just the oath that goes along with that.