Six Astronomical Units outside the orbit of Grugell
Word of the crushing defeat of the Grugell Navy had not yet reached the home world of the militaristic race, according to the stream of chatter interpreted by the Shade Tree’s Signals section. Parked behind a Mt. Everest-size asteroid inside the orbit of the system’s first gas giant, the privateer ship was engaged in what Captain Barrett called “Operation Fastball.”
Two days of calculation had preceded the fitting of five proxy maneuvering thrusters to an asteroid the size of a small village in Barrett’s native England. On command from Indira Krishnavarna, the thrusters fired, aiming the asteroid on a plunging orbit that would result in an impact on the Grugell home world’s northern hemisphere, roughly five hundred kilometers west of the largest city. Five days later, the asteroid impacted as planned, and the impact and the results of that impact were recorded by the Shade Tree. The privateer ship jumped into subspace for Tarbos ten hours after the strike, undetected by the remnants of the Grugell’s planetary defenses.
Tarbos, sixteen days later
“A report, Senator, from Fleet Admiral Gauss.”
“Yes? What is it? Did the battle come off as he’d expected?”
“I’d say so, sir.” An uncharacteristically cheerful Anton Silva handed Senator Crider the printout, obviously just taken from the hyperphone printer. The terse message contained exactly three words:
WE WON.
GAUSS.
“A man of few words, our Admiral Gauss,” Senator Crider laughed.
Another bit of news had come the previous day in the form of a video stream of what the privateer ship Shade Tree claimed was the Grugell home world; Crider sat down and replayed the ultimate portion again, for the fifth time, since he’d received a copy from the Navy Department.
The Grugell home planet was a small, Mars-sized world, which was not surprising given what the Confederacy knew of the alien species’ tolerance for Earth-level gravity. The nighttime view showed one large city in the northern hemisphere of the small, desiccated planet parked about half again as far from its large, blue-white sun as Earth from Sol, and as Mike watched, a flash revealed what the Navy Department agreed was the impact of a very large asteroid. The Grugell home world was devastated by the impact; shock waves had leveled much of the capital city, and the aftereffects would wreak havoc on the planet for at least a generation.
Add that to the wrecking of their Fleet, Mike thought, and the Grugell aren’t a factor for a few years. Five days later, a Grugell ship appeared in near Tarbos orbit, preceded by a radio beacon requesting parlay in badly translated English. The Grugell Emperor was seeking a truce.
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impact of a very large asteroid
A story with a happy ending.
Meanwhile, on Earth, left-wing students began protesting on college campuses.
Meanwhile, on Earth, left-wing students began protesting on college campuses.
Life is not FAIR, man!
A happy ending indeed
Nice.
American writers can only solve things with violence.
It’s the American Way.
the Grugell hated you for your freedom.
So true
Just checking
A reported suicide concern ended with deputies fatally shooting a 79-year-old Florida man after he allegedly pointed a hidden gun at them.
Deputies with the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office were called to Pine Avenue in Mims around 7:55 p.m. Saturday for a welfare check requested by the man’s son, who reported his father was allegedly suicidal, the sheriff’s office said.
Problem solved.
Well, that is some prompt service.
Quicker than Canada even.
Maths time!
Six Astronomical Units outside the orbit of Grugell
so 1 AU is about 93,000,000 miles.
Five days later, the asteroid impacted as planned
Okay, so the rock travelled 6 AUs in 5 days.
93,000,000 x 6 = 558,000,000 total miles to travel.
558,000,000 / 5 = 111,600,000 miles per day.
111,600,000 / 24 hours in a day = 4,650,000 mph speed at impact.
O.O
I don’t think there’s a Grugell planet anymore.
Really, it was probably was going faster on impact, as that figure is what the average speed would have to be to cross that distance in that time. But it had to accelerate to that speed unless it was already going in that direction when the engines were first fired.
Still though…
To get even nerdier, if you could magically accelerate and decelerate continuously at 2.3 G, a similar brachistochrone trajectory in our solar system could have you at the same orbital velocity as the Grugell homeworld, which you could adjust to let you pick how fast you wanted the asteroid to hit. But yeah, straight there and they’d never be able to bother Earth again.
Stochastic rape
Dan Levy has called for more men to stand up for women after being left “speechless” by Shane Gillis’s Saturday Night Live monologue, in which the comedian joked that women “dress like whores” at the gym.
Gillis, who hosted SNL alongside musical guest Rosalía on Oct. 10, said, “I haven’t been to the gym in so long. I didn’t know women just dress like whores now?” He went on to describe women’s gym shorts before joking that men were “not allowed to look.”
The comments sparked widespread backlash with Levy, the costar and co-creator of Schitt’s Creek, condemning the remarks as misogynistic, saying that the objectification of women contributes to a culture in which sexual assault is not taken seriously.
In a video posted to Instagram, he said, “Women wearing short shorts to the gym does not make them whores. It makes the men calling them ‘whores’ misogynists. There’s a difference there.
This sort of casual patriarchal crudeness leads directly to Choo Choo Red and the Seven Dweebs.
According to Entertainment Weekly, former SNL cast member Victoria Jackson defended the controversial joke, saying, “He’s right about gym girls dressing like ‘whores.’ When did ‘camel toe’ become acceptable gym fashion and grocery shopping attire?”
What a slut shaming gender-traitor bitch.
From the ded-thred rhy sed: “we got a good hundred or so years out of a libertarian-ish government”
With one rather significant failing in terms of self ownership (given that being the absolute foundation of libertarian outlook).
Seriously, we probably shouldn’t point to the antebellum era as some golden time of near libertarian governance. Aside from slavery (as though that were a small issue), you had both the Banks of the United States and tariffs, including the abominable one. Oh, and it all ended in civil war – definitely not a good look. Or, in deference to ZWAK – this is why the public wouldn’t move towards this governing model.
From the ded-thred rhy sed: “we got a good hundred or so years out of a libertarian-ish government”
I find theoretical ruminations about this stuff excruciatingly tedious, but at some point, complex organizations require administration. Keeping the inevitable self-aggrandisement and mission creep in check is a fool’s errand.
“…when the people become so corrupted as to require despotic government…”
“A fire “completely destroyed” Paris’s historic Marché Couvert des Enfants Rouges early Monday, authorities said. The cause of the fire that swept through the capital’s oldest covered food market remains unknown.”
Sure – cause unknown, scroll down the page for additional fires…
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20261012-fire-burns-down-paris-s-oldest-covered-food-market
Terrorism
The plainclothes ICE agent who shot a Dominican immigrant in the Bronx could have been easily mistaken for a mass shooter, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Sunday, criticizing the agency’s tactics as dangerously reckless.
Mamdani’s comments came in an interview with MS NOW, days after an ICE agent shot and wounded Oscar Belgal, a 28-year-old Dominican immigrant who was inside a moving car with his five-year-old son. The shooting on Thursday in Marble Hill sparked protests, and renewed national attention on ICE operations.
“ We are talking about a federal agency that shot at a moving vehicle in broad daylight while its agents were wearing construction vests, using long guns, and left New Yorkers in terror,” Mamdani said.
Setting the stage for a shootout between NYPD and ICE?
I’m going to need popcorn.
My money is on ICE.
The “moving vehicle” narrative is one they tried to pull with the Minnesota witch who was shot. No, the vehicles were stopped, surrounded, and then started moving (toward ICE agents). “Broad daylight” – so ICE should only come out at night?
I doubt NYPD cares too much about Zohran’s particulars, so maybe he’s going to unveil some new gang to do his will. Or he’s just all mouth.