Previously...

General Ford's lips trembled slightly as he stood at attention. "I've failed, sir. I await execution."

"Nonsense," answered Washington. "The rebellion in the south cost half a million lives, easing the population problem at least a little, while doing nothing to us except make us look good. And I've come up with the perfect plan for taking care of the Martians, the Earthians, and..." he chuckled a little, "those sourthern assholes. Notice how it's always the southerners who cause trouble? We're going to lose a lot of southerners, and it will look like the Martians' faults."

"But sir, "said Ford, "may I ask how that is in any way possible, considering how much more technologically advanced they are?"

"No, Ford, you may not. There are Martian spies about, I'm sure of it, although I haven't been able to figure out how they're planting bugs... they've obviously actually been inside the palace itself. This is strictly a need to know basis, and I don't want to put you in jeopardy, you're far too valuable.

"Dismissed, Ford."

"Yes Sir" said Ford, saluting.

Zales and Obrien were watching from millions of kilometers away. "What do you make of that, Sarge?" asked O'Brien.

"Dunno, but it's especially worrisome considering all the rockets they launched last week. It's also worrying that they've started to suspect that we can see and hear them. It's good, though, that they think there are spies there actually on their planet and don't suspect that we can even see them from here, as well as from all the satellites. If course they can shoot few satellites down, our tech just moves too fast for them. They're still using chemical rockets, for Galaxy sake!

"It's a good thing they have such small imaginations, or they'd realize that the way we hear them is by having computers read their lips, and we can see right through their walls!"

"How far have the rockets gone? Are we going to shoot them down?"

"Lieutenant Maris says no. They're not heading for Mars; in fact, they're heading away from Mars and towards Saturn, which is on the same side of the sun as them right now. He's sent a message to the Titanians, who will probably ignore it like they always ignore us. Maris says he can't figure out why they're sending rockets to Saturn unless they're planning on attacking the Titanians, but that would be senseless. Venusians can't live on Titan!"

"Hey, check this out, Ford seems to be just aimlessly waking down the street."

"Ok, O'Brien, you watch Ford, I'll keep track of Washington. The rest of the team needs to be watching, too. I don't like the looks of things."

"Shit, Sarge, those guys are just plain evil! Look at this!"

"I can't, 'm busy watching Washington."

O'Brien watched Ford saunter down the street whistling, the ever present ugly, evil look on his face. To a protohuman, a human Amish would look weird, Martians and Earth experimentals would look goofy, and one look at a Venusian would make your blood run cold. They looked evil. And they were. Ford's evil grin became even more evil looking as he steeped into the Dick and Pussy Saloon. A group was fistfighting in the corner, and Ford microwaved them.

"Hark!" Yelled the bartender, snapping to attention. "Hark!" all the other patrons echoed, also snapping to attention. "At ease, boys, I just came for a little pleasure. Barkeep, give me a bloody Martian." he laughed. "In fact, kill all those greedy fucking bastards and I'll have a REAL drink!"

The bartender laughed nervously. "Yes sir," he replied.

"What the bullet are you laughing at, twit? Are you laughing at ME?!"

"N-no, sir, of course not sir!"

Ford drew a weapon, pointed it, and the bartender's head exploded. "Well, you should have, dumbass, that was a joke! You," he said, pointing at a patron. "You're the new bartender."

"But sir, I don't know how to tend bar!"

His head exploded as well. "Anybody else here that's not a bartender?" he said, sipping the drink the now-late bartender had concocted. He looked around at the crowd. A group of wet-eared kids stupidly laughing, a couple in what was obviously a romantic interlude at a table, and... hey, he thought, she's damned good looking. Not to us, of course, but to a Venusian... Ford sat down at their table. "Hey, beautiful, how about we get nekkid and fuck?"

The man became pale, the woman's face blushed. "This is my husband!" she objected.

"Not any more," Ford said as the man's head exploded. "You know, up close you don't look so good either. Keep your clothes on, bitch." As he walked out the door, he said loudly "Drinks are on the dead bartender. I'm getting out of this boring fucking place, losers."

A very attractive (to a Venusian) woman followed him. "General? That bitch was stupid, I'd love to get naked and fuck!"

"Slut!" Ford exclaimed, as her bloody corpse hit the sidewalk. He didn't just want sex, he wanted foreplay - which included, of course, killing her already established man. If she had no man, why would the second most powerful man in the world want her?

Sadly, all this was perfectly normal behavior to a Venusian.

Continues...

Previously...

"Zales here, What's up, sir?"

"Get down to the base ASAP, Sargent. Mars is under attack!"

"Holy shit, Lieutenant, I mean, uh, yes sir. I'll be right there. " Zales disconnected and called his men before waking his wife. "Honey? Wake up! I have to go to the base! Lieutenant Maris just called and said Mars is under attack!"

"Hmmmphft... whah... WHAT? Mars is under attack? Who's attacking us, Venusians?"

"I don't know any more than you, all he said was that we're under attack and get there ASAP. Holy shit! Mars hasn't been at war for a hundred years! Where's my pants, honey? Holy shit!"

Back on the base Lieutenant Maris was debriefing Private O'Brien. "No sir," O'Brien said, "none of the Venusian rockets went south. They were slightly north of the planetary plane, less than a percent, and looked like they were going towards Saturn. If I may ask, sir, what's going on?"

Maris was grave. "Brace yourself, Private. Everybody in the southern hemisphere appears to be dead. We've found no survivors."

O'Brien went pale; most of his family lived in the southern hemisphere. And a lot of friends, too. "Sir? ...everybody??" A tear left his eye, and he blushed.

"Private, you can mourn later. Right now we need you, and badly. Those screens could mean Mars' survival. The entire south was flooded with gamma rays and we need to make sure the north doesn't get hit."

"Y-yes sir" he stammered. "Galaxy!" he thought. Everybody dead? It was beyond his comprehension. He put his focus on the screens.

"And Private," Maris continued, "it may have been a natural phenomena.

A while later, Zales showed up. "O'Brien!" he said, "Did the lieutenant tell you..."

"Yeah, Sarge, he was here a little while ago."

"Have you called Dennis?"

"No, I've been too busy manning these screens."

"Call her, I'll take over. Shit, I can't believe this is happening!"

Continues...

Previously...

"Thank you, Sargent," said Lieutenant Maris. "These observations are indeed troubling. Keep a close eye on them. That'll be all. Dismissed." Zales saluted, turned on his heel after Maris returned his salute, and walked out, closing the door behind him.

"What a gunghole," Maris said to nobody in particular, since he was in the room by himself. Still, he thought, the military needed gung-ho men like Zales. He picked up his tablet and started to work on the office's budget for the next fiscal year.

Private O'Brien came in the building as Zales left Maris' office. "Mornin', Sarge," he said. "Did you see the game last night? It was really a good one. Parksley made the best play I've ever seen!"

"Good morning, O'Brien. No, I got busy. You're going to be kind of busy today yourself. Here, watch this." He turned on the holoscreen, and the Venusian dictator was giving a speech to his planetmen. "Fellow Venusians," Washington said in Venusian as the Martian translation crawled across the bottom of the holoscreen. It was a necessary redundancy, as part of Zales' and O'Brien's job was to be fluent in Venusian.

The Venusian continued. "You have all seen the news reports of the uprising in southern Venus. The situation is under control. The traitor Zak and a hundred of his fellow conspirators have been executed for their sabotage. Repairs of the affected facilities are underway, and the affected provinces are under martial law..."

Zales switched off the screen. "Martial law! The stupid Venusians don't seem to realise that martial law is the norm there. The 'unrest' is worrying enough as it is, but watch this." He switched the screen back on, and a primitive rocket filled the screen as it lifted off from the surface of Venus, exploding several seconds later.

"We lasered that one, and several more, but two got through and actually destroyed two of our spy satellites. Two satellites doesn't change our capabilities, but..."

"Yeah, I see," said O'Brien. "Galaxy! Deja Vu. This is how the last system-wide war started. Do you think that the idiots are planning to attack again?"

"Yes, it's a distinct possibility."

"What did the Lieutenant say?"

"He didn't say anything to me, but I'm sure he'll pass it up the chain. Keep your eyes open!" he said, putting on his coat.

"You bet, Sarge. That is a bit worrying, even though I don't see how they could possibly be a threat. They don't even have fission bombs, let alone fusion bombs. Sure, they vastly outnumber us but it will never get as far as hand to hand. Their primitive rockets are way too slow to be a threat. They won't get anywhere near Mars before they're destroyed."

"Well, O'Brien, you saw the feed from yesterday; they're overpopulated. Sending a few thousand ships to Mars would ease their overpopulation problem a lot more than an orchestrated civil war on Venus. The problem is, we lost a lot of good people and equipment the last time."

"You know I'll keep my eyes open. See you tomorrow, Sarge."

"See you," said Zales as he walked out.

Continues...

Previously...

General Washington sat resplendently on his ornate throne, holding his scepter in his right hand, with his ornamental bejeweled sword and his fully functional microwave pistol on his left, with five shiny stars on each shoulder.

The General ruled an entire world. More, really -- he owned an entire world. It was his to do with whatever he wished, titles be damned. Right now he wished a lot of Venusians would commit suicide and spare him the pleasure of killing them himself.

A semicircle of thirteen chairs with twelve of them occupied by his highest officials sat in front of him, the thirteenth chair empty to remind the officials of how easily they could be removed, and just what "removal" meant. As if the crucified skeletons surrounding the palace weren't enough of a hint.

He spoke gravely. "Gentlemen, this planet is vastly overpopulated. Five billion is too many of us to sustain. People are going hungry, which isn't the problem. The problem is the unrest it's causing. We, the rulers of this planet, have it good and if it gets screwed up you'll wish you'd been castrated, burned, flogged, and crucified. What do you suggest?"

General Ford, Secretary of War, spoke first. "Your eminence, I suggest we emigrate half the population. Earth is empty, nobody but a few hundred thousand farmers with no weapons or technology. They're ripe for the picking!"

"Yes, but the Martians would never allow it. You remember what happened the last time we tangled with them."

"Well, sir, perhaps we could have a little warfare of our own? Say, an insurrection in a couple of provinces that we could put down with great loss of life?"

Washington smiled. "I like it, Ford. Actually I'd like to kill all the Martians, too, but the bastards are too damned sneaky and get us every time. The insurrection will only help a little bit, but it's better than nothing and will keep the populace's mind off their hunger. Mister Greenwalls, what does the Department of Justice suggest?"

"Well, sir, there aren't enough capital crimes. We're way too lenient. Make donating blood to family a capital offense. Give standing orders that any citizen who gets out of line and talks back to authority gets rayed instead of just having his tongue removed."

"Mister Zak, what does the Department of Commerce say?"

"Nothing, sir, we've already acted. An, ahem, 'accident' took down all the power generation in fifteen southern provinces. No power means no water, most will be dead in a week."

Washington stood. "I see," he said, circling behind his officials, who knew better than to look back at him. "Fool! You could topple us all!"

"But, s-sir..." he started to say before his head rolled across the floor.

"How about that?" said Washington, eyeing his bloody sword. "It's not just for ceremony after all!"

Continues...

Previously...

Reverend Smith walked down the dusty lane towards the Muldoons' place, worrying about tomorrow's sermon. He didn't have one. He'd been praying for inspiration all week, and had come up dry. He had been visiting his flock that day, thinking maybe inspiration would come that way. So far, no luck.

Rebekkah heard the pained screams and ran toward them, worried sick about her beloved husband. She ran through the grove, and there Jonah lay, grasping his leg. Blood was squirting out of it with every heartbeat. By the time she reached him he had lost consciousness and was as pale as a newly bleached bedsheet. Jonah's mule and plow were nearby, the plow in a pool of blood that stretched to where Jonah lay.

She tore off a piece of her skirt to make a tourniquet out of, applied it, but she feared it was too late. He got more and more pale, and his breathing became more and more shallow.

Her husband was dying. She was sure of it. She knelt down and prayed that the Lord God would save him. "He's so young, Lord! We don't even have a child yet! Please, please, don't take him from me!

"But Lord," she added, "Thy will be done, not mine. In Yeshua's name I pray, Amen."

She opened her tear-bleared eyes and saw... well, she wasn't sure what she saw. She wiped her tears, and the Reverend Smith was bending over Jonah. "Rebekkah, what happened here?! All this blood!"

I don't know, John. I was churning butter when I heard him scream. By the time I got here he was unconscious. I put a tourniquet on, but..." she sobbed "I'm afraid I was (sob) too (sob) late!"

"My poor child," said the Reverend, his hand on her shoulder. "Dear Lord, if it be your will, please spare Jonah, and please comfort this poor child in her time of grief. In Yeshua's name, amen."

Jonah groaned, and Rebekka startled. "Jonah?"

Jonah looked less pale. His eyes fluttered open. "Oh, Christ, my leg! Oh God, it hurts!"

Smith's eyes opened wide. "Jonah? Are you all right?"

"Reverend? When did you get here? My leg... the plow almost cut it off! It really, really hurts!"

"You just lie still, Jonah," the preacher replied. "Rebekkah, stay here with him while I go get some help." He then took off running.

When he returned with three other men and a stretcher, Jonah was upright, with his wife helping him walk back to their house. "Jonah?" Reverend Smith said, "I brought strong drink, as it says to in the book of Proverbs."

"Thank you, Reverend, but it doesn't hurt as much. I think the bleeding stopped."

"But how... thirty minutes ago your leg was half off!"

Jonah smiled, took a step, and grimaced. "It's a miracle, John. Praise be to God! Shall we all go to my house and have a glass of wine?"

"well," said the reverend, "Forgive me, Lord, but I could use a stiff drink!"

He knew what his sermon was going to be tomorrow.

Continues...

Previously...

PFC O'Brien lounged back in his recliner, sipping flavored water and munching on something salty and crunchy. The game was going well, the New Salem Rorigars was beating the snot out of the Norwegian Nebulans.

Mars had been terraformed millions of years earlier. A hole had been dug all the way to its core, a giant molten magnet inserted, the entire asteroid belt moved to the surface of Mars and an atmosphere similar to Earth's generated chemically, with higher levels of CO2 and lower levels of nitrogen. Oceans were provided by comets and much of Saturn's rings. It was no longer the "red planet;" with its mostly nitrogen atmosphere, it was almost as blue as Earth.

Early Martian settlers had trouble growing crops in the lowered nitrogen atmosphere, but chemical fertilizers made up the slack. Mars needed the carbon dioxide to keep it warm, especially since the removal of the asteroid belt had gravitationally shifted its orbit a tiny bit towards Jupiter. The early settlers had it very rough, many of them dying at early ages; even "terraformed" it wasn't exactly like Earth and was very inhospitable to the early immigrants. The environment was different enough that the Martians had evolved to better fit it. Nobody knew if the Martians could still breed with the Amish left behind on Earth. They assumed there had been evolution there, considering the Milankovitch cycles and the warming and cooling caused by them. But nobody on Mars knew.

It also wasn't known how the Amish wound up in charge of the Earth, outlawing most technology, or how the technoratti had decided to leave and take their technology with them. History had been lost in the mists of time, especially since the early Martians had faced such hardships.

It was ironic that Martians would have such a thing as sports, while the Venusians didn't. "Venusians," O'Brian spat, in his mind. "Vulgar bastards, always after nothing but pleasure for themselves and pain and misery for others." You would expect them to like the violently peaceful sports and the peaceful wars between sports teams. The problem, he thought to himself, was the "peaceful" part. Venusians hated peace; they called it "boredom", he thought. Stupid Venusians, always wanting to fuck or fight and do nothing else.

There was a bit of irony here, too, since O'Brien was in the Martian military. Of course, Mars' military never did any fighting; their only purpose for existence was to be there in case the Venusians decided to stupidly attack them again, or even more unlikely, someone from another galaxy would attack, or a stray meteor from the Ort cloud might hit; the Martian military was prepared for any emergency, no matter how unlikely. Out of the billion Martians on Mars, only a few thousand were in the military. There were more sports players and entertainers than soldiers.

He decided to change his view of the game and adjusted a control. The holographic wall's scene swung around, with the strange (or would be to you) sensation that the room itself was spinning.

Fifty to thirty. "Go, Rorigars!"

"Honey, dinner's on the table. Hey, what are you doing eating those cow chips? I told you dinner was almost done!"

"Sorry, Precious, I was hungry. I still am. You mind if I watch the rest of the game in the dining room?"

Dennis smiled. She loved her husband, and was proud of his work, even though a life in the military wasn't held in high esteem on Mars. Martians loved learning; the only one more respected than a teacher was a researcher, and the only vocation held in less esteem than a soldier was a sports player. Even entertainers were more highly respected than a soldier, which was little at all.

She was on sabbatical from her job as a chef, as she was expecting their first child. "Ok," she answered, "but I want to watch the news. How much longer is the game going to be on?"

"It's almost ov...YEAH! Pointdown!" A buzzer sounded. "That was a good game, and honey, your timing was perfect! Lets eat! What are we having?"

"Cowburgers and shrimp fries, with mashed oglos and poopers."

Back on the base, his boss was uneasy looking through his telescope and checking the electromagnetic radiation from Venus. "Shit," muttered Zales under his breath."Damned Venusians. This doesn't look good at all. I'd better call Lieutenant Maris."

Continues...

I'm going to move a few chapters around; chapter 2 is going to be chapter 1, a new chapter 2 is forthcoming. Its title will be "Martians". After that, a new chapter 3 titled "Venus Envy" will come next. I'm not sure where I'll stick chapter one, which I whipped out in about ten minutes. I'm certainly no Asimov, he wrote a short story during a commercial break when he was a guest on the Tonight Show on a typewriter borrowed from Johnny Carson's secretary.

As it is, there can't be more than a couple of chapters after the last one I've posted, and there's not enough material to be a novel. As it stands it's only a novella.

Plus, it's the three characters almost all the way to the end of the book before the space aliens even show up. I'll have to add a couple of chapters about the Earthian Controls as well, but I only have the two above-named chapters in my head, and still nebulous.

When I write, I write for me; I write what I'd want to read, written how I'd like to read it. And I'm not happy with the thing so far (especially the discontinuities).

I'm also unhappy with all the typos; they'll be (hopefully) gone in the finished work, which I plan on publishing in dead tree before E just to see what happens.

Five or ten years ago, my daughter Patty bought The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide for me for Christmas, an omnibus edition of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that contains all five novels, a short story about a young Zaphod, and an introduction by Adams, The Guide to the Guide. It's a really nice hardbound tome with the cover printed in gold leaf... she must have paid a fortune for it. Or bought it from one of the redneck Kentucky dopers that buy games at the GameStop she works at south of Cincinnati.

Anyway, I got it off the shelf the other day and started re-reading it, and in the introduction I discovered that Adams had some of the same problems writing it that I'm having writing Nobots.

Wow.

The story grew in the most convoluted way, as many people will be surprised to learn. Writing episodically meant that when I finished one episode I had no idea what the next one would contain. When, in some twists and turns of the plot, some event seemed to illuminate things that had gone before, I was as surprised as anyone else.

He goes on to mention continuity problems. Again, I'm no Douglas Adams, either. Hell, I didn't take a single journalism or literature or writing class class in college; I had no interest in writing back then... but maybe Asimov didn't have any training in writing, either.

Many of the chapters are going to need a lot of revision, as I found out after I assembled it in Open Office and read it again. What a mess!

Even though I'm in good health (except for my advanced peritonitis, which is damned painful... I've GOT to see an oral surgeon), I'm no spring chicken, as Patty's redneck crackhead customers would say. Adams would be my age if he hadn't died eleven years ago. So if you're lucky I might even finish this thing.

Don't worry too much, my parents are still alive. My mom's oldest sister just passed away late last year at the age of 99. So I should be OK unless I get shot walking home from Felbers or one of the idiots in this town runs over me.

About this time next year I'll be starting retirement, so I'll have a lot more time to devote to smoking pot and drinking... and writing.

This was going to be a comment in Jeremiah Cornelius' JE about Christopher Jordan Dorner, but adding it as another JE might perhaps get it more eyeballs, and it's a bit long for a comment. The following treatise is an observation about the species Homo Sapiens. Please read JC's linked JE before continuing.

Corporate media mentions the "manifesto" but nothing about its contents. Corporate media has indeed vilified this man and terrorized a lot of people. "A killer is on the loose!" Well, I know and have known a lot of killers. They're called "soldiers" and "veterans." A lot of the killers I've known are now dead from Agent Orange. But the thing is, he's a soldier. He's only targeting the enemy -- cops and those associated with cops. And often cops are the enemy of "we, the people." If you're poor (or sometimes just black) they're almost always the enemy.

Cops are supposed to be for justice, and justice is what this brave soldier is after.

They say it as if he's "snapped" (their word) and ask the stupid question "why five years after he was fired?" It's a stupid question because it's aimed at the stupid; they know the answer -- his appeals are now exhausted.

Like any other animal, homo sapiens have strong instincts, but we convince ourselves that we're rational. We're not. Do a little experiment sometime. Take a 100 mile trip and do 5mph under the speed limit and you'll see evidence of one of our strongest instincts -- the herding instinct. A group of ten to a hundred cars will pass you, slowing down briefly to unconsciously attempt to get you to join the herd, yet still following the herd's lead. Then, empty highway for a while until the next herd comes along.

Those in power know this, and use your animal instincts against you. You can train any animal if you understand its instincts, even "untrainable" house cats. Mine actually come when called! I once trained a cat to play dead. It isn't hard if you understand their instincts.

Humans are no different, except they're easier to train because we are one of the most, if not the most, social of all animals. We follow the herd. Steve Jobs knew this, or iThings would not be so popular. Fashion designers know this or you wouldn't find like-new clothing at Goodwill. We've been trained to believe (easy because of our herding instinct) that if it's not in fashion, it's worthless. We've been trained to believe that "free equals worthless" despite the fact that two of the most valuable things there are are free -- air and rain. We buy Alieve even though the exact same drug in a generic bottle costs 1/3 as much because "you get what you pay for."

My mother once told me "Steve, you think too much." I disagree. We don't think enough. We follow the herd. The leaders of the pack know this.

That soldier who "has gone rogue" is following his instinct and training. Unfortunately for the corrupt LAPD, he is also a thinker.

Thinkers are dangerous -- to the leaders of the herd. If you're not a cop or related to one, you have nothing to fear from this man, despite media lies. This man is a patriot, and those he targets are traitors.

Previously: Acrux

Ford awoke with a start. Just a dream? But he couldn't shake the emotions that had hit him when he'd dreamed he'd been shackled and tortured. It was so real. he'd never had a dream seem so real in his life.

Of course, it was "real", a real nobotic simulation. Rority hoped the psychologists were right about Ford and Washington. And Gumal had clued him in that the program changes in the nobotic simulations were her doing, after she discovered (or rather, one of the astrohistorians had, and clued her about it.)

Rority hoped the shrinks were right, he didn't want to kill these two stupid aliens. Even if they were assholes. He took a toke off his stratodoober, thought of a protohuman movie he'd seen, and laughed. He decided to nickname Washington "Scroob" and Ford "Dark helmet".

Back on Mars, Gorn was watching via Gumal's timeceiver. "So the Venusians are really the ones who destroyed the solar system's southern hemispheres? Maybe I ought to see about tossing a few nukes at Venus."

Gumal laughed. "You sound like a Venusian. You know, we should rename that planet, and call it 'Venal'. It would better fit. After all, Venus was the protohumans' goddess of love.

"But Gorn, Rority's nobots lied to Washington. The Venusians didn't colonize Acrux, you Martians did."

"What? But... that just isn't like us Martians!"

"Of course not," Gumal answered. "It looks like we have better record keeping than you fellows, even if the data are hard to find sometimes. What happened was, a group of Martians got a lust for power and tried to take over Mars. They were put in stasis and exiled to Acrux, far enough that they couldn't get back, since you didn't have interstellar space faring technology back then. The records say the trip took a hundred years, there was no way possible they could have gotten back.

"It was a long time ago. They surely were no longer the same species as you when they blew themselves up." Gumal took a toke off his stratodoober, and handed it to Gorn. "But if Rority had told them the truth, well, there would have been no possible way to stave off interplanetary war." He took a sip of his Guiness.

"How come that poison doesn't kill you?" Gorn asked.

"It isn't lethal quantities, and in fact the biologists say in moderation it's actually good for ape-descended lifeforms. Want one?"

"No thanks," Gorn said, making a face. "I took a sip once, it tasted nasty. Love that stratodoober, though. Has Rority talked to those Venusians about their apocalypse yet?"

Rority was getting ready to do just that. The next part was going to even be more fun than torturing these two idiots who ran an entire planet. Well, an entire half planet since the supernova. Both had gone back to sleep, and their nightmares were going to get worse.

They both awoke at the same time -- in the same bed. Before either had a chance to react there was an animal growl, and a tiger barred its fangs and roared. Both screamed, and the tiger spoke. "Prepare to die, Venuslings!" it growled. Ford quickly pulled out an energy weapon and fired at it. The flashback, the echo off the tiger, stunned both slightly as the wall behind the tiger burst into flames. The tiger laughed as the two naked Venusians' jaws dropped.

The tiger morphed into a Venusian, who held a small box. "Do you criminals know what this is?"

"Criminals!?" exclaimed Washington. "You... you'll be crucified for this treason," he stammered. The unknown Venusian laughed.

"You were about to wage war on your genetic cousins," it said. "This is a thermonuclear device. If it goes off, this entire city will be obliterated. Your government will be completely gone. Venus will go into chaos, and the survivors will be far too busy fighting each other for control to worry about conquering the peaceful Earthians and Martians. You could not win a war with them in any case with your primitive technologies. Compared to you, they are gods! They can see anything you do, hear anything you say. You will never know what's real and what isn't. Be glad they are not like you, or you Venuslings would be their slaves." It disappeared in a waft of nobotic dust.

Rority was laughing uncontrollably again. The lame script was straight from a "Captain Future" from the protohumans' pulp science fiction from around zero AB, with a little Buck Rogers thrown in for good measure. Crude, lame, but he hoped, effective.

He laughed again and took another toke off of his stratodoober. This was almost as fun as time travel!

Continues...

Has Shuttleworth graduated from snorting coke to smoking crack?? I upgraded my kubuntu install, and Amazon wants my location! WTF??? What's more, it comes up on every reboot even though I dismissed the retarded thing. This is entirely against the very soul of open source! I am outraged. So no more Ubuntu for me until Shuttleworth puts the crack pipe down... I guess Unity should have clued us that he'd gone batshit crazy.

I used Mandriva (after Mandrake) and was happy with it. I switched when everyone said it was dead, I'll probably switch back. But first, since the Linux machine is now even less useable than the Windows (UGH!) box I'm typing this on, I might as well try out some others first... plus, Mandriva is now a DVD install and the computer's old DVD drive has all but bit the dust.

I've heard good things about Mint and will certainly give XMBC a shout, since the Linux box is mostly used for watching movies, youtube, and TV, and listening to the radio and Oggs on.

The box not only needs a new DVD drive but more memory, too, so I'm looking for something not too awfully bloated, although it ran videos fine until I stupidly upgraded. Also, what are the best Linux tools for video editing and format translation?

Suggestions?

Previously: Ford and Gorn

"Seize that impostor!" Ford screamed. Rority's nobotic robot simulation of Ford smiled. "It won't work, Martian. Men, take this... whatever it is to an interrogation booth."

Ford's eyes widened in terror. "NO!" he screamed, "Please, no! Galaxy no!" He started shaking. Rority absent-mindedly noted that this was like time travel, where nobots did the actual traveling while making it look to the traveler like he's actually being transported in time.

Ever since the supernova had ripped the shrouds of fake reality from the underground Earthians' eyes, archaeohistorians had been busy studying the early days of their self-imposed nocube matrix, and found that the earliest time travelers knew they weren't really traveling through time, but were doing so by proxy; living cells never survived the trip -- traveling through time involved speeds greater than C, and approaching C was akin to being in the southern hemisphere when the supernova went off. Just getting to Venus in two days put a huge strain on rad shields. Of course, time travel was not like interstellar travel, that was accomplished by space and time itself being expanded and contracted. The radiation danger wasn't there.

Rority shook his head... too much stratodoobing, he really shouldn't let his mind wander like that. Now to visit General Washington.

Millions of miles away on the red planet, Colonel Gorn and Gumal were laughing hysterically. "I'd better call Rority and see how things are going, then I need to talk to Rula."

Gorn giggled. "Shame about the speed of light radio lag, how far away is Venus this week?"

"It doesn't matter," Gumal said. "We have timeceivers. The signal is sent backwards in time as well as through space. I'm really incredulous that you fellows don't have this tech."

"You can travel through time? Really? How do you do that?"

"Speed," said Gumal. "Time slows down as you go faster. Theoretically, at the speed of light it would seem to a traveler going to Proxima Centauri that they went there instantaneously, while to an observer here or there it would have taken four years, effectively putting them four years into the future. That's how to go forward. To go backward you pass C."

"Except," he added, "that you can't. Going much past a fraction of lightspeed kills everything in the ship that's alive from all the redshift radiation. So we do it using nobots as a proxy. Actual space travel is different; you simply warp space."

"Simply?" asked Gorn, who promptly had another laughing fit. "I love this stratodoober thing, you need to get this tech to the Venusians. Galaxy knows they need to lighten up! So, what is you partner's progress?"

"Give me a minute," said Gumal, standing up. "I gotta pee. Only thing wrong with beer. I'll call Rority while I'm relieving myself... uh, where are your facilities?"

Yes, they still have to pee ten million years in the future. Especially when they're drinking beer.

Back on Earth, Rula was bemoaning the entire situation. There was timework to be done, and here the two best were busy dealing with Martians and Venusians, because a protohistorian was the closest thing they had to a diplomat. And what about these so-called "controls", the Amish? Well, at least they didn't have too much to worry about from them... unless Venusians showed up. She fervently hoped Rority would have no trouble.

Rority was both annoyed and amused. Annoyed with these primitive, violent Venusians and amused at what was going to happen to their leader. Unknown to Washington, the nobots were streaming into his castle, and he'd soon have a psychedelic experience that Timothy Leary would be in awe of. He'd liked Leary, even if the old protobastard was batshit insane. Looking in hindsight, he was glad it was a robot and not him that had gone back, since LSD has no effect on robots, but has a pretty profound effect on animals, including protohumans, humans, controls, Venusians, and Martians. But Washington wasn't getting LSD, his trip would be real. It would be a real nobotic simulation.

Washington was eating dinner. He stuck his fork into the horse meat... or tried. It moved out of the way. Startled, he rubbed his eyes and tried again. "Please don't hurt me!" the meat begged. Washington snarled and tried again, when a translucent apparition walked through the wall. "Washington!" it thundered.

"What..." Washington stammered, "what... who... what do you want?"

"I am the ghost of Alpha Crucis. I am what was left when the Acrux collided 321 years ago."

"What? What is Atrix? And who was this Mister Crucis?" Washington asked perplexedly.

"Acrux, not Atrix. Stars in the southern cross. It's a multiple star system south of Venus. Two artificial neutron stars in the Acrux system collided, destroying every every star in the system, and the planets that orbited them. Two of the planets were settled from your system half a million years ago and were at war with each other three centuries ago. Both developed stronger and stronger weapons pretty much on the same time frames, and it culminated in both developing neutron star construction capabilities within months of each other, and each launched their weapon at the others' planet.

"Of course, the enormous masses of each star, meant to swallow the opposition's planet, attracted gravitationally and collided, resulting in a supernova that obliterated the Acrux system and sent huge amounts of gamma radiation straight at Sol."

"Look, whatever you are," Washington interrupted.

"Silence!" the voice of the nobotic apparition boomed. "Your very existence depends on your listening to me!"

Rority was puzzled; he didn't program that fertilizer into the apparition's speech. So they must not have been bovine manure, but something from the nobots' network database. He'd have to study this, of course, but later. He had to study Washington's reaction now.

"One planet was named Nuevo Venus, the other's name was Aphrodite. Your people were both our parents and our executioners, and you executed over half your own population by sending us to Acrux. You are Guerra, as were we.

"War. And war is its own enemy and its own executioner. To war is to die. Take heed, fool, or you will suicide as we did."

The apparition vanished. Washington sat there with his mouth hanging open.

Rority laughed, and took a toke from his stratodoober, sipped his beer, and began studying whatever it was the nobots were telling Washington. It was going to be a busy night.

He was really enjoying this.

.

Continues...

Once again I'm reminded of one of that horrible, shitty operating system's shortcomings. If I were sober and not so damned tired I'd install Linux on this sucker right now.

I've had a shitty day. I spent $140 on a fifteen year old cat this afternoon; she had an ingrown nail and I had to take her to the vet. She's on amoxicillin (why in the hell isn't that in FireFox's shitty def file? Had to look the spelling up on Google... shit, "firefox" isn't even on the list) and the poor kitty is stoned to the gills on morphine. She had the thirty dollar bandage off in four hours. So I'm NOT in a good mood. Of course, my friend Amy calls in tears because her idiot son went to basic training without seeing her and saying goodbye. Dumb kid'll probably get his ass shot off in Afghanistan, and I'm sure she's worried about that. Why call me? Let her cry on her husband's shoulder.

So I decide to get on the laptop and chill... and there's the daily virus def update notification. So I look, and it's not just defs but patches to fix Windows' shitty buggy worthless piece of shit code. Since I've had a few beers by now I forgot what a goddamned fucking pain in the ass it is to patch this piece of shit OS.

So I'm reading about CBS and C|net's stupidity at the CES on slashdot, trying to get out of my shitty mood and of course, Windows nags me that I need to restart the computer. The Linux box has never asked me to restart it. If it did it would be no problem, forty seconds and it would be restarted and intelligently have everything that was open reopened. Not Microsoft, their programmers aren't good enough coders to pull it off, I guess.

If I worked for Microsoft and someone asked me what I did for a living, I'd lie and say I sold dope and peddled hookers, that's a far less embarrassing line of work.

Doesn't MS care about their customers? Of course they do. The problem is, I'm not their customer -- Acer is. They have no reason at all to care about user experience, it's all about the OEMs and enterprise customers. Fuck the user, the user doesn't matter.

Of course, by morning I'll realize I'm too busy to screw with it. I have to help Leila get her notebook (I bought both daughters computers just like this one) back online. Their router bit the dust, they got a new one, and Windows of course tries to use their old password, and just stupidly fails when it can't connect, rather than opening a password dialog. I tried to talk her through it over the phone but she was way too upset with Microsoft to listen.

God damned Microsoft, are all their developers on crack? I wish those stupid fucktards would get their act together. But I'm sure hell will freeze over first.

Shit, now the battery's dying! What a shitty day...

It's that time of year again. The time of year when everyone and their dog waxes nostalgic about all the shit nobody cares about from the year past, and stupidly predicts the next year in the grim knowlege that when the next New Year comes along nobody will remember that the dumbass predicted a bunch of foolish shit that turned out to be complete and utter balderdash. I might as well, too. Just like I did last year (yes, a lot of this was pasted from last year's final chapter). But first, the yearly index:

Journals:
the Paxil Diaries
A Paxil Diary Christmas Story
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011

Age-related mental degradation
Springfield Funny Paper
I Hate Windows #FF69A71B6403[stack overfl
The Upgrade part 2
More Stormy weather
Nobody expects an Easter miracle
The best things in life are free

Sci-Fi:
A strange discovery
Nobots:
I've been working on this book all year. It started with a single, very short story. By the third story I started thinking "book". Originally the book was titled Everything You Know Is Wrong but the title changed. I'd say it's maybe half done.
Hadron Destroyers
Little Green Men
The Death of Two Protohumans
It's the end of the world (but I feel fine)
Stratodoober Madness
Bigfoots
Terry and the Nac Mac Feegle
The Dance
Not a ghost of a chance
The Time Triangle
The Zeta Reticuli Incident
Everything You Know Is Wrong
The Surface
Morlocks
War of the Worlds
Venus and Mars
Ford and Gorn

Last years' stupid predictions:

Someone will die. Not necessarily anybody I know...
SETI will find no sign of intelligent life. Not even on Earth.
The Pirate Party won't make inroads in the US. I hope I'm wrong about that one.
US politicians will continue to be wholly owned by the corporations.
I'll still be a nerd.
You'll still be a nerd.
technophobic fashionista jocks will troll slashdot.
Slashdot will be rife with dupes.
Many FPs will be poorly edited.

I think I'll keep those predictions for another year.

I'll finally get that book in paper form
Sigh. Not yet. I hope to get it out shortly. I'll go ahead and predict that again, too.

I had thought that this December I would be eligible to retire, but I made a math error -- I'm already eligible. Too bad I won't be able to afford it until I can collect Social Security. Imagine how much more I'll be writing when I no longer have to work!

Happy New Year! Ready for another trip around the sun?

From Yahoo News:

NEW YORKâ"The hallways of the Museum of Modern Art have always been packed with visitors looking to catch a glimpse of some of the most famous artwork in the world.

Van Goghâ(TM)s âoeStarry Nightâ is on display here, as are Andy Warholâ(TM)s âoeCampbellâ(TM)s Soup Cansâ and Monetâ(TM)s âoeWater Liliesââ"three celebrated images that have been replicated in countless prints and on postcards worldwide.

And just steps away, beginning next March, patrons will be able to observe the museumâ(TM)s latest high-profile acquisitionsâ"ones that they may have even owned. Last month, MoMa announced it would add 14 video games to its collection as part of a new design category that will display in the museumâ(TM)s Philip Johnson Galleries.

The titlesâ"including âoePac-Man,â âoeTetrisâ and âoeSimCity 2000ââ"mark the first of what museum officials say will be a collection of about 40 video games. Other games MoMa is hoping to acquire in coming years: âoeSuper Mario Bros,â âoeThe Legend of Zeldaâ and âoeSpace Invaders.â

The acquisition revives a long-simmering debate among critics, art aficionados and gamers: Is a video game really in the same category as a Picasso?

I've been laughing about this all month, people really expected a deal. Two words explain why a pre-2013 deal is impossible: Grover Norquist. A quarter century ago when federal taxes were quite a bit higher than the present "lower than ever in your lifetime" tax rates, he convinces a very large number of Republicans to swear to never raise taxes. If they make a deal with the Democrats now, they've gone back on their word.

However, next Wednesday taxes go up all by themselves. Making a deal now means they're raising taxes, while waiting until next week lets them campaign on "I lowered your taxes!!!"

Don't expect a deal before Wednesday. Expect one two or three weeks later.