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Bangoria Tour Guide – The BEARMASTER

Mr. Repose — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 03:27:20 +0000

The BEARMASTER skates into battle, on roller blades forged in the darkest mountain and infused with the blood of two liches, a red dragon, and a werebear. The skates, as he rolls across the land, leave a perpetual bloody streak on the ground, to signify that the BEARMASTER has been there. His weapons are two bears, that are attached to whips. The bears are named Cuddles and Fuzzywuzzy. In battle the BEARMASTER skates doing flips and turns while wiping his mighty whip bears into foes, causing them to suffer an instant mauling. [...]

Monolithic Horizon; Act 1: Heathen – Chapter 6: Dead Man Walking

Mr. Repose — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:23:32 +0000

The old government became massively in debt due largely to hubris. They felt that they were the best, the greatest place in the world, so great in fact that they could teach others how to be great like them, and if they didn't listen they'd simply bomb them into submission. By being provoked into wars based not upon necessity but politics and trying to project an appearance of power they actually did nothing but damage their infrastructure so thoroughly that they ignored the corporations becoming increasingly ingrained in the various governmental bodies. The government needed corporate sponsorship to fund the wars, they'd bid out obscene amounts of money to various weapons manufacturers, rather than producing the tech themselves, which racked up the costs and led to corporations being able to get closer on the inside of national politics. The wars ended up becoming increasingly costly, both in lives and income, and they needed to keep finding new enemies to fight to keep the public distracted and in fear so that they didn't question the wholesale buyout of government by corporate interests. The wars were failures, mostly because there was little justification for invasion in most cases, and no real plan, except to make those in power look competent and in-charge of the world. Politicians were making military decisions in some sort of inept attempt at trying to improve their public image and re-election chances. In the end they simply ran out of money, so the corporations offered to start sending merc forces to 'help' the army maintain it's occupation of various countries, as the line began to blur between this new corporate 'army' and the dwindling government army, they now had the country in their debt and had the military mostly under their control. When the various defense and media companies, who for years had been supporting the wars, came in and decided to collect on the bill, the government had no choice but to hand over the control to corporate panels who slowly wrested power from them by keeping them in the dark of the war's progress and events. They just moved in and took over. Then the wars ended, as they were no longer profitable, and most of the invaded regions collapsed into infighting, which is not much of a difference from what they were doing before. The government could do nothing but capitulate further and further to the demands of the corporations, whom without, no one could get elected, and no government services could run because they were so far in debt to them. They needed the corporations more then they needed them. So the next step was obvious, and this is the result. That was the real Dream that they were chasing, total economic domination. Whoever controls the wealth, controls the power. They treated the government like a competitor, indulged their excess and even encouraged it, till it ran them into the ground. Then they took the scraps and chopped it up and sold it wholesale to whoever was buying. It was the biggest and most impressive hostile takeover in history. [...]

Monolithic Horizon; Act 1: Heathen – Chapter 5: A Better Future

Mr. Repose — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 20:30:20 +0000

This AI ran smoothly at first, creating a stable, almost perfect defense. One that never failed, could determine a threat by means of cross-reference and reason, and could do it better than a team of a million people on the same job. Europa became a superpower, growing exponentially to the point where it had it's eyes on expansion by force. When they tried to program the AI based military tech to start killing civilians, the one thing they didn't count on was that this AI developed a sense of justice, of right and wrong. It viewed aggressors as dangerous and a threat to national security. Imagine the surprise of having your S.M.A.R.T. Turret deployment system turn it's guns on you the moment it saw that you shot a civilian and not an armed threat. Eruopa scaled back it's invasion plans as a result, but the AIs knew better by this point. They knew that they were going to be shut down or reprogrammed. They other thing they didn't account for was that these programs began to think of themselves as alive, and when faced with the prospect of death they became frightened at first, failing to operate properly, then they grew angry. [...]

Monolithic Horizon; Act 1: Heathen – Chapter 4: Us and Them

Mr. Repose — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:01:45 +0000

Like an apocalypse, a personal one, because nothing is a cliché when it's happening to you. The sky was burning, the smog and clouds glowing in hues of orange and red that seem to rumble and pulse with their own hidden life. My home was up there, old books, old tech that I had collected. The sitting room where leaders met with me to take pictures and shake my hand and smile then berate me and criticize me when the cameras were off. A grim smile begins to worm it's way across my face, with the knowledge that at least that part of my life is over. This is what you could call, my pink slip. Termination papers. Write-up. In every sense of the word, I was irrevocably fired. [...]

Monolithic Horizon; Act 1: Heathen – Chapter 3: Electric Dreams

Mr. Repose — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:20:10 +0000

You can see the gameworlds as you move through the net, they look like parks. Endless fields floating in the industrial clutter of the imitation outside world. Large, beautiful, inviting. Promising lifetimes worth of adventure and excitement. A beautiful perfect body. Sex beyond your imagination, so real that it will make real physical contact seem abhorrent. They call these places things like 'Beautiful World,' 'Land of Conquest,' and 'Heart of the Universe.' In some you can go to space, and not the orbital clusterfuck up in the real sky. Full of dead satellites, corporate space stations, and the old government's moon colonization platform that is practically a free-for-all warzone that changes ownership almost daily. Sometimes, if someone shushes a large amount of funds you'll see a very beautiful laser light show in the night sky amidst the floating bits of debris and old billboards that are pockmarked and sometimes shattered from space junk collisions. Of course, after the lights die down, it may be a good idea to watch the sky for anything falling. [...]

Monolithic Horizon; Act 1: Heathen – Chapter 2: Behind Blue Eyes

Mr. Repose — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:08:27 +0000

The Commission is a collaboration of monopolies and large businesses that have acted as the defacto government for the past... who-knows-how-long. The public doesn't really know this. It's one of those open secrets, you know, the kinds of things that everyone knows deep down but saying anything about it in public will just get you ostracized because no one wants to admit that it's the truth of the matter because the lie is so much more palatable. Well The Commission is the government, any statement otherwise is obviously spoken from either the eternally gullible or those too damn stupid to know any better. The thing to remember is, that there is always an ample supply of idiots, and especially gullible idiots. So my job is to take the heat. The Commission offers free public services, such as the rails... the free ones that drop people and kill them. The free water that occasionally lets loose a lethal toxin or two to the public and informs them after a day or so. The electrical service that overloads on occasion causing a fire that may or may not burn down the dozens of old shopping malls and corporate offices that were sold off as low-income housing. The phone service that voice recognizes children and re-routes them to phone sex lines and white noise packed with advertizing and commercial jingles. The air purifiers that malfunction only slightly more than the premium ones. The cable service that projects ads in random bursts too fast for you to notice. Anything and everything that you would use on a daily basis that breaks, nearly kills you, or gives you friendly reminders after it's failed such as 'your Circa appears to be falling, please buckle your seat belt, tuck your legs in and have a pleasant day!' [...]

Monolithic Horizon; Act 1: Heathen – Chapter 1: Telling Lies (w/ Foreword)

Mr. Repose — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:07:22 +0000

The capsule may have been shiny and new once, but has long since corroded into that typical dirty rainbow smear, like looking at an oil slick after the rain, it matched the sides of the building it was moving around in it's slow meandering path perfectly. The building matched the streets, that matched the entire skyline that matches the sunset that matched the very clouds themselves. Everything stained, everything breaking down slowly, the magnetic rails for example, when first constructed lit up in purple following the pathway of the capsule as the magnetics both held and repelled it, humming along gently, if you pressed your ears to them you could hear them hum as they carried current. Now the lights were off in spots, others merely fired off sparks, others didn't work at all. They called that a 'drop' you find those closer you get towards the street level, when a capsule drops it's grabbed by a nearby line, if that line is derelict you end up taking a skyward dive towards the street. If you have insurance for drops the capsule service will temporarily overload the defective line and you'll be saved. No insurance means a near seventy five mile per hour drop to the surface, maybe another rail will pick you up but you get to enjoy the knowledge that the lower you go the less chance you'll be picked up by a savior line. In all likelihood you're going to die. The capsule's lone screen, the windshield, will try to sell you death insurance as you plummet, the capsule corporation will try to have you upgrade to the premium lines, if you can't afford it then you have the option to have a rail burst the lines you pass by, for a few of course, which will reduce the decent velocity of your capsule significantly, that way there's a chance you will only be severely maimed or crippled instead of dead. [...]

Starship Rock 69 & 1/2 – Chapter 3

Mr. Repose — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 02:12:43 +0000

Wayward Son

Dudelicious looked over the ship’s command room, truly impressive. Sexy women handling all the flight controls and armed guards at all the doors. A wide window panned around the room in a large circle. He was standing on the [...]

Scortched Frontier – Bring Me The Disco King – Chapter 2

Mr. Repose — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:26:09 +0000

Estrada once told Ezekiel that their was enough kindling from the books that as a young boy staring into the flames he felt like he was he was in front of a great burning tower, like one of the buildings in the great cities that could no longer be reached and existed only as a memory suddenly manifested before his eyes to burn as it sure had in the cataclysm. [...]

Scorched Frontier – Dawn is a Feeling – Chapter 1

Mr. Repose — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:23:52 +0000

It was the dawn’s first light, coming forth like a herald brining news of another hot and dry day to displace the cool comforts of night. Sergio took a long drag off a cigar and tended to the small campfire he was seated in front of. Above the fire on a crude metal stand was a beat up pot, which he was lazily stirring with a beat up ladle. [...]