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Post by rvm45 on Jan 30, 2021 23:24:35 GMT -6
Me thinks rvm may be stretching the literary truth of how long a bit. Texican.... Okay. Stillwater suffered from what we might call "Delayed Ejection" (There is a medical term, but it sounds SO VULGAR..) even as a Mortal.
Notice him saying that for him, sex is 2-hours of sweaty work for a 7-second pay-off?
Some are "Minute-Men." Some are "Two-Hour Men" or "Never-Men."
A man can get very frustrated at not being able to come to orgasm. Most men can within 10-minutes—but some few can't even after two-hours...
Now he is immortal. He has great bat wings that he can unfurl. He can bench press the weight of a heavily loaded semi tractor and trailer. He can afford to let Neon drain several GALLONS of blood out of him in the course of a night without ill-effects.
Doesn't seem to be stretching credence too far to suppose that he could go for hours. We'll just hope that those hours are less frustrating.
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Post by rvm45 on Feb 2, 2021 12:48:08 GMT -6
Chapter Forty-Two
103 368
Wang Wei stared at his test results. Of all the Lamia, only the Tibetan Lamias had a fixed lifespan. Some chemical agents that the Death Rangers had deployed, had caused their 300-year lifespan to be prematurely depleted.
Back then, Wang Wei had felt helpless, He had sworn to research why the Tibetan Lamia had fixed lifespans and how to extend their lifespan.
A normal human from Earth, seeing the Tibetan Lamia’s 300-year lifespan would feel that they had little to complain about. That was easily 3-times as long as a long human lifespan.
Also, Lamia did not age—being in their prime until the day that they keeled over due to their lifespan being exhausted—and they were very rarely ill.
The Lamia knew exactly how much life that they had left, down to the minute. And indeed, after 300-years, most of them accepted their demise rather philosophically.
That did not satisfy Wang Wei, though. He had determined to increase the fixed lifespan of the Tibetan Lamia. He wanted them to have an open-ended lifespan like the other Lamias.
He was partially influenced by the plight of his best friend Miguel Ángel. Two of Miguel Ángel’s current wives were Tibetan Lamia and he was sure that his friend would be grieved when they passed on.
Then I had come calling—in person, no less—to bring him some gifts. There was the new IQ booster “Rise,” the liquid inspiration “Eureka” and a host of documentation telling exactly how to create a vicrode.
Wang Wei wasn’t halfway through the 3-week course of Rise, but he had fully digested and comprehended the material about vicrodes.
Yes! Now he saw with great clarity what a part of the Tibetan Lamia’s problem was.
Always remember:
Just because you have AN answer does not mean that you have THE answer.
That means that there may be more than one possible answer or more than one contributing factor.
After years of making no progress whatsoever, a simple edit of the Tibetan Lamia’s genome would increase their lifespan by an additional 165-years.
That wasn’t an open-ended lifespan, but it was over a 50% improvement in the Lamia’s lifespan. It was roughly equivalent to increasing the human lifespan by 39-years.
Since a few of his subjects had less than 15-years, though more than 10-years left, it took a great deal of the pressure off of him.
‘HMMMmmnnn…? I will finish the course of Rise tablets. We’ll see what a 21% increase in the power of the bookkeeping portion of my mind does. Then after I wait the prescribed 3-week minimum, I will drink one of these Eureka,” Wang Wei thought.
‘EE…I have spent almost all of my time and effort trying to increase the Tibetan Lamia’s lifespan. I’m still going to devote most of my time and effort to that worthy goal…’
‘But before I take Eureka for the first time, I want to fill my mind with data about the biochemistry of these mind boosting drugs. I mean, not to be conceited or anything, but I have one of the top 2 or 3 minds around—and progress in this field has been glacial. Maybe I can jumpstart things a little. Why waltz when you can rock-n-roll!?!’ Wang Wei thought to himself.
************** **************** *************************
Standard IQ tests aren’t always good measures of mental capability. They are far better than some ideologues want to portray them, for philosophical and political reasons though. Nonetheless, they are not all that we might wish for them to be.
In theory, a man with an IQ of 150 should be able to learn new and complicated mental skills—like calculus or card counting—about 50% faster and about 50% easier than a man with an IQ of 100.
If that was all there was to it, maybe there wouldn’t be such a gap between geniuses and non-geniuses. Still though, time is one major limiter on what one can achieve in a single lifetime.
The increased IQ that one permanently acquired from taking Advance, definitely fit that mold. It made it about 37% easier to learn new skills for the rest of one’s life. Also, Advance strengthened the memory a few percentage points more than 37%.
Rise was different. It didn’t so much increase one’s learning speed. Instead, it somehow caused the memories to be stored more logically, easier to recall and much more richly cross-referenced.
Rise didn’t concentrate on “faster.” It specialized in “better.”
The drug’s effects were subtler and not as apparent to the user and those around him.
Still, someone who had taken Rise 18-months to a couple of years earlier, would consistently score about 21% higher on the improved IQ tests of Ice, than he had before he took the drug.
If you took someone with the very prosaic IQ of 100 and fed him Advance and then Rise—the order really didn’t matter—you would have:
Starting IQ of 100 x Advance increase 0f 1.37 x Rise increase of 1.21.
100 x 1.37 x 1.21 = 165.77
Still, for any one of several reasons, the overall performance and potential of this fellow should be noticeably higher than a fellow with a natural IQ of 165.7 points.
That should be quite good enough for almost any practical purpose.
Wang Wei gave the biochemistry of intelligence enhancers an “on-the-fly-glance” while under the influence of Eureka.
He effortlessly drew a molecule and gave the chemical formula for a drug that would boost IQ about another 16%. He named it, aptly enough, “Boost.”
165.77 X 1.16 = 192.3
Almost all of the key scientists and engineers—not to mention artists, musicians and authors—who were sponsored by me, the scientists of Tawn, the frost giantesses, Benson’s corporation or others—almost all of them already had starting IQs of at least 120. Many were naturally occurring geniuses.
Turning up the temperature another 16% made the pot boil noticeably faster.
Of course, many people were not sponsored, but nonetheless, managed to buy their own IQ enhancers. Some of these people, while they didn’t appear worth fostering at the start, went on to great achievements.
There were other people to whom Advance was a Godsend.
People have taken me to task several times recently, for using the term “Mentally Retarded.” I had never cared enough to ask what the current Politikally Korrect term is. It will change eventually, and I’d still end up being scolded.
Nonetheless, there are people running around in the world with sub-normal IQs—regardless of what you choose to call them. Say that a fellow had an IQ of 70—that is approximately the mind of a 3rd grader. If someone slipped him a course of Advance:
70 x 1.37 = 95.9—Close enough to normal for most government work.
Add in Rise:
95.9 x 1.21 = 116
Boost would get that to about 135.
Why does someone with a former IQ of 70 need an IQ of 135?
Dude, people who started life with an IQ of 70 are starting out far behind the field—especially if they’re already adults. An IQ of 135 will help them catch up—to a degree.
The Earth governments have been dragging their heels almost forever, on allowing Advance to be approved—even for limited use on people with sub-normal IQs, for humanitarian reasons.
The knob-gobblers worry about “social consequences”; the status quo and possibly upsetting the apple cart.
Concerned parents—concerned enough to buy Advance at black-market prices—could feed their sub-normal children a tablet of Advance or Rise every morning. Boost only takes a single tablet, though the effects aren’t instantaneous.
A goodhearted worker in a group-home could also contrive to feed Advance, Boost and Rise to his wards…
How would a low-paid group-home worker get access to shitloads of IQ enhancers? Quite possibly, because some philanthropist dude gifted the drugs to him.
Systematically gifted to him, not helter-skelter, you understand.
There were plenty philanthropists in my infrastructure—including myself—and in Benson’s corporation—including Benson.
Eschewing Altruism doesn’t mean eschewing all works of charity. It means refusing to regard other’s needs as a blank-check on one’s property and efforts. I help others because I choose to and because it gives me satisfaction—not because someone else’s need obligates me to sacrifice my own well-being.
Be that as it may.
There are too many potential slips between the cup and the lip. Ergo, my researchers had come out with an injectable timed-release capsule.
Just one shot in some inobtrusive subcutaneous area and the client will get measured releases of Advance each day. Once about 36-weeks’ worth of Advance is exhausted, there will be 3-weeks of Rise followed by a single release of Boost.
Yes, Advance usually tops out at 30-weeks, but just in case.
A lot of people with below average intelligence don’t take good care of their teeth—and a certain number are born with bolloxed teeth—same as everyone else.
As long as we’re handing out IQ enhancers, might as well include the code for perfect new teeth. Of course, there just might be some sadistic knob-gobbling branch of the government going around digging out all the subcutaneous implants that they could find.
Losing teeth right and left would be a bit of a giveaway—so the new tooth process wouldn’t start until the IQ enhancements were done.
What? Yes, if you want to be pedantic, the new teeth process and a few other enhancements were technically brought about by vicrodes—but they were very narrow, special-purpose vicrodes.
We had a few that were great for growing new and perfect teeth or cleaning all of the arteriosclerosis out of the circulatory system. That is great, so far as it goes—but not terribly versatile until Grandpa Liu gave us the perfected version.
The IQ enhancers seem to have little or no effect on people whose IQ is below 68. Also, if there is serious deviation in the actual anatomy of the brain, the IQ enhancers seem to have little or no effect.
Still, there are hundreds of thousands of people that can be helped, in North America alone.
“Stillwater, you grazny prestoopnick! Unknowingly injecting someone with the mind of a 2nd or 3rd grader with something that will raise his IQ by 65 points is Playing God!” screams some Karen.
Ach ja! So, if I see some poor dude with an IQ of 70, condemned to live out his life under someone else’s guardianship…
And I turn away and do not give him the timed-release injection—because I don’t want to “Play God”—If I leave him in his dire straits without trying to help him…
How is that not “Playing God” as well?
One example is a proactive god, while the other is a timid do-nothing god.
By that estimation, anytime one makes any decision whatsoever, he is “Playing God.”
Fetch my long white terrycloth robe and my well-polished walnut quarterstaff!
EE…
“Let there be light!”
I guess commissioning the sun dogs might count. “And on the 7th day I rested.”
Well, sometimes. I’m not a Sabbatarian. Observing the Sabbath was a practice for Hebrews, back in Old Testament days. It has no significance today.
“Male and Freehale, I created them!”
Well, I guess, when and if I sire sons, that might count as having created males. I would argue, that it is the plastic surgeons who insert silicone boobs and do nose jobs on biological males, who create freehales…
Them and some of the cosmetic companies and the purveyors of hair removal systems.
Don’t lay the creation of freehales onto me!
Go fetch Michelangelo! I wants to fingertip bump with him like the dude on the Sistine Chapel ceiling!
************* ****************** *************************
Wang Wei took a handful of pills and went to visit his friend Miguel Ángel.
Wang Wei had a natural advantage in the part of the brain, or the mind or the personality engram—whatever—that did the sort of operations that Rise enhanced. He didn’t need the improvement there as sorely as his good friend.
Miguel Ángel was more like Pac-Man. His intellect ate up new concepts at vertiginous velocities—but then he sometimes suffered the intellectual equivalent of heartburn and reflux as his mind tried to assimilate the disparate concepts that he’d just imported into his sub-program.
Still, very few things in this world cannot be overclocked or supercharged. The trick is to do it creatively, not destructively.
Boost enhanced the part of the intellect where Miguel Ángel already had a big natural advantage.
Wang Wei didn’t think of Miguel Ángel as his rival. Instead, he was genuinely pleased when his friend accomplished something So, when he perfected Boost, he wanted his good friend Miguel Ángel to be one of the first to receive the new chemical.
Of course, although Boost only took a single tablet to do its work, Miguel Ángel has 7-wives and more children than Wang Wei could readily keep track of.
There were Lamia girls and human boys everywhere.
Only the Central American Lamia threw a significant number of human girl children. Many of the species rarely had sons—though when they did, they would be human sons…
Still, if you have enough children, some of them are bound to be sons—or human daughters
Everyone in Miguel Ángel’s group would need a capsule…
************ *************** **************************
Wang Wei walked the few miles between his plantation and Miguel Ángel’s. It was easy walking in the 60% gravity and oxygen rich atmosphere of the Sapphire world—so Wang Wei eschewed saddling a horse, reindeer or camel to take him to his friend’s home.
He often had some of his best ideas while walking and ruminating.
When Wang Wei arrived, he found Miguel Ángel sitting in front of a blackboard in his study. Analog let one think in up to 17-Dimensions—in a multitude of bright and pleasant colors as well.
Nonetheless, the importance of equations on a blackboard to stimulate the human imagination had not been lost.
Miguel Ángel barely nodded to Wang Wei as he walked into the room.
Wang Wei studied the equations diligently. He was primarily a biochemist and a geneticist—but his hypothetical IQ was well above 300—though even my testers couldn’t adequately quantify such a mighty mind.
“When we destroyed Forest, I transported a number of 16-mile metal balls from Forest’s core. The rock balls can be processed to create sun dogs,” Miguel Ángel said.
“In fact, we have a steady stream of people going back to Forest and extracting big balls of rock and then transporting it into Eiji and my holding universe. We shouldn’t lack for sun dog materials for a good long while,” Miguel Ángel said.
“Forest won’t get to settle down for a good long while. Eventually, much of it may end up being cannibalized to provide sun dogs. It is a dead world, so I don’t suppose that it matters,” Miguel Ángel said.
Thinking back to the destruction of Forest and his part in it, Miguel Ángel’s face turned a bit somber.
“Anyway, it seems as if there is some constructive purpose these 16-mile spheres of nickel and iron can be put to. Otherwise they’re a near total loss-unless someone just wants a very compact metallic planetoid…” he told Wang Wei.
“Have you taken any Eureka yet?” Wang Wei asked.
“No, first I wanted to saturate my mind with all the parameters of this problem,” Miguel Ángel said.
“Well don’t, until you take this new drug and fully assimilate it. It will take you about 3-weeks. I’d allow another 3-weeks of loading the mental silos before I drank a batch of that witches’ brew,” Wang Wei said.
He sat and told his friend how his latest creation worked.
Miguel Ángel and Wang Wei had just settled down to play Raumschach, when they heard an ungodly commotion out in Miguel Ángel’s garden.
There were black bolts of lightning—as counter-intuitive as black lightning sounded.
There was a huge crack in time and space and a haint walked through.
This dude was a normal human height, but about half-again as wide and thick. He weighed perhaps 400-muscular pounds. His hair and skin were ultrablack.
He had big oversized bug-eyes—3 of them, one centered in his forehead. The whites of his eyes were especially noticeable and all of his eyes rotated rapidly and independently like chameleon eyes. He had 3-inch white tusks protruding from his lower jaw.
“Who dares tamper with the genome of my Lamia!?!” he demanded.
“Dude, it is like: you come to this world without an invitation and then you come onto my plantation without an invitation. Then without so much as an introduction or a ‘Hee-Haw-Haw,’ you start throwing your weight around and issuing nonsensical questions. Learn how to comport yourself publicly,” Miguel Ángel said calmly.
“This world belongs to Morgan the reindeer boffer and I need no let or hindrance from scum like him to come here,” the haint exploded.
“I am Mahankali! I am the god of all Lamia. It was I who set the limit on their lifespan and it is I who decide their fate. I will kill this one…”
Mahankali said, while pointing at Wang Wei.
“Then I will take all the Lamia present here. HMMMmmnnn…? I sense a different kind of Lamia here. I never knew that there was but one kind. I also sense a portal to where there are many more Lamia!” Mahankali said.
Mahankali liked his lips and chin obscenely with a very long forked tongue.
“You ain’t gonna do Jack-shit!"
“I am Miguel Ángel Mejia. I was born on All Saints Day. I have 7-wives and each of my wives is a Lamia. I am also a slip-slider and a sage. I am a destroyer of worlds,” Miguel Ángel said.
“My heritage and my life conditions allow me to do a powerful magic,” Miguel Ángel added.
Miguel Ángel summoned his oval frame of Lamia consorts and then quickly transposed it into an octahedron.
Mahankali blasted the formation to bits. The oversized mighty Balondemu was left feebly crawling across the ground like a fishing worm driven to the surface by a torrential flood.
Most of the other Lamia were knocked completely unconscious
“You, a destroyer of worlds? You are a mere 4th tier deity and you dare to set yourself against me—an 8th tier deity from Shambala?” Mahankali taunted.
Miguel Ángel had broken ribs and he was badly shaken, but he called his trusty sniper’s rifle from a place out of time and out of space and started shooting Mahankali with one depleted uranium bullet steeped in basilisk venom after another.
Wang Wei, for whatever good it would do, was shooting one .20 Scrambler bullet after another into the torso of the huge haint. He didn’t expect his bullets to matter, but neither did he intend to perish without striking a blow.
Mahankali knocked Miguel Ángel back with a mighty backhanded slap that left both of his arms with compound fractures.
Mahankali walked over to Miguel Ángel, bent over and prepared to strike him a deathblow to his head with one of his mighty fists.
Bibiana was the human daughter of Miguel Ángel and the mighty Balondemu. Human children were a rarity, except with the Central American Lamia. Human female children were almost unheard of—but they happened.
Bibiana wanted to be a warrior like her mother, but she was starting out behind the field, with a body mass that would only be about a third of her mother’s when you compared them at a given age.
In fact, one day Bibiana would be full-grown, but Balondemu would never completely stop growing.
The 13-year old girl compensated by training diligently, but she also compensated by being especially vicious and devious when she fought.
The pleasant, well-mannered little girl transformed into a red-eyed duplicitous demon when she fought.
She ran up behind Mahankali and stabbed a wooden spirit sword 18-inches deep into his exposed scrotum. Than she did the near-impossible and broke off the all-but-unbreakable spirit sword’s blade inside Mahankali.
Needless to say, it wasn’t that easy to slay an 8th tier deity. On the other hand, a spirit sword bisecting one of his testicles and then penetrating deep into his lower intestines didn’t do Mahankali any kindness.
He turned around in a rage, Miguel Ángel forgotten for the nonce.
Bibiana calmly drew a second spirit sword. She had meant to sacrifice the first spirit sword, so she had selected an inferior one from the practice room.
“Little girl, how dare you!?!” Mahankali raged.
He was almost inarticulate with rage and he was about to go completely berserk.
“You hurt my mother. You hurt my father. You threaten my uncle’s life and then you prepare to execute my father. In what possible universe would I—Bibiana, might hunter, mighty warrior—stand by with my thumb up my ass and let this happen!?!” Bibiana spit.
That was when I arrived. Of course, I had Despair and Neon with me. Like in the old credit card commercial—I didn’t go anywhere without them.
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Post by texican on Feb 2, 2021 19:49:52 GMT -6
rvm,
Chapter 42 is 103,368 words which is long short story. Which your fans appreciate.
Now with 42 Chapters, how many pages would that be? Probably a saga worth.
Mahankali is in for a world of wake up and hurt which the next chapter should more than successfully expand/expound on.
The reptiles are still out there, aren't they?
Thanks for the chapter.
Texican....
Texican...
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Post by rvm45 on Feb 3, 2021 0:57:50 GMT -6
Friend,
In size 14 Georgia Font in WORD I am at page 423.
Big PS:
I think that with a wooden sword blade through a testicle and his colon, that he is already hurting to some degree...
I would be...
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Post by texican on Feb 3, 2021 19:27:49 GMT -6
Friend,
In size 14 Georgia Font in WORD I am at page 423.Big PS:
I think that with a wooden sword blade through a testicle and his colon, that he is already hurting to some degree... I would be... rvm, Undoubtedly. He may be pooping out toothpicks before this is over. Texican....
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Post by rvm45 on Feb 8, 2021 15:15:56 GMT -6
Chapter Forty-Three
106 799
Despair appeared before Mahankali. She unfurled her wings nonchalantly, like someone thumbing open a Buck Lockback preparatory to fighting a midget.
“Another puny 4th tier being,” Mahankali sniffed.
“Look again, knob-gobbler,” Despair said.
“So, you’re a 6th tier being. I never heard of a 6th tier Night Ranger, but you’re still grossly outclassed,” Mahankali said contemptuously.
Despair’s wings became diaphanous and immaterial and they expanded over a football field’s worth on either side of her.
“Ha-ha! You still need to sleep occasionally. Whether I live or die, you will never know another restful sleep—a sleep that isn’t filled with the raw terror of nightmare,” Despair said.
Mahankali thought better of fighting Despair and he turned to flee…
Only to almost crash into Neon.
“My sister Despair is a being of darkness and terror—much like yourself. I’d have thought that you two would have found more common ground. Perhaps you’d rather discuss personalities with me,” Neon said.
Neon grew to twice the height of an average frost giantess and her whole body burned like the brightest olde tyme incandescent bulb—or maybe a sodium-arc or mercury vapor street light.
Even at 6th tier, Neon’s luminous style of attack was a powerful anti-mojo for Mahankali’s dark force. She probably couldn’t have beaten him, but he would have damned sure have known that he was in a fight.
While Mahankali was wondering what trick of fate caused him to have to confront two such disparate deities working in concert, I appeared.
“I am a Vice-Chancellor of the Realm of Nightmare—and you’re a fool. I see that you’ve met my wives already,” I introduced myself to Mahankali.
Ordinarily, an 8th tier being would be more than 100 times as powerful as a 7th tier being.
However, Mahankali had incautiously set foot into my domain. The Sapphire World was my most powerful and my most guarded domain.
Then there was Despair and Neon. I had sometimes sadly ruminated that having two wives subjected me to stereo bitching. Now, Mahankali would get to experience the rare power of the two’s stereo bitching—big time.
Either of them would have amplified my power greatly. Using both of them in concert gave me something akin to a resonant circuit in electricity.
“Do you see this!?!” I asked.
I showed Mahankali Admiral Byrd’s Ivory handled Colt .44 Special Colt Single Action.
I mean, I can randomly pull almost anything that I wish out of my storage and into my presence.
“Byrd negotiated a non-interference pact with Agartha. You dudes from the Inner Earth aren’t supposed to bother us surface dwellers,” I said to him.
Many would say that Agartha and Shambala were just two names for the same place. My understanding of Inner-Earth isn’t that great, but I think that it would be more accurate to say that Agartha and Shambala occupy two similar areas in slightly different dimensional planes…
And Agartha rules.
Seeing Byrd’s Colt, Mahankali assumed that I was some important personage in the hierarchy of Earth and he was willing to back towards the door slowly.
Actually, I am only an Outsider. I met my congressman once, under rather strained and anonymous circumstances. I never so much as met the mayor of my home town. I only possessed Byrd’s iconic revolver because it had come into Terry’s possession by some round-about means and I had acquired it from him.
“My apologies, Vice-Chancellor. I’ll be on my way now,” Mahankali said with a bow.
“O, you want to leave now? I don’t think so. You’ve trespassed. You’ve threatened. You’ve gravely injured my friend Miguel Ángel. You may have permanently damaged the warrior spirit of his wife Balondemu. You threatened his daughter Bibiana,” I said.
“If that wasn’t bad enough, you made passes at both of my wives—and I’m an exceedingly jealous fellow,” I added.
That last was pure bullshit, but as long as I’m piling it up, might as well pile it higher and deeper.
“I think that you should stay here forever—and help fertilize Miguel Ángel’s pecan groves—to help make up for the trees that you’ve destroyed with your feeble tantrum,” I said.
I used a slip-slider’s understanding of space to close the whole area around Mahankali down. He couldn’t leave.
An ordinary slip-slider couldn’t have done what I did. They would have needed the greater intelligence of all the IQ enhancers that I had eaten, the expanded awareness of space granted by both Analog and having eaten several golden slimes, and the power of a 7th tier being.
I encapsulated Mahankali in a hypersphere. I increased the gravity inside the hypersphere to 100 000% of Earth’s gravity.
1000x gravity wasn’t going to break Mahankali down. He was an 8th tier being after all.
However, inside the hypersphere of dense gravity, some other things became possible. For one thing, I cut off Mahankali from the outside world completely. The second thing that I did, was speed up the flow of time inside the hypersphere, one-million-to-one.
An 8th tier being like Mahankali could just about live one-million years without an outside source of energy to revitalize his being.
That meant that within one-year in our time frame, Mahankali would have starved to death inside the hypersphere prison of my making. I was sentencing him to one-million years in solitary confinement, while slowly starving to death.
It wasn’t as if I had any means to kill him quickly. He was far too powerful for me to do that. If I had an attack of conscious and let him go free, the odds were excellent that I would be killed as a result.
Anyway, who asked him to come to my world, looking for trouble?
************* *************** ***********************
Mahankali down for the count, it was time to go visit Benson.
Benson could use the 16% IQ enhancement of Boost, plus he had a very large market for it in the very high-tech world of O’Neill and on many other worlds under his purview.
“I hate you, Stillwater!” were the first words out of his mouth.
“That’s what your father always used to say. What, in particular, have I done to merit your loathing?” I asked good-naturedly.
“Do you see that Grief is in the office with us? She isn’t merely visiting her sister, Melancholy,” Benson said sourly.
“You mean…” I started.
“All I heard, 24/7 was:
“If Despair can have a sister wife, why can’t I? If you really loved me, you’d take my sister, Grief as your second wife,” Benson pissed and moaned.
“If you didn’t want to, you shouldn’t have let yourself be persuaded. Anyway, what difference does it make? Everyone could tell when you had been consorting with Melancholy. You would be black and blue and have black eyes and scabs all over your body for several days. Can 2 Night Rangers beat you up any worse than one?” I asked.
I hastened to add that Benson and Melancholy weren’t into any sort of kinky bondage. It was simply that a Night Ranger goes about everything—including sex—like someone frantically trying to drive a tent stake into the hard-frozen ground.
They aren’t gentle and subtlety is a null-concept for a Night Ranger.
“At least neither of your wives want to play vampire and drink your blood half of the night,” I consoled.
Melancholy gave Grief a meaningful glance and both of them made a sound somewhat between: “HMMMmmnnn…?” and a contented cat’s purr.
“Stillwater, if you don’t leave my world now, I will kill you!” Benson roared.
“First, I want to supply you with a new intelligence booster. You need it desperately. It may be in time to keep you from taking a 3rd wife. You don’t want end up like poor Miguel Ángel…” I said.
“Or if I cannot persuade you, I know a very sweet Ugandan Lamia who needs a human husband…” I joked.
“Wait a moment, all 3 of you have advanced to tier 5? The days when you could be someone’s ‘human’ husband have come and gone. You’re a Night General now. Your father would be proud of you,” I said.
“Stillwater, as much as it pains me to ask a favor…several of my physicists would like to study alongside Miguel Ángel and Eiji,” Benson said.
“Fine, fine! I heartily believe in the Hacker’s Ethic:
“Information longs to be free,” I said.
“Letting you send a few grad students only merits a minor show of appreciation, but the formula and documentation merit a big compensation. Let your conscious be your guide,” I told Benson.
“Melancholy, you have several other sisters. Don’t you?” Despair asked.
“No! Just no! I am more likely to pay Mahankali a visit in his hypersphere prison and bring him a fruit basket and tobacco, than I am to take a 3rd wife. It just isn’t going to happen,” I said.
“Think what it might add to the experience…” Despair started while Neon beamed approvingly.
“Okay! Let us put it this way:
“I vow that I am not going to do it! Even if you persuade me to WANT to do it—even if I bitterly regret my vow—nonetheless, I will honor my vow,” I said.
That shut Despair up. She knew that once my mind was made up, that I wasn’t going to change it. Neon apparently lacked Despair’s insight. She continued to beg and wheedle for several days.
Later, I found out what cranky worm had gotten into the brains of Despair and Neon. We all promoted when we consorted together the first time.
They hoped that throwing a second Night Ranger into bed with us would cause all of us to evolve another rank or two.
I’m not sure that it works that way. Even if it did, I’m just not going to start a damned harem. NOT!
************* **************** *************************** My next stop was Tundra. I found Casúr at a wildlife preserve
The indricotherium was the largest land mammal that ever lived—on Earth or on Forest. It stood about 18-feet high at the shoulder and they were about 26-feet long. They weigh about 30-tons—about 4-times the weight of a big African bull-elephant.
Thankfully, the nature preserves of the town of Sloth had a healthy breeding population of the big hornless rhinoceroses. They also had megacerops, hyaenodons and my favorite, the chalicotherium.
Of course, they had the ever-popular mammoths, mastodons and several varieties of saber-toothed cats.
They were breeding the animals at special preserves and then turning a certain number free in designated areas where the new foliage had taken a firm hold.
I found Casúr petting a giant indricotherium.
“They are surprisingly friendly. They are more than happy to let you ride on their backs as well. That is surprising in such a large animal,” Casúr remarked.
“How is it going here? Is there anything that I can help you with?” I asked him.
“No, not unless you can get me a moon. This planet does okay without a moon, but my ecologists say that having the seas stirred regularly and what not, would really energize the old place a bit,” Casúr said.
I had heard some theorist suggest that even a Ceres-sized moon, placed just prudently outside the Roche limit would stir up the seas and the crust enough to be worthwhile.
Ceres was just under 600-miles in diameter—a bit more that one third the diameter of our moon. Of course, mass increases by the cube of the radius, so the moon is much more massive than Ceres—and denser too.
Anyway, the best that I could do for Tundra, would be to place one of my 16-mile spheres of nickel-iron into orbit—and that would accomplish nothing noticeable.
I left Casúr with a number of IQ enhancers for him and his crew and left them to it.
It was hard on the refugees from Forest. As I say, they were in a more or less Victorian style steam age. There was no space program and no speculative fiction to speak of—then these bad ass reptilian overlords come in and their planet ends up being destroyed.
They really weren’t prepared for any of this. I felt bad for them, but what could I do?
************* **************** ****************************
HMMMmmnnn…?
Ice had approximately 169 city-states. That is to say, a few were dubiously small to count as city-states and a few were close enough that they were connected by underground railways even before the advent of the Neon Railroad.
By coincidence, the Sacred Crown held 169 worlds. I had plans for my Sacred Crown worlds—but if Miguel Ángel and Eiji could make 169 worlds once, they ought to be able to do it again—especially since I had fed them new IQ enhancers, greatly increased their operating budget and sent them a dozen brilliant undergraduates from O’ Neil to help them with the tedious stuff.
What if each of Ice’s cities had a Bottomtown? What if each of the new “Bottomtowns”—I mean, really man, be for real! Some new place names are needed—but if each new Bottomtown was intimately connected to its own gem world?
A gem world was not a panacea. Oil—petrochemicals—were a big part of what drove Ice’s towns.
A gem world, newly created, wouldn’t have any petroleum or coal. Truth be told, it wouldn’t even have meadows and farms, let alone forests—unless and until someone put in a lot of time and effort to terraform the more or less sterile worlds.
Still, each new improved gem world would have 2.3-million square miles of living space. That isn’t quite 3.5x the size of Alaska. That is quite a bit of elbow-room.
You can grow large amounts of corn to create ethanol. You can grow soy and other crops for biodiesel. If you grow fast-growing pulp woods, you could even harvest large quantities of wood alcohol…
Of course, using a gem world solely or even mainly as a round-about source of hydrocarbons seemed exceptionally orcish—but if the short-sighted town fathers could only see that far—it would get the terraforming off to a booming start.
I’m not saying that all the town fathers would be orcish, I’m just saying that in a worst-case scenario…
I didn’t need to wear my ass out transporting stuff with the power of the Sapphire World anymore.
I had almost 30 frost giantesses all equipped with the earlier 2.0-million square mile topaz gem world rings—and new rings were coming online all of the time.
As soon as a town had managed to create a Bottomtown that met with my approval, the frost giantesses would bring that city more livestock, pets and agricultural plants that I had brought to Tawn the first 3 or 4-years that I started using the Sapphire World for transport…
And, I’d hook the city up to their own proprietary gem world.
Yeah, yeah chickens, pigs, corn, triticale and potatoes had often already made their debuts in many cities via the railroad—but my frost giantesses brought stuff in in industrial quantities.
Even with the frost giantesses pitching in, it would take 2-to-4 generations for these new foods to become common—but that is all the more reason to start early and beat the Christmas rush.
What, no, Hell no! I did not gift all of these valuable commodities to Ice’s cities. Do I look like Santa Claus? Karl Marx? Morgan the reindeer lover?
Watch how you answer, or I’ll sic my stereo bitching system on you…er, my wives.
People are prone to despise things—that means to hold in contempt, not hate—that are given to them gratis.
I mean, sure—sometimes you can outright gift friends and family—though even that can be over-done.
Coming into the town of Blume and shouting, “I have several thousand turkeys that I’d like to gift the citizens of Blume,” would make me look like an idiot and an asshole.
Yeah, yeah…
I had warehouse after warehouse filled with manufacture products that I had no immediate use for:
Firearms, ammunition, hand grenades. LAW Rockets, armed drones, unarmed drones, IQ enhancers, various psychedelics, computer chips, desk tops, laptops, motorcycles, Chess and Raumschach sets with cast brass and aluminum pieces—or gold and silver pieces…
Jewelry, old style pocket watches, sextants, compasses, stainless steel Spirograph sets…
Think of some manufactured product. I’ll have some Ice city make me a ridiculous quantity and warehouse it.
A clever squirrel remembers Winter.
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Post by papaof2 on Feb 8, 2021 17:58:00 GMT -6
Ah, yes - Spirograph ;-) Can keep almost any kid entertained for a while or keep a curious and creative kid equipped with 12 colors of pencils busy for hours. What if I use alternate colors on each pass? What if half the pass is blue and the other half is red? Having had 2 girls work and scholarship their ways to Master's degrees in their respective fields, you wonder how much each seemingly small "What if?" might have contributed to their success and happiness...
But then I'm the one who gave an eight-year-old granddaughter a set of Lincoln Logs for Christmas - and then watched her buried for hours in her own designs. Any possible beariung on her career choice of engineer?
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Post by texican on Feb 8, 2021 20:20:36 GMT -6
But then I'm the one who gave an eight-year-old granddaughter a set of Lincoln Logs for Christmas - and then watched her buried for hours in her own designs. Any possible bearing on her career choice of engineer?
pp2,
Probably.
Had an electric train and Lincoln Logs as a kid and played and built with them for hours. Also had a set of highway construction equipment that built lots. Also had a set of toy soldiers that fought lots of battles. All but the electric train were stolen out of our storage garage. Still pissed about this.
You are correct that the toys we play with help to form who we are and where we will be going and doing in adulthood.
I am a registered Professional Engineer and still practice occasionally.
Give a child constructive toys and watch them develop.
Over use of video gaming by out youngsters is creating a lack of imagination which will show as time passes.
Texican....
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Post by texican on Feb 8, 2021 20:22:00 GMT -6
rvm,
A clever squirrel remembers Winter.
or
Starves and dies.
Thanks for the chapter.
Texican....
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Post by rvm45 on Feb 8, 2021 20:32:02 GMT -6
But then I'm the one who gave an eight-year-old granddaughter a set of Lincoln Logs for Christmas - and then watched her buried for hours in her own designs. Any possible bearing on her career choice of engineer?pp2, Probably. Had an electric train and Lincoln Logs as a kid and played and built with them for hours. Also had a set of highway construction equipment that built lots. Also had a set of toy soldiers that fought lots of battles. All but the electric train were stolen out of our storage garage. Still pissed about this. You are correct that the toys we play with help to form who we are and where we will be going and doing in adulthood. I am a registered Professional Engineer and still practice occasionally. Give a child constructive toys and watch them develop. Over use of video gaming by out youngsters is creating a lack of imagination which will show as time passes. Texican.... Which Railroad?
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Post by rvm45 on Feb 8, 2021 20:34:58 GMT -6
rvm, A clever squirrel remembers Winter. or Starves and dies.Thanks for the chapter. Texican.... Like Mahankali...
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Post by rvm45 on Feb 9, 2021 12:27:48 GMT -6
Ah, yes - Spirograph ;-) Can keep almost any kid entertained for a while or keep a curious and creative kid equipped with 12 colors of pencils busy for hours. What if I use alternate colors on each pass? What if half the pass is blue and the other half is red? Having had 2 girls work and scholarship their ways to Master's degrees in their respective fields, you wonder how much each seemingly small "What if?" might have contributed to their success and happiness... But then I'm the one who gave an eight-year-old granddaughter a set of Lincoln Logs for Christmas - and then watched her buried for hours in her own designs. Any possible beariung on her career choice of engineer? Inspiration can be hard to trace and pin down.
I was watching some show on Educational TV and they were discussing Rock music and whether it created sociopathy. I THINK that it was the Boston Strangler who said that listening to Rock music inspired him to go out and kill women…
Whereupon one of the psychiatrists said:
"While this is undoubtedly true, he was so predisposed to acts of violence, that he might just as well have been inspired to kill more women, by a Ham Sandwich."
Inspired to do unrelated things by the proverbial "Ham Sandwich" has always been a personal meme for me every since.
I never had a set of Lincoln Logs, but I had 3-sets of Tinker Toys at different times growing up. In my case, it never inspired me to learn anything mechanical.
I am atypical. I do not enjoy getting my hands oily and greasy.
One FOOL once quipped:
"You can always wash them off, when you're done—Huh-Huh. I'm so cleaver!Huh-Huh!"
Yeah, well run the big end of a Louisville Slugger up your ass! You can take it out when you're through—Huh-Huh!
I HATED Shop class. IF I had been forced to take Power Mechanics in High School, I would have thought that it was unfair, cruel and unusual punishment.
Working on cars? The occasional minor repairs that I did to my autos were after I had a prolonged tantrum about poverty making it necessary to do such tedious things rather than hiring it done…
But hold on—then I started to get interested in Firearms.
When I failed out of Airborne School in the US Army and had to pick a new MOS, I went to Small Arms Repair School at APG Maryland. I HATED the Military, but the Small Arms Repair school at APG did an excellent job of training firearms technicians…
Note: I AM NOT talking about a mere Company Armorer.
I once remarked that I had no ability with internal combustion engines.
"What is a machine-gun, but a one-cylinder internal combustion engine that uses solid fuel? If you can reduce an M-60 to possession and reassemble it, you can also take apart a car engine."
Note: I graduated top of my class at APG.
Anyway, I discovered the online community of folks who design and build their own Firearms. I never had the wherewithal to build anything, but my designs and opinions were respected by some of the top home builders around…
Once again, scratch builds, not kit builds.
At some point, I realized that I WOULD NEVER BE ABLE TO BUILD ANY OF MY DESIGNS and my interest in Firearms Design largely died.
BACK TO YOUR GRANDDAUGHTER AND HER SPIROGRAPH...
Maybe she was inspired by them. Maybe she was so predisposed to be an Engineer, that she would have been INSPIRED BY A HAM SANDWICH…
Then again, maybe not.
In my own case: I'm not sure that anyone could have gotten me interested in mechanical type things as a youngster, EVEN IF they set out to teach me Gun Design. I HATED any and all Mechanical Tinkering as a youngster, teen and young adult.
Yeah, honestly—I wonder if somehow my mind or brain didn't change somehow, making things that I couldn't grasp comprehensible all of a sudden.
So far as trying to INSPIRE youngsters—do as you wish.
It is largely like sowing assorted wildflowers in a meadow. Some may take root—or not.
That is largely up to God.
I WISH that I had been inspired to try to become an Artist when I was young—yeah, I got inspired BIG TIME—when I was in my 50's…
And I cannot say that no one tried to spoon-feed me Art inspiration as a youngster. It ran off me like water off a duck's back…
But my Art career's failure to launch is another story.
……RVM45
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Post by texican on Feb 9, 2021 13:49:50 GMT -6
But then I'm the one who gave an eight-year-old granddaughter a set of Lincoln Logs for Christmas - and then watched her buried for hours in her own designs. Any possible bearing on her career choice of engineer?pp2, Probably. Had an electric train and Lincoln Logs as a kid and played and built with them for hours. Also had a set of highway construction equipment that built lots. Also had a set of toy soldiers that fought lots of battles. All but the electric train were stolen out of our storage garage. Still pissed about this. You are correct that the toys we play with help to form who we are and where we will be going and doing in adulthood. I am a registered Professional Engineer and still practice occasionally. Give a child constructive toys and watch them develop. Over use of video gaming by out youngsters is creating a lack of imagination which will show as time passes. Texican.... Which Railroad?rvm, Never did work for the railroads. My father was a heavy equipment operator and built roads into and in the oil fields. He fought one oil well fire with Red Adair. Mom, my sis and I went out to the burning oil well (west Texas) and watched dad on the largest dozer available skidding the derrick and then building berms around the fire. After the fire was blown out, mom told dad no more oil well fire fighting due to being very dangerous. Dad got into building highways and dams and worked up to being a superintendent. He built many of the levees around Dallas and built many sections of the interstates in Texas including sections of I-10, I-20, I-35, I-45. Got to operate several pieces of heavy equipment, but not my bag of tea. Did like watching bridges being constructed. I worked building construction during high school and college. Graduated with a Civil Engineering degree in the early 70's. Got involved with the environmental field but went back to building construction and design management. Designed and project management cell towers. This progressed into engineering analysis of building failures which progressed into doing property condition assessments for companies involved in buying owning and selling commercial buildings. Have traveled across the US doing PCA's. Have an unique ability to look at buildings and can see problems that others never realize. Have several clients that I still do PCA's even while somewhat retired. Have more tools than probably needed, but it is what it is. Texican....
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Post by rvm45 on Feb 9, 2021 13:56:38 GMT -6
Civil Engineering?
That's a good field. IF you were a Mechanical Engineer, I might have tried to pick your brain about some annoying design problems…
Or not…
It is sad, but I seldom even think about Firearms Design anymore.
My father went to Greer Technical Institute and became an Operating Engineer. Eventually he landed a job at BuCyrus Erie making cranes.
Then the ass-wipes closed their Evansville plant, leaving beaucoup folks jobless.
I spit on their shadows—and Continental Emscoe too—the grazny prestoopniks!
…..RVM45
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Post by texican on Feb 10, 2021 19:38:48 GMT -6
Civil Engineering?
That's a good field. IF you were a Mechanical Engineer, I might have tried to pick your brain about some annoying design problems…
rvm,
Depending on the design problems, if I can't help bet pp2 can.
Texican....
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Post by rvm45 on Feb 15, 2021 15:37:10 GMT -6
Chapter Forty-four 109 683
Within 8-years, all of Ice’s cities had a nice spacious equivalent to Bottomtown. Of course, some of them managed to come online a few years early and thus had a head start on the program.
In that same time frame, I had managed to equip over 50 frost giantesses with topaz worlds. You see, frost giantesses could walk between the worlds under their own power and the gem worlds let them carry more cargo than a 2-mile long freight train along with them each trip.
Of course, Lamia, Oni and a few other beings could walk between the worlds—but Lamia and Oni have much more trouble passing themselves off as human.
It wouldn’t be fair to distribute all of the low-level gem worlds to frost giantesses exclusively and occasionally some random other race ran an errand or two for me.
The thriving undercities seemed like overkill. The original Bottomtown built under Tawn was based on the idea that there would be many immigrants from Earth and other Ice cities.
Now with the railroads and a spacious undercity beneath each of Ice’s cities, there was far less motivation to come to Tawn to experience the good life.
I had stepped up recruiting on Earth. With the bad times coming, it mattered less if I and others like me came under government scrutiny. The lid could only be kept on for so long anyway.
I was transporting about 100 000 people per year from Earth. I was largely specializing in poor peasant types from 3rd world countries. They were hard working. They felt they had little to use, so they were willing to gamble on coming to a new world…
And their own governments were less likely to notice—especially when bribed with hundreds of pounds worth of silver dollars with Jeff Cooper, Jefferson Davis and Elmer Keith minted on the coin’s faces…
Also, many Japanese were a good fit. People used to living in downtown Tokyo or Sapporo found even the old school tunnel barracks quite congenial—and in modern Tawn, the opportunity to eat rich meats and many fresh fruits and vegetables was actually greater than for most of Japan.
I recruited poor Mexicans who wanted to get away from the cartels; Taiwanese worried about eventual invasion by Red China; people from Red China who didn’t like living under communism…
Tribal groups being genocided in a half-dozen African countries—including white Rhodesians and South Africans; Kurds from Kurdistan; Saami; Mongols and Esquimaux…
Americans from all over the former Confederate States and the Southwest…
What? So, what if I imported a few cartel members, jihadists, triad members, mafioso and etcetera? They are welcome to a fresh start too—particularly Americans stripped of their civil rights due to a felony conviction.
If they decide to try throwing their weight around…
O well…
The biological components of human cadavers are valuable as well.
The new immigrants received extensive briefings, language classes as well as a scientific regime of IQ enhancers—but apparently some just didn’t get it—either that, or they felt compelled to test me.
I had to shut down a factory turning out meter sticks, electronic scales, micrometers, Vernier calipers and other measuring devices—in the Metric System!
I fined the dudes very heavily and told them that a second offense would see them exiled with nothing but the clothes on their back—to some country on Earth where they had no visa and no legal right to be.
Damned nation!
The biggest game changer came when Miguel Ángel, Eiji and the team of physicists from O’ Neill figured out how to run an inter-dimensional railroad from Ice to the O’ Neill colonies of O’ Neill.
Yeah, O’ Neill colonies are small and they rotate relatively rapidly…
O’ Neill had over 50 000 O’ Neill colonies—most of them with a population of at least 50 000. That is over 2.5-Billion people.
Most of the O’Neill colonies weren’t big on beef and cattle—though there are miniature breeds. They all had chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese and milk goats not to mention catfish and tilapia—a few also raised bullfrogs and crawdads for variety.
That word always gripes me. Since it is pronounced “Craw-DEAD” it should be spelled “Crawdead.”
People who pronounce the word “Craw-DAD”—in addition to giving me the drizzling shits—also bring to mind the 50’s Beatnik stereotypes, always calling people “Daddy-O” or “Dad.”
I picture a crustacean with a goatee, dark sunglasses and a black beret saying, “What’s up Craw-Daddy-O?”
Other pet gripes: people who spell “Claude Hammer” as “Claw Hammer” and people who pronounce “Feeler Gauge” as it is spelled. Everyone knows that regardless of how it is spelled, it is pronounced “Feed-Uh-Lure Gauge.”
Sure, Claude Hammers have claws and Feeler gauges are used to “feel.” That has nothing to do with anything!
If we round the number of Ice city-states up to 200 and we say that each city connected to 5 O’ Neill colonies, that would only be one out of 50 colonies that managed to get hooked up.
Still, open trade is a beautiful thing. The speed that Ice’s cities acquired livestock increased dramatically. You might even say that it shattered my monopoly…
Best of all, out of 2.5-Billion people, born and bred in space, there were bound to be a few malcontents who were convinced that they would prefer living on a planet.
This gave me a large number of immigrants to Ice and the new gem worlds associated with each Ice city-state.
Surprisingly, out of more than 50-Million refugees from Forest, almost 10-Million opted to stay on Ice.
On the other hand, over 11-Million expats from O’Neill opted to settle on Tundra. The natural frontier world seemed to draw them more than the underground warrens or the synthetic gem worlds.
Meanwhile, Tawn had 5 Bottomtowns—Bottomtown I through Bottomtown V.
Each Bottomtown had its own gem world.
It turned out to be really hard to adjust the parameters of the gem worlds. They were set up to have 9-month years, 60% gravity and thick, oxygen-rich air as well as a bitterly cold 31-day Winter of darkest night.
Lamias abhor cold—for the most part. We managed to create a world for the Lamias, where Winter was only 28-days of darkness, instead of 31, and the lowest temperature reached was 8-degrees Fahrenheit rather than -12 Fahrenheit.
Incidentally, on Lamia World the 3-days robbed from Winter went equally to Spring, Summer and Fall.
One of Tawn’s gem worlds was a dry desert-like world like Saguaro. Another was mostly water—though it was an enormous fresh water lake-with 5 islands the size of Jamaica—resembling Archipelago a bit.
The other 3 gem worlds were set up for standard farmland interspersed with hardwood temperate forests.
Tawn’s Bottomtowns were hooked up directly to Tundra, Saguaro, Archipelago and a dozen other slip-slider worlds as well as being connected to over 50 O’Neill colonies.
We had almost 4-years after the last Ice city-state got hooked up to its gem world and its O’Neill partners when the Reptilian Overlords showed up.
In a way, it was quite generous of them to allow us to develop and strengthen ourselves in peace for so long. Of course, they weren’t being generous. They just hadn’t been able to reboot their inter-dimensional web and find Ice until now.
Mahankali had made the mistake of stepping into my home ground. These Reptilian Overlords were set to make Mahankali look like Albert Einstein by comparison.
They came in force. Ice was a pivotal hub after all. Save Ice, save the world.
Nah, but controlling Ice would be like controlling an important square on the Chess board.
************* **************** *********************
28-portals opened simultaneously above the surface of Ice—1000-feet in the air and more or less evenly distributed.
28 tier-5 Reptilian Overlord Asuras stepped through the portals simultaneously. As soon as the asuras were safely through, myriad lessor asuras and ordinary soldiers poured out to support their big guns and a number of lessor portals opened here, there and everywhere.
I flew out to meet the 28-asuras without getting terribly excited. Well, if there had been 28 tier-28 asuras, I wouldn’t be overly perturbed. In that case, I would almost certainly die—but hey, there is no reason to sweat dying either.
“I am Stillwater. Look on my works ye mighty and despair. Fall on your faces and tremble in terror!” I roared at them.
“You may be a tier-7 deity, but we have you heavily outnumbered,” the lead asura boasted.
“Look again, knob-gobbler!” I said.
Neon stood to my right—a goddess of light who was tainted by being raped all those years ago. Her white had a tiny speck of black.
Despair stood to my left. She was a creature of darkness and terror. She was redeemed partly by her love for me—but also, she and the other Night Rangers had a deep aiding love for the human race. Her black was tainted with a small white dot—though in Despair’s case, the small white tail wagged the big black dog.
Then there was me in the middle. That serpentine line that separates yin from yang on the Tàijítú symbol has been called “The Ridgepole” or “The Fishline.”
Keep in mind, that the ancient Taoists were limited to pen and paper. In reality, the yin-yang symbol is in continual motion and flux—as well as rotating rapidly.
I was the Fishline and I was in constant vibrant flux!
The railroads of Ice…
There turned out to be a reason for the non-standard gauge and the seemingly redundant triple-stacked railroads.
Ha and Ha!!!
The railroads were conduits of power. The power of continuous creation spread all over the surface of a very special planet flowed into my meridians.
Grandpa Liu’s special power avatar grew to 1000-feet tall.
My actual body grew until it was 1000-miles tall. My great bat wings expanded until they spanned the whole planet—with plenty left over.
While I couldn’t hold this form indefinitely, while I was hooked into the planet-wide power network, I had the power of a tier-11 deity.
“Plums deify!” I told the astonished asuras.
Then I wiped them out one-by-one, the same way that someone might swat 28 slow-moving but annoying beetles.
I wrung their necks carefully and transported each body to Wang Wei’s laboratory for study.
I summoned Miguel Ángel, Eiji and Benson. Mateo and Namono were close by as they always were.
“If you wish to see your father avenged, come with me,” I told Benson.
“If your corporation hadn’t supported our war effort whole-heartedly, I might not have been at this point so quickly,” I told Benson.
Both Neon and Despair had been temporarily promoted to tier-9 deities.
“Can I leave the small fry to you two and the frost giantesses?” I asked.
“Take Despair and the frost giantesses with you, if you need them. I alone am sufficient,” Neon said.
“You need to learn how to share!” Despair quibbled as she ripped a reptile general’s head off—he was a tier-4 deity…
************* ****************** *********************
I left my bickering wives and stepped into one of the still open portals and instantly transported to the Reptilian Overlord’s world.
Well, what happens when you teleport 16-mile diameter spheres out of a planet’s mantle?
Bad things!
But that takes several hours and some peace to set up. The Reptilian Overlords aren’t likely to let that take place.
Miguel Ángel and Eiji had proven that you can reach at a distance and teleport big spheres of nickel-iron right out of the planet’s metallic core.
What if you teleported the bulk of the metallic core away at one time?
Bad things!
The inner core was about 775-miles in diameter and would weigh about one-60th of the Earth’s weight. In contrast, the moon only weighs about one 81th of the Earth’s weight.
My power rapidly fell to tier-10 as I left the planet-wide array. It didn’t matter. I could do this, even at tier-7, though it would strain me to the point of rupture.
By the time that my technicians had the specs worked out, I had fallen to tier-9.
Whoosh! The planet’s inner core abruptly vanished and the whole damned planet imploded.
It was interesting, but I needed to get back. There were things that I needed to do. Anyway, the space thereabouts was due to get extraordinarily turbulent and chaotic soon.
I took my entourage and teleported back to Ice—but I left beaucoup drones to send back data as long as it was possible to do so.
************ **************** **********************
My next port of call was Tundra.
“You said that you needed a moon. I have one. It is about 25% heavier than Earth’s moon. I’ll place it a bit farther away, but you can probably profit from a bit more tidal forces than Earth experiences," I said to Casúr.
“I need to do as much finagling as possible, while I’m still at tier-8. It will be a lot harder when I drop back to tier-7. I’ll make your moon spin like a top—how does a 7-hour rotation strike you?” I said.
“Sorry, but your moon is molten iron and nickel, so you won’t be able to land on it for a few geologic eras. On the other hand, it will give out some light and a good bit of infra-red light for many thousands of years. You will still have a cold tundra type planet, but many of your transplants may take advantage of the slightly milder climate to take root, adapt and thrive,” I said.
“Where did you get a molten-iron moon!?!” Casúr demanded.
“Well…you know those Reptilian Overlords who destroyed Forest? Actually, I wrecked Forest, but you know what I mean. At any rate, that was once the inner core of the Reptilian Overlord’s home planet,” I said.
“How does a planet continue to exist without an inner molten core?” Casúr asked.
“Badly. It collapses and implodes. I need to go home and crash. I’ve expended a great deal of vital energy,” I said wearily and then teleported home,
What? I am a Vice-Chancellor of the Realm of Nightmare, an advanced slip-slider and a tier-8 deity. How can I not be able to teleport myself back to my home?
I crashed and slept for several days.
I was still tier-8 when I woke, Both Neon and Despair had advanced to tier-7. Benson, Melancholy and Grief were all tier-5 now—not bad for a dweeb with no potential…
And several frost giantesses, Oni, and Lamia had promoted a tier. Apparently, just being exposed to so much energy of continuous creation is very stimulating and encourages promotion. Fighting in the front-lines here on Ice also seemed provided a huge stimulus to advance.
To put that into perspective, many beings quickly advance to their default level and then spend their whole lives without promoting even once.
O, and of course, it would turn out that the Reptilian Overlords were merely expendable pawns in the opening gambit of the inter-dimensional wars.
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Post by texican on Feb 15, 2021 20:04:39 GMT -6
Well the snakes took a huge hit, but are they totally out of it?
What else will happen?
Only rvm knows.
Thanks for the chapter.
Texican....
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Post by rvm45 on Mar 10, 2021 12:33:14 GMT -6
Friends,
This is a short chapter.
Usually, when the chapter is short, I just tack unrelated incidents in order to get the word count up.
However, this story has been on hiatus for awhile. It will probably take a few days to write the next 2000–4500 words. Rather than keep y'all waiting, this should serve as "proof of life."
Chapter Forty-Five
112 207
Apparently, the sad demise of the Reptilian Overlords gave whoever or whatever was as behind them, and whoever was determined to annex our sheath of probabilities, pause.
We had 5-decades to prepare.
Every one of Ice’s cities now had at least 3 gem worlds attached to their versions of Bottomtown.
The ice world that one of Marshal’s slip-sliders had annexed turned out to have 7-cities left. They weren’t doing at all well compared to the cities of Ice.
Never mind. Now each of them had at least one gem world each and they were hooked into the interdimensional railroad.
The railroad tied together Ice, Saguaro, Archipelago; Snow—the other rouge ice Planet, Tundra, over 15 000 O’ Neill colonies and scores of other worlds.
All of the people in Ice had access to all the varied fine foods and material goods that they could reasonably desire.
Satisfying the material needs is not a guarantee of having a rewarding life—and indeed some people manage to live well even when impoverished in a material sense. Still, having enough to eat, good clothing, shelter and interesting things to occupy the mind are generally good things.
We live in a fallen world though. Everything has unforeseen drawbacks and consequences. We can never attain perfection in this life—that is something that we look forward to obtaining in the next life after the resurrection.
Still, just because we cannot achieve perfection doesn’t mean that we and everything around us has to be as bad as it can possibly be. If that was the case, progress would be impossible.
I don’t believe that progress—in an absolute, real sense—is impossible, but much that is labelled “progress” is often a regression.
Benson was now married to Melancholy, Grief and Sorrow. They had all advanced to tier-5 now.
Miguel Ángel still had seven wives. Apparently, having seven—no more, no less—was essential to his mojo. He did have a couple of wives die and replaced them with new ones.
I was determinedly holding the line at two wives. Not that Despair and Neon were still clambering for a third. That seemed an idea whose time had come and gone.
Usually, when a frost giant marries a human, the children either have only a partial ability to expand, or they cannot expand at all. Somehow the children of Revna’s valley were different. They had the full powers of a frost giant and other abilities as well.
Those purple Oni were odd little buggers too. They seemed to be a new improved hybrid race—and oddly, even pure bred Oni—whether Red Oni or Blue Oni were starting to throw Purple Oni children—as if it was the next stage of evolution.
Lately, I had been feeling a little down.
As Ecclesiastes says: “When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?”
Ecclesiastes also says that everything is a vanity and a vexation of spirit.
Sure, now everyone on Ice had enough food to eat. They wore colorful clothing and they had multiple amusements. They weren’t even tied to this planet anymore, if they wanted to stretch their legs and wander about.
Once that had seemed important to me. Now that I had accomplished it, it was far less interesting to possess than to strive purposefully toward.
My life expectancy, baring death by violence, now stretched for millennia, but someday I would die.
According to the Bible, God’s redeemed will spend all eternity in glory, in God’s presence.
Do you think that anyone will ever again feel separated from God? Will anyone ever again feel lonely or alienated?
Feeling isolated, alone and lonely are luxuries that this life affords. One should drink deeply, because once the oasis is left behind, there is no way to return.
I could have stayed mortal and went far into the hills and been a hermit. I had always been meaning to do something like that, but the time just never seemed right.
Instead, I had let myself be persuaded to marry Despair. Sure, the vision that I’d had of Ice had intimidated me somewhat, but I had already made the commitment.
Now, I was stuck with two wives. They never left my side. Even if they were to do so, we were always linked on a spiritual level. I could never be alone or feel lonely again. It seemed that my losses outweighed my gains.
There was no such thing as divorce for beings like us. Even if there had of been, I would not punish Despair and Neon for something that wasn’t their fault.
O, but if I had it to do over again…
When Cassadore challenged me to hit on the Night Ranger, I’d have slapped his face. I’d have sold everything and moved to somewhere deep in the Alaskan wilderness, or Northern Idaho or somewhere and hope that I never met another human being again.
I would glory in loneliness all the days of my life.
While I sat and brooded, a messenger came into my office.
“Earth is being invaded,” he said.
That made sense. They had been beaten too thoroughly here last time. They weren’t likely to make the mistake of stepping into my home territory again anytime soon.
“Reptilian overlords again?” I asked.
“No, this time it is great big-ass flying saucers. By ‘Big-Ass’ I mean 1-to-3-miles in diameter flying saucers!” the messenger responded.
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Post by texican on Mar 10, 2021 22:49:50 GMT -6
rvm,
Scads of good info about living and life in this chapter.
Now, will it be the good guys off to save the earth?
Thanks for the chapter.
Texican....
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Post by rvm45 on Aug 31, 2021 11:35:53 GMT -6
Friends,
This is the conclusion of "NightRanger."
I could have drawn it out another chapter or two—except, knowing where it was going and having given it a LONG break—I found it exceedingly tedious work on.
I've had this ending in mind for weeks, just couldn't flog myself enough to type it out...
Chapter Forty-Six
I appeared in the skies above Earth.
Do you remember the anti-TSA meme?
“If you don’t want to fly “The FASCIST Skies; “DON’T FLY “The Fascist skies.”
If you were in the sky at that time, you would have been in the Stillwater skies.
My avatar—or my true body—such distinctions had become meaningless—stood 1500-miles high.
The thing was, no matter how big I might become as a 3 or 4-dimensional being—4, if you insist on being relativistic—could still only be on one side of the Earth at one time.
I had gone far beyond being a mere 4-dimensional being though.
When I was a mundane, I worked on the Railroad as a track repairman for 3-years. I was fired due to my inability to get along with anyone for very long. Nonetheless, it was the only job with meaning that I ever held.
There is something special about Railroads and those that work upon them have a special virtue.
Iron has a special property in some of the old stories—though truth be told, I’ve never encountered an iron-shunning faerie like in the legends. I’m not sure they exist.
At any rate, even when you lay around as much iron as a network of Railroads calls for—even when the iron is laid randomly and catawampus to any magnetic lines, mana ley lines, chi meridians or whatever—you draw and focus a humongous amount of force.
I have long believed that if you want a prosperous nation that you need a first-rate rail system.
No, you do not necessarily need passenger service and bullet trains like they have in Japan and Europe—screw Europe!
In fact, economically, the Railroads probably lose out to trucking, barges and even air service economically and logistically.
Leave all that aside, if your nation has extensive, neatly maintained Railroads, maned by special highly paid laborers led by an assortment of very strong Unions—then it will create a mojo that will cause your country to prosper.
If your country lacks strong Railroads, it doesn’t matter if every family has a flying car. It doesn’t matter if your country features dozens of arcologies; rayguns; instantaneous teleportation and spaceports going to Mars, Venus and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn…
Without a strong Railroad, by definition, your country is naught but a 3rd World hellhole.
Only I had an astonishing Railroad that spanned Ice—and it was custom-designed to follow the ley lines of Ice and to channel the unbelievable power of continuous creation.
I had extended my Railroad to a gross of other worlds and tens of thousands of O’Neill colonies…
And my Railroad had gradually become an inseparable part of the totality of myself. Those rails were my nerves and my veins and arteries. That energy of continous creation was my life force.
And I had the two goddesses Neon and Despair by my side. The Bible says that when a man and a woman have sex, that they become “One Flesh.” On some level, they are fused and become one—quite literally.
I don’t know how to resolve the paradoxes created by promiscuity and divorce or by Jesus’ statements that once in Heaven, we are no longer given in marriage…
Those are the sort of brain-busting paradoxes that ultimately lead to no insight. I only know that two—or in this case three—become “One Flesh.”
I was no longer a being that could be contained within the 4-dimensions of time and space—or even the 10-dimensions of String Theory.
Indeed, I existed in a 17-dimensional space.
I contemptuously tipped over the flying saucers, sending them spinning like a flipped coin before their inertial damper systems overloaded and they exploded.
I traced the back trail of the invaders to their source and plucked the iron cores from their planets as casually as I picked blackberries as a boy.
Yeah, picking blackberries as a boy, I sometimes got a briar stuck deeply in a finger or thumb. I sometimes tripped and skinned my knees. I got mosquito bites and occasionally I got a wee-mite of poison ivy.
That was the best these Knob-gobblers could do to me.
I had been silently acquiring the wherewithal to evolve over the decades, but it took the actual invasion of Earth to start the initial crack on the egg to let the new Stillwater out…
I had become a 28th tier being and all of my close associates had evolved to tier levels that had two digits.
It seemed from my Olympian perspective that the battle and the window of vulnerability lasted for a mere instant. From a mundane point of view though, the danger period lasted for centuries.
People died and large amounts of cities and countryside was laid waste. A human might be infinitely stronger than a cockroach, but could he track and kill every member of a cockroach nest?
Yeah, outsider invaders got through and sometimes they did some damage before I crushed them flatter than a grape.
Eventually though, the invasion was over and the gap closed.
Then the aftermath.
Remember when I told you how Diana and Odin were two of the old deities that still had an abiding interest in Earth and Earth’s people, but there were barriers that limited their access to Earth a great degree?
Those two could still have the occasional interaction with Earth and its people though. They were only allowed occasional access—probably just inconsequential and unintended gaps in the fence—such as it were.
The limitations on what they could say, do or reveal made TV’s “Prime Directive” look positively lame by comparison. (And I always thought the “Prime Directive” was one of the Lamest contrivances in fiction!)
Yeah, about that…
Since the battle concluded, I not only cannot go to Earth, I cannot even go to the same Universe that Earth abides in.
It isn’t as if an angel with a flaming sword bars my way. There just isn’t any point of access. All of my friends and subordinates that are tier-5 or above are similarly barred.
Some of the lower-ranked folks can still get through though.
Benson is barred from Earth, but enough of his subordinates can travel to and fro, to Earth and back—that Benson can maintain control of the Earth branch of his business—which, truth be told, is a minor branch of his business empire nowadays.
Wang Wei’s people maintain contact with a small village in Sichuan.
Earth has changed. The Lamia are gone from Earth. So are the Sidhe and the Vampires. There are very few Yōkai, Centaurs, Satyrs, Shamans or Cultivators left on Earth.
You would have to search high and low to find any sign of outsider activity there…
But if you eat at all night diners or shop at Walmart in the wee hours of the morning you may still run into a Night Ranger.
By all means, ask one for a date, if your taste runs to such things. Be aware of what you’re signing up for…
Be nice, you may be courting one of my daughters or granddaughters.
If you go to the Easternmost section of Kentucky, you might meet a Pale Lady. If you go to the Westernmost part of Kentucky, the Arctic or Antarctic Circle, there is some minimal chance that you might meet a frost giantess.
I understand that there are still a few wee folk in Ireland and a few Kitsune in Japan. The wilds of New Zealand, the Sahara Desert…
And if you don’t mind overtly hostile haints with a pathological hatred of all mankind, you night try Warrick County—or Marion County.
Mostly though, Earth has become for more mundane and boring than it had been before the war—and it was rather staid and commonplace even back then.
Not entirely though.
They say that out West there is an ancient Navajo silversmith who creates works of astounding intricacy and beauty. He is a squirrelly old bastard.
Sometimes he demands astounding prices for his work. Sometimes he refuses to take the commission at all, at any price. Then he will sometimes make a gift of his work, even after greedily negotiating a king’s ransom for it beforehand.
And if he really likes you, he may tell you the story of how he met a Ch’į́įdii—he doesn’t specify, but it would be what? Over 800-years ago?
I can’t be sure he’s the same silversmith, because I can’t go to Earth to check him out—but he sure sounds like the same dude—judging by fourth and fifth hand accounts.
He does buy mammoth ivory, jade and mother of pearl from Benson’s agents…
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Post by sniper69 on Aug 31, 2021 12:06:07 GMT -6
rvm45 - thank you for finishing up the story. Now I would be fibbing if I said I didn't want to go on for more chapters. But thank you for sharing your writings.
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Post by texican on Aug 31, 2021 12:52:28 GMT -6
rvm,
Thank you for the time that you have expended to bring your readers the pleasure of Night Ranger.
Another story to follow?
Regards,
Texican....
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echo6
New Member
Posts: 6
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Post by echo6 on Sept 15, 2022 15:21:24 GMT -6
rvm, just finished. What an amazing journey. You write like a man possessed. And it is fun to read. Thank you for sharing.
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