Blowing shit up with giant robots is cool!

Yeah, yeah, it’s been an eternity and then some since the last post. I know y’all missed me like mad, but I really didn’t have anything to write about. Well, good news! That’s about to change! I’ll have quite a bit to write about! Aren’t you happy?

So, since I have my life more or less together, I haven’t had the inspiration to smack something together and put it up here. As a result, I’ve decided to repurpose a part of this ‘ere bloggity-blog. I’ve decided that I’m going to learn coding and create a game for the Android platform. For the foreseeable future, most posts will be updates on said game project. Posts will mostly contain rants about various aspects of game development and the occasional update when I have something cool to showcase. So, let’s get started, shall we?

About a month ago, I got myself a smartphone. An Android smartphone. And quite soon I discovered that the kind of game I want on it doesn’t exist. So I did some research, got myself a program to give me a framework for creating a 3d-game and got cracking.

So here’s the plan: a 3rd-person shooter set mostly in various points of space in our solar system. It’s heavily inspired by the Gundam franchise, so there’ll be lots of giant robots shooting at each other. Also, semi-Newtonian physics, meaning that you point your giant robot at something, hit the burner and it boosts you forward. However, let go of the burn and you can turn your giant robot 180 degrees and not change the direction you’re going. The only way to change where you’re going is to burn more to cancel out your inertia and then you can get moving in your new direction. As of right now, there’s also a plan to include some carrier ships to shoot at each other while giant robots shoot at each other. The game’s working title is Blowing Shit Up With Giant Robots Is Cool!

Getting started is a bit of a hassle, though. I have the graphical part down, but everything else is completely new to me. I have to learn coding from scratch. It’s… complicated. Trying to remember the functions and formats for the simplest of commands is tricky. Add to that, I’m figuring out a new program while I’m at it. Fortunately enough, Unity is rather easy to work with. Most coding functions that need to interact with other objects in the game can be written so that you can assign the target by simply dragging and dropping it onto the relevant variable. I’m slowly working my way through various tutorials, figuring things out as I go along. Got into the habit of taking the code I write and pasting it into a separate text file so that I could quickly pull it up when I need it.

 

 

Current progress:

Wrote the basic character control code. Hitting the WASD keys makes the giant robot turn in that direction and the spacebar adds thrust. The player robot is modeled, rigged and the colors are mostly blocked in. Also made some simple animations to give turning around more flair, but I’m yet to write the code to actually use them in-game. A basic testbed environment is also done, consisting of the Earth and a massive orbital station extending around it. Crashing into it at high speeds was tremendously fun.

 

Also, this:

Blazing a trail of fire among the stars!

 

Well, that’s it for now. There’ll be more updates to come as I make progress. Till then, keep on keeping on, y’all!

Boom!

Bet you weren’t expecting this, were you?

Still fooled ya, though. This isn’t a real post. There’s not gonna be any deep, introspective talk here. I just wanted to post this image:

Slap him again, Tyrion!

That is all, go back to your lives. When you’re done watching the little douchebag get slapped.

Winter is coming

I started reading A Song of Ice and Fire years ago, when the first book was translated. I remember hauling ass through all the books that had been released up to that point (no more than now) over the next few months. Gritty low-fantasy with some nice world-building and several cool characters. I got used to the whole thing being set in a crapsack world where people died for the lamest of reasons. Hells, I even got used to the fact that this was a tale far more grimdark than anything I’d read before. So when news started coming that there could, if the stars were right and the moon shone upon a single specific rose on a clouded night, be a tv series about the books, I was sceptical (also, Chrome doesn’t recognize that as a word) at first. And then more info got out. HBO would make it, the same company that made Rome and The Sopranos. Martin would be tied to the production rather heavily. The trailers. The final cast list. I didn’t really put much effort into following the news, but I picked up a few snippets from here and there. And then they said that the series will be going into production. I’ll be damned if there wasn’t an incredulous smile on my face when I read that. And yesterday, roughly a year after the announcement, the pilot aired. And I just finished watching it. So, a few thoughts.

It shows that it was made by HBO. There’s tits and blood aplenty, the actors and direction are competent, a lot of effort has been put into the sets, the costumes and the very feel of the show. In the end, I got so into it that I didn’t even notice the hour passing. And when it was over, I was left wanting more.

The characters and the actors are, largely, well chosen. Sean Bean really sells Ned Stark’s cold, northern nature. Peter Dinklage does a similarly great job as The Imp, once again sealing the character as one of my favorites. Viserys is still the antithesis of a good brother. Just looking at Joffrey Baratheon makes me want to give him a sandwich. A five-knuckle one, right across the chops. Repeatedly. Jaime Lannister, while not being the unearthly beautiful prettyboy as he was in the books, is still plenty charming. We’ll see how he does as the series progresses.  Jon Snow struck me as slightly off at first, but as the episode went on, I started liking his actor more and more. Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo might strike some as a strange choice, but my confidence in him as a good actor grew a lot as I was watching Stargate Atlantis. Still, too bad the guy didn’t say much beyond “No” during the entire episode. And last but not least, Arya. Arya’s actress, while young, can really pull off the little tomboy.

Interestingly, there are no casting choices that leave me scratching my head too much. Lena Headey as Cersei did strike me as off in the trailers, but while watching the episode, it was all good. No real feeling on Theon Greyjoy, mostly because he didn’t get much say this time around. The rest were similarly so-so, nothing exceptionally bad nor good.

Now, the visuals. Man, that first look at the Wall was awesome. A sheer wall of ice, as far as the eye can see. And the three rangers walking away from it are but specks of black on a white background. Winterfell, fittingly enough, is a fortress through and through. Still, lots of conveniently jutting stones and ledges for Bran to grab on to when he’s climbing. Pentos didn’t get to show itself off much this time around, but I’m certainly looking forward to seeing more of it. I do, however, have one gripe. The White Walkers. I expected them to look more like translucent shimmering crystal and glass than brownish-gray decaying corpses.

All in all, The Man Who Writes approves most heartily of this series. I am certainly looking forward to the next episode and, if the gods would hear my song, I hope to see many more seasons. Friends, I am sure I don’t need to tell you that if you’ve read and liked A Song of Ice and Fire, then you should give this series a chance. I do believe it is worth that much (and more) and if you like it, then that’s just all the better.

Update like… fifteen minutes after posting

Game of Thrones is already HBO’s best-selling series. It’s fetching international per-episode revenue that tops The Sopranos by roughly 50%. So things look good for the show. Let’s hope they continue to.

Dr. Funk and SCIENCE!

Okay,  before we start, I’ll tell ya right off the bat that I’m  drunk. So if you see any spelling mistakes (cause heavens know I make more than enough grammar mistakes as it is), just label them as battlefield losses.

So I went out tonight. In the name of SCIENCE!. And yes, SCIENCE! is a word all by itself. It’s science’s grown up, awesome brother. So, SCIENCE! is a word. Complete with the exclamation point. Trust me, okay? It is.

Anyways  (and I cannot believe I had enough foresight to put that there), this town sucks. What the hell kind of a town has a five-to-one ratio of men to women in its bars on a Friday night? I went to three different bars and I swear to all that was, is and ever will be holy, I saw five penis-bearers to every pair of tits. And that statistic includes the bartenders. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s just all kinds of fucked up.

 

So yeah. This healthy and handsome 20-something guy went out tonight and got a wee bit drunk. Can’t say that I blame myself. Seriously, I’ve been here for over four years. I think I deserve one night out, during which I get drunk and stumble my way back to the dorm. Too bad the night was such a burning pile of fail.

 

Okay, since you asked and begged (and I know you didn’t), I’ll tell you how my night went.

I left the dorm, intent on playing some pool, drinking some beer and charming some chicks. Of all that, I only got to drink the beer (which, surprisingly, is also a shining example of how life can completely fuck someone’s plans right up the tailpipe). I had no one to play pool with. The guys who’d taken the only pool table in the town were rather vehement about no one else playing at their table.  Fuck those fuckers sideways with a burning torch.

 

Anyway, I took off pretty soon after discovering that I won’t be playing pool tonight. Got myself to another bar, only to find it also overrun by males. Well, fuck that. So I trekked quite a way to what is possibly my favorite bar in this pussy-forsaken town. That one was as overrun  by penises as the other two. I watched some football and had a third beer and cheeseballs. The guy next to me bought me a fourth beer, so I guess he’s kinda cool.

 

At about 11.30pm, I figured I’d better get my ass back to the dorm. Now I’m here, writing this post and feeling utterly defeated and miserable.

 

This was supposed to be my night of awesomeness. The night I looked hot, went out, scored some chicks and proved myself as the highest echelon of manliness. Instead, I looked sorta acceptable, drank four beers on my own, completely failed to even hit on any chicks and, to top it all off, ended up all alone in my room, pondering over having one more beer to finish off this night of epic fail.

 

I hope that whoever reads this can understand my feeling of failure. Right now, I certainly feel it’s justified.

 

Now, I’m gonna turn in and hope that when morning comes, I won’t remember most of this crap. Cause if I did, I’d feel sad indeed.

 

Dr. Funk, signing off.

Explosions!

As I sit here, listening to awesome music and browsing the internets, my mind is busy putting itself back together like a puzzle of shrapnel. Why? Cause it has been blown once more. I just found out that an universal constant is not, in fact, a constant at all. Recent research (try saying that 10 times really fast) seems to show that the strength of electromagnetic interaction (the energy that holds atoms together) varies in different parts of the universe. This also means that the laws of physics are not universal. In short, my reaction to this discovery was something like this:

And that got me thinking of some other things that have blown my mind in the past. The incomplete list:

• everything that moves drags a pocket of vacuum behind it
• roughly two hundred thousand years of evolution (the length of time the human race has existed) is barely a second compared to the age of the planet itself, not to mention the Sun
• this image…

… encompasses an area barely 1/13 000 000th of the sky and shows ten thousand galaxies, each and every one of them containing between ten million and one trillion stars

• two entangled quantum particles can transmit information between themselves literally instantly (as in no delay whatsoever)
• there are more nerves going from your brain to your eyes and ears than the other way
• your muscles are perfectly capable of punching through concrete, but doing so would rip them off your bones
• 90% of what you see at any given time is made up by your mind, because if it would try to process everything your eyes are feeding it, you’d go insane

So yeah. My mind gets blown rather often. Over and over again. Because stuff like that just interests me. I’m always up for finding out something cool about the world, human physiology and the universe. I know that no one will care if I happen to drop some of those things into a conversation, but it’s there in my brain and I know it and it’s awesome.

————————————————————————————

Have you noticed that explosions make everything cooler? It’s true. For example, look at your lamp. There it is, right there on the ceiling or on your desk, giving you light and some comfort, even a little bit of warmth. Now imagine that while it did all that, it would also be exploding constantly. You know what you get? A star. And tell me true that a star is not cooler than a simple lamp.

Here’s another thing that is easily improved by explosions. Say that there’s a meteorite coming down. It’s already burning its way through the atmosphere, there’s a long trail of fire behind it. Now, if it doesn’t explode, it crashes into the ground, creates a crater and a shockwave capable of granting you Superman’s flying power for a grand total of 15 seconds. However, if it does explode, it will light up the entire sky brighter than sunshine at high noon. In a brilliant flash of light, whatever remains of it is completely vaporised as the former spacerock gets turned into pure energy in a single instant. That’s way cooler than crashing down and killing 200 people.

That, my friends, is a supernova. It’s the second biggest explosion known to man. That is what happens when a really big star dies. It fucking EXPLODES with enough force to vaporize an entire solar system. Its death leaves behind a cloud of starstuff that reaches reach several lightyears in diameter. From that destruction, new stars and solar systems are born. For a single brilliant moment, one star can easily outshine the entire galaxy it’s in. In the year 1006, a star exploded 7200 lightyears away, bright enough to be visible during the day and cast shadows during the night. The power released in a single one of these explosions is far greater than all the energy generated by our Sun during its entire life.

The universe is awesome.

A post! Holy shit, a new post!

What an amazing development! By the great canole, who could have possibly foreseen this?

Well, me, for one.

Anyways!

Before I completely forgot about this post (which was roughly two weeks ago), I was writing about the Last Airbender movie. I’ll make it short, so that we could get to the meat and bones of this post. It’s crap. Utter crap. Even I, a lover of crap movies, think it’s way too much crap for me. So take it from a guy who knows his shitty movies and DENOUNCE THIS TRAVESTY!

And on to other stuff.

The old man is building a house. It’s been on the agenda for quite a while and the start was made last year, but it wasn’t till this summer that there was any actual work done on the foundation. We pretty much finished it today. I say “we” because, believe it or not, The Ulf helped out. I was rooting up the marker posts when thoughts started streaming into my head. I’ll let you partake in some of the workings of my mind and write up some that I can still recall.

So, without further ado, I point you towards a recently created segment of my fine little blog, which I’ve cunningly titled

• “This Arboreal Abomination is proving difficult to vanquish.”
• “Critical hit, fuck yeah!”
• “You know what would fix you right up? A good shoveling. That’s what you need. A swift shovel right to the freaking cranium. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

The following took place after I’d gotten the heavy sledgehammer from the shed in order to aid me.

• “Oh yeah, now you’ve angered the God of Thunder. The Hammer’s coming down on you.”
• “What’s the time? Well, kind sir, it’s HAMMERTIME!” *whack!*
• “Cower beneath my steely might!”
• “The Hammer claims another woody foe! Its power is unstoppable!”
• “Shiver, timbers, for Thor’s Avatar hath come!”

There was a slew of others as well, most lost to the tides of time. Alas, even I cannot keep track of everything I think during a day. Hells, I can’t even keep track of what I thought during the past 10 minutes. But it probably had something to do with bloody awesome music.

Speaking of which, Blind Guardian recently released a new album, titled At the Edge of Time. It’s very reminiscent of their earlier albums, being more EPIC FUCKING METAL! than POWER AND UNICORNS AND SWORDS METAL. The album starts off with epic rocking and doesn’t let up all the way to the end. There are a few ballads mixed in with the god-awesome metal and, amazingly enough, they rock just as hard. Somewhat surprisingly, Curse My Name sounds like an Irish folk song at times and Wheel of Time’s intro takes its styling from Persian music, but then they both bust out the electric guitars and double-bass drums. I swear, this is their best album since Nightfall in Middle-Earth and that thing broke the Epic! scale. I know I’m gushing, but I can’t help myself. I was rocking out and tossing my wild mane of hair before the first song got to its vocals and singing along by the second one (and I don’t even know the lyrics!).

Seriously, in the span of two minutes, I went from this:

To this:

And that is AWESOME! Honestly, I find myself not surprised. Blind Guardian has been my favorite band since I discovered it. To me, it’s the perfect mix of orchestral music and power metal, combined with a great voice and damnedly awesome lyrics. Sure, most of the time I hear something I would imagine drowning a potato would sound like, but it’s alright. Cause all in all, combined with the epic guitars, the heavy bass and the orchestra pounding away in the background, it’s awe-inspiring. If I were to ever again get in a fight, I believe that if someone were to play Nightfall, Noldor or Thorn while it’s going down, I would stand a rather good chance of winning, simply because the music inspires me to limit-breaking feats.

So yeah. Blind Guardian’s new album is made of AWESOME! and if you’re a fan of epic power metal, I urge you to pick it up. If you liked Nightfall in Middle-Earth, you’ll like this one. Trust me.

Also, I am considering making that Barney picture into the new blog header. Why? Well, because it sums the whole blog up so beautifully. Also, it’s head-tiltingly wtf. Come on, tell me honestly that your first thought upon seeing it wasn’t something along the lines of “Dude… what?”

Cheerio!

I AM AWESOME!

That seems to be the prevailing idea among the people who have talked to me for more than ten minutes at a time.

They’re wrong.

You wanna know why? Well, Billy, come sit by the fire and I’ll tell ya why. In fact, I might just go into a great, big deconstruction of why everyone thinks I’m so fucking cool. Hells, you might even get a few laughs out of it. If that ain’t worth ten minutes of your time, what is, hmm? I’ll concede you porn, but nothing else.

So, me. Me, me, me.

Today I overheard two of my teachers talking about how awesome I am in comparison to damn near everyone else in my group and, indeed, in the group that mine is hitched to. They kept saying how smart and intelligent and deep and insightful and whatnot I am. I was sitting right there, trying to ignore it and not quite succeeding. You know how someone saying your name just suddenly catches your attention? Yeah.

Anyway, that got me thinking. What the hell is wrong with people? Most of them think I’m smart, witty, wise, good looking, charming, helpful and a dozen other things. I’m not, I’m really not. I am now going to go in depth into why I’m not, so if you don’t want to read my rant, then skip ahead till you see the line.

Let’s start with my alleged intelligence and smarts. You know what? It’s all thanks to a very spotty memory, luck and making up shit that sounds smart to those who have no fucking clue of what I’m talking about. I could tell you about an electron’s quantum waveform, why it’s constantly in flux and why its collapsing is enormously important. I could tell you about the effect dark matter has on our universe, our galaxy and even our solar system and how a deeper understanding of it could aid in future developments in space exploration. I could tell you about the geological effects of earthquakes on the continuing drift of the Earth’s axis and how its movement will affect the world’s climate. I guarantee you that I would be making up at least three quarters of all that. Hell, I’m sure I was making shit up while I was writing all that. What I really know amounts for jack shit. If I really knew as much as people think I know, I’d be the fucking Einstein of our times.

Some people have deluded themselves into thinking I’m wise. Wise beyond my years, in fact. Shit. I don’t even know where to start with that. It’s like every few sentences I’ll say something deep and philosophical, which makes me look like I’m a Zen master or something. Ya know what? I’m not. I’m about as deep as a puddle. What people mistake for wisdom is really me having nothing to say, so I kick my brain in the shins and tell it to fucking speed the fuck up with some random shit. Or me making an observation that would make a blind giraffe go “Really, Sherlock? However did you come to such an idea?”

Charming? Me? What? I bumble, I stutter, half the time I make less sense than a Pollock painting, I scare people, I creep them out and to top it all off, I have no idea that I’m doing half those things! It’s all me being me. Chances are that I say something that puts women off every other sentence. Shit, I’ve probably said at least seven such things since the start of this entire post. Can’t say I’m surprised, y’know.

———————————————————————–

Right, I’m done now. It’s safe to read again.

I’m not gonna tell you all what to think of me. And I think my little diatribe already told you what I think of myself. So you know what? I’m just gonna leave a little poll down here. Or hells, leave a comment or something.

Something about nothing

It’s Wednesday noon and I’m sitting in my 3d design class. I’m supposed to be making a 3d model of a hammer, but I finished it a while ago and now I’m bored to tears here. You know what’s coming, don’t you?

That’s right, ladies and gentelmen, it’s time for another round of The Man Who Writes Is Bored, He’s Gonna Make Us Suffer For His Amusement! Or TMWWIBHGMUSFHA for short.

I scared a guy half to death yesterday. Was walking around town, rounded a corner and passed by a guy doing the same. I saw his eyes drifting towards me and then he literally (and I mean literally) jumped, yelled “FUCK!” and clamped a hand to his mouth, breathing hard. And then we both started laughing, said sorry and went on our merry ways.

That incident made me think about something. I’m rather difficult to really startle. If my brain picks up some hint, be it a scent, a sound or a shimmer of a reflection of someone coming, chances are it’ll mentally prepare me for a sudden confrontation and figure out a way to walk around the approaching person. Sure, some people have managed it in the past, sometimes even when I know they’re coming. But I’ve also managed to completely startle someone and comfortably sidle past them without breaking my stride. So sometimes my brain works and sometimes it doesn’t.

I also wanted to write a little something about my weekend. It was early Saturday morning, I was sitting at my nutboiler, surfing the internets and generally being somewhat dizzy. And then my phone speaks up, telling me I’ve received a message that is most definitely not spam. My dear lady is asking me what I’m up to. I figure I’m not up to much and say so, in turn wondering what she’s doing. The reply ends with “knock-knock”.

Now, I’m thinking “No. No. No way. She didn’t.” And then I hear someone softly rapping at my chamber door. I can’t possibly pass it off as wind, nor are there any ravens known to be cooped up in the hallway, stately or otherwise. Sure enough, it was her.

She caught me completely off guard. And when I figured out how early she must’ve gotten up to make it to my dorm by noon, I found her being there even harder to believe. Still, can’t argue the feeling of having her in my arms.

We spent the day having fun in general. We went out, I got myself some new t-shirts and we made preparations for a barbecue on Sunday. In the evening we went to a bar. Got something to eat, something to drink and tested a theory of hers. Y’see, she’d noticed that some of the women in the bar were checking me out and told me that if she left for a smoke, someone would be coming over to talk to me in no time. I managed to talk her into trying it and proved her wrong. Surprisingly enough, the victory didn’t come with the usual elation. Oh well.

In the end, I got a bit drunk and we walked back to the dorm, where we both collapsed on the bed and slept. Well, she did. I was teetering on the edge of sleep for hours, all the way to sunrise. Only after that did I manage to fall asleep. Which kinda sucked.

On Sunday we did some walking around town, some scouting of our picnic spot and getting the last of the stuff we’d need. And then we plonked our asses down on a small island next to the castle. We barbecued some sausages, had a few drinks, listened to good music and generally had a good time. At one point things got a little… ahem.

Anyway, it was the best date I’ve ever been on. Period. No contest. Also, she made a really nice crown of cowslips. And wore it on the way back. Now, imagine two people walking down a street. Both dressed head to toe in black and the lady wearing a miniskirt, fishnets and knee-high boots. And a crown of flowers and a smile. Doesn’t exactly jive with the rest of her look, does it? Nevertheless, I loved it. In the end, night fell, I took her into my arms and dozed soon afterwards.

Roll on Monday! Class started early, so I had to leave. Alas, the classes themselves were rather pointless. During lunch break I headed back to my room and we disturbed the neighbors all the way to the other end of the hallway. For fun. Cause we’re evil like that. And after my final class, we disturbed them some more. Cause we didn’t disturb ‘em enough the first time around. All in all, fun was had. Later on, we went out to eat and I saw her off at the bus station. With my black leather trenchcoat billowing behind me and my long hair flowing in the wind I walked back to the dorm alone.

I must say, that was one of the best weekends I’ve ever had. No surprise there, I guess.

In other news, I’m now the only guy stupid enough to still be sitting in the class. Everyone else either went home, out for a smoke or over to the workshop. Now it’s just me, my coat and a lot of humming computers. Ah, privacy.

I have officially declared myself the Carnal God. Let anyone who dares argue with that step forward, so that I may prove my right to godhood.

Right, I think I’m done for now. I could go on ranting about random stuff, but I figure I’ve put you lot through enough misery already. Rock on, everyone. I’m off to fuck around with random people on Omegle.

I have been Shocked!

Once, over a decade ago, there was a game called System Shock. In that game, one took the role of the Hacker, who was stuck on a space station infested with cyborgified mutants and one very homicidal AI. Then there was System Shock 2, which is what I will be speaking of.

About two days ago I found the game on the wide reaches of the Interwebs. I acquired it. And I’ve been playing it. Now, mind that the following paragraphs will contain spoilers for the game, so be prepared. Though I don’t expect you lot to be the type to play survival horror games set in deep space.

So, here’s the premise. Roughly 40 years after the events of the first game (which ended with the Hacker destroying Citadel Station and its AI, named SHODAN), mankind has constructed its first faster-than-light spaceship and is preparing for its maiden voyage. The ship, named the Von Braun and piggypacking the smaller warship Rickenbacker, ends up near a planet called Tau Ceti V. This is where the game begins. I’ll be relating it in the first person perspective. Also, if you’re completely not interested, skip the next part.

———————————————————————————

It’s roughly six months after launch and I woke up in the Science lab, with a brand new and very illegal set of cybernetic modifications. Great. All of a sudden, there’s a voice in my head, claiming to be one Janice Polito, survivor and sitting in her locked-away office two decks above me. She instructs me to get the hell out of Science, otherwise I’ll be breathing vacuum in two minutes. I beat a very hasty retreat, yank myself a mighty monkey wrench off a dead guy and barely make it. And that’s when I see the pale guy begging to be let through a door. Polito speaks up in my head again, telling me that my cyber-rig, coupled with my latent psionic capabilities can theoretically pick up the psychic remnants of a person’s last moments. Great.

Polito tells me I need to get myself up to deck 4, so that we could formulate a plot against the infestation. What infestation? I find out when I open the door to the hallway and take a pipe to the forearm. The pipe is in the hands of what used to be a man, but now is a dead thing with a great big snake wrapping itself out of its burst ribcage, around the neck and into the head. The thing’s dead eyes and general expression of mortification are only made worse by the fact that while it’s trying to cave in my skull, it’s also telling me to run the fuck away. I would, buddy, but you’ve already got me in a corner. Seeing how, in the past five minutes, I’ve woken up to find myself horribly mutilated, almost got sucked into space, bossed around by a voice in my head and am now getting whacked by a guy-worm-thing, I am in a pretty fucking bad mood. So I put my wrench to work and crush my assailant’s skull.

The halls are splattered with blood, there are bullet holes in the walls and debris lying everywhere. I can hear the moans and groans of others of those mutated things. Polito pops into my head to tell me that I need to find some guy in Medical, so I head in that direction. On the way there, I trigger the ship’s security system (can’t believe that is still on) and have to fight off several mutants. Those bastards are slow, but when they get me with the pipe, it really hurts. And then I find that the power cell operating the door to Medical is dead. So I grab the cell and go to recharge it. On the way, I run into a few more mutants and a giant old man’s face on the wall. The face belongs to XERXES, the ship’s rather pleasant AI. While I’m fighting for my life, XERXES is helpfully telling me that there’s going to be a crew census tomorrow. Thanks, XERXES.

XERXES also happens to be in control of the security system. I don’t think he’s on my side. Unlike Polito, who keeps popping into my head and telling me to move along and generally guiding me on my path. She’s a bit terse, but I guess so am I. With Polito’s guidance, I make it to Medical. From there, I go through the crew quarters, looking for a man named Watts. He’s not in his office, so Polito instructs me to head over to R&D.

The whole place is crawling with mutants. The ship’s security system is completely and totally against me and every now and then, I hear a male/female/child/echo voice in my head, speaking as something that calls itself the Many and wonders why I assist the “machine mother”. The Many keeps offering me chances to join them, but I think they forgot to relay the offers to their grunts, cause they’re still trying to murder me horribly. And I’m starting to wonder who the “machine mother” is. The psi-specters are really disturbing. They’re ghostly pale, speak with a strange echo and are always despairing.

In R&D, I find more mutants and monkeys that shoot psionic freezing blasts at me. I find Watts’ office and him lying on an operating table, groaning. His last breath is used to tell me that the Many needs me as a host and that I must not succumb to them. With his final words, Watts dies right before me. I hear a familiar groaning coming from the way I came and know that I’m gonna have to fight my way out. The pistol I picked up earlier doesn’t have enough ammo to deal with two hybrids, so it’s down to them versus me and my nut-cranking buddy Walter. Walter’s come a long way from its humble beginnings. I’m so proud of it that I really wanted to introduce it to the hybrids. So I did. In a rather violent fashion.

On the way back to Science, I pick up a working shotgun from one of the hybrids. Since I’ve been saving up, I have quite a healthy supply of slugs for my new shooty friend. I head through Science and into Engineering, having finally found the log with the code for the door.

In Engineering, Polito politely informs me that I’m a stumbling idiot and need to move faster, otherwise the hybrids will catch me, rip off my arms and beat me to death with them. I have to re-start the ship’s engines and restore main power if I am to get the main elevator working again. Unfortunately half of Engineering is flooded with radiation, the other half is haunted by the hybrids. Great. I make my way to the shuttle bay, whacking hybrids with Walter and Melvin (the shotgun). I must get into Engineering Control, but somene called Sanger has locked it and sealed herself away in the cargo bay. Having done that (and killed several hyrbids and exploding robots along the way), I find that Delacroix (a scientist apparently trying to fight the Many and its control over XERXES and the ship) has locked it and I need a piece of equipment. Thanks. So I go and get it, then activate the Fluidics and clear out the radiation.

Something I saw along the way completely floored me. As I walked into Command Control to introduce Delacroix’s override into the main computer, I saw a specter of a soldier shooting himself so that the Many wouldn’t get him. His last words were an apology to his wife and kids, 67 trillion miles away on Earth. I felt for the man, I really did. And then I open the door to CC and see a hybrid playing football with his head. That snapped something in me. I strode towards the offending hybrid, ignoring its cries for me to run and save myself. Walter was hungry and by the gods, Walter was going to be fed. When I was done with the thing, there wasn’t more than a bloody pulp left on the floor. It finally hit me that these things were no longer human. They were monsters, pure and simple. It was my business to end them. And end them I shall.

With a new-found concentration, a sense of purpose and a seething fire in my heart, I head over to the engine core and boost up the ship. The Many speaks up several times, telling me of how the ship has such life growing inside it and that I should stop fighting them, reject the machine mother and accept the offer to become one with them. Fuck them. Sideways. With Melvin.

On my journey through these corpse and mutant infested corridors, I have come upon several audio logs. Most of them are from people who have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Delacroix has made some rather amazing strides in striking back and, along with Polito, is one of my main allies in this god-forsaken place. But something worries me. It looks like the captains of both ships have given in and willingly joined the Many, along with several scientists. The way their voices morph into the chorused growl of a hybrid while they’re still talking is eerie, to say the least. I’ve also found a few logs by Polito herself and something has me pondering. The tone of voice in the logs is completely different from the one in my head. In the logs, she’s confused and scared. In my head, she’s composed, if a little irritated. It’s like a completely different person. Maybe the infestation has affected her worse than me.

Anyway, the engines and main power are now back online. The elevator’s working again, so I get in to head to deck 4. Alas, the shaft is blocked. I make it to Hydroponics on deck 3. Polito tells me there’s a shitload of the Many’s reproductive biomass clogging the elevator shaft and that I have to find a way to disperse it. Moving through Hydroponics, I stumble upon another one of Delacroix’s logs. She speaks of a substance called Toxin A, which seems to have a very destructive effect on the Many. With Polito’s help, I figure out that I need to find at least four vials of this stuff and disperse it in the deck’s air supply via the environmental control consoles. I proceed to do so, murdering the hybrids and midwives (cyborg women with a perpetual look of horror on their dead faces) as I go on my merry way.

During all that, Polito keeps calling me slow and insipid, even as she’s guiding me on my way. The Many and XERXES also keep asking me to join them in their collective happiness, which the machine mother could never provide me with. Both of the ship’s captains have fallen to their promises and I am looking forward to caving in their skulls with whatever I have at hand during the moment. I found a log by a woman detailing her transformation, at the end of which she tells whoever happens to hear it not to feel guilty about ending her. I didn’t. I felt nothing. I can’t allow myself the luxury of feeling anything for these horrible creatures, not before I’ve yanked Walter out of the ribcage of the last of them.

My efforts in Hydroponics aren’t in vain. Delacroix’s concoction burns through the biomass in the elevator shaft and I make my way up to Operations. I reload my shotgun with a fresh set of anti-personnel slugs, expecting to fill some hybrid bastards full of hot lead the moment I step off the elevator. Except there aren’t any. Ops, as far as I can see at the moment, is empty. Polito’s office is somewhere here. I find the bulkhead leading there and step through.

At the opposite end of a short tunnel, I see a body slumped in a chair. I rush over, wishing the situation was anything but what I knew it to be. I was right. Polito had shot herself. And by the looks of it, quite a while ago. Probably before I’d been released from Science. Just as it’s all starting to click together, I hear a stuttering voice saying “The Polito form is dead, insect!” The walls and floor melt away, leaving me and Polito’s corpse floating in darkness. All around me, new walls are growing. On every wall, there’s a face. A female face, the owner of the stuttering voice. A face I know from my history books as the reason behind the Citadel incident. SHODAN. Fuck.

Turns out that the Many is her creation. Back on Citadel, she was well on her way to perfecting them, when the Hacker ejected the station’s garden section. 30 years later, it crashed on Tau Ceti V, along with a dormant SHODAN. The Many grew, evolved and became too much for her to control. When the Von Braun arrived, the crew discovered the Many and brought it on board for study. It proceeded to take over the ship, murder or mutate the crew and generally be a pain in the ass. Meanwhile, SHODAN infiltrated the ship’s systems and stuffed me full of cybernetic modifications, planning on using me against the Many. So now I’m facing a choice: discard Walter and Melvin, step outside and let myself be assimilated into the Many or work with an AI with a massive god-complex. Fucking great.

————————————————————-

Okay, System Shock section over with. You can continue reading now.

In other news, I decided to see how I’d do acting as a normal person around here. I went out last night, intending to go to a bar, have a beer and improvise. My first choice was infested with 70-year old Finnish tourists. Seeing how they’re all roughly 45 years too old for me, I got out of there. No way in hell am I going to try and swindle myself into the granny panties of a woman who’s seen almost three quarters of a century pass by. So I looked for another bar. That, too, was infested. Swell.

I ended up in a small tavern that I’d been to once or twice before. Got myself a beer, enjoyed some music and tried to not get too mosquito-bitten. And just as I was finishing my mug, a guy came over and asked me if I was gonna step up and sing. Turns out it was the weekly karaoke night. I figured I even might. So I got myself another beer, sat down and watched as one after another, people went up there and sang horribly. Most went with Estonian classics (as in classic pop songs), some sang in English. In the end, I downed my second beer, carried the mug over to the bar, got on the stage, sang Black Sabbath’s Iron Man and walked out. The two beers had done a number on me and I was feeling the buzz. I made it home and turned in quite soon afterwards.

It was… well, interesting. I still can’t sing, but at least I’m not as screechy-horrible as some of those people. Although I still think I should’ve Rickrolled them all.

Whoa, that’s a whopper of a post.

In which I speak of.. well, something

Looks like two posts per day is becoming the norm here. Oh well, even if my readers don’t come back for another round, this place is still for me to just write my shit down and get it off my mind.

While I’m sitting in my dorm room, watching Top Gear and being generally bored, my girlfriend is 140 miles away, having a barbecue and rum with her friends. This is far from the first time something like this has happened. Her hanging out and drinking with her buddies while I’m not around is surprisingly frequent. I don’t blame her, one has to fill their time somehow and she’s not exactly the type to just bum around like me. It’s just that it feels like the time she’s spending with me is something of a rest period, a time for her to recuperate before I have to go again and the late nights spent with rum, tequila and a bunch of guys start again.

It’s not even that I object to going out. I admit, it’s not really my thing, but (and be prepared for a mighty shock) I’m perfectly willing to tag along, have a beer and talk with the guys, flirt with the ladies and just enjoy the time. But by the time I see her again, she’s usually too tired to do anything but go home and rest her head on my chest. Maybe get naughty an hour or two later, if she’s not so deep in dreamland that nothing short of the light of day can wake her.

So what am I to do?

I don’t know, really. The boredom and feeling of having less life than a highschool science genius is nothing new to me, but neither is it something I can easily get rid of. Sure, I could put on my coat, go out and lounge around in a bar or something, but what’s the point? At the end of the day, I’m still going to have one beer, look like I’m moping around and drowning my sorrows (in A beer!), reject any and all advances without realizing it, totally creep out the rest and end up going back to the dorm, feeling like I’ve wasted several hours and the money I spent on the beer.

I could try to make some friends, but my name’s getting around, along with the reputation of a creepy, angry serial killer in waiting. Nice, no? I can creep people out without ever even seeing them. Some of you are probably thinking that surely I have the charm to work past that and show the guys and gals around here that I’m actually a rather likable guy. But do consider that first impressions are very important and mine has largely been made for me. The perpetual Neanderthal Scowl doesn’t help matters.

Gah, now I really am moping around. Nine fucking Hells, what’s wrong with me? It’s like I’ve turned into a miserable little git, dragging everyone around me down. Fucking great.