Tom Rears continued the coverage of the American portion of the vote on the Breyyanik's entrance into the system. So far, 13 states had finished counting their tallies. They were heavily in favor of the Breyyanik, with nearly 80% of the voters so far being for their entrance. The voting days were from Saturday to Tuesday to try to allow everyone a chance to express themselves. Similar accommodations were made in most of the world. The rate was between 60 and 80% in most other countries so far. Even Luna and the Martian colonies were part of this vote.
The airwaves were flooded with politicians and reporters trying to sway Humanity to one side or the other. People had been marching in the streets of major cities, sometimes clashing with each other. Tom knew that riot police were on standby in many locations across the globe. Only a few of the protests had actually become riots, though.
There'd even been some anti-Vinarii protests in a few places. Considering their portrayal in Teehbiel's account, and that it had been watched billions of times, he was surprised it wasn't happening more. Tom thought it was either because the people watching didn't trust the Breyyanik either or cared more about supporting the Breyyanik than protesting against the Vinarii. Especially since the Vinarii were sitting around Saturn's orbit, way out of reach of any unhappy humans.
Luna, of course, didn't have such problems. With their facial recognition technology, anyone found to be protesting in non peaceful ways or blocking critical routes was fined depending on the severity and duration of the acts. It didn't sit well with Tom that they could just do that, but he wasn't in charge there, so no point in worrying about it.
He was currently covering a protest against the Breyyanik which involved a few thousand people on the outskirts of a minor city. He thought it was distasteful, but it was the obligation of a fair reporter to cover both sides and hear their arguments. He didn't care for the "Keep them out!" chants every few seconds though.
"So what do you think about all this?" he asked a man holding a sign with a picture of Teehbiel with an X on it.
"I think they
... keep reading on reddit ➡It was a village of 300 souls in which I was born. In 1974, shortly after the fall of Greek junta, in a 2-storey stone farmhouse in the mountainous interior of Peloponnese, far away from the azure sea and far from civilization. A shrinking village of subsistence farmers and herdsmen, where the air was cool and clean and crisp in the summer, and where a light coat of snow blanketed the gentle slopes in the winter.
The farmhouse sat high on a mountain that sloped down to a small lake, where wild blackberries, raspberries, and dewberries grew along its shores. My family—my father, mother, maternal grandmother, and two older brothers—had a herd of about 30 black goats. We also tended a flock of speckled chickens that laid eggs the colour of a summer sky. And although the soil was thin and rocky, we managed to keep a small orchard of apple trees. I have never seen any other apples like these. Purple as a plum, with red specks shaped like teardrops. The crispest, sweetest apples I have ever tasted. Oh, how I wish I could have another bite.
We weren’t rich by any means, but we made due. The eggs and goat milk were sold in the village market year round. In late autumn, when the apples ripened, my mother would bake tarts and cakes to sell. An idyllic childhood. Except my father had a secret. It was not a horrible secret, although some people would say it was. He was not a serial killer or a body snatcher. But he was a pagan. He still worshipped Zeus.
Now, historians will tell you that the ancient Greek religion died out over a thousand years ago, and that modern practitioners are recent adopters. My father disputed this. He said that while the people of this region had adopted Christianity, a few had always practiced the old ways in secret, passing the ancient knowledge down generation to generation. While we went to the Orthodox church in the village, presided over by the ancient Father Hierotheos, we also prayed to the Twelve Olympians.
In the cover of night, our family would walk down to the lake. Under the shade of a massive oak tree stood part of a broken Doric column, about a metre in height, which my father claimed was the only remnant of an ancient temple dedicated to the Goddess Despoina. He would lead us in prayer, singing hymns to the gods of the ancient pantheon, before pouring offerings over the column’s jagged top: sweet wine, Koroneiki olive oil, fir honey, and fresh goat’s milk. We always worshipped alone, but we were not the only people to pray
... keep reading on reddit ➡Chris Wraight always does a great job in worldbuilding, in this book we can see the Golden Throne by the eyes of a Custodes who descents to the heart of the Imperial Palace.
> Whatever it might once have been, the Throne is no longer a single object, nor
is it housed in a single room. Its mechanisms spread out like roots throughout the
entire Inner Palace, worming down into the forgotten crypts and climbing up into
the highest peaks. Its power coils are the size of cities, its foundations the
remade mountains themselves. The adepts of the Mechanicus who toil without
rest to maintain its workings have added so many accretions over its ten
millennia of life that the planet around it has been utterly changed – bored away,
ground down and raised up again.
You might say that Terra itself is little more than a holding vessel for the
Throne. Certainly, if one takes the mighty psionic transmission conduits leading
to the Fortress of the Astronomican as part of its structure – which would be a
reasonable judgement – then the Throne’s mechanism is far more massive than
the Outer Palace itself. It is woven into the strata of the planet like an internal
organ, pulsing and arterial. In truth, I doubt that any living soul, save the one
who ordered its construction and dwells at its heart, has any true understanding
of its full extent.
And yet, the unschooled men and women of the Imperium are not wrong in
every particular. There was once a room at the heart of it all – vast enough, to be
sure, but a room nonetheless. It has not entirely disappeared, though its inner
faces are now scored with the detritus of Mars and its roots have been replaced
by pits clawed into the heart of the world. The air in that place is hard to breathe.
The temperature is astonishing. The ground trembles, and the vaults ring with
the grind of immense machines that have been in ceaseless operation for
millennia. (...)
>
> (...)we crossed over a single-span bridge flung over a
cloudy gulf that seemed to go down forever. The noises became heavier and
deeper, and I felt the torment of the earth below. It was forever cracking, I
knew – prised apart by the forces barely contained within the Martian
groundwork of buried iron. On the far side of the chasm soared a wall, entirely
man-made, a dizzying patchwork of pipes and riveted panels. Ancient standards
hung against
As 2021 draws to a close, we are once again presented with the opportunity to look back and see what this year had to offer musically. Much like last year, I will not be limiting myself to just power metal or even just metal, but will do the list in 3 categories. Feel free to just skip the ones you don't care for.
-
BEST METAL ALBUMS - Mostly power and power-adjacent
-
BEST NON-METAL ALBUMS
-
OTHER INDIVIDUALLY IMPRESSIVE STUFF (Singles, Christmas specials, guest performances,...)
Big thanks to /u/JacksonWarrior for preparing the weekly releases and the guys who were kind enough to write "no recs from me this week" every week ;) Also to anybody irl and online who was kind enough to recommend stuff personally, I deeply appreciate you.
Alright then, we're staying close to home and kicking it off with maybe the most divisive category.
#BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2021
Power metal is dying and/or already dead, so I combined all metal sub-genres into one list. In all seriousness, 2021 was perhaps the worst year for power metal in recent memory and I say that knowing that last year was poor enough to make me do a joint list.
Side-note: I talk about power metal a quite a bit, it's all European style power metal, American style power metal is poop.
This time we have a nice little mix of Power, Folk, Black and Melodeath. If an album made it to the list, I would whole-heartedly recommend it, as I left out a bunch of albums that were "aight". The best of the rest are mentioned in Honorable Mentions.
#Honorable Mentions
- Eons Enthroned - Into The Arcane - Power
- Phoenix Rising - Acta Est Febula - Power
- Ominous Glory - Power
- Wizardthrone - Melodeath
- Legend Of Valley Doom - Symphonic Power
#10. Seven Spires - Gods Of Debauchery - Power/Symphonic
For the second year in a row, Seven Spires make it to the album of the year post. Their previous album, Emerald Seas, was a massiv
... keep reading on reddit ➡FIRST CHAPTER PREVIOUS CHAPTER
“Remember, next week is the last chance you’ll have to finalize your preparation for the Practical.” The elderly Shil’vati male said. He was the professor in charge of teaching 'practicable battlefield tactics in the modern era of Capital Ships’ and he took his job seriously. “You will each be individually graded for your actions during the test. And for those who haven’t been doing their research - I know who you are - the practical is a simulated strike mission. You will jump to and then engage an enemy fleet to prevent it from attacking a planet. You have full operational control and instructors will not be holding your hands. You will, once again, be graded on personal performance. I expect to see competence and proper strategic planning.”
The Final Practical Exam of the Patrol Academy was something all pilots had been looking forward to. Aside from a physical flight where the Pilots would escort a convoy inside Deep Shil Space, this exercise was one of the few true training events where reality was factored in.
Unlike massive dogfights, ambushes, or other fake engagements, this battle would have no thought spared in how it would handle the engagements.
The fleets were simple, the Patrol Class and their escort ships versus a Captain with a fleet size of their choosing. The Captains were instructed to equip their fleet like they would if they were invading a planet and the Patrol would only have what they could scramble for said planet’s defense.
They could stand and fight, or retreat to collect their strength.
But if they lost, they all lost.
/////
Milk and Cookie stood on opposite sides of a room, heavy flight suits padding their bodies as helmets rest over their heads. They stared into each other’s eyes, weapons held at their sides in low ready.
They smiled manic grins as they brought up their borrowed swords and brought down the gravity.
Inside the training center, there were rooms where the gravity’s intensity, direction and everything else could be manipulated. It was normally used for training sailors for movement in ships where the main core might have been damaged, or for EVA drills without the impending fear of death in the void.
Like many training rooms, cadets could sign them out for personal reasons so long as an instructor signed off on the us
... keep reading on reddit ➡Five years ago today, my father killed himself. He left no note, gave no explanation. His body was found kneeling in our backyard, charred to unrecognizability. He’d burned himself alive. I didn’t find him; our neighbor, Mrs. Stoudenmire, had that misfortune; she’d smelled the smoke from her home and gone out to see the source, only to find him self-immolating on the back patio; the flames dancing wildly from his bent and blackened figure. She later told us that, despite the ravaging of the flames, he seemed oddly at peace. My mom and sister of course thought that she said it for our sakes; so that we didn’t think he suffered too much. But how could you die like that and not suffer?
Later, months after his death, my sister started visiting my father’s grave. She did it routinely, going on the same date each month, and not returning home until the following morning. I was sixteen when she’d started doing this, and felt that she was wasting her time; that our dad had selfishly abandoned us, his decently happy family, and deserved nothing but contempt for it. But she ignored my angsty insults and derision, and continued visiting him. Our mother had succumbed to her grief in the weeks following dad’s death, and paid little attention to what I or my sister did with our free time. She’s better now, thankfully.
Yesterday morning, my sister was involved in a car accident. She survived, but had to be rushed to the hospital and underwent surgery. She’s still there now, recuperating; will have to remain there for at least a few more days.
After her surgery and a few hours of rest, she called for me—I'd been sleeping on the empty bed in her double-room—and, when I stumbled over, told me that I needed to go visit our father; that it was imperative I be at his gravesite that night. I hadn’t thought about our dad for any great length of time in years, and found it odd that she’d bring him up so randomly; but my anger at him had long since faded away, and I agreed to go—if only to vent my thoughts—job and relationship-related—to “someone”. The desperation in her eyes was also a motivating factor; looking into them, I realized right then that she hadn’t missed a date in the five years since the beginning of her funeral visitations.
I drove to the cemetery—uncomfortably close to the hospital—and parked in the vacant lot. I’d bought some chips and a soda from the vending machine at the hospital earlier in the day, and brought what remained of this “meal” with me
... keep reading on reddit ➡Nunh’nchal, ‘Noon’ for convenience’s sake, had never worked on a bomb before.
AI neurosurgery (some would call it programming but some would be wrong) didn’t usually carry this kind of risk. While it's true the AI wasn't connected to any lethal devices at this second, it would be by the end of the day if all went as planned, and it was Noon's job to ensure she wouldn't wind up trigger-happy. Having the ship’s captain stomping through the brain-bay every couple of hours wasn’t helping.
“You’re telling me you’re trying to make it less aggressive?” barked Captain Fetterman, fists perched on his hips.
Noon narrowly avoided slashing several ganglion and froze the manipulators before pulling sweat-damp viz-goggles up to rest on his forehead. He swallowed, and once again couldn’t bring himself to speak in front of the captain. At a gesture, a keyboard projected itself beneath his fingers and he typed out a message that soon hung in front of the hairy, high-ranked primate in glowing blue letters.
[She, sir. And she must have self-control or she’ll be jetting around the local group looking for targets to burn to a crisp. There are sweeping safeguards in place but AI are better at finding loopholes than lawyers.]
Noon watched Fetterman’s eyes brighten, and realized he’d just described the captain’s own fantasy. He swore the human’s mustache bristled like some spined, sausage-y creature performing a threat-display as he prepared to launch into a speech about the glory of combat and his quest to purge the stars of lawless filth.
“Captain to the bridge,” the voice on the com broke in, bringing the captain up short.
Noon let out his breath in a wheeze and just as quickly seized up again as Fetterman squinted at him, but he was safe for now. As soon as the door shut behind Fetterman, he pulled his goggles back into place and wrapped his short sticky fingers around the manipulator controls.
Sensors tuned to his reflexes alone transformed gross macro-movements into precision strokes at the microscopic level, allowing Noon to knit new pathways and ‘discourage’ aberrant ones in the cybernetic matrix of his latest patient. As usual he was working in a sandbox, leaving the actual working AI intact. Once work was complete and tested to his satisfaction, he could swap in this model and the crew would meet their new ship.
His partner Taz (Noon couldn’t even remember their full name) was assisting an engineering team with the sensor-web and bus overhaul that would all
... keep reading on reddit ➡For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.
I said "hey look, an escaPEA"
No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!
Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂
It really does, I swear!
These days, she hardly thinks about the ship at all.
Ten years have passed in a blur of flashing cameras and blinding stagelights and clamoring paparazzi. At first, she’d been too drunk on her success, and then she’d simply been too busy. Now and then, a reporter would ask her about the sinking of the Andromeda, but it was always Frances Meredith, darling of Broadway, who answered, and not that frightened girl who had huddled shivering in a lifeboat.
But something about tonight is different. It’s 1922. Frances Meredith, twenty-nine years old, sits by the window, staring out at the sea. She’s gazing out at the bay and the dark expanse of the Atlantic beyond. The green light of a buoy flashing in the distance. The lone lights of ships scattered on the horizon like fallen stars. Seals barking and the low, mournful moan of a foghorn.
She’s at a party at a manor on the tip of Long Island. She and her castmates are celebrating the Broadway premiere of their new play, Ophelia. It’s getting late but the party is still in full swing. The phonograph is blaring some hit new jazz tune. A bartender brought in from a local speakeasy keeps the bootlegged booze flowing, and the bravest or drunkest of Frances’s castmates take to the floor to attempt some newfangled dance lately in fashion.
On any other night, Frances might have joined them, but now she sits in the corner by the window, gripping a still untouched flute of champagne. She’s thinking about how surreal this would all have seemed to that skinny young thing from Liverpool, who had come over the ocean with nothing but the clothes on her back, a few pence in her pocket, and a dream of being a star.
When she first saw the ship, she remembered thinking she had never seen anything so grand. A fitting vessel to carry her to her bright future. As they prepared to cast off, hundreds of passengers gathered on the top deck to wave to the crowd of onlookers below, but Frances was already looking west, across the sea. She had never looked back because there was nothing to look back to.
On the voyage over, staring out at all that endless blue, she had taken a coin from her pocket and tossed it into the ocean, thinking, if fountains could grant wishes, what might the ocean bring?
That night, the ship hit the iceberg. Frances was herded and jostled to the top deck with hundreds of other panicked and bleary-eyed passengers. Frightened, freezing, and surrounded by strangers, she had burst out crying. Two women in fine eve
... keep reading on reddit ➡They’re on standbi
I had been on the numinous trail of the dragon, whose every scale is a tableaux, one of great vividness and fright. Liquid tarot cards fluorescing strange colors on a moonlit night. That winged serpent was the mythological band Animal Collective. A band of rebel light children flailing in the foliage, enchanting the faeries and salamanders into full jubilant tarantella. There was a forest king with a jack-o-lantern head. I was on the trail of the Light Children. We all were.
The amount of strange coincidences, synchronicities, and other paranormal resonances that assailed me on the journey were incalculable. But I will do my best to bottle the quintessence of what made it magickal for me.
It’s uncanny what happens when you take a step in the direction of your truest will, of your most vivid desire. Every interaction was imbued with the vigor of dreamsong. The waitress at a waffle house sparkled with the effulgence of an oracle; I drove streets like Demeter and Jupiter that would make Joseph Campbell go mad; an itinerant in Asheville was humming the same song I was listening to on the highway moments before…I suspect that when you answer the call of Destiny the texture and sensorium surrounding you get pushed to a high fractalline resonance of harmony with your soul. I’m sure to onlookers you are bathed in a weird oasis-like halo. It disturbs the atmosphere, warps physics. At least this describes some of the high jinx that occurred while I was on my Sojourn to see the boys play a run of shows in Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, and later in Chicago.
But this tidbit refers to the legendary show at Lexingtons Burl.
In a seemingly industrial part of town, brick facades, a somewhat weatherbeaten water tower. You cross some railroad tracks. And then the venue is on your left side. I parked in a middle class suburb just past the venue, then skip-walked giddily to the line that was forming. A friend of mine, whom followed the dead for years, once told me something that I never forgot:
“You know acid was really important, revered even at a dead show. But there was one night that I will never forget because of how it changed the way that I approached shows. I hadn’t taken anything. The first set was great, they played a lot of the up-jump fast boogie stuff, you know Bobby doing his cowboy thing. And after set break, I suddenly found myself all the way at the front. And when Jerry came out he sang Stella Blue, Pilot on me!!
references:
Livi checked her Terran Merchant Fleet uniform in the full-length mirror. Now she understood why every “restroom”…head is what the fleet calls it, she reminded herself…on every Terran station and port had these mirrors. Before she’d trained under the Terrans she was to be working with, she’d thought it might be some hidden vanity of the species.
She ensured that all four sleeves were properly aligned, and that her ruff didn’t obscure her rank insignia on her shoulder: a propeller above a single, broad stripe. Fourth Engineer, she thought, I need to look the part. The upper left sleeve bore the insignia of the MV Eden’s Promise, the ship to which she was assigned, while the upper right sleeve bore the flag of her home world, Sanctuary. Above the left breast pocket was a patch that said “Terran Merchant Fleet.” Over the right breast pocket was a patch that said “Livi Doe,” her name.
Livi marveled at the cloth and cut of the uniform. Unlike some clothing that bunched her fur, it seemed to be almost frictionless. The single-piece uniform, with its cloth badges and insignia, and a single, long, press-closed front opening, was currently her most prized possession…along with the other three identical ones in her bag.
She stepped out of the head to the promenade and began scanning the crowd. There were dozens of people of several species wearing uniforms with the Eden’s Promise insignia or carrying bags with it.
“There’s our super-star!” The voice could only belong to Jorge, the instructor from the engineering school.
Before she could turn to greet him, she felt a finger poke her in the back. “Oi! You tryin’ to show me up, lass?”
Livi turned and looked down at Ava, the other instructor. Her red hair was pulled back into a bun, and her green eyes sparkled. “Ava! I’m so glad to see you! Or should I call you sir?”
“It’s chief, but none of that nonsense. As long as you do your job, we’re happy. It’s not like this is military or anything.” Ava brushed a non-existent speck off her own rank insignia, a propeller above four stripes, Chief Engineer.
Jorge stepped in front of the duo, his massive frame dwarfing Ava, and standing nearly as tall as the young Tyraxian. “Sure…until yo
... keep reading on reddit ➡
I'm an unabashed fanboy of Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children. They're some of the most terrifying Traitor Astartes out there, and although one could argue that they haven't gotten quite as much attention in the lore as some of the other fallen Legions, they still have some pretty badass moments that are worth appreciating. So I've compiled them here, taken from a number of different books. Some of these excerpts have been edited for clarity and to conform to length requirements. Hail to the Third!
From Saturnine:
>The Donjon engine was a quadruped, striding on a brace of the same motivator systems that propelled Warlord-class machines. The four massive legs supported a huge, flat-top carrier deck, a platform large enough for a squadron of aircraft or a full motorised company. The platform’s rim bristled with heavy gun ports, and through-deck elevators were equipped with bulk machinery that could lift extending siege towers and scaling bridges to the highest battlements. But the Donjon was slow, painfully hard to manoeuvre, and its void systems were over-extended because of its mass, and prone to gapping.
>
>First Captain Abaddon had procured three of the immense, rare beasts from the adepts of the Dark Mechanicum, and he had given them to the Phoenician Lord of the Emperor’s Children.
>
>The three behemoths trudged towards the Saturnine Wall, relentlessly advancing over the ragged, lifeless plain. At their heels came streams of armoured support: troop carriers, motorised mortars, wall-breaker gun carriages and assault belfry lifters. Range locked, the advancing giants began to fire. Plasma destructor mounts and inferno guns along the platform rims started to retch and spit searing pulses and beams of annihilation.
>
>Mega-bolters shrilled as they unleashed blizzards of explosive ordnance.
>
>Launch racks dispensed streams of darting anti-void missiles. Bulk lasblasters pumped in their arrestor frames as they kicked out giant spears of light.
>
>The face of the Saturnine Wall around Oanis Tower lit up, as the storm of incoming fire kissed the shields. Vast backflash blinked as the voids struggled to absorb the bombardment. The wall guns responded immediately, some systems keying to automatic threat-registers, others manually commanded. Casemates, gun boxes in the tiered flank of the wall and main wall-top batteries commenced a staggering onslaught of defensive fire, raking and pummelling the forward
Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.
This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.
If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.
Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.
I won't be doing that today!
You take away their little brooms
This morning, my 4 year old daughter.
Daughter: I'm hungry
Me: nerves building, smile widening
Me: Hi hungry, I'm dad.
She had no idea what was going on but I finally did it.
Thank you all for listening.
It’s pronounced “Noel.”
After all his first name is No-vac
What, then, is Chinese rap?
Edit:
Notable mentions from the comments:
-
Spanish/Swedish/Swiss/Serbian hits
-
French/Finnish art
-
Country/Canadian rap
-
Chinese/Country/Canadian rock
-
Turkish/Tunisian/Taiwanese rap
Nothing, it just waved
FIRST CHAPTER PREVIOUS CHAPTER
“Remember, next week is the last chance you’ll have to finalize your preparation for the Practical.” The elderly Shil’vati male said. He was the professor in charge of teaching 'practicable battlefield tactics in the modern era of Capital Ships’ and he took his job seriously. “You will each be individually graded for your actions during the test. And for those who haven’t been doing their research - I know who you are - the practical is a simulated strike mission. You will jump to and then engage an enemy fleet to prevent it from attacking a planet. You have full operational control and instructors will not be holding your hands. You will, once again, be graded on personal performance. I expect to see competence and proper strategic planning.”
The Final Practical Exam of the Patrol Academy was something all pilots had been looking forward to. Aside from a physical flight where the Pilots would escort a convoy inside Deep Shil Space, this exercise was one of the few true training events where reality was factored in.
Unlike massive dogfights, ambushes, or other fake engagements, this battle would have no thought spared in how it would handle the engagements.
The fleets were simple, the Patrol Class and their escort ships versus a Captain with a fleet size of their choosing. The Captains were instructed to equip their fleet like they would if they were invading a planet and the Patrol would only have what they could scramble for said planet’s defense.
They could stand and fight, or retreat to collect their strength.
But if they lost, they all lost.
/////
Milk and Cookie stood on opposite sides of a room, heavy flight suits padding their bodies as helmets rest over their heads. They stared into each other’s eyes, weapons held at their sides in low ready.
They smiled manic grins as they brought up their borrowed swords and brought down the gravity.
Inside the training center, there were rooms where the gravity’s intensity, direction and everything else could be manipulated. It was normally used for training sailors for movement in ships where the main core might have been damaged, or for EVA drills without the impending fear of death in the void.
Like many training rooms, cadets could sign them out for personal reasons so long as an instructor signed off on the
... keep reading on reddit ➡Do your worst!
What did 0 say to 8 ?
" Nice Belt "
So What did 3 say to 8 ?
" Hey, you two stop making out "
When I got home, they were still there.
There hasn't been a post all year!
There hasn't been a single post this year!
(Happy 2022 from New Zealand)
