After Sheriff Jacobs and Kind had rode away in their beast I lingered only for a moment. I would have to fly to the Titan One and see if it was as good a location for a hive as I had thought. With a leap into the air and a buzzing of my wings, I found that my increased size had a role to play in my flight. Maneuvering tightly was difficult and ended up causing me to spiral around dangerously. I would have to fly in straight, steady lines if I was going to avoid losing control. As a drone I was able to zip around to where I was needed in a moment's notice, but as a Proto-Queen that was far less likely an occurrence to pull off. I understood now why Queen Chrysalis avoided moving around the hive as much as possible.
With night vision provided by my glowing eyes, I was able to quickly locate the metal archway poking from its hole in the ground. I had to fly over a strip of stone road that had a few beasts roaming along it, but otherwise it was mostly uneventful. The landing at the Titan One, however, was something else entirely.
The entrance looked better from afar. Up close there were errant paints and colors all sketching out different paintings, each of them overlapping another and accompanied by vulgarities and 'So and So was here' everywhere. The most upsetting aspect of this place was the lingering emotions that I could feel, as if they clung to the walls in memory. Fear, dread, anger, resentment, doubt, anxiety, paranoia. All of these negative emotions and more acted like a repellent to me, making it very difficult to walk forward. I explored anyway, hoping all of this nausea was just from the front door alone rather than the entire structure.
Moving through the archway I came to a low tunnel, forcing me to crane my neck downwards in order to not scrape the very rusty metal roofing that was cylindrical in shape, ribbed along the entire length of the structure. More nonsensical paintings were inside, alongside the scrawling of the insane and terminally bored. The air was metallic and dusty, possibly from all the dirt having blown into the entrance combined with the deteriorating metal that groaned with every hoof step impacting it.
"This place is creepy." I complained to myself, my voice vibrating along the walls, only to be swallowed by the eerie void of the place. It was like a tomb in here and all of it silently screamed for me to leave. The emotions of dread and anxiety were so strong in this place it was like walking through sand just to continue on. It was looking less and less likely that I would make a place like this into a home for my drones.
Trudging through, I eventually came to a vertical shaft with some kind of box at the bottom. It was large and metallic of course, fitting the square shape of the tunnel I stood in with what looked like wires strewn around with frayed ends at the bottom. Just beyond that platform was a pool of still water, dark and murky like the rest of this place and contaminated with rust from disrepair. Seeing no other way down, I buzzed my wings tightly to my side, allowing me to steadily float down so long as I didn't move. With a crunch of rust peelings I soon landed, my hooves feeling tainted and grimy from the rusted steel beneath me. Every step gave another metal crunch from the structure relenting under the strain of my weight.
"Definitely creepy." I affirmed to myself, trying to combat the void of silence with my own voice. It wasn't working. "Couldn't I have picked a cave or some kind of other hole in the ground and gone from there?" I complained to myself. The more I saw, the less I liked of this Titan One.
Moving out of the square shaft I happened upon a very large room, errant metal pipes jutting from the floor like some building had been ripped apart where I stood and simply vanished. Steel beams were holding up nothing but a crumbling ceiling that flaked with rust as well, this entire place feeling like a morgue for buildings.
At long last after moving through the large room I came across a barrier in the form of a large stone door with a valve on it. This valve had been rusted shut, and my magical attempts to open it only cracked the wheel right off.
"Great." I grumbled, flinging the valve behind myself to clang loudly against a steel beam before rattling on the floor. "Why would humans even build a place like this? Were they hiding from something?"
Shaking my head I decided to continue with a more direct approach. Looking at the side of the stone door in front of me, I guessed that it should be at least three feet thick. Probably a good test for my body hardening spell, right? I placed a hoof on the door and gave it an experimental shove, my hoof lighting with magic and causing the stone to leave a scorched hoof-print, but nothing else beyond that.
"Alright, how about a bit more force?" I asked nobuggy, shoving my forelegs from the ground to rear up, slamming into the door with such force that it cracked into a dozen chunks of rock and spilled onto the floor intermixed with steel reinforcement that had bent in the center. After my ears had stopped ringing from the cacophony of noise as a result of my actions, I saw a very long and non-rusted tunnel laying in wait ahead of me. The rusted metal on the walls I had become accustomed to at this point were replaced by very smooth stone walls that were square instead of cylindrical. The only problem is that the long tunnel reminded me too much of a Gouger, whom would leave straight tunnels for entire kilo-trots before slamming into the hive.
With a shaky step forward, I soon moved my way up and over the rubble that had once been a door and proceeded down the tunnel to whatever lay ahead. As I continued, the ghostly emotions of stress and fear became like quicksand and combined with paranoia and dread once more. Whatever had happened in this Titan One was strong enough that it was making me physically sick, but I still had to figure out what it was before I left this place for good. This much emotional negativity in one place was too much for even a Proto-Queen like myself to handle. What would happen if a drone were to hatch in a place like this? They would go insane!
After what seemed like an eternity of endless walking, I stumbled onto a set of metal doors that had escaped the rusting process entirely. They also turned somewhat successfully after a little force, possibly being caught by something. Part of the invasion planning had been familiarizing all of us with likely hideouts that Ponies would use. The prime target being bank vaults and storm shelters. These doors worked in a much similar way, so I wasn't that surprised that the humans had found a use for the design as well.
All of my familiarity with what I was walking into vanished the second the door swung heftily open. There was a human boot poking from behind what seemed to be a desk with a metallic box on it. I had no idea what human could live down in a place like this, but something about it didn't feel right. An overwhelming sense of sorrow was coming from this room with a tinge of anger that made my wings chitter in agitation. I carefully approached the boot, swinging around wide in case something were to leap at me. I had no idea if humans suffered from Gougers as well, if they build underground like this regularly.
Well... I didn't have to worry about a Gouger at least.
There was a skeleton. It wore a green outfit that was mostly pristine, aside from the fraying around the wrists and neck. They held one of those slim metallic things in their hand as if grasping onto it for dear life. The jaw of the skeleton was opened wide, like the human had died in surprise or shock. I quickly looked around this large room for anything else that might be out of place and found yet another skeleton just opposite this one. It was sprawled over a desk and looking towards the skeleton on the floor closest to me, a metal thing on the ground below its grasping hand. A great many packages were laid out along the ground, some of them with labels like 'Beef Stroganoff 003'. I had no idea what had happened here, but it didn't look good. On second thought, I didn't want to know. I wanted to get out of this place!
I turned tail and bolted for the entry door, the heavy mass of it still swung open. I turned a bit too roughly and ended up bashing my armored flank against the metal of the door's frame, causing it to shriek in metallic agony and buckle. I was mostly unharmed, but my impact with that door had flooded me with feelings of hopelessness and misery. The feelings of anxiety and paranoia were getting to me and I thought I heard specters of the past yelling about launch codes and access points. I chose to ignore it, favoring a hasty retreat instead.
Eventually after another eternity of running I came across the broken rubble of the door I had kicked open and stumbled over it, nearly bashing my head against the flooring from a dangerous slip. I took a moment to catch my breath and try to calm down after that, looking down the dark hallway with a sense of foreboding. How long have I been down here?
The howling wind from the entrance of the Titan One gave me chills as the sound of a Gouger's wail sounded throughout the tunnel system. It was a mixture of haunting screeches and airy gasps for breath combined with the movement of dirt. Usually that would be the last thing a Tunneler heard before a Gouger burst through the tunnel near them and ate them while the rest scattered for cover.
"I swear on everything holy Jacobs, if this is some kind of Halloween prank I'm deducting at least a day's pay from you for this. Makin' me crawl and stumble through a freakin' abandoned missile silo!" I heard a distant voice complain, modified by the metallic echo of the tunnels. Why wouldn't my own voice echo?
"I swear a hundred percent, Mayor Durn; This is the real deal." I heard Sheriff Jacobs reply with certainty.
"And you're sure your 'surprise' actually stayed here while you came to get me? I have important mayor work to do, you know." Mayor Durn grumbled, coming closer now.
I would have called out to them, but the sickness I was dealing with from all the horror in this silo was making me weak. I had to leave. Hopefully the humans would understand why and leave this place as well. I would rather talk outside in the sun anyway.
With a buzzing of my wings I flew up the square tunnel with the destroyed platform again, landing at the top with a small cloud of rusted dust in my wake. I felt a little light headed and took a moment to steady myself. That was also the moment that Mayor Durn and Sheriff Jacobs came around the corner to spot me.
"Holy Jesus!" Mayor Durn shrieked, leaping backwards into Sheriff Jacobs' arms. "The hell is that!?"
Sheriff Jacobs gave an annoyed glare at Mayor Durn, none too pleased at the outburst. "It's a bunch of lights, Mayor. Keep your panties on.
This 'Mayor Durn' was slender in build, shaped like Soft and Timid. They wore clothing with a more streamlined design, something like I had seen the Canterlot Royals wearing constantly at their galas. They had a brown mane and an angular jaw. Overall they looked intelligent yet somehow welcoming. I sensed mostly anxiety and nervousness coming from them, worsening my condition and itching my nose.
"Aaaah-Aaah-Choo!" I sneezed abruptly, the dust and negative emotions getting to my system and making me more than just feel sick.
"Who's there!?" Mayor Durn shouted, hiding behind Sheriff Jacobs. "Show yourself!"
I walked steadily towards the two humans, my senses overwhelmed by the Titan One. They were blurry in appearance now, or at least my vision was. It was difficult to stand upright as well now.
"H-hello, Sheriff Jacobs... Muh... Mayor Duuurrrnnnn." I drawled, my eyes feeling heavy all of a sudden. "I don't f-feel good."
"Holy hell! What is that!?" Mayor Durn panicked.
"That's the surprise I was gonna show you... but it looks like 'Queen Blue Sun' here is feeling a little under the weather..." Sheriff Jacobs replied, somewhat concerned. "What happened to you, Buggo?"
"So much... negativity here." I coughed, trying to stand upright. "I need to get away!"
"Well, you heard the Queen Mayor Durn," Sheriff Jacobs replied with a shrug. "We have to help her get away from this Silo." They turned to Mayor Durn. "Think of the PR you'll get from this." They arced their hands between the other like a banner, "Mayor Durn saves life of first alien!"
This emboldened Mayor Durn, the skinny human alight with eager determination and pride for what would be to come. "A-alright, lets..." Then they looked at me as I drooped my head to the ground and tried to walk myself away from the Titan One's deeper structure to the entrance. "Lets call an Ambulance!" They shouted with vigour, pulling a smartphone from their pocket and rapidly jamming their thumb into it.
Sheriff Jacobs put an arm around my midsection, just over the wings. "Come on now, Queen Blue Sun. We've got a town to make famous!"
I looked in confusion at Sheriff Jacobs before my vision began to swim. The negative emotions here were so potent they were acting like a literal toxin to me. My legs couldn't hold my weight anymore, and I buckled to the floor. A cloud of dust forced the other two to cough and scatter away for a moment.
"Aw, not on my suit!" Mayor Durn complained before interrupting themselves. "Yes, This is Mayor Durn speaking. I need an ambulance at the Titan One silo just outside of the Monte's villa right now! Bring your largest vehicle!"
My vision was growing dark as Sheriff Jacob's hands wrapped around one of my hooves. "Hey Durn, get your big butt over here and help me pull the Queen!"
The last thing I saw before blacking out was the figure of Mayor Durn rushing towards me.
This is why you shouldn't hang out in places where old asbestos is, Blue.
That shit gets in the air and it stays there. Bunch of spiked toxic dust in the air, getting in your lungs.
Negative emotions are just your special bonus prize.
So many bad vibes everywhere, man.
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Good news is, the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show a median latency of forty-four point six years, so if you're thirty or older, you're laughing. Worst case scenario, you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.
COnfirmation that Politicians are poisonous.
Somehow, I don't think this is going to end well. And I think those two former soldiers were probably locked in according to some kind of protocol and either abandoned or forgotten about.
We humans are scary...
7656446 Those of you who volunteered to be injected with praying mantis DNA, I've got some good news and some bad news. Bad news is we're postponing those tests indefinitely. Good news is we've got a much better test for you: fighting an army of mantis men.
That went well. No wonder she used to be a tunneler, with this kind of lack of common sense.
7655654 Calling best bug horse that, them's fighting words, sir.
So, you want her to become entirely useless and be defeated by any and all threats without problem, while dumping all the work saving the world on a single drone in hopes of said drone being compatible with an ancient artefact and finding five friends who are also compatible and never telling them anything concrete about the forces they will are facing?
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Oh, yeah, there would be PLENTY of negative emotions and a TON of paranoia in one of those silos. Those operators would be down there for months or even years with absolutely no contact with the outside world; we couldn't afford launch codes getting into the hands of the Reds, now could we? Imagine being locked underground, not knowing anything about what was happening above. Had the Reds attacked? Was your family okay? Was the US even still there, or had it been wiped off the face of the Earth already? All that time, these thoughts just repeat in your head. You desperately wish you had some form of contact with the outside world, ANY form of contact, yet at the same time you dread the idea, because if you did receive contact, it would be orders to launch the missiles, and you'd know that the war had finally begun. Ignorance was both bliss and torture.
That's what made the Cold War so scary. With a traditional war, you know your enemy, you know what to do to combat them. But the Cold War? The only thing people could do... was wait. Psychological warfare, on a national scale. Not just soldiers, but civilians, engaged in a war of the mind. It's almost worse than a traditional war in that way. Usually, if you're not a soldier you can pretty safely assume that you're not directly in harm's way, you can go about your life as normal. But with the Cold War, every day you can't help but wonder: Is this the day the bombs drop? Is this the day I die? That kind of fear, every day, for years on end? That would destroy the psyche of even the sturdiest of minds.
Just ask any psychic/sensitive/whatever you wanna call them. If they've been someplace like this, places where large amounts of fear and dread and paranoia were felt, they'll tell you, it's painful to even get close to those places. For an emotivore like Blue? Oh, yeah, this place would leave her feeling more than just "a bit under the weather".
7656549 Those of you who volunteered to be injected with
praying mantischangeling DNA, I've got some good news and some bad news. Bad news is we're postponing those tests indefinitely. Good news is we've got a much better test for you: fighting an army ofmantischangeling men.I think you caught the atmosphere of the silo perfectly well. I wonder if Blue would be inclined to go there if anyone explained to her what it really was - a long-range weapons base built and ran during an age of paranoia.
Well, you certainly know how to make something derelict even more creepy without it having any actual real threat in it. At least real threat to humans, besides the risk of it crumbling down on you that is.
Jacobs... what are you planning? He is concerned, but he seems to be more concerned about fame than anything else.
Well, Blue will certainly want to make someone else famous instead. Maybe some certain humans that took him in even if they had a rocky start?
If this was that bad, for the sake of all that is good and righteous and cuddly in this world, don't let Blue anywhere near an Earth battlefield. Coming within a mile of Gettysburg would make her keel over and die on the spot.
Hurr durr. This will not end well.
7656711 and asbestos don't forget the asbestos
I like the idea of emotional residue but it seems to be introduced a bit late, like she gets no vibes from technology like a smart phone or places like that diner they went in.
Well ok it also could be a new queenish sense or an old one that just got amplified after she started to check out possible hive locations.
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I am not even sure if insects are prone to asbestos poisoning, blue also wasn't exposed to it for months, she would have to ingest large quantities over that short time like breathing in a literal asbestos dust cloud.
7656569 I was thinking more pre Nightmare Moon Celestia, were she was actually a badass, and did a lot of cool stuffs. Just like Celestia, she will eventually retire to rule a small country (or hive, in this case). Chyrsalis has infiltrators so she doesn't have to do everything herself, much like Celestia and the main six. That way, she has more time to do bug queen things, like lat eggs, and raise baby bugs to be big bugs.
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The government will get involved, it's inevitable. This is just the first domino to fall. The real question is how it'll go; will we get anonymous agents in hazmat suits throwing plastic over everything as they roll in black trailers jampacked with scientific equipment, or a hasty evacuation to some hidden base to sequester Blue in a small containment/observation room?
I'm fairly certain those two haven't figured out the magic suggestion Blue used, and it'll get used on them again once she comes around in a less toxic environment. Guess it depends on how hostile the "authorities" are.
Negative emotions.....is it possible that ghosts were responsible? For the negative emotions I mean
Something tells me their master plan is gonna hit a snag when Blue wakes up hungry...
But since changelings seem to be some sort of perpetual energy machine, maybe it won't be that bad.
Well, at least the mayor is semi-friendly and Sheriff Jacobs isn't acting like a jerk at the moment.
So Blue needs to build a hive in a happier place? Maybe something near a playground or summer camp? Yes, an abandoned summer camp sounds creepy as hell, but hopefully it'd have lots of lingering positive emotions.
My only complaint for the last chapter was that Blue came off as a bit Chrysalis-like, being usually standoffish and aggressive in comparison to her previous casual acceptance and timidity.
QUESTION: Assuming Blue and her hive continues to receive willingly-give love, does the Magic of Friendship cause spontaneous musicals? Or is that a pony thing? For tourism, I can think of a certain "demographic groups" who'd love to visit a town where people burst into song and dance routines.
Rough: "The stars at night are big and bright!"
Everyone: "Deep in the heart of Texas~!!!"
Soft: "Knock it off."
Rough:
> I was needed in a moments notice, but as a Proto-Queen that was far less likely an occurrence to pull off. I understood now why Queen Chrysalis so seldom avoided moving around the hive.
should be "moment's notice"
Also, the second sentence says just the opposite of what was intended. Recommend changing to "so seldom moved around"
> that the humans had found
Interesting! Now that Blue is a queen, her mental capacity has increased enough (you alluded to this before) to start calling them "humans" instead of "non-Minotaurs"
Oh boy now the shi- now the real chaos begins.
Treading what's gonna happen.
first, unless you can find a way to incorporate it into the plot, dont explain the skeletons. second, there are people trying to take advantage of blue! we need to stop them! like now!
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Your icon looks like it transformed from a queen(king?) to a cute drone. Still looks great :)
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Before was an Anthro Female Drone Sanny, now its regular Changebug Sanny ^.^
They're my own species of changeling that are a lot different than Chrysalis', but I haven't written anything about them because I doubt if people would read something that'd be mostly non-canon characters doing their own thing.
It'd be a story of completely fannon worldbuilding .-.
...And then I realized that's exactly what this current story is, lol
There should not be two left behind Airmen in there. Decommissioning does not work that way.
So what kind of effect would a school have on a changeling? School buildings would likely be loaded with old emotions likely pretty mixed too as incredible amounts of people would have been there regularly for long amounts of time. Even in smaller towns hundreds of people would have left their mark on the buildings over the years. And if a titan One base was bad, I can only imagine what a prison would be like, especially one that did executions. Though the big one would be government buildings like say Pentagon, Congress or maybe even the White house.
I also agree that Sheriff is up to n good. The mayor also doesn't seem to have much of an agenda, actually she seems to be just going along with the sheriff here... witch if this is a regular occurrence speaks badly for the town. If it isn't the sheriff it could be someone else being the real power in town. Granted we don't have anywhere near enough evidence to prove that I the slightest but I thought it was an interesting possibility to bring up.
Anyway here's to blue feeling better, and t Soft, Rough, and imid saving the day!
7657230 I think I found 2 mistakes: A great many packages were laid out along the ground, some of them with labels like 'Beef Stroganoff 003'.
I think you might want to remove the 'A'
"I couldn't I have picked a cave, or some kind of other hole in the ground and gone from there?"
This sentence doesnt make much sense
The most important thing for emotional imprint is exposure.
Titan one had consistent exposure to its crew, but inconsistent exposure to anyone else.
Places with a constant flow of new-people-contact have watered down imprints.
As much as Changelings are generally The Enemy by definition (conquering intelligent parasites, not exactly cuddly), this WOULD be their great weakness. Love, strong enough in just one person to trigger a Queen evolution, or all-incompassing hatred (or despair), by itself acting as a significant debuff in close quarters. Maybe they ARE less threatening to humans than they are to ponies.
Though I always believed ponies felt emotions more sharply than humans, they likely exert (and release) much less energy with it, the majority of their force interaction with the world being magic, of one kind or another. Interesting.
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Think about humans in general though compared to Ponies.
When a pony gets completely irate with another pony, what happens at the very worst?
They argue, have a fight or maybe storm off in upset.
What happens when a human gets livid with another human?
At their very worst, they fight to the death.
For that reason, I think that human emotions are far, far more powerful than pony emotions.
It's official: Blue is never allowed anywhere within a 100km radius of WWII concentration camps. Ever.
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Yeah, I wouldn’t let something without a real sense of taste near my ovens either.
One thing you might want to do for this chapter is tweak Blue's discovery of the "bodies," to make it more clear that it was an emotion-poisoning induced hallucination. Because that's the only thing it could be.
All branches of the U.S. military consider body retrieval to provide closure for their families and fellow servicemen a sacred duty. One that they have gone to extreme lengths to fulfill in the past. A sealed blast door and reinforced concrete wouldn't give pause for even a second.
For some more unsolicited advice the prospect of Nuclear Weapon technician having a mental breakdown of some sort was the stuff of nightmares for military planners. As such they've always been some of the most heavily screened and positions in history rivaling the kind of stuff astronauts go through.
However no screening process is perfect. Someone being assigned to a missile silo who shouldn't have is still plausible. But I'd be scarce on details and leave what exactly happened to the readers imagination. Because coming up with a specific scenario that doesn't seem contrived would be wicked hard.
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They turn to the Dark Side, try to kill their sibling, then bring about eternal night?
7658025 Over time, yes, What they were trying say is, ponies are probably capable of premeditated murder (revenge, for example), as a result long and gradualy worsening outlook, but it's impossible for stuff like this to happen out of the blue, 'in affection'.
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I agree with this comment. If it was a random bunker on some island in the Pacific, then maybe you'd find the skeleton of a soldier that went MIA. But in a cleared missile silo (because they are not leaving a nuke in there)? That would never happen.
Wait, changelings are true emotivores then why attack Canterlot? They will only get negative emotions like fear, dread, paranoia, and sadness.
Not a good way to get happiness, care, or even love for that matter.
You know what everypony, the changeligs could have done the mass feeding in an entirely different way, just imagine.
A horde of beautiful, attractive, sexy, and seductive mares all hungry and thirsty for some love.
I think there will be a mutual benefit to both Equestria and the Changeling empire this way if you know what I mean.
As a matter of fact Shining Armor has already done it with Chrysalis.
Sorry if this was a bit inappropriate, please forgive me
Shit is about to get crazy.
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Wow. that's so wrong it's not even funny.
Missile silo operators were not "Left down there for months or years with no contact with the outside world." That would drive anyone insane. And you generally don't want insane people sitting on nuclear weapons. They had shifts just like everyone else. There would be two men in the command bunker at all times, but they would rotate off duty. They may well have spent months on base, and not been allowed to return home... I'm not so sure about that, and I doubt it. But they'd be in the barracks with the rest of the base personnel. Missile fields are very well secured and defended.
And while you may have been cut off from radio and television while you were settled in your bunker, you would most certainly be some of the first people to know if the Reds had attacked. Because you'd be getting instructions to insert your launch keys and turn them in tandem.
In short, I can certainly see a lot of stress, worry, fear, and a bit of paranoia seeping into the silo... But I'd also expect Blue to feel a lot of determination, dedication, and loyalty.
As for the stress and strain of the Cold War, I can agree with you there, to a point. On the other hand, humans can adapt to just about anything... Including the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation. People stocked up on canned goods, reinforced their basements for fallout shelters... And went on about their day to day lives. That itself might be the most amazing thing about the entire situation.
Then again, we're doing the same general thing these days in regards to terrorism, just on a smaller scale.
I've been having a surprising amount of fun reading this story, and I'm looking forward to more of it... but for now!
This chapter on it's own gave me some fascinating Ideas to apply to my own efforts of writing an actual story, and the story itself has inspired a few alternative ideas as well... Sometimes I wish I didn't get ideas 'quite' so easily, I have too many and it's hard to decide on 'one' to write out!
7682041 I was imagining she didn't pick up on the more positive emotions either from simply overwhelming volumes of the bad ones, or focusing too hard 'on' the bad ones that are there.
Though on a note of the mention of terrorism... We're kindof in the middle of a world 'culture' war. There's no 'vast mobilized armies clashing against eachother across a whole continent'... yet, but there's 'is' a war going on. Various different groups of people with a zealotous obsession that 'their' cultural ideas are superior to all others are trying to stake their claims and warp the world around them to their preferences.
We've got the most aggressively hateful generation of feminists and general SJWs ever trying to make it 'common' to hate men for the imagined 'male privilege' and 'white privilege', Though most of their work is purely online and psychological brainwashing in universities. Then there's the 'blackivist' groups like the panthers and BLM with such mottos as 'abolish the police' and 'abolish white science' trying to drive out some of the most basic structures of civilization while starting their own race riots over known criminals who were shot for pulling guns on the police. And of course the Jihadist army spreading in europe, professing how islam will conquer all opposition for they are breeding 5 times faster and raping new muslims into opposing cultures to win through saturation, pretty much trying to return to the world to the dark ages, except with modern technology in it. And on top of it possibly indoctrinated leadership in various countries babying and protecting 'invaders' while suppressing the media and peace keeper response.
In some ways, this war of cultures sowing terror and shame for things they have no business deciding for other people, and to some people, this is a more traumatic war than even the other. Yes, they had horrible war crimes and ever present fear of 'what if someone launches the nukes?', but 'this' one is affecting entire cultures, 'directly' harassing and tormenting people who aren't even a part of the fight and just trying to live their lives, trying to put hatred and fear in the daily lives of average people who just wish they'd all shut up and learn to live 'with' other people instead of trying to live 'over' other people.
I'd feel sorry for any empathic creature that ends up on earth in this age...
[written during reading the chapter]
Oh... kay... Huh. I don't usually comment on new-to-me stories I'm reading like this, especially since I in such cases don't tend to make the decision to favourite until I've finished the posted chapters, but my curiosity is getting too strong.
What is going on here? When I was having increasing difficulty working out where in the complex she was, I had the idea that perhaps this was an alternate universe where the sites were laid out differently... But a skeleton? In military dress, it sounds like? Clutching a gun? Two skeletons? And not just steel and bodies but food supplies left here? What on Earth?
[written after reading the chapter]
Uh... huh. That doesn't really build confidence, I'm afraid. Possibly still and alternate universe, but...
Well, I have some other things I need to do anyway.
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More than that, the Titan I sites were, after being operational less than four years, extensively salvaged; once the USAF had taken out things like warheads, missileers, classified equipment and material, and anything else they wanted, contractors were let in to rip up anything they thought was worth the scrap value. A stuck door stopping everyone... yeah.
(This, by the way, is a good website on the Titan I missile sites.)
I have experienced something similar with old german bunkers along the coast. The air just doesn't "feel" right.
I think i know what hapend to my grate unckle.
7703024
I've heard similar things about old abandoned Nazi concentration camps. They say the birds don't even chirp there.
G'kar "I believe that when we leave a place, part of it goes with us and part of us remains. Go anywhere in the station when it is quiet, and just listen. After a while, you will hear the echoes of all our conversations, every thought and word we've exchanged. Long after we are gone, our voices will linger in these walls for as long as this place remains. But I will admit that the part of me that is going will very much miss the part of you that is staying."
Sums up my thoughts on the missile silo as well, I've felt it before when you go to certain places you can just feel the positivity or the negativity that seems to linger long after events are over.
Is she... psychic now?
*fades into dust*
:V