Badges 9
Moments 865
Hopefully he doesn’t turn into one of the cold, “domineering”, and controlling CEO types with the EQ of a fencepost now. I’ve really enjoyed their interactions so far, and that kind of BS is what ruins so many FMC novels for me.
Yu Xiheng replied calmly, "Your lady."
After Having Everything Taken Away, She Returns As A God
Urban · Qing Qian
I was never taught AU at any level. I think I would hate to go back to even grade school now. Good thing I don’t have kids, so I don’t have to help them with their homework lol - “daddy is dumb” is something I’d probably hear an awful lot if I did.
(Ed note: I don’t really like inserting more than one ed note per chapter, but there’s a few terms here to explain. “Old light” is based around the concept that visual signals continue propagating out at light speed until interrupted by some other celestial body. So by staying a light hour away from, say, a planet, and viewing that old light, you can see what was happening an hour ago on that planet, assuming your sensors are sensitive enough. And the “Goldilocks Zone” is the area in space around a star where the conditions are just right enough for liquid water on the surface of a planet or other celestial body.)
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
Not all readers are scientists, though. And terms like AU, and other astronomy terms like aphelion and perihelion, aren’t as common as you might think. Most of the harder sci-fi I’ve read just uses kilometers, even when they get up into truly ridiculous ranges. Or they’ll use light seconds/minutes/hours and so on. AU is a pretty niche term by comparison.
(Ed note: I don’t really like inserting more than one ed note per chapter, but there’s a few terms here to explain. “Old light” is based around the concept that visual signals continue propagating out at light speed until interrupted by some other celestial body. So by staying a light hour away from, say, a planet, and viewing that old light, you can see what was happening an hour ago on that planet, assuming your sensors are sensitive enough. And the “Goldilocks Zone” is the area in space around a star where the conditions are just right enough for liquid water on the surface of a planet or other celestial body.)
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
Who’s this? Isn’t he supposed to be *Nian* Yi’an?
He immediately looked at Yan Yi'an.
After Having Everything Taken Away, She Returns As A God
Urban · Qing Qian
An attempt was made.
[I'm still curious about what she did. It's not like she committed murder or arson...]
After Having Everything Taken Away, She Returns As A God
Urban · Qing Qian
CENTCOM is staffed by naval personnel, so it goes by naval ranks. An ST1 is a specialized petty officer, so around an E-6 by US Navy standards. I forgot to put the rank schedule in discord, so I should probably get on that soon.
“Tenth ring is coming up on schedule... now,” one of the technicians announced from his console. He was an ST1, or Sensor Technician First Class, and his current task was to monitor the ongoing construction and activation of sensors throughout the Sol system.
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
Too true. Although I’m thankful for that, because otherwise there’d be no need for editors like me.
(Ed note: “Booya” here is pronounced as boa-yuh. Certain versions of Romaji (Japanese that’s written phonetically in the English alphabet) uses doubled vowels to indicate the Japanese ā ē ī ō ū sounds. We don’t use the bar vowels simply because doubled vowels are easier to type than alt codes, especially since Agent uses a laptop and I’m fundamentally lazy. So when you see Ayaka using double vowels in future chapters, you’ll know how to pronounce it.)
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
Those giant “parking lots” were home to defensive guns that dwarfed anything previously considered even in the technologically advanced Terran Empire. Designed to reach high orbit from the surface of the planet, the gimbal-mounted gun barrels were tens of meters wide and nearly a full two kilometers long. It was a feat of engineering that could only be seen on Mars, where the gravity was only 38% that of Earth’s. They were powered by enormous—even by imperial standards—capacitor banks, each of which contained enough electricity to power the entire continent of Australia for just over six months.
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
Oof. I completely got those two switched around.
The planet was slowly being renovated to live up to its namesake—Mars, the Greek god of war. In the very near future, it would not only be home to most of the members of ARES (and wasn’t THAT an ironic mishmash of mythological figures; Mars, the Greek god of war, and Ares, the Roman god of war), but also to the men and women of the Martian Proving Ground, where classified imperial military projects would be birthed, built, and tested to failure.
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
There’ll be more romaji as the chapters go on, so I got the explanation out of the way in the beginning is all. And I’m a stickler for correct spelling. Professional hazard, you know.
(Ed note: “Booya” here is pronounced as boa-yuh. Certain versions of Romaji (Japanese that’s written phonetically in the English alphabet) uses doubled vowels to indicate the Japanese ā ē ī ō ū sounds. We don’t use the bar vowels simply because doubled vowels are easier to type than alt codes, especially since Agent uses a laptop and I’m fundamentally lazy. So when you see Ayaka using double vowels in future chapters, you’ll know how to pronounce it.)
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
Lack of choice, mostly. There are few really “powerful” awakeners at the law level and above.
The “him” to whom she was referring, even in her thoughts, was the only downside to the otherwise almost fairytale she had been living since escaping from her overbearing father and too-soft mother. Lee Joon-ho, also known as the bane of her life, was an eighteen-year-old awakener from what used to be North Korea, and he was deeply fascinated with her. He was also who the exploration fleet had partnered her with for away missions, since they, in their infinite wisdom, had decided that an awakener had to be on every one of them.
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
I live to expand vocabularies, sir.
Not that one of his general failings was impatience, though. He was... indolent, she supposed the word was, in all of his duties. If politeness and manners had been any less thoroughly drilled into her, she would have called him lazy, self-absorbed, arrogant, and any number of other less-than-flattering appellations.
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
Well, not everyone gets along lol. Especially not like “Tom and Siobhan” ;)
What’s confusing?
She kept in shape through a rigorous exercise program consisting of karate, judo, and kyuudo (Japanese archery), along with the naginata. By avoiding more traditionally “hard” exercises, like lifting weights, all 152 centimeters of her form was whipcord strong without losing its soft, feminine shape. Standing straight on and facing her mirror, she rested her hand on her flat belly and looked herself up and down, noting with some pleasure that her secret garden was still well manicured, trimmed close to the skin and shaped into a narrow triangle above a perfectly bald slit.
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
How so? Being naked in your own home isn’t a bad thing. Nor a particularly unusual one. And mirror examinations as a vehicle for describing characters is a writing trick that almost predates writing itself.
She yawned again, then rose and stripped. It wasn’t like the void would give a shit about her body, no matter how attractive others may find her. And she had to admit, she was definitely a looker. She had a traditionally beautiful face, with wide cheekbones tapering to a narrow chin and smooth, ivory skin. Her eyes were almond-shaped and so dark they were almost as black as the hair that fell from her head to her waist like a luxurious silken waterfall. Though her bust was modest, at a rather generous B-cup by fleet standards, it fit well on her slender, petite form and, when viewed from the side, it presented a perfect “S” curve from her front to her perky, toned ass.
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
You and me both, but neither Agent nor I are any good with Stable Diffusion. I reached out to a few people I know who *are*, but they haven’t even gotten around to it despite me asking them for AI-generated art of the higher-order AIs around the time Gaia was introduced. Soooooo… feel free! I have a bit of a crush on Ayaka myself and would love to see an image.
ch 591 Commander's Log, Day 115
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
Yeah. We’re using the same kind of warp drive as they do in Star Trek, but the warp factor scale being exponential and capped at warp 10 just doesn’t have the same cool factor (pun not intended) as having BIG NUMBERS!!!11 It also makes things easier to understand. Warp 200 is twenty times faster than warp 10. Easy to understand and intuitive to grasp that. There’s no need to explain exponential and logarithmic scales to y’all and bore you to tears.
(Ed note: “Warp” here is used in terms of multiples of light speed. So warp ten is ten times the speed of light. It isn’t like Star Trek, where their warp factor was an exponential scale like the Richter or decibel scales. In Trek, warp ten represented “infinite speed”, at least according to ST: The Next Generation, where a ship would be present at every point in the universe simultaneously.)
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
I never did watch Voyager. TOS, TNG, and DS9 yes, but the rest somehow seemed to pass me by.
The meeting continued for a short while as the council put together a plan to “encourage” people to go out and colonize the stars. But one thing was certain: whether they wanted to or not, the remnants would definitely be among those boarding the first wave of colony ships.
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
That’s why Nyx isn’t in charge of the colonization effort
The meeting continued for a short while as the council put together a plan to “encourage” people to go out and colonize the stars. But one thing was certain: whether they wanted to or not, the remnants would definitely be among those boarding the first wave of colony ships.
Getting a Technology System in Modern Day
Sci-fi · Agent_047
"Eternity," this holographic game, who exactly was behind it?
After Having Everything Taken Away, She Returns As A God
Urban · Qing Qian