"You're the man from the past, aren't you?" asked the man entering the room with the water. A small table arose from the floor near the center of the room, where a helmeted figure stood. "Plain water, in case you're thirsty," he said, placing the pitcher and glass on the new surface.
"Yes," said the man, never looking away from the wall on which many figures were projected. They bore the knowledge of the synthesis of a serum that could cure his ailing - and, at the moment, long-dead - wife, "I am the man from the past. I'm done here, though, since I've finished committing this data to memory, so I'll be going back there soon. That's not why the water is here, by the way."
The servant grew slightly nervous at this. "Well, that's what I was told."
"Something on your person when you entered this room was meant to release nanobots into the air, since I scanned it upon entering, but might not be bothered to do so every time that the door is opened. Your boss was likely frustrated that my helm bears a Faraday cage. However, they won't be able to follow me, for the same reason that it would be fruitless to drink that water, despite my thirst: My transporter is quantum-bound to the particles in my body." With that, he disappeared.
---
"A craft just launched from the next system over, sir, heading rimward, but 44.7286 off the galactic plane," said a cog of a man stationed at a control panel. "It's topped out at 0.99926c, though. It looks like it's got some outdated stealth tech."
"Send our fastest ship after it now," said his boss. "We'll catch up, though it'll be a while, due to the delay."
"Ours has departed with the most proximate crew available. They're at speed. They should catch up in about three years, give or take for possible evasive maneuvers."
---
"I expect the entire galaxy to be searched thoroughly," said the man in the pointless throne. "You don't understand how valuable this knowledge is. The man from the past knows the secret to bi-directional time travel. I want every piece of his decoy craft examined meticulously for any trace of his true destination."
"You don't yet control the whole galaxy," advised his minion. "Your rivals will take offense at your probing their territory so thoroughly."
"Let them," decried the would-be ruler of the galaxy. "Once I have the secret to time-travel, I can shape the galaxy to my very needs."
I would go on about what else happened, but their entire timeline ceased to be once the man from the past saved his wife.
-----
Author's note: This bit of story was inspired by the song The Time Machine by The Cog is Dead. I worked out the details of creating, using, and concealing a relativistic bi-directional time machine, though they unfortunately didn't emerge during the narrative.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Regarding the Introduction to Mega Evolution
The player's introduction to Mega Evolution in Pokémon X & Y would have been easy to mess up, but I think that they got it right.
By the way, there are some spoilers in this post.
The way that we get a Lucario from Korrina still feels slightly forced, but at least they put in scenes prior to that that indicate that it was taking a liking to us. The main good thing about this is that we don't have to level up a pokémon to the Mega Evolution point on our own. From what I recall, we only get one (I'm not counting Mega Blaziken since that promotion will end), and I was trying to do a team of only new pokémon, so finding out that I had to swap out my Gogoat for my Bulbasaur and grind it until I got Venusaur would have been tedious.
Since they're including most pokémon from every generation in these games, I think that I'll eventually make a team from each generation. I just realized that I can include both Mega Venusaur and Mega Aerodactyl on my Gen I team - at least after I dig up some Old Amber.
I do hope one thing, going forward: If they decide in Generation VII to give a new Mega Evolution to a previous-generation pokémon, then they should at least not try to do any fancy tricks to explain it away. You just never had, I don't know, Dragoniteite or whatever. It's that simple.
By the way, there are some spoilers in this post.
The way that we get a Lucario from Korrina still feels slightly forced, but at least they put in scenes prior to that that indicate that it was taking a liking to us. The main good thing about this is that we don't have to level up a pokémon to the Mega Evolution point on our own. From what I recall, we only get one (I'm not counting Mega Blaziken since that promotion will end), and I was trying to do a team of only new pokémon, so finding out that I had to swap out my Gogoat for my Bulbasaur and grind it until I got Venusaur would have been tedious.
Since they're including most pokémon from every generation in these games, I think that I'll eventually make a team from each generation. I just realized that I can include both Mega Venusaur and Mega Aerodactyl on my Gen I team - at least after I dig up some Old Amber.
I do hope one thing, going forward: If they decide in Generation VII to give a new Mega Evolution to a previous-generation pokémon, then they should at least not try to do any fancy tricks to explain it away. You just never had, I don't know, Dragoniteite or whatever. It's that simple.
Sudden Short Story 56
The scene at Megiddo that day was difficult to describe, even by the many witnesses after the fact. A man sat upon an old stone, whetting his blade, and that was the only thing that made sense. Two billion people were there, even though there wasn't room, and they remained distributed across the planet. Many gods were there, towering over the congregation, and yet no taller than an adult. They were thirty-three and yet three-thousand. They were omniscient, and yet confused.
"What is happening?" asked the god.
"You are bound by my oath," spake the man. "I was serious about my promise to you. You forsook one of your flock, which was unwise in the first place. But I made my promise, and I intend to keep it."
"Her death was part of my greater plan," said many of the faces, "I work in mysterious ways." A few, though, said "the devil did it." They all seemed to expect this to save them.
The man with the sword stood and approached the gods, pocketing his whetstone along the way. He stopped before him. "Restore her to life by my side, and I will release you from my previous oath. Otherwise, I will kill you."
Many of him became defiant. "How? With that sword? You'll have to cut through two billion others before you can touch me."
"I would," said the man, "but this is no ordinary blade. In fact, it's so strong and sharp that it could pierce an iron chariot."
In that moment, the people saw something that they had never themselves seen before. Their gods were afraid. And, in that moment, the man thrust his sword under the gods' ribcage and into their heart, and the blade was multiplied across them all.
By the time that the blade was pulled out, the witnesses were gone, except that they were wherever they'd been the whole time. None of them were terribly affected by what they thought that they'd seen, though.
After all, they'd never really believed that particular set of fairy tales, right?
"What is happening?" asked the god.
"You are bound by my oath," spake the man. "I was serious about my promise to you. You forsook one of your flock, which was unwise in the first place. But I made my promise, and I intend to keep it."
"Her death was part of my greater plan," said many of the faces, "I work in mysterious ways." A few, though, said "the devil did it." They all seemed to expect this to save them.
The man with the sword stood and approached the gods, pocketing his whetstone along the way. He stopped before him. "Restore her to life by my side, and I will release you from my previous oath. Otherwise, I will kill you."
Many of him became defiant. "How? With that sword? You'll have to cut through two billion others before you can touch me."
"I would," said the man, "but this is no ordinary blade. In fact, it's so strong and sharp that it could pierce an iron chariot."
In that moment, the people saw something that they had never themselves seen before. Their gods were afraid. And, in that moment, the man thrust his sword under the gods' ribcage and into their heart, and the blade was multiplied across them all.
By the time that the blade was pulled out, the witnesses were gone, except that they were wherever they'd been the whole time. None of them were terribly affected by what they thought that they'd seen, though.
After all, they'd never really believed that particular set of fairy tales, right?
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Sudden Short Story 55
The cargo container stood out, black against the white snow. Around it, charred husks of some unknown material lay. They had been used, apparently, when it was burned, for that the less-scorched spots on the container read: QUARANTINE ME
Fearing for the worst, Dr. MacGhabhann pounded on the container. "Is anyone in there?" she shouted.
"Me," he shouted back, "Doctor Fletcher. Have you sent anyone to the main camp yet?"
It was within sight, but still fairly far out. The flat snowscape made that possible. Dr. Fletcher had hauled the container as far away from the camp as he could while guaranteeing that the rescue party would see it first. "Not yet," answered Dr. MacGhabhann. "We hit you first, and besides, there's a quarantine warning up."
"That's why I put it here," he answered. "As you can tell, I've arranged it so that I can't get myself out. You'll find out if you read my research notes, which are at the camp, but I can tell you anyway. There was a contagion going around the camp. Doctor Teague got it first. It must have incubated in him overnight, because we never saw any initial symptoms. It changed him. He's the one who smashed up our radio. Someone might have been able to repair it, with enough time, but we didn't have it. It spreads fast. We tried to isolate whoever got infected, but there was always a new infection by the time that we got the old one contained.
"Eventually, it was down to just me and Doctors Zielinski and Landvik. That's when the worst of it happened... but I don't want to go into that right now. After it was all over, though, I burned the bodies to make sure. There was only so much fuel left, though, so I just tossed a starter in and let nature do the rest. I towed the cargo container out here, then drove the tow back. I torched it, since black stands out against white. I also gave myself enough water to last until when you guys arrived, but I'm quite hungry. Also, it's gonna stink in here."
"Is there any chance that you're infected," asked Dr. MacGhabhann, as she sent three from her team to go find the research notes.
"You're here, so it must have been ... five days since I isolated myself? I know that you would have set out when we went overdue for our radio check in, but I lost track of the intervening time. Anyway, if I were infected, then it would have taken hold by now. I'll still insist on being quarantined, though, until a full lab's done, just to be thorough."
He left out the part about how the fully incubated acted just like their old selves most of the time. He didn't want to overly worry them, after all.
Dr. Fletcher would have told them to avoid the camp, for its infection risk. Dr. Fletcher would have told them that he burned the outside of the cargo container to try to destroy every last virion, just in case.
But Dr. Fletcher died three days earlier.
Fearing for the worst, Dr. MacGhabhann pounded on the container. "Is anyone in there?" she shouted.
"Me," he shouted back, "Doctor Fletcher. Have you sent anyone to the main camp yet?"
It was within sight, but still fairly far out. The flat snowscape made that possible. Dr. Fletcher had hauled the container as far away from the camp as he could while guaranteeing that the rescue party would see it first. "Not yet," answered Dr. MacGhabhann. "We hit you first, and besides, there's a quarantine warning up."
"That's why I put it here," he answered. "As you can tell, I've arranged it so that I can't get myself out. You'll find out if you read my research notes, which are at the camp, but I can tell you anyway. There was a contagion going around the camp. Doctor Teague got it first. It must have incubated in him overnight, because we never saw any initial symptoms. It changed him. He's the one who smashed up our radio. Someone might have been able to repair it, with enough time, but we didn't have it. It spreads fast. We tried to isolate whoever got infected, but there was always a new infection by the time that we got the old one contained.
"Eventually, it was down to just me and Doctors Zielinski and Landvik. That's when the worst of it happened... but I don't want to go into that right now. After it was all over, though, I burned the bodies to make sure. There was only so much fuel left, though, so I just tossed a starter in and let nature do the rest. I towed the cargo container out here, then drove the tow back. I torched it, since black stands out against white. I also gave myself enough water to last until when you guys arrived, but I'm quite hungry. Also, it's gonna stink in here."
"Is there any chance that you're infected," asked Dr. MacGhabhann, as she sent three from her team to go find the research notes.
"You're here, so it must have been ... five days since I isolated myself? I know that you would have set out when we went overdue for our radio check in, but I lost track of the intervening time. Anyway, if I were infected, then it would have taken hold by now. I'll still insist on being quarantined, though, until a full lab's done, just to be thorough."
He left out the part about how the fully incubated acted just like their old selves most of the time. He didn't want to overly worry them, after all.
Dr. Fletcher would have told them to avoid the camp, for its infection risk. Dr. Fletcher would have told them that he burned the outside of the cargo container to try to destroy every last virion, just in case.
But Dr. Fletcher died three days earlier.
Misc. Video Game Updates
As you probably know from a previous update, I've been focused on Pokémon X lately. However, I haven't dropped other games completely. Here's the latest on stuff:
- Pokémon: I'm about to beat the 2nd gym.
- Team Fortress 2: This year's Halloween map is actually pretty good. I like that each person gets his own gift, when they spawn. It's been a bit crashy, but I think that today's update fixed that.
- Minecraft: FYI, I've gotten my boss addicted to Minecraft. That said, I've been too busy w/ Pokémon X to play! FWIW, he's tried the new Thaumcraft 4 for Minecraft release candidate 1.7.x, and it's apparently unnecessarily hard, including a new creeping evil force thing and recipes that are sometimes literally impossible to solve. I think that I'll hold off on updating, not because I want to avoid it, but rather because I'm still doing a lot of exploring in Thaumcraft 3.
- Kongregate: I've just been checking dailies & getting badges of the day. The latter seem largely scary-themed these last few days.
- Miscellaneous betas: Well, I can't talk much about most, & I haven't been playing them much due to Pokémon X.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Pokémon X - my play so far - October 30th, 2013
Pokémon X is quite fun!
I am catching so many Pokémon. I've actually had to organize my boxes by generation, since they seem to have included ALL THE POKéMON in these games. That said, I'm still limiting my team to new Pokémon. After all, there are plenty of those. If they allow me to re-battle gym leaders, then I'll probably do post-Elite-4 runs with teams from every generation. XD
I think that the new Fairy type is going to get a lot of use, since it has so few weaknesses. I'm bad at memorizing, so I'm just learning the type associations from use (they tweaked a few others, too), but I know that they resist Dark and Bug, which is surprisingly handy. Note: In addition to using only new Pokémon, I'm making it a partial point to keep a Fairy on my team.
Sadly, I'm not very far through. I work full time, there was stuff going on during the release weekend, and two weekends ago was a convention, but things should clear up a bit now.
(A note for my fan: Pokémon takes up far less time than doing a novel, so don't feel like this prevented NaNoWriMo or anything; I didn't have a workable novel idea this year.)
Here's a list of the Pokémon in my rotation. Note that I'm about to get the second badge:
I am catching so many Pokémon. I've actually had to organize my boxes by generation, since they seem to have included ALL THE POKéMON in these games. That said, I'm still limiting my team to new Pokémon. After all, there are plenty of those. If they allow me to re-battle gym leaders, then I'll probably do post-Elite-4 runs with teams from every generation. XD
I think that the new Fairy type is going to get a lot of use, since it has so few weaknesses. I'm bad at memorizing, so I'm just learning the type associations from use (they tweaked a few others, too), but I know that they resist Dark and Bug, which is surprisingly handy. Note: In addition to using only new Pokémon, I'm making it a partial point to keep a Fairy on my team.
Sadly, I'm not very far through. I work full time, there was stuff going on during the release weekend, and two weekends ago was a convention, but things should clear up a bit now.
(A note for my fan: Pokémon takes up far less time than doing a novel, so don't feel like this prevented NaNoWriMo or anything; I didn't have a workable novel idea this year.)
Here's a list of the Pokémon in my rotation. Note that I'm about to get the second badge:
- Frogadier - evolved form of my starter
- Floette - trying out a Fairy
- Swirlix - I swapped this in because I heard that it's version-exclusive. I'm hoping that it will evolve soon.
- Vivillon - incredibly useful for catching Pokémon, but still good at fighting in its own right - also interesting for a fully-evolved Bug to have Shield Dust
- Skiddo - trying to evolve it into Gogoat!
- Honedge - physical powerhouse Ghost/Steel type - sadly, its evolutions have been spoiled
- Hawlucha - a never-before-seen type combo (both from the original 15, no less) and ZOMG THERE'S A LUCHADORE POKéMON!
- Meowstic - previously said that it would murder me in my sleep if I didn't use it
- Litleo - my earliest Fire type, & Fire/Normal is new
- Fletchinder - non-legendary Fire/Flying Pokémon!
Pokémon X & Y
Pokémon X and Pokémon Y are now out and, for the first time in many years, I've got the newest Pokémon game while it's still new. Despite being behind the curve, what with having a job and all, I've still managed to avoid most spoilers, which helps keep the series fresh, since I'm discovering things through play.
First, there are two main criticisms that I have:
First, there are two main criticisms that I have:
- The Lumiose City Glitch - This is kind of a huge deal, since it's a save-killing bug. (For those who don't know, possibly because they're reading this in the future: Saving outdoors (later discovered to be specific areas) in Lumiose City, then loading that save file, could actually lock up the 3DS. The game was obviously unplayable.) I have no idea how this got past playtesting - or component testing, for that matter, though I don't know how Nintendo/Game Freak/The Pokémon Company coded it, so that breakdown might not work as well. Fortunately, we live in a day and age when such things can be patched. That said, I'm honestly surprised at how long it took them to release the patch. (Also, this is the one time that I'm glad that I got spoiled, since I just avoided saving anywhere within the Lumiose City limits.)
- The controls in 3D areas are a bit weird. It's easy once you know the trick: You can only move forward (usually), and sideways buttons rotate you. The main issue w/ this is that it's unlike the controls for the rest of the game, so the controls in any over-the-shoulder area are always unintuitive.
- So far, the new Pokémon designs are pretty cool. My personal favorite is actually Spewpa, since it's a new - yet realistic - approach to the 3-stage bug Pokémon. (Cool note: Just before the release of the games, a praying mantis made an egg sack in our garden. Like Spewpa, it's just kind of spat/frothed up and then dried.)
- Wonder Trades are awesome. Finally, I don't have to do a bunch of online stuff to find someone with whom to trade, but I also don't feel compelled to overthink things like with GTS.
- The roller skates handle really well, once you get used to them - which isn't very long. Weirdly, they seem to be putting the bike to shame, since they're much easier to don/doff.
- Item registration is much better in this system. In generation V, if more than one key item was registered, pressing Y resulted in a small menu, which had to be navigated up/down if one wanted anything other than the top item. Now, if more than one item is registered (up to 4), a directional menu pops up, making it much easier to select the item w/ one additional button-push. This also makes it quicker to use, since it's easy for me to remember, for instance, that my Old Rod is Y-Up, while my bicycle is Y-Right.
- Berries are back in the game. In generation V, it became a chore to have to make sure that a Pokémon was tucked in, then go onto my computer to go online to the global link, to make sure that I was berry-ing. This was compounded w/ the knowledge that it would only be up as long as Nintendo bothered to maintain the servers, and is further compounded by the fact that Nintendo is phasing out the Gen V Global Link by mid-January.
- Berry growing is changed for the better. Admittedly, having to pull weeds is technically tedious, and doesn't add any game value, but I like the rest of it. I like that I can get random fights against Bug Pokémon that are trying to eat the berries. While there are 2 stages added to berry growth - thicker trunk and buds - this is compensated by increased berry output, so it's all good. The game just plain starts with 36 berry growing spots, and making mulch out of berries is a nice optional. Also, hybridizing berries to get other (existing) berries is a neat way to make it not just an item-hunt.
- Gogoat! I don't technically have one yet (working on it!), but the idea of riding a goat Pokémon still seems awesome.
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