User:Michael Bard/Mythic Journeys - Part 1 - Revision history

ShadowWolf: remove doubled 'defaultsort'

2009-03-03T21:01:35Z

remove doubled 'defaultsort'

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:01, 3 March 2009
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	[[Category:Fantasy]][[Category:Wolf]][[Category:Mental change]][[Category:Mythical]][[Category:Science fiction]][[Category:Transgender]]		[[Category:Fantasy]][[Category:Wolf]][[Category:Mental change]][[Category:Mythical]][[Category:Science fiction]][[Category:Transgender]]
	{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys Part 1}}		{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys Part 1}}
	[[Category:Story]]~~{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys part 1}}~~		[[Category:Story]]
	{{title\|name=Mythic Journeys\|author=Michael Bard}}		{{title\|name=Mythic Journeys\|author=Michael Bard}}

ShadowWolf: change "Lupine" to "Wolf" among the categories

2008-10-28T20:51:29Z

change "Lupine" to "Wolf" among the categories

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:51, 28 October 2008
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	[[Category:Michael Bard]] [[Category:Equine]][[Category:Animal]][[Category:Anthropomorphic]]		[[Category:Michael Bard]] [[Category:Equine]][[Category:Animal]][[Category:Anthropomorphic]]
	[[Category:Aquatic]][[Category:Avian]][[Category:Cervine]]		[[Category:Aquatic]][[Category:Avian]][[Category:Cervine]]
	[[Category:Fantasy]][[Category:~~Lupine~~]][[Category:Mental change]][[Category:Mythical]][[Category:Science fiction]][[Category:Transgender]]		[[Category:Fantasy]][[Category:Wolf]][[Category:Mental change]][[Category:Mythical]][[Category:Science fiction]][[Category:Transgender]]
	{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys Part 1}}		{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys Part 1}}
	[[Category:Story]]{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys part 1}}		[[Category:Story]]{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys part 1}}

Michael Bard: formatting clean up

2008-04-17T07:39:13Z

formatting clean up

Michael Bard at 21:36, 12 March 2008

2008-03-12T21:36:23Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:36, 12 March 2008
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	[[Category:Michael Bard]] [[Category:Equine]]		[[Category:Michael Bard]] [[Category:Equine]][[Category:Animal]][[Category:Anthropomorphic]]
			[[Category:Aquatic]][[Category:Avian]][[Category:Cervine]]
			[[Category:Fantasy]][[Category:Lupine]][[Category:Mental change]][[Category:Mythical]][[Category:Science fiction]][[Category:Transgender]]
	{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys Part 1}}		{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys Part 1}}
	[[Category:Story]]{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys part 1}}		[[Category:Story]]{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys part 1}}

Michael Bard at 09:20, 28 February 2008

2008-02-28T09:20:47Z

Michael Bard at 09:15, 28 February 2008

2008-02-28T09:15:39Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 04:15, 28 February 2008
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	Its bronze point pierced my human chest just below my left breast, the point stopping just as it burst out my human back.		Its bronze point pierced my human chest just below my left breast, the point stopping just as it burst out my human back.

			----

			*Quotations from The Illiad are from the translation by Edward, Earl of Derby, available via the Guttenburg Project.

			**Quotations from Ovid's Metamorphosis from the translation by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, et al

Michael Bard at 09:04, 28 February 2008

2008-02-28T09:04:35Z

Show changes

Michael Bard: New page: Category:Michael Bard Category:Equine {{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys Part 1}} Category:Story{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys part 1}} {{title|name=Mythic Journeys|author=Michael Ba...

2008-02-28T09:01:33Z

New page: Category:Michael Bard Category:Equine {{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys Part 1}} Category:Story{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys part 1}} {{title|name=Mythic Journeys|author=Michael Ba...

New page

[[Category:Michael Bard]] [[Category:Equine]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys Part 1}}
[[Category:Story]]{{DEFAULTSORT:Mythic Journeys part 1}}
{{title|name=Mythic Journeys|author=Michael Bard}}

← Older revision		Revision as of 02:39, 17 April 2008
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	I turned away. "I'm sorry." I'd seen death, Greeks, Hitites, the odd Egyptian, all hunted and killed by the proto-Scythians. And yet it had been in battle, honourable. "I can't comprehend a life like that. Please go on."		I turned away. "I'm sorry." I'd seen death, Greeks, Hitites, the odd Egyptian, all hunted and killed by the proto-Scythians. And yet it had been in battle, honourable. "I can't comprehend a life like that. Please go on."

	"The reward had-- The problem was that even with all the tech available they still needed biomass to create planoforms for Mars and oceans. Asteroid mining was starting, but too freaking costly. ~~Themachines~~ were too expensive. It was cheaper to convert the dying outside the arcologies."		"The reward had-- The problem was that even with all the tech available they still needed biomass to create planoforms for Mars and oceans. Asteroid mining was starting, but too freaking costly. The machines were too expensive. It was cheaper to convert the dying outside the arcologies."

	"You."		"You."
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	"Of course bloody me! England had collapsed into anarchy when the oil supply collapsed. In fact most countries did. The middle east more or less nuked itself. We were all freaking barbarians looking into a golden land we couldn't have. Of course I volunteered! Everybody did, or tried to.		"Of course bloody me! England had collapsed into anarchy when the oil supply collapsed. In fact most countries did. The middle east more or less nuked itself. We were all freaking barbarians looking into a golden land we couldn't have. Of course I volunteered! Everybody did, or tried to.

	"They take you and they don't care. No anesthetics -- too expensive. Quick and dirty nanite cell chromosome purification''replacement. The antibiotics stopped working in 2020 or so. They grow cybernetic enhancements throughout your body, neural interface nets throughout your brain. They don't bother testing, if the standard insert pattern fails, they grind you up and reprocess you for the interior gardens and use another poor bastard. I was one of the lucky ones.		"They take you and they don't care. No anesthetics -- too expensive. Quick and dirty nanite cell chromosome purification/replacement. The antibiotics stopped working in 2020 or so. They grow cybernetic enhancements throughout your body, neural interface nets throughout your brain. They don't bother testing, if the standard insert pattern fails, they grind you up and reprocess you for the interior gardens and use another poor bastard. I was one of the lucky ones.

	"Then they force feed you. You learn the machinery you need to tend, problems that can occur, dangers of the environment. Everyday a headache that burned in my skull; every night bloody dreams of critical system failures. They teach you nothing else. By the time they finished I was little better than a biobot. Conditioned. Dedicated. They took us out in a refitted oil tanker and dropped us in the water at each site. Probably a third drowned when their implanted symbiotic gills failed. Mine didn't. The water was warm, oily, dead. A bitter concoction that I had to live in."		"Then they force feed you. You learn the machinery you need to tend, problems that can occur, dangers of the environment. Everyday a headache that burned in my skull; every night bloody dreams of critical system failures. They teach you nothing else. By the time they finished I was little better than a biobot. Conditioned. Dedicated. They took us out in a refitted oil tanker and dropped us in the water at each site. Probably a third drowned when their implanted symbiotic gills failed. Mine didn't. The water was warm, oily, dead. A bitter concoction that I had to live in."
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	"And you came into this place as refuge? How'd you find out about it?"		"And you came into this place as refuge? How'd you find out about it?"

	"That was simple -- it was all on the net. Seismic studies in 2031 discovered the cavern we're in. Statistical analysis of events in the region flagged a higher than average level of disappearances going back to the end of the 20th century. Study was harder. AI controlled probes searched for the entrance in the Mediterranean and were all destroyed. Probes tunneled from the surface nobody could interpret what they saw and complex space''time changes rapidly destroyed them. Remote non-intelligent bioprobes lasted longer, but their information didn't make sense.		"That was simple -- it was all on the net. Seismic studies in 2031 discovered the cavern we're in. Statistical analysis of events in the region flagged a higher than average level of disappearances going back to the end of the 20th century. Study was harder. AI controlled probes searched for the entrance in the Mediterranean and were all destroyed. Probes tunneled from the surface nobody could interpret what they saw and complex space/time changes rapidly destroyed them. Remote non-intelligent bioprobes lasted longer, but their information didn't make sense.

	"One of the members of our meme volunteered to go in through the ocean after the appropriate aquatic planoforming. He vanished. More volunteers, all bored upper class, followed. Finally one managed to make it out as an entity of living water. He escaped the guardians, and somehow translated a partial account of this place to a bioremote that was waiting for anybody to return. Then he disintegrated."		"One of the members of our meme volunteered to go in through the ocean after the appropriate aquatic planoforming. He vanished. More volunteers, all bored upper class, followed. Finally one managed to make it out as an entity of living water. He escaped the guardians, and somehow translated a partial account of this place to a bioremote that was waiting for anybody to return. Then he disintegrated."
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	I started pacing back and fourth. Escape as a Nereid was impossible, but I'd figured that. It had to be something that could survive in the normal world. But, according to Ephebos nothing could anymore. Wonderful. Damn you Poseidon!		I started pacing back and fourth. Escape as a Nereid was impossible, but I'd figured that. It had to be something that could survive in the normal world. But, according to Ephebos nothing could anymore. Wonderful. Damn you Poseidon!

	"By this time the leading edge of the fifth wave was conducting high energy experiments on Ceres to manipulate space''time and allow FTL travel. There was a continuous ring of stations and refineries all around Earth's equator. A second beanstalk was under construction. More and more humans were downloading their minds into AI networks, becoming machine intelligences. Nanite technology had become so cheap and efficient that the dying masses outside the arcologies were abandoned. Nobody cared about them anymore -- they were insignificant to the majority of the population. Some memes developed cheap techniques to 'snatch and grind' them. Remotely controlled robots were go outside, grab the living they found, and drag them into quarantine areas. There, the meme would copy the victim's minds into memory cores, and then grind up the body for raw materials. The victims lived, but most couldn't adapt to the reality. The poor bastards went mad until they were re-written to be productive members of virtual society."		"By this time the leading edge of the fifth wave was conducting high energy experiments on Ceres to manipulate space/time and allow FTL travel. There was a continuous ring of stations and refineries all around Earth's equator. A second beanstalk was under construction. More and more humans were downloading their minds into AI networks, becoming machine intelligences. Nanite technology had become so cheap and efficient that the dying masses outside the arcologies were abandoned. Nobody cared about them anymore -- they were insignificant to the majority of the population. Some memes developed cheap techniques to 'snatch and grind' them. Remotely controlled robots were go outside, grab the living they found, and drag them into quarantine areas. There, the meme would copy the victim's minds into memory cores, and then grind up the body for raw materials. The victims lived, but most couldn't adapt to the reality. The poor bastards went mad until they were re-written to be productive members of virtual society."

	I didn't understand half of what he was saying, but I was afraid of what he'd tell me if I asked for clarification.		I didn't understand half of what he was saying, but I was afraid of what he'd tell me if I asked for clarification.

← Older revision		Revision as of 04:20, 28 February 2008
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	''It's with the sea that you will make''		''It's with the sea that you will make''

	''And only then shall all partake''<''poem>		''And only then shall all partake''</poem>

	Then she blinked, her eyes returning to normal. The acolyte that had been with me appeared beside her and offered her a drink from a polished granite bowl.		Then she blinked, her eyes returning to normal. The acolyte that had been with me appeared beside her and offered her a drink from a polished granite bowl.
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	''Then on its stand his weighty anvil plac'd;''		''Then on its stand his weighty anvil plac'd;''
	''And with one hand the hammer's pond'rous weight''		''And with one hand the hammer's pond'rous weight''
	''He wielded, while the other grasp'd the tongs''*<''poem>		''He wielded, while the other grasp'd the tongs''*</poem>

	The first thing I picked up was the shield. It was not quite as complex as the one described in the Illiad. Okay, not even close. My shield was not made of bronze and it did not show two cities down to the level of every individual citizen and at first I thought it was identical to those in common use by Mycenean warriors, leather stretched on a light frame, but it wasn't. Although it was a massive figure eight shield covered in ox hide, the back was not just a wooden frame, but entirely constructed of close-fitting oak. A human could have lifted it, but they could never have used it. With my strength it was perfect. Also, unlike Mycenean shields, the entire rim was polished bronze.		The first thing I picked up was the shield. It was not quite as complex as the one described in the Illiad. Okay, not even close. My shield was not made of bronze and it did not show two cities down to the level of every individual citizen and at first I thought it was identical to those in common use by Mycenean warriors, leather stretched on a light frame, but it wasn't. Although it was a massive figure eight shield covered in ox hide, the back was not just a wooden frame, but entirely constructed of close-fitting oak. A human could have lifted it, but they could never have used it. With my strength it was perfect. Also, unlike Mycenean shields, the entire rim was polished bronze.
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	''And next, a weighty helmet for his head,''		''And next, a weighty helmet for his head,''
	''Fair, richly wrought, with crest of gold above;''		''Fair, richly wrought, with crest of gold above;''
	''Then last, well-fitting greaves of pliant tin.''*<''poem>		''Then last, well-fitting greaves of pliant tin.''*</poem>

	Unlike Homer's description, my armour was massive plates of Dendrite panoply. Dendrite panoply essentially consists of curved plates of bronze held together by leather thongs. In my case there were two sets of armour. The first was similar to what a human would have worn, and covered my human body. In historical Dendrite armour, there were curved plates for the front, and for the rear, but for my armour the front plates were almost the same, going down just past my waist, but each of the rear plates were actually two smaller plates, one for either side. Not only was there a small gap in between them for my mane, there was only one piece below the shoulder which made sense given that I had a horse's body sticking out of me. There was also Dendrite style armour for my horse's body. This consisted of a series of roughly half-circle plates that ran along my horse's spine to the midpoint of the hips of my rear legs. Historically, Dendrite armour was worn over a thick linen shirt. However, my armour had leather padding of some sort sewn on the inside. I don't know what the padding was made of, but it was amazingly tough and amazingly soft.		Unlike Homer's description, my armour was massive plates of Dendrite panoply. Dendrite panoply essentially consists of curved plates of bronze held together by leather thongs. In my case there were two sets of armour. The first was similar to what a human would have worn, and covered my human body. In historical Dendrite armour, there were curved plates for the front, and for the rear, but for my armour the front plates were almost the same, going down just past my waist, but each of the rear plates were actually two smaller plates, one for either side. Not only was there a small gap in between them for my mane, there was only one piece below the shoulder which made sense given that I had a horse's body sticking out of me. There was also Dendrite style armour for my horse's body. This consisted of a series of roughly half-circle plates that ran along my horse's spine to the midpoint of the hips of my rear legs. Historically, Dendrite armour was worn over a thick linen shirt. However, my armour had leather padding of some sort sewn on the inside. I don't know what the padding was made of, but it was amazingly tough and amazingly soft.