Author: Plemency

Monsoorai Masterminds! The Moveable-Type Printing Press!

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17/10/013 ASU

The wonders of alien worlds never cease.

On my tour of alien Monsoo, the monsoorai have shown me yet another technology they’ve mastered.

A machine which can create thousands of pages of written work per ‘day’ (unit of measurement on alien worlds which is determined by how long their local ‘sun’ illuminates the surface), the printing press basically works by taking tens of thousands of blocks with the protruding symbols of the monsoorai characters and arranging them face-up inside a frame, securing them in place with screws. The characters are then swiped with thin ink, and a piece of blank paper is laid on top of the characters. With the pull of a lever, and ‘press’ is then brought down onto the paper, which presses it against the character blocks and transfers the ink to the page. Lifting the press and removing the paper shows a perfect transfer, and a new sheet of blank paper can be brought in for transfer.

This technology has been used to copy ancient books, pamphlets, and imperial orders for over 280 ‘years’. Imperial Historians have directly attributed the mass literacy of the monsoorai to the creation of the printing press. As I’ve experienced on this tour, the world is painfully hot and humid, so civilians rate their prosperity on the things they can do to avoid the heat. For many that’s swimming in the ocean, for others it’s sitting in the shade and reading.

But I must take this technology for Peldan Star News!

Rather than spending hours hand writing a few thousand copies of the newspaper for distribution, I could have my employees spend an hour putting together the press, and copy thousands of pages. I could even go back to having multi-page newspapers! A booklet of accumulated news stories, each article timestamped.

Typewriters: A Flawed Step Forward

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12/12/517 ASU

Elves have always been iterative rather than innovative, going back dozens of millennia. Slow to adopt new ideas, if there was ever a problem we’ve always adapted existing logic and methods to answer new challenges. This has continued well into the age of the Protectorate. This ‘industrial revolution’ has seen aliens create new logics and new methods left and right.

This month has seen mass production and sale of the ‘typewriter’ go into effect, which is an evolution of the standard pen and ink, quill, and pencil. It uses many complicated bits of machinery so the press of one button causes a corresponding letter in the zatadun language, sprache, to stamp the page. These letters combine to make words, which is different from the Cirathan Standard and High Peldish logographic systems which would require thousands of symbols.

I have been writing the traditional way for longer than the zatadun have had organized states. Most elves can write a hundred words a minute after just a century of practice. I used to make 350 copies of my newspaper for distribution in little under an hour.

But when I tested the typewriter and got a feel for the buttons, I found that my hands were far too quick. The physical mechanisms of the typewriter have a delay. If I want to use the same letter twice, I need to stop and wait for the letter’s stamp to come back up before I can press again, otherwise the machine can jam.

Theoretically, typewriters are brilliant. Take away the delays and I could ‘type’ over 700 words a minute, probably more with practice. But the technology isn’t there, so I’ll be sticking with normal writing, and Peldan Star News will continue using the printing press invention.

Tattoo Canvases Hospitalized From Ink Poisoning

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19/06/539 ASU

Hello.

I’m writing this from a hospital in Pelratha. I missed yesterday’s news article. Sorry.

The short version is that I woke up yesterday feeling like crap, and as I was heading to the Northern Coast of Ciratha to follow up on a story, I passed out in the airship terminal and was brought to the hospital.

There were four other peldaks who were brought in with the same symptoms, and since we all participated in the tattoo pen showcase the day before, it was pretty easy to determine that the ink was the cause.

As it turns out, ink gets absorbed into the skin and body and is usually filtered out, but we got so many tattoos that our kidneys couldn’t process it all.

The artists and Head Mistress of the Interstellar Tattoo Union’s Pelratha Branch visited us in the hospital, and we worked alongside the doctors to figure out a few ways to keep this from being a common issue. I’d also feel real bad if this incident made people shy away from the new tattoo pen.

1. Don’t go for insane amounts of tattooing in a single session.

2. Drink plenty of water during your session.

3. Save detailing, such as the artist going back and forth over a single area dozens of times, for subsequent sessions.

4. If you wake the next morning and your pee is exceptionally dark, just go to the hospital for a checkup.

5. The ITU will look into diluting their ink and making it less of an irritant on the skin.

The tattoo pen is a safe and effective technology; it’s just experiencing a bit of growing pain. As peldaks, we’re more than happy to be test subjects to make sure these issues are resolved.

The Greatest Technological Achievement: Tattoo Pens

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19/04/539 ASU

Industrialization has achieved its peak today as the time, talent, and economic incentives have come together to create the great invention for tattoo enthusiasts around the Local Cluster.

We of the Protectorate are civilized, enlightened peoples, with robust institutions, and the capacity for cooperation. The technologies built on one planet can travel to others and be improved.

30 years ago, the electric pen was invented as part of a larger machine which duplicated documents. It was then taken, adapted, improved, and the result was the tattoo pen. Done are the crude methods of taking needles or brushes and jabbing the skin thousands of times to create a design, now technology does the work!

The Interstellar Tattoo Union got its hands on the new tattoo pen first and announced a public showcase. Five artists, five peldak canvases, and I dropped everything to reach Pelratha after receiving my invitation.

I laid on my stomach as a girl drew on my back, the needle jabbed so rapidly I couldn’t even register the individual stabs. She drew the outline of a great shield in black, and the heraldry in the center, then switched out the black ink cartridge for colored ink.

Sweeping around my muscles, she filled the full-back design with detail and highlights in under two hours.

Still full of energy and time, she moved on to my arms next, then chest. It would only last for a few decades so I let her draw whatever she wanted, and I even let a few novice artists get a sense for how the new machine works. They drew a few small images, messy and full of mistakes, while a few cheeky artists just wrote their names on my body.

The efficiency is undeniable, and the ITU is expected to order hundreds of tattoo pens.

Faeries Free Forgotten Forest Fellows

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06/11/036 ASU

In central Great Tendor, 12 faeries flew through the vast, untamed jungle. They would colonize a new home, the first on an alien world, and offer it to Fairy King Millaree as apology for breaking his most sacred law: never leave the ancient groves. Faeries are plagued by a primal wanderlust and mischief.

Their plan most likely would have worked, had they not gotten distracted by a coven of druids one night.

The druids, nude save for mud and animal bones strung together with sinew, led a procession of villagers to enact some dark and depraved ritual.

The villagers built a great fire and sacrificed many pounds of animal fat, the druids swung their sticks and chanted their arcane songs. The trees danced and whistled, the leaves glowed vibrant greens, and the faeries instinctively knew they would begin to grow fruit.

The faeries decided to hijack the ritual.

Weaving their way into the trunks, the trees truly came alive. The bark shifted according to their will and formed faces, taut tree fibers were plucked to make music.

“You have displeased us for the last time!”

Vines slapped and strangled the druids, and the villagers ran deep into the jungle. When the faeries had their fill, they released the druids and flew away, cackling all the while.

Days later, tendori forces returned and put the druids to death.

The faeries thought their prank went too far and surrendered to peldak forces. They were informed that the druid coven was an infamous group of outlaws that disappeared years ago. They enslaved the lost village of tendori, and the faeries actions freed the villagers from their spell.

That was unintentional, however, and King Millaree personally dragged them back to Grove Kamanshu and now displays them in a cramped cage in the central plaza.

The Winter Streaking Challenge On Isseio Prime

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03/09/722 ASU

Isseio Prime can generously be described as a nightmare world where nobody wants to live, not even the native issei. The planet rotates along a completely horizontal axis, so the north or south pole will experience multi-month-long summers, but their nights last just as long.

During these winters, the nomadic issei retreat to permanent settlements to survive the long night, and are occasionally beset by creatures called snow demons. Because the clans are now members of the Protectorate, this means we have to garrison forces to defend them.

10 years of emergency engineering later, and most of the clans have been received modern infrastructure with central heating, and the required fuel. This renders garrison duty as ‘moderately unpleasant’ rather than ‘borderline uninhabitable’.

But now our soldiers have been complaining about boredom, sitting around indoors during the long nights.

So the young peldaks have been doing what young peldaks do.

The buildings we gave the issei are sprawling complexes, with no section rising higher than three stories tall. There’s room for the entire clan of issei, the garrison of peldaks, and the various beasts the clans own. Each complex is up to 80,000 square feet.

The game these peldaks play is a squad of them go into one of the ‘heatlock foyers’. They open the outside door to let the sub-zero temperatures flood in, strip off their uniforms, and then try to run a lap outside while naked. It’s supposed to be a test of strength, but in reality it’s just a sly way for peldaks under 150 to see each other naked.

3 peldaks have died from heart issues due to the sudden decrease in temperature. Intense wind caused another 5 to suffer frostbite and required amputations.

Issei are frequently invited to join, but thankfully they’re too smart for that.

Gene Surfing Challenge Horrifies Sanguine

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07/08/866 ASU

The genevek are a playful race of shapeshifters that have recently gained independence and a state on the most recent colony world Sanguine. Because of the introduction of the ‘internet’ and ‘online forums’, a concerning trend has been observed with genevek youth.

Gene Surfing.

Step 1: The young genevek takes a picture of themself and uploads it to a forum.

Step 2: The genevek uploads a candid picture of a man or woman they’re interested in.

Step 3: The genevek convinces the target to invite the genevek back to the target’s home, usually posting updates as the night goes on.

Step 4: They have sex, with the genevek sneaking a picture to upload.

Important note: the image is typically taken and uploaded without the target’s consent. While not currently illegal due to the internet being an unregulated novelty, the Peldak Senate is expected to adopt the neralin’s internet laws, which will classify this as sexual misconduct.

Step 5: When the target falls asleep, the genevek changes their body to look like the target, then takes a picture so other users can check their transformations accuracy.

Step 6: Remember the shock and surprise of the target waking up and seeing a mirror image of themselves so the genevek can transcribe it later. Most genevek play it off with a cutesy ‘I really like you so I must have done it in my sleep’ excuse.

Step 7: Use the target’s face and body with no alterations to seduce the next target.

The ‘streak’ ends when the genevek fails to have a consecutive night of seduction.

Because the pictures provide proof, some users have streaks reaching triple digits.

The concept of using someone’s likeness for sexual purposes is drawing controversy, with advocacy groups demanding that the forums hosting these challenges receive heavy fines.

Hunter LaGrange Comic Publishes 10,000th Issue

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08/14/838 ASU

The longest running comic book in history, The Tales And Adventures Of Hunter LaGrange, has reached the mind-boggling milestone of 10,000 issues in a single, never-ending storyline.

Beginning in the late 400s following the end of the Ardennes Flare Up, a young Aaron Lecroy wanted to a small, cheap gesture to raise the spirits of his countrymen. During his off time at a newspaper print shop, he started small, humorous, one panel comics inspired by political cartoons. The novelty was a hit and Aaron soon had 20 reoccurring comics that were printed in the back of the newspaper.

After Aaron grew more comfortable with the print machine, he started making dedicated comic books, with his first being ‘Slave Hunter’. Ardennes had a long history of animosity with firryans, but it didn’t land in the post-war period.

Quickly retooling, Aaron made Hunter LaGrange. Rather than hunting escaped slaves, Hunter LaGrange was a lawman who hunted criminals.

After 37 issues, Aaron supposedly got bored with the concept and gave the series to a proxy; an Eluid named Delaeron who published at least one issue of Hunter LeGrange a month ever since.

As an Eluid – the half breed between an elf and a relgi druid – Delaeron can theoretically live forever but is effectively unable to leave his hometown, giving him plenty of time to plan his series decades in advance.

Notable story arcs include The Bloodmoon, which was a single night in-story but was told over the course of 32 real-life years, and the Infamous Eighty, which slowly foreshadowed that 80 issues had taken place while LaGrange was in a coma, and was the progenitor of the ‘it was all a dream’ trope.

Hunter LaGrange is currently 47 years old, and Delaeron says he will continue the series until LaGrange is over 90.

Unexploded Ordinance Explodes, Halts Construction

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12/03/816 ASU

The lingering effects of the Time of Troubles are still being felt by the common citizens of the Protectorate even 20 years following its end.

This past end month, in the zatadun world Garten, a construction crew was working hard to clear out the last few districts of rubble which had been destroyed in the fighting. The city was investing a lot of money to revitalize the local economy and finally recover from the war, so a high-end hotel and casino was going to be built.

But as an excavator was loading rubble onto a dump truck, an undetonated artillery shell which had been missed during the original sweep suddenly exploded. The 30-pound ordinance blew shrapnel, rock and rebar in all directions.

Six workers were wounded by the blast, and one man, Heinrich Theil, tragically lost his life as a large piece of shrapnel pierced his chest and tore a major artery.

He was 22 years old and leaves behind his wife.

The construction company has already launched an investigation into how the artillery shell was missed, offers their sincerest apologies to Thiel’s family, and all construction in the district will pause until another sweep is made. Corporate lawyers will work with Thiel’s family so they may receive aid from the Protectorate’s Lingering Effects of War Fund. The fund was set up exactly for situations like this, to assist civilians caught in the tragedy of war.

Peldak forces blew through this city following the Reichenhorn’s illegal invasion of the neighboring Slavani Freehold, and subsequent annexation of Garten’s surface. The Reichenhorn would have proceeded to storm into the Slavani dens and destroy them had the Peldak Legions not brought the zatadun armies to heel.

This individual shell could have been fired from zatadun artillery, but the affected populace are Protectorate citizens.

Queen Olympia Addresses The Attack

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14/01/491 ASU

Hundreds of thousands of arcadians crowded the streets of the capitol early this morning, eagerly awaiting Queen Olympia’s address. Anger was thick in the air, as was the desire for retribution.

Would the cirathan boy who marked her be hung? Would they go to war with the D’Sev over this inexcusable insult? Not even the statesmen or generals knew what Queen Olympia had planned.

When she finally stepped out onto a speaking podium before the ekklesia, she did so with both of her arms uncovered, and her chin held high. The ephors who sat in the upper assembly saw that her tattoos were finished, though with the extra, messy black line running down to her elbow. Her face was confident, and she was smiling.

She stood before the crowd and waited until there was absolute silence. The plaza was built for the speaker’s voice to carry, but she needed everyone to listen.

“What you heard is true, I have been attacked, my skin irrevocably scarred. The culprit was a D’Sev, hijacking the body of an artist whose name will not be released for his or her own safety. Whether this D’Sev was acting alone or on behalf of their empire is unknown and ultimately irrelevant.” She paused for a moment as the murmurs died. Was she backing down from the empire? “Most of you are too far to see because it’s such a small thing. All that the the ‘great’ and ‘powerful’ D’Sev could do was… cause error in a tattoo. On my word as your Queen, great an exciting things will be announced soon, and our great struggle against D’Sev oppression cannot be undone by a child’s prank.”

Queen Olympia’s words are clear. This act was a provocation, but Arcadia will not be goaded into an unnecessary war.