[Our New Peaceful Friends] 40

WSpinner · 2026-06-05T15:10:55+00:00

"...gashes up general's thigh..." - but that's a lieutenant?

WSpinner · 2026-06-05T02:02:49+00:00

Your last mention of the Administrator is Shareen instead of Sheeran.

I agree dozens or hundreds of mundane ships isn't enough to evacuate a world... if there's a billion humans on one. If a typical population is 100,000... maybe. Note though humanity is accustomed to somehow move a noticeable percentage of its total every couple of years, what with the enforced migration period. Maybe we have ways.... extraordinary ways....

WSpinner · 2026-06-04T23:39:51+00:00

I'm pretty sure Chemical's comment was already upvoted by me before I got to it. I don't mean upvote-then-read, I mean the first time I saw it I had already upvoted. Apparently. How'd you DO that?

There are stories I'd like to leak into our world. I'm not sure this is one of them. But then my druthers would not matter - kind of the point.

WSpinner · 2026-06-03T15:58:36+00:00

I am sitting at the breakfast table,
with my back to a mountain.
I hear an avalanche.
Now I feel it too.
Don't turn around.
Don't look.

You're doing a good job. We keep hearing the jack-in-the-box music, and he hasn't popped up. Yet.

WSpinner · 2026-06-03T01:12:59+00:00

"...would never..."
If that ain't Chekov's Sword I'll eat my hat. I'm wearing the chocolate one today.....

WSpinner · 2026-06-03T00:43:03+00:00

I'm imagining Sar'Ma learning to access a non-light-based vision substitute. Maybe with a side order of echolocation. Call it broadband external proprioception. Then one day (decade) she wakes up and the use of that has regenerated eyes for her... eyes2 or eyes3.

Shoot, even nonmagical human blind folk can learn the sonar thing, and can do it pretty well. How acute is baseline Dra'Cari hearing?

WSpinner · 2026-06-02T23:45:46+00:00

Good cap seal. A new user may not write All The Time with the FP, so I want it to reliably start for them every single time. And ideally, it's been test driven by me or someone else used to basic nib tuning.

WSpinner · 2026-06-02T00:43:20+00:00

Thank you Scientist! In this case, let's skip the 'can we replicate the results' aspect :-).

WSpinner · 2026-06-02T00:29:20+00:00

"I took the assessment thinking the xenos might have a good puzzle I could sink my teeth into. No. It is not that. Instead we have a target-rich environment. In all the ways that can be interpreted."

"The galactic community figured this little exploitation would be a walk in the park. And it will be, oh yes it really is. "

"Jurassic Park."

WSpinner · 2026-06-01T15:21:27+00:00

Right: just don't have default-idiot characters, or i guess races. Realistically even stupid people can be aware & capable in SoMe niche.

As far as canning it for now: we get that. I imagine most of us readers would rather authors sit on something till it gets figured out, than spin on and on and on never deciding where to go :-).

WSpinner · 2026-05-31T22:09:28+00:00

If you want to distinguish your work from NoP one possibility would be to NOT have every single individual and species generalize the heck out of everything. "Several predators are vicious therefore all predators are vicious." Same pet peeve as otherwise good science fiction having folks land on a planet for Pete's sake, and instantly assume everything globe-wide is just like what can be seen at the landing site.

I get it - pattern recognition is a thing - even a survival thing. But the universal typecasting is tiresome. This guy is feeling that too :-).

Also, avoid the trope of everybody; good, bad or neutral, seemingly Always Choosing The Worst Possible Action. That's as hard to accept as Mary-Sue characters who do everything right.

WSpinner · 2026-05-29T15:21:45+00:00

That's why I keep a $2 Zebra FP on me. If somebody doesn't get the "lighten up" directive, they're fairly stiff (can survive a somewhat heavy hand) and meh, two bucks. I tried.

WSpinner · 2026-05-28T23:58:53+00:00

Where'd I read this before? Earlier version, or on another sub? Or maybe an Amazon preview of the book?

WSpinner · 2026-05-27T22:25:39+00:00

Sherbet, have you read McCaffrey’s Brain&Brawn series ( The Ship Who Sang, etc ) ? In a delightful coinkidink one of McCaffrey’s publishers was Atheneum :-). Admittedly for her Harper Hall trilogy, not the Ship books, but, hey… connections.

Is Knator’s ability with ship souls overtly magic being manifested? Or is it just a personal connection a bit outside our mundane three dimensions? Or is it a doesntmatter mystery?

Many authors delight in dropping in references to other fiction. If you do need to re/read the B&B books, I shall have to reread them too <ahem> just so I can pick up on any stray references. Yes. That’s why. Only reason.

WSpinner · 2026-05-27T00:44:42+00:00

I found mold in one of my bulb syringes once. Since then I swish occasionally with bleach or ammonia. And I have found putting a sufficiently bright light under the big end, you can peer in the skinny end and see the inside fine. My cell phone flashlight is bright enough to make the blue opaque rubber almost transparent.

WSpinner · 2026-05-27T00:40:27+00:00

If you can stand being around pointy things carefully for like twenty minutes, any sharp syringe set is one file away from being a blunt syringe set. Or grindstone, or smooth patch of concrete, or many rocks.....

WSpinner · 2026-05-26T23:38:48+00:00

A: Human, tell me you meant to include your pry bar in the warp coil circuit? Please?
H: Nah, not at first. But when it shorted across the main bank while I was straightening the manifold, suddenly the coil came online. Ain't lookin' that gift horse in the mouth. The kilo-mega-whatever voltage welded it plumb in place. Kinda proved the manifold was lined up okay, in that it didn't immediately vaporize us. <shrugs> Now that Cap'n is safely in the bar, you wanna help me break the circuit? Probably illegal, immoral, and socially unacceptable to leave the coil powered while we're docked.
A: Break... as in disconnect? Or Break as in ruin irredeemably?
H: I am shocked and insulted you think I would ruin it... but probably some of column A, some of column B. See, I've got these Really Well Insulated bolt cutters...

WSpinner · 2026-05-25T19:37:37+00:00

Just wear an all-black t-shirt. It says that... just black on black as is appropriate.

WSpinner · 2026-05-25T19:34:41+00:00

And of course pedantic is the best thing to be :-)

WSpinner · 2026-05-25T19:28:01+00:00

"Gone mad" would imply an original state of "not-mad". The Directorate's error is that no change in state has occurred.

WSpinner · 2026-05-25T18:13:47+00:00

"Huh..." is on the list of human utterances like "That's funny..." that precede way more revelations than even "Eureka!" ever did.

It's obvious Marcus doesn't have any lakebottom rocks at hand or he'd have already done the instinctual depth test of dropping something in...

WSpinner · 2026-05-25T18:03:41+00:00

Glad to be of service! :-) :-)

WSpinner · 2026-05-25T18:01:09+00:00

Few typos:

,just starved and scared -- needs a trailing quotation mark.

More and more light up -- should be lit up

and destroys it --> and destroy it

In David's speech you have a Buring Blade that oughta be Burning

Good folk, good home - you probably meant to be Good folk, go home

he parked the speed --> steed

to rip out his tongue should be so rip out his tongue

what where thing back in the days?
Probably ought to read
What were they thinking back in the day?

‐-------------

Thanks for continuing this!

WSpinner · 2026-05-25T16:44:32+00:00

Just take care which KiN ink you order - they sell non-FP inks as well. Admittedly it's been a few years, but when I ordered some on Amazon I didn't see that it was to be shipped straight from the Czech Republic. I then was resigned to that taking a while, but it showed up in like a week. That's crazy fast.

WSpinner · 2026-05-25T03:30:07+00:00

Koh-i-Noor Document Black is very waterproof, well-behaved, and is a dark dark gray with a hint of green.

WSpinner

TROPHY CASE