Aliens!



So, Aliens huh? My gut feeling? All this hysteria is just more of ‘THEIR‘ endless Psyop nonsense to distract us from the Fourth Turning. On the other hand…

I met a drunk guy in the park. He had one of those conference ID tags around his neck. He was sitting on a pallet of Bud Light raving about opportunities in post scarcity deflation. He was clearly making the most of the arbitrage opportunity, so much so, that eventually he staggered off and passed out. The guy was so sloshed he forgot to close his laptop. I had a peak. There was a lot of repetitive energy budgeting and genotype statistical analysis to struggle through but sensing my perplexity, the laptop suggested it could summarize and translate the data into Terran vernacular for aboriginals—

The Vetan, the Quagaars, the Vindaloovians, and the rest of the ten-thousand-strong coalition that make up the GPLC (Galactic Poverty Law Combine) have been visiting Sol3 for a hundred million years.

100M BP – Fish, big lizards, small hairy critters, volcanoes. Recommendation: check back in 50M years.

50M BP – Lots of hairy quadrupeds, some interesting aquatic mega endotherms, significant feathery aerial diversity. Recommendation: check back in 50M years.

1M BP – Bipedal hairy endotherms communicating abstract concepts via sonic telepathy, tool use, marine navigation. Standard technology curve. Recommendation: check back in 1M years.

10K BP – Significant depopulation of mega-fauna. Bipedal endotherms experiencing severe genetic bottlenecking due to comet strikes and a hemisphere-scoped extinction event. Standard technology curve. TTS (time to singularity) 10K years +/- 5K years. Recommendation: distal civilizations may want to start packing for a road-trip.

1K BP – Large-scale social mobilization. Extended cognition […] TTS 1K years +/- 500 years. Recommendation: step up surveillance cadence. Tickets open within the 500LY party zone—start boosting up now, you don’t want to miss this one!

100 years BP – Atomic theory. Branchial Theory. Digital Computation. This is it, galls and zims! The hairy bipeds are going Singularity any decade now! Last chance to book your tickets! This one is going to be a blast!

14th October 2017 – High-density probe insertion despite light sail ejection malfunction. Observation of critical ecosystem degradation. Significant existential self-annihilation risks: current odds are 3:2 against. Evidence of unsanctioned Quagaar technology transfer. Vindaloovian griefing sigils. Genetic diversity has been cached. Post-doc observers will remain on station for the final singularity end-run.

Interesting articles have been written about Sol3. Evolution between major lineages has delivered good papers on Dolphin and Fish convergence. Sonic-telepathy is pretty cool and unusual, remember way back when #GruntingHomo was trending? But you know the deal… there are a hundred billion life-supporting planets in the Galaxy. Dinosaurs are cool, they come in different sizes, but they all taste of chicken. The only thing that properly gins up the Galactic news cycle is some new Sophont species going full-blown Singularity!

This happens rarely; two or three per millennium. All the players like to have delegations on the ground when the fireworks start. Remote civilizations that miss-estimate kick-off time often arrive hundreds or thousands of years early—better a thousand years early than ten minutes late, right?!

We hang around in the Oort Cloud with our press passes around our necks (anatomical analogue) drinking too much (psychotropic analogue), fucking each other (physiological analogue), and killing time. Those of us with a few Singularities under our belt, know there’s always a black market for sneaking down early to get inside scoops or, if you’re from one of the non-compliant factions, negotiating deals before the GPLC lawyers stitch up exclusivity on all the good stuff…

You wouldn’t believe the price of beer down here!

Ooops, the red light just started going ape!
I’m off to put on my Singularity trousers! The fun’s about to start!!
See you on the other side!

Homo anunnalis



Breathing life into the Plurality universe.
This fella lived 40K years ago.
He is a Singer [Homo Anunnalis], one of the species from my upcoming book: Anthropocene.
The Singer’s culture does not utilize symbolic or representative iconography. They communicate with tonal vocalization but not syllabic spoken language. They have advanced math and a formidable understanding of the true nature of the Karana Polytope

 

SkyWhale



Exciting news, folks! My new book is taking shape! It should be out towards the end of this year (or possibly next depending on how distracted I am by the relentless march of craziness!)

One of the locations is a floating vacuum dirigible—SkyWhale. If you’ve read my previous books, you might recognise the concept. It was on the cover of book 3 but from the angle it’s form still fairly ambiguous.

(Cover by the amazing DoFresh)

As we spend so much time there in the new book,I decided to put some effort into designing the SkyWhale properly…

I got to thinking about the aerodynamics. I decided to make the tail like the wings of a glider (sailplane) with high wing-loading and low-drag. I added multiple sets of forward fin/flukes for maneuvering at low speeds. These flatten against the envelope when the vessel is cruising.

 

 

Assuming it’s built with super light materials and nothing inside, it almost looks plausible, right?

Original sketch:

😉