My first impression was that Taylor is just unreasonably flaky. But the more I think about it, the more he makes sense as a character: he’s broken. His whole world has been upended, he has insane PTSD and survivor’s guilt, along with a heaping dose of honest guilt for causing the situation that gave him survivors guilt, and to top that all off he probably has some significant after effects from a TBI.
There’s no way he is a stable and reliable person at this point. It would be surprising if he acted in a consistent and reliable manner, really.
Not to mention whatever led him to being an orphaned child on an ark ship. That alone would have caused trauma. Taylor hasn't has a break for over 20yrs.
Yeah, but the last month has hit this guy harder than most humans could endure. And he is trying to get out there and prove himself in front of everyone.
And failing badly.
It’s either by accident or on purpose, but it’s well done either way.
>“We saw your sports, like baseball and whatnot, but frankly, we lumped that in with your other staged entertainment.
Oh, okay, we impressed them so much they thought it was fake! That's a pretty fun idea.
We finally have Gress's version, and Jesus fucking Christ, what a horror. It was much worse than many had imagined. And the kid that he try save at the end, god, that a so a powerful visual your invoke here. This kind of event isn't just a trauma, it completely destroys your psyche, like Gress metaphorically died as a result. It's absolutely guaranteed that he'll have to continue seeing a therapist monthly for years, if not all his life.
I like that Gress is very lucid about his poor choice of words when recounting the Esquo case, as well as his irrational reaction ween he seeing Quana. Gress is really a good guy, and I hope he and Quana make friends (but it's going to take a long time, damn it a very long time).
As for the fact that Gress took a long time to talk about all this, especially Esquo, Gress had launched a narrative but the more he befriended with Taylor, the less he could admit that this friendship was built on shaky foundations. Today, those shaky foundations have been knocked down by a exterior force and the structure is still standing, so their friendship will only be strengthened (the two of them won't end up like Marcel and Slanek, sure thing).
EDIT: It's obvious that Gress had a psychological follow-up after that, I say that this follow-up is definitely not over.
> Where the Resket truly went ballistic was with trigger discipline, and keeping weapons pointed down range.
> One Terran turned her gun toward Radai as he addressed her. In a matter of seconds, the towering pink bird twisted her wrist to disarm her, and jabbed the gun against the side of her helmet to make a point. He’d shrieked that she was doing the same thing to her squad, by pointing a loaded weapon at friendlies.
I like this bird already.
That's one of those incidences where an Earth military recruit would suddenly find themselves at attention, with a lot of UNWANTED attention from all sides....
Its really interesting to note that essentially all of the humans here *aren't* military, with none of them having any experience on an active fighting force in decades at least.
Makes you wonder how they might react to seeing career soldiers whenever the two halves end up meeting.
The Reskets don't have much combat experience either, and at least most of the humans here should be militia or security forces, so there's likely to be some basics they understand. Will definitely be interesting to see the difference between Tellus's militia and the UN's forces though. Humans were leaders in deploying new weapons against the Federation, but by the sound of it the Krev might have a technological advantage over the SC.
Chapter 28! Taylor draws Radai’s irritation by talking about the battles on Esquo with Quana during his grenade lesson, though his public embarrassment is interrupted when the Resket is wowed by human throwing abilities. The general tells Quana he doesn’t want to rehash old wounds after she comes clean about her role, and then informs them that Gress never showed to his lessons. Taylor grudgingly locates Gress to confront him, but finds him crying…and learns that he was unaware of the kids’ role, and is tormented by PTSD.
What do you think about Gress’ side of the story: whether it exonerates him, and how it has seemingly destroyed his life? Do you think that Quana will be receptive to his version of events?
As always, thank you for reading!
All I know is with friends like Taylor, who needs enemies? The man switches allegiances on a fucking dime. As far as Gress goes there was no way that story was going to be anything other than awful, but goddamn is that a fucking nightmare. No wonder he's a mess. I can understand where Quana is coming from, especially given the frame job, but honestly I could give a shit if she comes around or not. There's no way this is the only incident where the terrorists have done something awful and lied about it so she should at least be open to the idea and assuming Gress is telling the truth there should be reports and records from after what happened. Maybe nothing definitive but there should be something to back him up, even just the recording of the call showing it didn't have video. Also if it is a common practice for the terrorists to indoctrinate or 'martyr' their children then that should be well documented, and publicly known, as well. Even if there's not definitive proof if Quana is willing to believe a random video staged by terrorist compared to (what I assume) is a track record of their horrific practices and a reasonable explaination then she's just a lost cause. Unfortunately I suspect she's romanticized the Jaslips fighting back against the consortium so accepting anything else might prove difficult.
Taylor seems like the kind of guy that would do this:
I tell him "gullible is written on the ceiling"
He looks up
It's not there
He tells me that I have betrayed his trust, he leaves, never talks to me again
Then later you write "gullible" on the ceiling in lemon juice, call him back and shine a UV light upwards. He looks up, starts apologizing for having ever doubted you and starts getting all emotional while swearing everlasting friendship.
When one group are “your people” and the other group is “the enemy”, a lot of people will not accept any evidence that their group has done anything wrong. It happens all the time on Earth, why would aliens be any different?
Don’t forget, he is also now dealing with some significant PTSD, survivor guilt, actual guilt, and quite possibly the aftermath of a TBI.
If he was stable, I would be shocked.
I think Quana will either accept his apology and his view, or there will be some sort of conflict next chapter between them. I also don’t particularly like how he just brushed over the billion dead on the Jaslip homeworld.
IF, the story Gress told is accurate, he has been framed into pariahdom, and Quana should definitely be told about the situation, to see if martyr executions like that fit the tactics.
Except the Branch Davidians weren't a suicide cult. They moved their women and kids to a secure bunker to keep them safe, and the Feds decided to collapse the entryway and set it on fire. Your version gets a lot of traction, but it's not what happened.
The report of the incident lists several things...
1) The CS gas canisters used had finished nearly a full hour before the fires had started. This means that the theory of the "hot gas canister" is bogus.
2) independent investigation by U.Maryland concluded that the residents had sufficient time to escape the fire if they had chosen to do so.
3) At least 20 Davidians were shot, as well as 5 children. Experts have concluded that the majority of these wounds "support self-destruction either by overt suicide, consensual execution, or less likely, forced execution. In other words, they killed themselves.
4) The fires caused the roof of the compound to collapse.
Now, understand that I am a believer in "occam's razor." Also, understand that I am willing to grant that the government has a vested interest in concealing information to hide their own screwups.
Having said that, the facts of the case indicate that at least some of the Branch Davidians did infact commit suicide.
Even if we ignore all that evidence, though, the best you could say was that this was "suicide by cop." Through his actions, David Koresh locked himself on a collision with the government that would only end in violence, and once the gunfire started there was only one possible conclusion.
I'd be interested in seeing your sources for the above information. Most of mine came from Wendigoon's breakdown of the event: https://youtu.be/xZwFxWb0y7w?si=SAxIKdDeDIFvx4Md and most of his sources are in the video.
That said, the government had plenty of time to take Koresh in without involving anyone else, as he routinely went on runs through the area, and it would have been easy to do him then, but they insisted on the worst possible way to do it. He wasn't someone that stayed on the property exclusively, and they knew that.
The government DID have plenty of time, but through incompetence they fucked it up.
In particular, the biggest screwup was that the ATF was giving the story to a newspaper that decided to publish the story before the raid took place, there by tipping off the Davidians.
Another screwup on the part of the government was that they had bad intel, which stated that DK rarely left the compound. This was bad intel, no question about it.
Then, on the day of the raid, a KWTX-TV reporter asked a postman for directions so he could be onsite to film the raid. That postman happened to be DK's brother-in-law
As to sources, the Wiki article on the Waco Siege has over 178 citations as well as a fully flushed out bibliography. Many of these sources are not kind to the government.
If you want to criticise me for using the wiki article for the broad talking points, I don't really care. I watched it happen live on TV, in a time when you could actually kinda sort of trust the news.
He's pretty rash, it would help him to think things through more thoroughly. But he's got trauma including a potential brain injury, so I sorta get some of his actions.
To be fair, he is somewhat broken. Emotionally and mentally from the whole hiding underground, causing the accident, everything changes, new friendly allies, guilt stuff, severe PTSD and xenophobia for years. Basically, I think he is just mentally unstable and damaged so it makes sense if he is not consistent.
I believe the military is just his way of coping and I don't think it is a good idea that he is in a military position after everything.
Don’t forget Traumatic Brain Injury and somethig happened to make him an orphan in an ark ship and being the front face of the entire human race to an alien species. :)
Kid's an emotional trainwreck who keeps getting new traumas dumped on him before he even starts working through the old ones. Unsurprisingly that, and the accompanying head trauma, has made him very emotionally unstable.
In rl you typically only ever learn how to do things the easy way after you have learned how to do it the hard way.
I have a feeling that when these fancy-schmancy helmets and other various tech they're giving their soldiers inevitably fails it's going to be a big problem for the ones with faulty equipment.
In an earlier chapter, Gress put a *lot* of emphasis on Taylor not being Hostile towards Lecca. It could've just been Taylor's history, but this adds even more context.
What fun!
Gress might be a coward for not mentioning some of the shit that happened and trying to conver up the number of Jaslips killed, but I don't think he's a bad person...
Taylor, meanwhile, is... Rash. He needs to think things through a lot more than he does. Maybe he needs some therapy himself as well.
Good thing Cherise is occasionally calling him out at least.
The consortium has a lot of problems it seems, no matter what the leadership says, I just hope they don't attack the coalition thinking they are the federation, OR WORSE, attack them at the Bissem world believing they are saving them from the federation!!!!!
I can also see the Consortium, either before or instead of such an attack against the SC, waging war against every former Federation species not actively allied with humanity (and probably the Krakotl to boot). The Bissems (and possibly the Arxur) would probably join them, and there would be plenty of human support for the idea, especially with the human colonists being part of the Consortium war effort.
Either way, it would be a complete clusterfuck with a very real possibility of causing the SC to entirely fall apart.
I am also fearing for that to happen, it would definetly be possible at least, and due to there still being federation sympathisers and stuff this could mean another galaxy spanning conflict,
That’ll be something.
“We’re here to liberate the galaxy from the Federation!”
“You too? Back of the line.”
Though there’s probably a good chance that you’re right and the Coalition captain is going to be a former Fed species.
Remember, the most effective weapon against the Krakotl fleet was throwing rocks, the biggest non-planetary rocks in the solar system at relativistic speeds.
I've seen some calculations from a physicist who showed how deadly a one-pound can of soup is against a US battle-cruiser. Results was: a can of soup can be devastating.
At some speeds, the can breaks on the hull.
At higher speeds, both can and hull breaks.
At even higher speeds, the can produces a hole through the ship.
At sufficient speeds, parts of the ship falls into the can as it passes through. At those speeds, you haven't just launched a can of soup ... you've used a can of soup to create a black hole.
That is fucked up. You can't really expect Gress to choose the Jaslip children over the politicians because he did not expect the parents to be so *committed* to the cause. The Consortium is starting to look more like a surveillance state rather than a willing collective. While the Jaslips are starting to look like radical terrorists rather than freedom fighters. Hey, we can do something better than the Reskets, that's pretty neat.
One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.
Also, it's entirely possible- likely, even- that the Jaslip resistance movement is made up of multiple factions ranging from legitimate freedom fighters to radical 'the ends justify the means' types to sociopathic terrorists who just want to kill Krev and Reskets.
It's just about guaranteed. While they see eye to eye on the notion of Jaslip freedom and autonomy, you will see ones that want to achieve it through nonviolent means and ones who view killing every Krev in eyesight as a perfectly legitimate means to that end. And obviously there will be some who just stick with them for the violence, not for the goal.
FIRST
Pd: Gress's past is brutal, I don't have much to say, I want to continue seeing what other impressions they will have of us, will resket be surprised that even though we are half their size we can match them over long distances? Or will it surprise you that despite our clumsy anatomy we are good swimmers? Someone give me ideas of what else we could see, from the human colonists and first impressions IDEAS AND THEORIES NOW, I can already smell the disaster coming.
Our stamina at a comfortable jog, provided nutrition and hydration, is essentially infinite.
We can handle polar cold and equatorial hot climates with a mere change of clothes, no problem.
We can learn to echolocate, although that usually comes from our blind people, and even among them that is a rare af ability.
We can handle our own lean bodyweight in fat weight for built-in energy reserves, even if it comes with its own set of problems.
Our circadian rythm despite leaning towards daytime awakeness can be overridden with relatively little issues.
Natural adrenaline production.
The largest dongs you'll ever see in primates, will try to stick it in everything that moves and in some things that don't move too.
Can domesticate anything we put our minds into.
Paraphrasing someone who replied to me in the beginning few chapters of NoP 2:
"_Even if the Bissems are like Terran penguins, nothing can outhorni humans._"
You forgot another huge one: Scar tissue. Once you get past starfish and other simpler life forms we are by far the best healers of anything on the planet. Almost nothing else out there can survive the level of injury we can, let alone recover from it.
Humans are pretty terrible at swimming compared to pretty much everything adapted to swimming. For something that was never supposed to swim, though, we do pretty well.
If this is what I was referring to, we swim naturally but for some reason it's like we forget when we grow up and have to learn, I know more people than I would like who don't know how to swim at all.
Babies do "swim" naturally, but it's a preprogrammed response and not really swimming anyway. Basically, since drowning as a baby is bad for your evolutionary fitness, human ancestors ended up with Automatic Baby Floating installed so that their parents and group members had a chance to rescue them, as opposed to immediate drowning. Once you get older, there's no incentive to keep that around, because apes don't go swimming all that often. So having Child Floating installed gives no significant advantage, and is thus discarded.
Taylor is the new Marcel!
But instead of being tortued for just few weeks, his torture is currently 20 years and counting!
Also he lived life at 1% for those 20 years. Safe to say he dosen't have much life experience nor wisdom, he's effectively a naive 30ish years old child with a lot of mental truma.
I might be misinterpreting the description, but it sounds like the video only showed the kids + guns (not necessarily the captors); he hears gunshots without seeing them get shot; he only describes finding the dead children -- what are the chances this is a political plot to cast the Jaslips in a bad light/sow discord? (i.e., echoes of the federation/betterment - easier control in times of conflict/unrest, like the crazy brain scanners) If there were no Jaslip mercenaries, the kids could have been killed by a Resket and Gress is just the fall guy. The 5 hostages weren't necessarily all in on it, but at least one or several could have been.
To what end? That would be an own goal by the consortium. On the other hand killing your own civilians and framing the other guys for it is something that terrorists do constantly in the real world.
>Where the Resket truly went ballistic was with trigger discipline, and keeping weapons pointed down range.
Completely reasonable. Muzzle discipline is life. *"Do not point your weapon at anything you are not willing to destroy."*
Hunh. I know that one *as* the 4th rule.
"The firearm is always loaded. Keep your booger hook off the bang switch until you mean the boom. Never point the firearm at anything you are unwilling to utterly destroy. You are responsible for every bullet that leaves your firearm, there is no *oops* or *I didn't mean to* or do-overs, know the ultimate destination of every round, which includes your target and anything behind it in range of your weapon."
Number two there is intentionally crude and humorous to make it stick in the mind. :D
What's your list? I'm always willing to learn, and a fanatic about firearm safety.
Two of them are essentially the same thing.
"Treat every weapon as if it were loaded."
"Never point your weapon at anything you don't intend to shoot."
"Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to fire."
"Keep your weapon on safe until you intend to fire."
Then, know your target and what lies beyond it as an extra.
I've never seen your fourth listed anywhere. In every country I've been to it's always: Treat every gun as if it were loaded, always know your target and what's around/beyond it, keep your finger off the trigger until you want to shoot, and never point at anything you don't want to destroy.
Quite a lot of guns don't have mechanical safeties even in the modern day, and the further back you go the less common those were.
Interesting because my marine friends still taught the other version. Maybe because they were dealing with civilians and a lot of handguns these days don't have manual safeties.
Ah, fair enough. I think in that regard, I would have "*You* are the safety" as my unspoken fifth. Mechanical safeties are not to be relied on, which is *why* "the firearm is always loaded" and you should "keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire", and "never point the firearm at anything you are unwilling to destroy".
I think this scene from Hazbin Hotel has advice that they/Taylor needs. Especially if Quana is also trying to get over something. [https://youtu.be/1pi2\_MMc7VM?si=SuhFsdTWNN5hzCg3](https://youtu.be/1pi2_MMc7VM?si=SuhFsdTWNN5hzCg3)
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Jeebus, Taylor is such an asshole.
I'm half way through this chapter, I'm going to finish and decide if I want to keep reading.
I've been reading since the beginning, I still like the story, but Taylor's POV is like nails on a chalkboard.
EDIT: Fine. Let's see if he fucking learns from it this time.
Naw, weed.
And he is an asshole. He does asshole things constantly, and we can see into his head and he clearly doesn't feel bad about any of it until there's consequences for it. He makes no real effort to learn or be better, even as he acknowledges he's aware of the problem.
And the narrative keeps letting him get away with it.
Okay, I know people with all of those issues and more, most of them still aren't assholes. Some of them are assholes sometimes, but generally they make an effort not to be, apologize when they are, etc. You might notice the other survivors in the story who also have PTSD and trauma are not going around being assholes to everyone the way Taylor does.
If you don't think he's an asshole because he has trauma, that's your opinion. I don't get it, but it's valid.
I think he is an asshole, and I don't like him. I don't enjoy spending time in his head - not because of the trauma, but because he's selfish and an asshole.
He is annoying but is also a very real character IMO. The stack of trauma and trust issues he’s got going on not to mention the real physical damage is extensive. The brain scanner confirmed that he has a TBI. He’s a psychologists wet dream who’s lived nearly his entire life steeped in xenophobia and is now learning to navigate aliens.
Orphan, TBI, survivors guilt, guilt at causing the needless deaths of lifelong friends, PTSD, trust issues, last of his species, xenophobia, he’s a hot mess.
Yeah, no, it's understandable *why* he's an unlikable asshole.
That doesn't mean I want to read a story from his perspective as he repeatedly justifies being an asshole and blames everyone but himself for everything.
I know too many people like him in RL, I have to work at not being an asshole myself. I know how hard it can be to not be a fucking dick sometimes. Tyler barely is capable of acknowledging that he's doing anything wrong.
Based.
I was looking forward to this chapter in hopes we’d have some throwing action and SP15 delivered but not a fan of his viewpoint either.
Seriously? Tyler was the best diplomat you could muster???
That's probably the most annoying part. Despite all of his very real problems, his hatred for aliens, his lack of self control, his temper, and on top of that a TBI, HE is the one sent on the most important diplomatic mission possibly ever?
He should be back on the colony in a psychiatrists office getting treatment, and someone with the self control not to yell and punch people any time someone says something they don't like should be meeting with the alien diplomats.
Every person who signed off on Tyler's assignment should be fired immediately for gross incompetence.
> He should be back on the colony in a psychiatrists office getting treatment, and someone with the self control not to yell and punch people any time someone says something they don't like should be meeting with the alien diplomats.
> Every person who signed off on Tyler's assignment should be fired immediately for gross incompetence.
That's assuming *they even have* a psychiatrist, much less someone able to replace all the people you just suggested firing, which they probably don't. Based on the description, aside from manual labor (mining/farming/etc) they're running with the absolute bare minimum to survive, a position they were forced into by the Krev trying to kick them off the rock by making extreme resource demands.
Remember, Arkship 3 only carried a "few thousand people" when it left earth. Taken literally, 3,000 people *barely* counts as a "Town", it's basically a village. I live in a town of 14,000, and here your best bet for finding a psychiatrist is an hour long drive to "The City". There are other towns around here in the 2000-3000 pop range (some don't even show up on the map), and they will drive 45 minutes to an hour, just to come out here so they can go to "The McDonalds" on sunday after church. Just... think about that for a second; 14k people makes a town so small, that every single business could fit in 2 city blocks with room to spare, and we have the only McDonalds in a *significant* radius.
If Tyler wants any form of competent psych eval and treatment, he's probably going to have to rely on an alien doctor for at least a few more years yet while the humans who no longer need to dedicate their lives to mining rocks for alien overlords train up some of those skills that a society can only focus on when they've moved past the stage of; "What do I need for my immediate day-to-day survival". With the number of people they got, and the conditions they've been living under, every day would be constant crisis management, and mental health would be a luxury none of them would have the time to worry about.
Did your writing style change? I feel like some sentences could have a little bit of an easier flow if you replaced certain groups of words with singular ones, or vice versa. It helps escape that robotic feel. Besides that I am really looking to where you take this.
My first impression was that Taylor is just unreasonably flaky. But the more I think about it, the more he makes sense as a character: he’s broken. His whole world has been upended, he has insane PTSD and survivor’s guilt, along with a heaping dose of honest guilt for causing the situation that gave him survivors guilt, and to top that all off he probably has some significant after effects from a TBI. There’s no way he is a stable and reliable person at this point. It would be surprising if he acted in a consistent and reliable manner, really.
Therapy for Taylor?
Nature of Therapy, Pt. 2
Not to mention whatever led him to being an orphaned child on an ark ship. That alone would have caused trauma. Taylor hasn't has a break for over 20yrs.
Yeah, but the last month has hit this guy harder than most humans could endure. And he is trying to get out there and prove himself in front of everyone. And failing badly. It’s either by accident or on purpose, but it’s well done either way.
I have suffered this whiplash before. It sucks.
And then they put him in the frickin military.
>“We saw your sports, like baseball and whatnot, but frankly, we lumped that in with your other staged entertainment. Oh, okay, we impressed them so much they thought it was fake! That's a pretty fun idea. We finally have Gress's version, and Jesus fucking Christ, what a horror. It was much worse than many had imagined. And the kid that he try save at the end, god, that a so a powerful visual your invoke here. This kind of event isn't just a trauma, it completely destroys your psyche, like Gress metaphorically died as a result. It's absolutely guaranteed that he'll have to continue seeing a therapist monthly for years, if not all his life. I like that Gress is very lucid about his poor choice of words when recounting the Esquo case, as well as his irrational reaction ween he seeing Quana. Gress is really a good guy, and I hope he and Quana make friends (but it's going to take a long time, damn it a very long time). As for the fact that Gress took a long time to talk about all this, especially Esquo, Gress had launched a narrative but the more he befriended with Taylor, the less he could admit that this friendship was built on shaky foundations. Today, those shaky foundations have been knocked down by a exterior force and the structure is still standing, so their friendship will only be strengthened (the two of them won't end up like Marcel and Slanek, sure thing). EDIT: It's obvious that Gress had a psychological follow-up after that, I say that this follow-up is definitely not over.
Gress fucked up big time on accident. Then he got a divorce. :(
> Where the Resket truly went ballistic was with trigger discipline, and keeping weapons pointed down range. > One Terran turned her gun toward Radai as he addressed her. In a matter of seconds, the towering pink bird twisted her wrist to disarm her, and jabbed the gun against the side of her helmet to make a point. He’d shrieked that she was doing the same thing to her squad, by pointing a loaded weapon at friendlies. I like this bird already.
That's one of those incidences where an Earth military recruit would suddenly find themselves at attention, with a lot of UNWANTED attention from all sides....
Quite true. One private flagged our LT… Drill sergeant speared him…
Its really interesting to note that essentially all of the humans here *aren't* military, with none of them having any experience on an active fighting force in decades at least. Makes you wonder how they might react to seeing career soldiers whenever the two halves end up meeting.
The Reskets don't have much combat experience either, and at least most of the humans here should be militia or security forces, so there's likely to be some basics they understand. Will definitely be interesting to see the difference between Tellus's militia and the UN's forces though. Humans were leaders in deploying new weapons against the Federation, but by the sound of it the Krev might have a technological advantage over the SC.
This is *EXACTLY* why you don't take brand new recruits to the range without any training first.
Chapter 28! Taylor draws Radai’s irritation by talking about the battles on Esquo with Quana during his grenade lesson, though his public embarrassment is interrupted when the Resket is wowed by human throwing abilities. The general tells Quana he doesn’t want to rehash old wounds after she comes clean about her role, and then informs them that Gress never showed to his lessons. Taylor grudgingly locates Gress to confront him, but finds him crying…and learns that he was unaware of the kids’ role, and is tormented by PTSD. What do you think about Gress’ side of the story: whether it exonerates him, and how it has seemingly destroyed his life? Do you think that Quana will be receptive to his version of events? As always, thank you for reading!
All I know is with friends like Taylor, who needs enemies? The man switches allegiances on a fucking dime. As far as Gress goes there was no way that story was going to be anything other than awful, but goddamn is that a fucking nightmare. No wonder he's a mess. I can understand where Quana is coming from, especially given the frame job, but honestly I could give a shit if she comes around or not. There's no way this is the only incident where the terrorists have done something awful and lied about it so she should at least be open to the idea and assuming Gress is telling the truth there should be reports and records from after what happened. Maybe nothing definitive but there should be something to back him up, even just the recording of the call showing it didn't have video. Also if it is a common practice for the terrorists to indoctrinate or 'martyr' their children then that should be well documented, and publicly known, as well. Even if there's not definitive proof if Quana is willing to believe a random video staged by terrorist compared to (what I assume) is a track record of their horrific practices and a reasonable explaination then she's just a lost cause. Unfortunately I suspect she's romanticized the Jaslips fighting back against the consortium so accepting anything else might prove difficult.
Taylor seems like the kind of guy that would do this: I tell him "gullible is written on the ceiling" He looks up It's not there He tells me that I have betrayed his trust, he leaves, never talks to me again
Then later you write "gullible" on the ceiling in lemon juice, call him back and shine a UV light upwards. He looks up, starts apologizing for having ever doubted you and starts getting all emotional while swearing everlasting friendship.
he totally would do that, wouldn't he?
Got a chuckle out of me.
... and you'd be better for it.
It’s a shame he left Earth, because I have some lovely oceanfront property in Arizona that I could sell him cheap!
When one group are “your people” and the other group is “the enemy”, a lot of people will not accept any evidence that their group has done anything wrong. It happens all the time on Earth, why would aliens be any different?
He's severely traumatized,but he was already rash and foolish.
Don’t forget, he is also now dealing with some significant PTSD, survivor guilt, actual guilt, and quite possibly the aftermath of a TBI. If he was stable, I would be shocked.
I think Quana will either accept his apology and his view, or there will be some sort of conflict next chapter between them. I also don’t particularly like how he just brushed over the billion dead on the Jaslip homeworld.
You mean that Quana won't be like Trevor, and that you can either be her friend, or her enemy, and those two polar opposites are the only reality?
I don’t mean that necessarily, but I think the next interaction between the two of them will be awkward.
IF, the story Gress told is accurate, he has been framed into pariahdom, and Quana should definitely be told about the situation, to see if martyr executions like that fit the tactics.
It's actually a lot like Waco, Texas, and the David Koresh cult.
Except the Branch Davidians weren't a suicide cult. They moved their women and kids to a secure bunker to keep them safe, and the Feds decided to collapse the entryway and set it on fire. Your version gets a lot of traction, but it's not what happened.
The report of the incident lists several things... 1) The CS gas canisters used had finished nearly a full hour before the fires had started. This means that the theory of the "hot gas canister" is bogus. 2) independent investigation by U.Maryland concluded that the residents had sufficient time to escape the fire if they had chosen to do so. 3) At least 20 Davidians were shot, as well as 5 children. Experts have concluded that the majority of these wounds "support self-destruction either by overt suicide, consensual execution, or less likely, forced execution. In other words, they killed themselves. 4) The fires caused the roof of the compound to collapse. Now, understand that I am a believer in "occam's razor." Also, understand that I am willing to grant that the government has a vested interest in concealing information to hide their own screwups. Having said that, the facts of the case indicate that at least some of the Branch Davidians did infact commit suicide. Even if we ignore all that evidence, though, the best you could say was that this was "suicide by cop." Through his actions, David Koresh locked himself on a collision with the government that would only end in violence, and once the gunfire started there was only one possible conclusion.
I'd be interested in seeing your sources for the above information. Most of mine came from Wendigoon's breakdown of the event: https://youtu.be/xZwFxWb0y7w?si=SAxIKdDeDIFvx4Md and most of his sources are in the video. That said, the government had plenty of time to take Koresh in without involving anyone else, as he routinely went on runs through the area, and it would have been easy to do him then, but they insisted on the worst possible way to do it. He wasn't someone that stayed on the property exclusively, and they knew that.
The government DID have plenty of time, but through incompetence they fucked it up. In particular, the biggest screwup was that the ATF was giving the story to a newspaper that decided to publish the story before the raid took place, there by tipping off the Davidians. Another screwup on the part of the government was that they had bad intel, which stated that DK rarely left the compound. This was bad intel, no question about it. Then, on the day of the raid, a KWTX-TV reporter asked a postman for directions so he could be onsite to film the raid. That postman happened to be DK's brother-in-law As to sources, the Wiki article on the Waco Siege has over 178 citations as well as a fully flushed out bibliography. Many of these sources are not kind to the government. If you want to criticise me for using the wiki article for the broad talking points, I don't really care. I watched it happen live on TV, in a time when you could actually kinda sort of trust the news.
I wish taylor wouldn't have been so quick to kick him to the curb. Oh and everyone in this universe needs therapy!
He's pretty rash, it would help him to think things through more thoroughly. But he's got trauma including a potential brain injury, so I sorta get some of his actions.
Heavy read, Without some proof I don't see Quana believing the story.
I do gotta say, I feel like Taylor is a bit easy to sway from one side to another. He swayed immediately to Quana, then immediately back to Gress.
He’s got some emotional stability issues for sure.
To be fair, he is somewhat broken. Emotionally and mentally from the whole hiding underground, causing the accident, everything changes, new friendly allies, guilt stuff, severe PTSD and xenophobia for years. Basically, I think he is just mentally unstable and damaged so it makes sense if he is not consistent. I believe the military is just his way of coping and I don't think it is a good idea that he is in a military position after everything.
Don’t forget Traumatic Brain Injury and somethig happened to make him an orphan in an ark ship and being the front face of the entire human race to an alien species. :)
The incredible human ping pong ball
Kid's an emotional trainwreck who keeps getting new traumas dumped on him before he even starts working through the old ones. Unsurprisingly that, and the accompanying head trauma, has made him very emotionally unstable.
He's probably Italian.
It's a good thing Gress is not blaming himself (too much) for Kabir's death, I don't think he can take much more.
In rl you typically only ever learn how to do things the easy way after you have learned how to do it the hard way. I have a feeling that when these fancy-schmancy helmets and other various tech they're giving their soldiers inevitably fails it's going to be a big problem for the ones with faulty equipment.
Yeah, if they can't shoot without the helmets, one good EMP will knock out their entire offense. Certainly something to keep in mind.
In an earlier chapter, Gress put a *lot* of emphasis on Taylor not being Hostile towards Lecca. It could've just been Taylor's history, but this adds even more context. What fun!
Gress might be a coward for not mentioning some of the shit that happened and trying to conver up the number of Jaslips killed, but I don't think he's a bad person... Taylor, meanwhile, is... Rash. He needs to think things through a lot more than he does. Maybe he needs some therapy himself as well. Good thing Cherise is occasionally calling him out at least.
The consortium has a lot of problems it seems, no matter what the leadership says, I just hope they don't attack the coalition thinking they are the federation, OR WORSE, attack them at the Bissem world believing they are saving them from the federation!!!!!
I can also see the Consortium, either before or instead of such an attack against the SC, waging war against every former Federation species not actively allied with humanity (and probably the Krakotl to boot). The Bissems (and possibly the Arxur) would probably join them, and there would be plenty of human support for the idea, especially with the human colonists being part of the Consortium war effort. Either way, it would be a complete clusterfuck with a very real possibility of causing the SC to entirely fall apart.
The Krakotl are actively allied with humanity
Not all they have split in 2, a group of feds and a group that is actively siding with the humans.
Problem is, that’s probably where the two different perspectives intertwine. It’ll be one of those two things.
I am also fearing for that to happen, it would definetly be possible at least, and due to there still being federation sympathisers and stuff this could mean another galaxy spanning conflict,
That’ll be something. “We’re here to liberate the galaxy from the Federation!” “You too? Back of the line.” Though there’s probably a good chance that you’re right and the Coalition captain is going to be a former Fed species.
APE THROW ROCK! APES TOGETHER STRONG!
Remember, the most effective weapon against the Krakotl fleet was throwing rocks, the biggest non-planetary rocks in the solar system at relativistic speeds.
Remember that Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space. Sometimes it just takes a larger rock.
And as the saying goes: anything is a weapon if you throw it with enough force (and speed)
I've seen some calculations from a physicist who showed how deadly a one-pound can of soup is against a US battle-cruiser. Results was: a can of soup can be devastating. At some speeds, the can breaks on the hull. At higher speeds, both can and hull breaks. At even higher speeds, the can produces a hole through the ship. At sufficient speeds, parts of the ship falls into the can as it passes through. At those speeds, you haven't just launched a can of soup ... you've used a can of soup to create a black hole.
lol
Reminder they have real time memory scanning. These people can just be fact checked.
That is fucked up. You can't really expect Gress to choose the Jaslip children over the politicians because he did not expect the parents to be so *committed* to the cause. The Consortium is starting to look more like a surveillance state rather than a willing collective. While the Jaslips are starting to look like radical terrorists rather than freedom fighters. Hey, we can do something better than the Reskets, that's pretty neat.
One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Also, it's entirely possible- likely, even- that the Jaslip resistance movement is made up of multiple factions ranging from legitimate freedom fighters to radical 'the ends justify the means' types to sociopathic terrorists who just want to kill Krev and Reskets.
It's just about guaranteed. While they see eye to eye on the notion of Jaslip freedom and autonomy, you will see ones that want to achieve it through nonviolent means and ones who view killing every Krev in eyesight as a perfectly legitimate means to that end. And obviously there will be some who just stick with them for the violence, not for the goal.
Like with literally everything, the truth is always more complicated and nuanced than it may appear as presented by any one side.
FIRST Pd: Gress's past is brutal, I don't have much to say, I want to continue seeing what other impressions they will have of us, will resket be surprised that even though we are half their size we can match them over long distances? Or will it surprise you that despite our clumsy anatomy we are good swimmers? Someone give me ideas of what else we could see, from the human colonists and first impressions IDEAS AND THEORIES NOW, I can already smell the disaster coming.
Our stamina at a comfortable jog, provided nutrition and hydration, is essentially infinite. We can handle polar cold and equatorial hot climates with a mere change of clothes, no problem. We can learn to echolocate, although that usually comes from our blind people, and even among them that is a rare af ability. We can handle our own lean bodyweight in fat weight for built-in energy reserves, even if it comes with its own set of problems. Our circadian rythm despite leaning towards daytime awakeness can be overridden with relatively little issues. Natural adrenaline production. The largest dongs you'll ever see in primates, will try to stick it in everything that moves and in some things that don't move too. Can domesticate anything we put our minds into.
.... Why did you feel the need to put that second to last one!?
This is Nature of Predators. That is part of a predator's nature.
NOT THAT TYPE OF PREDATOR
Love is a battlefield, honey.
The penultimate fact is curious lmao
Paraphrasing someone who replied to me in the beginning few chapters of NoP 2: "_Even if the Bissems are like Terran penguins, nothing can outhorni humans._"
Our bodies will literally adapt to an aquatic environment to provide more grip in the water.
Synergy with my second to last point too 👌
You forgot another huge one: Scar tissue. Once you get past starfish and other simpler life forms we are by far the best healers of anything on the planet. Almost nothing else out there can survive the level of injury we can, let alone recover from it.
Humans are pretty terrible at swimming compared to pretty much everything adapted to swimming. For something that was never supposed to swim, though, we do pretty well.
If this is what I was referring to, we swim naturally but for some reason it's like we forget when we grow up and have to learn, I know more people than I would like who don't know how to swim at all.
Babies do "swim" naturally, but it's a preprogrammed response and not really swimming anyway. Basically, since drowning as a baby is bad for your evolutionary fitness, human ancestors ended up with Automatic Baby Floating installed so that their parents and group members had a chance to rescue them, as opposed to immediate drowning. Once you get older, there's no incentive to keep that around, because apes don't go swimming all that often. So having Child Floating installed gives no significant advantage, and is thus discarded.
Someone, make a pokemon joke about TM/HM's here for me. I am much too tired to think of how it should go.
second!
MMMM PINECONE LORE DUMPING!
Taylor is an irritating prick!
Taylor is the new Marcel! But instead of being tortued for just few weeks, his torture is currently 20 years and counting! Also he lived life at 1% for those 20 years. Safe to say he dosen't have much life experience nor wisdom, he's effectively a naive 30ish years old child with a lot of mental truma.
You're being too kind to Taylor. Marcel was a functioning adult. Taylor is bipolar at best.
I might be misinterpreting the description, but it sounds like the video only showed the kids + guns (not necessarily the captors); he hears gunshots without seeing them get shot; he only describes finding the dead children -- what are the chances this is a political plot to cast the Jaslips in a bad light/sow discord? (i.e., echoes of the federation/betterment - easier control in times of conflict/unrest, like the crazy brain scanners) If there were no Jaslip mercenaries, the kids could have been killed by a Resket and Gress is just the fall guy. The 5 hostages weren't necessarily all in on it, but at least one or several could have been.
Problem is that this only caused more division, making controle harder.
To what end? That would be an own goal by the consortium. On the other hand killing your own civilians and framing the other guys for it is something that terrorists do constantly in the real world.
>Where the Resket truly went ballistic was with trigger discipline, and keeping weapons pointed down range. Completely reasonable. Muzzle discipline is life. *"Do not point your weapon at anything you are not willing to destroy."*
Shoot, Never, Keep, Keep... and the 5th unspoken rule. Know your target and what lies beyond it.
Hunh. I know that one *as* the 4th rule. "The firearm is always loaded. Keep your booger hook off the bang switch until you mean the boom. Never point the firearm at anything you are unwilling to utterly destroy. You are responsible for every bullet that leaves your firearm, there is no *oops* or *I didn't mean to* or do-overs, know the ultimate destination of every round, which includes your target and anything behind it in range of your weapon." Number two there is intentionally crude and humorous to make it stick in the mind. :D What's your list? I'm always willing to learn, and a fanatic about firearm safety.
Two of them are essentially the same thing. "Treat every weapon as if it were loaded." "Never point your weapon at anything you don't intend to shoot." "Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to fire." "Keep your weapon on safe until you intend to fire." Then, know your target and what lies beyond it as an extra.
I've never seen your fourth listed anywhere. In every country I've been to it's always: Treat every gun as if it were loaded, always know your target and what's around/beyond it, keep your finger off the trigger until you want to shoot, and never point at anything you don't want to destroy. Quite a lot of guns don't have mechanical safeties even in the modern day, and the further back you go the less common those were.
Check the USMC gun safety. It's there last I checked. :D
Interesting because my marine friends still taught the other version. Maybe because they were dealing with civilians and a lot of handguns these days don't have manual safeties.
Ah, fair enough. I think in that regard, I would have "*You* are the safety" as my unspoken fifth. Mechanical safeties are not to be relied on, which is *why* "the firearm is always loaded" and you should "keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire", and "never point the firearm at anything you are unwilling to destroy".
That's one hell of a bring-your-child-to-work day.
Aprature science social experament
I think this scene from Hazbin Hotel has advice that they/Taylor needs. Especially if Quana is also trying to get over something. [https://youtu.be/1pi2\_MMc7VM?si=SuhFsdTWNN5hzCg3](https://youtu.be/1pi2_MMc7VM?si=SuhFsdTWNN5hzCg3)
Waco, Texas David Koresh and the Branch Davidians cult.
I don't trust Quana one bit. She has absolutely drank the kool-aid. I'm immediately calling it.
She? I thought Quana was a guy.
"I won't cut her off, but you don't have to interact with her." Near the end of the post.
Thanks you.
Same
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oof.
Shit... I thought he offed himself.
Taylor is such a dumbass prick, I love him.
When someone practices poor muzzle discipline I love to see an RSO go off on them.
Jeebus, Taylor is such an asshole. I'm half way through this chapter, I'm going to finish and decide if I want to keep reading. I've been reading since the beginning, I still like the story, but Taylor's POV is like nails on a chalkboard. EDIT: Fine. Let's see if he fucking learns from it this time.
You’re smoking crack if you think he’s a asshole lol
Naw, weed. And he is an asshole. He does asshole things constantly, and we can see into his head and he clearly doesn't feel bad about any of it until there's consequences for it. He makes no real effort to learn or be better, even as he acknowledges he's aware of the problem. And the narrative keeps letting him get away with it.
Would’ve told gress to kick rocks if he was an asshole. You seem to be conflating someone being an asshole with someone who is an asshole.
Asshole is as asshole does. Feeling bad about it doesn't excuse it. Don't want to be an asshole? Stop being an asshole.
“Bro just magical overcome your trauma, ptsd and tbi lmao”
Okay, I know people with all of those issues and more, most of them still aren't assholes. Some of them are assholes sometimes, but generally they make an effort not to be, apologize when they are, etc. You might notice the other survivors in the story who also have PTSD and trauma are not going around being assholes to everyone the way Taylor does. If you don't think he's an asshole because he has trauma, that's your opinion. I don't get it, but it's valid. I think he is an asshole, and I don't like him. I don't enjoy spending time in his head - not because of the trauma, but because he's selfish and an asshole.
Bruh he literally apologizes to multiple people in this chapter alone
He is annoying but is also a very real character IMO. The stack of trauma and trust issues he’s got going on not to mention the real physical damage is extensive. The brain scanner confirmed that he has a TBI. He’s a psychologists wet dream who’s lived nearly his entire life steeped in xenophobia and is now learning to navigate aliens. Orphan, TBI, survivors guilt, guilt at causing the needless deaths of lifelong friends, PTSD, trust issues, last of his species, xenophobia, he’s a hot mess.
Yeah, no, it's understandable *why* he's an unlikable asshole. That doesn't mean I want to read a story from his perspective as he repeatedly justifies being an asshole and blames everyone but himself for everything. I know too many people like him in RL, I have to work at not being an asshole myself. I know how hard it can be to not be a fucking dick sometimes. Tyler barely is capable of acknowledging that he's doing anything wrong.
Based. I was looking forward to this chapter in hopes we’d have some throwing action and SP15 delivered but not a fan of his viewpoint either. Seriously? Tyler was the best diplomat you could muster???
That's probably the most annoying part. Despite all of his very real problems, his hatred for aliens, his lack of self control, his temper, and on top of that a TBI, HE is the one sent on the most important diplomatic mission possibly ever? He should be back on the colony in a psychiatrists office getting treatment, and someone with the self control not to yell and punch people any time someone says something they don't like should be meeting with the alien diplomats. Every person who signed off on Tyler's assignment should be fired immediately for gross incompetence.
> He should be back on the colony in a psychiatrists office getting treatment, and someone with the self control not to yell and punch people any time someone says something they don't like should be meeting with the alien diplomats. > Every person who signed off on Tyler's assignment should be fired immediately for gross incompetence. That's assuming *they even have* a psychiatrist, much less someone able to replace all the people you just suggested firing, which they probably don't. Based on the description, aside from manual labor (mining/farming/etc) they're running with the absolute bare minimum to survive, a position they were forced into by the Krev trying to kick them off the rock by making extreme resource demands. Remember, Arkship 3 only carried a "few thousand people" when it left earth. Taken literally, 3,000 people *barely* counts as a "Town", it's basically a village. I live in a town of 14,000, and here your best bet for finding a psychiatrist is an hour long drive to "The City". There are other towns around here in the 2000-3000 pop range (some don't even show up on the map), and they will drive 45 minutes to an hour, just to come out here so they can go to "The McDonalds" on sunday after church. Just... think about that for a second; 14k people makes a town so small, that every single business could fit in 2 city blocks with room to spare, and we have the only McDonalds in a *significant* radius. If Tyler wants any form of competent psych eval and treatment, he's probably going to have to rely on an alien doctor for at least a few more years yet while the humans who no longer need to dedicate their lives to mining rocks for alien overlords train up some of those skills that a society can only focus on when they've moved past the stage of; "What do I need for my immediate day-to-day survival". With the number of people they got, and the conditions they've been living under, every day would be constant crisis management, and mental health would be a luxury none of them would have the time to worry about.
Did your writing style change? I feel like some sentences could have a little bit of an easier flow if you replaced certain groups of words with singular ones, or vice versa. It helps escape that robotic feel. Besides that I am really looking to where you take this.
Aww, Gress and Taylor reunion! Yayyy!
Ugh... Trench has the emotional maturity of a 9-year-old girl...
I think Tayler may have residual brain damage from the accident. That man is wildly unstable.