Please be Safe - Hurricane Irma

Hello Lovelies,

I was working on the first entry to the 'Uncanny Valley' novelization piece (for helping me build the game), but I couldn't rightfully find the will to finish until I tapped this out.

Right now, my fellow Americans, literally millions of Floridians, are being pounded by one of the worst storms known to man and the worst hurricane to ever hit the United States. Millions are without power. It's getting dark. The winds are tearing apart the countryside, devastating homes, and have already killed a number of people both through direct damage and through attrition by emergency services being unable to save them.

Please. Be safe.

It's unlikely that any of the men or women being subjected to this will read this until afterwards, but I really do wish you the best that I can. The millions of people that will be without power will be experiencing a different beast all together when they are trapped in darkness with the hurricane pressing in. While I'm a fan of things that go bump in the night, when you don't know whether that bump is something that's about to tear through your home, that's a level of fear I don't want wished upon any of you.

Not only that, but Texas, Cuba, the Caribbeans, and more have already been devastated by these events. Texas by the recent Hurricane Harvey and Cuba, the Caribbeans, and many more island nations by Irma. Millions more have been rendered homeless, jobless, carless, and have been stripped of their worldly possessions after days of torture by the onslaught.

What am I asking here? What am I saying?

Please. If you're in the storm. I beg you: stay safe. If you've been hit by the storm, know that there are men and women that are here and will try to help how we can. And for those of you watching this on the news like me, I ask that you take a minute from your day and see if there's anything you can offer for these people. If you can give your time to go and help these ravished communities, that's amazing. If you can give money to help them rebuild, that's wonderful. If you can give blood to help those hurt, that's fantastic.

And again, if you're in the storm...please be safe.

I know this is far from my normal post and more of a ramble, but I've been watching this footage for going on twelve hours, not to mention the destruction in the Caribbean and Cuba, and my heart goes out.

If any of you know charities or way to help, please share. Additionally, if you intend to give blood, don't forget that blood has a shelf life and while giving at the time of crisis is wonderful, giving a month later is even more helpful.

Oh...and Hurricane Jose might be right behind it...

Please be safe everyone.

- RB

Xenophobia - Chapter 9

    The next couple dozen or so cycles passed quickly. The council met a few times regarding the human’s excursion to Mars during that time. There was always a little fervor and disagreement, particularly from the “Trifecta” as some of the counselors had started to call Cagool, Juag-e, and Jin’thun, but nothing ever got out of hand. The old judge always managed to rope them back in.

    Instead, the majority of time was spent reviewing data from the analytics team and arranging deep-space signals to keep unwary travelers out of the quarantine zone. It was monotonous sometimes but needed to be done.

    Falling right in line with Harris’s message, the human interplanetary vehicle launched at the tail end of the sixth cycle.  Six passengers were on a course for the nearest planet with the trip expecting to take something in the range of six to ten cycles.

    Reviewing the specs that the analytics team sent back proved entertaining in a way. The craft was dirty in comparison to most space craft, being little more than a series of controlled explosives that helped escape the atmosphere; but Darrian couldn’t help but admire it. The humans demonstrated a nearly suicidal determination for exploration when only twenty cycles before they seemed to have no interest in even leaving their own orbit.

    Additionally, while the council waited for the spacecraft to complete its journey, there was a scattering of other reports that trickled in. These reports were not directly related to space travel, but rather the state of the planet.

    Darrian could never decide if they made him hopeful or fearful for the future of the human species.

    The reports tended to be on both sides of the spectrum. On the one end, there were a number of wars and conflicts taking place across the planet at any given time. Violent actions were so constant amongst the inhabitants that there were a number of special categories; the two primary of which were “assault” and “murder”. Life was damaged or extinguished at a terrifyingly constant rate.

   Yet, on the other end of the spectrum, there were a large number of humans that displayed a much more civilized manner. For every war that broke out, there were humans that resisted the call of violence. Some protested while others fought to defend the innocents caught in the crossfire. Others attempted to garner legislation to their favor while still more actively rescued and healed rather than harmed.

    Most simply did not act on the baser need for violent action. Instead, they went about their time trying to better themselves and their communities using the infrastructure of support that civilization could grant.

    Darrian couldn’t help but feel respect these people.

    The more meetings he attended and the more data he reviewed, the more he started to notice a number of interesting trends.

    The first was that the number of overly violent humans was actually lower than previously thought. Only something in the range of ten to fifteen percent seemed to have a predisposal towards overt violence. These numbers were drastically lower than the initial meetings might have suggested.

    Instead, one of the major problems seemed to be that those individuals predisposed towards violence always seemed to find their way into positions of power and leadership. An otherwise placid population was forced towards violence through the will of a select few.

    Perhaps it was a side effect of the combative tendencies that these violent individuals ended up in positions of power. Or perhaps the humans’ current governmental systems simply favored an archaic need for bloodshed. No one in the council could really agree.

    “Maybe if more humans worked to correct their problems versus just standing by as atrocities happen, they could move forward as a species.” Jin’thun growled during the discussion.

    Darrian couldn’t help but agree. The more he studied the population, the more he realized that most problems were fed more by global indifference than anything else.

    Another pattern that he noticed was that a lot of the global issues seemed to have geographic correlation. Similar to how violence was perpetrated by a select percentage of humans, certain localized populations seemed more inclined than others towards violent and self-destructive tendencies. These populations were often the same ones that contributed to war conflicts and global crisis around the planet in comparison to other locations.

    There had been some arguments over it, but no one could understand how it worked. For whatever reason, specific ‘countries’ as they called themselves seemed to believe they were better than the rest of the global population. It was like they believed that they were the only ones that mattered despite the only difference being their geographic location on the planet.

    These moralistic dilemmas preoccupied most of the council meetings for more than a few cycles. It was taxing because the council had no real power to act upon a quarantined species and so most time was spent just debating with no real endpoint.  They were just arguing over atrocities.

    It made Darrian a little thankful when he found a new priority message flashing on his datapad.

    “Humans are attempting to colonize Mars.”

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(Current Untitled) - 03.29.16

http://www.wallconvert.com/search/apocalypse/

    Whether most people admit it or not, many dream about some kind of worldwide catastrophe. Whether it be zombies, some kind of massive plague, or maybe even a world war. Many people dream about having the planet wiped clean of humanity.

    Now don’t get me wrong, few would ever dream of admitting it.

    The very thought of the horror of such an event, how many lives would be wiped away in any kind of global catastrophe, is sickening. So many men, women, and children, each with their own individual hopes and dreams, likes and dislikes, gone forever. Billions lost. It turns the stomach.

    However, it’s hard not to admit that there is a certain allure. If there wasn’t, why is modern media dominated by this post-apocalyptic ideal?

    Those brave enough to admit their own desires will surely have their reasons. The environmentalist might say “Now the world can begin to heal.” The survivalist might say “Now I can live without being bothered.” Hell, we all know at least one person who wants nothing more than to just go fight the zombies that might plague this theoretical world.

    At the end of the day, no matter the reason, it all boils down to individual greed.

    The desire to see the world turned from that which it is into a barren wasteland, no matter the type, stems from a selfish desire to make the world itself yours. No rules. No boundaries. Take what you want and make your way in the world without anyone telling you what you can or can’t do. A clean slate to do what you will.

    But there’s one problem

    No one ever thinks that they will be the one to die in this apocalypse. They are the one who will see it through. They are the one that will see the world born again. They would never hope for such a disaster if they didn’t think they’d survive it.

    Would they?