Post-Contact Hilarity

General
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Yay! I get post 100!

“Help, I’m Stuck In A Bad Isekei Story With My Imperial Friend!” Coming Out For A Simulpub Release Next Year

Tokyo-Overlap Bunko, Stellar Publication Management, and BookWalker have announced a simultaneous publication release of a new manga series, 助けて、私は私の帝国の友人との悪い異世界小説にはまっています！(English translation-Help, I"m Stuck In A Bad Isekei Story With My Imperial Friend!) in Japanese, Imperial, and English.

Written and drawn by Tatsuya Endo (Spy x Family, Gekka Bijin) the story involves Kauko and an Imperial exchange student “Akane” (which is a Japanese translation of her original name), who receive a mysterious book that throws them into a land of swords and sorcery. With the two of them wanting nothing more than to go home as quickly as possible, the Gods of their new world conspire to make them comform to the destiny planned for them.

But, trying to force Akane and Kauko to play by anyone’s unjust rules is just an invitation for them to enforce their own consistence and ethics…

Publishing begins in full slmulpub format on March 11, PC+8, and a six-issue tankōbon edition will be released on June 1st with a special issue 6.5 manga done by Aka Akasaka.

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Cue angry nerds retorting that Akane should have just crashed the book using a Janiastre device and the writers that ignore this are committing a crime worse that Tolkien’s eagles

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“Hi! Today on Forgotten Weapons, we get a chance to play with the IL-15i Battlesystem battle carbine and wow this is a nice gun…”

“…love the main gun magazine, combines the power supply and ammo in a single clip, so you don’t have to figure out which you have to pull when things go pear-shaped…”

“…and, yea, that slug gun kicks like a mule! But, you got all sorts of neat ammo for it, including a few we’re not supposed to talk about…”

“…you do have to be careful when swapping the mags in any kind of water or wet environment. That’s why you wear gloves, because when God doesn’t like you, the ‘minor’ short is going to make your arms hurt…”

“…optics are nice, but you can tell that you’re supposed to have 'plant hardware to run this gun. If you don’t, the ways to handle adjustments is just mean and not very well handled. But, then again, you’ve got space elves that have no problem with trying to figure out how to handle sixteen different things all at the same time…”

“…arguments are going around about what the US Armed Forces are going to accept, and I can understand why they would like the IL-15i and I hope they do…”

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Having passed the local “ornamental bongs and detox” store while driving home last night, I note that the manufacturers of sequesterines are going to be laughing all the way to the bank.

Since I can’t remember if I mentioned them before: sequesterines are nanotech-enabled carcerands that scavenge all of a given set of compounds - say, a drug and its metabolites - out of the body and package them for convenient disposal by the liver. Variants available for various hedonics are available cheap, because apart from the convenience as part of a hangover cure, everyone likes to have an emergency sober-up shot handy in case of, well, emergencies.

On the one hand, the weeping of those manufacturing and using random drug test kits will be hilarious, inasmuch as they’re now utterly worthless in detecting anyone who isn’t obviously high right now, and you don’t need test kits for that.

On the other hand, so will the clutching-their-skullness of those who didn’t read the fine print before deciding to use them as routine instant sober-ups, because the experience of having your brain go from comfortably numb to stone-cold sober in a matter of moments is, shall we say, shocking. Kind of like being tossed into the Arctic Ocean in a bikini, 'cept it doesn’t kill you.

(Having a couple of drinks and then using them to make sure you can drive home, sure, that’s just like a cold shower. Going from blotto to notto in one step, though: ouch.)

On the gripping hand, while they can scrub a drug out of your system with dispatch, they don’t do anything about any underlying addiction you might have. (You need a different product for that.) Thus, on the definitely-not-hilarious side of things, it’s easy to imagine someone - say, someone in the various US legislatures - inventing the “rehab program” that consists entirely of keeping someone dosed up on sequesterine, possibly with a drug factory implant, and letting the coldest of cold turkeys take its course as not even megadoses of their favorite nose candy will get them high any more.

This, a pharmaceutical executive wearily comments, is why we can’t export nice things.

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What’s going to be really interesting is when there’s a comprehensive Alpha genome specification for humans and if part of the requirements for pleading “not guilty by reason of mental defect or disease” is the full upgrade package and psychosurgery.

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Knowing some people, that brain-hurt experience might be part of the joy of getting sufficiently drunk enough. There’s some odd creativity at the edge of intoxication for humans and while there are probably safer options post-contact to pull it off…it is traditional.

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Loved the review, but put some notes on canon down in the link for those as might be looking for ‘em.

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Two thoughts about this.

  1. How well do those sequesterines work for drug traces in hair? That tends to be where we do a lot of our long-term drug-use testing, but dead keratin is hard to get at biologically. On the other hand, it’s not the most common form of testing because it’s slower and more expensive, and tends to be reserved more common in things like “as part of this agreement you are not allowed to use these illicit drugs, which you have proven incapable of using responsibly, and we are holding you to that”. Imperials may think this is a reasonable enough contractual agreement, even if it’s very much not how they’d handle it.

(And then someone can make a mint with better ways to handle it.)

  1. Having worked in a testing lab (so both the industry that does a lot a random drug tests, and one of the industries where employees take random drug tests), they will not be weeping. They will be rejoicing. Or at least many of them will. There are already grumbles and sometimes outright laments about the current state of marijuana testing, where you will test positive for several days after getting stoned; industry does not care if you take mind altering substances on the weekend as long as you are never under their influence at work. Being under the influence at work gets multiple people killed and that’s why more employers (and most employees) are so strong on drug testing. A quick and reliable way to ensure people are stone-cold sober while on duty sounds so much easier than having to do random tests to filter out the hazardous idiots.
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Microsoft To Release Cumulative Update For All Services To Meet Extranet Standards

Redmond, Washingon, United States, Terra, Sol System-A new cumulative update patch for all Windows-based OS systems from XP to Windows 11 is being released in coordination with Bright Shadow ICC and Thinking Brains ICC. This new cumulative patch will cover all security and data handling requirements for extranet operations and meeting the newest ANSI networking and NSA security specifications for Category III and above secure network systems.

“Microsoft, working with Thinking Brains ICC, has done a comprehensive end-to-end code base revision and analysis,” Jeff Tepier, Senior VP at Microsoft announced at a press conference. “In addition to meeting all extranet connection requirements, we anticipate that any Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8 will be have their End-Of-Support dates revised to January 1st, PC+20, and Windows 10, 11, and 12 systems will have their End-of-Support dates revised to January 1st, PC+40.”

This comprehensive patch will include full extranet networking support and will ensure that XP legacy systems will match NSA Category III security requirements. Vista, 7, and 8 will meet or exceed NSA Category IV security requirements, and all later operating systems will meet or exceed Category V security requirements. It should be noted that the NSA Category III specification is equal to the Imperial Extranet Spec 2 minimum requirement for network connectivity, with additional requirements for data security retention under the Information Protection and Security Act (IPSA), passed in PC+6.

Release of this comprehensive patch to the public is anticipated to happen in the next sixty days. Reports from beta testers indicate both higher platform stability and at least a 8-11% increase in system performance. New driver protocols have been released to third party hardware manufacturers and updated driver software is estimated to be released in the next ninety days for both updated and legacy systems.

Apple, working with Bright Star ICC and Specialist Processing ICC, is working on revisions to the MacOS and iOS platforms to meet extranet and NSA Category III requirements by the end of the year, along with Google/Alphabet and their newest version of the Android OS.

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Oh, my. Replaced all the routers (“what do you mean, 512-bit addresses?”) already, have we?

Although the real fun won’t come until people figure out that while you aren’t strictly speaking compelled to implement ISOP - that’s Interweave Security Operations Protocol - since the Accord on Mail and Communications doesn’t require it, there are more than a few places that will cheerily drop all packets not stamped with both user and device certificates traceable back to a reputable certificate authority, so if you want your packets to actually go anywhere…

(The architects of the IIP protocol suite were not impressed with the notion of anonymity.)

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On a completely random note, the JMSDF buys some AI ship upgrades.

Shortly after delivery, a quiet but fierce inquiry commences as to just who thought it was a good idea to show the fleet the Kantai Collection anime, poi?

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It’s running as a virtual machine system for routing at this time, and if you want that NSA Category III certification all the way up and down the line, you’ve got to get that 512-bit address setup and either have a “we’re got nice new routers that can handle 512-bit addressing” or “we’re running an emulation package that lets us handle things until the new routers are no longer on back order” It’s why Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet/Google, and a whole lot of network switching companies are trying to get ahead of that curve and avoid having Imperial competitors with their ISOP-ready machines getting too much market share.

(That, and the joker in the deck of the IPSA in the US (and it’s British and Japanese and French and Canadian equivalents) is that you can deny and invalidate certificates on the basis of actual criminal acts, but not because you don’t like them. With some nasty kickers if you play the game of “well isn’t not criminal, but…,” with a punch to the face with spiked brass knuckles after the but.

(And, yes, that loud screaming sound of far too many Chinese manufacturing companies and Russian botnet server owners and Nigerian 419 scammers that realize that the laws are going to hit them right where it hurts. Along with a lot of intelligence agencies. But for some reason, GCHQ and Fort Mead is full of people that are smiling far too much…)

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Bear in mind that the people who own the backbone and the reputable certificate authorities have their own rules and are brutal in enforcement of same, as you may recall from Integrity | The Associated Worlds (eldraeverse.com).

The improved security would be nice, but the lovely gents at Fort Meade and the Doughnut, I ween, are unlikely to be pleased that the extranet by design comes with free end-to-end quality encryption and a position on key escrow that amounts to “hahahaha no, and if you try it yourselves we’ll invalidate the CA certificates for your entire civilization”.

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  1. Not a whole lot, actually. I mean, they’ll scrub it out of the hair follicles just as much as they will anything else, but once it’s been incorporated into the dead hair, it’s no longer a part of the wet biosystem they deal with.

So, yeah, mostly a countermeasure to the traditional “piss in this cup” form of drug tests.

  1. This, I suspect, may be a difference between AU and US/UK, 'cause believe me, we have plenty of people in these parts with sticks up their butts who really, really want to punish people for their weekend/holiday/etc. habits. (Which is the part that makes the weeping hilarious, you see.)
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“They think they’re secure. And they are. But, that means they’re going to talk with each other more, and if we can’t track that…”

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I suspect it may also be a difference between the upper admins in their city offices vs the team leaders and lab managers who are at the pointy end. The latter, in my experience, tend to be much more pragmatic and more prone to “whatever keeps production up” (which favours keeping good employees who like to party hard off-duty) and/or “whatever keeps the workplace safe” (which favours employees being willing to discuss drugs and medication with you instead of hiding it).

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Baltimore Police Department Either Must Honor Pensions In Full Or Permit Rejuvenated Officers The Ability To Return To Work

Baltimore, Maryland, United States, Terra, Sol System-In a 5-2 decision, the Maryland Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in the case of Munch v. City Of Baltimore, on the status of officers that have been invalidated due to age issues in their current biological body. With this ruling, the City of Baltimore must either rehire officers that are willing to resleeve or have physical rebuilding done, or pay their pension rates as of the contract rate after retirement for time served.

“This is a spectacular victory for LEO who need enhanced medical care after the rigors of the job require such extraordinary care,” Eric Clarke, legal representation for the plaintiff said in a post-ruling press conference. “Many police departments are trying to get out of their contractual obligations in a similar manner, claiming that by resleeving the officer is now ‘dead,’ or that by having physical rebuilding they no longer qualify as ‘medically retired.’ We were willing to deal with this by having Detective Munch resume his position as a homicide investigator, but the City of Baltimore instead asked for legal mediation.”

In a separate, 4-3 ruling, the court did rule that only the prime, Alpha fork of any law enforcement officer can qualify for a pension, outside of a number of “niche” categories.

It is unknown at this time if the City of Baltimore will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

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Here’s another fun question:

Who gets the starport?

(Well, the major starport, anyway. Obviously various military and corporate and national forces will want their own, but who’s going to get the first/big one that gets highlighted in all the astrogation handbooks.)

Considerations include:

  • Somewhere reasonably equatorial would be nice, for reasons of orbital dynamics. A minor consideration, but not a nonexistent one, and one that determines a lot of the running costs for your interface infrastructure which add up over time. Let’s just say Norway would not be a great choice.
  • Proximity to other transport nexi, because you’re going to have a lot of stuff moving through there eventually, and not having to build a whole bunch of infrastructure on good notice is a plan.
  • How scared are the locals of big ships with nuclear drives? Or the other appurtenances of typical starports, like giant gunspires for cargo-handling mass drivers and catchers for freight raining down from the sky. A local mountain may be convenient to save having to build one, if the terrain is not too hinky in general.
    • Also sonic booms, other traffic noise, everything else that a big-ass airport might cause…
  • How willing are you to apply extrality, as a principle? The Accord on Trade and lengthy custom sets certain expectations that crewers aren’t going to have to worry about being busted for violating assorted weird-ass local laws and that intermediate ports aren’t going to make a fuss about cargo in transit just because it happens to be illegal locally. You don’t have to implement this, but not doing so will put a serious crimp in your trade volume.
  • On a not unrelated note, hosting a big starport also means hosting startown. Be nice.
  • Do you want to pay for it? For that matter, how do you want to pay for it?

    • You can do everything yourself. This requires a lot of engineers, a lot of learning how to build IOSS-compatible hardware, and a great deal of time and effort in mastering every tiny little detail of port operations up front and requires a fuckhuge capital investment. Also a big technical investment, because putting the highport up there will take rather more than a few Starship launches.

    • You can pay the Imperial Starport Authority to build and run a starport for you. A service they offer in the interest of promoting interstellar trade and amity, belike.

      • Pros: This can be up and running almost immediately because they have a whole lot of prefabs for situations just like this one, is much cheaper, and makes all the operational and technical issues Not Your Problem. Also, when it comes to the above extrality issue, people trust ISA a lot more than they do random local governments.

      • Cons: they will want full extraterritoriality, and while (if it’s above the minimum) the lease payments come out of the port fees, the port fees are going to them, not to you. (To be fair, you’d probably have to spend them all on operational costs anyway.) If you want to take it over at some point, you have to buy it out, and that certainly won’t be cheap. Also, ISA will have veto power over the location, and will pick the offer they accept based on their preferred criteria.

Or skip setting up a proper starport and just go with a landing beacon and a basalt slab in some wasteland near a river and a couple of dudes in a shack running basic flight control and handing out “Welcome to Earth” buttons? Some worlds get away with that, although they only expect a few scraggly tramp traders to ever turn up there. But hey, sometimes, that’s all you need.

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To start, some of these requirements are in tension, at least for hominids. I point out that frequently, “locals don’t mind nuclear rocket plumes and other gigantic noisy infrastructure” doesn’t mesh well with “transport nexi already in place” and “easygoing about extraterritoriality”. Well-developed, wealthy spots are going to be nervous about newfangled boomenstoff too close — not irrational fears of radioactivity, mind you, just the sensible awareness of what misdirected kinetic energy is capable of. Wastelands, conversely, don’t usually get massive transport infrastructure investment for obvious reasons.

Other considerations are local to Terra — local cultural considerations, relative development near the equator, and so on. Given our 70% water surface, the cheapness and historical dependence of seaborne transport, and the international character of the high seas, Spaceport Terra-Prime really ought to be at a seaport.

Some locations have already been well speculated in prior work — Ecuador, the East African coast, Sri Lanka. However, I would nominate the Straits of Malacca. It’s already one of the busiest transit corridors on the planet, with a long tradition of catering to many cultures. Singapore is right there as an organizer of the business side; Malaysia and Indonesia have the mountains and empty room for the messy side of things.

And most important from the groundside short-range perspective: it’s a mid-developed zone by pre-Contact standards — neither in a clear sphere of influence for a dirt side neighbor, nor in an underpowered locale that couldn’t defend itself — or be tempted to elevate local status with foolish ideas about restricting access to the starport.

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My current speculation is that there are two current big towerdowns for orbital elevators. One is in Equador, which exists in an odd sort of mixed extraterritoriality between Equador and the United States and the ISA (short version, Equador gets a decent amount of the revenue coming in, the US makes sure nobody decides to annex Equador and has basing facilities along with space access, and ISA gets their fair share and helps in upkeep). The second one is in Kenya, which is between the Kenya government and the ISA (the ISA makes sure of security via Imperial mercenaries). The PRC is trying to build one in the Himalayas, but…China (i.e. corruption isn’t so much endemic as baked into the system).