( video | un: jaguar )

[scarcastically]

Y'know, going up in space, visiting other worlds is supposed to blow your damn mind. The idea's that you're exposed to stuff so unreal, so beyond believin' that it's alien to you.

So why exactly are we celebratin' Christmas in space? Feels kinda weird, to be honest. But I guess capitalism and commercialism is a universal concept.

Still, though. Kinda gets me thinkin'. How do you celebrate your holidays where you're from? Don't tell me about Christmas though. We all know about Christmas.

Comments

[ocelthot]

People getting all pushy about 'the spirit of the holiday' and how I need to participate because I'm one of the few obviously not part of a non-christian religion or because I obviously need to make up for lost time for having not celebrated in the past.

I'll feign interest for one person who still believes in Santa, but otherwise it's just a list of social obligations and networking like any other 'holiday.'

[scarcastically]

Sounds rough, man. I'm new here so I doubt I'd run into that problem.

[ocelthot]

Here I can just tell them to fuck off, though here is very much it's own set of problems.

[scarcastically]

Why?

What's your beef?

[ocelthot]

Have a number of projects back home. Nearly 30 years of work that was getting close to completion.

Throw in very little use for my skill set and frequent bouts of trouble that few can actually do anything about, and it becomes fairly frustrating.

[scarcastically]

[ hmm. erik throws in an educated guess. ]

Military projects?

[ocelthot]

Pseudo-military or military-adjacent might be a better way of putting it.

[scarcastically]

[ unsponsored or mercenary. black market ops. seems unlikely this is a ghost unit from russia but it's possible. ]

I guess civilian life would be rough.

[ocelthot]

Civilian life is pure bullshit.

However I'm far better equipped for it than most people I know. [Or more accurately: have known, since he kind of killed them off.]

[scarcastically]

[ way to go, ocelot. ]

Is that a good yardstick?

[ocelthot]

[It's obviously their fault for trusting him after explicitly hiring him as a double reverse quadruple agent.]

Certainly beats the hell out of being dead, in prison, or committed.

[scarcastically]

Guessing the good is subjective.

[ocelthot]

I don't believe one hundred percent psychologically sound individuals stay in combat roles for fifty years.

[Though of course this is just aiming at playing into a 'wounded' veteran angle, nothing in a war zone was going to fuck up a man like him more than he was to begin with.]

[scarcastically]

Sound individuals don't join the army to begin with.

[ocelthot]

At least in America.

Pretty sure Russia still does some mandatory military service for the teenage boys who aren't doing higher education.

[He's only not entirely sure of the details as he hasn't needed to deal directly with Russia for a long while. Only the occasional ambitious old contacts who've also left the service and aren't keeping entirely to up to date on the conscription practices.]

[scarcastically]

[ that doesn't sound accurate. at least not anymore. ]

Think it's everywhere. Military service doesn't help with sanity.

[ocelthot]

God knows PMCs wouldn't have something like 80% of their recruits otherwise.

[scarcastically]

The system feeds and preys on people. We all know it.

[ocelthot]

It's true.

On my world though, there's been rumblings of programs that will make it a thousand times worse.

[scarcastically]

What kind of programs?

[ocelthot]

Video games as recruitment, VR training, emotion control, PTSD suppression, complete privatisation of the armed forces, automatic data feeds to replace experience... it goes on.

[scarcastically]

Not a terrible idea.

[ after all, his reputation was so good, he "racked up kills like in a video game." ]

[ocelthot]

It certainly works.

And it's all just a stepping stones for world wide digital mind control.

[scarcastically]

The what now?

[ocelthot]

Originally there was a focus on controlling information to lead people to specific beliefs. With the advent of the internet that became difficult.

An AI was developed for the purpose of controlling the information flow of the internet, with that AI gone, they had to rethink.

Now nanomachines have been capable of censoring words and blocking psychics for a while and have been standard for special forces, politicians, and anyone handling sensitive military information for years.

With the development of emotion and sense control, the idea is to get the nanomachines into everyone. This will likely start with all military and military adjacent personnel, and driving as many people into military service as possible.

With enough saturation, getting the same nanomachines into the general population becomes less of a leap.

Then imagine what could be done with the control of every sight, sound and feeling had by every person in the world.