Charybdis / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page Charybdis.

SQUIRBO? SQUIRBO SQUIRBO SQUIRBO

drSteffie 20 Dec 2017 17:15

Oh my GOD, I'm finally done with Charybdis, codename: Squirbo in the undertow of the silently-judging sandbox.

Basically, I wanted to create a powerful weapon along the lines of Praxedes' Fist. You could say this Item is the naval equivalent of that scary spider-drone (and it's a pretty cool item, too, if a little too… political.) Big shout-out to DrCaduceus for editing help and for supplying the poisonous photoshop of an octopus with subtle cybernetics underneath its tissues.

Originally, there was going to be more of Dr. Redford's relationship with lil' Squirbs, as Sandbox-sentinels may note. But in the course of writing it I just decided to make him evil too, which in itself may be rendered totally subjective once I write up a supplement page.

Here we are. An item to break the dry spell a bit. Enjoy!

DrCaduceus 21 Dec 2017 00:03

Hot damn, this was a fantastic entry. Equal parts evil and insightful. I'm quite happy to have been a part of this. It's honestly one of the best Items this year. Have a resounding +1, Steff.

_{Like I'm going to say anything about that tiny jab about The Fist, but nah. I'm glad it served in an inspirational capacity mumble mumble SKRRT.}

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Send Message | Regeneration's a lottery.

Meta Wonderrat 21 Dec 2017 16:21

I have a few issues to raise before I vote.
These are mostly minor things, but i would like to see them fixed before I upvote it.

Report, third bullet point "inch wide"
Appendix: Excerpts of Deployment, 20th deployment predates 13th deployment
Usage, could not figure out whether the date is in a DD-MM-YY or MM-DD-YY format

I have not understood the meaning of the intercepted message, but I would not count that as an issue.

Well done.

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Fighting Monsters and Language since 2016.

drSteffie 22 Dec 2017 08:14

Addressing your concerns:

• 'Inch-wide' in this regard was simply used as a description for literary purposes. I believe it checks out.
• Each ordinal number reflected the year of deployment. So it was the 20th deployment of the year 2012, and the 13th deployment of 2015, respectively.
• If you're going to use the metric system, you should use the standard DD/MM/YYYY as well. Which I did.

Addressing your confusion with the message, cryptic messages usually hide something…

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed.

Meta Wonderrat 22 Dec 2017 13:18

I did.

And even thou i still don't get why you chose to go with "inch-wide" (maybe I am just missing something),
but with thous things addressed i can now upvote it.

As for the date format, I am using DD-MM-YY, but I was made aware of other nations might using a different standard. (this can get hairy in international projects sometimes)

The message… as i understood it, ether is the Kraken going mad over its own mortality, It somehow taking a page from "the flesh" or some researchers not noticing regenerative properties in severed appendages for over nine years (the regenerative properties of some (possibly) alien DNA that is).

+1 ether-way

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Fighting Monsters and Language since 2016.

Last edited on 22 Dec 2017 13:21 by Meta Wonderrat Show more

Mobaine 17 Sep 2018 17:49

Anomalous naval warfare. Sounds good to me. +1

(account deleted) 17 Jun 2019 15:31

squirbo be raging

+1

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You were expecting a forum signature, weren't you?

Metastability 18 Jun 2019 05:05

I got a huge nerd-out while reading Charybdis and I wanted to share something I noticed with this part:

The Martian virus, we injected when the new organs were still developing from stem cells. To our surprise, a reaction formed between them and the augmented cells, which ended up engulfing the virus and adding it to their cell structure, as a sort of new type of organelle. That was… very interesting, so we took samples and we're currently observing that in lab conditions.

I found it familiar to the Martians in "First and Last Men" by Olaf Stapledon, which is his fictional chronicle of the evolution of mankind through millions of years. In the story, the Second Men were advancing their society when they were invaded by gelatinous, green psychic aliens from Mars. They eventually defeat the invaders although the cellular remains of the Martians become an airborne virus-like organism, killing more of the already-depleted survivors.

However, when mankind advances to the nth Men (I forgot which) their ancestors discovered a way to incorporate the Martian cells and their psychic potential into their genome, making humanity as a whole more harmonious with each other because they could then share their minds. This is pretty important because mankind's future psychic ability is the reason why a member of the Eighteenth Men could "influence" Olaf Stapledon in-character to write about man's history in the 20th century.

I just feel that the Martian Microbes is so related to Stapledon's work and I'm enthused to give it a thumbs-up!