A quote: “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.” ~~ Marcus Aurelius
I’ll start with a story …
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The light was dim, the sake hot. She moved through the tables to slide into the chair across from him, fresh martini in hand.
“Of all the gin joints in all …”
“This is not Casablanca.”
He smiled, noting her qipao dress, “It’s not Shanghai, either.”
She laughed, then got quiet, “think we’ll ever visit either?”
“No chance. Maybe our great grandkids. Kinda like our great grandparents never had a place like this to visit.”
Past the carvings and Chinese-inspired wallcoverings, the viewscreen displayed the night sky above, the blue marble of Earth rising above the red hills of Mars.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Scott says: We walked quickly down the dimly lit street, trying not to attract attention. We passed the new restaurant, it used to be a taco bell.. Things certainly have changed. We didn’t pay much attention when we saw reports of military age chinese males crossing the border in large numbers.. just right wing propaganda to smear papa Joe we thought… but when the power grid went down, and the attacks on strategic bases , the sky was suddenly filled with planes… the container ships at ports on both coasts showed that those containers weren’t filled with cheap electronics, but battle ready troops.. I hear there’s still resistance groups in this hills.. maybe we can join them
Cameron McCurry says: “Welcome to Dragon Family Restaurant!” the lady said cheerfully. I smiled as she guided me to my seat. I ordered a Tsingtao and an order of Mapo Tofu after she assured me it was spicy.
This is my favorite restaurant. Mind you, it has only been a Chinese place for about two months. Before that, it was a BBQ joint, Greek cuisine as well as Italian. The funny part is that no matter what region, the manager is a good cook and he makes a profit.
Huh. Next week it’s going to be an Ethiopian place. I’ll come back again.
Dupin says: He sat, sipping sake, but it wasn’t long before she showed up, sitting on the next stool.
He smiled. “You come here often?”
“All the time,” she replied, “but I don’t recognize you.”
It was the correct response.
“My first time here.”
She smiled in return, then her pistol was in his face, the gaping darkness of the barrel blocking his vision.
“Then I’ll pop your cherry. That was last week’s code.”
Everything went red.
He sighed, lining out that call and response. He still needed the information to move forward, flipped to the next possible combination and clicked Respawn.
Navig8r says: It’s a logical extension of the Turing Test. See if AIs with 3D printers can construct buildings and environments good enough that humans can’t tell them from human construction.
It’s one heck of a business model too. Set up a test range with a few human structures. Let AI developers and training teams pay to have their products tested on the range. Let LARPers pay for the privilege of being beta testers.
This one is disappointing. Oriental characters that aren’t. Furniture and other details not to scale and/or out of context. I won’t be eating the 3D printed “food” here.
How this world got the monicker of Bhodidharma, I don’t know. If the Kitties have a name for it, they haven’t been telling, which probably means it’s just a star catalog number for them. To me, it looks more like how the old sf writers used to envision Venus, before the first space probes revealed that planet to be a hell world instead of a swamp world of shallow seas and muddy land.
But this world is our home now, ever since the Usual Suspects decided the terrorist tactics that had worked with human governments would work the same for an Empire that flies between stars as easily as it were LAX and Tokyo, run by intelligent obligate carnivores. The Kitties call it “scruffing,” from the way they discipline their misbehaving kittens by grabbing them by the scruff of the neck and moving them away from their mischief. Round up everybody and transport them to frontier worlds that need settlers — and there’s plenty of those.
At least they’re not just tossing us here and leaving us to our own devices. They want this planet settled, part of their defenses in a war that was old when the Minutemen fought the Redcoats, so we’re getting decent logistical support. But it’s still a no-frills life, and not for the faint of heart.
On the other hand, somebody down the road has managed to scrounge enough supplies to turn one of the Kitties’ standard hutments into a Chinese restaurant, complete with the pagoda roof and the lanterns hanging by the doors. The Chinese characters may be random ones taken from old pictures, but I hear the food is great.
Now to figure out how to come up with the time and money to go there.
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