MUCHA NOTHING…
“A man ain’t much without his tomorrow. But he’s absolutely nothing without his yesterdays.”
Sole Patterson, The Lettered Men
Tag Archives: Future
THE RAINS OF THE SATRAPS OF PERSIA – FIRST VERSE
THE RAINS TO COME
This morning I awoke to a veritable deluge. After feeding the animals I sat down and watched the heavy rains fall. Something became triggered in my mind. About modern people, about the past, about how nothing is ever really learned, and still the Rains fall as they have ever fallen. And so do people, and nations… The storms always come and yet so few ever are prepared.
I just started it and then my wife interrupted me so I had to leave off. So it is unfinished, of course, but then again, what isn’t…?
THE RAINS OF THE SATRAPS OF PERSIA
This storm is like the rains of the satraps of Persia
Grey and harsh, heavy and burdensome, slavish and cold
Unrelenting does it fall across the broad expanse
Of a slumbering world blind and dumb in its naïveté –
Of unnumbered peoples in distant and yet unconquered lands
Eternally preoccupied in their basic self-absorption
Yet still the rains of the satraps of Persia drop countless
Flooding tokens of their weight, their true intent lost among
The Forgetful Minds of Men distracted by the unmarked cenotaphs
Of daily Life, though they have seen no sun in many years…
_______________________________________
other lines I’ve yet to work in:
No clear moon in decades now
The Reign of the Satraps of Persia
Time forgets nothing, though men forget everything
Except to remember what befalls when they don’t…
LET FALL THE HARM – FIRST VERSE
LET FALL THE HARM
Let fall the harm that must now come
so men in future ages weep
not for a doom that is their own,
but for us, now long asleep,
Far better that we ever take
upon ourselves our own mistakes
than send them forth all morrow-wise
to future men for their demise,
For we had Fate and Fortune still
before our hearts grew hard and chill,
we could have tempered all our wrongs,
had we had courage all along,
but always we sidestepped ourselves,
for comfort’s sake and little else,
thus so the world is as it is,
this falls to us, not future men,
Let come the harm that now is ripe
some future age we should not slight,
with all our sins and cowardice
for unlike us they’re innocent,
They have not built these walls of woe
nor murdered children they have sown,
they have not sold their souls to debt
they may not butchery abet,
they have not terror nurtured long
they have not reckless leaders grown,
they’ve yet to quake in abject fear
their evils have not yet appeared…
(another poem of mine on modern men and our society and how I pray that we not push our evils upon future generations. Yet I know we will because our cowardice is great and had we any courage we’d be at these things ourselves.
This came to me yesterday as I cut grass. I had to stop cutting to go inside and write it. It is unfinished as of yet.)
THE TWO WORLDS
If I had my druthers I would rather live in two different worlds from the world and time and place I now live. I love my home and my estate and my family and friends and my pets, and would readily keep all of those, but the age in which I live – I am not all that impressed by the contemporary and supposedly modern age of man. Nor am I much impressed by “modern man” in general. Though, to give him his credit, he has done some amazing things – in some respects at least.
If I had my way though I’d live in two very different other worlds, or perhaps even in both.
The First World would be an immensely primitive world (compared to today) which is largely unexplored and uninhabited. I would travel everywhere by foot, horse, or wooden sailing ship. I would live in the wild frontier. I would build my own shelters everywhere I went, and small cabins anywhere I wanted to locate for a while. I would explore forests, and open plains, and mountains, and oceans and seas. Perhaps even a few deserts.
I would carry a simple and well-made sword, a spear, a bow, and a long-knife everywhere I went. Perhaps a hatchet as well. I would have forged or made these weapons myself, with great and careful craft. They would be sharp, strong, and reliable. Otherwise my possessions would be what I could carry and my clothing would be hard and durable and made for tough use and wear. I would design and build and construct things using my own two hands. Everything I made would be unique. Including the flute I made to play music and write songs as I went.
I would grow or gather my own food, drink from clear streams, fish high rivers, and swim in fresh lakes. I would go everywhere with my dog who, just like my current dog, would be a huge mastiff and a wonderful companion. Animals would be my friends and we would understand one another. I would be at peace with everything that lived. I would sketch what I saw, write what I experienced, but only for myself, or perhaps as a record for someone to eventually find and make use of. I would spend time every day with God, observing what he showed me, and I would wander the wide world uninhabited and unrestricted by anything or anyone. My money would be my own breath and blood.
I would explore both night and day, taking as much pleasure in roaming some mountain in the moonlight as I did crawling over ancient ruins at noon. Occasionally I would run across other men and women like myself, explorers and frontiersmen, people who lived in the wild. Because I would speak and write multiple languages it would be easy to communicate with them, and trade with them. We would spend a few days or maybe weeks in each others company, becoming lifelong friends. We would not have to see each other often, or speak much in the presence of the other. We would just know and understand. We would however drink, and laugh, and do crazily dangerous and enjoyable things as we wandered for a time the world together.
I would live my life deep in the frontiers; far from man, and the ways of man. When I did finally feel the desire to return to civilization I would visit some great city, like ancient Alexandria, reading in the Library, researching the Museum and conversing with the inventors and scientists and craftsmen, examining the great Wonders, like the lighthouse, and burning deep into my memory all I saw and did. And when I had once again had enough of that I would return to the forest and the fields and the lands that had no road and no well-worn path and I would disappear again.
When I finally married and had children I would be a grizzled old man, and yet I would on occasion still wander when I desired to and I would be very tough and very wise by then. And if my children wanted to explore and roam with me then I would take them from time to time, showing them how to survive and live off the land and love nature and the solitude.
That would be a happy world, a world of blood and bone and strength, a world that would satisfy my body and my soul.
The Second “World” would be immensely advanced, scientifically and technologically. I would explore countless other worlds through time and space. I would have a craft, one that I had designed and built for myself that could easily and rapidly traverse any distance or any time, and probably many different dimensions. My craft would be able to construct and create anything I needed whenever and wherever I went, including my shelter, food, and drink.
My clothing and body would be filled with immensely powerful apparatus, highly miniaturized, even down to the atomic level, which would give me immense sensory capabilities and physical and mental enhancements. I would have already long ago genetically modified myself, through recombination, to further enhance my own capabilities and I would turn those capabilities to exploration, invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
I would have a Suit; one I had designed myself, which would be an astronomical advance over my current Aisthpleis Suit. It would be my clothing, my protection, my extra-sensing device, my computer, my communications array, and an extension of my own senses and mind. It might even possess its own sentience.
I would be immensely wealthy (a trillionaire many times over by today’s standards) from my own inventions, creations, and discoveries and would use my profits to assure everyone I knew was taken care of, as well as to further capitalize and fund my numerous enterprises, expeditions, ventures, and adventures. Money itself would mean nothing to me but I would use it carefully and wisely to fund every good and noble cause I could and I would use it to explore every place and every world I could possibly discover and reach.
I would make numerous friends among other species and races and would enjoy discovering things about them and their world(s). In the periods of travel time in my craft I would talk often with God and he would advise me of what I should see and where I should go and why. I would also, in my travel time, conduct numerous scientific experiments, to placate my curiosity about how things work and to come to a better understanding of the nature of matter, energy, and life.
I would build an entirely unique observatory, probably on some uninhabited and desolate planetoid that would allow me to watch other times, different places and points in space, peer upon other dimensions, and make discoveries and observations no one else ever has before.
I would scour the universe for new God Technology and I would seek to create some of my own. I would invent new things and reinvent/innovate upon old things that would be of immense benefit to mankind.
I would find ways to extend not only my own life, but to greatly augment and amplify both my own health and well-being, and that of others. I would work cooperatively and with good friends on some great ventures and enterprises, but on most things I would work alone.
I would still travel with my dog, of course, (maybe with a few other animals as well), but he would be greatly enhanced and modified. He would be immensely intelligent, as intelligent as any person alive now, and physically he would be awesomely strong, capable, and healthy. I would extend his life too.
When I finally married and had children I would bring them with me on my travels and expeditions anytime they wished, showing them what I had discovered. I would train them in whatever they wished to learn. I would keep careful and detailed records of all I saw and did and discovered so that others could build upon my work in the future to do even greater things.
That would be a fascinating world, a world of thoughts and ideas and discoveries, a world that would satisfy my mind and my spirit.
I can live in the world I currently live in. On my lands I live a physically and psychologically pleasing life. In my work I live a mentally and spiritually pleasing life.
But I can imagine far better. And desire far better.
THE FRONTIERSMAN AND HIS HORSE
I’ve been writing a series of sci-fi short stories about this very subject called “Tales of the Frontiersmen.” It’s about individuals sent in the explore alien worlds by themselves.
One of the devices some of these individuals carry with them are H.O.R.S.E.S. which are similar to these devices but are entirely collapsible and can be worn until expanded. I got the idea while studying some of the new robot designs (both standard and micro in size) friends of mine are working on at MIT. But the idea then occurred to me, well, what if you could make them collapsible and the working robotic components nano-sized (nano-machines) and the superstructure of room temperature exotic and extremely light super-conductive materials? So I began to develop my idea of the H.O.R.S.E.S. (Plus I had just went to hear the Cowboy Poet – who lives near me and I like a lot, and I’ve always loved horses.)
When expanded they can be ridden (like a real horse), they are computerized and possess a limited AI, and they contain a hollow internal section or sections that can be used to store gear and supplies. When fully expanded they are the size of a real horse or slightly larger. So they are much more advanced than these robots but the idea is basically the same. So this article naturally caught my attention.
The Tales of the Frontiersmen happen to be set in my larger sci-fi universe, support it, and are supplemental to it, and eventually I’ll collect all of those stories into a single book of short stories to fill and flesh out my larger sci-fi milieu.
I’ll also be posting some of the stories about the Frontiersmen here on this site.
THE MARINE WORKHORSE
Marines Prepare For Future War With Robot Horses And Swimming Trucks
Robots bring lunch to the battlefields of tomorrow.
Legged Support System Robot In HawaiiU.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Matthew CallahanLast week in Hawaii, a squad of U.S. Marines brought a robot deep into the jungle. The Legged Support System (LS3) robot walks on four legs, carries 400 pounds, and shambles its way over rough terrain, like a mechanical mule in a future war. It’s all part of the Advanced Warfighting Experiment, and if the Marine Corps thinks the tests went well, future invasions may come with robotic horses doing some heavy lifting.
The whole experiment is a subset of a larger multinational military exercise. Dubbed RIMPAC (for Rim of the Pacific, not to be confused with the Guillermo del Toro robots-versus-monsters movie), the exercise is held by the U.S. Navy and includes participants from 22 nations, with 55 ships, 200 aircraft, and 25,000 people. It also includes three LS3 robots.
Marines typically carry between 100 and 135 pounds of gear, which includes not just weapons and ammunition but also water and food. While it’s important for troops to carry food with them when operating far from base, they don’t need to have their lunch physically on their person at all times. That’s where the Legged Support System comes in. Major Christopher Orlowski, program manager of the LS3 program for DARPA, told Popular Science that the program’s greatest success is “meeting the requirements, demonstrating an unmanned legged system than can carry upwards of 350, 400 pounds of gear, and demonstrating it effectively. In this case, DARPA set out a goal and it was able to meet that goal…”
HAMMER AND TONGS
Yesterday I was in a highly creative and inventive mood. Don’t know why but I was firing hot all day long. So I took a break from writing my novel and instead worked on my Science-Fiction book series. About the Curae and God Technology.
I was able to invent all kinds of new things: human and alien ship designs, weapons and defensive systems, exploratory systems and capabilities (detailed designs), information and sensory systems, nanotechnology and bionanotechnology applications, etc. All of these things I was able to sketch out in a fairly well developed fashion, some of them, such as the new weapon and information and sensory systems in highly elaborate detail. I was up until 0300 making notes, drawing design sketches, etc.
Adding these things to the previous ship and drive designs I’ve created should add a great deal of flesh and structure to my science fiction series.
I don’t know why I was in this particular mood yesterday but I certainly was and I was focused like a laser on that task. The inventor in me ran crazy.
I think one of the reasons I like writing science fiction so much is that it allows me to invent into the far future. To invent things and devices which I can foresee but for which current technology and materials are insufficient to actually create as workable devices.
Actually, a small percentage of these things I can foresee as being producible in my lifetime, and concerning those things I both write fictional accounts and work them myself as part of my own invention projects. But some things I envision are obviously well beyond our current technological and scientific capabilities, and for those things I still like to develop detailed designs and sketches to give some idea to future peoples of how they might eventually be built.
Anyway yesterday was one of my Hephaestian Days. I was hot at the forge going at it hammer and tongs.
And I enjoyed it immensely.
Wyrdwend 