Off-Topic Thread vol. 2

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
4811

Your words do resonate with me.

A Sebiestor usually ends up synthesizing their own picture of the world. Around the same general concept but with differences between individuals - spiritual experience is quite a subjective thing. People who know me for some time might notice that sometimes I refer to Spirits and sometimes - The Spirit.
The latter is the essence of everything and everyone, the consiousness of the Universe. Being in Andesh is experiencing connection to The Spirit and thus to all.
The former are various manifestations of The Spirit, associated with particular emotions, places, elements, living or dead beings and ideas. Spirits come in many forms - some bring us closer to Andesh, others are meant to guide us through Ohnesh. Some people talk of good or kind Spirits and evil or dark Spirits. I prefer to call them compassionate and wrathful or vengeful. After all, good and evil only exist in mortal mind’s perception, while The Spirit is indifferent to these concepts, creation and destruction is pretty much the same for It.

But the fact that all of us are esentially manifestations of One Spirit means that when we’re hurting someone we are also hurting ourselves. Thus come the holes you mentioned.
When I was a teenager, I accidently killed someone who didn’t really deserve it. And I’ve become haunted by the Spirits. The Voluval and various medications magnified that. The agony of guilt and the fear of retribution were only a portion of horrors I experienced - I’ve been constantly hearing voices, confusing reality with visions, even my period got all whacky - I was literally living insane. But eventully I’ve come to understand the Spirits.
In the heat of battle I give in to the bloodlust, let it devour me completely. I am human no more, I am a Vengeful Spirit manifested in a savage beast. Thus I become a tool of The Spirit’s will - what It wants of me and others It will deliver. But don’t get me wrong - I am aware in these moments too, I act on my own will, but I feel guided.
But it comes at a price of course - countless deaths you’re responsible for, destructive passions of Ohnesh - these things inevitably leave marks on your soul, tear holes in it. Experiencing death yourself does give a sense of redemption, but there’s more to it. I keep one of my corpses around. After a battle I sit before it and meditate. Gaze into my own dead eyes, witness the mutilated flesh. I call my dead crewmembers by name, meditate on compassion for their beloved. Those whose names I don’t know - like crewmembers of my foes and allies - I try to picture. I pray for all of their souls to be reborn in better worlds and weep quite often. These practices bring me back to balance, if the dead come (they do occasionally, it’s not the walking dead, but rather - well, I think, ya know) I try to remember what they say or simply feel them if they don’t - that helps too.

So aye, dwelling on damage is a good way too - it’s literally being alive. And I don’t think walking a path defined by slaughter is all that bad. Just gotta ocassionally redefine it to remain a sane person, sane at least to some degree)

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4812

It’s called satire.

A Civire custom. An old and honorable tradition revered by our ancestors.

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4813

I think my favourite piece of gym philosophy is:

“Hey, buddy, I think you’ve got the wrong door. The leather club is two blocks down.”

Sometimes we do walk into the wrong door when looking for that metaphysical leather club.

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4814

If you’re looking for a metaphysical leather club, try this (powdered or not - doesn’t matter) then just a tiny drop of Yetamo poison an hour later.
Trust me, you won’t forget that party :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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4815

I’ve heard this stuff has the same effect as stuffing a soldering iron into your ear and leaving it turned on for an hour. If your brains will be so thoroughly fried you won’t even need a poison after that!

4816

The person who told you that was either overly comcerned with your mental health (which I would’t blame anyone for) or just bragging about things they didn’t try. It’s a natural thing after all, not some lab-brewed neuroburning emotinal-swinging cocktail of death. I don’t know what kind of subconcious demons would one need to have to experience what you described, even with extreme dose.
And in a hour it only comes into effect usually. Thus the poison to derail it - that one is induced a lot faster and definetely not to be ■■■■■■ around with.
Combined effect thou is something else - that might make some people think they have soldering irons turned on in their heads, veins and guts at the same time. But that’s not the purpose of such procedures, obviously.
Of course I’m not saying that everyone should go and eat all that stuff with a spoon size of their head. “Don’t expand consiousness of others unless they ask you to”. And it should be handled with care, aye. If the Spirits sent you that kind of message, they’ve had good reasons to do so)

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4817

As a SWA graduate I’ve passed through thorough courses of chemical, biological and nuclear defense (just because we live in a cluster filled with all sort of Blood Raiders and Gallenteans who are expected to use such inhumane weapons against population, soldiers of the State must be ready to face such threats), and the one who made such comparison was my toxicology instructor.

We were explained what shall we expect if we will be subjected to weaponized hallucinogens. Among one of these effects is sudden realization that you became smarter and now can undestand everything that is happening in the Universe. However, if you are to write down your “revelation” and read them on freshier head, you’ll see something like “Pet furriers are tiny” or “Humans must drink water to survive”, or even simply “I feel hungry”. So if a chemical makes you feel like you’re getting smarter, likely it has an opposite effect. (Well, there are many other effects you shall be aware of, and the most “desired” for a weaponized hallucinogen - inducing panic).

There are several mechanisms of hallucinogens but in general they can be described by disturbing synaptic connections between neurons. Thus I don’t think that saying “expanding consciouseness” is the right term for the situation where you are damaging and narrowing your consciouseness.

Overall from medical point of view an effect of psychoactive substances can be described as a “chemical burn to brain tissues”, which can be temporary or permanent, but you shall know that even temporary burns leave scars.

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4818

I have to admit that the arrangement that Elsebeth mentioned which sounds like some kind of hereditary bodyguard relationship between groups of people is something that I am really quite unfamiliar with.

I mean, in the Amarr cultures, then there are the feudal relationships between a Holder and their subjects, and a subject family may have a tradition of service in a particular way to their liege, but that’s not the same as what Elsebeth is describing, I think.

It’s probably one of those things that cannot be easily described to someone not from that culture.

Probably would take a semesters worth of lectures to even get a basic understanding of the underlying cultural concepts necessary to start explaining what Elsebeth was talking of.

4819

It’s a hereditary arrangement between two clans, yes. Sarinde traditionally provides security for most businesses and key persons of Rhiannon in addition to being part of the clan network of local law enforcement. I have known most of my personal security since we were all children; my chief of security and myself have known that is likely be our relationship as adults since we were about six.

4820

I hope you never fail :heavy_heart_exclamation:

Wait…did you just call me really wise? :blush:

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4821

I’ve studied at SWA too, ya know. Briefly thou - as an additional military course after PTS. Even thought of joining SPROT at some point, but then I realised I don’t really want to be indoctrinated into this kind of paranoid worldview where The State has a final saying in what’s good and what’s bad for a ctitizen.

Note that I distinct between substanced that can be found naturally and chemically produced ones, which are specifically forged in a way to amplify some properties while supressing or neglecting other. Thus these lab-brewed substances tend to have more intense (yet sometimes kind of ‘flat’) and prolonged effects while also having a greater risk of unpredicted side effects. Would you call a plant that grows by itself a ‘weponized hallucinogen’ thou?

To clarify, stable synaptic links, formed throughout one’s life, get temporarily supressed, which causes numerous new ones to be formed. Because of that while you tripping you might forget trivial things, experience troubles with simple communication or see unfamiliar, not always pleasant, traits in faces of the people you know. At the same time you hear things you’ve never heard, see things you’ve never seen, think thoughts you’ve never thought and often experience a sense of revelation. That is general discription of a most common mechanism among different pcychoactive substances, but specifics vary greatly. Those who use these mediactions with care and preparation (rather than in pursuit of revelations that would save them from misery or just give funny pictures to stare at), learn to distinguish between illusions of a miracle and the new things they’ve managed to procure from their subconsiousness or the new angles of perception of the world they’ve managed to view from. “Expanding consiousness” is a bit of an ironic allegory, popular among all kinds pcychonauts - careful, reckless and utterly retarded alike. But since the new neural pathways are in fact developed, while the old ones regain their function too (unless you’re absolutely marathoning on all the craziest stuff) that is not that much of a joke.

That is severely stretched. Unless we’re talking about something really ‘weaponized’ with ill intent to poison and destroy Caldari people.

Don’t trust the Amarr :wink:

But again, you keep believing what you believe. I’m not here to ‘expand your consiousness’ after all. Likewise, I’m not in dire need of your enlightenment)

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4822

Usually the nature evolves way stronger and wicked ways of killing life than we have invented. We just take and little bit change what the nature synthesized first.

As for the weaponization, you need a delivering system, that’s what basically makes a difference between a poison and a chemical weapon. But we weren’t taught how to actually make these, after all, we’re Caldari and not a murderous gallenteans to develop chemical warfare.

Synthetic poisons are usually weaker, but they’re easier to produce in industrial quantities than extracting natural poisons - which could be as well way less stable. It’s way more practical to produce unending tonns of a poison with lethal dose counting in milligrams per kg than a kilogram of a poison with lethal dose counting in nanograms for the same cost.

Not really, to get new synaptic connections you need a thorough learning process. If the hallucinogens would be forming new synapses chemically, you’d still see pink slaver hounds in skirts and with umbrellas dancing around you even after intoxication effect disappears. Hallucinations are result of damaged connections between cells, not a result of a new connections.

4823

See that’s a phenomenon that I do not recall encountering in the Amarr cultures. Not saying it doesn’t happen, more like it doesn’t happen frequently enough to be well known.

Personally, I’d find it a bit odd to have known a member of my security staff since childhood. But then again that’s not my culture. I’m sure there’s things that I consider perfectly cromulent, having grown up with them, that would seem bizarre to Minmatar people.

Oh good lord, there’s going to be awful romantic novels about that kind of phenomena, available for sale on the station concourse in Gallente space, isn’t there ? Some trash premise like forbidden love crossing the bonds of duty or some such nonsense.

4824

“The Woman Who Loved a Ghost”, which I won a capsuleer writing contest award for once, is about a Rhiannon/Sarinde marriage. Which is, indeed, taboo, and likely a subject of trash I do not want to read.

I’d find it extremely uncomfortable to trust my personal security to some clan I did not know well. So it’s what you’re used to.

4825

Nature evolves to survive. And kills only for nutrition and reproduction. It’s the humans who extrapolate that to killing for political ideals, religious dogmas and in order to have more than others rather than have enough.

Ever heard the word ‘flashback’? It’s when you suddenly experience things from your past trips while being sober. Those pathways do remain, they’re just not as ‘broad’ as the ‘highways’ you grow naturally with your daily habits. That’s why a flashback is usually very brief, almost like a deja vu.

4826

Oh, I can only partly agree with that. It does evolve to survive, but often survival means extermination of concurence. The most vivid example are fights between fungii and bacteria. And poisonous plants don’t get nutrition or reproduction for synthesizing poisonous alcoloids.

It’s a typical kill or be killed.

I admit I never head that word in this sense.
I do have a feeling, however, that it’s simply how the memory works.

4827

Every contemporary empire(and most other major factions) currently extant, Including the State, maintain potent chemical and biological device stockpiles, exactly because they know the others have them. And each have very delighted favorites amongst the bunch uniquely tailored by their best biochemical engineers.

It’s ignorant at best, and utterly foolish at worst to believe that the State does not, though they are better at keeping the exact extent of those stockpiles obfuscated, they do not hide the fact they keep and develop them.

4828

You understand brain is a self-building electrical cicuit, rite? A damaged or severed connection by itself means “no current”. You forget things, but don’t see new.

Yea, they call it natural selection.

You weren’t studying them thoroughly enough. And also they don’t usually run after people with their poisonous thorns.

“I remember having I revelation that humans must drink water to survive. I remember this thought also felt encedibly exstatic and kinda had this slightly sour taste. Yet this thougth currently makes no sense to me, nor do I feel exstatic at this moment or feel that taste” - that’s how memory works. Flashbacks may also include sensory elements.

Dear SWA graduate Kim, it has become quite clear to me that your competence on the subject of intentional and controlled intoxication ends right the point where your instructor on chemical, biological and nuclear defense finished speaking. Your knowledge of mechanics of the processes involved is superficial and lacks any personal input. Well, maybe except for a few drinks on a graduation party.
Please stop trying to persuade me that my brain is irreversably damaged and all I’ve experienced in altered states of consiousness is a mere result of neural decay. If you want to live by that truth your kind instructors told you - that is completely fine, I’m sure it will serve you well.

4829

So that’s how you’re speaking now?
Decided to discuss my person instead of my ideas?

Well, I can play this game too!

This behavior typically depicts a person who doesn’t have gut to admit own mistake, as they run out of arguments and just trying to yell and stomp in impotent rage because they just “want to disagree”. Such behavior as well emphasizes a person of low intellect, and just that alone could be an evidence to my words that psychoactive narcotics do burn and damage brains, considering it was practically positive from the manner of your speech that you were using them, and clearly more than once.

Another red flag I have noticed when I decided to peek more in depths at your employment history when you switched to mine person - to understand whom exactly I was speaking with. When I discuss ideas, I usually treat everyone just as a person disregarding their background unless they want to tell something themselves. I probably should have done this sooner, as a mere association with your person would be a disgrace.

You did say you were in SWA, briefly… that means you SHOULD know what Caldari think about the traitors. If I say that everyone who violates their pledge of allegiance to the State is the scum is the same as not saying anything. There is no greater dishonor and disgrace than a treason, and even a dirtiest of a drug junkies is a better human being than a traitor.

Since you were mentioning poisons, well, Kresh is the solution for the disgrace of the treason.

Yet, this part aside… lets look at whom did you run to. Terrorists! Savages! Primitive warring tribal bulllies who assault our honorable allies in the Empire. ANCESTORS CHOKE!!! Is this a joke?! Who in the sane mind would run from the State to tribal terrorists? To degrade yourself from a professional soldier to primitive useless terrorist?!! Were you kicked from SWA for poor progress, since I don’t see how someone who was getting proper military education would disgrace themselves with such primitive amateurish inefficient unprofitable combat methods as terrorism?

You have disgraced and dishonored yourself enough for me to not care what you do with you brain, you can pull it out and fry it on a pan with fish oil if you like, that’s not my business.

But please - no, I won’t ask.
I’ll DEMAND you to cease speaking in public in a way that shows that psychoactive narcotics are “Safe to use”. Because they’re not.

Doing so you remind me gallenteans who have invented their democracy, but once they realized that other nations develop way faster than their democracy, they decided to try to enforce their backwards democratic ways, so they won’t be better than them.
In a such way an addicted junkie who burned brain with drug misuse would call other people, “Hey brazaaa! Try this ■■■■, it’s the best ■■■■ in these parts of cluster!”

It does seem to me like an intentional attempt at making other people dumber so they won’t have advantage over you.

Cease this at once.

4830

Ooh. I see that a polite yet mocking request to shut up and stop disgracing yourself by attempts to discuss matters you have no idea about only gave you an excuse to disregard any arguments in favor of self-righteous wrath.

Did I say I pledged allegiance to the State? I think not. “Additional course” it was. After Pator Tech School where I got my capsuleer licence.

Never said that as well. Your tunnel vision interpretes anything that’s not quite matches what you were taught as completely opposite.

Funny thing, it seemed to me that that’s what you were doing from the very start - not accepting facts that are outside your competence just because they feel wrong. Even more so now, with these demands, accusations of treason against the entities I never pledged too and simple insults to my people as a whole. Which one of us got their brain fried, I wonder?