Moe Lane's Blog, page 118
January 19, 2025
Terrorists, Ritual Nihilists, and the Space-Happy, Part 3. (Unfiltered)
Wanted to finish this up.
Ritual Nihilists
They have had many names. The pre-Reform USNA regime called them ‘superstitionists.’ The New Empire still refers to them as ‘rākṣasas,’ and politely ignores any attempt to modernize the term. Pre-Contact civilizations called them ‘cultists,’ with all that that implied. But these are modern times. The term ‘Ritual Nihilist’ describes the phenomena perfectly well, and without any pseudoscientific nonsense associated with it.
Unfortunately, naming the condition does not actually cure it. Although nothing can cure it. The best anyone’s ever managed to do for a Ritual Nihilist is temporarily allow them enough self-reflection and horror to allow them to commit suicide. It’s uniquely difficult to maintain ethical research standards under conditions like these, so there’s no expectation that there will be a clinical breakthrough anytime soon, or even at all. In the meantime, most organizations have declared Ritual Nihilists as outlaws, to be dealt with as wolves are.
In some ways they are like the space-happy. First is the general murderous behavior. Sufferers from Ritual Nihilism are murder addicts, at a level that is uncomfortably close to an actual physical dependency. The cravings can be mitigated via the killing of animals, but a Ritual Nihilist is constantly at least thinking about the deliberate murder of human beings. Unfortunately, usually they’re planning murder – or actually engaging in it. They also have no meaningful sense of self-preservation, and cannot be trusted.
What makes them alarming is that they form groups. Ritual Nihilists can and do regularly work together to accomplish their goals. They also work horribly well with each other, which is not something one sees with the space-happy. They don’t share an unbreakable bond, and two different groups can easily find themselves to be rivals with each other, but Ritual Nihilists divide the world into Us and Them, and sane humans are very much part of the Them.
Fortunately, they do not all have the same goals, hangups, or obsessions. Any organization, movement, political philosophy, ideology, or even cultural phenomenon can provide the twisted seed from which a Ritual Nihilist group can grow. They do gravitate towards unpopular things, because people who are unpopular find it easier to self-isolate, but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the sacrifice, and the blood. The longer they can keep the former secret, the longer the latter can flow. That is officially the goal of all Ritual Nihilists: death, for its own sake. Only terrorists will seriously suggest that there might be other agendas.
Patreon!
Patreon Microfiction: ‘Xenohunting Advice.’
I think that the Predators should have really taken this ‘Xenohunting Advice.’ If they would simply show up in hunting vests, feed store caps, and long spears and say, So we hear you have these things called ‘wild boars.’ What’s the hunting limit on them, again*? then there wouldn’t be any trouble. We’d even sell them beer for afterward.
Patreon!*The usual answer is, Pile their bodies to the top of the sky.
January 18, 2025
‘The Jug of Punch.’
The Jug of Punch, The Clancy Brothers
#commissionearned
Book of the Week: Son of the Black Sword.
I need to read Larry Correia’s Son of the Black Sword again, because I need to actually get around to reading the series. I liked it! I just got distracted. Also, I was reading it when I got word about my first professional fiction sale, so I’m gonna be well-disposed towards it anyway.
#commissionearned
They’ve toned down snow here for tomorrow…
…but we’re still getting it. Yay. Oh, well, we have Monday off anyway.
Just got back from a four-course dinner.
We paid quite a bit for that SCA feast, but it was absolutely worth it: we sat down for lunch at about 12:30 PM, and didn’t really leave the table until about 5 PM. In between we just kept getting fed, and fed, and fed. Everything was delicious, and the booze on the bottom floor was ridiculously top-shelf. They were the kind of drinks where you take a measured sipping cup’s worth of one, and then avoid it for the rest of the day because if you drink a second one you’re just going to drink five more.
In other words, I got to relax for most of the afternoon, and it was lovely.
Tweet of the Day, …How Charming edition.
As I said here: this is a feature of the system, not a bug. The major difference here is that the thief was unsubtle in his larceny.
“can i copy your homework?”
— amina (@milfmisaki) January 17, 2025
“sure, just change it a bit so to not make it obvious” pic.twitter.com/RKHID2buXs
Via @J0hnADouglas.
January 17, 2025
Just spent an hour trying to generate a Facebook ad.
You’d think Facebook would make this easy. Or easier. Or actually possible. Go sign up for the Backerkit, okay?
The pilot episode to The Promised Land.
I clicked on it with quite a bit of trepidation, but The Promised Land is good! Fun without being disrespectful. They definitely know their Bible, too.
Check out this interview for more details, and check out the pilot, too.
