alleyverse Dark Alley - Non-Hemalurgic Research Division

[Grey Knight]

Um.... ah.... oh, blight this....

 

*takes pack and pours potatoes out for a couple seconds, leaving a nice-sized pile*

 

There! That should about cover it, including the shipping cost.

[Fatebreaker he/him]

And the Soul, can't forget that.

[ostrichofevil he/him]

DON'T FORGET THE SOUL.  (or we will come and retrieve it.  There will be cookies.)

[ostrichofevil he/him]

Time for the NHRD's first major research project!

 

Topics to discuss:

 

• How can the recently identified Shard of Autonomy be turned into baked goods?
• Who holds the Shard of Metonymy?
• Means of storing imaginary numbers of potatoes
• What baked good can AonDor be put into?
• Side-effects resulting from the consumption of Shardic Soufflé

Begin, faithful Research Division!

[18th Shard he/him]

Time for the NHRD's first major research project!

 

Topics to discuss:

 

• How can the recently identified Shard of Autonomy be turned into baked goods?
• Who holds the Shard of Metonymy?
• Means of storing imaginary numbers of potatoes
• What baked good can AonDor be put into?
• Side-effects resulting from the consumption of Shardic Soufflé

Begin, faithful Research Division!

Autonomy is clearly a stand-alone dessert - I was thinking a candy desert, made from crushed graham crackers, candy cacti with Hemalurgic pins, and maybe a miniaturized camel or two from Alley 14. 

 

The better question is, what adjectives describe him/her?

 

Simple. Imaginary plastic bags. With blindfolds. Pesky potatoes and their eyes. You just have to solve a 3 dimensional equation for space, one dimension adding in imaginary numbers, and a fifth for time of holding.

Something like... y=3exit+z^2 where y is in meters squared, x is in feet, z is in cubits (determinate upon the viewer's forearm and hand length) and t is in seconds. Also, you have to duct tape the 3 exits shut and color in the z-square with orange crayons.

 

Aon Vitamins, guaranteed (according to disclaimer) to boost Investiture, burn calories, and maybe even change your appearance, perhaps?

 

Which one? The one we made in this timeline, or the other one in last week's deleted Tuesday?

[ostrichofevil he/him]

Which one? The one we made in this timeline, or the other one in last week's deleted Tuesday?

 

It was a Suetday…

[ChullRider he/him]

Can I get some Scadrial Mist? (Sierra Mist)

[ostrichofevil he/him]

Can I get some Scadrial Mist? (Sierra Mist)

Of course.  Ashmount or Luthadel style?

[Curious Anamaximder he/him]

Dark Alley without spikes? Pfft...

 

 

 

This is so cool. 

[ChullRider he/him]

Of course.  Ashmount or Luthadel style?

Luthadel style, please.

[DreamEternal]

A question from an independent researcher: how does the DA feel about the newly estabilished field of Applied Alleymatics? I know some of your most (in)famous members were involved in its creation, but it would be important to know your organization's opinion on this field.

[ostrichofevil he/him]

A question from an independent researcher: how does the DA feel about the newly estabilished field of Applied Alleymatics? I know some of your most (in)famous members were involved in its creation, but it would be important to know your organization's opinion on this field.

Well, in my opinion, A = P (1 + r/n) ^ nt, where P is the Alleymatic constant.

[KidWayne he/him]

From another post that I probably should have posted here:

 

I just finished watching season 2 of The 100 on Netflix last night. So, when I read Kythis's comment that begins with, "Speaking of Hemalurgy, with its ability to steal other powers..." I had a mini-PTSD flashback. Seriously, harvesting stuff from humans is just plain evil. Dalinar needs to export his philosophy on avoiding evil/dishonorable means to accomplish goals for the greater good to Scadrial before things get messy.

 

To all you "Dark Alley" folks, go watch The 100. Season 2 is basically all about what happens when someone turns the lights on in the dark alley, and it ain't pretty. At least The 100 takes the moral ambiguity away from the ultimate goal (all of the major players are just trying to figure out a way to survive). I'm starting to wonder how Sazed will be able to allow hemalurgy  - a power under his control - to be used to slaughter so many innocents and/or good guys without turning into a bad guy himself.

[Guest]

A question from an independent researcher: how does the DA feel about the newly estabilished field of Applied Alleymatics? I know some of your most (in)famous members were involved in its creation, but it would be important to know your organization's opinion on this field.

Which of these so-called infamous members were involved?

[Fatebreaker he/him]

The 100...

Wasn't that the show that was essentially the apocalypse as cast by Abercrombie and Fitch? Where all of the teenagers manage to stay surprisingly clean, despite not having access to basic hygiene facilities?

If the Dark Alley was a show, we wouldn't be some young adult drama.

We'd be the Twilight Zone. Or Welcome to Nightvale.

Regardless, that is a television show, something which isn't real.

The Dark Alley is science, and transcends such basic concepts like reality. It doesn't matter if we're real or not, the theoretical possibilities of a supposed partial or impartial existence on any unspecified matrices of dimensions is enough for our continued research.

But we appreciate your concern all the same.

Here, have a consolation cookie.

[Grey Knight]

 Or Welcome to Nightvale.

Exactly right.

Also, that podcast is amazing. Just sayin'.

[KidWayne he/him]

The 100...

Wasn't that the show that was essentially the apocalypse as cast by Abercrombie and Fitch? Where all of the teenagers manage to stay surprisingly clean, despite not having access to basic hygiene facilities?

If the Dark Alley was a show, we wouldn't be some young adult drama.

But we appreciate your concern all the same.

Here, have a consolation cookie.

 

I liked the premise of the show, but found each of the points you bring up annoying as well. The part that kept getting on my nerves was how people were dying left and right, but none of the main characters ever seemed to die despite falling missiles, getting sucked into the vacuum of space, or being shot by poison-tipped arrows. That is to say, all of the teenagers manage to stay alive, despite being subject to mortal wounds and/or impossible-to-survive situations.

 

Spoilers for season 1 of The 100:

Before you called it out, I didn't realize how much better the title Teenage Mutant Surviorist Astronauts would have been. However, the idea of sending underage criminals to die on an irradiated Earth (post-nuclear war) because the space station you're living on is running out of oxygen due to overpopulation was interesting nonetheless.

 

Spoilers for season 2 of The 100:

The next season featured several interesting ideas. First, the people that those who waited out the nuclear holocaust underground are using their superior tech to hunt the culturally primitive but evolutionarily superior ground-dwellers. Why are they doing that you ask? Well, that answer provides a few more interesting ideas. They're doing it because:

1. The bunker folks never developed a biological mechanism for living with all that extra radiation in the atmosphere
2. The there are humans living on the surface of the Earth, so apparently some humans did adapt to the higher radiation levels.
3. The ground-dwellers' culture appears to have regressed to that of the Ewoks (the squeaky teddy-bear things from Return of the Jedi), which is to say a very primitive level. The closest historical parallel I can think of is the ancient Greek Spartans - if the Spartans lived in grass huts. They are regarded by the bunker folks as sub-human savages.
4. After 90+ years, the bunker that the underground people live in is getting leaky, and when the bunker folks are exposed to the atmosphere they burn like vampires in sunlight; this is obviously an undesirable result for the people living in the bunker.
5. The bunker folks discovered that the ground-dwellers' ability to withstand radiation can be transferred to bunker people via blood transfusions (and hence the connection to hemalurgy)

So, at supper one evening someone in the bunker had a thought... "If we suit up in hazmat suits and use our fancy automatic weapons to capture the savages, we can bleed them dry with a "dialysis machine" and use their blood to heal our nasty radiation burns!"

To which hundreds of other people - in a mass confirmation of the Milgram Experiment's conclusions - responded, "That's a great idea! Let's harvest those filthy cavemen for their blood, yeah!"

Then someone else raised their hand to add, "Won't it still be dangerous to capture the savages? I mean hazmat suits are great, but all it takes is one nick from a spear or an arrow and we would die from radiation exposure." 

The guy in charge answers, "You know what, you're right. Hmm, I wonder if there's some way that we could get the ground-dwellers to capture themselves..."  

Some other guy chimes in, "I remember something about conditioned responses from my undergrad psychology course that might come in handy... *mumbles* and a trick they use in human trafficking *cough*"

The bunker president gives the budding psychologist the go ahead. The next thing you know they're getting their beefiest captives hooked on powerful narcotics and only giving their unwilling minions' another fix in exchange for new captives.

 

Everything is humming along just fine until they find out that the blood of the former space station residents is an 800% more effective "treatment." Then, the bunker people decide to get ambitious.

One of the bunker-dwelling doctors muses, "Could someone with a big 'ol dose of space blood could survive on the surface? Nurse? Call the school and have them send me the next teenager that gets sent to detention."

Once the doctor has a test subject, he swaps out her blood with that of one of their newly captured spacemen. Then Dr. Evil proceeds to throw that poor child outside to see what happens. It takes a little longer than usual, but she fries like an egg on the sidewalk in Hell (or like a non-Twilight vampire in sunlight).

 

Not to be deterred, the doctor goes back to the drawing board. He chats up the bunker president, "So, I know your plan was to integrate the spacekids into our community's gene pool so that we can leave the bunker in a few generations, but screw that. I've got a short cut! Let's forcibly harvest the source of the spacekids' blood - their bone marrow." The bunker boss is all, "No! I mean we've been using savages as blood bags for a while now, but these kids... well, they're people dammit!" The doctor hears, "I'm saying 'no' but I really mean 'yes'. Oh, make sure not to give your patient victim any anesthetic when you're using a drill to harvest the marrow from their bones. And one more thing, don't bother explaining the situation or asking for donations, just keep drilling until the donor is dead."  

[18th Shard he/him]

That's ... a ridiculous connection. The DA has a liability waver we ask participants to sign, and they are only very rarely under duress. In addition, 367% of our donors would recommend us to a friend. Only 1 out of every three imaginary participants feels he/she is being treated incorrectly, and only 1 out of the remaining 4 halves has had his or her nerves removed. It's simple business to keep clientele happy.

[Guest]

I would like to have my name stricken from the member list and excised from all records. I have no idea why I joined this, but I only have myself to blame.

[ostrichofevil he/him]

I would like to have my name stricken from the member list and excised from all records. I have no idea why I joined this, but I only have myself to blame.

 

We at the Non-Hemalurgic Research Division restrict ourselves to strictly ethical experimentation.

[Guest]

Science is Science.

[ostrichofevil he/him]

Science is Science.

 

And what is wrong with that?

[Curious Anamaximder he/him]

Science is Science.

I do not approve.

[Guest]

And what is wrong with that?

Nothing!!

  

I do not approve.

Noted.

[ostrichofevil he/him]

I do not approve.

You do not approve of our munificent donations of perfectly safe, Non-Hemalurgic medical products to disadvantaged Scadrians?  Our efforts to destroy (and take the place of) all that is evil in the world?