Brexdan McMoran
Maybe they're different, like one is self-driving, and the other is a 2000AD pedicab flintstone-hovered by a Russian teenager working in San Diego for the summer, you don't know, none of us knows.
67: Police Patrol: 2000 A.D. Mack Reynolds
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Space Action Flippant Sausage
Man, "brought himself up sharp" is such an old timey phrase Mack, you need to cut out anything that could be applied to horses.
Derpbat
I guess it's because they drive themselves but auto doesn't make that clear. At least hover cab is a descriptive term that provides information.
gellaho
He's dialing a location in the hovercab, so it's the same thing
Brexdan McMoran
I love this book's language play but also, this is some shamanic draemspeak.
d'oh.
gellaho
He's bizarrely kept "dialing" for everything
A calm and composed frisking!? The indignity!
gellaho
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Clearly the futurepast has a rotary phone for dialing coordinates.
Derpbat
We will use rotary phones in the year 2000!
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
After the Asia War, the touch tone phone is lost technology.
gellaho
Not that small. Seems like something you should have noticed
Brexdan McMoran
Maybe the cab is a transformer and it's only self-driving in autobot form
Derpbat
That's a very large sub miniature tracking device.
Maybe while we were invading Asia we should have picked up some Soviet bugs.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
Should've gone with the sub-sub-miniature model.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Rosy, my dude. You are not real. Anyone who smokes would have smoked on their way to the crime rendezvous and discovered the transmitter.
gellaho
Gasp! Not the luggage!
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Rosy is no Rex Moran.
Derpbat
Who knew cops majored in stealth?
You're lucky they didn't put a grenade in your pocket, my dude.
gellaho
Rosy decides to rope a B-list actor into this mess
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"HOLY SHIT ITS SANDY DUNCAN!"
Derpbat
It's the Muppet Show! With our very special guest... A wanted criminal!
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"What are you doing at this filthy tenement, Sandy?!"
gellaho
Rosy has devolved into an animal.
And-say it with me-DILL!
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"That no-good Rosy Porras stole my priceless pickle collection!"
Derpbat
Man, dill pickles getting a rough rap here.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"Still.......still trying to make pickle based slang a thing, huh?" Said Dave.
gellaho
That's some good living oozing... and pickles
Brexdan McMoran
Sandy Duncan fucks. Dave Shriner fucks, but it's depressing.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"Pickle romp" sounds like a very British euphemism for a sex act.
gellaho
Rosy insists on "in the dill"
gellaho
No pickle
Brexdan McMoran
Well, you called it.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
Rosy hates pickled romp
gellaho
You want a what now?
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Also I think I'm tuning in to this slang because pickling makes things sour, and when something goes badly people say it "went sour"
Derpbat
A shuttle rocket to Miami sounds like one of the worst ways to get to Miami.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
I'm either becoming brain damaged or qualified to write a sci fi novel.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
"Why not just another flight instead of a shuttle rocket seat? It's so much safer."
Brexdan McMoran
Worse yet, when it finally ends, you're in Miami.
gellaho
Get the Night Expediter to get me out of the dill
Derpbat
Even if we had the technology to make flying into orbit for a commute practical, there's no reason we'd do it from the Midwest to Miami.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
Night Expediter is the worst superhero name I've ever heard.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"Fuck you, you arent Darth Porras, you and your pickle slang can funk right out of my apartment."
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Just wait until Dillman shows up
Derpbat
I'm starting to get the feeling that these aren't very good people.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Then you'll be in it
Derpbat
Just a hint, though.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Its also a not great Stephen King movie.
gellaho
Shriner seems more intrigued than intimidated
LyraV Galavador Dali Lama
I think it's kind of awesome, you could go all film noir 'Night Expediter will get you out of the dill, for the right price'
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Guns make Dave horny.
Derpbat
Weird, wasn't it established that you could just have a gun magically turn up in your flat just by pressing buttons and scaring a rich guy?
gellaho
"Actors do makeup right? Eh, whatever. I'm sure it's fine"
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
Just don't call during the day, he gets pissed if you wake him up.
Derpbat
If you like guns so much, Dave, why don't you just...have a gun.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Dave Shriner: Makeover Master
Space Action Flippant Sausage
The end result is just a clown faced guy with two grapefruit in his shirt.
Derpbat
@Brexdan McMoran I miss Rex.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
We all miss Rex.
Derpbat
Now there was a criminal.
gellaho
You gonna explain why his face is natural for disguise or?
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Nah that's self evident
gellaho
A fake criminal
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"Rosy, the only pores you have is in your surname."
Rachel, Pretty Gay
It's cause his face is cold, cold
Brexdan McMoran
Yeah, but then every shot fired with it would be traced to you, so I assume this is a gun worth using, i.e. a ghost that Rosy shouldn't have. Look, all I know is Rex Moran could talk the devil into making Hell a paradise, just so everyone marvels at why he would ever escape.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
His makeup kit consists entirely of one pair of Groucho Marx glasses.
Brexdan McMoran
Actors: famous for their makeup skills.
gellaho
The banking section of the bank
Derpbat
Even in the seventies I'm pretty sure databank was one word.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
I spend most of my time in the lawn bowling section but to each their own
Derpbat
And also we didn't call them that.
Brexdan McMoran
Rosy's face is such a blank template it can only appear in passive voice.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Its the sporting goods part of the bank you really have to watch out for.
gellaho
Weirdest Expression Description goes to
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Is... That a word?
Derpbat
What's funny is that within five years of this book being written the microcomputer revolution had begun and all of this would become a period piece.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
I've never figured out what face do that youd describe as a moue.
Derpbat
No.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
But it is apparently a thing.
Derpbat
I think it's very pursed lips.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Apparently it's a pout
gellaho
Cloddies suckin on trank
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Duck face?
Rachel, Pretty Gay
which he's doing with his plump lips
As opposed to his other, thinner lips
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
Moue looks like a typo but apparently my autocorrect recognized it.
Derpbat
What is the Tri-D, anyway?
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"You're not unintelligent." has to be one of the most backhanded compliments you can get in sci fi.
Derpbat
A television, I assume, but the way it's capitalized throws me.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
3D tv, I think?
Space Action Flippant Sausage
It's the future!
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
That was such a breakthrough when they came out.
gellaho
Rosy is losing his damn mind while Dave is making kissy-faces
Derpbat
Man, I hope it's proper 3D tv with little holographic figures I can pick up and make scream.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Dave hands rosy a copy of the Communist Manifesto and lectures him about how capital alienates people from the product of their labor.
Derpbat
None of this "they're coming out of the screen!" business, I want holograms and nothing but.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Also "stute"?
The funk is a stute?
Derpbat
It's a word I refuse to look up.
But it is real.
LyraV Galavador Dali Lama
Someone who's astute.
I guess?
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Trank sucking addiction is a serious disease and I don't care for how this cloddy stute is trivializing it.
Derpbat
I think it's a clever person.
Yeah.
gellaho
Rosy's brilliant plan falls apart immediately
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Okay I'm really bad at character names
Derpbat
Okay, funk you, Boleslaw.
Brexdan McMoran
In the future there will be metal detectors at select airports!
Rachel, Pretty Gay
But Tad Boleslaw had to be a result of this chucklefuck looking around at a buffet
gellaho
I hope you enjoyed the Rosy Porras adventure
Brexdan McMoran
Who here even remembers travel before 9/11? it was a time, let me tell you.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
"also you used an obviously fake name like 'phidias'".
gellaho
This takes place in 2000, so
Derpbat
The United States of the Americas, clamping down on our freedoms!
gellaho
It's accurate
Rachel, Pretty Gay
I remember not getting groped
LyraV Galavador Dali Lama
Like an elephant in a shot glass.
Brexdan McMoran
It is worth noting that the gun was not illegal, it merely tipped Rosy's presence on the jump rocket.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Sadly those days have passed
gellaho
Sci-fi is tasked with searching for the future. Mack Reynolds predicted Cheers
Derpbat
Where everybody knows your ridiculous name!
And they're always glad you came!
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Just bribe him by buying a few of his Bunco Pops
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"What spins?" is asking for someone to reply "You, sitting on one of these! 🖕 "
Derpbat
You wanna go where the people know, everyone's a slave of the people's capitalist world order. You wanna go where everyone knows your name.
Brexdan McMoran
Searching for a POLICE ROCKSTAR for FLEXIBLE HOURS at super-chill FUTURE with NO GUNS.
gellaho
Reynolds didn't know how to transition to the next story, so Boleslaw is suspended for... reasons
Rachel, Pretty Gay
What!
Brexdan McMoran
as long as your arrest rates remain high, YOU determine your BUNCO
Derpbat
It is nice to know that after what I assume they call The Moran Incident they shut down second squadron.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"But......I'm not even a loose cannon!"
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
You're a loose cannon, Boleslaw,
Damnit
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"The mayor isnt even AWARE of your ass!"
Derpbat
Boleslaw, no!
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"I mean, I'm not going to quit but I AM going to write a letter to my union rep."
gellaho
He's also lost his pay, been put under pseudo house arrest, and must wait for a mysterious message
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
Turn in your badge and pickle
Derpbat
He wasn't even five years from retirement!
gellaho
Because Mack Reynolds has a story to tell, dammit
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"We dont have to keep paying you because UBI."
Rachel, Pretty Gay
What in the holy jumping Zoroaster!
gellaho
AND DON'T YOU ASK HIM TO GIVE YOU ANY INFORMATION
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"Look, its the futurepast, Tad. Nobody needs to file paperwork anymore, so I, your superior, know nothing."
Derpbat
I'm pretty sure even in our time period the police can't just do this. Congratulations, Mack, you're inventing a new dystopia every time you laboriously touch type.
The best part of science fiction!
gellaho
Judging by this, Mack had a Private Investigator story lying around. And he figured this was the only way to go
Derpbat
I bet he added this whole section because he needed Boleslaw in his apartment for the next story.
And he had no idea
Oh Jesus fuck I was right.
Funk you, Mack.
Funk. You.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"CHERYL! WHATS A GOOD WAY TO DESCRIBE AN ATTRACTIVE WOMAN? CLEVER LITTLE WHAT?! GREAT THANKS HON!"
LyraV Galavador Dali Lama
It's suddenly the mecha futuristic Maltese Falcon.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
I like the implication that the commissioner can just be like "hey that guy is wearing the same shirt as me. Fire him, no pay, don't tell him why. Also, put him on house arrest so I can hit on his girlfriend."
gellaho
Boleslaw now hates gadgets
gellaho
Despite, you know, this
Space Action Flippant Sausage
OOOH look at mister FANCYslaw.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
You looked twice? Is inexplicably switching to second person part of the future dystopia?
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
I think I used to have a world of warcraft character with those shoulder pads.
Derpbat
I bet at the end it's revealed that these are all separate iterations of the city and of Boleslaw.
LyraV Galavador Dali Lama
Boneslaw knew this dame was trouble just by the way she occupied his comfort chair.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Is this what it means to be in the dill?
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Tad, my grandfather made liquor from old boots and rotting potatoes, and he liked it. But he'd have shanked a man for a box in his house that would dispense whatever booze he wanted whenever he wanted.
gellaho
I don't know, lady, but you saying that is approaching the limit
Derpbat
Your grandfather?
Fatamatician: The Curator
That is a Space balls helmet
Derpbat
I'd shank a man for that.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
I'm a big fan of women with short hair drinking with me in my apartment
LyraV Galavador Dali Lama
Mercy-meo!
Derpbat
I think I'd shank three men, a woman, and maybe a pony.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
But if one of them says mercy-meo, she has ten seconds to get the fuck out
Derpbat
Also, she's now a cat?
Rachel, Pretty Gay
ten seconds, lyra
Derpbat
I guess?
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Shes also real judgy about bottles for some reason.
gellaho
Mack Reynolds continues to misunderstand what "suggestively" means
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"Hey, sugar tits. You're a clever little trick, hows about you drink this and we pickle romp?" he said with a look at his watch.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
What are you suggesting, tad botatosalad? Are you passive aggressively implying she should leave?
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
"are you... trying to get me to fuck your watch?"
gellaho
Mack, your currency is pseudo-dollars
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"Leave or put my watch in your ass" is such a classic noir setup.
Derpbat
She's the president's daughter, and she's here to tell you her brother is being kidnapped by a weird cult in New York, and only you are a bad enough dude to save the president's son and help him ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK
Brexdan McMoran
The most unbelievable thing in this novel is there isn't a police union that will make any situation like this harder than it's worth. There are cops walking around getting OT after shooting unarmed guys.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
stealing it
Derpbat
You know a trope I've never understood?
Jobs where they won't tell you the details until you agree.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"Nadine. Nadine Frommer." "Okay and where are you........from.....er."
Derpbat
That's not a thing that happens outside of the military, and it's not really a thing that happens there these days.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
"I can't tell you the job."
"Then how will I know what to do?"
gellaho
Mack forgets a lot, but will never stop saying cum
Derpbat
Because most people would, you know, say 'no'.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Wow, that room has three different uses.
Brexdan McMoran
He looks like the one unfunkable furry at the convention whose fursona is Potato Bug
gellaho
I guess the future guns got lost between chapters
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Geeze what kind of guy needs a .38 with no recoil? What is it, a submachine gun?!
Derpbat
Out of everything I've seen, that revolver caliber is the least realistic.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Continuity is in the dill.
gellaho
Hoverlimo, Mack. Come on!
Derpbat
Just call it a Smith and Wesson.
Or a special. Or anything but that.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Smorth and Wesleyson
Cos its the futurepast.,
LyraV Galavador Dali Lama
They're safe as long as they don't piss off Jackie Chan.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Smith and Westron
Brexdan McMoran
Derpbat
Man, I want to see a recoilless 380.
gellaho
Mack, what
gellaho
You know, one of the "rearing-to-the-sky" buildings
Brexdan McMoran
It's pronounced KYOOM, as in "This is my athletic sock-cum-cumrag."
gellaho
You know the ones what sky-rear
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Futurepast architecture is horse based.
Derpbat
Is... Is this building presenting itself in submission to some alpha building?
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
The building reared to the sky as if scraping it.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Everyone lives in buildings like that big ass horse statue in Denver.
Brexdan McMoran
"Which apartment is yours?"
gellaho
Sure, everybody knows the science secretary
Brexdan McMoran
"The eerie glowing eye, just past the forelock."
LyraV Galavador Dali Lama
Also, he has a farm.
Derpbat
Hey, the USA got a whole cabinet department of scientific research!
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"Old MacDonald had a lab, eyieeyioh!"
gellaho
Vocotypers
Derpbat
And then abandoned capitalism, which explains why our technology is a schizoid mess.
Rachel, Pretty Gay
Well, technically he's the secretary of creationist science
Derpbat
Good work, Mack, you've done it again.
gellaho
Excuse me, they follow People's Capitalism
Derpbat
Another fine dystopia.
gellaho
An economic system that makes no sense
Rachel, Pretty Gay
look shut up and take my variable basic stock
Derpbat
I keep forgetting that because trying to keep it in mind makes this whistling sound come out of the kettle I keep my Conservativism.
gellaho
This last sentence got me good
Brexdan McMoran
Zoroastrian creation myths should be taught in schools so kids get BOTH sides.
Derpbat
I'm like one more bad economic decision from calling Mack a hippie.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Do you think MacDonald is a weird like Jack Parsons is a weird or like Tesla is a weird?
LyraV Galavador Dali Lama
This is also how I refer to my anime tattoo.
gellaho
Thanks for telling me this mop looked like an auto-stylo. Because I know what those look like
gellaho
Derpbat
We should be telling the kids how Ahura Mazda crafted the universe from nothingness by igniting the eternal flame and Ahriman seeks to cast it into the abyss as its existence roused him from his deathless, lifeless slumber.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"A......Mop? Is that what you're really gonna call that? Oookay."
Derpbat
And all of the existence of mankind and life at large is an endless struggle between the truth of life and the falsehood of death.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Also MOPS DONT DETECT THINGS, MACK.
Brexdan McMoran
In Ry'leh, Ahriman lies sleeping.
Derpbat
How else will they be prepared for life?
Brexdan McMoran
I need this to be a movie. I love this paleofuture world.
Derpbat
Zoroastrianism has a weird myth cycle even before we get to its main character.
Brexdan McMoran
Hovercars but "HOLD on," said the cop. "Yiz is tellin' me youse can DETECT radio waves??"
Derpbat
I assume Mack doesn't understand the existence of radios.
Brexdan McMoran
Sweep for bugs, mop for bugs...what spins?
gellaho
I hope you were expecting SPECTRE-esque nuke shenanigans
gellaho
Derpbat
I wasn't.
But I'm down for it.
Brexdan McMoran
hahaha this is the Black Hand. This is truly an alternate timeline.
Derpbat
Sure, let's go.
che jakesy, sports revolutionary
EXTORTION INC
Lol
HOME OF THE INSURANCE MONEY
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Extortion INC as opposed to Extortion LLC.
Brexdan McMoran
Heavens, don't let our ally Israel get nukes.
che jakesy, sports revolutionary
Yeah you gotta make your extortion company a C Corp apparently
Space Action Flippant Sausage
OH GOD NOT INDIA AND PAKISTAN!
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
Wait all those countries still exist? what happened to the various rarities of Europe?
Brexdan McMoran
and our counterintuitive "ally" against our un-enemy India, Pakistan
Derpbat
An economical way to build a miniature nuke?
gellaho
Even in this book's timeline India had nukes so this list doesn't really make any sense
Brexdan McMoran
South Asia and the middle east are unchanged because they don't have nukes.