Space Action Flippant Sausage
67: Police Patrol: 2000 A.D. Mack Reynolds
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gellaho
I guess the idea is that they are designs for itty-bitty nukes
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
I guess the Asian-war wasn't nuclear, at least.
Brexdan McMoran
Putin's boasting about having those.
gellaho
Also, nuclear weapons have been outlawed. Because that's enforceable
Somehow
Derpbat
You know the appropriate thing to do for this threat is to go back to bed.
Because either they can't pull it off, or they won't, or they will even if you pay them.
Brexdan McMoran
I'm having a hard time fitting this into the Steele universe now.
gellaho
Also important to note that Tad Boleslaw has become Sherlock Holmes
Brexdan McMoran
unless this is how it starts.
Derpbat
Right?
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Too bad the US has already genetically engineered Ukrainians that can withstand radiation.
gellaho
He's able to psychically deduce how good someone is on a typewriter by reading the type
Derpbat
He's been three different detective archetypes in this short already m
Why not go all in?
LyraV Galavador Dali Lama
These people thought the best way to handle this was to hire Tad Boneslaw, drunken future PI
Space Action Flippant Sausage
The "drunken" part is just marketing tho, he's kinda too lame to be an alcoholic.
che jakesy, sports revolutionary
Pretty good for a guy who was named after the first thing the author saw on the KFC menu
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
i'm no printologist, but I'm pretty sure something can't be printed on an old-fashioned platen press and typed on an electric typewriter.
gellaho
"I need your skills, street cop-cum-vice cop. Only you can solve this international mystery"
Derpbat
I can't believe Mack thought combining all these short stories together would make sense as a way to edit them.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"Gee, thanks for getting me basically fired without like..........asking first."
Derpbat
Because I am now intensely, deeply aware of his flaws and theirs.
gellaho
Convenient
Brexdan McMoran
Phages, we call 'em
Derpbat
I admire his confidence.
Brexdan McMoran
Screamers, coloquially
Space Action Flippant Sausage
FUCK YOU TAD YOU DID NOT JUST ADMIT TO BEING A PRINTING NERD!
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
Haha, his hobby as a kid was printing. I bet he got beat up a lot
Derpbat
This guy let an armed bandit enemy of the state go because his shift was over.
And now he's the greatest detective ever.
gellaho
Tad's turning into a cat now
Space Action Flippant Sausage
God it makes so much sense a kid named Tad who loves fonts and shit grew up to be a cop.
Brexdan McMoran
I hope to God Rex Moran gets called in to help him infiltrate the system.
Derpbat
... This would be the perfect job for him.
Like, no joke.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Those bombs are kinda........low cost.
Like a normal one today costs like 28 mil.
Brexdan McMoran
"Rex Moran, I may want to take you in more than anything...but goddammit I respect you too much."
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
But they said they weren't building the bombs, just giving the plans to governments.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
I can see why they wanna make the change to the minis.
Thats like twice the nukes.
gellaho
"Jesus, Tad, nobody cares how they duplicated the paper"
gellaho
Derpbat
I mean, the problem is really getting your hands on the fissile materials.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
Old-fashioned is really getting a workout as a descriptor
Derpbat
You can do it with enough time and smoke detectors.
But then you need to purify it and it's a whole thing.
gellaho
Tad refuses the call
Derpbat
... Hahaha
This was their only idea?
Jesus they suck.
che jakesy, sports revolutionary
They'll have to call in their second option, fire chief Hal TashedPotatoes
Derpbat
He came up with a government in 2000 that was worse than our actual governments in 2000.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
What do you expect from the dystopian Zoroastrian Peoples Capitalist government tho?
gellaho
Time to get blitzed
che jakesy, sports revolutionary
Now that's a real guzzle, said the real human person who gets invited to parties
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Oh mack, this is wayyyy too late in the book for this Heroes Journey shit.
You do Refusing the Call at the beginning.
gellaho
An erect Mack has impregnated his carpet
Derpbat
Holy jumping Zoroaster.
che jakesy, sports revolutionary
Hahahaha this is so shitty
Derpbat
Someone was watching Batman!
Space Action Flippant Sausage
That carpet gonna give birth to a bottle of slivovitz.
gellaho
"Dear EXTORTION, INC.
I have already done so. Dipshits"
FancyShark in a White Suit
It's a fiendish game of mental chess
Brexdan McMoran
MacDonald knows the manager
Derpbat
Man, everyone involved in this on every level is the dumbest possible iteration of themselves.
We've found the basal universe.
FancyShark in a White Suit
What have I missed?
Brexdan McMoran
When you try to double down but don't realize the dealer folded.
Derpbat
Nothing, and yet somehow even less than that?
Brexdan McMoran
I don't care if I mixed my card games up.
gellaho
Detective roofies
Derpbat
Boleslaw had like five different personality changes.
Then he became every PI in literary history at once.
gellaho
Tad Boleslaw is Sherlock Holmes investigating nuclear extortion
Derpbat
And then he decided not to save the world.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
I'd try summarizing but the best I can do is 🤷♂️
Derpbat
And now he's not allowed to get drunk.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
He's too much of a pussy to drink it all anyway.
Brexdan McMoran
An entire society calling hard liquor guzzle feels like world-building for a more dystopian future than this one.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Someone needs to tell Tad the best way to deal with a trap is to spring it.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Wow. So the writer's just throwing every idea on the page
Space Action Flippant Sausage
So chug that drugged booze.
gellaho
Aw, Man. You're going to put impregnate in there and not use "cum" this time?
gellaho
He's attempting to combine like 4 short stories he had
Space Action Flippant Sausage
And badly.
gellaho
The Rex Moran one seemed like the longest and now he's just trying to reach 180 pages
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Like that shit with Rosy just never did anything.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Later, his shirt gave birth to a healthy, three pound flask
FancyShark in a White Suit
That tracks
Derpbat
The evidence would suggest that by the time he'd reached this one he'd run out of ideas.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
I'm trying to keep up with all the contradictions he's introducing into his world building but I can't type that fast.
FancyShark in a White Suit
The best part of him screwing up tying these stories together is that he supposedly improved on them from their original publications
gellaho
"My only idea was calling a street cop"
Space Action Flippant Sausage
He jizzed so hard when he finished Rex Moran he just plum forgot he could do any real writing.
FancyShark in a White Suit
To be fair, didn't we all?
Don't answer that
Derpbat
The most important thing you need to know is the bad guys invented 10 million dollar nuclear bombs and are threatening to give them to a list of countries, some of which already had nuclear bombs when he wrote this story.
And in exchange, they only want ten million dollars.
Which any sensible government would look at, and then just throw the paper in the bin.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Seems reasonable in the year 2000
gellaho
Tad begins jumping to conclusions
Derpbat
But these guys went and hired a street cop.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Wait.........Tad are you still woozy from the roofies?
Derpbat
@FancyShark in a White Suit A street cop whose firing they arranged specifically so they could hire him for a job he is not qualified for and has no training in how to perform.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Sure, cops are allowed to do crime solving on the side. That's legal
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Cos none of that shit made sense.
Brexdan McMoran
I'm particularly fond of not being able to find a reason to sideline Boleslaw even though he was revising them.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
The dame is always in on it in this kind of story, that's how Tad knew.
gellaho
Tad decides this is the work of one person... because
Brexdan McMoran
Rex Moran, Superthief, I treasure you. I know you're watching out for us all, you red-hat.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Nadine thinks that if you sign something in the name of a committee then you cant be lying.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
bad-os is the worst linux distribution
Derpbat
Rex Moran is busy fucking his way through Europe.
FancyShark in a White Suit
I suspect Boleslaw is the thread that ties these together
Derpbat
You'd think so, but I'm pretty sure Mack just changed people's names.
Because one iteration of Boleslaw has nothing in common with the next.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Also it doesnt take a criminal genius to set up a typewriter, Tad.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Which means Mack thought this up at a barbeque
Derpbat
I have never used a typewriter and I'm pretty sure I could set one up in three or fewer tries.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
I'm relatively sure my aged mother could manage it and she can't use Microsoft Office.
Derpbat
And having done so once, I think that would probably mean I could set up every typewriter that has ever existed.
gellaho
Only two people had access to these plans, sure
Brexdan McMoran
We had a typewriter until like...1991, what is Mack on that they've vanished?
My mom tried to give it to me two weeks ago. I would have taken it if I had anywhere in a Manhattan apt to put it.
gellaho
Considering they were xeroxing things five years prior, seems like almost anyone could
Derpbat
We're still xeroxing now.
FancyShark in a White Suit
We changed dollars to pseudo-dollars and updated the idioms accordingly
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Shit Tad got drunk and figured out it was Nadine?!
Derpbat
All that's changed is we don't call it xeroxing.
Brexdan McMoran
fun fact: my great grandpa invented the magic margin
That's the "ding!" and automatic return at the end of the typewriter.
I have Royal blood.
gellaho
Ooh, fancy boy
Derpbat
Praise him with great praise!
Brexdan McMoran
Royal Typewriter blood, anyway.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Yes?
Derpbat
...wait.
gellaho
Can't stand the horselaugh
Derpbat
He's calling it Xeroxing
LyraV Galavador Dali Lama
That's dope as fuck dude! I loved my old typewriter.
Derpbat
Is there a copyright notice at the front of the book?
Because I'm pretty sure you needed that even in the distant world of 197X.
Brexdan McMoran
I'm gonna get one eventually. I think mechanical keyboards are just my happy medium.
Derpbat
My understanding is the primary problem with typewriters is the ink.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
Switzerland: not part of the established Common Europe
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Jesus........Tad solved this by accusing one of the three people he's met in person since it came up, he's read the script.
Derpbat
I'm thinking of buying one of those e-ink computers.
Just for writing.
But the keyboards always suck.
gellaho
And that's the end of that story
FancyShark in a White Suit
I had a teacher that suffered head trauma and fucked up some part of the brain that helped govern speech and writing ability. He'd come up with weird words like Mack
gellaho
Did she get caught?
Who knows
Derpbat
Well, that was a pointless interlude.
Well done, Mack.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
Congrats on filling up...some pages
gellaho
Fuck you, next chapter. Status Quo
Derpbat
I'd say we knew you had it in you. But we didn't, and you don't.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Hand operated printing press in the YEAR 2000!
Space Action Flippant Sausage
In my headcanon Tad does a sweet flying kick that catches Nadine at the base of her spine and she spends six years learning to walk again and sues the police.
FancyShark in a White Suit
I assume the shares are a dollar a piece
Derpbat
What's funny to me is that Mack is obviously a huge fan of the police, and yet took no time to learn anything about them.
gellaho
"You know, the racist vigilante? Weirdly small time considering what you just did, but them's the breaks"
Brexdan McMoran
Get yourself an Alphasmart. eink uses more power with more changes. LCD is lowest power option. I've been running my Alphasmart 3000 off the same batteries for years. However, the keyboard DOES suck, so either get the Neo2 or pay me to upgrade the 3K to mechanical.
Derpbat
Investigating financial crimes has been a specialized department for... forever?
Like, literally?
Since the dawn of human history?
FancyShark in a White Suit
At least since money
Derpbat
One of the most famous stories of scientific progress in our civilization is based around that fact?
Brexdan McMoran
The secretary is the butler of the bureacracy.
Derpbat
I didn't even think of the alphasmart.
gellaho
The secretary of the Secretary
Space Action Flippant Sausage
You know, this Buddy guy..........he might be dangerous, having killed like six guys or so in the last couple months.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
Oh good, Buddy Brothers is back. I could tell Mack was itching to use some more slurs.
Brexdan McMoran
Tad Boleslaw dialed up the Buzzfeed. A few simple questions rapidly told him which Friend he was.
FancyShark in a White Suit
It's not like he stole a credit card
Derpbat
But they were muggers and also not white people.
So who cares?
Not the police department!
Brexdan McMoran
It's the whole reason we have writing!
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Cops only care about property crime anyway.
Brexdan McMoran
Goddammit
gellaho
This is the Tad that just figured out a nuclear extortion from a sheet of paper
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Tad is such a cop.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Tad puts in as much work as they're willing to pay for
Derpbat
Like, even in the most racist backwater in the most racist part of the south, even in the 1970s, if a single person was running around killing minorities so often that it became a meme, I'm pretty sure the police would stop it.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Eventually
Brexdan McMoran
Bernie Goetz, Buddy Brothers.
gellaho
The old depilatory
Derpbat
Not like 100% sure. But pretty sure. I
Brexdan McMoran
Oh buddy, no.
Derpbat
Yeah. like, eventually they'd get around to it.
Derpbat
No?
gellaho
I am vetoing this conversation
Derpbat
Oh well.
FancyShark in a White Suit
When there were no victims left
Derpbat
Do... police departments have a dress uniform?
I didn't know that.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Yessir, the ol' rumpler
Space Action Flippant Sausage
My brother used a depliatory cream on his face once and swelled up like a toad.
It was funny as shit.
Brexdan McMoran
Look up sundown towns, and there I lay my conversation down.
Derpbat
Depilatory creams are a terrible idea.
gellaho
Colonel got that tight mouth
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Whhhhhhhhaaaaat? Harsh chemicals that remove hair are BAD?!
FancyShark in a White Suit
oh wait, I was reading "dilapidated cream"
Brexdan McMoran
Probably doesn't even moisten his lips when he makes love to his wife, grim bastard.
Derpbat
General Pershing! That's the topical reference all the kids loved in 1979.
Brexdan McMoran
"Col. Character I made up resemebled Real-Life General." That's the stuff.
gellaho
Wow, indeed
Brexdan McMoran
Sci-fi really gives these parties it's best gems.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Pershing sounds cooler than Smedley Butler but is absolutely not cooler than ol Smedley.
Brexdan McMoran
The military refuses to release info on the guy who was of no value to them.
If the people found out a sociopath were ever allowed to attain officer rank, they would yawn in horror.
gellaho
"Okay, the Pentagon is too old fashioned, I gotta future it up. We're talking about the year 2000!"
FancyShark in a White Suit
Do they have to meet-cute the non-com?
Derpbat
Pershing outranks every military officer in the history of the United States, past present or future, except George Washington.
gellaho
Thanks, professor
Derpbat
This is probably the only interesting Pershing fact.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Boy that says "We are operating a clandestine death squad and don't want you to know, copper."
FancyShark in a White Suit
More sides equals more military!
Derpbat
I guarantee it will be less interesting than that.
I am 100% certain.
Brexdan McMoran
This is my favorite thing today.
I have done this.
Just add one side and call it sci-fi
But he went up THREE
gellaho
Ultra-mation
Brexdan McMoran
in two decades!
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Icosahedron is the most sci fi shape tho.
Derpbat
That's how you know he's serious about his science fiction, yeah.
Brexdan McMoran
I love how he got technology so wrong while getting technology's effects so right.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Mack gave a little kid a thesaurus and let them pick the future words
Space Action Flippant Sausage
P..plus ultra?!
Brexdan McMoran
Ne plus ultra.
gellaho
While the Hardys snack, Tadeusz Boleslaw gets hammered
LyraV Galavador Dali Lama
For when we surpass exclamations.
Derpbat
We know, Mack.
You hate Russian Vodka.
We went over this at the very beginning of this novel.
For what felt like at the time more than long enough to establish this fact of your character.
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
vodka with herbs in it is just gin.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Also bison and buffalo are DIFFERENT ANIMALS!
FUCK YOU MACK!
Brexdan McMoran
...TIL
gellaho
Volkshover
Derpbat
So, did we ever sort out what happened to all the grapes that were banned from being used for things we've used grapes for since the year -10000?
FancyShark in a White Suit
For shoving volks around
Derpbat
Because that's literally the only fact from his wordbuilding I want to know more about.
gellaho
That was 3 stories ago
Derpbat
Ah, right, he's forgotten.
FancyShark in a White Suit
And at least five Tads
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"See, the Volkswagen carrys people, the Volkshover is more like a bulldozer but for one person."
Derpbat
Carry on.
Derpbat
Okay, so I would buy one of those.
Mack, you've done it again! Entirely by accident you
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
no idea but there is no shortage of the stuff we've used grapes for since the year -10000.
gellaho
Mack is back to calling people fat and/or ugly. So there's continuity
Derpbat
oh, fuck, it's just a Volkswagen that hovers, isn't it.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Ahh, now I feel grounded
Derpbat
That realization depressed me more than it should.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
"She had this placid, fat look, like some kind of bovine."
FancyShark in a White Suit
I hope all of these descriptions are being narrated out loud by Tad wherever he goes
gellaho
"I drink right before getting in my uniform"
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Just call the poor woman a cow like you know you wanna, Mack.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Tad then hit PLAY on the boombox
Derpbat
I'll say this for Mack. A lot of sci fi authors back in the day thought women who weren't beautiful were less than human.
But he has the guts to say it.
gellaho
Just the wrinkliest 50 year old you ever did see
gellaho
FancyShark in a White Suit
He was more raisin than man
Derpbat
Mack met someone who did farmwork or manual labor once.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Oh shit there was the Asian-war and now an Asian War!
Derpbat
And that forever scarred his soul.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
TWO wars! TWO Asian!
Derpbat
You'd think after the first one we'd have learned better.
FancyShark in a White Suit
Asian War 2: Sorry, We Forgot Some Stuff!
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Probably was some land mass we hadnt mostly covered in UXO yet.
Derpbat
Also, he was writing this in the late 70s, and it's set in the year 2000, so I guess he thought we had a really busy twenty or so years.
Space Action Flippant Sausage
Also Mack..........you can just say Vietnam.
We know what you mean.
FancyShark in a White Suit
I think we should be happy Mack knows Vietnam is an Asian country
gellaho
If you hadn't guessed already, Buddy Brothers did a massacre in the war
FancyShark in a White Suit
well, impressed
Shark Puke Fetishist GDC
I promised myself I wouldn't make any more Princess Bride references when the Asian-War came up again.
Brexdan McMoran
Everything's automated now, people are unnecessary, housewives are busy. (and thicc)
FancyShark in a White Suit
Yep, genocide sure is a feisty activity
gellaho
"It's called an allegory"
Derpbat
Oh, Mack.