Teasers from beyond the blastwave Part VIII

Just informing my readers that Blog with the Blastwave is going to be going on a short Hiatus, though this will only be for about a month or so. I'm in the middle of a transition hase in my career and so will be scurrying around prepping my gear to move out from my apartment and take one of two options before me, unless an unexpected third option presents itself

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Coalinga was a blast as usual. A weird mix of chaos and order at the stockyards as they sell off most of the cow calf pairs to the ranchers in the delta to winter on the last crop of rice hay. Apparently I missed my older brothers visiting by a couple days. Eh there'll be more chances down the road I guess, some more research into the solar array has been done since I was last there, between the heavy armor cache underneath it, and the missile defense system, it still has secrets it's keeping. Hard to believe that it had had a massive chemical laser built into the solar collector and the whole facility has capacitors built into it. The estimates from the techmages that are poking around the facility are that it could burn a 40 foot hole through a meteor about a hundred miles out of atmosphere. Not really that impressive, but the information in the computers and paperwork in the control center itself imply that there's more of these hidden around the country, possibly the world.

And now we know where all that money for Green energy went, Al wasn't squirreling it away to be just a regular thieving bastard white collar criminal... he was becoming a supervillain.

Also did some testing with my gear and it's anomalous properties, basically I found a couple friends from college that got dragged along with the Mennonites into kings canyon when they evacuated everyone in the area the second time. Anyway the breakdown goes a little something like this:

Me without my ash coated gear=No visual anomaly.
Me with gear I took into the ashlands that stained: Slight visual anomoly, dizzying to look at.
Me, with my ash coated gear (the stuff I had with me out there originally) but no cloak: Kinda dizzying to look at directly.
Me, with ash coated gear, with cloak: Dizzying to look at directly, hard to notice in a crowd, even just alone standing out in the open a person just overlooks my presence unless I actually want to be noticed.

Further tests:
Friend with the gear I took into the ashlands: No visual anomaly
Friend with gear I brought out of the ashlands: Some visual anomaly, not as pronounced as with me though
Friend with my ashlands cloak: Same as above, some visual anomaly, not as pronounced or dizzying.

Got a job as a guard on a train to the north, so going to stop in Davis, there's supposed to be some smart folks to the north that might be able to figure things out a bit better than I can.


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Headed towards Oregon, mostly due to snow blocking my way south, and the route through Idaho is clear as far as I can see. Haven're really seen to many people, and no one's really commented on the wolf. I guess most of the stalkers are strange enough one with a wolf as a companion isn't too much of an oddity, even if that wolf is a cybernetic creation.

Anyway learned a few things about Pandora (great success, IDA finally decided that Pandora could actually be a better name to use since it's full designation of "Institute Design Ambassadorial" was a bit of a mouthful.) It can eat.  Anything organic, wood, grass, meat....me, etc etc. It isn't because it has dietary needs, rather it's because it's power source is an advanced microbial fuel cell, and yes, what goes in must go out as well, Pandora likewise wasn't programmed to taste anything but it does prefer cooked food over uncooked, something that due to the whole "having paws and not hands" thing it is incapable of doing on its own. The AI is also naturally inquisitive about the world, considering the programs that compose it originally came from the institute, and have never left the campus it literally has no knowledge of the world beyond what information was on the campus hard drives, and what they've gleaned off the internet now that that's a bit more restored to its former "glory".

As well as being inquisitive of the world, Pandora is also extremely cautious. They found a copy of terminator on a hard drive and a few Asimov stories in PDF form and are, probably rightly so, afraid of humanity and actually were quite afraid of even sending out some kind of ambassador. It apparently was a huge debate among the various AI's there so huge that it lasted four days, an eternity to them before they reached a consensus and decided I wasn't enough of a threat and had me do their search and rescue work for them.

Anyway, idaho, +  a light snow = a desolate place that's like they rolled the streets up and closed shop for the most part, at least for a person passing through. That's about it for this post. Should be into eastern oregon in a few days since I'm in no rush and the cold temperatures are keeping the deer I caught out in the open chilled with no risk of spoiling.

Teasers from beyond the blastwave part VII

I get less stares running around with my usual gear stowed in a pack. Apparently it is in-fact a visual anomaly based around the ash on my clothing... I may need to run some further tests

Oh right back in the CR, the caravan that I helped escort last week was the last big one for the summer especially with the snow starting to fall across the passes and no one wanting to invest too much work into getting a fleet of snowplows running again, at least right now anyway. Might do it when/if we're a unified country again but there's just too many differing opinions and fractured loyalties floating around right now, and too many people with those drastically differing opinions and loyalties that are employing small armies, however there are some signs of unity regardless.

For example: the California Republic and the Salt Lake Confederation, somewhat opposed ideologies: the CR having become extremely libertarian after the first election that was had, mostly due to shell-shocked folks just looking for some kind of  flag to rally around and the idea of "spreading the wealth around" didn't hold to well with them. However some things never change and San Francisco is one victory parade shy of being Communist totalitarian, but that's a whole other story.  Meanwhile the SLC's governance structure has faith intertwined into the highest levels, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's just you wouldn't expect the CR whose leadership professes "No gods, no kings, only man" to be trading partners with a confederation whose ideals and politics are intertwined with that of the Mormon Church.

Now some of you reading this may be wondering, "but where is the military in all this? Why haven't they stepped in and acted as a nationwide unifier/police force? Why are mercenaries like you protecting caravans?"

Well it's simple, the remnants have described that as not in their job description as they are mainly for defending us from foreign threats, that and the bulk of the military was in the field and got hit by tactical nuclear weapons. So most of the ones that are still around that didn't retire and or desert are stationed along the Ravenwood/Alameda DMZ and various other Chinese military footholds still in the U.S.

Anyway, headed over to my hometown to check on things there and see how everyone is before considering what to do next. Might bother a couple of friends that are around on the east side and run some tests with my ashlands kit to see what's what with the anomalous properties.

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Snow, I hate snow.... well not so much hate... dislike being cold and wet is a better choice of words I guess... my own damn fault for heading north to Canada without much cold/wet weather gear, then again I didn't plan on spending a month or so up there's that.

Anyway, found a snowmobile store out here in between towns, IDA (trying to convince it that Pandora would be a better name, though my arguments on the symbolism of pandora's box and the potential chaos that the idea of autonomous artificial intelligence could bring to human society has so far fallen to deaf audio sensors) and I were able to get it running after monkeying around with it and stuffing the engine off a portable diesel generator into it in place of the gas engine making it a bit more versatile in the fuels department... and easier to deal with since it's just compression at that point and no spark, and no electronic ignition needed. Hell pulling the computer, engine, and other unnecessary components (block heater and battery is necessary) made the damn thing lighter and easier to drive even after stuffing a diesel engine into it, weird, but it happened. Anyway this is making getting back south towards....hmmm.. not sure if I should go near the SLC just yet... a robot hellhound could get me burned at the stake, Ashlands stalker or not...Oregon perhaps?

Eh this is just musings though. dunno where to go just yet.

Teasers From Beyond the Blastwave Part VI

Bit of a short update for today. Like I said, Mea culpa Mea culpa. 

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So I finally got someone to tell me just why ashlands stalkers, not some of the new guys, people who started off the apocalypse out there, get talked about like we're harbringers of the apocalypse and things of that nature.apparently there's a miasma about us that makes us and the air around us blurry, kinda like a heat mirage with a hint of shadow is how he put it. Apparently this only affects people who started out out there. Which I guess makes sense, that area is weird with anomalies and what some people are calling magic now, so it could be a matter of acclimation as well, which would explain why none of us are able to notice it and everyone else does.

I guess that could be intimidating to most people... I'll have to bring this to the others, so we can figure things out, might have the organize those of us into some kind of order since this apparently affects the ash too which is why people need us as guides...

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Weather sucks, trapped in a forest due to snow. Not much to say. IDA is having a blast running around through the snow with a "holycrapwhathehellisthis" reaction to the snow. Which is kinda odd for coming from Canada....but..yeah.

Well not so much trapped as it's taking a while to slog through all this snow, and I can only melt so much of it in a day with fire.