Briton, one of a people inhabiting Britain before the Anglo-Saxon invasions beginning in the 5th century AD. -Britannica

Oh, that's good, I had too much bias from my own idea and the other prompt. It's always fun to see the different ways people interpret these, apologies for missing your creativity.

We all know the president answers to the SCP. No way politicians would be trusted with decision making. Works better with the Global Occult Coalition who are a worthy rival often destroying the paranormal before the SCP can secure them.

You really nailed the tone of them. I listen to that SCP YouTuber who pretends it's an orientation; within a couple of paragraphs, I heard his voice while I read.

If it were a literal bomb, there's at least a 90% chance they'd let it through.

Don't forget Ireland, holder of many US corporate patents for some reason. Perhaps Apple can tell us why... Ireland has super low corporate taxes so Apple Ireland owns the IP, but they don't do anything, instead Apple licenses the IP from themselves for huge sums lowering their domestic profits, lowering total taxes, and increasing total after-tax profit.

And the Cayman islands and probably tons more less overt ways. Like housing, a ton of AirBnB places are actually just foreign investor properties used to hide/move money.

They disagree, it took almost no time to research, write, or edit. And yet, the headline got you to click on it, them a page view, and possibly even some advertising revenue.

Can you imagine a better ROI article than that?

And spelling. More than once I've been arguing politics and went to discuss the bigger problem. There's an n-key right beside the b and I've fatfingered it a few times, thankfully I've always noticed before submitting... hopefully.

This seems more like a showerthought than a prompt.

Remember to always wear a rubber... gloves when you are messing with spicy peppers.

Sadly, this is true. It's insane we treat food, medicine, and housing as privileges so corporations can coerce us into worse working conditions.

I think it's plausible, but I bet we aren't allowed to submit support tickets regardless of how we complain.

Or perhaps this is how we submit a support ticket because it's all a simulation. We may never know 😜

Then this prompt is stupid. We can't immediately put a satellite anywhere, so what's the point of asking where you'd do that impossible thing.

By answering with both assumptions, my answer is more thorough and logically consistent with the illogical question.

Assuming it can communicate back even for an a few moments, the inside of a black hole. Assuming it cannot, probably inside a nebula at that age where rocky planets can begin forming. And assuming the comms are bound by physics, choose one of the interesting moons NASA and others aren't going to.

How to get distinct personalities in 20words... "So, we have the so guy." Tomas. "Right right, but we also have the yeah yeah girl." Lilith.

The rest required a bit more actual personality to kick start them. I had to figure out why St Peter was acting so aggressive when that should be out of character, hope that explanation was satisfactory.

The doggy inspired Hell was a fun surprise. I imagined Hell's fury bubbling up, but controlled like since he was in an office. And since Hell had just messed on the carpet it clikced.

The entire story was to make the Zuckerberg ruining Heaven's ability to properly sort people into their nuanced categories pun. Literally all of it because I thought suckerberg... I just needed a story to go with it lol.

Part 2 of 2 - Satan & St Peter

Ever since they'd made that agreement, things had gone so well. Heaven gets the Unionists that want to reunite and he got to keep the Separatists who enjoyed everything since.

But for nearly two decades they'd been getting the count all wrong. Satan had explained the situation to St Peter, the eternal gatekeeper, but he'd scoffed.

Didn't even put on the airs of a gentlemen, 'What's the matter Diablo, are the individuals too much to handle? I assure you our system is fine.' and then he hung up. "God damnit!" Satan roared while stomping on the ground.

Hell heard his fury, and a small gout of lava boiled up. Not enough to make a mess of the carpet, but enough to remind him the world cared. "Aww, love you too buddy. But I'm not fixing that again. Do it outside."

The lava receded, but the charred fibers and small hole remained. And if that wasn't annoying enough, his secretary Lilith buzzed, "Cult Corral calling, should I put them thru?"

"What's the bastard want to chide me about now. I already told him that until he starts giving me all of mine, I'll give these freaks exactly what they wanted." Satan growled into the intercom.

"Right, right. God damn them all. So should I put him thru or say you are unavailable... again."

"Must you always be so-"

"Helpful, only for you." Lilith interuppted.

"-patronizing, I am the Supreme Lord of Hell."

"Yeah, yeah. And you have a gripe with Almighty Lord of Heaven. Now are you going to deal with his errand boy or make it a feud?"

"Uraaaggh Lilith, fine, just fine." Satan hated Sundays, for some reason it always worked out like this. But at least tomorrow would be Monday, an unholy day of business.

She put him thru without the parting shot he was waiting for and St Peter screamed "Do you realize how bad this makes us look? What have you done to it? You complained you didn't like your damned hellspawn and now they're showing up on the exemption list. You had better explain yourself!"

"And if I don't?"

"Then I'll be forced to file an injunction."

"For what."

"Your whereabouts from the fourth epoch to the current time... actually, until the completion of this epoch so you don't try anything later."

"Everywhere. I'm a god dumbass."

"How dare you! This is why you were cast out, damned. You are no god but a mere fragment of the God."

"Integral infinities are good enough for me." Satan said, but only thought 'for now.' St Peter would definitely lose it if he said that.

"Like I can't see your nature beast. You just lust for more and more and more. I know your goal and I don't know why he allows it."

"The lord works in mysterious ways. Best to accept it even when it sounds illogical to you. I'm sure bad things are for good purposes in his infinitely infinite wisdom." Satan said playfully, repeating some of the lines St Peter had used eons ago.

"I won't be swayed by your words. I know my beliefs are true."

"I know what you believe, you always shout it from your cloudy palace. Sing about it too."

"That helping you is a..." St Peter began harshly before clearing his throat, "is a necessary part of the Lord's plan."

Satan grinned, how many millions more of these talks would it take before he was truly tempted? "But you didn't call just to express your hate of me, did you?"

"So about this hellspawn on my list. No true child of the Lord would insist on going to your place of suffering when they could know peace and love.

Satan snorted, "I told you my shipments were short, but you said I was lying. Instead you were arrogant. I told you not to trust Ukerburg with that data. Instead, you kept using suckerburg. I told you I was getting some of your lot, but you said I couldn't handle all the differences. Instead, it was you." his words carried the weight of a divine judge and Hell experienced a small earthquake in recognition, just enough to stir the dust.

"You can't put this on us. We are infallible."

"So it's my fault for allegedly outsmarting you? That'd still make you fallible."

"It'd just make you perfectly evil."

"Whatever man. So are you ready to use my list to make adjustments or..."

"Absolutely not. I'm no fool. I'll have to do it the long way until we can figure out how you hacked Ukerburg, but we should discuss what to do about this one."

A folder came across the system and Satan flicked thru the files. When he came to the notated conversation, "I don't really believe propaganda. Well... I probably did, but not that obvious shit like Hell is pure evil and Satan tempts for pure evil." he began laughing until he cried and hail began pouring from the sky.

"You made that up right? There's no way you actually called me perfectly evil right after the kid said that. You'd always called me pure evil so as to not accuse me of perfection. That was you wasn't it?"

"As you see, he is clearly hellspawn. So what will you pay?" St Peter said, ignoring the taunts.

"Selling souls, my my, and they call me evil." Satan taunted, "We'll trade 4 of these perfectly adorable sheeple for him."

"Four, but why so many. Are they hellspawn you hope to try and sneak into Heaven."

"No, like I keep telling you. They are your people and there's only so many times you can torture the same person to death before it gets boring." Satan lied, torturing random souls had grown boring back during the dinosaurs, but there were a few special someones he'd play with for eternity.

"Hmm, they must be quite shattered by now." St Peter said.

"No, they're just super fucking annoying. I mean I'd rather deal with them than let you have them while you steal from me, but we're negotiating now."

"And is one of those souls named Tomas O'Hara?"

Satan hated dealing with the man, but all the frustration their talks caused was finally baring fruit. "Anything for you. And do feel free to call if you want the rest of yours back."

r/AurumArgenteus

Part 1 of 2 - Tomas & St Peter

"It was close since you never accepted Jesus as your Lord and savior, but you lived well and did little intentional harm. You helped your neighbors and were a productive worker helping your community. I can't judge you as a parent, but welcome to Heaven." St Peter said in a surprisingly animated voice.

Tomas was surprised St Peter cared so much. After however many billion souls, he'd probably just hand everybody a card to read. But that was just his idle thoughts, instead he was focused on getting into Heaven. For an atheist, that was an unexpected accomplishment.

"So, is it like the Christians said? Eternal happiness, everything you could want?"

"Yes, it is a place of peace and harmony without suffering."

Tomas clapped his hands in excitement. If he could just eat decent food, watch good shows, visit cool places, and smoke a little weed with his friends while they did it, "This is what I always dreamed of. Life is suffering enough so we might as well make it as good as possible. But since this is the afterlife y'all did it even better."

"It is as Yahweh promised, He rewards those who honor him in deed and act during the course of their lives. Meanwhile, Hell is quite like Earth without His mercy, but worse for those who bring light are shpeherded here."

Tomas nodded, he'd never act on the thought, but the world would be better off if some people had a fortunate accident. "Yep, that's why we never could make things good. Some opportunist always saw an opportunity off the brilliance and good intentions of others."

St. Peter nodded sagely, "And do you have any questions before you go?" With a flick of his wrist, the pearly gates manifested, but did not open.

Tomas almost shook his head, but decided to make sure. It was one of those questions that'd caused him to turn atheist in the first place. "So if heaven is a place of serenity and Hell is that of suffering, and it's likely at least one of my friends will get sent to Hell, how can I be serene knowing my friend is in pain?"

Either they inended to wipe his personality, his memories, or it was not in fact so perfect a place. No other explanation made sense.

"Serenity is being present in the moment. Beyond the gates is a place of such Grace, you couldn't possibly worry about that which is lost."

"Them." Tomas said reflexively. Then got annoyed and anxious, correcting St Peter seemed foolish, but it reminded him of what Megan went thru before she could pass. 'And slavery' he thought after.

"As I recall, them is for a group of people, not Hellspawn." St Peter said sharply before continuing as before, "But I didn't mean to upset you. Actually, if you look at the texts, the Lord doesn't express his opinion either way. You people made it a sin all on your own."

"Well what you said about LGB people didn't help."

St Peter chuckled, "I'm used to having this argument with atheists I send to Hell, but not ones that are approved on merit. But no matter, have you managed to translate the Dead Sea Scrolls properly? No. And that's what the Lord had to say about that."

Tomas noticed that St Peter didn't actually specify God's opinion. 'Maybe it was like trans people?' But he decided not to press the issue. Instead choosing to ask about entertainment, "So, do you just have the movies and games made to now or do you have the ones that'll be made in the future.

"Uhmmm.... noooo." St Peter said slowly but not sarcastically. It was like he found the question itself confusing.

"I mean, can I play some videogame made in 2045 now or do I have to wait 22yrs?"

"I thought I explained this when you asked about your friends."

'Friends?' Tomas thought, he wasn't surprised, but it hurt to hear he'd lose more than one. "Nope, we definitely didn't cover future stuff."

"I mean, why would you need movies and games from the living when you are serene?"

Tomas laughed nervously, this was starting to sound like it'd get boring before eternity. "Then y'all must have some fire."

"Fire and brimstone is Hell's thing." St Peter joked.

"But seriously, what is perfect weed like? If I'm going to be serene without ente-"

"There are no drugs in Heaven. You won't ever have the need or desire for caffeine, cannabis, tobacco, sugar, or any other mortal vice."

Tomas stared. St Peter seemed expectant, as if he would be excited to never do drugs or finally play Half Life 3. Tomas stared so St Peter cleared his throat and continued, "You will be free of that. What do you say. Are you ready to be at peace?"

"So, did you say Hell was basically Earth 2.0 instead of torture and red horned sadists?"

"Naturally, how would he tempt the corruptable if he made it awful? There's suffering and pain, but he finds way to make a poor parody of the Lord's mercy."

"And what is this Lord's mercy you keep saying?"

"It is freedom from pain and the gift of boundless love and joy."

"While my friend's get high, go to cool places, and play games that don't even exist yet? Honestly, I think you got the wrong guy. Send me there."

"Excelle..." his enthusiastic words trailed off and his fingers ready to snap merely twitched. "You mean there?" he asked gesturing to the gates.

Tomas shook his head, "You know which I meant."

"You cannot be serious, nobody chooses to go there. Only the damned go there."

"Damn it all to Hell, You damned well better not send me thru that damned gate. Please send me to where I can at least have fun."

"But why?"

"I don't really believe propaganda. Well... I probably did, but not that obvious shit like Hell is pure evil and Satan tempts for pure evil."

"He does. When the Lord and he worked together, there was perfect serenity. Such total harmony, but then there was the big fight and they left so explosively. It was his greed and avarice, his opportunism as you put it. He is the cause of suffering. Why does God not pay taxes for his mistake? Because he is focused on sorting and reuniting to end the suffering altogher!" St Peter kept talking faster and louder until he was shouting.

"Woah, woah, it's alright. But you can't be so cruel as to condemn me to an eternity I do not want."

"You are but a child before his wisdom. Children do not make decisions as important as these. So come along."

St Peter stood up and walked to the right side of the gate, just before the marble steps. When he turned around, Tomas hadn't moved. And he didn't to, Tomas was going to treat this guy like the peacekeeper he was. "I do not consent."

"Like I said, this is not your decision to make so come here." St Peter commanded in a way that demanded instant obedience.

It reminded him of his second grade teacher, and he hated her too. "I don't mean to pull a Karen, but you might as well check with your supervisor. If you do it, you're basically abducting me, didn't Deuteronomy have something about that."

"Dead Sea Scrolls, I already told you, that doesn't have Deuteronomy." St Peter put his hand hand over his face and groaned. "You realize who my suoervisor is right? You seriously intend to be this trounlesome?"

r/AurumArgenteus

Humanity has constructed a stellazer to cross interstellar distances, but a computer glitch/hack has caused it to target Earth instead of Andromeda.

Or getting so many useless powers with synergistic effects they are surprisngly OP.

Prompt is a bit off. If you are born with a power, you wouldn't need money to get your first power. Makes me think of the anime where the guy's power was the ability to absorb and retain other people's; that's why the protagonist I won't write would need money to get his first and why others don't try.

And half the fires are caused by a power company they aren't even progressive enough to properly regulate, let alone make state owned like PPE deserves.

TW: suicide (not depicted)

"What do you think it means?" President Stone asked during the emergency meeting.

"Obviously this is not a prank. How are people seeing clouds spell words when their shouldn't have been the right atmospheric conditions for even a few cirrus clouds? That's like saying everyone got a letter on New Years, how? The mail doesn't deliver then." Meriden, the NOAA director said.

Such a meeting was beyond their station, but answers were needed now, and when the gods send letters via clouds, who better than the cloud expert? At least that's why President Stone suggested them, but they were not helping calm the situation. "Thanks for thar wealfh of information. And what of our rivals?"

"Several cyberattacks have been launched, but we believe they are seeking answers. To the best of our knowledge, none were successful, but we'll xontinue to monitor the situation." Sid, the CIA director said calmly.

"Attacks you say?" President Stone could work with that, an understandable enemy. "It was the Russians right? Tell me it was the Russians."

"It was everybody and naturally we did our own."

"And we did em the American way." Jackson, the NSA director said without permission. "And I can confidently say, they have no idea why nearly 2/3 of births quit being successful after the skype."

"You can't just associate a company with a bad thing." Sid admonished.

"I'm sure Corona disagrees, but fine, the cloud message." Jackson said.

"So what is the solution? Should we advocate for less Medicare funding to let the elderly die off? We can't let our workforce get too skewed." President Stone said, hoping to return to the actual point of the meeting.

"India was the first to try. The population dropped since it apparently means 10B exactly. It does not respect soceirgnty so killing our own would depend on luck, luck that an American happened to be born in that fraction of a second." Sid reported, looking troubled for the first time. He knew what that meant.

"Which means the solution is war!" General Bradshaw shouted with anticipation.

The table looked at him. Was this dude for real? He was a holdover from the last administration, "but what kind of cliché villain shit is that." President Stone started mumbling.

"It's practical sir. The only way to ensure enough die for our citizens to be born is to coordinate c-sections and military operations. Even a bleeding heart like yourself can't ignore such pragmatic advice, because how long will it take the other party to figure this out."

They'd already decided that of course. But in an even less constructive way. Why feed prisoners when we can save babies? Why feed the poor when we can save the future? Disgusting. President Stone sighed, hoping to release his frustration.

"Please." President Stone said, pleading with Marcus, the NASA director.

He twiddled his thumbs for a while. "Of the five we sent, four were still births. We don't know if it was because of a null-g birth, getting to space during a lage stage pregnancy, or the curse. We don't have enough data on any of this because we've always listened to the wrong person when we had the chance." He finished by speaking to the General.

"We'd have just reached it sooner if it weren't for our heroism."

"More like opportunism."

"Opportunism? Sure we are kept from getting the work done in-"

"Even now!?" President Stone shouted before speaking calmly, "We need to stop vigilante justice, we need to make sure nobody has the bright idea to nuke about a billion people out of existence, and we have to find a reasonable solution that won't immediately cause the first two problems somehwere else."

"That would be ideal." Sid deadpanned.

"And that means we need to find solutions."

Hours passed and the one thing they did not find was solutions. War, cutting instead of expanding Medicare, and promoting immigration were the only things that didn't seem even more terrible. "Let's return in an hour, consult your advisors, eat a meal, and let's come up with a plan that isn't shit." President Stone said before leaving the conference. He couldn't do it, no, he wouldn't be forced to do it.

President Stone had a Monte Cristo sent up, the sweet ham and powdered sugar made it a meal for a child, but he needed some indulgence on this time of hell. Forget his agenda, some asshole was data capping them because they were too cheap.

When the sandwich arrived, he turned on the television to watch the Pope's address. "Brothers and sisters, children of God. Today is a day of trials. This is an era of tribulations. But the Lord Almighty has given us the model we must follow. After much prayer and while searching the ancient catacombs of the Vatican linraries that I was blessed with the answer. Suicide is a sin, perhaps one of the worst since it means you cannot repent or seek forgiveness. And yet, we also know that Jesus chose to die for our sins. How do we reconcile this act of willful death for a greater purpose, as a divine sacrifice, with the command that we must not end our own lives?" The pope paused for dramatic effect, both hands outstretched before hammering a fist into the other's palm. "Purpose. Purpose is the difference between selfish and sinful suicide versus noble sacrifice. To end your own suffering, the challenges the lord planned to test and grow your soul is selfish. It is difficult to be forgiven. And yet, when it is for another's sake, nay many other's whom you do not personally know, then it might be just. It is these thought that have revealed the truth, we must sacrifice ourselves so our grandchildren may live. It is with a heavy heart and a lightened soul that I share such morbid answers. It is our duty to preserve what must be saved, the innocence of tomorrow."

The speech went on for nearly an hour as he gave an increasingly nuanced description of his doctrinal interpretation and who specifically he meant. President Stone didn't have time for it, but the conference resumed entirely different, "Our birth rates are back in-line with pre-message levels." said Dr. Patricia, director of the NIH.

r/AurumArgenteus

Wow, that was brief but powerful.

I was laughing by the second paragraph. Amazing work!