Joe Loftus’s 2022 short Still Up There will creep inside your senses and linger far longer than you desire.

An astronaut on the brink of death regains consciousness in the vast emptiness of space. Disoriented and struggling to piece together how he got there, he is confronted by the sight of his own severed arm eerily floating past him — almost as if it’s waving. But is it really his arm?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFcerjbDuv0

Source: Bluesky

Source: Sheddit

Source: Devianart

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/47667346

> That post is now deleted I guess.

Blindsight is a unique kind of first-contact novel. Its focus is not on humanity’s first meeting with an alien civilization, but rather that this civilization is highly intelligent, yet lacks consciousness.

• What if intelligence can thrive without consciousness?

• What if there is nothing special about self-awareness?

• What if it is just evolutionary dead weight, bound to disappear soon?

The idea rests on machine metaphors for life and mind, which strike this columnist as profoundly mistaken.

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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48484.Blindsight

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Blindsight Sci-fi Short Film - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkR2hnXR0SM

The Horrible Truth About Consciousness | Blindsight

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/47301321

> Source: Sheddit

In the beginning our god created the world. A beautiful world, a world of excess and tranquility. And when our god grew lonely he populated his world with creatures. All of which he made in his own image, similar so none would feel disadvantaged in this world of endless grassy plains, timid rivers and countless fruit bearing trees.

All creatures lived in relative peace and harmony, for you see while only we, the Inaliss were blessed with the gift of sentience all others were at least given a basic understanding of how a living creature should act and behave while under the watchful, caring gaze of a generous and kind god.

There was no need for strife or fear for no one lacked anything. Even if one could not find the strength of will to get up and pluck some fruit, one could just wait, sleep and expect themselves to wake up healthy and refreshed. Our god in his infinite wisdom and thoughtfulness had seen fit to imbue the air we breath with plenty of nutrients and designed our primary star in such a way that no matter what, life would always be sustained.

Of course as you know over time we grew bored. We began to thinker and ponder. We looked at the heavens and wondered what else was out there. We invented the wheel, scripture, computers and so much more, until eventually we found ourselves floating above our own meager beginnings, our cradle world.

After millions of years of technological advancement we’d finally done it, we’d left our gods embrace, that beautiful green and blue ball he’d made for us. We had grown up as a species, ready to venture out and look for others who wished to ponder and explore the cosmos with us.

We set out to discover far away systems, we landed on strange yet similar worlds, no doubt made by gods who we’re just as amicable as our own. And just when we were starting to think we were all alone, we found them. Aliens, creatures who were so similar and yet at the same time so very different. Over time wherever we looked we’d find more and more, all born on paradise worlds specifically tailored to their inhabitants’ needs, undoubtedly made by responsible gods just like our own.

As our gods had intended for us we began to cooperate, we constructed ginormous structures, explored and learned together and continued to grow as if we were all one big family. The great galactic Alliance, we called ourselves. And for a time all went well. It seemed that beyond the odd black hole or ugly gas giant reality in and of itself was generally a warm and kind place where all sentient creatures could come together as one and enjoy life.

That is of course until we found … it.

Ever since ancient times our most esteemed philosophers, scientists and clergymen theorized about there being a world opposite to all others. One where creatures lived who’d indulge in every possible taboo, where life cannibalized itself and would do anything to ensure its own continued existence. A world of chaos, filled with the coldest colds and the hottest hots. A world of unstable climates, shifting topologies and horrific disasters, where ones entire way life could change at the drop of a hat. Where nothing was guaranteed and that which wished to survive had to continuously adapt and overcome.

A world where only the strong survived and are forced to transform in accordance to the laws of this infernal place. I wouldn’t even dare imagine what sorts of horrifying monsters would call such a place home. They’d undoubtedly be warped and twisted beyond mortal comprehension, their very existence would breed terror and madness in the minds of the particularly innocent and weak willed.

Most of us assumed, or perhaps hoped that such a world could not possible exist. That it was just a scary yet interesting “what if” scenario. We thought there couldn’t possibly be a divine creature that harbored such malice, apathy and warped sadism.

We thought wrong.

When the ‘G.A. Gracefulness’ arrived at what we now call the Hella system they imagined that they’d probably find a couple gas giants and a habitable world made by a good-aligned but otherwise lazy god. Unfortunately for them nothing could have been further from the truth. We’re not entirely sure what they witnessed but not even twelve hours after arriving they’d already activated every single emergency system several times and sped out of there as quickly as their hyperdrive would allow.

Upon being rescued the crew was given a full medical checkup and psychological evaluation. Most of them were panicked at best and near catatonic at worst. Whatever was out there, it had fractured their minds and would undoubtedly pose a threat to the entire galactic community if not taken care of quickly.

And thus without further ado, an exploration fleet was tasked with investigating said strange cosmic anomaly. I think we all deep down knew what was about to be revealed to the wider galaxy, we all just sorta prayed we were wrong.

About eight months later the exploration fleet returned and our worst fears were confirmed. There it was floating on the screen, a blue ball of death and chaos. GA-14 a world of death, inhabited by horrifying monster and twisted abominations. It looked like a malicious tumor on the canvas that is the universe.

If the alliance’s bravest and brightest were to be believed then this planet was apparently infested with every possible nightmare ever conjured up by sentient minds, anything from gigantic flesh eating lizards to tiny microscopic viruses. Even some this worlds’ flora had a penchant for death and destruction.

There was no denying it, we’d finally found it, the world created by the goddess of the never ending struggle and eternal misery. While all other divine beings aligned themselves with good and the light she cast of these weaknesses a she saw them and created a world of strife and destruction.

Unfortunately as we’d suspected we couldn’t keep things under wraps for long. When the news finally made its way to the public most sane people were of course mortified and shocked but as is often the case ‘the youths’ (uuuggh) found themselves taking a less conventional stand. Many claimed to be bored with the current state of things and intrigued by this strange world of horrors and the creatures who live upon it. A sentiment proven and reinforced by the copious amounts of fringe literature and homemade movies said heathenish curiosity spawned.

For a time we tried to pretend it didn’t exist in the hopes that it would just disappear from the public conscious. But alas the longer we kept ignoring it, the longer its very existence kept gnawing at us. It’s as if it was mocking us, taunting us into destroying it, and so eventually … we obliged.

At first we tried to simply freeze the hellworld by blotting out the sun, we assumed that a prolonged ice-age combined with lowering sea levels would wipe out most if not all creatures, but somehow life persisted. Hell, in the time it took us to return for our second attempt this world had already been completely repopulated, with fresh new horrors which looked even more awful and terror inducing than the first.

So seeing as freezing didn’t work we tried the opposite approach. We amplified the sun’s rays and began to scorch GA-14’s surface. We dried out large bodies of water and prematurely activated every volcano we could find. At first we thought we’d succeeded, that the universe was safe at last but upon taking a closer look it seemed that a couple tenacious little buggers survived, no not just survived they thrived.

It was only during our third attempt that we figured out we were making a huge mistake. You see at this point we had enough. We could practically hear this disgusting world and its wicked goddess taunting us, it was as if we we’re being toyed with. And so with very few options left we decided to make use of certain forbidden sciences we’d once sworn to never unleash upon the universe. I won’t bore you with the finer details but in short, we used technologies that should never have been wielded by mere mortals. We tampered with their atmosphere, quite literally took the breath from their lungs, poisoned every body of water we could find and for good measure used kinetic gravity-based nukes to try and destabilize their worlds core and it’s tectonics plates (or at least more so than was already the case). We tirelessly observed while methodically tearing this planet apart one atom at a time and just like before everything quickly began to perish.

65% … 85% COME ON, COME ON ... 90% … ... 93% SO CLOSE, JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE … … ... 94% … ... … 95% … … … … ... 96% YES, YES YES YES ... 95% NOOOOO!!! 90% … … … 85% … ... NO, THIS CAN’T BE!! 70% ... WHAT’S HAPPENING!? … 60% ... HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE !? 30%. [MASS EXTINCTION AVERTED!]

And then it dawned on us, we’d been blinded by our fears and ambitions. In our zealous desire to save the galaxy from the horrors of this world we’d merely played a hand in fueling its evolution. Only now did we realize that with every doomed attempt we’d in fact helped the surviving creatures adapt and evolve rapidly. We’d greatly expedited what otherwise would have taken eons. We were doomed from the start. This worlds wretched goddess had lured us into her trap and played us for a fool, hook line and sinker.

It was at this point that many began to lose hope and desert our oh so noble cause. Some decided to simply break rank and escape the system while others sought refuge from the despair inducing reality we ourselves had created by fleeing into the merciful embrace of madness. There were even a few brave fools, bless their souls, who aimed their ships at the planet, turned on their engines and with one last prayer, flung themselves at this world made of nightmares and hate in one last act of defiance in the face of such immeasurable evil.

These three plans as well as what would eventually be dubbed “the sacrifices of the foolish and foolhardy” unfolded over the span of many generations and after a many more a brilliant scientist, my ancestor decided that enough was enough. Grand Vizier Atlaneo of the great Inaliss Theocracy with the help of the high-priest managed to convince the high-council to attempt to destroy the world of the dark goddess one last time.

It was a genius plan no doubt conceived through a sizable helping of divine inspiration, he theorized that there was only one way to truly destroy an entire world … by hitting it with another world. Of course as we all know, using a piece of the great divine creation as a weapon is considered blasphemy of the highest order, which is why he opted for something … similar … something world-adjacent so to speak.

And so for our last attempt at stamping out this wretched scourge, this disease upon the galaxy our ancestors flung the largest asteroid they could find, imbued with divine energy at the domain of the dark goddess.

And just like that it was done, we’d been victorious at last. Surely we needn’t have checked whether anything had survived, that would have been preposterous, after all instead of facts that can be proven wrong or inventions that break we had, and will always have something much more potent, faith.

Faith in ourselves, faith in our gods, and faith that tells us that good will always prevail over evil. And as we held faith and observed the surface of this now death and desolate rock from the comfort of our home-systems we could finally determine once and for all that the universe had been saved at last.

Or at least that’s what we thought until one of the surveillance drones that the ‘G.A. Gracefulness’ had left behind suddenly began to transmit data back to its home system. Apparently something or rather someone had initiated its first-contact protocol.

This had to be some sort of twisted joke, this simply couldn’t be true. As much as we didn’t wanna believe it the truth simply couldn’t be denied.

About 37 hours ago surveillance drone G.A.G-G14-395105 detected the presence of a rudimentary spacecraft leaving planet GA-14, thematically named after the dark goddess that supposedly molded and crafted said world. While our first attempts at wiping out these monsters had resulted in them adapting to said cataclysms, it seems that our latest failure resulted in them adapting not to our technology but our minds instead. This accursed world had finally seen fit to birth creatures that could rival our intelligence and ingenuity with cunning and deceit. And now they finally managed to escape their goddess’ suffocating embrace

Like the disease they are they could finally spread themselves among the stars and soon they would reach us.

May the gods help us all.

Original post on Rddt

Audio version by NetNarrator (Youtube)

Does this fit here?

Source

Vol 1

The Thing (1982). Art by xxlunawarriorxx : https://www.tumblr.com/xxlunawarriorxx

>A woman discovers an old video camera hidden in her garage that conjures an ancient cosmic entity.

Premiered at the 2020 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival

https://www.tumblr.com/tragedyseries

link youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI9fKfX5V68

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22477180/

A religious girl prepares a presentation about a painting titled "Portrait of God". What she sees challenges her beliefs.

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