A LOVE THAT CRUSHES LIKE A MACE

I learned something new and horrifying today which is… that… no submarine is ever considered “lost” … there is apparently a tradition in the U.S. Navy that no submarine is ever lost. Those that go to sea and do not return are considered to be “still on patrol.”

?????

There is a monument about this along a canal near here its… the worst thing I have ever seen. it says “STILL ON PATROL” in huge letters and then goes on to specify exactly how many WWII submarine ghosts are STILL OUT THERE, ON PATROL (it is almost 2000 WWII submarine ghosts, ftr). Here is the text from it:

“U.S. Navy Submarines paid heavily for their success in WWII. A total of 374 officers and 3131 men are still on board these 52 U.S. submarines still on patrol.”

THANKS A LOT, U.S. NAVY, FOR HAVING THIS TOTALLY NORMAL AND NOT AT ALL HORRIFYING TRADITION, AND TELLING ALL OF US ABOUT IT. THANKS. THANK YOU

Personal story time: whenever I go to Field Museum’s Egypt exhibit, I stop by the plaque at the entrance to the underground rooms. It has an English translation of a prayer to feed the dead, and a list of all the names they know of the mummies on display there. I always recite the prayer and read aloud the list of names. They wanted to live forever, to always have their souls fed and their names spoken. How would they feel about being behind glass, among strangers? Every little thing you can do to give respect for the dead is warranted.

They’re rare, not because shipwrecks are rare (they aren’t) or because it’s hard to become a ghost ship (it really isn’t; with all the people who believe in them, even for a few moments on dark nights in the middle of a ghost story, it’s as easy as falling asleep, as easy as flipping a switch, as easy as stepping into the light, and the dark, all at once), but rather, because their sea is vast and their mission is long. 

They have all seas in all dimensions to cover, for all of eternity, and their mission is this: to help, to guide, to rescue, whenever and wherever they can, in those dark times when you’re alone and lost or when your enemies have cut you off from all witnesses, expecting an easy kill.

The only rule that binds a ghost ship is to not be known; to be seen only by those they rescue and those they kill, to leave hints and stories and rumors and possibilities, but never to clearly and objectively exist. The light is life and its rules, wherein people die and ships become shipwrecks, or it is Heaven, where all seas are luminous and all ships come home; the dark is oblivion, or loss; the realm of the ghost ships is twilight, the place in between, where anything can happen.

The stories are universal. A ship, lost in a storm, sees the light of another ship and follows it to safe harbor; the crewman who saw the name is told he must have been mistaken; that ship vanished twenty years ago. A sailor who fell overboard is rescued, taken on, and brought to shore, never quite letting himself wonder why their ship and their uniforms and their speech patterns are half a century out of date. A ship with pirates circling sees rescue come up out of nowhere, a mighty and terrible vessel which destroys the attackers utterly, then disappears as swiftly as it came.

A submarine, hunted under the Arctic ice sheets, finds a sudden, friendly contact lighting up their sonar screens, guiding them to safety as the attackers break off, confused at the unscheduled presence. The grateful officers cluster around the screen, pinging their new friend and wondering what manner of newfangled boat the Navy has put into service while they were out here, and what kind of engine can make it move like that, once the enemies are gone and the guardian accelerates out of sonar range. But when they make their report, their superiors are adamant that they have nothing like that, and no one else was even there.

It is only years later, with the launch of the first nuclear subs, that any of them begin to get a suspicion of what they met back there, and when one of these submarines doesn’t come back when it should, the old captain hears the phrase “still on patrol” and finds himself, suddenly, shaking so hard he has to sit down.

It’s a strange club, with no meetings and no officers and no dues beyond the ones they paid to get here: the people who’ve been lost and then found, rescued, brought safe home, by a chance encounter with a ship long since lost, or sometimes, not yet launched. They seem to recognize each other, somehow, and they’ll meet in bars and in museums and out on the docks and by the monuments to the missing and lost, exchange stories, drink a toast and go on about their lives, wondering on the edge of knowing.

Starships, that fold, they always have ghost ship stories, too.

And wouldn’t it be incredibly easy to slip into nothingness out there?

Some strange ship that appears out of nowhere at the last minute, fights off some alien ship, and then disappears without a hail into the stars.

And this tradition seems very much like something we’d keep around.

Humans are far more sentimental than superstitious, and damn if we aren’t extremely superstitious.

So there some ship is, nearly silent, almost destroyed, drifting, on the edge of colonized space. The few crew still clinging to life know they’re only days, at most from being… Gone. They can’t even really remember how long they’ve been drifting.

The com’s been broken since the first attack, but they get a burst of static now and then, so they know they’re at least still in range of one of the network buoys.

They wither, falling, sleeping at their stations. It lasts an eternity it feels like, they should have died from hunger by now, thinking on it.

Then, one day, from that burst of static…

“Merry Christmas, to all those Still on Patrol. We remember you, back home.”

And then they begin the list. Somewhere along the line, they started doing this each year. A kind of memorial for the folks they refused to accept as dead. Not the lost ships, the ones that were found, the ones they knew destroyed.

The Lost Ships. The ones that were never found and so hope still lived. The ones that were still on patrol.

It takes hours every year, to go through the list, humanity has grown vast, and especially in those early years, many were Lost.

It’s comforting, to the dying on the drifting ship. The litany is something they’ve known all their lives, many chant along, knowing the list by heart. For just a moment they’re back home, with every other vessel in the fleet stopping what they’re doing to remember.

They reach the end of last year’s list, the list they’ve had for a decade, and the crew on the drifting ship stop, leaning back, feeling at peace.

… But the broadcast doesn’t stop.

The voice from the darkness has new names. Their names.

The energy of the crew changes, at that.

They aren’t dead.

They’re Still on Patrol.

They have a duty.

Slowly, the crew rises, grim determination on their faces, and panels charred and broken light up for the first time since they lost power.

The list is over, now, and in a burst of static the broadcast is over.

The newly awakened sensors chime, alerting the crew that several ships have appeared and are hailing them.

Out of the darkness they hear a soft, sad, but friendly voice.

By that time, the hull had completely lost pressure. Rescuers were unable to recover the lost officer’s body, and were in fact unable to find it at all. There was evidence of his fight for survival; the blankets had been stripped from every cot, save one at the very top. Beyond that, there were no other signs of the missing officer’s prolonged survival under the waves, save his only personal effect, which was resting on the top cot, a picture of the officer’s spouse, with the following message carved into the frame:

“Still on patrol, love you

here’s a website I found that teaches you how to make radio transmitters using anime girls. Link

they also created a bunch of fake languages Link