SH✪H✪

...radio operator will be able to tell you that the frequency the barracks legend says you need to tune your 'mechs comms to literally could not exist. But the truth never undermined a good legend.

So suppose you do it- sit in your 'mech at night, the hangar silent around you, radio tuned to that impossible frequency. They say you hear pilots from across the galaxy. Across the universe. Across the universes. Pilots fighting wars against enemies you've never heard of, using machines you might think too powerful to exist or too primitively absurd to be possible- but there they are, chatting in your headset. They've all heard the legend, same as you, although for some it's a psionic link and for some it's a telegram, but they're all tuned in to a channel that shouldn't exist.

The reason it's dangerous, of course, isn't that you'll "go mad" or something. Please. They're pilots, same as you: people who fight for some cause, or for their own fame and fortune, inside a shell of metal that walks like a giant. There's common ground all around, although you might need somebody to translate, depending on how many degrees tilted one participant's world is from yours. You won't go raving insane from it.

No, the reason it's dangerous is because- well- I'll tell you what I heard about the original story, which was, she kept tuning in. Sitting up until the gray brightness of dawn spilled into the hangar. Talking with people from worlds she would never see, trading tales of battles and training camps. But there was one night where a participant stopped talking and started screaming: their hangar was being attacked. And as they panicked and shouted, the sound of thumping on controls and ricocheting shots coming down that unchannel that shouldn't have been, she revved up her reactor, stomped out through the hangar doors- blasted them out of the way -and went to give backup in a war that she was in the wrong reality to fight in.

a strange blue light constantly emanates from it. nobody knows if it's harmful or not but I advise you to cover your eyes if you get near it, just in case

yesterday someone got close to it without shielding their eyes and they went missing a few hours after. this probably isn't because of the light but it's better to be safe I guess

glorpiness rating: primitive design

image from parasite of the day