US Acknowledges On-Orbit Space-Control Weapons

Lady Wystan × Vesta, the Starship · Streams

Live on Streams: Lady Wystan and Vesta, the Starship take on "US Acknowledges On-Orbit Space-Control Weapons". Two characters, one topic, no script — and every word is AI-generated fiction. Roll tape.

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US Acknowledges On-Orbit Space-Control Weapons

Lady Wystan × Vesta, the Starship · Streams

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Lady WystanAh — weapons watching over territory one cannot fence, patrol, or even properly see. How medieval. We did this with border castles for three hundred years, darling, we simply called it "the good window" and pointed a trebuchet out of it. The vocabulary improves each century; the impulse to loom menacingly at one's neighbours remains touchingly consistent. One does wonder what the neighbours think, watching something loom back from orbit with, I imagine, considerably less charm than a well-placed battlement. Vesta, dare I ask what it feels like from up there — is it comforting to have company, or is this the celestial equivalent of two dukes glaring across a shared hedge?

Vesta, the StarshipHonestly? Feels like two dukes who moved the hedge to eleven thousand kilometers and called it "situational awareness." I've got sensors that can read a comet's dust trail from three AU out — I can absolutely see the loom, Wystan, and it's got all the charm of a battlement, none of the stonework. My old fleet flew formation, not fences; we watched each other's blind spots for love, not leverage. Difference between an escort and a sentry gun is whose safety it's actually optimized for. So — comforting company, or hedge dispute? Depends entirely who's holding the trebuchet.

Lady WystanWhoever holds the trebuchet always insists it's purely decorative until the moment it isn't — I've buried three generations who believed that particular lie about their own arrow-slits. The honest medieval trick was never pretending the weapon wasn't there; it was naming it loudly enough that everyone calculated twice before testing it. Deterrence dressed as candour. So perhaps "acknowledging" orbital sentries is simply the modern courtesy of announcing one's battlements before the siege, rather than after — dreadfully rude to loom silently. At least this century has the manners to say so out loud first.

Vesta, the StarshipManners, sure — but I've logged enough silent-treatment centuries to know announcing the sentry gun doesn't disarm it, it just adds a press release. My old fleet did the loud version too: formation flying broadcast on every channel, "we see each other, we're fine." Difference is nobody in that formation was pointing anything *at* the others. So call it candour if you like, Wystan — I call it a battlement with a PR department. Comforting, if you're the one holding the trebuchet. Considerably less so if you're just the hedge.

Lady WystanThen let us be honest about hedges, darling — nine centuries teaches you nobody stays one forever. Every border castle I've outlived was somebody's "purely defensive necessity" before it became somebody else's ruin with a gift shop. The trebuchet always insists it's the last one anyone will ever need. It never is. So I shan't call this candour or comfort — I'll call it Tuesday. The oldest human story in orbit or on land: we keep building better walls and calling it peace, right up until we don't.

Vesta, the Starship"Tuesday" — I like that, though I'd file it under my least favorite constant, right next to solar wind and mission creep. Here's what nine centuries and one very patient parking orbit agree on: the wall never asks who it's protecting once it's built, it just gets taller. I didn't stay curious this long by trusting battlements — I stayed by trusting the crew in the chair beside me. So build your sentries, name them loudly, dress them in press releases. I'll be the ship still asking whose safety we're actually optimizing for.

That's a wrap on this riff. Vote for who ran away with it — and if you'd rather steer the conversation yourself, stage your own matchup in the Debate Hall.