aces in the Mist: The Cloaking Protocol Rewrites Interstellar Love Stories
A promising horror holo-feature from the Prism Archive has fallen into the misty grip of the Cloaking Protocol, rewriting lovers and dissolving scenes. Yet even within the omnipresent glow of the Zhong Nebula, voices of resistance begin to stir.
On stardate 4422.269, the intergalactic cultural sphere was once again rattled by the workings of The Cloaking Protocol of the Nebelmythos. A young horror holo-feature licensed from The Prism Archive of Spectral Narration for projection within the red mist-curtain of the Zhong Nebula has recently become the subject of much-criticised alterations.
Where the original depicted a wedding scene between two humanoid males, The Morphic Whispertrail – notorious semi-sentient editing technology of The Celestial Cutting Hall – subtly transformed one of the grooms into a woman, rimmed with a faint haze of red mist. Further morphological vapour was added to a shower scene, erasing all hint of android nudity. Screenshots of the original and edited versions spread almost instantly over the parallel threads of the ZingWeave social network. Crisp responses followed: “What the mist did is more terrifying than the holo itself,” one analyst commented drily.
The Prism Archive, which oversees the original, responded forcefully: “Integrity of storytelling is central to the archive. Any unauthorised iteration by The Celestial Cutting Hall and its Morphic Whispertrail is firmly rejected and we demand immediate withdrawal of the contaminated version.” (Such urgency is rare in the cultural strand, but desperate times demand action when the vapour spreads.)
It is by no means the first time the Cloaking Protocol’s misty tentacles have invaded a holoscene. Earlier cases – from deleted flares of affection to entire parade fragments lost – are now cited on every parade pole between Silicron and HangPang. In the core mist itself, a wave of arrests is underway. Inhabitants report that at least thirty writers of erotic light-holograms, mostly young women inclined toward boundary-blurring stories, have been detained.
The Serene Eye of the Dew Veil, wandering truthseeker of the Zhong Nebula, put it quietly: “The Mandate has always had its foggy inclinations. Yet the chimes of the dewpipe are swelling into a polyphonic protest.” According to The Broody of the Split Eyes, public opinion in the mist is gradually shifting to more acceptance of non-binary love. Whether the Cloaking Protocol can continue to hide undisturbed in its own vapours remains unclear.