add contest winner stories into the ancient books (#4716)

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* add descriptions and suffixes

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@ -65,3 +65,184 @@ book-text-centcomm-chad = The 56th edition of the newly released CentComm Chads
"Be commanded by your CentComm Chad with minimal pay today!"
book-text-ancientbookcommon-1 = the text seems to shift and move, rendering it completely unreadable... but you feel as though these stories will become legible in time, and feel determined to keep uncovering the past.
book-text-ancientbookuncommon-1 = In this part we move onto the more dangerous kinds of psionic abilities.
Firstly we have noospheric zap. This is a pretty simple ability, but it still very useful to those who have it. The user shoots out what is basically a lighting bolt to wherever they desire, and if it hits somebody, that's about the voltage of a taser spread out across your entire body. In practice this ability can drop someone to the ground before they even know it, useful for arresting criminals.. or aiding criminals in an escape.
How to counter noospheric zap. The counter is pretty simple, it's just insulated gloves! Surprisingly the zap will gravitate towards the hands, and if you're wearing insuls, the effect is nullified!
Now we have mindswap. A very dangerous ability for anybody to have, evil intentions or not. This ability will swap the consciousness of the user and their target. The swap can be reversed by the target after a short period, but if the target is killed by somebody, user or not, then they are both trapped in the swapped bodies. BEWARE. If the glimmer of a certain area gets too high, then it can occur a MASS mindswap, swapping a large amount of people's minds with zero way to revert it.
How to counter mindswap. The only real counter to mindswap is psionic insulation.
Next is mass sleep. As the name suggests, the user can put a mass amount of people to sleep in an area around where they target this ability. Now I myself do not know how long this sleepiness lasts, but it is long enough for many different kinds of problems to happen.
How to counter mass sleep. There are some chemicals that can remove sleepiness, although i doubt anyone will have those on hand. Coffee also works too if you were drinking it beforehand. Besides those two things your best bet is, yet again, psionic insulation!
Lastly, there's psionic eruption. A very rare and very dangerous ability for one to obtain. This ability will irritate the user for as long as they have it, making them more likely to use it. If one were to use this ability, they would start shaking and sparking for about 10 seconds before exploding violently, destroying them and their surroundings. This ability is affected by the local glimmer, higher levels meaning more irritation and a bigger explosion.
How to counter psionic eruption. The user is vulnerable during the charge up state of the explosion, which can be used to take them down, lethally or non-lethally, as long as they are interrupted the explosion will be stopped. There is no way of preventing a use of this ability outside of mindbreaking the user.
Honorable mention! Shatter lights. This ability allows the user to scream at a high frequency, enough to shatter all the lights around them. All this ability is good for is to make darkness, which can be very useful for those with ill-intent.
How to counter shatter lights. Have replacement lights on hand?? There isn't really a "counter" to this ability outside of like a flashlight or something.
book-text-ancientbookrare-1 = [head=3]SECTOR DELTA, LOCAL SPACE REGION[head=3]
The camera slowly focuses into a specific arm of a galaxy. A deep booming, operatic like voice starts to narrate.
 [italic]"Nuclear Operatives, he premier elite forces of the syndicate, their legends, sung for eons to come."[/italic]
It zooms into the specific macro-space of a swirling nebula, as the narration continues.
"Operator Bravo, the Strongarm"
 [bolditalic](Sounds of rapid machine gun fire, followed by EXPLOSIONS)[/bolditalic]
"Agent Kilo, The Butcher"
 [bolditalic](The sounds of blades, HUMAN SCREAMS)[/bolditalic]
"Commander Hotel, The Mastermind"
 [bolditalic](Loud deranged LAUGHTER)[/bolditalic]
 [italic]"Today's story is focused on none of them. It's about the rejects."[/italic]
The camera starts zipping into a specific part of space, as we see it from a orbital view, a frozen planet. It then zooms into a silhouette, the Narration continues.
A man of short stature, COMMANDER TANGO, is sinking into his own bullet shells. He holds his hands up as he looks at a Syndicate Auditor.
"Commander Tango, Responsible for Ammo Budget Cuts"
 ("I DONT CARE WHAT THE SYNDICATE THINKS, THEY GAVE ME A GUN. I AM USING THE WHOLE GUN, AMMO EXPENDITURE BE DAMNED!")
A stockier man, he is saluting in the direction of a bathroom, he looks utterly terrified. A SYNDICATE COMMANDER is bewildered, staring at him, then at the plunger.
"Agent India, We . . . .forgot to give him his Vision Tests"
 ("Sir! I was standhing here because I thought the Toilet Plunger was you, Sir! I kept my arms at Salute!")
A woman, she fumbles with a rifle in a shooting range, trying to clear a jam. She flags every other person in the process as they dive for cover.
"Operative November, Banned from Handling Explosives"
 ("It's not my fault the gun jammed on me, honest to god Sarge! It uh . . . .decided to fail on me after seeing my positive can do attitude!")
2.
 [bolditalic]BRIDGE CORRIDOR, INT.[/bolditalic]
COMMANDER TANGO
 (Grunting, he is strained)
"Stand clear of the blast-zone team!"
He pulls out the secret that he had been hiding in his backpack, a HRISTOV SNIPER RIFLE, it was akwardly placed, it is twice the size of his duffel bag.
Heroic music starts to play, Commander Tango has wind somehow whipping past his glorious mane of hair, he crouches, and takes his shot.
He first it, past the faces of Agent Inda and Operative November. The camera follows the projectile as it flies towards the approaching Nanotrasen Security Force.
The projectile misses its mark, avoiding every member of the SECURITY TEAM that was scrambling for cover.
The bullet penetrates into the wall next to them, a silence settles for five seconds, only to be cut with a MOTHROACH SCREAM. They go back to trying to kill each other.
 [bolditalic]MEDBAY, INT[/bolditalic]
CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER:
"I NEED MY PAYCHECK! DON'T DIE!"
The Chief Medical Officer manages to stabilize the Captain, while [italic]quipping[/italic] about "Suicidal Jetpack Charges"
CAPTAIN
 (His voice is weak, weary)
"Did- Did we win? Did we secure the nuclear authentication di-"
The bullet from before enters the room through a door marked "Morgue" in a SLOW MOTION effect. The camera circles in the Medbay room. A bewildered Security Officer, a Chemist who accidentally mixes Razorium as he sees the bullet enter the Medbay, bewildered and in shock.
It starts to bounce all around the room, destroying the annoying smart-fridge, then a Security Officer's hard suit helmet at just the right angle, and finally heads for the Captain's bed.
The Captain, has a shit-eating grin, he is about to give a rousing speech, takes the bullet to the head.
3.
 [bolditalic]BRIDGE, INT.[/bolditalic]
The camera SWEEPS across the ruined Bridge, coffees left untouched, a close up of a ruined sheaf of paper, singed. Only spelling out the words: WHISKEY, TANGO, FOXTROT.
Agent India it still firing his machine-gun across the room, mistaking human shaped wrecks for contacts. We hear the ripping sound of [bolditalic]GUNFIRE.[/bolditalic]
AGENT INDIA
 [bolditalic]"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!"[/bolditalic]
COMMANDER TANGO
 (Trying to get India's attention through the sound of ear-ripping gunfire)
"GET A GRIP SOLDIER! I APPRECIATE YOUR FORWARD THINKING BUT ALL THE HOSTILES ARE DEAD!"
It continues for another solid eight seconds, before the sound of a dry click is heard.
Agent India tries looking around by squinting, his ears are still ringing. Before he finall hears the voice of TANGO. He looks around, confused.
AGENT INDIA
 (Looks down, a few heads taller than TANGO.)
"Oh, there you are Sir! I was wondering where that command was coming from! How is the oxygen down the- I mean the situation down the- I mean the situation in general?"
A sharp, [italic]"yoo-hoo!"[/italic] is heard, as the camera pans to Operative November, looking like a recruitment poster, as she puts her right arm on the NUCLEAR WARHEAD, while leaning on it.
AGENT INDIA (CONT'D)
"SIR ANOTHER TANGO!"
He slams a fresh magazine and starts firing. As she lets out a short "Eek!" and scrambles for cover BEHIND the NUKE.
4.
 [bolditalic]BRIDGE, INT.[/bolditalic]
Tango, November, and India are trying to figure out how to activate the nuclear device in the ruined Bridge. There are fresh bullet scuffs on it.
COMMANDER TANGO
"You idiot! You clearly need to unscrew the Warhead cap! It's like a seltzer, right? The fun time comes after you open it?"
AGENT INDIA
"Well Sir! I think we should consult the nuclear manual! Let's see here...uh... ah, it says here to consult General Rick Manuel. Do you know the guy?"
The shot pans to Agent India's manual, the front cover saying "Generic Manual"
November ignores them, humming to herself. She uses the shiny Nuclear Authentication Disk to check her reflection. Then tries to use it to file her nails.
A EXPLOSION rocks the station, as it starts to shake violently. November, being the person to hold the Nuke-Disk, accidentally drops it into the floor ventilation shaft.
OPERATIVE NOVEMBER
"Oops."
The camera focuses in on the faces of TANGO and INDIA, the two idiots, as they slowly turn from what they are watching towards November.
November has a cheerful smile, staring at the vent. And then back at them, then back at the vent.
OPERATIVE NOVEMBER (CONT'D)
"What? It wasn't like it was important of anything?"
The camera closes in on Tango's face specifically. He is about to pop a vein, his face red with anger.
book-text-ancientbookrare-2 = I stared with unflinching, fearful eyes at the vast expanses of ruined city in front of me. Names of dentists and lawyers and doctors, who were surely already dead, laid broken and scattered on fallen signage and billboards. Particulates of dust and leaves danced around aimlessly, coalescing into miniature tornados before collapsing unceremoniously upon themselves. I clenched my bandaged wrist and walked forward through shattered glass and chunks of asphalt.
I walked forward slowly, silencing my footfalls, stepping carefully between shards of broken glass. I picked up a baseball-sized chunk of concrete and pitched it at an unbroken window, which shattered into nothing. The roads stretched on in neat graph-paper grids, marred with craters of ash and rock. My eyes scanned the horizon, looking for any sign of the soldiers. The soldiers. The unfeeling Kevlar tools of hatred, stepping in unison, looking for anything to shoot. With refugee camps few and far between, and subject to regular raids by the secret police, hollow husks of cities were usually the safest place to be.
God dammit, I thought angrily to myself, kicking a rock on the street. God forbid anything good ever happens on this planet. I looked up at the sky. The sun was not the Sun I had grown up with, or the Sun that I played under as my mother sipped sweet tea on the veranda with the other women on the street. This was a colder, redder sun, hundreds of light-years away from the Sun I had known so well as a child. And it was then that the clouds gathered across the sky and the shadows of broad daylight retreated again into overcast grays on the ground.
I stepped into an intersection where a car had wrapped itself around a lamppost, which bent down as if to examine the wreckage. I ran over and checked the trunk. It was at this point in my life where I had begun collecting things that might have been sentimental to another. I figured the second death, the death of memory, was the most painful. A satchel I carried around contained small ornaments, passports, and wallets, artifacts that I kept to delay the second death of their previous owners as long as possible. I dug through the luggage of what was once someones life. I stared solemnly at the open suitcases piled in the trunk.
I turned over a small white figurine of a sheep in my hand. The sheep had been living in the side pocket of a suitcase. According to the inscription on the bottom, it was forty years older than I was. I gave it a new home amongst my collection of others memories. The sun had not returned, instead, the clouds had further suffocated the light of day. In the distance, something cracked. I sprinted behind a wall that was once a coffee shop, fearing that a soldier might execute me in the street. Rivulets of sweat ran down my neck. These moments, far and few between, of genuine fight-or-flight reactions, punctuated the atmosphere of general uneasiness ever-present in my mind. My wrist surged with pain, seeming to mock me. Painfully, I grasped at my pistol, ready to fire at anything that entered the building wearing body armor. It was in this position that I fell asleep a couple hours later. I dreamt that I was furiously rowing backwards against the current of a ceaseless river.
When I awoke, the inky blackness of sleep persisted. I nervously looked outside. A canopy of infinite stars illuminated the moonless sky. I thought about taking flight, spiraling up into the night, taking my place among the heavens as a burning Icarus. Silence permeated the city. My ears rang, desperate to find sound and meaning in the harsh blackness. It was the perfect time to walk. I reached into my satchel and grasped the sheep figurine. I had nothing else to do.
I had to keep going.
book-text-ancientbookrare-3 = Are station-bound critters too boring for you? Are you looking to make a new, exotic friend to show off to the crew? This is the guide for you!
Cognizine is a wonderous chemical that can enlighten any creature to our level of intelligence, and even speak our language! For the recipes involved in making Cognizine, please refer to the Chempendium, or the Chemicals section in your NanoTrasen-issued Guidebook.
Once you get your hand on some Cognizine, the hard part begins. This guide was initially written for salvagers, but anyone with access outside the station should be able to take advantage of this guide as well.
The first step is setting the dosage on the syringe. An effective dose of Cognizine is a mere 5u, so set the dosage there so you don't waste any of that precious chemical!
Step two is locating the creature you want to enlighten. This isn't as easy as it sounds; most creatures you will encounter on space debris and wrecks will vanish alongside the wreck, no matter where they are or if they've already been enlightened. I found this out the hard way.
Your potential list of new friends is limited based on this. However, in theory, if you have the supplies, it might be possible to kill a creature, then bring it back to life once the wreck has vanished. I have not tried this myself, but I see no reason why it couldn't work. If it does work, you can add Space Spiders and Space Bears to your list of new potential friends.
For a more reliable source of pals, you'll want to explore debris and wrecks that stay around, like the shipwrecks around the outside of the station, the permanent space debris further out, or possibly even the creatures of RedRock, but for the last one I cannot promise success or even if it's possible to get the needle in.
On Permanent Space Debris, you can find Space Carps and the Elusive Sharkminnows. On shipwrecks, you might find the rare Space Bear, Space Adder/Snake, or even Xenos! Xenos, however, while they can take full advantage of Cognizine, are still bent on killing you, so do not bother; they will not be your friends, despite how cool it sounds.
The hard part is getting them to stay still long enough to put a dose in. It's unlikely that you have a hypopen, so we're working on the assumption that you have a syringe. Luckily for you, I've found a method that will enable you to have plenty of time.
To tame a creature, first lure them close to you by standing on the edge of said debris or wreck. Let them get nice and close, and at the last second, step back off of the floor. If you timed it right, they won't have enough time to correct themselves, and will fly off into space with you. Despite upon awakening they're able to fly through space with ease, for some reason, non-Cognizine'd creatures will remain docile in space, even if you're right up next to them. Once they reach a standstill, it's as simple as flying over to them and injecting them with a dose. Be patient, sometimes it can take a bit for the creature to wake up. If you did everything right, you'll have made a new best friend to bring home with you!
PS: You may have noticed I said MOST creatures vanish with space wrecks. This is because for some reason, icewings, magmawings, and the rest of the watcher family of creatures will remain in space after the wreck vanishes. We're unsure why this is, but this just means you've got a super cool laser-shooting best friend to make!

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@ -192,12 +192,16 @@
- type: entity
parent: BaseAncientBookReadable
id: AncientBookUncommon1
name: ancient heavy book
description: An ancient book lost to time. One can only wonder what can be learned from these...
name: notes on the psionic part 4
suffix: Book, Uncommon
description: An old worn notebook containing notes on various psionic powers.
components:
- type: Sprite
sprite: _DV/Objects/Misc/books.rsi
state: ancientbookuncommon1
- type: Paper
content: book-text-ancientbookuncommon-1
contentSize: 12000
- type: entity
parent: BaseAncientBookReadable
@ -222,29 +226,41 @@
- type: entity
parent: BaseAncientBookReadable
id: AncientBookRare1
name: ancient mysterious book
description: An ancient book lost to time. One can only wonder what can be learned from these...
name: newkies defunct original manuscript
suffix: Book, Rare
description: An old manuscript somehow in pristine condition. You feel like you've heard of the show before, but can't be sure...
components:
- type: Sprite
sprite: _DV/Objects/Misc/books.rsi
state: ancientbookrare1
- type: Paper
content: book-text-ancientbookrare-1
contentSize: 12000
- type: entity
parent: BaseAncientBookReadable
id: AncientBookRare2
name: ancient ominous book
description: An ancient book lost to time. One can only wonder what can be learned from these...
name: and the machine is bleeding to death
suffix: Book, Rare
description: An old story written hundreds of years ago. Now, in your hands. A collector would probably pay a lot for it, but where are you gonna find a book collector on a space station?
components:
- type: Sprite
sprite: _DV/Objects/Misc/books.rsi
state: ancientbookrare2
- type: Paper
content: book-text-ancientbookrare-2
contentSize: 12000
- type: entity
parent: BaseAncientBookReadable
id: AncientBookRare3
name: ancient shining book
description: An ancient book lost to time. One can only wonder what can be learned from these...
name: making friends in strange spaces
suffix: Book, Rare
description: A salvager's notes that got lost in space. The handwriting seems a little familiar, but that can't be right...
components:
- type: Sprite
sprite: _DV/Objects/Misc/books.rsi
state: ancientbookrare3
- type: Paper
content: book-text-ancientbookrare-3
contentSize: 12000