>Anyway, be cool, it's not going anywhere. That's the beauty of this
>web-based system. It doesn't have to happen in real time. :)

True, but I feel like I'm letting the side down. :) I feel like the deal is that you (and Phil, and Anne, and well you know how it works) provide me with delicious, delicious pulp, and I in turn attempt to provide productive feedback while the creative process is still fresh enough in your mind to be actually useful.

Although, tangential to that, there are a lot of important ten and twenty year story milestones coming up (pretty sure we passed Cybertron Dreams 20th anniversary sometime this month, and Larry's introduction to UF passed that milestone in October without my noticing) and I've vaguely been flirting with the notion of starting some kind of EPU Book Club as we pass dates of significance. I just don't know if that kind of nostalgic naval-gazing is particularly useful so many years after the fact, and that comes from a guy who you may have noticed loves naval-gazing. :)

>>I would have gone with the good old red dot. :)
>
>I thought about it, but in its way that's even more amateurish than
>letting them see your scope's reflection. I mean, you don't think a
>guy like Boone would have a laser sight that's invisible to the
>naked eye?

Until Azula made him install a visible-spectrum setting, because sometimes it's just about standards.

> Regardless, I agree
>inasmuch as it's fun to give her opportunities, every now and then, to
>let that conqueror gene go to work a bit.

I'll take what I can get. :) Azula the Conqueror makes me happy in my head-parts, and I once again take this opportunity to say that I dearly hope the girl takes another crack at conquering the Fire Nation.

Not succeeding at it, mind you, because that would just not end well for anyone, even her, and we already know canonically it ain't happening. But man, I am just enchanted with the notion of Azula, in her badass flagship with her badass army, sitting in high orbit above Caldera issuing elaborately worded demands for obeisance and tribute to her many times great grand-nieces and nephews, all of whom wonder just what sins they committed to deserve dealing with her, with the implication being that she can turn parts of the Fire Nation she doesn't like into boiling cauldrons of plasma if she wants to.

>Well, broadly speaking, and were things left to take their ordinary
>course, that's probably so. However, from S4M5 Requiem for a
>Lensman:

Ah. Right. That. Sneaky bastards, those demons.

Although I do like the idea that Beria has a few demonic hackers sitting around the Lubyanka (with the muscle, of course) ready to very quickly infect Azula's soul with the metaphysical equivalent of a virus so that the universe routes her packets incorrectly when it registers her state change.

Or something like that. It's neat, is what I'm saying.

>Indifferent as a ruler and plotter, yes, but then, he's not ruling or
>plotting in his present job; he's Surtur's Minister for War - and
>operating the Fire Nation's perpetual war footing, independent of the
>rest of its political and social machinery, is something he must have
>been particularly good at, because, well, look at the size of the
>goddamn army he just barely lost the war with.
>
>That kind of thing gets Surtur's attention. Plus, you know, the whole
>"fire" thing. And the whole "refined his forefathers' system of
>worldwide misery until it was practically art, if you're into that
>sort of shit, and Surtur is" thing.

Ah, I read you. That's something of a bad on my part, then. I sort of envisioned the demonic hierarchy as one of those places where a certain amount of plotting and scheming is required just to avoid ending up being... discorporated, I guess? however demons die a second time?... by an ambitious subordinate who wants accelerated promotion or a suspicious superior who thinks you may want his job.

Although I suppose it is also possible Surtur has a few people about whom he has made it known he values them for their competence and diligence and they aren't to be harmed in the name of efficiency regardless of whether or not they're shit at intrigue.

Also, a couple things I forgot on my first pass:

>"When you see my father again, give him my regards and tell him I'll see him >soon." Then, her mouth quirking into a sardonic little half-smile, she added, >"But he probably won't see me."

Assuming this doesn't simply happen on the fields of Ragnarok, may I express the sincere and fervent hope that, should Azula decide to pay a visit to Muspelheim, there be a Flame Princess team-up?

Because that's another thing I would like to happen. :)

>Their long-practiced efficiency was such that the hotel's staff and the Moscow
>police never knew anything out of the ordinary had happened beyond the slight
>damage to, and mysterious disappearance of the guest in, that one third-floor
>room.

Azula must have spent a lot of time giving these people remedial combat training, because I don't recall any of them being particularly capable of that degree of subtlety and stealth. Veronica in particular (well, at least in my game) had a tendency to... cause a lot of collateral damage. Also to get hung up on the landscape, which is a problem I also assume this one doesn't have. :)

-Merc
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