"he might just hold more power in his hands than any other man
in history, and he was applying it in a righteous cause. "

Hoobah!

wonderful stuff, reminiscent of both old-school HL (the good bits), and modern UF.

--
Kokuten Daysleeper
RCW #13013
(Insert Witticism Here)

very good, I enjoyed the first issue of this series can't wait to see what else you got up your sleve for this story.

Light, the new avatar of chaos

Question for you, Gryphon. Was the scene where Ben puts on only the Gauntlets partially inspired by "Teen Tony"?

>Question for you, Gryphon. Was the scene where Ben puts on only the
>Gauntlets partially inspired by "Teen Tony"?

Why yes it was! Three points to Digiclaw.

For the record: I hated the plotline that introduced Teen Tony Stark with the fury of a thousand blazing suns. I mean, I hated that story like the Sub-Mariner hates the offshore oil industry...

... but I liked him.

It sucked more than anything else Marvel has ever done (NOTE: so far; Civil War looks like it'll be worse) the way they made room for him... but he was a neat kid, and a fun take on the character. And, though it's completely impractical, I dug the "gauntlets and cables" look he had for a little while there when the rest of his armor wasn't finished yet.

That particular version of the suit was lame-looking when it was finished, but oh well.

--G.
(Furthermore, Teen Tony would've made a much cooler Ultimate version than the one they've GOT? But that's for a different board.)
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

I'll take the points, even if I have no idea who Digiclaw is :)

And don't get me started on Marvel -or- DC right now. :D

>I'll take the points, even if I have no idea who Digiclaw is :)

I'm guessing it's one of the four EPU Forum Houses, along with Sithyrin, Nittypick, and of course Gryphondor.

I can live with that :D

Reading Iron Age, I kept having a feeling of sort of happy deja vu. The closest I can come to really describing it is to mention that I once tried to watch the original Mobile Suit Gundam and gave up about five, six episodes in... which, when I was watching the early fansubs of Gundam SEED, kept giving me this impression like 'Hey, I know this bit! Only this time, it doesn't suck!'

Priss and the Boomer and the Camero, and gaming with Nene (YAY! Mechwarrior!)... all the good bits, except for the Rocket Attack USA bit (which really didn't have an opportunity to come up, unless Ben wanted to be really annoying and confusing), and then mixed it with interesting plotting and characterization and a take on cyberpunk that's halfway plausible without making me want to scream and claw my eyes out at the wasteful chaotic horror of the image, like Stephenson's Snow Crash did.

So, yeah. Kudos on all counts.

Ja, -n
(Have I mentioned how thrilled I was when I got to the image of Nene in a Mad Cat?)

The radio panel in the center of the dash blinked to life,
searched for the region's broadcast satellite, dug around in the
database for a moment matching available streams to the search
criteria, and then projected a list of suggested choices into the
driver's holographic head-up display. He considered them for a
moment, then shrugged slightly and said,

*counts on fingers* Lessee... programmable radio playlists, voice control, built in hands-free cell-phone, cruise control smart enough to stay in its lane... presumably some kind of MapQuest function, since IIRC there are cars that can do that today... Cool. I want one - any tricks that weren't needed here?

# Drivin' n' Cryin'
# "Turn It Up or Turn It Off"
# Smoke

Thank you, Pandora.

"Shades. Night mode with flash comp. Record still exposure
every two seconds," he ordered. "Mnemonic record mode." A red light
flashed in the upper right corner of his field of vision.

I have absolutely no idea why, but this is making my mind flash back to the combat helmets in David Drake's Hammer's Slammers stories... *shrug* They do do similar things, I guess...

The first thing that became apparent was that, though its
performance envelope was obviously greater than that of a regular
military or police powersuit like a K-12, the Knight Saber's suit
lacked the sheer physical power to confront a 55 head-on. Rather, its
chief advantage appeared to be its maneuverability. K-suits were
clumsy, lumbering things that had evolved from power loaders and
didn't handle much better. The Saber suit Stark was watching now was
much more agile, able to maneuver with great speed and precision.
It was also surprisingly light on firepower. Based on some
reports he'd seen, Stark had expected to see some kind of beam weapon
in action, but this suit, at least, seemed only to mount a
small-caliber chaingun - entirely inadequate against the 55's heavy
armor. As he watched the two combatants dance, Stark realized
something with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and a
glance back across the Camaro's roof confirmed that Zoner felt it too.

*raises hand* Umm, wasn't that what the needle guns were for? Firepower against heavy armor? Even if they didn't have more than one or two needles per tube, that's still significant. Did it not have their ammunition already loaded and Priss didn't notice? Is this starting earlier than the canon series said, and they're an upgrade that she hasn't gotten yet? Shut up and smile and not and enjoy the explosions?

It's completely off point, I know, but I can't help wondering about the relative performance that'd be gotten by taking the K-series design lineage to the same level of technical advancement as the Sabers' suits - I don't see any physical reasons (beyond the scaling issues that any mecha series ignores as a matter of neccessity, of course), why a K suit built with joint drivers as good as the Sabers' shouldn't be at least close to as fast. Obviously, its very nature will preclude the same kind of flexibility and agility, but I'd think that the increased armor protection would balance that...

The boomer whirled and lunged toward him, its head -
apparently undamaged - emerging from the cloud of smoke.
"FUCK!" Zoner cried.

About what I'd say, yep. If I was that coherent...

Everything outside the helmet was a blur. Gritting her teeth,
she forced her eyes to focus - then felt them widen in horror. Some
guy, some big crazy-ass gaijin in black denim, was throwing down with
the boomer that had just wrecked her suit. He had a set of wolverines
(funny name for a cyberweapon, that)

So that franchise is dead by 2032?

...

*cheers, then removes tongue from cheek*

"Uh-huh, give me a hand here, will you?" Stark replied. "I
should probably not be doing much heavy lifting right at the moment."

Is there a reason he's phrasing it that way, rather than 'I probably shouldn't be doing much...', or did it just come out that way?

Fight scene choreography rocked, by the way, as usual.

Across the table from Priss, Linna Yamazaki tried not to
fidget. She knew it would just aggravate Priss further, and her
volatile teammate was already annoyed enough. Still, the waiting was
tough on her too. They'd never faced a security problem like this
before in their careers, and the not knowing was the worst part. Who
had happened across Priss's fight with the rogue boomer? Who had
determined her identity and delivered who to her home?
Who now had her hardsuit?

Um, 'Who had her hardsuit now?'

Anyway, the characterisation in this scene feels spot on, even now that I'm taking a closer look at it rather than going for gestalt. Linna is her proper well-adjusted self, Priss is... Priss... Nene feels young rather than saccharine, and Sylia acts like a human being rather than a badly adjusted robot. Good job.

"Hello, Tony," he said. He didn't need to speak out loud, but
he always did - it seemed to help him concentrate, to keep everything
straight in his head.
The voice that replied was inaudible in the room itself; it
was coming from a tiny bionic speaker mounted to Stark's mastoid
bone. It had a slightly dry and tinny quality, like an old recording
of a familiar voice, and as always it chilled his blood slightly when
it replied in the remembered tones of a friend,
"Hi, Ben. What's up?"

Putting my (very) sketchy knowledge of Iron Man's backstory together with things said later in Interesting Singles, I'd guess that industrialist/researcher Anthony Stark and war correspondant Benjamin Hutchins were prisoners together in... wherever... and that things went pretty much as they did in IM canon, except that Stark's injury was inflicted on Hutchins, making him the one to do the driving of the battlesuit that was the center of their escape attempt.

"There you go," she said. "My complete dossier on Benjamin
Stark, alias Benjamin Hutchins."
Sylia raised an eyebrow. "Alias?"

Using 'alias' as a noun like that, the older name should come first. I think. Of course, whether Nene would know or care is an entirely different matter - it would make sense for her to default to the name her audience would know, I guess.

Then she faced front again and said, "Good work, Nene. Go
home and get some rest. We're going to start a surveillance operation
on Mr. Stark starting first thing in the morning, and you'll be
pulling the night shift."

In a town like Megatokyo's been set up to be, with its combination of size and corporate conflict, there's almost certain to be a thriving black/gray market in deniable mercenary and espionage services, everything from punk gangers with switchblades to freelance spies as good or better than anyone in government service. Given the kind of cash we've seen the Sabers pull in, and that they'd need to build the kind of equipment they've got, Sylia could certainly afford to hire a trustworthy outside contractor who wouldn't care that he didn't have a clue who was on the other end of the voice-scrambled phone line as long as he got his agreed pay. That is, I'm pretty sure that the Sabers are only the best-armed of Megatokyo's various mercenary groups, and that one of their more sneak-oriented would be quite willing to subcontract as needed.

I realize that that's a logic hole you inherited from the original series - just thought it could do with pointing out.

Sylia about fixing the fridge in the mobile surveillance unit again.
"Hell," she went on, "maybe they're just lonely and this whole
thing is a cockeyed plot to meet girls."
"Great," Linna replied. "Now every time I look at them I'm
going to think, 'Hey, there go the Knight Stalkers.' I hate you,
Milkman Dan."

*doesn't get the cultural reference*

Citizens' groups demonstrated outside ADP Headquarters and City Hall
waving signs and chanting slogans in support of the Knight Sabers
during the press event. One group unfurled a large banner reading
"KNIGHT SABERS 58, AD POLICE 0" before it was taken away by riot
police. The score referred to the most commonly accepted figures for
successfully-handled boomer incidents by both groups in the two years
since the Knight Sabers first appeared in Mega Tokyo.

Y'know, given the relative resources available to Genom and the Sabers, I really don't think that having this pack of vigilantes around has done the Company any noteworthy harm - at least in terms of material destroyed and assets lost. Certainly they've done a lot of good for those poor souls who would otherwise have been caught in one of those fifty-eight 'spontaneous rampages', but... There's really no support for this view of her character, but I have a hard time picturing Sylia thinking that small. Not with the kind of effort she's thrown behind the Sabers.

The small size, the continued civilian lives, and most of all the flashy color schemes, don't make sense for a real (that is, for profit) mercenary group, nor, for that matter, for a private army aimed at significantly hindering Genom using open force.

They do make sense, though, for a showpiece group - for a symbol, for heroes. They gather attention, then their mysterious MO gets John Q. Public to think about what they're doing...

And look at who their opponents are, who's making themselves the villain in the piece.

The waiter - who looked remarkably lifelike, but for the
dead-white skin and silver earcaps that recognition laws required on
humanoid boomers - inclined his head.
"With the compliments of the gentleman on whom you've been
spying all week," he said, as if it were the most ordinary thing in
the world to say.

*wince* Ooh, that must sting a bit...

"She's fine," Zoner said. "I just startled her a little, is
all. I'm not sure how I manage to sneak up on people like that - I'm
a big guy, it's not like I'm at all stealthy. How's your knee?"
"... It's fine," Priss replied after a few seconds' nonplussed
pause.

*blinkblink* Err, she didn't actually talk to them at any point, did she? I mean, given that she's a local celebrity they could probably find a recording somewhere, once they match her face, but I wouldn't think it'd be that easy... people don't sound that much alike between singing and speaking, do they?

She could hear Priss's voice, figuratively, in the back of her
head - "You idiot! You're taking -food- from -targets-?" - even as
her saliva glands kicked into high gear in anticipation.
But it looked so -good-...
"... do I eat it?" she whimpered to herself.

*dies laughing*

Now this was more like it. No worrying about the mysterious
strangers who had penetrated most (if not all) of the Knight Sabers'
secrets but didn't seem inclined to do anything about it. No dealing
with grumpy Linna or even-more-remote-and-thoughtful-than-usual Sylia.
Just Nene, her Mad Cat, and the 31st century's all-consuming warfare!
IN THE GRIM FUTURE OF HELLO NENE THERE IS ONLY WAR! A simpler,
cleaner life.

...hello... nene...

*goes away to remember how to breathe*

...

*comes back*

Okay, that was good.

"A Warhammer!" she breathed.
White Star Leader was piloting an honest-to-God -Warhammer-,
one of the original 'Mechs from the very first tabletop Battletech
game. To a modern virtual-reality MechWarrior like Nene, seeing one
on the battlefield was like seeing a Roman centurion piling out of a
SWAT van.

This entire bit of backstory had me cheering madly, if you're wondering. Personally I wouldn't have picked that mech even from among the Unseen - I like armor, firepower, and speed in that same order - but I'd be the first to admit that I'm nowhere near the kind of pilot he's being cast as.

They found each other's rhythm quickly, each getting
comfortable with the other's skill level and style of battle. White
Star Lead was a gunnery fighter. He concentrated on one target at a
time and brought it down with precision fire. Nene preferred to chip
away, using her pulse lasers to harass an enemy while her LRM racks
reloaded; Lead liked to nail enemy units with both barrels, so to
speak, pulling off extreme torso twists and the occasional dual-arm
track while using his secondary weapons to set up a twin-PPC
deathblow.

Ben's style of operation seems like it'd be fairly suitable for use in his suit - intentional, or coincidence? And, the phrasing of Nene's thoughts sort of suggests to me that their game supports melee combat between mechs - which is the number one item on my wishlist for the next real-world game...

*sigh* It'd almost be worth the boomers.

Well, okay, not even close, actually, but that's 'cause I don't want to die.

"Not my style," Stark said. "My mobile number's on the back,
call anytime," he added. "If you want someplace neutral to meet, this
place works as well as any. Plus I wouldn't mind gaming with you
again sometime."
"Really?"
"Really." He waved. "Be seeing you."

...my mind is insisting on picturing a Prisoner salute with this line...

There was a pause; then Sylia's voice returned, sounding very
faintly amused. "Very wise. I look forward to meeting you then,
Mr. Stark. Goodbye for now."
"Bye," said Stark, but she had already hung up.
"Wow," Zoner said. "She has a really sexy voice."

Hey! Another element I'm glad to see carried over!

Yeah, I'm a romantic. Sue me.

"(You sure have a way with people, Priss,)" Linna whispered as
the group followed him up a flight of wrought-iron stairs and across a
narrow balcony to one of the restaurant's private dining rooms.
"(It's my gentle, artistic personality,)" Priss replied
darkly. "(People are just drawn to me.)"

Heh.

"So... your proposal is that we cast prudence and caution
aside and trust each other without sufficient evidence that that trust
is warranted," Sylia said skeptically.
"More or less," Stark replied. "Look at it this way. We're
already showing each other some trust right now. You four could have
blown us away and gotten away with it a dozen times over the past
week. I could have plastered your faces all over the InfoWeb and had
the AD Police at your door at any hour of the day or night for the
last few days. But you haven't and I haven't. Isn't that a start?"
Sylia considered him for a long, long moment, her slim hands
folded on the table before her, her face completely impassive. She
almost seemed to be weighing him, trying to judge him, with her eyes.
Then she said, "I don't - "

I'm consumed by curiosity as to what she was planning to say, you know. ^_^

The unconventional suffix was due to the sudden sharp pain
that stabbed through his right arm near the wrist, which had suddenly
been transfixed with what looked like a foot-long needle of gleaming
steel. He stared at it for a second, then turned to see where it had
come from, and then realized that he'd dropped the grenade.

Err... wouldn't a projectile with enough kinetic energy to bury itself halfway into a 55C's armor plating just go straight through a soft target like a human wrist? Or is there something else involved, body armor or implanted skeletal reinforcement appliques?

"Those come in handy," Priss observed.
"You want a set?" Zoner offered. "It's a patented alloy. Not
available in stores!"
"I'll think about it," she said. "Cover me while I - oh boy."
"While you what - oh. Crap."

I'll agree with the others who've spoken up and say that this is a pretty funny exchange, but the real reason I like it is that it makes a nice change from the anti-cyber stance most fanfic attributes to her.

If there was one problem with the current generation of
hardsuits, she recognized that it was in the lightness of their
armaments. The concussion arrays were very handy in close combat, but
they used a lot of power. The heavy autocannons her suit and Priss's
mounted were accurate and reasonably powerful, but didn't have a lot
of armor-piercing punch, nor could they carry much ammunition. The
linear accelerators all the suits had were accurate and had good
range, but were almost completely ineffective against armored targets.
The lighter chainguns Linna and Nene had were decent antipersonnel
weapons, but again, useless against armor.

I can't speak for their veracity one way or the other, but the RPG game sourcebooks describe the knuckle bombers as being a wierd-ass application of otherwise fairly conventional anti-armor shaped charges. Certainly it's the most plausible theory I know of...

Priss looked for a moment as though she were considering which
man to kill first.
Then she gave Leon a cold glare and said, "Look, pal, I dunno
about you? But where I come from, 20,000 yen is 20,000 yen."

...meep?

It... somehow doesn't feel wrong - I can see Priss saying that... but it also destroys my brain every time I try and think about it.

Gah?

He stood near the end of a blind alley, blank brick walls
hemming him in on three sides. The buildings were too high for his
meager boost capability to jump. Going back would mean trying to get
past the ADP K-suit that was even now charging in after him - he could
hear the heavy kachung-kachung of its suspension recoiling after each
step as it approached the mouth of the alley. There was no way Iron
Man could get back there before the K-suit arrived, and once the
police unit's bulk was in the way, there would be no going around,
only through.

My only real problem with this sequence (yeah, the saving-Nene's-life bit was maybe a bit melodramatic, but it's in genre and well done so there's no reason not to let it slide) is that K-suits are much shorter than buildings. Unless his suit is a lot clunkier than I think it is, going over the guy shouldn't be that much of a problem...

Ja, -n
(now, if you'll excuse me, I feel an urge to conquer the ancient world.)

Marvel doesn't exist EVERYWHERE.

And besides, in this world Stark Industries exists.

>I want one - any tricks that weren't needed here?

The funny thing is, that's not even a particularly tricked-out car; in fact, it's a bit of an antique. In 2032, they got cars you don't even need to be in. :)

> "Shades. Night mode with flash comp. Record still
>exposure
>every two seconds," he ordered. "Mnemonic record mode." A red light
>flashed in the upper right corner of his field of vision.
>
>I have absolutely no idea why, but this is making my mind flash back
>to the combat helmets in David Drake's Hammer's Slammers stories...
>*shrug* They do do similar things, I guess...

A bit. The direct reference is to the liveshades in Transmetropolitan, although Ben Stark's are considerably more conservative in design than Spider Jerusalem's. Presumably they weren't made by a nanoassembler with an addiction to cybernetic hallucinogens. (They look like black-on-black Oakley Gascans, if you care about that kind of thing.)

>*raises hand* Umm, wasn't that what the needle guns were for?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. Well, it'll come out in issue #2. The reason Priss was having so much trouble with that guy was that she was having a pretty major weapons malfunction - her whole right arm array (linear accelerators + autocannon) was offline, leaving her with pretty much just the chaingun.

>It's completely off point, I know, but I can't help wondering about
>the relative performance that'd be gotten by taking the K-series
>design lineage to the same level of technical advancement as the
>Sabers' suits

It's called the "D.D." - it's in the fifth episode of the original Bubblegum Crisis and it is, indeed, badass as hell.

>He had a set of wolverines
>(funny name for a cyberweapon, that)
>
>So that franchise is dead by 2032?

Well, it is at least not All That Big in Japan. (And I rather doubt Priss reads many comics.)

>Is there a reason he's phrasing it that way, rather than 'I probably
>shouldn't be doing much...', or did it just come out that way?

... that's just the way he talks.

>Who now had her hardsuit?
>
>Um, 'Who had her hardsuit now?'

Jeez, if I'd known you were going to punk my phrase structure I might not have leaned on you for specific commentary.

> "There you go," she said. "My complete dossier on
>Benjamin
>Stark, alias Benjamin Hutchins."
> Sylia raised an eyebrow. "Alias?"
>
>Using 'alias' as a noun like that, the older name should come first.

It's not a noun, it's standing in for the phrase "also known as". She gave the name Sylia asked her to research first.

>Sylia could certainly afford
>to hire a trustworthy outside contractor who wouldn't care that he
>didn't have a clue who was on the other end of the voice-scrambled
>phone line as long as he got his agreed pay.

She could... but would she?

>"Great," Linna replied. "Now every time I look at them I'm
>going to think, 'Hey, there go the Knight Stalkers.' I hate you,
>Milkman Dan."
>
>*doesn't get the cultural reference*

Apparently Linna is fond of Red Meat.

>The small size, the continued civilian lives, and most of all the
>flashy color schemes, don't make sense for a real (that is, for
>profit) mercenary group, nor, for that matter, for a private army
>aimed at significantly hindering Genom using open force.
>
>They do make sense, though, for a showpiece group - for a
>symbol, for heroes. They gather attention, then their mysterious MO
>gets John Q. Public to think about what they're doing...
>
>And look at who their opponents are, who's making themselves the
>villain in the piece.

You may be onto something there!

In that case, it's just possible that she's been researching the world situation for quite some time, considering her options, looking for just the right person or persons with whom to strike up a... strategic partnership, shall we say.

> "She's fine," Zoner said. "I just startled her a little,
>is
>all. I'm not sure how I manage to sneak up on people like that - I'm
>a big guy, it's not like I'm at all stealthy. How's your knee?"
> "... It's fine," Priss replied after a few seconds' nonplussed
>pause.
>
>*blinkblink* Err, she didn't actually talk to them at any point, did
>she?

TO them, no.

But, as is demonstrated a little bit later in the story, Zoner has an implant that allows him to listen in on nearby cellphone conversations.

Including all the ones the Knight Sabers have had coordinating their surveillance operation all week.

D'oh! :)

>IN THE GRIM FUTURE OF HELLO NENE THERE IS ONLY WAR! A simpler,
>cleaner life.
>
>...hello... nene...
>
>*goes away to remember how to breathe*

>This entire bit of backstory had me cheering madly, if you're
>wondering. Personally I wouldn't have picked that mech even from among
>the Unseen - I like armor, firepower, and speed in that same order -
>but I'd be the first to admit that I'm nowhere near the kind of pilot
>he's being cast as.

Heh. Ben has a Warhammer mainly because it's always been my favorite heavy. It had the perfect balance of everything in the original game system, and weathered the successive raisings of the ante that the Star League and Clan tech introductions caused better than almost all the other old-school 'Mechs.

Virtual MechWar is set in the 3070s (when it launched, it was set in 3050, and its background story has progressed in something like real time), so Stark's Warhammer is far from stock, though he has at least preserved the distribution of weapon types. It has a pair of ER PPCs, four ER medium pulse lasers, a couple of machinegun arrays and a Streak SRM6 rack - a pretty respectable load for a heavy, even in the Clan era.

>Ben's style of operation seems like it'd be fairly suitable for use in
>his suit - intentional, or coincidence?

Well, combat is combat, so with similar equipment his mindset is probably going to be pretty much the same, yeah. It probably hasn't occurred to him that he fights like Iron Man in a 'Mech, if only because to that point he'd only had two fights as Iron Man, and for the second he wasn't wearing the full suit.

>And, the phrasing of Nene's
>thoughts sort of suggests to me that their game supports melee combat
>between mechs - which is the number one item on my wishlist for the
>next real-world game...

Not exactly - by "gunnery fighter" she means as opposed to someone whose play style focuses on piloting skill - jumpjetting around, varying speeds a lot, generally screwing with the opponent's firing solutions. Stark tends to favor the "take them out before they can get through my armor" approach. :)

> "So... your proposal is that we cast prudence and caution
>aside and trust each other without sufficient evidence that that trust
>is warranted," Sylia said skeptically.
> "More or less," Stark replied. "Look at it this way. We're
>already showing each other some trust right now. You four could have
>blown us away and gotten away with it a dozen times over the past
>week. I could have plastered your faces all over the InfoWeb and had
>the AD Police at your door at any hour of the day or night for the
>last few days. But you haven't and I haven't. Isn't that a start?"
> Sylia considered him for a long, long moment, her slim hands
>folded on the table before her, her face completely impassive. She
>almost seemed to be weighing him, trying to judge him, with her eyes.
> Then she said, "I don't - "
>
>I'm consumed by curiosity as to what she was planning to say, you
>know. ^_^

"I don't think that would be a good idea."

> The unconventional suffix was due to the sudden sharp pain
>that stabbed through his right arm near the wrist, which had suddenly
>been transfixed with what looked like a foot-long needle of gleaming
>steel. He stared at it for a second, then turned to see where it had
>come from, and then realized that he'd dropped the grenade.
>
>Err... wouldn't a projectile with enough kinetic energy to bury itself
>halfway into a 55C's armor plating just go straight through a soft
>target like a human wrist?

Oh, probably. I just thought it made for a fun "panel", the guy looking at his arm with the needle stuck through it like "What the hell?!"

If you need an in-story explanation, you may take it that he has a skin weave and bone reinforcement, and between those and his armor, the projectile was halted. Or maybe Linna's also having a problem with her accelerator array.

>I'll agree with the others who've spoken up and say that this is a
>pretty funny exchange, but the real reason I like it is that it makes
>a nice change from the anti-cyber stance most fanfic attributes to
>her.

I can find little, if any, evidence to support that particular fan convention, so I'm disregarding it.

That doesn't mean she's about to go and get her legs replaced just for the hell of it, but she's not automatically repelled by cyberware in general nor the idea of having some herself. (I have not yet decided if this version, like the HL one, has bionic eyes already.)

>I can't speak for their veracity one way or the other, but the RPG
>game sourcebooks describe the knuckle bombers as being a wierd-ass
>application of otherwise fairly conventional anti-armor shaped
>charges. Certainly it's the most plausible theory I know of...

My take on them is that they're some kind of charged field effect, which explains why they can be used more than once. In fact, in Iron Age, it may have to do with the stuff Sylia and Tony Stark traded emails about back in the '20s; he did a lot of work with electromagnetics and force field technology (the latter of which is still in its infancy in the TIA world).

>
> Priss looked for a moment as though she were considering
>which
>man to kill first.
> Then she gave Leon a cold glare and said, "Look, pal, I dunno
>about you? But where I come from, 20,000 yen is 20,000 yen."
>
>...meep?
>
>It... somehow doesn't feel wrong - I can see Priss saying that... but
>it also destroys my brain every time I try and think about it.
>
>Gah?

Oh, relax, she's just screwing with Leon's head. She wouldn't actually put out for some gaijin businessman for a measly 20,000 yen.

("A nickel?! I HAVE NO MOTHER!" - Tom Servo reacts to a kid on screen buying a gumball, MST3K: Valley of the Giants)

>My only real problem with this sequence (yeah, the saving-Nene's-life
>bit was maybe a bit melodramatic, but it's in genre and well done so
>there's no reason not to let it slide)

Well, he didn't necessarily save her life (if you're talking about lifting the K-suit off her), but he certainly kept her out of jail. Anyway, I agree that it was a bit melodramatic, but there are character reasons behind it that you haven't got all the details of yet, so bear with it 'til issue #2.

>is that K-suits are much
>shorter than buildings. Unless his suit is a lot clunkier than
>I think it is, going over the guy shouldn't be that much of a
>problem...

Iron Man Mark I is pretty darn clunky, but its biggest problem is that its mobility goes down as its energy level drops - and its energy level drops pretty fast. So here's the thing - by the time that part of the scene happens, he's pretty well shot his wad, battery-life-wise. With a fresh charge on his belt pods, sure, he could long-jump a K-suit easily. With his batteries low enough that he's not sure his repulsors will work? That's not a sure bet any more. It takes a -lot- of RPMs to life 800 pounds of cast iron and cardiac patient with nothing but some little fans for thrust. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>>*raises hand* Umm, wasn't that what the needle guns were for?
>
>Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. Well, it'll come out in issue #2.
>The reason Priss was having so much trouble with that guy was that she
>was having a pretty major weapons malfunction - her whole right arm
>array (linear accelerators + autocannon) was offline, leaving her with
>pretty much just the chaingun.

Okay - that makes sense. Thanks!

>>It's completely off point, I know, but I can't help wondering about
>>the relative performance that'd be gotten by taking the K-series
>>design lineage to the same level of technical advancement as the
>>Sabers' suits
>
>It's called the "D.D." - it's in the fifth episode of the original
>Bubblegum Crisis and it is, indeed, badass as hell.

I'd never thought of it as being part of that 'evolutionary family', because of the scale difference, but now that you mention it, that makes a lot of sense. Cool.

>Jeez, if I'd known you were going to punk my phrase structure I
>might not have leaned on you for specific commentary.

*note to self: obvious typo comments only*

>>Sylia could certainly afford
>>to hire a trustworthy outside contractor who wouldn't care that he
>>didn't have a clue who was on the other end of the voice-scrambled
>>phone line as long as he got his agreed pay.
>
>She could... but would she?

*blinkblink* ...assuming that she was actually trying to gather information on Stark, failing to do so would be stupid, given that the choice is between detailed information with complete anonymity and running an excellent chance of totally blowing her hand-picked core operatives' cover out of the water...

Assuming. Which, from your reply, it seems I shouldn't.

Doublethink. Ow.

>>The small size, the continued civilian lives, and most of all the
>>flashy color schemes, don't make sense for a real (that is, for
>>profit) mercenary group, nor, for that matter, for a private army
>>aimed at significantly hindering Genom using open force.
>>
>>They do make sense, though, for a showpiece group - for a
>>symbol, for heroes. They gather attention, then their mysterious MO
>>gets John Q. Public to think about what they're doing...
>>
>>And look at who their opponents are, who's making themselves the
>>villain in the piece.
>
>You may be onto something there!
>
>In that case, it's just possible that she's been researching the world
>situation for quite some time, considering her options, looking
>for just the right person or persons with whom to strike up a...
>strategic partnership, shall we say.

...so it is.

Hmm. Besides the current issue, I wonder how much she has on hand about Linna's friend, Irene...

>Including all the ones the Knight Sabers have had coordinating their
>surveillance operation all week.
>
>D'oh! :)

Yeah, my bad. And Sylia's, too, leaving their lines of communication insecure like that, but mostly mine for missing it.

><snip image>

...ribs hurt...

>Virtual MechWar is set in the 3070s (when it launched, it was
>set in 3050, and its background story has progressed in something like
>real time), so Stark's Warhammer is far from stock, though he
>has at least preserved the distribution of weapon types. It has a
>pair of ER PPCs, four ER medium pulse lasers, a couple of machinegun
>arrays and a Streak SRM6 rack - a pretty respectable load for a heavy,
>even in the Clan era.

It certainly is. Whether the increas in close-range firepower is worth the two or three tons of armor you're sacrificing for the machineguns, OTOH... I can see that it might be considered so in the original board game, but in one of the MW4 computer games (which are my dominant experience outside of the novels), I'd say 'definitely not.'

I'd provide an example of the sort of philosophy I'd favor, but without knowing how Virtual MechWar's construction system works, I could barely even guess. ^_^

>>And, the phrasing of Nene's
>>thoughts sort of suggests to me that their game supports melee combat
>>between mechs - which is the number one item on my wishlist for the
>>next real-world game...
>
>Not exactly - by "gunnery fighter" she means as opposed to someone
>whose play style focuses on piloting skill - jumpjetting around,
>varying speeds a lot, generally screwing with the opponent's firing
>solutions. Stark tends to favor the "take them out before they can
>get through my armor" approach. :)

Ah, "Shoot fast, shoot better."

Sounds sort of familiar. ^_^ Shame, though - having the option of physically smashing things after (or even before) you run out of ammunition seems like it'd make for a considerable fun factor.

>>I'm consumed by curiosity as to what she was planning to say, you
>>know. ^_^
>
>"I don't think that would be a good idea."

Thanks!

>Oh, probably. I just thought it made for a fun "panel", the guy
>looking at his arm with the needle stuck through it like "What the
>hell?!"
>
>If you need an in-story explanation, you may take it that he has a
>skin weave and bone reinforcement, and between those and his armor,
>the projectile was halted. Or maybe Linna's also having a problem
>with her accelerator array.

Ooh, hadn't thought of that last. Anyway, I quite agree that it's a cool image, and had come to pretty much the same rationalization on my own.

>That doesn't mean she's about to go and get her legs replaced just for
>the hell of it,

Well, of course not. That would be silly, especially when the stuff you can wrap through your original legs will do the job just as well. ^_^

>>I can't speak for their veracity one way or the other, but the RPG
>>game sourcebooks describe the knuckle bombers as being a wierd-ass
>>application of otherwise fairly conventional anti-armor shaped
>>charges. Certainly it's the most plausible theory I know of...
>
>My take on them is that they're some kind of charged field effect,
>which explains why they can be used more than once. In fact, in
>Iron Age, it may have to do with the stuff Sylia and Tony Stark
>traded emails about back in the '20s; he did a lot of work with
>electromagnetics and force field technology (the latter of which is
>still in its infancy in the TIA world).

ISTR that the RPG version was supposed to replace used charges out of a small internal magazine, but both versions work, and yours has that useful tie-in.

>>Gah?
>
>Oh, relax, she's just screwing with Leon's head. She wouldn't
>actually put out for some gaijin businessman for a measly
>20,000 yen.

About what I'd guessed, once my brain got out of 'shock mode'. I'll put it down to the very idea of Priss being that passive, combined with the fact that I'd already thought of just saying that Stark was interviewing her about her music.

>Well, he didn't necessarily save her life (if you're talking
>about lifting the K-suit off her), but he certainly kept her out of
>jail. Anyway, I agree that it was a bit melodramatic, but
>there are character reasons behind it that you haven't got all the
>details of yet, so bear with it 'til issue #2.

Ah. Cool, no problem!

>>is that K-suits are much
>>shorter than buildings. Unless his suit is a lot clunkier than
>>I think it is, going over the guy shouldn't be that much of a
>>problem...
>
>Iron Man Mark I is pretty darn clunky, but its biggest problem is that
>its mobility goes down as its energy level drops - and its energy
>level drops pretty fast. So here's the thing - by the time that part
>of the scene happens, he's pretty well shot his wad,
>battery-life-wise.

Oh, okay, then. I hadn't caught that about its performance curve, so that makes a lot more sense now. Thanks!

Ja, -n
(sleep is good...)

>>Virtual MechWar is set in the 3070s (when it launched, it was
>>set in 3050, and its background story has progressed in something like
>>real time), so Stark's Warhammer is far from stock, though he
>>has at least preserved the distribution of weapon types. It has a
>>pair of ER PPCs, four ER medium pulse lasers, a couple of machinegun
>>arrays and a Streak SRM6 rack - a pretty respectable load for a heavy,
>>even in the Clan era.
>
>It certainly is. Whether the increas in close-range firepower is worth
>the two or three tons of armor you're sacrificing for the machineguns,
>OTOH... I can see that it might be considered so in the original board
>game, but in one of the MW4 computer games (which are my dominant
>experience outside of the novels), I'd say 'definitely not.'

That's not really an issue. Machine guns are light. A pair of machine guns and the ammo to run them weighs a single ton if you're using Clan tech, a ton and a half if you're using Inner Sphere. I'll bet Ben's got his Warhammer tricked out with captured Clan weapons (battefield scavenging is a proud BattleTech tradition).
If he's got an XL engine and Clan weapons, he can have that weapon load and max armor with 18 (double) heat sinks and a 4/6 movement. If he's using IS weapons it's still doable, but you start having to make design comprimises.

>
>I'd provide an example of the sort of philosophy I'd favor, but
>without knowing how Virtual MechWar's construction system
>works, I could barely even guess. ^_^

I would imagine it works something like this.

Polychrome

Old school BattleTech player.

>That's not really an issue. Machine guns are light. A pair of machine
>guns and the ammo to run them weighs a single ton if you're using Clan
>tech, a ton and a half if you're using Inner Sphere.

Oddly, in MechWarrior 4, machinegun arrays weigh two tons no matter what (but the Clan versions have more firepower), which is the same as a medium pulse laser.

I came up with the weapon load for Stark's Warhammer (it didn't come up in the 'Drome scene, but its name is "Engine 51" - spot the reference!) off the top of my head and without reference to any formal 'Mech-building system; any discrepancies between it and what you could get in, say, MechWarrior 4: Mercs can be put down to my error or, if you really want, explained by some technological advance developed "recently" by VMW's timeframe. Lighter heat sinks, maybe.

(Well, that and there isn't a Warhammer chassis to build on if I were going to test it out in MW4, which is the most convenient way of doing it. The closest I could get would be to build it on a Thor OmniMech chassis. Which I've done; the "WHM Type" Thor tends to be one of the mainstays of my arsenal in Mercs, but I could be misremembering the number of lasers or what have you. Come to think of it, if he has the tonnage for four medium pulse lasers, why does he not just use two large ones? Eh, I'm examining this too closely. :)

(As an aside, all the real roleplayers in MechWar name their 'Mechs; Nene's Mad Cat is called "Stompy McBangBang" for convoluted reasons.)

>I'll bet Ben's
>got his Warhammer tricked out with captured Clan weapons (battefield
>scavenging is a proud BattleTech tradition).

Oh, certainly. Hell, by 3070 some Inner Sphere factories are producing weapons based on the Clan designs. (Even in MW4 Mercs, which is set in 3066, that's happening; there are even Inner Sphere-designed OmniMechs by then.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>>That's not really an issue. Machine guns are light. A pair of machine
>>guns and the ammo to run them weighs a single ton if you're using Clan
>>tech, a ton and a half if you're using Inner Sphere.
>
>Oddly, in MechWarrior 4, machinegun arrays weigh two tons no
>matter what (but the Clan versions have more firepower), which is the
>same as a medium pulse laser.

Probably because it's a machine gun array. They're giving you a bunch of fire-linked guns.

>
>I came up with the weapon load for Stark's Warhammer (it didn't
>come up in the 'Drome scene, but its name is "Engine 51" - spot the
>reference!) off the top of my head and without reference to any formal
>'Mech-building system; any discrepancies between it and what you could
>get in, say, MechWarrior 4: Mercs can be put down to my error
>or, if you really want, explained by some technological advance
>developed "recently" by VMW's timeframe. Lighter heat sinks, maybe.

Well, I can't speak for MW4, but it works in regular BattleTech.

>
>(Well, that and there isn't a Warhammer chassis to build on if
>I were going to test it out in MW4, which is the most convenient way
>of doing it. The closest I could get would be to build it on a
>Thor OmniMech chassis. Which I've done; the "WHM Type"
>Thor tends to be one of the mainstays of my arsenal in Mercs,
>but I could be misremembering the number of lasers or what have you.
>Come to think of it, if he has the tonnage for four medium pulse
>lasers, why does he not just use two large ones? Eh, I'm examining
>this too closely. :)

The MPLs do more damage and produce less heat, the only advantage to using large lasers would be range, and you've got range covered with the PPCs.

>
>(As an aside, all the real roleplayers in MechWar name their
>'Mechs; Nene's Mad Cat is called "Stompy McBangBang" for
>convoluted reasons.)

I can totally see Nene naming her 'Mech that.

Polychrome

>>(Well, that and there isn't a Warhammer chassis to build on if
>>I were going to test it out in MW4, which is the most convenient way
>>of doing it. The closest I could get would be to build it on a
>>Thor OmniMech chassis. Which I've done; the "WHM Type"
>>Thor tends to be one of the mainstays of my arsenal in Mercs,
>>but I could be misremembering the number of lasers or what have you.
>>Come to think of it, if he has the tonnage for four medium pulse
>>lasers, why does he not just use two large ones? Eh, I'm examining
>>this too closely. :)
>
>The MPLs do more damage and produce less heat, the only advantage to
>using large lasers would be range, and you've got range covered with
>the PPCs.

That'd depend entirely on which version of the game VMW is closer to - I don't doubt you'd be right if it's the board game, but, at least in MW4, pulse lasers of any size or type are utterly worthless.

>>(As an aside, all the real roleplayers in MechWar name their
>>'Mechs; Nene's Mad Cat is called "Stompy McBangBang" for
>>convoluted reasons.)
>
>I can totally see Nene naming her 'Mech that.

Ditto.

Ja,
-n

LAST EDITED ON Jan-27-06 AT 05:35 PM (EST)
 
>(it didn't
>come up in the 'Drome scene, but its name is "Engine 51" - spot the
>reference!)

Squad 51, this is Rampart, go ahead!
Sounds Familiar?

If you feel like poking around google for a bit, there's a pretty good mod for MW4:Mercs my MekTek with a dozen or so extra mechs in it, including the Warhammer.

How accurate the setup on it is I couldn't say, my BattleTech experiance only stretches back to MW2. That, and I have no idea if I have a working install anymore.

LAST EDITED ON Feb-01-06 AT 06:07 PM (EST)
 
>If you feel like poking around google for a bit, there's a pretty good
>mod for MW4:Mercs my MekTek with a dozen or so extra mechs in it,
>including the Warhammer.

Well. That was kind of a pain in the butt to track down, but you're right, it's pretty neat. Nice to see the old chassis again, even if they're not available in campaign mode (boo).

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>>>Sylia could certainly afford
>>>to hire a trustworthy outside contractor who wouldn't care that he
>>>didn't have a clue who was on the other end of the voice-scrambled
>>>phone line as long as he got his agreed pay.
>>
>>She could... but would she?
>
>*blinkblink* ...assuming that she was actually trying to gather
>information on Stark, failing to do so would be stupid, given
>that the choice is between detailed information with complete
>anonymity and running an excellent chance of totally blowing
>her hand-picked core operatives' cover out of the water...
>
>Assuming. Which, from your reply, it seems I shouldn't.
>
>Doublethink. Ow.

Of course, that kind of hardsuit development takes a lot of cash to finance. She could simply not have had enough cash on hand to pay for freelancers. And, there's no telling what freelancers might find out. KS would have a problem if they saw Stark carrying around a hardsuit, even though he's not associated with them.

It was the right call, if Stark were some random schmuck that got lucky.

>>Including all the ones the Knight Sabers have had coordinating their
>>surveillance operation all week.
>>
>>D'oh! :)
>
>Yeah, my bad. And Sylia's, too, leaving their lines of communication
>insecure like that, but mostly mine for missing it.

Well, to be fair:

1) The TeleJack isn't exactly a common piece of hardware, and the version with the inline cryptanalyzer doubly so; and

2) Sylia might have wanted them to find out. :)

>Sounds sort of familiar. ^_^ Shame, though - having the option of
>physically smashing things after (or even before) you run out of
>ammunition seems like it'd make for a considerable fun factor.

Melee is an option for those whose 'Mech designs support it, which isn't everybody. Some players bitch that that causes a balance issue, but that's a pretty standard MMO complaint. It's tricky to pull off, though, even if you have one of the 'Mechs with arms that can actually move that way. The control inputs for anything other than "track arm weapons on target" are seriously non-intuitive.

In Stark's case it's not really an issue; the Warhammer design doesn't lend itself to melee combat. Not only are the long arms unwieldy, one expects the PPC assemblies wouldn't really appreciate being bashed about like that. Nene's Mad Cat might be able to pull it off, but there again you have to worry about screwing up the weapons mounted there.

Plus, there's the small problem that if you actually do manage to take your opponent out in melee combat, there's a good chance his 'Mech will blow up in your face, which is... inconvenient. No, melee is something best left to the enthusiasts and those who don't particularly mind the possibility of Dispossession...

>>Oh, relax, she's just screwing with Leon's head. She wouldn't
>>actually put out for some gaijin businessman for a measly
>>20,000 yen.
>
>About what I'd guessed, once my brain got out of 'shock mode'. I'll
>put it down to the very idea of Priss being that passive, combined
>with the fact that I'd already thought of just saying that Stark was
>interviewing her about her music.

In a private room at La Vie Riche with his bodyguard and three hookers?

OK, I admit that is something his hero Hunter S. Thompson would have done, but still. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>Plus, there's the small problem that if you actually do manage to take
>your opponent out in melee combat, there's a good chance his
>'Mech will blow up in your face, which is... inconvenient. No, melee
>is something best left to the enthusiasts and those who don't
>particularly mind the possibility of Dispossession...

Elemental Golf, dude.

	Chad Collier Smirking Kilrathi just call my Hatchetman 'Tiger Woods' The Captain of the Gravy Train

>> No, melee
>>is something best left to the enthusiasts and those who don't
>>particularly mind the possibility of Dispossession...
>
>Elemental Golf, dude.

With a Warhammer it's more like polo. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>>> No, melee
>>>is something best left to the enthusiasts and those who don't
>>>particularly mind the possibility of Dispossession...
>>
>>Elemental Golf, dude.
>
>With a Warhammer it's more like polo. :)
>

Or soccer..... :)

Michael

	Michael C. Fortner RCW #2(n+1) "I smoke in moderation. Only one cigar at a time." -- Mark Twain

>>Sounds sort of familiar. ^_^ Shame, though - having the option of
>>physically smashing things after (or even before) you run out of
>>ammunition seems like it'd make for a considerable fun factor.
>
>Melee is an option for those whose 'Mech designs support it, which
>isn't everybody. Some players bitch that that causes a balance issue,
>but that's a pretty standard MMO complaint. It's tricky to pull off,
>though, even if you have one of the 'Mechs with arms that can actually
>move that way. The control inputs for anything other than "track arm
>weapons on target" are seriously non-intuitive.

Fair enough - my mind is just almost irresistably attracted to the idea of picking up, say, a convenient Wolfhound and using it as a melee weapon... of course, I tend to be close enough to get caught in a cookoff at least once every couple missions anyway, so my perspective isn't quite the same as most people's.

>Plus, there's the small problem that if you actually do manage to take
>your opponent out in melee combat, there's a good chance his
>'Mech will blow up in your face, which is... inconvenient. No, melee
>is something best left to the enthusiasts and those who don't
>particularly mind the possibility of Dispossession...

Regular military types wouldn't own theirs anyway. ^_^ As long as you do enough damage to make sending you out again cost-effective...

Anyway, I'm not really suggesting that it'd be a standard tactic, or anything - just that, like a Death From Above, it'd be fun.

>In a private room at La Vie Riche with his bodyguard and three
>hookers?

The idea jumped out at me before Zoner had even opened his mouth, actually. Sorry. ^_^

Ja,
-n

LAST EDITED ON Jan-27-06 AT 02:34 PM (EST)
 
>>IN THE GRIM FUTURE OF HELLO NENE THERE IS ONLY WAR!

Here's another, IMO appropriate image:

http://www.machall.com/desktops/desktop_crossing_400.jpg?x

(the full-sized desktop wallpaper versions may be found at http://www.machall.com .)

EDIT: Here's some free context, too: someone set up BattleMech figs in his girlfriend's Animal Crossing diorama.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-21-11 AT 03:02 PM (EST)
 
Or they could call him Doctor MegaZone, MD, but it might be redundant calling him Doctor MegaZone, MD.

Very cool. Nene is awesome in this. I like the mention of the "Nene-gram" too, that is so her!

The Vietnam aspect is quite interesting. My memory about ROM'd personalities is a bit fuzzy -- I've been paying closer attention to those fancy optical-nano-net-things that Cortana uses -- but the way Ben and Tony discussed Yinsen, I get the impression Tony's truly unaware of the date. That will be interesting to watch.

Also, I know in UF and HL, and even GW, it's typical to call your avatar Gryphon. TIA seems to refer to him more as Stark than anything. What's he known by to most people (people who don't call him "Mr. Stark, sir" anyway)?

>Also, I know in UF and HL, and even GW, it's typical to call your
>avatar Gryphon. TIA seems to refer to him more as Stark than
>anything. What's he known by to most people (people who don't call
>him "Mr. Stark, sir" anyway)?

Zoner calls him "Gryph" a couple of times in the story - he's pretty much the only one who knows him by that handle since he changed his name in '27. Business associates and people who primarily know him from his journalistic work tend to go by the name in his byline, "Benjamin"; those he knows on a more personal level - and to be honest, his peripatetic lifestyle over the last few years has meant there aren't a lot of those - usually call him Ben.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

LAST EDITED ON Jan-26-06 AT 07:47 PM (EST)
 
Nice.

It's not the best word, but I'm trying not to gush too much....

That said, I really like how you've 'restarted' this. It still has that buddy-flick feel to it, but it's much more serious, and more entertaining. So it's all good.

Mainly, it feels more coherent. Which, I suppose, isn't that surprising, eh?

Hm, things I liked in the story, in no particular order (and definitely not all of them)....

-Meeting Priss for the first time was good. Though it felt sorta familiar (for obvious reasons), it was still new and refreshing

-Stark getting his ass handed to him at first with the boomer. MUCH more realistic than blowing the thing up with a rocket launcher.

-The meeting Nene in the BattleDrome was again, familiar, but new and refreshing. I don't know what it was, but I liked the MechWarrior sim better than the Wing Commander sim. Meh, personal taste, probably.

Still, it was nice to see that Nene got to keep her nick.

-The 'surveillance' bit was inspired. I have a feeling I'll be re-reading again and again for some time to come. What can I say, I'm an obssessive personailty....

-The phone conversation between Sylia and Stark was great. For some reason I got the image of the both of them trying to fish for innuendo, with long pauses for each.

-The dust-up at the restaurant was interesting, and fun to read.

-Zoner was fun. I've forgotten how fun he can be....

hrm....can't think of anything else....

~Strife Aileron
http://www.execulink.com/~stryker

>-Ben getting his ass handed to him at first with the boomer. MUCH
>more realistic than blowing the thing up with a rocket launcher.

For the record, if he had HAD a rocket launcher, he would have used it. He's not too proud. But alas, no. Since his car in this version is not a cop car from a parallel dimension with a higher Tech Level, he was sort of stuck with what he had on hand. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>>-Ben getting his ass handed to him at first with the boomer. MUCH
>>more realistic than blowing the thing up with a rocket launcher.
>
>For the record, if he had HAD a rocket launcher, he would have used
>it. He's not too proud. But alas, no. Since his car in this version
>is not a cop car from a parallel dimension with a higher Tech Level,
>he was sort of stuck with what he had on hand. :)

Fair enough.

Of course, I would have used the rocket launcher as well.

Pride? I have none.

~Strife Aileron
http://www.execulink.com/~stryker

>he was sort of stuck with what he had on hand. :)

Ouch the puns...

I absolutely loved every second of the whole issue :D

"You've got nothing but a few facts that don't line up and a
hunch," Stark replied flatly. "I respect hunches, and I respect your
diligence, but if you expected me to spill my guts in a video arcade
snack bar, you're even more naive than you look."

For me this part really struck home that this wasn't HL as I knew it but something new, I think the introduction on the webpage said it best. TIA really is an evolved reboot of HL :)

>-Zoner was fun. I've forgotten how fun he can be....

Well, thanks. :-)

>>-Zoner was fun. I've forgotten how fun he can be....
>
>Well, thanks. :-)

No prob, ;-)

I'm just glad you guys could remind me how enjoyable a story starring you two is to read.

~Strife Aileron
http://www.execulink.com/~stryker

You're a groovy one, Mr. Gryphon.

Thanks to everyone who got this running for giving us yet more excellent stories to read.

> A moment later, the reason was
>revealed as Zoner stepped back and withdrew his left arm's wolvers
>from the man's chest.
> "Those come in handy," Priss observed.
> "You want a set?" Zoner offered. "It's a patented alloy. Not
>available in stores!"
> "I'll think about it," she said. "Cover me while I - oh boy."
> "While you what - oh. Crap."
> They had, it appeared, been found by one of the combat droids.

And thus TIA continues the grand tradition of hilarious dialogue with only minimal setup. Time to update the EPU quotes folder. :P

-OM

Superb work.

I love the additional detail of the chestplate as well.

Quote

---

Stark waited until the CALL TERMINATED message came up on his
HUD before remarking aloud,
"Well, I'll be damned," Stark said. "We came to town to find
the Knight Sabers... and there goes one now."
"Eris moves in mysterious ways," said Zoner sagely.

---

This, and what preceded it, is probably one of the best opening hooks I've read in a long time. In other words I'm caught, and I've only gotten this far into it.

--
Druid

On the other hand, she might not notice right away. Traffic
was light enough that he didn't have to bother with the car's not-
strictly-legal siren and popup light bar to clear himself a path.

Nice that you could fit that into this piece. It certainly brought a smile to my face.

...

...

...

Whoa! What a ride!

"Mr. Stark?" she asked, her voice tiny and frightened.
No answer.
"... Ben?"
Silence.
Nene Romanova suddenly realized that she had never, ever felt
so alone before.

You are an evil, evil man. I should expect that by now though. :)

--
Druid

The scene at the BattleDrome warmed the heart of this old school BattleTech player. That really made my day.

The use of the chestplate-as-pacemaker bit is pretty neat. Although I still think that would be rather inconvienent when you want to take a shower.

All in all, good show. I look forward to the next part.

Polychrome

>The scene at the BattleDrome warmed the heart of this old school
>BattleTech player. That really made my day.

Well, I wanted to include some variation on the video arcade scene from the original HL, and the combat game I've been playing most lately has been MechWarrior 4, so it seemed the logical choice. Plus, I find the idea of a sorta-MMOish MechWarrior game intriguing. It would inevitably be (as Nene notes) kinda light on roleplayers, but the possibilities would be there.

>The use of the chestplate-as-pacemaker bit is pretty neat. Although I
>still think that would be rather inconvienent when you want to take a
>shower.

Oh, it's dreadfully inconvenient. Fortunately, technology comes to the rescue; the same nanocleaners that special-forces soldiers and cops with permanent armor mods use to avoid "armor funk" work well in this application also.

Still, it's dead annoying. Sometimes he lies awake at night thinking about hot tubs.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

It's funny, I had just read through HL 1.0 yesterday, and TIA is a worthy successor...and you did it all (the Starkwire posts and the piece itself) in a week? I hope it didn't burn your brain from the inside out.

I think it's cool that you managed to preserve a lot of the elements from the original, the Camaro, the initial encounter with Priss, the repartee between Stark(Gryph) and Zoner...but it's all been updated and "remastered" (for lack of a better word).

For some reason, the stakeout scenes reminded me of the scene The French Connection where O'Doyle is freezing his ass off, while the bad guys he's tailing are livin' it up in a posh restaurant.

All in all, I thought it was great.

- Zatch

>It's funny, I had just read through HL 1.0 yesterday, and TIA is a
>worthy successor...and you did it all (the Starkwire posts and the
>piece itself) in a week? I hope it didn't burn your brain from the
>inside out.

10-12 days, depending on whether you count the beginning of the project to be when I thought of it or when I admitted to myself I was doing it.

I'm a little crispy, but nowhere near as burnt as I've been after some other projects in the past.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Lovely ride there, Gryph.

Of course, remembering that the muse moves in mysterious ways, I did quail at seeing the cliffhanger, since from this side of the screen we have no way of knowing when she'll explain things to you if you get stuck. And I WANT more! It took a major act of will to avoid RCW clicking of the 'what's new' page yesterday when I noted the date on Phil's promo poster...

About the only thing I can think of that would be nice to see sometime, either here or as exposition would be some sort of 'feel' for just how things are different between this and HL. Yes, I do understand that this is a complete Reboot, and there ARNT any direct links; but I just CANT keep what I know about the original from contaminating my thoughts about IA.

Its a minor hope. I am assuming that my particular one concern (IE how did IA-Gryph wind up with the same sort of chest damage as the orignal Tony) is important enough that it gets covered one way or the other over the next few chapters....

> I am assuming that my particular one concern (IE
>how did IA-Gryph wind up with the same sort of chest damage as the
>orignal Tony) is important enough that it gets covered one way or the
>other over the next few chapters....

There's enough out there to offer a pretty good guess already, assuming that one part of the original Iron Man story still stands.

Peter Eng
--
Yes, I'm being vague on purpose.

LAST EDITED ON Jan-28-06 AT 06:35 AM (EST)
 
"Hey BITCH!" he yelled. The boomer paused, turning its head
back to track the source of the challenge. A moment later its head
vanished in an orange fireball.
"HA!" Zoner cried.
The boomer whirled and lunged toward him, its head -
apparently undamaged - emerging from the cloud of smoke.
"FUCK!" Zoner cried.

Mwahahaha.

He's one funny bastage. Ya know, the above does put a pretty monomolecular point on the whole affair, dunnit?

I'm mightily impressed with the narrow line you're walking between getting the protagonists involved while not totally stealing the show...and I'm loving the set-up potential for a nifty tale on the history between Tony and Ben. Would I be correct in assuming the "explosion" flashback is part of that?

Speaking of oldschool Stark, I find it highly cool that you've kept the stark pacemaker :D I especially like how you've made one fine mess of a cliffhanger out of having it (Damn you.).

Poor Nene.

~AVG

----
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