> the asari crimeboss

This raised an eyebrow. I had unconsciously assumed that out of the wealth of galaxy-building material from the ME universe, asari would be one thing that you'd keep out of the UF universe.

I think my assumption was based on the fact that it would pretty naturally lead to the thought of what an asari/dantrovian relationship might be like. ...in fact, I'm thinking about it right now.

> Rando sighed deeply and replied in his heavy, monotone voice,
>"Not even bothering to disguise annoyance: The special supplies have not
>yet arrived from Carentan.

> "Zaeed Massani?" she asked.
> "That's me," he replied.

At this point, I'm slowly forming the idea that Gryph really enjoyed Mass Effect.

> The one trophy she'd
>kept from that illustrious career was a krayt dragon pearl - valuable,
>yes, but nothing she would ever part with.

Which also gave him flashbacks to previous Bioware games.

> "Some kind of quip about who's taking it
>from behind now is hovering just out of my reach," she said darkly.
>"It's probably just as well."

Nobody would fault her even if it wasn't out of reach.

Mordin Solous, colonial DJ. I like.

The ending rates a seven-a D'aaaaaaaw. A *sad* seven-a D'aaaaaaaw.

LAST EDITED ON Mar-10-10 AT 05:31 PM (EST)
 
>I think my assumption was based on the fact that it would pretty
>naturally lead to the thought of what an asari/dantrovian relationship
>might be like. ...in fact, I'm thinking about it right now.

I think the word you're rummaging through the drawer for there is "hilarious". :)

You know what, though, there's one character in the two currently extant Mass Effect games that would have convinced me to include the asari in UF even if I didn't already like the concept enough to do it, and that's Matriarch Aethyta. Any species that can produce an individual like that? I want in my universe. :)

--G.
"Get you something, honey? No sex, though, sorry. Just cleaned the bar."
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>>I think my assumption was based on the fact that it would pretty
>>naturally lead to the thought of what an asari/dantrovian relationship
>>might be like. ...in fact, I'm thinking about it right now.
>
>I think the word you're rummaging through the drawer for there is
>"hilarious". :)

When I say "relationship" I mean "relationship arc", like a story built around a duo of characters that includes fighting space pirates, running for their lives and getting drunk together and commiserating on how humans just don't *get* it, man.

>When I say "relationship" I mean "relationship arc", like a story
>built around a duo of characters that includes fighting space pirates,
>running for their lives and getting drunk together and commiserating
>on how humans just don't *get* it, man.

Like I said, hilarious. Maybe not for them, though, admittedly. :)

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

>The ending rates a seven-a D'aaaaaaaw. A *sad* seven-a D'aaaaaaaw.

I dont know if I agree with you about the sad part. But the WAFF shows just how G managed to make it through the 'rain' of that long dark century; he used his true 'superpower'... his caring heart, to help make a thousand points of light to keep hope alive till the day it burst forth again, flaming bright, to light a Future Imperfect.

I am going to buy ME2 on Friday, and you are convincing me to romance Tali. Even if I have to sell my soul and dance the macarena in nothing more than a lepoardskin thong in the docks.

This whole sequence is... GAH! Loving it!

Mind you, there are also Freudian implicvations of a dangerous, untouchable, unattainable woman...

"It's difficult keeping up with the cross-continuity, but I think Cosmouse just gave The Saturnian Scraphunter his Ultimate Pacifier to use against Galactapuss..."

> Randokrad looked up from his work terminal at the sound of the
> door, saw Brejik stomping toward him, and sighed. A day just wasn't
> complete around here lately without Brejik storming into the motor pool
> and saying,

Brejik? Long way from Taris Undercity, ain'cha, boy?

And... criminal... Elcor. There's an intimidating thought.

> "Lady, for what you're offering to pay, I wouldn't care if you
> were Patina, Queen of the Junkions," he said. "I'm in. Give me the
> rundown."

Yes, but will you go there and flip the switch?

Ah, well. At least Vision's cuter than Durandal.

> "Looks like you just ran outta room," Brejik crowed through the
> Saladin's PA.
> "One of us did," replied an unfamiliar voice on the general comm
> band.
> "-Steady- sonofabitch," said the driver, impressed.

Smarter than his boss, but still unaware of just what, exactly, they're fucking with.

Hmmm. Not much to say, this time. Beyond being quite impressed by the Spartan Laser.

*shrug*

Ja, -n

>And... criminal... Elcor. There's an intimidating thought.

Eh, he's a clerk. The fact that he works for a criminal enterprise is entirely immaterial to him. (Besides, the Blue Suns are a Legitimate Security Firm, on paper. :)

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

Most of what I was going to say was pretty much covered. There was fair amount of D'aaaaaaw. There was Gryphon's super power at work (I wondered if that might happen, looking at the title).

I thought the Borderlands references were pretty amusing, especially since I have a friend in a craze about it right now. I'd been playing it quite a bit until recently, as well, and seeing the references put in just the right frame of mind that, when it got to the tank, I thought, "Armor! Use corrosive."

I confess that I have no idea what, exactly, Vision will use Zaeed for, or how it'll all pull together. I look forward to seeing it.

>Most of what I was going to say was pretty much covered. There was
>fair amount of D'aaaaaaw. There was Gryphon's super power at work (I
>wondered if that might happen, looking at the title).

All I'll say right now is that there's a reason I didn't give this story the title it now bears until I'd finished writing it.

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

>>Most of what I was going to say was pretty much covered. There was
>>fair amount of D'aaaaaaw. There was Gryphon's super power at work (I
>>wondered if that might happen, looking at the title).
>
>All I'll say right now is that there's a reason I didn't give this
>story the title it now bears until I'd finished writing it.

Between this, and the hinting around about Tali not being Tali'Zora, I'm having a horrible suspicion as to what's going to happen to Tali.

>>All I'll say right now is that there's a reason I didn't give this
>>story the title it now bears until I'd finished writing it.
>
>Between this, and the hinting around about Tali not being Tali'Zora,
>I'm having a horrible suspicion as to what's going to happen to Tali.

Given there appears to be a young man from the Zorah clan interested in her, I have a suspicion of a less horrible but more bittersweet variety.

Okay, had some free time, decided to go through this one and jot down my reactions.

> STAR-CROSSED
> Part V: Ockham's Razor

Right off the start my curiousity is piqued. Ockham? Gryph knows how to spell Occam correctly, says I, therefore this must be a subtle hint at something! At what? Ooh, conspiracy!

... or, as a quick visit to Wikipedia suggests, just me being ignorant. Doh.

> landmark. Though the company was no longer in operation, the building's
> owners, a real estate holding company with the whimsical name of
> Bolthole & Hideout, Ltd., maintained it in good condition, with the bold

Competitors of Safehouse, Inc., one assumes. *nod*

> Those various burglars and unlawful enterers who had passed on
> trying the Deneb Cold Storage Company's security would have been
> startled to learn that the building was -not- empty, and indeed that
> there were at least two pieces of very valuable equipment within. One
> of them, a VF-1FS Hyper Valkyrie starfighter, would have been unwieldy
> to abscond with and difficult to fence, but the other was specifically
> designed to be portable - and there were quite a few people who would
> pay a handsome premium to get hold of a genuine pre-Sonset Wedge Defense
> Force FTL processor, an authentic piece of Zetan overtechnology.

... okay, first thought is, dude, Gryphon stuck his Valk in the -fridge-?

And then the WDF FTL processor shows up, and... hmm. That's not EVE, Eve is still in the wreck of the Son at this point, isn't she? It's not CLULESS, that's kept in Gryph's skull... What, then, could it -- naaahh....

> The answer, Vision was slightly nonplussed to learn, was
> nothing. She replayed her sensor logs of her last conversation with
> Gryphon to make sure she hadn't misremembered what he'd said - not very
> likely, but ironically, with a cognitive structure as advanced as hers,
> just possible.

DUDE! You stuck -VISION- in the fridge -too-?! Harsh. :D

> "I'm just making a quick run to Omega and back for this
> auction," he said. "Shouldn't be more than three or four days."

*cue ominous music*

> "If I'd known he was going to do that I'd have asked him to sell me that
> quarian before he left. Shame to waste such promising young talent."
> "Okay, you've lost me. What quarian?"
> "He bought a quarian at the auction. Kind of an impulse buy,

I've noticed this in the other pieces in Star-Crossed so far, but as this is my first real post on the subject I'll mention it now:

I know the Mass Effect convention is that the race names are not capitalized. I'm not quite sure why this is, other than by developer fiat. But it strikes me as a bit off, somehow, in that the rest of the UF stories follow the normal convention when using race names as nouns. Just... not this one.

It's not a complaint, not even a quibble, just a minor twinge at best. It's just something I'm noticing and can't think of a good reason why.

> She pulled back from the Blue Suns system, erased any trace of
> her presence there, and turned her attention to the undernet bulletin
> boards that had gotten her creator into this mess in the first place.
> HELP WANTED...

"Calling all Blue Blaze Irregulars!"

Okay, well, probably not, given that this is set in the Exile. But still.

> Rando sighed deeply and replied in his heavy, monotone voice,
> "Not even bothering to disguise annoyance: The special supplies have not
> yet arrived from Carentan. They are en route as we speak. Sarcastic
> excitement: If you know a way of intercepting a hyperspace transport and
> getting its cargo here faster than it's already coming, please go
> partners with me in developing it so we can both become incredibly
> wealthy."

*snooork* Elcor. Awesome.

> The man paused just inside the doorway and scanned the room with
> mismatched eyes, one dark, the other ghost-blue.

I was scratching my head trying to figure out who this could be. Then:

> "Zaeed Massani?" she asked.

... oh. Well. I don't have the DLC, so I guess I shouldn't blame myself for not recognizing him. :D

> "Lady, for what you're offering to pay, I wouldn't care if you
> were Patina, Queen of the Junkions," he said. "I'm in. Give me the
> rundown."

... I know that name, why do I know that name?

*googles*

Yyeaaah, okay. I remember now. *wince*

> Gryphon and Tali were taking it easy in their garage, tinkering
> with assorted bits of Ranger and desultorily discussing various points

That, that right there? Broke me. Because my first mental image was of, y'know, an Army Ranger. Eeep.

> What she was looking at through her scope today was considerably
> less noble than that great beast, and considerably less valuable too. It
> was a man, tall and swarthy, dressed in the armor of a Blue Suns
> centurion and supervising at least three dozen men as they disembarked
> from a Dakota-class dropship. He clearly had no idea she was out there.

TAKE THE SHOT, TAKE THE SHOT!

> She clicked forward one mag level and recentered her crosshairs on his
> forehead. At 1300 yards, it was a tricky shot, but not impossible. Not
> nearly. Alice might not have had anything to hunt on Halo, but that
> didn't mean her rifle had spent the last ten years on the shelf. If she
> had to, she was confident she could take this guy out.

DOOO EEEET!

> That wasn't her job, though.

... dammit.

> "Say again?" Chen's voice said in her ear.
> "The infantry's forming up, but there are a couple of guys with
> SMGs hanging back by the dropship. Engineers, maybe. They're... ...
> aw, -crap.- Base, the Blue Suns have brought armor. I repeat, ARMOR.
> They're offloading a Saladin hovertank."

Hee! I have the manual (or one of them, at any rate) where the Sal is documented. Never -played- the game, mind you, but here was this whopping great book full of cool vehicles and armor (and a few mech designs in the back), just sitting there on the card table at a garage sale, waiting for a new home.

Best fifty cents I've ever spent. :D

> Brejik hadn't been entirely sure what to expect from the
> colonists, but one thing he -hadn't- been expecting was for his primary
> target to come out and -meet- him. He knew the guy had balls, but only
> a -maniac- would challenge a Saladin on a -motorcycle,- transforming or
> not. Brejik's Class-20 autocannon could reduce the crazy bastard to a
> pink mist with a single hit, and with the Saladin's maneuverability,
> he'd get one.
> "He's just -sitting- there," said the driver.

Yes. Taunting you.

> "Chase that motherfucker down!" he roared. "He can't run from
> us forever."

Hah! Gryph aggro'd the tank! :D

> The three seconds it took the SPARTAN Laser to charge up and
> fire after she pulled the trigger were the longest of Tali's life.

Having played the game a couple times, I've gotta say, that three seconds is MURDER. And a stupid, silly design for a weapon, in my opinion. Make it take three seconds to recharge between shots, fine! But when I pull the damn trigger I expects me some FREEEM!

Stupid SPARTAN laser.

> And then she couldn't see anything, because the laser vomited a
> beam of such intense red light that her visor automatically flicked to
> black for 750 milliseconds to keep her from being blinded. It returned

I'm sure there's a thought behind this sort of thing, some reason for it, but, the numbers distract me. I'd rather see "half a second" or "three-quarters of a second" or for that matter "a split second", because if I'm putting myself in Tali's place here, I can't for a second imagine that I'd notice until after the fact -- if then -- that it took exactly 750 milliseconds for vision to be restored.

Just sayin'.

> the town itself. As such, once assured by Mordin that the Suns had left
> the system entirely, they were fully prepared to party.

My cynical side points out that Mordin and Millandra both start with 'M', and has ever since that little bit about the merc sleeper agent earlier. But Millandra would be too obvious, and I can't see it being Mordin, and... and... doh.

Patience, grasshopper.

> "Huh?" Gryphon replied. He wasn't sure he'd heard her right,
> what with the music, and most of his attention was taken up by the
> peculiar spectacle of Mordin Solus with cans on, deejaying.

*spews Diet Pepsi*

> But that was for some other time.

... I'm a bit at a loss as to what to say.

The dance, Tali's dress, all of that? Very touching, and I quite liked it.

At the same time, I'd somehow got the impression that Gryph thought of Tali as a Friend-slash-Little-Sister, not Friend-slash-Love-Interest. But the closing scene throws a lot of doubt on that.

I can see Tali being infatuated with him. But Exile!Gryph just always seemed so... driven, that I can't quite see him returning it to the same level.

I dunno. The title is making more sense now, I'll admit, but I can't decide if I agree with how their relationship looks right now or not.

(Not that that matters, particularly, but, y'know. Opinions.)

--sofaspud
--

>> "If I'd known he was going to do that I'd have asked him to sell me that
>> quarian before he left. Shame to waste such promising young talent."
>> "Okay, you've lost me. What quarian?"
>> "He bought a quarian at the auction. Kind of an impulse buy,
>
>I've noticed this in the other pieces in Star-Crossed so far, but as
>this is my first real post on the subject I'll mention it now:
>
>I know the Mass Effect convention is that the race names are not
>capitalized. I'm not quite sure why this is, other than by developer
>fiat. But it strikes me as a bit off, somehow, in that the rest of
>the UF stories follow the normal convention when using race names as
>nouns. Just... not this one.
>
>It's not a complaint, not even a quibble, just a minor twinge at best.
> It's just something I'm noticing and can't think of a good reason
>why.

Well, in Mass Effect itself it appears to be because they're the races' own names for themselves - in no case I can think of is a Mass Effect species name derived from the name of its homeworld - and, by analogy with "human", they're thus not proper nouns.

The reason it jumps out at you is because most sci-fi aliens are called by whatever their home planet is - Vulcans, Salusians, etc. - and thus those names are capitalized. (So, in UF, "human" isn't but "Earther" is.) If turians, for instance, were called by the usual sort of sci-fi conventional "human name for alien race" name, they'd be called Palavenites or some such. Drop them into a universe where the planet-name-as-species-name thing is already well-established and it stands out.

I did notice that when I started working the ME races into UF (back in Manhunt there's a mention of turians in Starfleet, for instance), and I had two options: leave them the way they are in the source, or make them conform to the rest of the UF universe. In the end I decided staying with the source was better. (shrug)

>> "Chase that motherfucker down!" he roared. "He can't run from
>> us forever."
>
>Hah! Gryph aggro'd the tank! :D

/e comegetsome

>> And then she couldn't see anything, because the laser vomited a
>> beam of such intense red light that her visor automatically flicked to
>> black for 750 milliseconds to keep her from being blinded. It returned
>
>I'm sure there's a thought behind this sort of thing, some reason for
>it, but, the numbers distract me.

Not really, no; it's just that it's a piece of precision technology at work, and I felt it appropriate (insofar as I consciously considered the matter, which is to say not really at all) to be precise with the description as well. It's not meant to imply that Tali knew exactly how long the blackout lasted, although she probably did - not because she can perceive time with such exactitude, but because she knows the specifications of her visor's flare compensation mode.

>At the same time, I'd somehow got the impression that Gryph thought of
>Tali as a Friend-slash-Little-Sister, not Friend-slash-Love-Interest.
>But the closing scene throws a lot of doubt on that.

If it helps, the person sitting next to you in that particular row of seats on the bus is G himself. He was under that impression as well. And may still be, for the most part. I mean, what the hell, what's he going to do? She's wearing a space suit. :)

>I can see Tali being infatuated with him. But Exile!Gryph just always
>seemed so... driven, that I can't quite see him returning it to the
>same level.

We'll come back to this, because you're right in one sense. Being really, properly in love is not something he would've thought himself capable of at this point in his life. I mean, 20 years before this story he abandoned a marriage because the Hunt for Truth was more important to him (and he feared for her safety if he stayed, but he usually glosses over that when hating himself for doing it), and it didn't occur to him to realize what a complete asshole that made him for quite a while. Once it did, he decided he would have to be done with that kind of thing. He's in enough trouble without roaming around the galaxy breaking hearts, after all.

At this stage in his life, he thinks he has to be selfish and maintain a certain level of detachment for everyone's safety. But it could be argued that his life situation in this era has been tailor-made to leave him with a certain lack of perspective. Maybe what he needed was another angle to look at himself from. Those quarian faceplates are very reflective.

I'm not going to go any deeper into this here, because you'll see where I went with it soon enough, and once it's all over you can draw your own conclusions - and maybe still disagree with mine - but this was part 5 of 9. We've got a ways to go yet, and trust me, I didn't approach the matter lightly. Like I told the other fella, there's a good reason I didn't title the story until I'd finished writing it.

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

> What she needed more than anything else was a pair of hands... and hands were
> among the few things she didn't have.

Okay I was wondering, why wouldn't Gryphon or Vision have a droid body for Vision to remote control for tasks she did need hands for?

>> What she needed more than anything else was a pair of hands... and hands were
>> among the few things she didn't have.
>
>Okay I was wondering, why wouldn't Gryphon or Vision have a droid body
>for Vision to remote control for tasks she did need hands for?

Unnecessary; usually she's got him. Besides, she's not into that.

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

I know you joke about your bad accents, but your Zaeed is really good. Sounds just like him.

------
Jon Helscher

That thing you burned up isn't important to me. It's the fluid catalytic cracking unit. It made shoes for orphans. Nice job breaking it, hero.

GLaDOS- Portal