I'm not gonna get time to finish reading it before work, but what I've seen so far... As an old CoH player, thanks.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

LAST EDITED ON May-09-13 AT 06:57 PM (EDT)
 
Oh, hey, so it -is- up. Sweet.

(Rossum industries? Did they start off producing a Universal series of industrial mechs?)

Edit: Oh, of course they have 'em. Serves me right for commenting before -finishing- the story.

>Edit: Oh, of course they have 'em. Serves me right for commenting
>before -finishing- the story.

In fairness, the Universal Robot tag isn't an actual company product; it's what Jen calls her own apex designs, and in practice is largely unique to No. 76. (Nos. 1-75 were mostly unrealized designs, the earliest of which barely warrant that rather lofty technical label; Jen's been keeping count since she was about four.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

i haven't read the whole thing yet, but this had me rolling:

>
>"Excuse me, Colonel, I speak 1337," she said.
>

did someone just re-watch Airplane!? :)

-Z

---
Remember kids: guns make you stupid, duct tape makes you smart.

Personally, my had-to-stop-a-bit-and-crack-up line was

Fr34k!  _Fr34k!_  FR34K5H0W - H000000000!!!1!!

(thus, I demonstrate that I too am from the 1980s, I suppose.)

LAST EDITED ON May-10-13 AT 02:17 PM (EDT)
 
Poor Boomtown. Destroyed originally by wannabe Nazis, and again now by bugs. BUGS! Some urban districts just can't catch a break.

It never ceases to amaze me how well you take a group that just up and annoys me (the Trolls)and make them, if not likeable, at least not terrible. The Freakshow on the other hand always amused me.

Thank you kindly for yet another enjoyable read. And also another props for the wave to CoH. I came late to the game and Virtue (via this board) in 2006 and stuck around for 5 1/2 years; surprised the dickens out me that I enjoyed my time there as much as I did.

Brian

Hmm, after rereading War Stories, I realized there was a crucial crew member missing. Joker needs to swing by NatureWorld and pick up Hammerhead.

Because if wanting to read the scene where a data-dino runs rampage through a Collector's ship is wrong, I don't want to be right.

>Hmm, after rereading War Stories, I realized there was a crucial crew
>member missing. Joker needs to swing by NatureWorld and pick up
>Hammerhead.

I was about to protest that there can't possibly be enough room aboard, but then I remembered that a similar ship was once used to transport a pair of humpbacked whales and all their attendant water; and besides, you might just have a point. I think Jen has plans for that cargo hold, though.

>Because if wanting to read the scene where a data-dino runs rampage
>through a Collector's ship is wrong, I don't want to be right.

"I know! Dinosaurs! On a spaceship!"

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>I'm not gonna get time to finish reading it before work, but what I've
>seen so far... As an old CoH player, thanks.
>

Seconded! Such a great nod to a great game that didnt deserve what those Korean Idiots did to it.

And as somebody who played CoH once, for all of thirty minutes, I'm afraid I didn't cotton until this I got this far down;

If pressed, Jen Rossum would have had to admit that the
situation was not playing out exactly as she had hoped it would.

And if I'm honest, still wouldn't have done had I not come here to say; well played, good sir. Nice to see her again. Now in a context I have familiarity with, no less!

Anyway, if you'll excuse me, I'm not done reading this yet either.

I'm really enjoying this whole series so far. I'm liking the Eyrie group's take on Shepard and crew.

As I said over in the other thread, I think I'll have more thoughts on this series once it's complete, or at least once it becomes clearer where things are going.

One thing I really like about this installment, though, is the Freakshow and the Trolls. I never played CoH, so I have no idea how much of their detailing is original to UF, but they seem like real subcultures and that gives the whole thing another layer of verisimilitude. If this had been a Star Trek episode, for instance, which it could easily have been plot-wise, all of the colonists would've been more-or-less indistinguishable, and either "how do we get everyone to cooperate in the face of this threat" would have been the entire story, or it wouldn't have come up at all.

Gaige being Zaeed's daughter makes TOTAL sense, yet continues to boggle me. Hell, honestly, I got a huge kick out of all the Freakshow sequences.

The mix of the Collectors with a bit of Tron Legacy was interesting. I'm increasingly curious what the hell they're up to, and can't wait to see just how Shepard and her carnival of intensely focused violence will be getting Tali'Zorah back...

>Gaige being Zaeed's daughter makes TOTAL sense, yet continues to
>boggle me. Hell, honestly, I got a huge kick out of all the Freakshow
>sequences.

I was always very fond of the Freakshow, particularly Ohmtown; I always figured that after Jen did the story arc that he appeared in, they'd be buddies.

>carnival of intensely focused violence

... that's totally something that Jack would say.

And probably will say.

wink wink.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Bitchin'. :)

Gyahhhhh....I've been avoiding this forum like I owed it five bucks for a weeks now, largely owing to having an 18 hour car ride in the near future. I've been saving these for the ride, since I really like the EPU audio editions.

But now there's a third one! Chief, you've been a busy bee.

----
Now Playing:
S. Yamamoto, et. al. -- Spark Mandrill(Megaman X, 1993)

...

< THIS SPACE FOR RENT >

The thing that cracks me up every time I reread this is the image of our heroes fighting off an alien invasion in Blyde Square. I flashed back to so many Rikti invasions there, that my brain almost instantly supplied Jen, Gaige and Shepard putting up LFT messages in the Zone Chat. Although getting Freakshow and Troll backup is a fascinating change :)

I do finding myself wondering just what would happen to both groups once the EA really start being jerks in the later half of the decade. I suspect the answer is something along the lines of 'make life very interesting' for the occupation forces, in the style we've all come to know and love. Especially the Freakshow. They know how to throw a party.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

Hmmm...thoughts that enter my mind...

'she couldn't help but remember her afternoons in the Valhalla courtyard with the
greats - Fairbairn, Lichtenfeld, Lee, Pechkolnakova - sparring with one
while another lectured on the critical difference between fighting for
sport and fighting for one's life.'

The two first, I certainly recognize, and I have to agree, those gentlemen REALLY knew what fighting for your life was about. And I have to say that it's remarkable how foul a kind, gentle britisher can be, when the situation requires.
The third...would that be Bruce, or another Lee? And, who is the last? I can neither recognize nor find any information pertaining to a (I presume) Ms. Pechkolnakova? Personal invention, or? I wonder since there is literally NOTHING, and I would at least expect searches to return 'Eyrie' if (s)he had appeared here before.

>The two first, I certainly recognize, and I have to agree, those
>gentlemen REALLY knew what fighting for your life was about. And I
>have to say that it's remarkable how foul a kind, gentle britisher can
>be, when the situation requires.
>The third...would that be Bruce, or another Lee? And, who is the last?
>I can neither recognize nor find any information pertaining to a (I
>presume) Ms. Pechkolnakova? Personal invention, or? I wonder since
>there is literally NOTHING, and I would at least expect searches to
>return 'Eyrie' if (s)he had appeared here before.

[312] William Ewart "Dangerous Dan" Fairbairn (1885-1960), street fighter extraordinaire and originator of the gutter combat techniques used by British, Canadian, and American commando forces in WWII; Imre Lichtenfeld (1910-1998), inventor of the Krav Maga fighting system used by the Israeli Defense Force; Bruce Lee (1940-1973), originator of Jeet Kune Do; Klavdiya Pechkolnakova (2300-2349), founder of the Neo-Soviet NKVD's infamous "Red Room" training facility and the first of several particularly lethal Neo-Soviet agents to be codenamed Black Widow.

(So yes, invented not only for UF but specifically for that mention. I wanted someone in the list who wasn't from the 20th century.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Am I the only one who noticed the author of the book Jen read one time:

She forced herself to take a couple of deep breaths, tried what she could remember of the ancient Bene Gesserit litany against fear she'd read in one of Lara Langley-Croft's books on the ancient civilizations of the Rim that one time.

Or was this covered elsewhere and I missed it?

Yea, I caught that too. I believe she's been peripherally mentioned before, though I can't recall right now whether it was in a mini, an off-hand reference (kind of like this one) or in a featured document somewhere.

>Yea, I caught that too. I believe she's been peripherally mentioned
>before, though I can't recall right now whether it was in a mini, an
>off-hand reference (kind of like this one) or in a featured document
>somewhere.

Various members of the Langley-Croft family have been mentioned off and on, here and there, none in great depth. It's a well-known name in certain circles, like Bernoulli in mathematics or Becquerel in physics. Since the 21st century, the Langley-Croft name has adorned many a noted historian, archaeologist, explorer, daredevil, and treasure hunter.

This particular one, Lara Langley-Croft (2074-2166), was the sixth Countess of Langley-Croft and the acknowledged expert of her time on the civilizations of the Outer Rim between 12,000 and 2000 BSC. Jen is quoting (or at least attempting to quote) from her 2110 book, Hidden Hands Overreaching: The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood and the Fall of Kaitain.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.