Heh. Nice little piece, everything I'd hoped for and more.

Specific Items: The thruster pack. Gee, now where have I seen something like that before... *wink wink nudge nuge* *Cough gee that sequence feels like something right outa ST:TMP*

The ID. Aha. Well, I suppose you could call it forged, but no, really its more like just not accredited (YET). Also covers the one thought that occured to me after I lay down last night... which was "When did Corwin have the time to get TENURE though?"

Utena Vs. the Doors and Lever. Perfect and classic Utena. Oh, and I (for one) am envisioning the doors as rather like the ones on the Death Star in Ep 4. Correct? or doesnt matter?

And the last line.... Corwin, Corwin, Corwin. Dont you realise making a statement like that can cause the universe to rise up and try and prove you wrong? Such as, say, suffering a one in a million freak accident to one of your deuturium (or whatever tank it was that failed in a very Apollo 13 like way)

> Subject: all clear.
> To: "Corwin Ravenhair" <corwin!ohw.ravenhairlabs.zc>

Just curious, what does "ohw" mean ?

>> Subject: all clear.
>> To: "Corwin Ravenhair" <corwin!ohw.ravenhairlabs.zc>
>
>Just curious, what does "ohw" mean ?

One Hit Wonder.

--- Philip

	Philip J. Moyer Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios "Insert Pithy Comment Here"

>> Subject: all clear.
>> To: "Corwin Ravenhair" <corwin!ohw.ravenhairlabs.zc>
>
>Just curious, what does "ohw" mean ?

One-Hit Wonder, I'd assume.

Loved the story G, and I just have to note I love the choice of songs for the starting sequence. It works incredibly well in my head as a 'silent space to sudden action' scene.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

>Loved the story G, and I just have to note I love the choice of songs
>for the starting sequence. It works incredibly well in my head as a
>'silent space to sudden action' scene.

Thanks. That sequence, in large part, sprang from the music rather than the other way around, which is why it has those exhaustive time codes in it (compare the "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" sequence in S4M2 A Night to Remember).

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

Just getting a chance to read it, but the throwaway line about the Klingon Popes gave me a laugh.

That got a mental "ERROR! Does Not Compute." from me.

9: So, is it a sonata because unlike all the interludes, it has more then Corwin and Utena at the core?

21: I'm not familiar with the music, but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-kckBPRJvA gave me all the familiarity I needed. I agree with the up-poster who mentioned that it had a great set of rhythms to it matching well with the story.

47: Nice touch with the magnetic clamps in the gloves, but why bother? Is it easier to 'crawl' along a ship then 'walk'?

115: I wonder if that should be Corwin's worshipers version of Pater Noster. "Corwin of the Ravenhair, hear my plea. My math is right. My cause is just. This plan will work, so long as you don't let me fuck this up." or something.

208: Every single time I see Stick, I'm reminded of my...indignation is too strong a word, but the closest I can come up with, that he'd named a valkryie's weapon, one made of Yggdrasil no less..STICK. It's amusing now, but it seemed so flippant to me at the time.

309: Tali!

322: So, even though she's posted to the Hekademos (Nice name there, btw.) her 'ship' name is still nar Rayya. Is that because, despite where she lives, her parents are still responsible for her 'cause she hasn't done her pilgrimage?

324: "No girl likes to hear that much about another one."

414: Ok, the joke, I get. Corwin getting the joke, I get. How does Utena get the joke? Or does she just realize that Tali got Corwin's goat, and finds that amusing?

453: I grew up in an agricultural community, so I understand, in theory, why Americans get summer off, but it still seems stupid to me. Then again, there's a lot about the way the public school system is run that seems stupid to me, as a consumer/outsider looking in.

552: Well, Fuck.

608: Nice to see that Corwin shares his fathers habit of speaking like a salusian when he's talking about Mordin

681: Man, I understand he thinks it's his duty, but I read this as Rael is basically dooming the people on his ship so that he can hopefully die with his
wife. That's...either I'm really mis-reading him, or he needs to die in a fire.

708: "Let the wookie win."

774: Well, can they?

840: Again, I disagree. Her grandparents would take over, and she'd probably be much better of away from Rael. That fucker.

977: Or someone fully aware of the situation, who wants this fever to succeed. that would have been *my* internal reaction.

1161: Cute. I like the symmetry to her Grandmother spending time in the brig.

1172: Probably short, harsh ones, at that. "How in space did I raise such a pigheaded, moronic fool who wouldn't grab at all the resources he had available, but would rather lay down and die at the first real obstacle. At least Zira managed to instill *some* level of responsibility to her people into Tali, you bosh'tet" (If it's not obvious by now, I dislike this guy)

1209: Fortunately not chasing it with shots of Miraculon.

>9: So, is it a sonata because unlike all the interludes, it has more
>then Corwin and Utena at the core?

>9: So, is it a sonata because unlike all the interludes, it has more
>then Corwin and Utena at the core?

Pretty much, yeah - they're in it and they play an important role, but it's not really about their own shared story arc, if you like.

>21: I'm not familiar with the music, but
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-kckBPRJvA gave me all the familiarity
>I needed. I agree with the up-poster who mentioned that it had a great
>set of rhythms to it matching well with the story.

It's the part where the percussion comes in that really hooked me, I think. This same leitmotif turns out repeatedly in the Series 5 music, but never elsewhere with quite so much impact. (And the organ, a little later.)

>47: Nice touch with the magnetic clamps in the gloves, but why bother?
> Is it easier to 'crawl' along a ship then 'walk'?

Well, in this situation it makes navigating a little easier because it gets your face closer to the surface, but mostly it's just a more cinematic visual.

>115: I wonder if that should be Corwin's worshipers version of Pater
>Noster. "Corwin of the Ravenhair, hear my plea. My math is right. My
>cause is just. This plan will work, so long as you don't let me fuck
>this up." or something.

Heh, I like that. Any prayer to Corwin or his mother should obligatorily include "my math is right," and anyone as dialed into the early Earth space scene as Corwin would naturally welcome the callback to Shepard's Prayer. :)

>208: Every single time I see Stick, I'm reminded of my...indignation
>is too strong a word, but the closest I can come up with, that he'd
>named a valkryie's weapon, one made of Yggdrasil no less..STICK. It's
>amusing now, but it seemed so flippant to me at the time.

Maybe it sounds badder-ass in Alvish. Though, admittedly, very little sounds badder-ass in Alvish.

>322: So, even though she's posted to the Hekademos (Nice name there,
>btw.) her 'ship' name is still nar Rayya. Is that because, despite
>where she lives, her parents are still responsible for her 'cause she
>hasn't done her pilgrimage?

Right, she's still a minor. The Hekademos is essentially a boarding school, so she's there all the time, but officially she's still a member of the Rayya's crew. It's like when kids go out of state to college. They usually still have driver's licenses from the state where the bills get mailed to.

>414: Ok, the joke, I get. Corwin getting the joke, I get. How does
>Utena get the joke? Or does she just realize that Tali got Corwin's
>goat, and finds that amusing?

She worked part of it out from context, and the rest is, yes, just because of Corwin's reaction.

>453: I grew up in an agricultural community, so I understand, in
>theory, why Americans get summer off, but it still seems stupid to me.

Up in Aroostook County, where my parents come from, a lot of the schools still take two or three weeks off in October, too, for the potato harvest. Which is doubly superfluous these days, since a) there's not nearly as much potato farming up there as there used to be and b) the kids mostly just go play Nintendo for the month anyway, since the harvesting is all done by machines now.

>681: Man, I understand he thinks it's his duty, but I read this as
>Rael is basically dooming the people on his ship so that he can
>hopefully die with his
>wife. That's...either I'm really mis-reading him, or he needs to die
>in a fire.

All I'll say to that is that if that is his motivation, he's not consciously aware of it. To him it's a simple matter, because at heart Rael'Zorah vas Rayya is a very simple man. There is right and there is wrong; there are the General Orders and there is not following them. He was a maverick once in his youth, and it worked out for him that one time, but instead of giving him a taste for it (as with his friend Han'Gerrel), that just convinced him that he'd been lucky and he shouldn't tempt fate that way again. Now, though still a relatively young man (nearly 40), he's almost completely unprepared to take any unprescribed action, to the point where people who are so prepared - like his daughter - make him angry (probably because they scare him a bit).

There are those who say that the "old" Rael is still lurking in there someplace, waiting for an opportunity to burst out and do something really off-the-board, but fewer and fewer of those people believe it will ever happen as time goes by. As we see him here, Rael probably fears and detests that guy most of all. It's really very sad, though at this point in her life all Tali can see is that, to use a technical term, he sucks.

>774: Well, can they?

Yes. We saw that in Star-Crossed. Their suits are built to deal with it, though, unlike the one Utena's wearing.

>977: Or someone fully aware of the situation, who wants this fever to
>succeed. that would have been *my* internal reaction.

Or, possibly, someone who's got such a fever going on that he's become utterly, irrationally paranoid and thinks someone is trying to poison everyone in the ship.

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

>>977: Or someone fully aware of the situation, who wants this fever to
>>succeed. that would have been *my* internal reaction.
>
>Or, possibly, someone who's got such a fever going on that he's
>become utterly, irrationally paranoid and thinks someone is trying to
>poison everyone in the ship.

There was one flu season when I imagined that there were about a dozen of me from very close parallel universes (each tagged, for convenience, with a little floating number) overlapping, not quite in phase, as I tossed and turned in bed, and this was the source of my discomfort and delirium.

Given that experience, I can easily believe what you're suggesting.

>
>There was one flu season when I imagined that there were about a dozen
>of me from very close parallel universes (each tagged, for
>convenience, with a little floating number) overlapping, not quite in
>phase, as I tossed and turned in bed, and this was the source
>of my discomfort and delirium.
>

Norman Spinrad wrote of a fever which left him paranoid, delusional, and capable of using a bedpan to hold off two burly nurses while scamming and lying his way through Pentagon security with made-up priority codes. They finally managed to get him sedated, but not before Spinrad got his call forwarded to a general's home phone.

When he woke up, he was feeling much better. If I remember correctly, the FBI had also cleared everybody at the hospital while he was sedated.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

>>Or, possibly, someone who's got such a fever going on that he's
>>become utterly, irrationally paranoid and thinks someone is trying to
>>poison everyone in the ship.
>
>There was one flu season when I imagined that there were about a dozen
>of me from very close parallel universes (each tagged, for
>convenience, with a little floating number) overlapping, not quite in
>phase, as I tossed and turned in bed, and this was the source
>of my discomfort and delirium.

Huh. Here I thought when I had that cold and became convinced the hot water bottle in the bed was an obsidian block and I had to use a diamond pickaxe to remove it, that was just a sign of playing too much Minecraft.

LAST EDITED ON Jul-07-11 AT 10:26 PM (EDT)
 
> Utena shrugged. "Can't be worse than memorizing all the Klingon popes."

Klingon 'popes'? Is this an idiomatic translation, or did some of the Klingons adopt some form of Catholicism? (Note of amusement: my browser's spellchecker recognizes 'Klingon', but not 'Klingons'.)

BTW, what's an IES? Some sort of super heat sink?

> "Should be a milk run."

Taunting Murphy, there, Corwin (and I'd think that even if I hadn't read 'Interlude in Zero G' already).

EDIT: Interesting that she's still 'nar Rayya' at the end, but I guess that won't change even under these circumstances (or they haven't gotten around to it, yet).

“They planned their campaigns just as you might make a splendid piece of harness. It looks very well; and answers very well; until it gets broken; and then you are done for. Now I made my campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot; and went on.”
-- Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington

>> Utena shrugged. "Can't be worse than memorizing all the Klingon popes."
>
>Klingon 'popes'? Is this an idiomatic translation, or did some of the
>Klingons adopt some form of Catholicism?

Utena means it in the former sense; though the latter scenario is also conceivable, there probably hasn't been an actual Klingon pope in that sense.

>BTW, what's an IES? Some sort of super heat sink?

Internal Emission Sink - passive stealth system, adapted from the Mass Effect universe. Contains more than just heat, though that's obviously a big part of it.

>EDIT: Interesting that she's still 'nar Rayya' at the end, but I guess
>that won't change even under these circumstances (or they haven't
>gotten around to it, yet).

Her residence won't officially change until after her pilgrimage, even though it's unlikely she'll ever actually live aboard the Rayya again. It's a census thing. Partly for tax purposes. :)

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

When I initially read this piece, I was a bit lost but didn't care. Even without knowing anything it was a good enough story to stand on its own merits.

Between then and now I finally played both Mass Effect games, then decided to pop back by and see if I'd missed anything. I started re-reading this piece and all of a sudden a big light bulb goes off in my head and I go "Oh, now I know this!"

So, do the geth, or any of the other races from the ME universe exist in the UF universe?

> When I initially read this piece, I was a bit lost but didn't care.
>Even without knowing anything it was a good enough story to stand on
>its own merits.
>
> Between then and now I finally played both Mass Effect games, then
>decided to pop back by and see if I'd missed anything. I started
>re-reading this piece and all of a sudden a big light bulb goes off in
>my head and I go "Oh, now I know this!"
>
> So, do the geth, or any of the other races from the ME universe
>exist in the UF universe?

We've seen Asari, Geth, Salarians (I tried to type that four times and came up with Salusians the first three), and Turians, as well as an Elcor bouncer.

Apparently New Avalon has a Turiantown (which I imagine to be a very dumb place to be a mugger)

--
-Pasha
What was that feeling again?
Oh yes.
-Rage-

So we're still missing Vorcha, Hanar, Drell, and Volus.

>So we're still missing Vorcha

Can anyone really be said to miss the Vorcha?

(Also, we haven't seen hanar, but they've been mentioned once; in the epilogue to Star-Crossed, Aria described Kei as "speaking mainly in an ancient hanar dialect". This was probably a euphemism for shooting laser beams all over the place, given that the hanar speak in light pulses. :)

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

>>So we're still missing Vorcha
>
>Can anyone really be said to miss the Vorcha?
>
>(Also, we haven't seen hanar, but they've been mentioned once; in the
>epilogue to Star-Crossed, Aria described Kei as "speaking
>mainly in an ancient hanar dialect". This was probably a euphemism
>for shooting laser beams all over the place, given that the hanar
>speak in light pulses. :)
>

Ah, hadn't noticed/recognized that reference.

“They planned their campaigns just as you might make a splendid piece of harness. It looks very well; and answers very well; until it gets broken; and then you are done for. Now I made my campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot; and went on.”
-- Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington

>>So we're still missing Vorcha
>
>Can anyone really be said to miss the Vorcha?
>

Only if the sights on the sniper rifle aren't calibrated properly. :)

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

>as well as an Elcor bouncer.

Rando wasn't a bouncer, he was the clerk in the Blue Suns motor pool. He was only acting like a bouncer because Brejik was acting like an obnoxious nightclub patron. :)

>Apparently New Avalon has a Turiantown (which I imagine to be a very
>dumb place to be a mugger)

Not as dumb as Little Tuchanka...

--G.
NAPD officers hate being posted to that neighborhood's anti-gang task force
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Not as dumb as Little Tuchanka...
>
>--G.
>NAPD officers hate being posted to that neighborhood's
>anti-gang task force

*set sarcasm: on*
Gee, I wonder why....

>NAPD officers hate being posted to that neighborhood's
>anti-gang task force

Gee, do the local 'warlords' and the NAPD butt heads a lot?

--
-Pasha (Sorry)