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Gryphonadmin
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"H2G2: Mojave"
 
   LAST EDITED ON Feb-11-14 AT 01:22 AM (EST)
 

sort:byplace
Federation >>>>
Outward Reaches >>>
Enigma sector >>
HD 23079 system >

Mojave (HD 23079 III) is a formerly-Class-M planet orbiting the F-class star HD 23079 in the Enigma sector. It's best known to laypeople for being the only one of the so-called "Lost Colonies" of the second Earth diaspora to be rediscovered to date. Of course, most of the Lost Colonies were "lost" either through colony failure and abandonment, or by being wiped out by raiders of one sort or another, and so no longer exist to be "found" in the first place.

Mojave, on the other hand, dropped off the galactic commnet a scant sixty years after its 2017 founding, and no one knew why. Located on the far side of a particularly treacherous stretch of the Enigma sector, it was safely reachable only by traversing a complicated hyperspace route with the aid of a special nav beacon in orbit around the planet. There had been beacon outages before, and no one had paid the matter much mind - with a population comfortably under 10 million and no significant interstellar exports, Mojave wasn't exactly a place that was on the tip of everyone's tongue in the greater galaxy - but on October 23, 2077, after a series of garbled, unintelligible transmissions, the beacon and the planet's hyperwave link to the commnet both went down and never came back.

With the beacon out and the original daredevils who had discovered the planet in the first place long dead, no one remaining in the United Galactica had the means - or, really, the interest - to investigate without a great deal more trouble than anyone in power thought the place was worth. By the 2070s, United Earth was pulling back from Enigma-sector colonization anyway, because of the many difficulties in supply and maintaining colonies in that area. After a cursory investigation and a few futile automated probe launches, the UE and UG governments both gave up and wrote off the colony.

In 2381, freelance explorer and sometime civilization hunter Sarah Inazuma came across a cursory mention of the colony's loss while scouring the UG legacy files in the Federation Galactic Survey's archives in search of leads on another project. Intrepid, curious, and probably crazy, Inazuma set herself the task of reaching Mojave and finding out what had happened to it. Defying the odds, she did make it to Mojave alive, but found herself stranded there.

Thus, she became the first person to learn what had actually happened to the colony in 2077. A number of Earth's early colonies suffered internal factionalism to the point of civil war a few decades after their founding, but Mojave's was the only one on record to go nuclear, and in the process, the planet's civilization was all but annihilated. The planet, largely reduced to Class-L by the war, contained only one relatively small landmass capable of supporting life, centered around what had been Mojave's principal spaceport and its former hub of recreation, the imaginatively named city of New Vegas. Within two generations, the few thousand survivors had forgotten they even were colonists, believing that Mojave was humanity's planet of origin and that they were the only humans in the galaxy.

Three centuries of tribal warfare amid the ruins of a twenty-first-century Earth colony followed, with many ingenious uses of scavenged technology but no appreciable stability, and therefore little in the way of real progress or innovation. Inazuma arrived to find herself in a scorched and unforgiving wasteland and the middle stages of a savage war between two competing protonations, in that order. In order to survive and get the lay of the land, she took a job as a courier (telecommunications being, like all other advanced technologies, virtually extinct) and spent the next few months assessing the situation.

Most hitchhikers in such a position, stranded in the middle of a war on a backfallen colony with no hope of escape, would've resigned themselves to living out the rest of their natural lives there, and only hoping that they actually made it that far without being murdered or enslaved by one side, the other, or the various gangs of post-apocalyptic raiders playing off between them. Here's what Sarah Inazuma did instead:

  • Gathered together the most capable misfits and adventurers in Mojave's remaining habitable area and forged them into a small but terrifyingly potent special operations team on the WDF Normandy model.

  • Embarked on a relentless campaign of traveling around the wasteland and, in the words of one of her companions, "helping the crap out of people."

  • Made such a name for herself as a survivor and general force of nature that the leader of one of the warring factions, the slaver and self-styled "new Roman Emperor" who called himself Caesar, invited her into his fortified camp to be his personal troubleshooter.

  • Wiped out Caesar, his praetorian guard, the upper echelon of his Legion, and anyone else who might have wanted to stick with his business plan, then made the remains of the Legion her own private army.

  • Intimidated, charmed, bought off, co-opted, seized control of, or (failing all that) just plain crushed every other faction, gang, would-be successor state, and angry mob in the wasteland, until she was the undisputed ruler of basically everyone on the planet.

  • Pulled together all of Mojave's remaining scientific and technological resources under her banner, tasked those best suited for the tasks with various ways of improving the standard of living within her domain, then gave the rest a single priority goal: re-establishing contact with and reactivating the orbiting nav beacon. (Ultimately, she would have to do the heavy lifting on that last part herself; if you want something done right, etc.)

A bare twenty months after she crash-landed on Mojave, Imperatrix Inazuma of the United Wasteland Empire welcomed Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation starship Enterprise to her orderly, prosperous, and vibrant domain; promulgated a new constitution which converted the empire to a republic and dissolved her own office; and persuaded Captain Kirk to get her the hell out of Dodge before the people could elect her to replace herself.

And that, children, is why Sarah Inazuma is the greatest hitchhiker who ever lived.

As for Mojave, well, it's still not anyplace most people are lining up to visit, on account of 99 percent of its surface is a bleak and lethal radioactive hell and the remaining one percent is still mostly parched and inhospitable scrubland. On the other hand, those intrepid enough to brave the still-pretty-psycho flight out there, and who don't mind a bit of heat and dust, report that it's really rather good nowadays. Crime is low, creature comforts are on the up, and the New Vegas Strip, they say, is mighty pretty on those long desert nights.

This Guide entry was written by Dr. Rhian Lewis-Porter, Chief of Neurosurgery at Saint Gulik Royal Infirmary, Westminster Prime.


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
  RE: H2G2: Mojave twipper Dec-24-13 1
     RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-24-13 2
  RE: H2G2: Mojave CdrMike Dec-24-13 3
     RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-24-13 4
  RE: H2G2: Mojave Matrix Dragon Dec-24-13 5
     RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-24-13 6
         RE: H2G2: Mojave Verbena Dec-25-13 8
             RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-25-13 9
                 RE: H2G2: Mojave Verbena Dec-25-13 10
                     RE: H2G2: Mojave CdrMike Dec-25-13 12
                         RE: H2G2: Mojave Verbena Dec-25-13 13
                             RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-25-13 16
                         RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-25-13 19
                             RE: H2G2: Mojave CdrMike Dec-28-13 37
                                 RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-28-13 39
                                     RE: H2G2: Mojave The Traitor Dec-28-13 40
                                         RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-28-13 41
                             RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Jan-24-14 48
                                 RE: H2G2: Mojave Pasha Jan-26-14 49
                                     RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Jan-26-14 50
                                 RE: H2G2: Mojave Mercutio Jan-26-14 51
                     RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-25-13 17
                         RE: H2G2: Mojave Verbena Dec-25-13 18
                             RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-25-13 20
                                 RE: H2G2: Mojave Verbena Dec-25-13 21
                                     RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-25-13 22
                                         RE: H2G2: Mojave Verbena Dec-26-13 23
                                             RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-26-13 24
                                             RE: H2G2: Mojave Verbena Dec-26-13 25
                                             RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-27-13 26
                                             RE: H2G2: Mojave Verbena Dec-27-13 27
                                             RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-27-13 28
                                             RE: H2G2: Mojave Verbena Dec-27-13 29
                                             RE: H2G2: Mojave BobSchroeck Dec-27-13 33
                                             RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-27-13 35
                                             RE: H2G2: Mojave BobSchroeck Dec-30-13 46
  RE: H2G2: Mojave SpottedKitty Dec-24-13 7
     RE: H2G2: Mojave Verbena Dec-25-13 11
         RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-25-13 14
             RE: H2G2: Mojave Verbena Dec-25-13 15
  RE: H2G2: Mojave Terminus Est Dec-27-13 30
     RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-27-13 31
         RE: H2G2: Mojave Terminus Est Dec-27-13 32
             RE: H2G2: Mojave Gryphonadmin Dec-28-13 44
     RE: H2G2: Mojave junipermoderator Dec-27-13 36
         RE: H2G2: Mojave Terminus Est Dec-28-13 38
             RE: H2G2: Mojave junipermoderator Dec-28-13 43
                 RE: H2G2: Mojave Pasha Dec-29-13 45
                     RE: H2G2: Mojave junipermoderator Dec-30-13 47
  RE: H2G2: Mojave Polychrome Dec-27-13 34
     RE: H2G2: Mojave Bushido Dec-28-13 42
         RE: H2G2: Mojave RenoDumont Jan-28-14 52

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twipper
Member since Jan-8-03
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Dec-24-13, 08:06 AM (EST)
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1. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #0
 
   I never made it out of the tutorial zone. Just couldn't get interested. That said, the UFverse New Vegas sounds like a rocking good (if potentially life-threatening) good time.

Ford Prefect might just dispute the Greatest Hitchhiker Ever title however. I mean, he was stranded on that benighted backwater planet Terra for how many years? Shear hell. He may not have taken over the place, but he abided, man.

Brian


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-24-13, 09:19 AM (EST)
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2. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #1
 
   >I never made it out of the tutorial zone. Just couldn't get
>interested.

That's not surprising; the FNV tutorial is pretty lame. It might be the only game Obsidian ever wrote an ending for, though. That's something.

(I should note that you can't actually do the above in the game. It's not configured for the Courier to kick THAT much ass. :)

>Ford Prefect might just dispute the Greatest Hitchhiker Ever title
>however. I mean, he was stranded on that benighted backwater planet
>Terra for how many years? Shear hell. He may not have taken over the
>place, but he abided, man.

A) Not in the UF universe;
B) And what did he DO that whole time? Fuck-all, as far as I recall. Torpor not make one great. :)

--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.


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CdrMike
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Dec-24-13, 02:14 PM (EST)
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3. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #0
 
   LAST EDITED ON Dec-24-13 AT 02:15 PM (EST)
 
>Gathered together the most capable misfits and adventurers in
>Mojave's remaining habitable area and forged them into a small but
>terrifyingly potent special operations team on the WDF Normandy
>model.

There's a mental image worth savoring, the FNV companions unleashed on the UF-verse. Veronica would be practically begging Skuld to take her on as an apprentice.

>Embarked on a relentless campaign of traveling around the
>wasteland and, in the words of one of her companions, "helping the
>crap out of people."

"Courier" on Mojave translates to "freelance problem solver."

>Wiped out Caesar, his praetorian guard, the upper echelon of his
>Legion, and anyone else who might have wanted to stick with his
>business plan, then made the remains of the Legion her own private
>army.

"Thumbs down, you son of a bitch."

--------------------------
CdrMike, Renegade Time Lord

"I have questions, but number one is this: What in the name of sanity have you got on your head?"
"It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool."
- River Song and Eleventh Doctor, "The Big Bang," Doctor Who


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-24-13, 03:39 PM (EST)
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4. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #3
 
   >There's a mental image worth savoring, the FNV companions unleashed on
>the UF-verse. Veronica would be practically begging Skuld to take her
>on as an apprentice.

Captain Inazuma's team contained a number of wasteland personalities who are not actually available as companions in the game as well. Having gone to all the trouble of sourcing and programming Fisto, for instance, she was hardly going to just sell him outright to the Garretts for a measly hundred caps. No one else on Mojave might ever have heard of Boulton & Watt, but she had! (Also, who gets rid of a Protectron?)

>>Embarked on a relentless campaign of traveling around the
>>wasteland and, in the words of one of her companions, "helping the
>>crap out of people."
>
>"Courier" on Mojave translates to "freelance problem solver."

Have gun (don't really need it, but on Mojave it would seem weird not to carry one), will travel.

>>Wiped out Caesar, his praetorian guard, the upper echelon of his
>>Legion, and anyone else who might have wanted to stick with his
>>business plan, then made the remains of the Legion her own private
>>army.
>
>"Thumbs down, you son of a bitch."

"So go to the building and take this fucking Platinum Chip with you. Let my will be done."

"Now why in the world would I want to do that? I have to admire your gall, Edward, constructing the most viciously misogynistic empire this world has ever seen and then expecting a woman to help you in any way - that takes a certain vehement obliviousness to reality that, as a former fellow delusionist myself, I can't help but admire. I'm still going to kill you. But I want you to know before I do that you've impressed me just a little."

--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.


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Matrix Dragon
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5. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #0
 
   Remembering Fallout as I do, did Azula ask Kirk to get her the hell out of Dodge because she'd reached the point where she no longer had any real desire to rule in general, or because she has some damn class and simply didn't want to be stuck running a radioactive hellhole specifically?

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-24-13, 05:18 PM (EST)
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6. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #5
 
   LAST EDITED ON Dec-24-13 AT 05:19 PM (EST)
 
>Remembering Fallout as I do, did Azula ask Kirk to get her the hell
>out of Dodge because she'd reached the point where she no longer had
>any real desire to rule in general, or because she has some damn class
>and simply didn't want to be stuck running a radioactive hellhole
>specifically?

In fairness to Azula, she never actually wanted to rule Mojave for ruling's own sake; she conquered it because that was the only way they were ever going to be able to get their shit sufficiently together to recontact the outside universe so she could get out. You want something done right, and so forth. :)

Kirk was utterly baffled. He went in there thinking, Oh here we go, it's John Gill all over again, only to have the self-made empress of the planet go, "Oh good, you're here. Took you long enough. Bear with me a moment while I convert this place into a republic... there. Shall we? I hate long goodbyes." :)

--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.


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Verbena
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8. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #6
 
   As someone who's finished F:NV, I'm inordinately amused by this entire thing. I must say, my own wanderings of New Vegas and surrounding lands would have been MUCH more interesting if I were a master martial artist and frighteningly powerful pyrokinetic. I don't want to create a separate post for every comment, so:

-Veronica. Y'know, playing a female character, I always thought the only reason she didn't -jump my bones- was because Obsidian didn't script anything like a romance into the game, at least not that I saw. (For those who don't know, her orientation is canon in her backstory and one of the reasons she's on the outs with the BoS.) One wonders how she'd have reacted to someone with Azula's looks...

-Did anyone else notice the byline? Rhian! I guess she must have married into Dr. McCoy's family (or the man himself; I have no notion where he is in the timeframe involved), and since it was the Enterprise that picked Azula up, I wonder if Rhian was there at the time. Incidentally, did Mairwen or Laura have anything to do with this?

-I must admit, I have a feeling these vignettes are by no means over. I'm looking forward to finding out how things are going in the 'present' (circa 2410), and/or what happened to everyone.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-25-13, 02:20 PM (EST)
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9. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #8
 
   LAST EDITED ON Dec-25-13 AT 02:27 PM (EST)
 
>I must say, my own wanderings of New Vegas and surrounding
>lands would have been MUCH more interesting if I were a master martial
>artist and frighteningly powerful pyrokinetic.

Dealing with Benny certainly would have been easier. Frankly, I'm surprised he even managed to reach the opening cutscene. Maybe he didn't, and the whole adventure was predicated instead on Azula standing amid the charred corpses of Benny and the Khans* and wondering, "Now why would some clown in a checked suit try to kill me for this thing?" :)

>-Veronica. Y'know, playing a female character, I always thought the
>only reason she didn't -jump my bones- was because Obsidian didn't
>script anything like a romance into the game, at least not that I saw.

Not as such, no. Quite a few opportunities to get one's end away on the cheap and nasty, but no love stories to speak of, which I suppose fits the overall ethos of the wasteland. (They cut a plotline where the Courier could marry Rose Cassidy. The King was going to officiate. Seriously. Well, who else would, if you're getting married in Vegas?)

>One wonders
>how she'd have reacted to someone with Azula's looks...

"Hey, no offense, but you look........... amazing."

"Why thank you."

>-Did anyone else notice the byline? Rhian! I guess she must have
>married into Dr. McCoy's family (or the man himself; I have no notion
>where he is in the timeframe involved)

Well, funny story. When I wrote the byline for this article, I threw that in more or less on a whim, and it turns out I didn't think it through well enough. I had the notion that it might be amusing if she turned out to be Leonard McCoy's mother, but the timing doesn't work, on account of I stupidly calculated when he must've been born starting from the wrong year. On the original Star Trek, Dr. McCoy is in his early forties, a few years older than Captain Kirk, as one might expect from a well-established surgeon of his caliber. Since the Enterprise is described as approaching the end of her first five-year mission in Manhunt (2380), that would mean Dr. McCoy was born sometime in the late 2330s.

I, on the other hand, ran that calculation from Twilight (2390) instead for some addle-brained reason, and came up with a birth year of around 2347. That would have worked. 2337, on the other hand, doesn't. That's the year after Laura Kinney and the Maiden in the Ice, and though some people do, Rhian's not going to have started on her family at 17.

As such, there are two main possibilities:

1) It's a coincidence, and each is regarded in the other's circle as "the other Dr. McCoy"; or

2) She's his aunt or something, having married his father's brother (or sister - one cannot entirely rule that out nowadays!**) at some point.

I suppose 3), she's either the ex-wife he occasionally goes on about or the second Dr. Mrs. Dr. McCoy, is also possible, but she's 17 years older than he is, so I dunno how likely that is.

>and since it was the
>Enterprise that picked Azula up, I wonder if Rhian was there at the
>time.

Not in 2382, no. Rhian may well have gone through a Flying Doctors phase earlier in her career, but by then she's quite happily settled in a steady hospital job - the better to conduct really cutting-edge research - and leaving gallivanting around the cosmos to those with more of a taste for it.

>Incidentally, did Mairwen or Laura have anything to do with
>this?

Which this? The Mojave incident, Rhian's marriage, other? In either case the answer is probably no, though it's not out of the question that Mairwen might have introduced her to her future spouse at some point.

>-I must admit, I have a feeling these vignettes are by no means over.
>I'm looking forward to finding out how things are going in the
>'present' (circa 2410), and/or what happened to everyone.

Oh, there'll be more, I expect. I've taken this approach - glancing in on what Azula's up to every now and then, rather than documenting her career meticulously - for a change of pace and because it's really more fun to leave a lot of it implied. In practice it feels a little like tuning in only sporadically to catch episodes of a long-running, convoluted TV series, which some people may find a bit offputting, but I'm having fun with it.

It also provides more flexibility in how her story's told. This particular item, for instance, would have been fairly dull as a story; either the reader had played Fallout: New Vegas, in which case much of it would have been redundant, or the reader hadn't, in which case omitting the redundant parts would've just made it confusing. Instead, presenting it as a sort of gloss in a Featured Document means that either way, the details are left to the reader's imagination - they'll be different for those who haven't played the game, but possibly no less entertaining. I mean, think of her living a spaghetti Western with laser guns and robots, and you won't go far wrong. :)

Next up, I think, will be a glimpse of what she was doing about eight years after Mojave, during the run-up to the (temporary) end of the universe.

--G.
* Not to be confused with the do-wop band from Ulaanbaatar.
** I almost bylined her as "Rhian Porter" just to see if anyone was paying attention. I may yet do that, in fact, since the Dr. McCoy joke doesn't work!

-><-
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.


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Verbena
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Dec-25-13, 03:10 PM (EST)
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10. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #9
 
   >Dealing with Benny certainly would have been easier. Frankly, I'm
>surprised he even managed to reach the opening cutscene. Maybe he
>didn't, and the whole adventure was predicated instead on Azula
>standing amid the charred corpses of Benny and the Khans* and
>wondering, "Now why would some clown in a checked suit try to kill me
>for this thing?" :)

I admit, I'd already envisioned the cutscene starting, with you tied up and looking at Benny explain that it's not personal as your grave is being dug in front of your eyes. And then the pyrotechnics start, beginning with cooking off the ammo in his gun while he's pointing it at one of the diggers and going downhill VERY fast from there. There's just no way a glorified mook like Benny has a real chance against Azula.


>Not as such, no. Quite a few opportunities to get one's end away on
>the cheap and nasty, but no love stories to speak of, which I suppose
>fits the overall ethos of the wasteland. (They cut a plotline where
>the Courier could marry Rose Cassidy. The King was going to
>officiate. Seriously. Well, who else would, if you're getting
>married in Vegas?)

Yeah. :/ Every Obsidian game so far has suffered from their deals with some other company involved in its making, usually by there being no time to do it right, though in this case Bethesda was responsible for QA. (Ouch.)

Basically, seeing stuff cut out doesn't shock me in the slightest, and that marriage thing sounds awesome, actually. (It parallels a marriage option in Fallout 2, IIRC, which involved a shotgun.)

>
>>One wonders
>>how she'd have reacted to someone with Azula's looks...
>
>"Hey, no offense, but you look........... amazing."
>
>"Why thank you."

Oh, Azula, Azula, Azula. Look, I know Machiavelli probably never wrote about vamping for fun and profit, but at least capitalize on the advantages you're given. Of course, I have no notion which way Azula swings, nor do I claim to. I haven't seen ATLA or LOK but I get the impression whenever they tried to handle romance at all in the show it wasn't done well.

>
>>-Did anyone else notice the byline? Rhian! I guess she must have
>>married into Dr. McCoy's family (or the man himself; I have no notion
>>where he is in the timeframe involved)
>
>Well, funny story. When I wrote the byline for this article, I threw
>that in more or less on a whim, and it turns out I didn't think it
>through well enough. I had the notion that it might be amusing if she
>turned out to be Leonard McCoy's mother, but the timing doesn't work,
>on account of I stupidly calculated when he must've been born starting
>from the wrong year. On the original Star Trek, Dr. McCoy is
>in his early forties, a few years older than Captain Kirk, as one
>might expect from a well-established surgeon of his caliber. Since
>the Enterprise is described as approaching the end of her first
>five-year mission in Manhunt (2380), that would mean Dr. McCoy
>was born sometime in the late 2330s.
>
>I, on the other hand, ran that calculation from Twilight (2390)
>instead for some addle-brained reason, and came up with a birth year
>of around 2347. That would have worked. 2337, on the other hand,
>doesn't. That's the year after Laura Kinney and the Maiden in the
>Ice
, and though some people do, Rhian's not going to have started
>on her family at 17.

Aye. Especially since she's still a Girl Guide and having adventures with the crew (and the band!) at that point, I think.

>
>As such, there are two main possibilities:
>
>1) It's a coincidence, and each is regarded in the other's circle as
>"the other Dr. McCoy"; or

Possible but a cop-out.

>
>2) She's his aunt or something, having married his father's brother
>(or sister - one cannot entirely rule that out nowadays!**) at some
>point.

Also possible, less of a cop-out.

Couldn't be sister, though. Not because that's not possible, but because if she swung that way, she and Mairwen would already be snogging in secret since before they met Laura, let alone Azula.

Which is...not impossible.


>
>I suppose 3), she's either the ex-wife he occasionally goes on about
>or the second Dr. Mrs. Dr. McCoy, is also possible, but she's 17 years
>older than he is, so I dunno how likely that is.

Well, that is possible, too. More of a cop-out than option 2.

>
>>and since it was the
>>Enterprise that picked Azula up, I wonder if Rhian was there at the
>>time.
>
>Not in 2382, no. Rhian may well have gone through a
>Flying Doctors
>phase earlier in her career, but by then she's quite happily settled
>in a steady hospital job - the better to conduct really cutting-edge
>research - and leaving gallivanting around the cosmos to those with
>more of a taste for it.

Not exactly a Dr. Chakwas, I guess. =)


>
>>Incidentally, did Mairwen or Laura have anything to do with
>>this?
>
>Which this? The Mojave incident, Rhian's marriage, other? In either
>case the answer is probably no, though it's not out of the question
>that Mairwen might have introduced her to her future spouse at some
>point.

I meant more the incident at Mojave itself, possibly by dint of being on the Enterprise at the time, but that's already been confirmed not true, so no worries. As for Rhian's marriage, the who is a somewhat more important question to answer before we worry about the how. ^_^

>
>>-I must admit, I have a feeling these vignettes are by no means over.
>>I'm looking forward to finding out how things are going in the
>>'present' (circa 2410), and/or what happened to everyone.
>
>Oh, there'll be more, I expect. I've taken this approach - glancing
>in on what Azula's up to every now and then, rather than documenting
>her career meticulously - for a change of pace and because it's really
>more fun to leave a lot of it implied. In practice it feels a little
>like tuning in only sporadically to catch episodes of a long-running,
>convoluted TV series, which some people may find a bit offputting, but
>I'm having fun with it.
>
>It also provides more flexibility in how her story's told. This
>particular item, for instance, would have been fairly dull as a story;
>either the reader had played Fallout: New Vegas, in which case
>much of it would have been redundant, or the reader hadn't, in which
>case omitting the redundant parts would've just made it confusing.
>Instead, presenting it as a sort of gloss in a Featured Document means
>that either way, the details are left to the reader's imagination -
>they'll be different for those who haven't played the game, but
>possibly no less entertaining. I mean, think of her living a
>spaghetti Western with laser guns and robots, and you won't go far
>wrong. :)

*nod* I can see that. There's not enough change from the events of the game to make a new narrative all that important. I mean...she had more companions (Caesar's Legion must have been heeling and toeing it from Fisto!) and probably didn't take a bullet to the head. And probably incinerated Yes-Man and Victor with extreme prejudice. Other than that, can't see what would have changed.


>
>Next up, I think, will be a glimpse of what she was doing about eight
>years after Mojave, during the run-up to the (temporary) end of the
>universe.

Looking forward to it.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu


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CdrMike
Member since Feb-19-05
334 posts
Dec-25-13, 03:32 PM (EST)
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12. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #10
 
   >I admit, I'd already envisioned the cutscene starting, with you tied
>up and looking at Benny explain that it's not personal as your grave
>is being dug in front of your eyes. And then the pyrotechnics start,
>beginning with cooking off the ammo in his gun while he's pointing it
>at one of the diggers and going downhill VERY fast from there. There's
>just no way a glorified mook like Benny has a real chance against
>Azula.

And it couldn't happen to a nicer asshole. Though it might have been funnier if done at The Tops, if only to have to explain to Swank why the cleaners will need a big bag to take care of the charred corpse.

>Yeah. :/ Every Obsidian game so far has suffered from their deals with
>some other company involved in its making, usually by there being no
>time to do it right, though in this case Bethesda was responsible for
>QA. (Ouch.)

Some was cut out because Bethesda was pushing a tight schedule, but others were just too ambitious. Like the Obsidian guys had begun work on post-game dialogue and so forth before realizing that the number of possible outcomes from all the factions made creating such a ginormous headache that they couldn't begin to address in the time allowed. Personally, I think it for the better, if only because it didn't make the Fallout 3 mistake of "Okay, let's not leave any indication that this is the final mission until we roll the credits."

>Basically, seeing stuff cut out doesn't shock me in the slightest, and
>that marriage thing sounds awesome, actually. (It parallels a marriage
>option in Fallout 2, IIRC, which involved a shotgun.)

Nah, less shotgun and more "get blackout drunk and wake-up married by an Elvis impersonator." According to the developers, if you romanced Cass long enough, eventually the two of you would get drunk together, pass out, and end up married. If your Freeside reputation was high enough, The King would be the guy officiating, breaking into a performance of "Love Me Tender." But romancing never went anywhere because they decided early on that it wouldn't be a fun mechanic, plus Chris Avellone doesn't like romances in games.

>*nod* I can see that. There's not enough change from the events of the
>game to make a new narrative all that important. I mean...she had more
>companions (Caesar's Legion must have been heeling and toeing it from
>Fisto!) and probably didn't take a bullet to the head. And probably
>incinerated Yes-Man and Victor with extreme prejudice. Other than
>that, can't see what would have changed.

Hey now, why incinerate Victor and Yes-Man? They're not bad, they're just programmed that way. Now cooking Mr. House in his pod, there's an idea I wouldn't be opposed to.

--------------------------
CdrMike, Renegade Time Lord

"I have questions, but number one is this: What in the name of sanity have you got on your head?"
"It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool."
- River Song and Eleventh Doctor, "The Big Bang," Doctor Who


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Verbena
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Dec-25-13, 03:41 PM (EST)
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13. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #12
 
   >Hey now, why incinerate Victor and Yes-Man? They're not bad, they're
>just programmed that way. Now cooking Mr. House in his pod, there's
>an idea I wouldn't be opposed to.

Heh. Yes-Man was helpful but very annoying--he was just the IC mechanic used to take over the wasteland yourself because the game couldn't really show you coming up with the ideas yourself. So Azula didn't really need him. And his voice...grated. Victor was also annoying, and something of an obvious plant the whole time. Given that Azula wouldn't have gotten shot, she wouldn't have owed Victor her life. And, yes, I assumed cooking Mr. House in his pod was a given--I was listing changes from the game, not everyone Azula would have killed, and killing Mr. House is required for every win scenario save his own.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-25-13, 04:10 PM (EST)
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16. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #13
 
   >And, yes, I assumed cooking Mr. House in his pod was a given--I
>was listing changes from the game, not everyone Azula would have
>killed, and killing Mr. House is required for every win scenario save
>his own.

Actually, I doubt she did, because the only reason it's necessary in the game is because it's necessary in the game, if you follow. The plotlines are designed so that you have to, but there is no actual need to kill him; in fact, it'd probably be slightly easier not to. Just dike him out of the command-and-control network and leave him be, poor man. Or get him on side, come to that. He's a businessman, he'd surely appreciate a good high-Speech explanation of the new boardroom realities, as it were.

"Here's how the situation stands, Robert. I've taken control of your security systems and your robot army, the Legion now belongs to me, I've achieved a mutually beneficial alliance with the NCR now that General Oliver's been dealt with*, and I've either eradicated or brought on board all the tribes of the wasteland. Basically, I've brought about exactly what you ostensibly wanted for this planet, in terms of peaceful stability, relative prosperity, and potential for recovery. I am effectively you at this point, except more capable and far, far better-looking.

"As such, I see no practical reason why we should be enemies. I'm actually quite grateful to you. After all, it would have been much harder for me to accomplish all this without the groundwork you laid in the first place. Why not think of this as your victory, and enjoy your well-deserved retirement after a job well done? As soon as we've re-established the HW link with the rest of the galaxy, I'll see about getting broadband to your pod."

--G.
* "AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..."
-><-
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.


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Gryphonadmin
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19. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #12
 
   >And it couldn't happen to a nicer asshole. Though it might have been
>funnier if done at The Tops, if only to have to explain to Swank why
>the cleaners will need a big bag to take care of the charred corpse.

Heh, you know what, you're right, it's a lot funnier that way.

Well, what the hell, it's Christmas. Here's how that went down, fresh off the top of my head, probable typos, word duplications, and other unproofread rawnesses and all!


Azula had already assumed, from the pre-War advertisements she'd seen and the preposterously dated way of speaking Benny had had, that she wasn't going to like the Tops Casino when, at last, she reached it. Stepping through the door into its threadbare, tacky, goofily hepcat-retro lobby, she saw that she'd been absolutely right.

This impression was only reinforced a moment later, when the greeter at the reception desk, a sharp-faced young man in the ill-maintained pinstripe suit that seemed to be the Chairmen gang's uniform, turned what he probably thought was a suave smile to her and said,

"Hey hey, baby doll, welcome to the Tops Hotel and Casino. Before you get to the action, I'm gonna have to ask you to hand over any weapons you might be carrying."

Suppressing her instinctive reaction (a mocking laugh), Azula instead gave him a sweet but vaguely challenging smile, unfastened her gunbelt, and placed it on the counter. Then she waited for him to say something smarmy about needing to do a more thorough search, at which point she would most probably break his arm and the fun would start a little early. Instead, he just gave her a slightly nervous smile in return - the contradiction in the one she'd just given him seemed to flummox him slightly - and swept the gun and holster out of sight under the counter.

"There we go, safe as houses," he said, recovering some of his aplomb with a ritualistic adjustment of his tie. "Enjoy yourself, baby doll."

"Oh, I intend to," she assured him. "Where can I find your boss?"

The greeter looked puzzled. "Benny? He's on the floor someplace. What do you want with him?"

"Unfinished business," said Azula casually, breezing past the desk toward the casino floor. "Don't lose my gun, now. It has sentimental value."

The Tops casino floor was a vaguely surreal experience, like many things Azula had encountered during her time on Mojave so far. On the one hand, it was, well, a casino floor - blackjack tables, roulette wheels, croupiers, gamblers. No big surprises there. On the other hand, it was a casino floor on a planet where, evidently, no one had done even the most routine building maintenance in 300 years. The place looked abandoned in spite of the bustle of activity. For that matter, the people looked abandoned too, wearing their dirty, tattered dress clothes like discarded shop-window dummies.

For about the thousandth time since she came here, Azula wondered why it was that no one on this planet seemed to have the slightest inclination to clean anything up. Even in places like this, where the trappings of civilization were well on their way to reasserting themselves, it was like one of the technologies lost in the Great War had been the broom. It was all so out-of-order. Did these people enjoy living in filth? Was it some kind of bizarre survivor's pride thing? She didn't know, but she wished at least a few of them would bother to dust now and again.

Putting the thought aside, she stood at the corner of the L-shaped room and scanned it with her eyes. Yes, there was Benny, unmistakable in his hideous black-and-white-checked suitjacket with its ridiculously exaggerated shoulders, standing in the far corner. His right hand was a heavily bandaged white mitt, obvious even at this distance. He had his back to the room, talking to one of the identically suited and hatted triggermen surrounding him. Bodyguards with nasty-looking little drum-fed submachineguns, four of them. Not a problem.

No one paid Azula much attention as she walked across the gaming floor. The gamblers were too intent on losing their caps and the croupiers too intent on taking them. Only one person, a bored-looking man who was evidently the escort of one of the gamblers, looked up from a roulette table to take note of her as she passed, and he didn't seem to make much of her. Just another wastelander, mildly out of place in this environment with her many-patched leather trousers, well-traveled boots, and slightly ratty vest-over-sweater top. Upon closer inspection, she was cleaner, her hair neater, and her made-and-mended clothes more meticulously maintained than most to be seen out there, but that in itself was merely a mark of eccentricity, not exceptionality.

Benny was just delivering the punch line of a dirty joke ("... and he says to the guy, 'I'm tryin'! I'm tryin'!") to one of his bodyguards when Azula slipped up next to him, clapped a hand onto his padded shoulder, and leaned to murmur in his ear,

"Hello again, Benny."

"Aaah!" Benny cried, recoiling as if she'd touched a lighted match to his neck. He whirled, one hand rising to his ear, and then goggled in utter shock as he recognized her face - most especially her eyes, that amazing shade of amber, of which he'd taken particular note when last they'd met.

"What in the goddamn?!" he blurted, the color draining out of his face. His bodyguards had all taken a step back, a couple of them reaching for their weapons, but they didn't really seem to know what to do. At least two were still trying to figure out how the mysterious chick in the red sweater had managed to walk right up to the boss without them noticing until she was practically on top of him.

Azula half-smiled, the expression containing neither mirth nor warmth. "Surprised to see me?" she asked rhetorically.

Benny stared at her, his jaw working silently for a second; then he pulled himself together and said, "OK, let's just take it easy, everybody. Smooth. Smooth moves. Easy does it." Then, with a wan smile of his own, he replied, "I gotta admit, I wasn't expectin' to see you again, babe." The smile became a rueful grin as he added, "I guess now I know why the Khans never came lookin' for the rest'a their pay, huh."

"Oh, don't worry about the Khans," said Azula pleasantly. "I made sure they got everything that was coming to them. You're the only loose end left. I'll give you this, you're a fast runner. By the time I finished with your hired muscle, I had no idea where you'd got off to in the dark."

Benny gulped audibly and tried to be jaunty as he replied, "Well, hey, everybody's gotta have a talent, am I right? So listen, uh, what'd you come all the way here for? I gotta figure if it was to waste me, you wouldn't'a shown your hand like this."

Azula chuckled darkly. "Unless, of course, I was trying to make a statement in the process." Taking a step toward him, she fixed him with a smile that had a strange combination of sultriness and cruelty in it and went on, "Then I would do it exactly... this... way."

"Guys, what're you just standin' there for... " Benny muttered, backing away. Shaking their heads, his bodyguards moved to restore their formation. The pair closest to Azula pulled out switchblades, while the other unslung their SMGs.

"'Some say the world will end in fire,'" said Azula, still smiling.

Some say in ice.

The croupiers and other members of the Chairmen gang present on the floor of the Tops that day had seen any number of screwy things in their time, first wandering the wasteland as part of the tribe that had preceded the Chairmen, then during the gang's consolidation of its position on the New Vegas strip. None of them, however, had ever seen an unarmed woman walk head-on into a straight-up fight with four heavily armed men and come out on top - let alone throw fire from her empty hands while she was at it, all while calmly reciting pre-War poetry in a low, faintly seductive purr.

From what I've tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire.

she said, and Frankie Knives was down, his blade spinning from his hand as she trapped his first thrust in some kind of kung-fu joint lock, then gave him a kick that sent him hurtling over the railing and across one of the blackjack tables with his suitjacket on fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

and Big Franny hit the deck, blasted clear to the Presidential Suite express elevator by what almost looked like a gas explosion.

I think I know enough of hate

and she slipped, smokelike, out of Rocky Ramone's line of fire, letting him stitch a line of bullet holes up the already-ragged wallpaper. With a karate-punch-like movement, she launched a bolt of blue fire out of nowhere. It struck his SMG's magazine, causing the ammo to cook off like a grenade in his face.

To know that for destruction ice

and Zippy the Jethead opened up - closer than Rocky, he couldn't possibly miss; she drew an incandescent line with an open hand, calling a sheet of that blue flame into existence between them, and Zippy's bullets vaporized before they ever reached her. Her smile becoming just a touch fierce, she spun out of the follow-through and punched through her own wall of fire, causing it to part and dissipate around her like a curtain with an audible WHUMP of heated air, and then Zippy got the same treatment as Rocky.

Still in motion, as if the whole thing had been one continuous, pre-rehearsed dance, Azula crossed the three paces to Benny and slammed him up against the wall by the neck with one hand, the other cocked next to her ear, two fingers extended, like a kid's play-gunfighter gesture. He had his good left hand in his jacket, going for a shoulder-holstered gun, but he was right-handed and obviously hadn't practiced the move much, and he hadn't cleared leather by the time she pinned him.

"Mommy!" Benny squeaked as she stared into his eyes, her own alight with the pleasure of a well-executed takedown.

"'Is also great,'" Azula purred, "'and would suffice.'"

Then, still holding him against the wall with one hand, she reached the other into his side pocket and withdrew it with the Platinum Chip between her first two fingers. With a movement like a conjuror, she held it up in front of his terrified eyes, then made it disappear, displaying to him her empty palm.

"And what have we learned?" Azula inquired conversationally.

"... you are one crazy broad," Benny gasped after a moment's fearful silence.

Azula smiled, the manic energy dissipating from her eyes. Laughing lightly, she released him and stepped back as he felt at his throat with his good hand.

"True enough," she said. Then she straightened his tie and lapels, patted him patronizingly on the cheek, and said, "See you around, Mr. Chairman. I'd stay away from Red Rock Canyon if I were you."

She was about halfway back to the door, silently enjoying the shocked stares of gamblers, croupiers, and assorted random Chairmen, when Benny's voice barked sharply from behind her, "Hey!"

Azula looked back over her shoulder to see that he'd raised himself away from the wall and drawn his gun - an ordinary replacement for the fancy custom job she'd wrecked, along with his right hand, in Goodsprings. His face crimson with humiliation and fury, he leveled the pistol and thumbed back the hammer.

Without hesitation, Azula whirled, one foot sliding in a semicircle as her body bent slightly down and to the right. The bullet cracked past her left ear and went on to ricochet from the bannister of the main staircase with a crazy zannnnngggg sound, just like in an old Western. At the same time, her left hand tucked into a fist at her side as the right thrust forward, two fingers pointing straight at Benny's heart.

The witnesses to this curious duel were expecting more of the fire she'd taken out Rocky and Zippy with, but instead, what hit Benny was a bolt of lightning, such a brilliant and - pardon the expression - shocking blue that people recoiled and covered their eyes with painful cries as it burned a vivid green afterimage in their vision. Benny didn't even scream. He didn't have time before all the apparatus he would've used to do it was vaporized and blown out his back.

What was left of him hit the floor a second after his gun, slumping to the threadbare carpet with smoke pouring from his mouth and the charred through-and-through hole in his upper torso. By then, Azula had turned around and started for the lobby again, as perfectly composed and completely unconcerned as if she'd just had a pleasant conversation with an acquaintance. When she reached the lobby, the greeter and a couple of other Chairmen were just standing there staring at her in utter disbelief, their own weapons completely forgotten.

"My gun, please," she said calmly to the greeter.

"... Huh?" he replied.

"I'm leaving," she explained patiently. "I want my gun back."

"Oh! Uh... right! Sure!" He retrieved the weapon from under his desk and slid it across the counter to her.

"Thank you," said Azula cordially. He watched in continued astonishment as she belted it back on, settling its familiar weight on her right hip; then she dug in one of the pockets of her black leather half-vest for a moment and spread a handful of bottlecaps on the counter. "Sorry about the mess," she said, and then turned and left the casino without a backward glance.

"... God damn," said Swank, the casino's newly-promoted manager from beside the greeter. "What a dame, am I right?"

"No lie, boss," the greeter agreed, staring along with him at the closed door she'd left by. "No, fuckin', lie."


--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.


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CdrMike
Member since Feb-19-05
334 posts
Dec-28-13, 02:14 AM (EST)
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37. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #19
 
   It's obvious that Azula didn't take the Bloody Mess perk, else they'd have been picking up chunks of Benny for days. Heh.

And Swank responding to the whole affair with more appreciation for Azula than despair over his now departed boss/buddy/fellow tribe member seems absolutely fitting. Benny's one of those characters in any game that nobody really sheds tears over when they hear he's been toasted.

--------------------------
CdrMike, Renegade Time Lord

"I have questions, but number one is this: What in the name of sanity have you got on your head?"
"It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool."
- River Song and Eleventh Doctor, "The Big Bang," Doctor Who


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-28-13, 01:24 PM (EST)
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39. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #37
 
   >It's obvious that Azula didn't take the Bloody Mess perk, else they'd
>have been picking up chunks of Benny for days. Heh.

No, no indeed. Azula prefers not to get her enemies on her clothes if it's at all avoidable.

Instead, I expect she has something akin to Laser Commander (+15% damage, +10% chance for critical hit with laser weapons), only, you know, for lightning one generates oneself. :) Also Black Widow and Finesse. Benny never really had a chance.

(Also note that she deliberately did not choose the Black Widow dialogue tree when interacting with Benny, because she has standards. :)

>And Swank responding to the whole affair with more appreciation for
>Azula than despair over his now departed boss/buddy/fellow tribe
>member seems absolutely fitting. Benny's one of those characters in
>any game that nobody really sheds tears over when they hear he's been
>toasted.

Indeed, one is put in mind of all those people, virtually everywhere in the wasteland, who subsequently say something along the lines of, "So you're the one that shanked Benny, huh? Wish I could'a been there to see that little weasel get it."

--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.


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The Traitor
Member since Feb-24-09
633 posts
Dec-28-13, 01:40 PM (EST)
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40. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #39
 
   Hold on a minute. Light is just another kind of radiation, which is caused by the addition of excess energy to a system. This is exactly what heat is. Thus, a firebender might (with some effort) actually be able to create -lasers-.

The criminal elements of Mojave are more fucked than we thought...

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-28-13, 01:58 PM (EST)
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41. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #40
 
   >Hold on a minute. Light is just another kind of radiation, which is
>caused by the addition of excess energy to a system. This is exactly
>what heat is. Thus, a firebender might (with some effort) actually be
>able to create -lasers-.

Your underlying physics is a little off, but then again, the advanced forms of the bending arts as portrayed in the Avatar canon customarily have only a nodding acquaintance with the laws of physics anyway. Lightningbending as an advanced form of firebending, for instance, is something that would only occur to an art student, as anyone who ever took introductory physics would know that electricity and fire aren't related in any way that even makes sense on a mystic-martial-arts-woo level. :)

Amazingly, this is not the most egregious abuse of science in the Avatar shows - that honor goes to the fantastically fucked astronomy on display in the first couple episodes of Book 2 of The Legend of Korra, which still gives me a sharp pain just thinking about it. But still. Given the headscratchy way in which the canonical "advanced" bending forms are related to their base elements, laserbending is no crazier than anything they've actually done.

--G.
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Gryphonadmin
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48. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #19
 
   Oh, hey, forgot to mention: Azula's much-loved sidearm - acquired early in her post-Snowdonia adventuring career, carried from one end of the known galaxy to the other over her long and storied career, checked at the front desk of The Tops above, unconsciously missed in Nothing That Is In Between, and last (so far) seen hanging on a peg in her quarters aboard the Phoenix Queen in Tyrants if They Could - is That Gun.

Originally manufactured by Steyr AG on Earth in the 21st century for issue to officers of the United Earth Bureau of Civil Protection tasked with hunting and neutralizing 33-series infiltration/espionage/assassin Boomers, the Model SL automated* revolver was popularly known, after the common nickname for the BCP's anti-Boomer operatives themselves, as the "Blade Runner". Azula's, serial number 9613, was sold off after the BCP switched to phased plasma weapons in the 2060s and passed through many hands before she bought it in a flea market on New Chiba in 2344.

When she bought it, That Gun didn't actually work; its servo-assisted loading mechanism had long since failed, its action had seized, and someone had tried to "officially" demilitarize it by removing the firing pin and filling the barrel with lead. Azula wasn't particularly concerned about that at first, since she was buying it simply to use as a piece of costuming - she was entering a line of work in which a person who isn't carrying a gun is liable to attract more, and less favorable, interest than someone who is carrying a gun.

She eventually fixed it up more or less just to pass the time on a long-haul hyperflight to someplace on the Rim, chasing the first of many dead-end leads, and then taught herself to use it - again, partly to fill the time, and partly because you can never have too many tools in your toolbox. Some time after that, she grew tired of constantly having to hunt for and/or scratchbuild its scarce ammunition and converted it into a blaster. (Blaster conversions for revolvers are actually a pretty cool tech trick in the UF universe. I should do an FD about that sometime.)

By the late 24th century, Steyr SLs had become extremely rare, with only a handful in collections and no others known to be out in the wild. Very occasionally, someone will recognize That Gun and offer her a lot of money for it, but she'd never part with it. For all that she's very rarely actually needed it, it's an old and trusted friend, and has become something of a talisman to her - a fetish object, if you will (and not in the sexual sense of the word). As Captain Sarah L. Inazuma, it's part of her identity. If she'd had it with her, as her muscle memory clearly expected, in Nothing That Is In Between, she'd have realized a lot sooner that strange things were afoot at the Circle K.

--G.
* An "automated" revolver is not the same as an automatic one. It simply means that the cylinder advance and the crane which actuates the cylinder for reloading are servo-assisted, not that the weapon has an automatic fire mode.
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Pasha
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49. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #48
 
  
>anti-Boomer operatives themselves, as the "Blade Runner". Azula's,
>serial number 9613, was sold off after the BCP switched to phased
>plasma weapons in the 2060s and passed through many hands before she
>bought it in a flea market on New Chiba in 2344.

So, she bought Adam Savages?

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."


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Gryphonadmin
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50. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #49
 
   LAST EDITED ON Jan-26-14 AT 03:21 AM (EST)
 
>>anti-Boomer operatives themselves, as the "Blade Runner". Azula's,
>>serial number 9613, was sold off after the BCP switched to phased
>>plasma weapons in the 2060s and passed through many hands before she
>>bought it in a flea market on New Chiba in 2344.
>
>So, she bought Adam Savages?

Heh, good eye.

Or, given the way the chronology works out in UF, he's built a replica of Captain Inazuma's blaster-converted antique bladerunner gun from The Phoenix Queen's Revenge...

... only, of course, he'd have built his from a different demilled Steyr SL, so it'd have a different serial number. Something starting with 5, most likely.

--G.
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Mercutio
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51. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #48
 
   >(Blaster conversions for revolvers are
>actually a pretty cool tech trick in the UF universe. I should do an
>FD about that sometime.)

One imagines that that's the domain of some pretty hardcore hobbyists. Given the utterly different engineering requirements, if you just want a blaster that looks like an old-fashioned slugthrower, it is probably easier and cheaper to have it scratch-built by a professional blastersmith1 than it is to convert an already existing slugthrower into a blaster.

But that wouldn't be as much fun. :)

-Merc
Keep Rat

1If this isn't a word, it should be.


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Gryphonadmin
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17. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #10
 
   >Oh, Azula, Azula, Azula. Look, I know Machiavelli probably never wrote
>about vamping for fun and profit, but at least capitalize on the
>advantages you're given.

Heh, nobody in the wasteland was particularly her type, and anyway, she was way too busy conquering the world to fool around with, well, fooling around. Say what you will about Azula, she's good at prioritizing. She doesn't always get them right, but once she's set them she sticks with them. :)

>Of course, I have no notion which way Azula
>swings, nor do I claim to.

Canonically, as far as I can recall, she never showed any particular interest in anybody apart from that one guy she scared the crap out of at the beach party in that one episode. Avatar was on Nickelodeon, so even if anything further afield than that was somehow in the character's nature, it wouldn't have been expressed on screen anyway.

>I haven't seen ATLA or LOK but I get the
>impression whenever they tried to handle romance at all in the show it
>wasn't done well.

Oh my yes, which is to say no. The adjective "woeful" comes to mind.

>Aye. Especially since she's still a Girl Guide and having adventures
>with the crew (and the band!) at that point, I think.

Yes, and then she's off to medical school. She's not even really going to have time to think about starting to consider contemplating the general notion of reproducing until at least 2350. I suppose it could be argued that accidents do happen, but a) not so much in the 24th century, generally and b) not to someone with as much medical know-how as Rhian, in particular.

>Couldn't be sister, though. Not because that's not possible, but
>because if she swung that way, she and Mairwen would already be
>snogging in secret since before they met Laura, let alone Azula.
>
>Which is...not impossible.

Well, at least not if you assume that Mairwen would also be up for it. I don't have any data on that at present.

>>Not in 2382, no. Rhian may well have gone through a
>>Flying Doctors
>>phase earlier in her career, but by then she's quite happily settled
>>in a steady hospital job - the better to conduct really cutting-edge
>>research - and leaving gallivanting around the cosmos to those with
>>more of a taste for it.
>
>Not exactly a Dr. Chakwas, I guess. =)

No indeed. Rather the opposite, in fact. Rhian does have a fairly adventurous spirit - she's a Neo-Snowdonian Guide, after all - but it runs more toward outdoorsiness and liking a challenge than it does to that Bashirian "real frontier medicine" attitude. She'd rather have an enormous, well-funded research establishment behind her medical adventures.

That said, having mentioned Julian now, I like the idea that she might've been one of his mentors. Judging by his accent, it's not out of the question that he may have received some of his medical training in the Crown Colonies.

>(Caesar's Legion must have been heeling and toeing it from
>Fisto!)

... as it were!

Azula's version of Fisto's OS actually has two modes, one for when he's "in the office" at the Wrangler and one for when the gang's out doin' shooty stuff. About the only carryover between the two is that he sometimes instructs raiders he's shooting at to assume the position.

... and sometimes also Boone, but that's just because Boone hates it when Fisto says that to him, so Fisto makes sure to do so least once a week. :)

--G.
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Verbena
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18. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #17
 
   >Heh, nobody in the wasteland was particularly her type, and anyway,
>she was way too busy conquering the world to fool around with, well,
>fooling around. Say what you will about Azula, she's good at
>prioritizing. She doesn't always get them right, but once
>she's set them she sticks with them. :)

True enough!

>Canonically, as far as I can recall, she never showed any particular
>interest in anybody apart from that one guy she scared the crap out of
>at the beach party in that one episode. Avatar was on
>Nickelodeon, so even if anything further afield than that was somehow
>in the character's nature, it wouldn't have been expressed on screen
>anyway.

Yeah, I thought of that kind of thing after I posted. I didn't remember Nick specifically but I realized it wasn't exactly on Adult Swim. At least that leaves maximum flexibility.

>Oh my yes, which is to say no. The adjective "woeful" comes to mind.

Aaaand here exactly is the incentive to take that and run with it, no doubt. There's only so many times a person can go 'NNNGH' and slap their forehead in anguish.

>Yes, and then she's off to medical school. She's not even really
>going to have time to think about starting to consider contemplating
>the general notion of reproducing until at least 2350. I suppose it
>could be argued that accidents do happen, but a) not so much in the
>24th century, generally and b) not to someone with as much medical
>know-how as Rhian, in particular.

I'm still convinced we don't have better contraception -now- because of political reasons, not scientific ones. I fully expect the whole chemical implant thing would mean utterly zero chance of pregnancy for a properly equipped person, and maybe even have an electronic toggle switch if (s)he has a neuroprocessor.


>
>Well, at least not if you assume that Mairwen would also be up for it.
> I don't have any data on that at present.

Well, I admit I knew I was making the assumption. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it'd be either both or neither, simply because whichever one was would have private, sad moments that possibly the other and definitely Laura would notice, or if the other knew, their relationship would be incredibly awkward. Although I can also sort of see them being best friends at the time they meet Laura and sort of progressing beyond that point later, during college. When you fight alongside someone, and been through the scrapes they have together, there's a platonic bond far beyond a mere high school friendship. I could see that bond maturing into something else a few years down the road.


>>Not exactly a Dr. Chakwas, I guess. =)
>
>No indeed. Rather the opposite, in fact. Rhian does have a
>fairly adventurous spirit - she's a Neo-Snowdonian Guide, after all -
>but it runs more toward outdoorsiness and liking a challenge than it
>does to that Bashirian "real frontier medicine" attitude.
>She'd rather have an enormous, well-funded research establishment
>behind her medical adventures.
>
>That said, having mentioned Julian now, I like the idea that she
>might've been one of his mentors. Judging by his accent, it's not out
>of the question that he may have received some of his medical training
>in the Crown Colonies.

Hm. That DOES kinda fit.

>
>>(Caesar's Legion must have been heeling and toeing it from
>>Fisto!)
>
>... as it were!

S'pose...er, turning tail, as it were, wouldn't be the recommended tactic against him.

>
>Azula's version of Fisto's OS actually has two modes, one for when
>he's "in the office" at the Wrangler and one for when the gang's out
>doin' shooty stuff. About the only carryover between the two is that
>he sometimes instructs raiders he's shooting at to assume the
>position.
>
>... and sometimes also Boone, but that's just because Boone
>hates it when Fisto says that to him, so Fisto makes sure to do
>so least once a week. :)

I actually thought about this already--Boone lives for one thing, and that's putting sniper rounds through Legion craniums. I sorta thought Fisto would flush out game for him. =) But everything about Fisto is hilarious, so pointing and laughing at Boone on occasion doesn't hurt my feelings.


--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu


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Gryphonadmin
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20. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #18
 
   >I fully expect the whole
>chemical implant thing would mean utterly zero chance of pregnancy for
>a properly equipped person, and maybe even have an electronic toggle
>switch if (s)he has a neuroprocessor.

I've made occasional side references to "biocontrol" in various UF pieces, particularly those set in the FI era. I've never determined exactly what this entails, other than that it's taught in schools as a fairly routine Thing You're Going to Need to Know at around the time that These Matters would be covered in health class, but its practical significance is that it's a reliable method of regulating one's reproductive capability that nobody else (doctor, pharmacist, et al.) needs to be involved with. Possibly a survival of an ancient Bene Gesserit technique that's gone mainstream, like yoga. (BG sisters married off to the nobility of Padishah times were supposedly able to conceive or not basically at will, and even select the sex of their children.) Works for male and female humans and most near-human species; possibly adaptable to still wider varieties of sapient lifeforms as well. Talking like Mordin now, probably because biology is involved.

Anyway, it stands to reason that Rhian, being Rhian, would have gotten the best possible grade in that class, even if she anticipated no immediate use for the ability. It's a biomed thing, after all, and she's generally keen on those. Know your body, know your mind, as they say.

Note that this is distinct from the various mind-over-body tricks available to Detians, which are also called by that name, but it may actually be a subset of the same thing that's available to anyone with proper training.

>Well, I admit I knew I was making the assumption. But I have a
>sneaking suspicion that it'd be either both or neither, simply because
>whichever one was would have private, sad moments that possibly the
>other and definitely Laura would notice, or if the other knew, their
>relationship would be incredibly awkward.

True, although if Laura did notice, dollars to donuts she wouldn't have the slightest idea what she'd noticed. There are things they simply didn't cover at the Facility. :)

>Although I can also sort of
>see them being best friends at the time they meet Laura and sort of
>progressing beyond that point later

Oh yes, that's definitely all they are at the time of, say, Laura Kinney and the Black Shuck. Beyond that point, not sure.

>>>(Caesar's Legion must have been heeling and toeing it from
>>>Fisto!)
>>
>>... as it were!
>
>S'pose...er, turning tail, as it were, wouldn't be the recommended
>tactic against him.

Not unless you know without a doubt that you're not the slowest runner in your cohors. Remember, you don't have to outrun Fisto, you just have to outrun Drusus Germanicus.

>I actually thought about this already--Boone lives for one thing, and
>that's putting sniper rounds through Legion craniums. I sorta thought
>Fisto would flush out game for him. =)

Heh.


INT. DAY. The dining room of the Lucky 38 Presidential Suite. The whole crew's having a meeting.

BOONE
(adamantly)
No. I am NOT sneaking up onto that ridge alone with the sex-crazed robot.

AZULA
Oh come now, Craig. You know Fisto's the best spotter we've got.

ED-E beeps.

ED-E
(subtitled)
I resent that remark.

BOONE
It wants to jump me! I'm not OK with that.

LILY
Don't take it personally, pumpkin.

ARCADE
(nodding sagely)
Fisto wants to jump everybody.

VERONICA
It's his job!

AZULA
And he's very good at it.

RAUL
(skeptically)
... Uh, how would you know that, boss?

AZULA
(blithely)
I programmed him to take pride in his craftsmanship. Besides, I'm not ashamed to say I test all my work before releasing it into the field.

CASS eyes her mostly-empty whisky bottle blearily.

CASS
(shaking her head sadly)
I picked the wrong week to stop sniffin' Wonderglue.

REX barks.

REX
(subtitled)
I know, right?

--G.
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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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Verbena
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Dec-25-13, 10:49 PM (EST)
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21. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #20
 
   >I've made occasional side references to "biocontrol" in various UF
>pieces, particularly those set in the FI era. I've never determined
>exactly what this entails, other than that it's taught in
>schools as a fairly routine Thing You're Going to Need to Know at
>around the time that These Matters would be covered in health class,
>but its practical significance is that it's a reliable method of
>regulating one's reproductive capability that nobody else (doctor,
>pharmacist, et al.) needs to be involved with. Possibly a
>survival of an ancient Bene Gesserit technique that's gone mainstream,
>like yoga. (BG sisters married off to the nobility of Padishah times
>were supposedly able to conceive or not basically at will, and even
>select the sex of their children.) Works for male and female humans
>and most near-human species; possibly adaptable to still wider
>varieties of sapient lifeforms as well. Talking like Mordin now,
>probably because biology is involved.

OH. See, for some stupid reason I thought biocontrol was a Detian only thing, but looking back, that was moronic. Why would there be a -class- on it in that case?

>
>Anyway, it stands to reason that Rhian, being Rhian, would have gotten
>the best possible grade in that class, even if she anticipated no
>immediate use for the ability. It's a biomed thing, after all, and
>she's generally keen on those. Know your body, know your mind, as
>they say.

That, and if there's one person in the class who would take it seriously instead of giggling inanely at the subject matter...

>
>Note that this is distinct from the various mind-over-body tricks
>available to Detians, which are also called by that name, but it may
>actually be a subset of the same thing that's available to anyone with
>proper training.
>
>
>True, although if Laura did notice, dollars to donuts she
>wouldn't have the slightest idea what she'd noticed. There are
>things they simply didn't cover at the Facility. :)

Oh, absolutely. I have no idea when or how Laura actually figures out the birds and the bees (no doubt on the internet; there's some subjects Victor would be -useless- with), but it's sure as hell not anytime soon. Fortunately, she's one of the very few attractive young ladies for whom it's -not- dangerous to be out in the world without that knowledge.

"I have no idea what you are hinting at. But any part of you that touches me is a part you are not getting back."


>
>Oh yes, that's definitely all they are at the time of, say, Laura
>Kinney and the Black Shuck
. Beyond that point, not sure.

You know what they say. There's a time and a place for everything. It's called college.

>
>>>>(Caesar's Legion must have been heeling and toeing it from
>>>>Fisto!)
>>>
>>>... as it were!
>>
>>S'pose...er, turning tail, as it were, wouldn't be the recommended
>>tactic against him.
>
>Not unless you know without a doubt that you're not the slowest runner
>in your cohors. Remember, you don't have to outrun Fisto, you
>just have to outrun Drusus Germanicus.

*SNRK*

>
>>I actually thought about this already--Boone lives for one thing, and
>>that's putting sniper rounds through Legion craniums. I sorta thought
>>Fisto would flush out game for him. =)
>
>Heh.
>
>
>INT. DAY. The dining room of the Lucky 38 Presidential Suite. The
>whole crew's having a meeting.
>
>BOONE
>(adamantly)
>No. I am NOT sneaking up onto that ridge alone with the sex-crazed
>robot.
>
>AZULA
>Oh come now, Craig. You know Fisto's the best spotter we've got.
>
>ED-E beeps.
>
>ED-E
>(subtitled)
>I resent that remark.
>
>BOONE
>It wants to jump me! I'm not OK with that.
>
>LILY
>Don't take it personally, pumpkin.
>
>ARCADE
>(nodding sagely)
>Fisto wants to jump everybody.
>
>VERONICA
>It's his job!
>
>AZULA
>And he's very good at it.
>
>RAUL
>(skeptically)
>... Uh, how would you know that, boss?
>
>AZULA
>(blithely)
>I programmed him to take pride in his craftsmanship. Besides, I'm not
>ashamed to say I test all my work before releasing it into the field.
>
>CASS eyes her mostly-empty whisky bottle blearily.
>
>CASS
>(shaking her head sadly)
>I picked the wrong week to stop sniffin' Wonderglue.
>
>REX barks.
>
>REX
>(subtitled)
>I know, right?

>

*SNRK* Bwahahaha!

For those who don't know, what Azula's describing is very much an option in the game. I admit I was curious, but didn't have the guts to ask. (I was kinda telling myself, okay, is she just an -ice queen- or she just doesn't have time for that interpersonal relationship crap?)

Poor Cass. =)

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-25-13, 11:08 PM (EST)
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22. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #21
 
   LAST EDITED ON Dec-25-13 AT 11:10 PM (EST)
 
>Oh, absolutely. I have no idea when or how Laura actually figures out
>the birds and the bees

Oh, she understands the biological part just fine - not only is it part of a basic grounding in anatomy, she'll have had to demonstrate a working knowledge in order to pass the "junior high health class" part of the equivalency required to get into high school without any prior records. The social part, on the other hand... well, there were plans for the full black widow/kunoichi line of training as part of a later phase of the project, but that would have been the year after she and G burned the Facility down. Which is probably just as well, actually, since that training would likely have permanently hampered her ability to develop genuinely-useful skills in that regard.

As it is, it hasn't come up in any story yet, but I imagine the adult Laura's attitude toward sexual matters is a bit like that one joke in an early episode of Bones where the FBI agent says to Booth, "This chick must be seriously good in bed if you're willing to put up with her attitude," and Temperance Brennan, overhearing, tells him matter-of-factly, "I am! Very good, in fact - but Booth has no way of knowing that, and frankly I don't see how it's germane." :)

>I admit I was curious, but didn't have the guts to
>ask. (I was kinda telling myself, okay, is she just an -ice queen- or
>she just doesn't have time for that interpersonal relationship crap?)

No time, and not a lot of specific interest in anybody who happens to be around at that particular juncture. Plenty of general interest in the topic itself, though, don't you worry about that. She's just insanely (if you'll pardon the expression) picky. She's a princess, after all. She has standards.

--G.
"Well! That was... different."
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Verbena
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Dec-26-13, 09:26 PM (EST)
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23. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #22
 
   LAST EDITED ON Dec-26-13 AT 09:33 PM (EST)
 
>Oh, she understands the biological part just fine - not only is
>it part of a basic grounding in anatomy, she'll have had to
>demonstrate a working knowledge in order to pass the "junior high
>health class" part of the equivalency required to get into high school
>without any prior records. The social part, on the other
>hand... well, there were plans for the full black widow/kunoichi line
>of training as part of a later phase of the project, but that would
>have been the year after she and G burned the Facility down. Which is
>probably just as well, actually, since that training would likely have
>permanently hampered her ability to develop genuinely-useful skills in
>that regard.

Lordy. Not only would that have screwed up any chance of a normal relationship down the line eventually, as you say, but what are the chances they'd have gotten it -right-? These are the idiots who never saw any use for her as anything but an assassin. And who thought using Kimura for anything but a point-and-push a -good idea-.


>
>As it is, it hasn't come up in any story yet, but I imagine the adult
>Laura's attitude toward sexual matters is a bit like that one joke in
>an early episode of Bones where the FBI agent says to Booth,
>"This chick must be seriously good in bed if you're willing to put up
>with her attitude," and Temperance Brennan, overhearing, tells him
>matter-of-factly, "I am! Very good, in fact - but Booth has no
>way of knowing that, and frankly I don't see how it's germane." :)

Hah! I haven't seen Bones, but...yeah. Doesn't bring it up, doesn't flirt, and bluntly tells anyone who brings up the issue in the hopes of, etc., that they simply aren't good enough.


>No time, and not a lot of specific interest in anybody who happens to
>be around at that particular juncture. Plenty of general interest in
>the topic itself, though, don't you worry about that. She's just
>insanely (if you'll pardon the expression) picky. She's a princess,
>after all. She has standards.

Not that different from Laura, come to think of it, just with less blithely frank lack of appreciation and a lot more aristocratic hauteur.


Also, I waited a whole day, on purpose, to post a reply. Noone else around here wants to talk about -innuendo- of all things? Wow, tough crowd.

Edit: Well...okay, it WAS Christmas Day. Only reason I was around all day to reply is I had a twelve-hour shift.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-26-13, 10:32 PM (EST)
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24. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #23
 
   >Hah! I haven't seen Bones, but...yeah.

I haven't watched it since the second or third season - it started getting a bit too precious - but the first couple of years were gold, and since I started working with Laura in UF, I've often had the thought that as an adult, she'll be a lot like the show's female protagonist. Not in terms of what she does, Temperance Brennan is an anthropologist, but in her general demeanor. Brennan's not mean to people for its own sake, she simply hasn't got the time or inclination for that "lying to be polite" thing. She isn't subtle. The really fun thing about her in the early going, though, and another trait I think she shares with the adult Laura Kinney, is that she's aware of that (unlike your more stereotypical "socially hopeless" character type) and not particularly shy about it. If someone around her says something the Cool Kids would understand and she doesn't, she'll just say, "I don't understand what that means." She's honest like a shovel to the back of the head is honest. :)

>Doesn't bring it up, doesn't
>flirt, and bluntly tells anyone who brings up the issue in the hopes
>of, etc., that they simply aren't good enough.

Except on the rare occasions when they are, in which case there's no time wasted farting around with the other half of the usual dance either. We haven't seen that? But I'm sure it's happened at least once or twice in the years between 2336 and 2411. :)

>>She's just
>>insanely (if you'll pardon the expression) picky. She's a princess,
>>after all. She has standards.
>
>Not that different from Laura, come to think of it, just with less
>blithely frank lack of appreciation and a lot more aristocratic
>hauteur.

One important difference is that, when Azula does encounter someone who measures up, she's perfectly happy to play the whole game. In fact, it probably annoys her a little that skipping half of the steps in the dance actually works for Laura; the one time she tried it, the guy literally ran away.

>Also, I waited a whole day, on purpose, to post a reply. Noone else
>around here wants to talk about -innuendo- of all things? Wow, tough
>crowd.

I know, right? That and a whole bonus scene! Nothin'. 'Tis the season. It used to be worse, though. When I first started doing this stuff, most of my readers were students, and virtually nobody in those days had Internet access at home, so when colleges and universities were closed, that was it.

--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.


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Verbena
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Dec-26-13, 11:50 PM (EST)
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25. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #24
 
   >I haven't watched it since the second or third season - it started
>getting a bit too precious - but the first couple of years were gold,
>and since I started working with Laura in UF, I've often had the
>thought that as an adult, she'll be a lot like the show's female
>protagonist. Not in terms of what she does, Temperance Brennan
>is an anthropologist, but in her general demeanor. Brennan's not mean
>to people for its own sake, she simply hasn't got the time or
>inclination for that "lying to be polite" thing. She isn't subtle.
>The really fun thing about her in the early going, though, and another
>trait I think she shares with the adult Laura Kinney, is that she's
>aware of that (unlike your more stereotypical "socially
>hopeless" character type) and not particularly shy about it. If
>someone around her says something the Cool Kids would understand and
>she doesn't, she'll just say, "I don't understand what that means."
>She's honest like a shovel to the back of the head is honest. :)

Kinda reminds me of Cmdr. Data and his asking what idioms and whatnot meant. As time went by that became less and less frequent, and Laura's lived a lot longer.

The unabashed honesty reminds me of a comment made in one story about Dantrov. Something to the order of, 'Blackmail doesn't exist on Dantrov. To get them to pay you have to threaten to embarrass them.'

>Except on the rare occasions when they are, in which case
>there's no time wasted farting around with the other half of
>the usual dance either. We haven't seen that? But I'm sure it's
>happened at least once or twice in the years between 2336 and 2411. :)

I don't care what someone's upbringing is like, the hormones -will- overtake her training eventually with that much time. =)

>
>>>She's just
>>>insanely (if you'll pardon the expression) picky. She's a princess,
>>>after all. She has standards.
>>
>>Not that different from Laura, come to think of it, just with less
>>blithely frank lack of appreciation and a lot more aristocratic
>>hauteur.
>
>One important difference is that, when Azula does encounter someone
>who measures up, she's perfectly happy to play the whole game. In
>fact, it probably annoys her a little that skipping half of the steps
>in the dance actually works for Laura; the one time she tried
>it, the guy literally ran away.

*SNRK* Oh, god, I can see it. Like a somewhat creepier version of the scene in Doctor Who where Amy Pond tries desperately to bed the Doctor and he's having none of it, realizing something unnatural is happening.

"The most important thing in the universe is that I get you sorted out right now."

"That's what I've been TRYING to TELL you!"

>
>>Also, I waited a whole day, on purpose, to post a reply. Noone else
>>around here wants to talk about -innuendo- of all things? Wow, tough
>>crowd.
>
>I know, right? That and a whole bonus scene! Nothin'. 'Tis the
>season. It used to be worse, though. When I first started doing this
>stuff, most of my readers were students, and virtually nobody in those
>days had Internet access at home, so when colleges and universities
>were closed, that was it.
>

Well, I did edit that comment to acknowledge it was Christmas and I was working all day. Not exactly busy. So we'll see once people are back from Gran-gran's house or whatever.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-27-13, 00:02 AM (EST)
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26. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #25
 
   >>the one time she tried
>>it, the guy literally ran away.
>
>*SNRK* Oh, god, I can see it. Like a somewhat creepier version of the
>scene in Doctor Who where Amy Pond tries desperately to bed the Doctor
>and he's having none of it, realizing something unnatural is
>happening.

It was a bit like that, only filtered through the homicidal-megalomania thing Azula had going on at the time. The phrase "we'll be the most powerful couple in the world" was involved. :)

Dude was seriously like, "Really! That sounds awesome, I can't wait to get started OH MY GOD IS THAT THE TIME" <poof!> nothing left there but a dust cloud in the rough shape of the guy. :)

--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.


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Verbena
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425 posts
Dec-27-13, 00:18 AM (EST)
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27. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #26
 
   >>*SNRK* Oh, god, I can see it. Like a somewhat creepier version of the
>>scene in Doctor Who where Amy Pond tries desperately to bed the Doctor
>>and he's having none of it, realizing something unnatural is
>>happening.
>
>It was a bit like that, only filtered through the
>homicidal-megalomania thing Azula had going on at the time. The
>phrase "we'll be the most powerful couple in the world" was involved.
>:)

O_O

>
>Dude was seriously like, "Really! That sounds awesome, I can't wait
>to get started OH MY GOD IS THAT THE TIME" <poof!> nothing left there
>but a dust cloud in the rough shape of the guy. :)

...Ouch. That has to have been in her younger days. I suppose learning the fine art of social interaction from LAURA of all people means a few bumps along the way. XD


--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu


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Gryphonadmin
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13280 posts
Dec-27-13, 00:29 AM (EST)
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28. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #27
 
   LAST EDITED ON Dec-27-13 AT 00:30 AM (EST)
 
>>Dude was seriously like, "Really! That sounds awesome, I can't wait
>>to get started OH MY GOD IS THAT THE TIME" <poof!> nothing left there
>>but a dust cloud in the rough shape of the guy. :)
>
>...Ouch. That has to have been in her younger days.

Oh, heh, yeah, she was 14. That actually happened on the TV show.

--G.
They grew up fast during the Hundred-Year War. Fire Nation girls, am I right?
-><-
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
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Verbena
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Dec-27-13, 00:46 AM (EST)
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29. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #28
 
   >>>Dude was seriously like, "Really! That sounds awesome, I can't wait
>>>to get started OH MY GOD IS THAT THE TIME" <poof!> nothing left there
>>>but a dust cloud in the rough shape of the guy. :)
>>
>>...Ouch. That has to have been in her younger days.
>
>Oh, heh, yeah, she was 14. That actually happened on the TV
>show
.

Aaaaaaaah.

>
>--G.
>They grew up fast during the Hundred-Year War. Fire Nation
>girls, am I right?

Well, to be fair, we know her upbringing wasn't....shall we say, typical for Diqiu in general. But, yeah, I can easily see Fire Nation pragmatism making that sort of thing happen quicker than some of the more traditional/hidebound nations.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu


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BobSchroeck
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1962 posts
Dec-27-13, 09:45 AM (EST)
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33. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #24
 
   >>Also, I waited a whole day, on purpose, to post a reply. Noone else
>>around here wants to talk about -innuendo- of all things? Wow, tough
>>crowd.
>I know, right? That and a whole bonus scene! Nothin'. 'Tis the
>season. It used to be worse, though. When I first started doing this
>stuff, most of my readers were students, and virtually nobody in those
>days had Internet access at home, so when colleges and universities
>were closed, that was it.

And now we're in our 30s, 40s and (some of us) 50s, and instead of being home from college, we're off doing stuff with distant friends and family and can't read the good new stuff until we get back and can check the site from work the next day...

...which probably explains why only one person's commented on the new Drunkard's Walk Steplet I posted on Christmas Eve. Stupid Bob.

Ah, anyway, back to topic. I will take this moment to formally applaud and explicate my enjoyment of the bonus scene. I am, as always, enjoying the way you rescue a villain from their source and give them a turnaround without really changing their personality. I can't help but heark back to the "Holmes on Homes" scenes in whatever thread it was they were in, and envisioning Zuko and Ty Lee inspecting the renovations made to Azula and nodding approvingly. (While Ty Lee murmurs, "Where's the romantic subplot? We paid for a romantic subplot!")

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-27-13, 07:47 PM (EST)
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35. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #33
 
   >I can't help but heark back to the "Holmes on Homes" scenes in whatever
>thread it was they were in, and envisioning Zuko and Ty Lee inspecting
>the renovations made to Azula and nodding approvingly. (While Ty Lee
>murmurs, "Where's the romantic subplot? We paid for a romantic
>subplot!")

Oh, it'll be along. She's just got some other stuff to take care of first.

--G.
"Remember, darling, what I actually said was, one makes time for the important things." "... You're mean."
-><-
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.


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BobSchroeck
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Dec-30-13, 09:38 AM (EST)
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46. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #35
 
   >>(While Ty Lee
>>murmurs, "Where's the romantic subplot? We paid for a romantic
>>subplot!")
>Oh, it'll be along. She's just got some other stuff to take care of
>first.

"It's on the second floor, Ms. Lee..."

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.


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SpottedKitty
Member since Jun-15-04
186 posts
Dec-24-13, 07:23 PM (EST)
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7. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #0
 
   Took me a while to realise which game the setting comes from (never played it) but once I did, I laughed like a tickled hyena. So that's where Azula went when she finally went walkabout; and it's pretty clear what her "other project" was.

Wonder where she is now?

--
Unable to save the day: File is read-only.


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Verbena
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Dec-25-13, 03:31 PM (EST)
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11. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #7
 
   >
>Wonder where she is now?
>

By my calculations Mairwen and Rhian, at least, would be 90 by 2410. I think Azula is a touch younger. Laura's age is irrelevant because she's immortal for the same reason Logan is (and we already know what's going on in her life). But Mairwen and Rhian, unless something spectacular happens and they qualify for OEK status, would both be in families (or A family, whichever) by that time. Azula is more adventurous, though, and may still be searching for Diqiu. We know Azula can't have -found- Diqiu by the time the events in SotS happen; she's still the great mystery of the Fire Nation royal family. But Azula does -not- have the longevity of Big Universe people! She has a chance of living longer than average as a powerful bender but firebending isn't as good for that. So, again, unless she gets Omega-2 (it IS possible that Gryphon wouldn't recognize her phenotype and certainly not her name) she might not live to see her home again.

There's still plenty of possibilities, though, and ignominious defeat is not really this world's MO, so...well, we'll see.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-25-13, 03:46 PM (EST)
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14. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #11
 
   >Azula does -not- have the longevity of Big Universe people!

Not innately, no, but there's lots of weird science out there (not just Omega-2, either), and Azula does have a cunning and, if necessary, larcenous heart. :)

--G.
that squad of rogue Brotherhood Paladins paid for that. or, well, their gear did. once they weren't using it any more.
-><-
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.


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Verbena
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Dec-25-13, 03:59 PM (EST)
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15. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #14
 
   Ohhhhh, boy, I'd forgotten about the Monocyte Breeder. And, really, cellular regeneration is exactly why Logan and Laura are immortal. That's a trick I missed, I admit, and more significantly, Azula doesn't have to be the only one to benefit from it! Thats...a game changer. Not nearly as powerful as Detianism, but who cares? Could make a reunion in 2410 or after a -lot- more interesting.

Now I'm -really- looking forward to seeing what's happening next.


--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu


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Terminus Est
Member since Nov-4-04
249 posts
Dec-27-13, 01:15 AM (EST)
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30. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #0
 
   I know Juni's based on a real person and all, but this being a huge metaverse and all... is it possible, given the relative dates, that Azula could be a distant (third or fourth generation back) relative? Her relatives (if indeed she has any living ones in the UF metaverse) have never been touched upon that I can remember, aside from vague hints about her parents being from Orron IV.

...Yeah, probably not. But it would explain a few things, no?

Of course, it's entirely possible I pulled the entire notion from the far reaches - it's happened before and it'll happen again, I'm sure.


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-27-13, 01:41 AM (EST)
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31. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #30
 
   >I know Juni's based on a real person and all, but this being a huge
>metaverse and all... is it possible, given the relative dates, that
>Azula could be a distant (third or fourth generation back) relative?

Mathematically possible, but logistically unlikely.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Terminus Est
Member since Nov-4-04
249 posts
Dec-27-13, 01:45 AM (EST)
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32. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #31
 
   >Mathematically possible, but logistically unlikely.

About what I expected.


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Gryphonadmin
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Dec-28-13, 10:56 PM (EST)
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44. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #32
 
   >>Mathematically possible, but logistically unlikely.
>
>About what I expected.

Actually, thinking about it some more, there's no reason to be coy about this. There are a bunch of reasons why Azula doesn't have any direct descendants, any one of which would be sufficient in itself.

--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.


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junipermoderator
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Dec-27-13, 09:33 PM (EST)
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36. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #30
 
   >I know Juni's based on a real person and all, but this being a huge
>metaverse and all... is it possible, given the relative dates, that
>Azula could be a distant (third or fourth generation back) relative?
>Her relatives (if indeed she has any living ones in the UF metaverse)
>have never been touched upon that I can remember, aside from vague
>hints about her parents being from Orron IV.
>
>...Yeah, probably not. But it would explain a few things, no?
>
>Of course, it's entirely possible I pulled the entire notion from the
>far reaches - it's happened before and it'll happen again, I'm sure.

...that would be weird. Amusing, but weird.


Juniper
Rampaging Karateka Crypto-Kwavu'b Contributing Editor (and Moderator)
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
Because why be ordinary in your choice of hobbies?


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Terminus Est
Member since Nov-4-04
249 posts
Dec-28-13, 01:09 PM (EST)
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38. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #36
 
   That was pretty much what I was going for, I'll admit.


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junipermoderator
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Dec-28-13, 10:11 PM (EST)
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43. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #38
 
   >That was pretty much what I was going for, I'll admit.

Mm. Sometimes we do "interesting but weird" but at this point, I think there'd need to be a fairly compelling reason for it beyond "hm, I wonder what would happen if..."

So, probably not. :)


Juniper
Rampaging Karateka Crypto-Kwavu'b Contributing Editor (and Moderator)
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Pasha
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Dec-29-13, 03:05 PM (EST)
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45. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #43
 
   >>That was pretty much what I was going for, I'll admit.
>
>Mm. Sometimes we do "interesting but weird" but at this point, I think
>there'd need to be a fairly compelling reason for it beyond "hm, I
>wonder what would happen if..."
>
>So, probably not. :)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "hm, I wonder what would happen if..." kind of the entire raison d'etre of EPU?

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."


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junipermoderator
Charter Member
330 posts
Dec-30-13, 01:22 PM (EST)
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47. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #45
 
   >>>That was pretty much what I was going for, I'll admit.
>>
>>Mm. Sometimes we do "interesting but weird" but at this point, I think
>>there'd need to be a fairly compelling reason for it beyond "hm, I
>>wonder what would happen if..."
>>
>>So, probably not. :)
>
>Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "hm, I wonder what would happen
>if..." kind of the entire raison d'etre of EPU?

It's the *original* raison d'etre. But it is no longer the *sole* reason. :)


Juniper
Rampaging Karateka Crypto-Kwavu'b Contributing Editor (and Moderator)
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
Because why be ordinary in your choice of hobbies?


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Polychrome
Charter Member
441 posts
Dec-27-13, 01:26 PM (EST)
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34. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #0
 
   >Gathered together the most capable misfits and adventurers in
>Mojave's remaining habitable area and forged them into a small but
>terrifyingly potent special operations team on the WDF Normandy
>model.

I am reminded of this image which may have been posted here before.

Polychrome


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Bushido
Member since Apr-8-10
245 posts
Dec-28-13, 05:13 PM (EST)
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42. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #34
 
   "Aside from the suicidally stupid idea of crossing me, you seem to be a reasonably smart individual. You're no doubt desperately calculating the number of shots I've fired versus the heat sink capacity of this gun. If you payed enough attention to the number of your worthless thugs I killed with it, then the short answer would be yes, it is over capacity now. Unfortunately for you, the long answer would be yes, but the answer is irrelevant." *crackle* *BLAM*

--------
Wedge Defense Force General Order 12: "Try to avoid freaking the mundanes."


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RenoDumont
Member since Feb-28-10
10 posts
Jan-28-14, 03:36 PM (EST)
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52. "RE: H2G2: Mojave"
In response to message #42
 
   Excellent as always, I honestly wasn't expecting New Vegas to show up in UF but after reading you guys since Core 2-I should've known better by now eh?

On the other hand which DLCs did you use because I can almost see Azula running around the Big Empty and the Sierra Grande in her usual style ;)

Eleventh Doctor: I never forget a face.

The Curator: I know you don't. And in years to come you might find yourself revisiting a few, but just the old favorites.


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