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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

Subject: "CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun" Archived thread - Read only
 
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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-06-11, 11:03 PM (EDT)
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"CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
 
   LAST EDITED ON Jan-28-13 AT 00:08 AM (EST)
 
[ I have repaired the chronological error in the audio edition. --G.]


Friday, June 15, 2412
Beyond the Outer Rim Territories


sort:byplace
Outer Rim Territories >>>>
Far Rim >>>
Perseus sector >>
Dholen system >

Haestrom, third planet of the Dholen system. If you're even in the Dholen system, hitchhiker, boy have you got problems; the star is unstable and the system itself is under the control of the geth. How did you even get here?

Regardless, if you're on Haestrom itself, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that the occasional Federation probes that get in here have never reported any evidence that the geth are using the planet itself, so if you managed to get dirtside without the zillion or so of them who live elsewhere in the system detecting and annihilating you, you're probably OK in that regard. The bad news is that there's no one here, nothing to eat, no hope of rescue, and direct sunlight will kill you, but not before it's torched all your electronics, including, most likely, the Guide.

Information about the planet itself? Slightly academic at this point, we would have thought, but OK. We'll be optimistic and assume that you're reading this entry somewhere else for entertainment. Haestrom was a science outpost of the Rannoch Hegemony, originally founded in the 1800s to study the interesting instabilities inherent (see what we did there?) in Dholen, which quarian astronomers believed was just on the cusp of evolving from a G-class main sequence star into a red giant. As far as they knew, nobody had ever studied that phenomenon up close before.

The problem is, "on the cusp" in stellar evolution terms could mean within a few hours or a couple thousand years. Odds were the Dholen Observatory project was going to be something of a long-term one. The planet's one city, also called Haestrom, became known around the Rim for its unique architectural idiom, its subculture of creative indie video game designers, and the fact that nothing much ever happened there. Until 1896 SC, when the geth uprising brought down the Hegemony and most of the architects and indie programmers got wiped out.

Since then, as far as anybody knows, nothing whatsoever has happened on Haestrom. Dholen still hasn't turned into a red giant, though its stellar output has become markedly weirder and more energetic in recent years (hence the aforementioned killing-you thing). It's hard for Fed astronomers to tell much more than that from outside the Perseus Veil, and if we had to guess we'd say the geth aren't too bothered about the scientific opportunities. Federation probes indicate they're mining the system's second planet for gas and... that's basically it. Haestrom itself is just there. The city's still standing, and based on the probe returns, it looks to be more or less intact, apart from damage inflicted during the war. Night passes indicate that most of the streetlights are even still working... but nobody's home.

All that said, if you're actually on Haestrom, we have only one piece of advice. Our cover strapline notwithstanding, this would be an excellent time to panic.

This Guide entry was written by Peter Parker, OJK.

Tali'Shukra vas Venachar shut down her omni-tool's e-reader, got to her feet, and looked out through the vacant window frame at the city. This was a city that had been designed never to sleep, but it had been dead for more than five centuries. Its silence and stillness were doubly eerie when set against the cyclopean scale of it, the height of its towers, the broad and daring sweep of its intricately interconnected skyways. For all that time it had stood empty and unmaintained, and yet most of the skyways were still here. From where she stood now, near the pinnacle of one of the periphery's middling-tall buildings, Tali could see a significant part of the network, and there were very few major gaps despite the relentless march of centuries.

Master Parker is right, she mused to herself. The streetlights do still work... and this would be an excellent time to panic.

Instead, she tried to com the Venachar again, to no avail. Nighttime might mean a respite from the vicious, killing solar radiation that soaked the city's streets during the day, but Dholen's deranged magnetosphere still played havoc with comms, and she got nothing but flangey static when she tried to raise her ship. She wouldn't be reaching them with the equipment she carried on her; it would take a bigger antenna, a more powerful transmitter, than she could carry.

If they were even still up there. The alarm she'd raised on the surface had almost certainly spread to the extensive space assets the geth had in the vicinity of Haestrom's neighbor Charoum. For all she knew, her ship had been chased off or blown out of the sky by now, and she was the only living carbon-based creature in the Dholen system. That would, she joked grimly to herself, constitute quite a spectacular mission failure.

Well, she thought wryly, Rael always does enjoy a good excuse to tell the rest of the Admiralty Board, "I told you so."

Tali went back inside and sat down with her back against the wall, reviewing the day in her mind. They had all known that penetrating the Dholen system would be dangerous, but it was the only way to get a better read on what was happening to the star. Its recent behavior, as alluded to in the Guide entry, could not be accounted for by any natural phenomenon. If the geth were engaged in something as risky as stellar manipulation, some members of the Admiralty Board felt it behooved the quarian people to know about it.

The plan, as conceived by Admirals Han'Gerrel and Rael'Zorah, was bold, but simple - dash into the system, drop a technical commando team onto Haestrom, proceed to the great Dholen Observatory at the center of the city, and conduct as extensive an observation as possible, then get out and hope the science team back home could work out from the collected data just what was going on in there. Both admirals agreed that the simplest plan had the greatest chance of success - and expended the most bearable quantity of resources if it all went wrong.

Admiral Zorah had been against assigning the mission to the Explorer-rated ship commanded by his own mother, but not because he was worried about her safety. Rather, he insisted, he lacked confidence in her ability to deal with complications that might arise, since she had spent his entire life as a Halo researcher and come to exploration only recently. The others, knowing that her technical prowess exceeded that of any other Explorer captain in the Quarian Navy, overruled him.

It didn't offend Tali'Shukra that her son thought she was a soft-sided theoretician with little practical field experience. He wasn't to know that she'd spent the decade before his birth almost constantly on the move, having adventures that made most of his naval career seem like a cushy job at an insurance company. He'd never asked and she hadn't volunteered.

It did offend her, in a cosmic sort of way, that the day's events looked like proving him right. Since the moment she had arrived on Haestrom, things had been going wrong. The stealth modifications to the Venachar's landing craft were supposed to be proof against geth detection; they weren't. There wasn't supposed to be an actual geth presence on Haestrom itself; there was. The LC hadn't lasted a minute after touchdown. Her four-man landing party had outlived their ship by mere seconds. Only experience, quick reflexes, and blind luck had kept Tali herself alive, enabling her to escape to this refuge and wait for nightfall.

And now that it was here... what? Even if she reached the Observatory, she had no comms and no way of getting back to the Venachar, if indeed the ship was still there.

She regarded her Lens, glowing a gentle silvery-blue from its mount on the back of her right glove. It would be unaffected by Dholen's strange emissions. She considered calling for help with it. She had no doubt that if she called for him, Benjamin would find a way to get to her, but... no. She had nothing to show for coming here. No result at all to offset, in even the most inadequate way, those four lives. Tali's pride wouldn't let her call on anyone - not even him, perhaps especially not him - for rescue just to flee in defeat. All right, he might never forgive her for not asking for his help; but as things stood right now, she would never forgive herself if she did.

Tali wasn't sure how long she spent confronting that issue before her attention was claimed by a faint sound from somewhere deeper inside the building. Since the other members of her landing party were dead, she could only think of one thing that might be approaching her position. She rezzed up her omni-tool and ran a sensor sweep, looking for a very specific EM signature. Her scan range was, like her communications, badly damped by the magnetic anomalies in which Haestrom was constantly bathed, but this close, she found them easily - four levels below and on their way up.

The geth had found her.

Rising, she returned to the empty window and looked again at the dead cityscape. A glance back over her shoulder showed her the bobbing gleam of geth searchlamp beams ascending the stairs from below. She turned back to the city, looked past the foreground of eerily lighted skyways and towers, and saw her objective: the tallest of the city's buildings, its central spire jutting almost to the stratosphere, a dull red light warning aircraft that would never exist of its pinnacle.

The sight of it galvanized her. She might have failed in her mission; she might have gotten her landing party (and possibly the entire crew of her ship) killed; she might never be able to transmit her findings back to the Quarian Union... but before she met her end on this godsforsaken planet, by Keelah, she would know what the hell was going on.

With that thought in her mind and the sounds of the approaching geth in her ears, Tali removed a baton-like object from a magmount at her hip, held one end in each hand, took two running strides, and jumped out of the window.

Approximately 11 seconds after the first pattern-buffering transmat of the modern epoch came online, someone thought of using it to store a physical object as information, making large, heavy, or otherwise unwieldy items effectively weightless and easily portable. Everyone knew that the Transformers of Cybertron had used similar technologies to store weapons and facilitate certain aspects of their transformable ecology for millennia. It seemed a reasonable goal for organic technologists to strive for - but there were many hurdles, not all of them anticipated by the original thinkers, to be overcome.

In the end, the first viable system took just shy of 40 years to perfect, and it was a quarian engineering student who made it practical, reliable, and (relatively) affordable for any object more complicated than a hammer. Called Realized Virtual Machinery, it used a hard-light-holography "framework" to guide the materialization of complicated parts back into their proper relative positions. The technology was not yet widespread - the device in Tali'Shukra's hands was a prototype, handmade for her by RVM's inventor - but once it was, it had the potential to change the galaxy.

Right now, all Tali cared about was its potential to change her evening.

/* Journey
"Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)"
Frontiers (1983) */

She left the building a lone figure in a battle-rated encounter suit, her white-trimmed black armor throwing gentle reflections of the city-corpse's undead nightglow. As she reached the peak of her arc away from the tower's face, just before she started to fall toward the skyway two stories below, the baton in her hands divided into halves, linked together by a geometric web of blue-white light. In an instant this framework of glowing lines spread, growing schematically to surround her in fleeting hints of manufactured shapes and the workings of complex machinery.

She hit the skyway below her escape window at the controls of a fully realized, low-slung, black, wide-wheeled motorcycle - its inventor called it a "lightcycle" - its armored outer hull blending almost seamlessly with her own. Its hubless wheels and sleek trim lines glowed with a clean white light, as did the exposed fusion turbine in its belly. The howl of that turbine echoed in Haestrom's abandoned canyons, silent these many centuries, as Tali accelerated hard away from the tower.

The lightcycle's radar was largely useless in this environment, and Haestrom's global positioning satellite network had gone down long, long ago, so Tali was navigating on instinct, riding by the seat of her pants, as it were. She tried to keep the spire in front of her at all times, looking as far ahead as possible to make certain she wasn't about to ride off the end of a fractured skyway, and lost herself in the task of solving the 3D puzzle of this road network as efficiently as possible - until something glinted in her rearview scanner and she realized she was being pursued.

Since when did the geth have motorcycles? she asked herself indignantly, then took a closer look and realized that it wasn't so much that the geth had motorcycles as that the ones chasing her in this particular instance were motorcycles. She'd never seen geth shells built to take advantage of wheels before - even their tank-type units had legs - but she supposed in an environment like the skyways of Haestrom, such a configuration made sense, and the geth were nothing if not practical. Optimized for speed, they were catching up with her fast, their reverberating engine wail much higher-pitched and harsher than the lightcycle's mezzo howl. She couldn't tell how many of them were back there, not having the time or the luxury to take a precise count, but there had to be at least a dozen.

In spite of her situation, Tali smiled.

All right, you krif'tet machines, she thought. You want to play tag? I'll show you how we played it in Saladin Gulch.

The pylons supporting the skyway's surviving lights whipped past one after another, her speed making the sound of their passing into a staccato clatter. She avoided bits of rubble and fallen light pylons with an efficient economy born of long experience. Her mind flashed briefly back to the first time she'd ever ridden a motorcycle in anger, as it were, back on Halo, at the end of the Happy Time. She'd crashed then. She couldn't afford that now.

Another group of the geth cycle units joined the skyway at a junction just ahead of her, fanning out into a tight formation and trying to block her path. Smiling grimly inside her helmet, Tali reached back, underneath the armored fairing that her lightcycle had extended most of the way to her shoulders, and drew her Bryar scatter blaster from its magmount across the small of her back. This weapon, made from a heavy-duty blaster carbine vintage mid-24th-century, was considered an antique now, but it could still throw enough energy to blow an armored humanoid in half at twenty paces - or a geth cycle shell clean off its wheels at ten. She blasted a hole in the middle of the formation ahead of her, leaned hard on the throttle, and shot through the gap.

The geth regrouped, tightening their formation to make up for the loss, and increased speed. Tali was keeping ahead of them, but to stay in the lead required all her lightcycle's power, and at that speed she had precious little time to react to complications ahead. Twice she nearly lost it jinking around broken patches of road or bits of debris. The third time, she sideswiped one of her pursuers with the outer edge of her rear wheel's fairing, sending it crashing into the wall at the side of the road, but lost so much speed keeping herself from going down after it that the others caught up -

- and as it drew even with her on the left, one of them reconfigured, springing upright from a shape reminiscent of a riderless motorcycle to a robotic torso and pair of powerful clawed arms balanced atop a single wheel. Apart from its head, which was the typical monoptic-equipped turret, it looked unlike any geth Tali had ever seen, and she had never seen one change its shape like that before. She was so shocked, and the part of her mind that remained always an engineer was so intrigued, that she did not immediately realize that it was trying to grab her with one of its viselike metal claws.

When she did, she blasted it, which blew it most satisfactorily to pieces. Several of the others also transformed, converging, but their one-wheeled "robot" mode was apparently slower; when Tali accelerated away from them, they were forced back into their original shape to continue the pursuit.

What is going on here? Tali'Shukra wondered to herself. They were on a long, sweeping lefthand bend now, with another skyway joining the one they were on from below midway around. Reflected on the retaining wall at the top of the entrance ramp, she could see the lights of a vehicle coming up. Grinding her teeth, she tried to press herself even lower over her lightcycle's cowl and wring even more speed from the machine. There was little question who that would be.

This wasn't really like Saladin Gulch at all, she reflected ruefully. In Saladin Gulch she'd had backup. Out here...

She flashed past the end of the merging skyway before the approaching geth could reach it, caught the flash of their headlights in the corner of her eye as she passed, and glanced automatically in her rearview scanner -

- but what came hurtling onto the skyway was not more geth.

/* 2:45 */

It was another lightcycle, a different model than the one she rode: its fuselage completely enclosed by a sleek fairing, front wheel even broader than her own, rear wheel no wider than that of a normal motorcycle. Its whole superstructure, from the teardrop-shaped cowl of its massive front wheel clean back to the gleaming black mechanisms surrounding the rear, was a white so pure it almost seemed to glow in the bluish Haestrom streetlights, pierced only by the three long, narrow, ebony black panels of its windscreen. In its wake it left a ribbon of light, which drew a persistent glowing arc in the air as the cycle caught air at the top of the ramp, then seemed almost to adhere to the road as the machine's rear wheel touched down.

The white lightcycle slewed across nearly the full breadth of the skyway, drawing its trail of light across in its wake, and when the geth reached it, it was as though they had run into a duracrete wall. Explosions filled the night with orange brilliance as most of the pursuing formation, not realizing the light was a threat, raced into it at full speed.

Tali looked to her right as the white cycle drew even with her on that side; the lights overhead strobed rhythmically down the length of its black windscreen, giving her no inkling of who might be inside it. A moment later, the screen in the center of her own instrument cluster flickered and displayed the face of the man she'd just been thinking of.

"Hello!" said Gryphon cheerfully. "Your granddaughter is a huge damn genius. Did you know that?"

"Benjamin!" Tali cried. "What are you doing - how did you get here?" she asked, changing questions in midstream as she realized that the one she'd originally intended to ask was, under the circumstances, kind of a silly one.

"Hitched," Gryphon replied. He glanced at something else on his end, probably his own rearview display. "Uh-oh. We've got more company." Smiling a slightly dark smile, he added, "Just one question I might ask you, and it might sound like a disaster, but can you make that thing go faster?"

Tali smirked, though she imagined he couldn't make out her expression in that kind of detail from the other end of a grainy video link. "You bet your sweet ass I can," she replied.

Gryphon grinned fiercely. "Then game on, a chuisle, and let's run these clowns into our jetwalls."

Then his face vanished and the white cycle peeled off to the far side of the skyway, drawing another curve of that glowing light across part of the road again. The geth were aware of the threat it posed now, thanks to their networked consciousness, and the new pursuit groups that were converging from side junctions behind them knew to at least try to avoid it.

Tali pondered his remark for a moment, then glanced down, her eyes scanning the control board. Yes, in fact, there was a key down there, glowing softly white, labeled GAME. She'd wondered vaguely what it was for when she first received the machine, but Tali'Zorah hadn't been available for her to ask at the time, so she'd put it down as something to investigate later.

Now she pressed it, and was rewarded by the cycle's structure shifting beneath her. At full power, the vehicle's wheelbase actually lengthened by several inches to maximize stability - and then the rear wheel started throwing a light trail of its own. She wondered what it was. Some kind of tailored kinetic barrier field, probably, or a freestanding hard-light hologram. Glancing in the rearview, she couldn't see the far end of Gryphon's, though she supposed they weren't infinitely persistent.

My granddaughter is a huge damn genius, she thought with pride, and then bent to her work.

/* 3:43 */

She and Gryphon hadn't worked together, in this sense, for many, many years. Once, she had thought it would more or less be their life together, crashing from adventure to wild adventure with occasional pauses in between to catch their breath in the sort of sybaritic luxury only the galaxy's greatest heroes and most wanted criminals could enjoy with true panache. A naïve dream, maybe, but a nice one, all the same. It hadn't worked out, and instead they'd been forced to go their separate ways. She saw him in person only rarely, had been in combat alongside him only once in all the decades since then.

And yet, here on this ruined and deserted world, at the controls of machines that would have been considered the most abstract flights of fantasy in the days when they first met, they realigned almost instantly back into the complementary parts of the machine they had been when the chips were truly down in Goodyear. They couldn't cross each other's jetwalls, but they could use every inch of the road to create an almost impassable maze for the geth in their wake, leaving each other the smallest possible gaps through which to retake the lead or cut to the other side.

Tali would never know how long they'd had to play that deadly game, balanced always on the razor edge of total catastrophe, across the ruined skyline of Haestrom. She never wondered while they were about it - there was no time, only that one extended moment, terrifying and yet ecstatic, where the boundary line between intellect and instinct blurred into meaninglessness and the only two people on the planet put their lives unthinkingly in each other's hands. After the fact, she could have checked her lightcycle's chron, but by then she preferred not to know. It would have spoiled the magic somehow.

Eventually they found themselves racing up the final span of skyway - more than three miles of arrow-straight, very-slightly-uphill road, two lanes wide, leading straight into the side of the central spire about two-thirds of the way to the top. This had been the ultimate goal of Tali and her landing party. She wondered as they blazed onto the span and into line-of-sight with the doors whether the geth had changed the access code, powered up her omni-tool, and transmitted it.

A rectangle of light appeared at the far end, like the end of a tunnel, as the Observatory Tower's main entrance opened to receive them.

Tali glanced at the rearview. There was only one geth cycle near them now; the next group was more than a mile back, barely visible as they rounded the long lefthander, far below, which would eventually lead them up a switchback to the stretch they'd now reached. That one geth was the only one that could conceivably catch them before they attained the tower and its fortress-like walls - the only one that had a chance of entering the tower with them, which would be rather less than optimal.

It seemed to be, if such terms applied to geth runtimes operating motorcycle-like exo-chassis, particularly skilled. It had avoided several traps she and Gryphon had set for it, shooting the narrowest gaps they dared to leave. Even if they rode almost wheel-to-wheel, there was just enough space between the walls for a single geth to pass, and this one did, without a falter.

Looking ahead, Tali scanned the skyway between their position and the fast-approaching tower - and there was her answer.

"Benjamin," she said, her voice crisp.

"I see it," Gryphon replied.

/* 4:55 */

His bike was faster even than hers. He accelerated ahead now, two lengths, three, the white lightcycle's turbine screaming - then, pouring on even just a little more throttle, he brought the front wheel slightly off the ground and mounted the sloped face of a massive rubble slab, fallen from the facade of the wrecked building leaning over the skyway from the right.

With exquisite timing, he reached the top of this impromptu ramp and jumped over Tali's path just as she flashed by beneath, nearly scraping the block with her right footpeg. His jetwall bridged hers and the ramp, leaving the two glowing barriers and the jagged flank of the slab to form a funnel that led the geth cycle inescapably to a gap about three feet high by four inches wide.

"So long, sucker!" Gryphon cried as the fireball blossomed behind them, and then they were shutting down their jetwalls and flashing across the threshold into the giant skyway lobby of the Observatory. Airbrakes deployed from the fairings of both lightcycles as they skidded to a halt. The giant doors closed behind them, extinguishing the overhead lights as they did - and suddenly, from a world of speed and light and noise, all was still and dark and silent.

/* end */

After a couple of seconds, the lightcycles sizzled, flickered, and disappeared, drawn back into the digital un-space that was their home when they weren't in use. Gryphon and Tali stood, unspeaking, about twenty feet apart in the center of a cavernous dark room, visible to each other only as faint traces and shards of light where the dim glow of emergency lamps far above them reflected from the angles of the armor they both wore.

And then they were together, not caring (as they never had) about those angles as they embraced like two lost souls finding each other in Limbo.

"You're awfully good at getting into trouble," Gryphon observed after the first hug finally ran its course.

"Almost as good as you," Tali replied. "We're not out of danger yet, you know. If anything, we're in even more now that we're cornered." Then she drew him back in, resting her helmet against his plastron, and said, "But I'm glad you're here, anyway." Releasing him, she added wryly, "We do some of our best work when we're cornered."

"That we do," he agreed. He fumbled at his equipment belt in the dark for a second, then powered up a repulsorlift lumisphere in one hand and released it. It floated to the ceiling before coming to full power, illuminating the room with a harsh white light like a battlefield flare. Then, after satisfying himself that the room was empty apart from the two of them, he added,

"So. What's the plan?"

"The uppermost level of this tower is the Great Observatory where my ancestors studied the anomalous behavior of Dholen," Tali told him. "We need to get up there, see how much of the equipment is still working, and then... wait for sunrise. I need to know why the star seems suddenly to be accelerating in its decay toward red giant stage. Dholen was always unstable, but its instability was natural before. Now... " She shook her head. "Something's causing it. I'm here to find out what."

Gryphon nodded. "Sounds good," he said, recalling the lumisphere and switching on a shoulder lamp built into his IPO N7 Frame instead. "Lead on."

Tali had a schematic of the building on her omni-tool. She copied it to Gryphon's in case they got separated, then worked out a route from the public level they were on now - "This building was a showpiece once, or so I've read," she explained - up to what had been the scientific holy of holies.

As they climbed, Tali asked, "How did you know I was here?"

"I asked the Admiralty," Gryphon replied.

She looked back at him, her visor glinting in the beam of his shoulder lamp. "And they told you?"

"I asked very nicely," he said innocently.

"Uh... huh," Tali replied skeptically, resuming her climb.

"And then Vision asked their computer," Gryphon added after a moment's pause.

"That sounds more plausible," Tali said. "How did you know I'd run into trouble? Or were you just assuming that I would because it's me?"

He chuckled. "Well, that's why I wore armor, that and this system being forbidden territory and all. But no, actually, it's just a coincidence that I showed up just in time to pretend you needed rescuing. I was looking for you because I wanted to ask you something."

They reached the landing at the top of this particular stairwell; Tali turned to face him again, her head tilted quizzically. "Something that couldn't wait until I returned from my top-secret Admiralty mission?"

He nodded. "Something that couldn't wait any longer than it absolutely had to."

"Well, it's going to have to wait a little longer, because I'm right in the middle of something," she told him. "Though once I'm finished you may have plenty of time. When you came down here, did you have a plan for getting out?"

Gryphon smiled. "I always have a plan for getting out," he said. He rezzed up his omni-tool and checked the chron. "Sun must be just about up by now. C'mon," he added, becoming brisk. "Let's get your job done so I can ask you my question."

Tali nodded. "Right." She consulted the floorplan on her omni-tool again. "The next room was some kind of auditorium for scientific presentations. What used to be the secure stairs to the observatory itself should be on the other side - backstage, as it were." She leveled the tool at the door's ancient electronic lock; it bleated as if in protest at having its long sleep interrupted, then disengaged, and the door opened.

The room beyond may indeed have been an auditorium once, but now, Tali and Gryphon saw as they entered, it had become something quite different. The seats had been removed from the floor that sloped down toward the stage, and the stage itself was covered in strange bundles of cables and alien shapes they recognized as geth terminals. In the middle, at the room's obvious focal point, was a brilliant white light so intense that its glare obscured what stood beneath it.

"... Keelah," Tali murmured. "I've seen things like this before. In the WDF archives on the Geth Incursion of 2280. They build these in places they've overrun. No one's really sure what they're for, but... "

"It feels like a church," Gryphon said.

"Yes. Exactly. A temple to... whatever digital gods the geth revere." She shook her head. "There's so much we don't understand about them. But... this one is different." She moved closer, adjusting the polarization of her visor, and drew back in surprise. "Benjamin, can you see this? This is... this is wrong."

Gryphon moved up alongside her, trying to shade his eyes from the worst of the glare; then, with an annoyed grunt, he drew his sidearm and shot out the light, leaving the room illuminated only by the glowstrips by the doors. Tali glanced at him in a did-you-have-to? kind of way, then returned her attention to the object.

In the holos she'd seen before of these geth temples or whatever they were, the object in the center was a roughly pyramidal structure of the same strange cybernetic... stuff as their terminals and other constructions, surmounted by a similarly harsh light source. This one, though, was some kind of idol, an intricately machined metallic figure in a rough humanoid shape. It had what looked like skeletal bat wings, horns, and what appeared to be a beard, yet was unmistakably supposed to represent a being that was itself mechanical. It slouched arrogantly in the pose of a king on a throne, its face set in a malevolent glower, and its long, taloned fingers were curled over a pair of metallic spheres.

"Oh, wh - nonono," Gryphon murmured in disbelief. "Come on. What?"

"This is nothing like any geth I've ever seen," Tali said. "Look at the legs, the hands. It's humanoid."

"It's Unicron," said Gryphon.

Tali turned, noticed for the first time the blank look of utter shock on his face. "Who? Are you all right?"

"Unicron the Destroyer," Gryphon replied, not looking at her, his attention still riveted on the effigy. "Reaper of Worlds. Bringer of Oblivion. The All-Consuming. Cybertron's dark god of uncreation and despair. But he's dead. I saw him die."

"Cybertron has gods?" Tali asked, puzzled, but Gryphon wasn't listening; he'd already started making for the back of the room at full speed.

"Come on," he called back over his shoulder. "We have to get to the observatory."

"Why are the geth worshipping a dead Cybertronian god?" Tali wanted to know as she followed him past the idol to the rear stairs.

"I don't know," Gryphon told her. "I have a suspicion, but by all that's holy I hope I'm wrong."

They reached the observatory and found most of its instruments still functioning. In fact, there were signs that many of them had been used recently, though if the geth had been up here as well as down below, they were long gone now.

Since almost everything was powered up, it didn't take the two long to collect the readings Tali needed; analysis would have to wait. Then Gryphon worked out how to operate the high-resolution visual scanner and took a good hard look at the system's innermost planet.

Gotha was a sun-blasted rock, like Mercury back home, but that wasn't important to Gryphon. What was important to him was the significant metallic anomaly sharing its orbit around Dholen - and now, as it resolved in the observatory's massive central holotank, he felt his heart sink within him at the sight of it.

"That looks like a free-flight shipyard," Tali observed, then checked the scale reference and added in a tone of astonishment, "but it's gigantic. You could build a planet in a construction frame that big."

"A planet... or a god," Gryphon said softly, his voice full of dread.

"What do you mean?"

"You saw that icon of Unicron downstairs. Remember those spheres in his hands?" he asked. Tali nodded. "Those are meant to be moons," he told her. "Unicron is - was - a living machine the size of a planet. He lurked in the dark space beyond the Far Rim for millions of years. Perhaps once an epoch he would appear somewhere in the inner galaxy, destroying worlds and consuming them, and then disappear into the dark again. In 2005 he attacked Cybertron and was destroyed... barely."

"How do you know that?" she wondered.

Gryphon's eyes were haunted, the way they had sometimes been when she had known him during his century-long exile, by a memory that was ancient and yet still vivid and painful. For a long moment, he didn't respond; then he said quietly,

"I was there."

Then he concentrated on his Lens: Gin. I need an exit.

You got it, Chief, a woman's "voice" replied. We're coming in hot, ETA three minutes.

Gryphon turned to Tali. "Let's get to the roof."

IPS Normandy (SR2)
Outbound from Dholen system

Gryphon pulled off his Frame's helmet and crossed the Normandy's docking bay at such a brisk pace that Captain Virginia Shepard and Tali almost had to trot to keep up with him. Neither asked him any questions; they could see he was busy.

Instead, Shepard introduced herself quietly to Tali and said, "Your ship is safe, she's en route back to Scandia for repairs. You've got a dedicated crew there - they hung in until they absolutely couldn't stay in the system any longer, but the geth pickets ultimately chased them off. They got pretty banged up, but they're OK."

"Thank you," Tali told her. "I'm very glad to hear that. When it's safe for us to transmit, I'll need to get in touch with them and relay my report to the Admiralty."

"Of course."

Striding along beside them, his pace fast but mechanical, Gryphon was engrossed in another Lens communication.

... but it's empty. Whatever they were building isn't here now. We haven't had a chance to analyze any of the in-depth data we've gathered... but I have a real bad feeling.

The party at the other end of the link considered in silence for a moment, then replied, This is very disturbing news... particularly in light of some things that have happened here over the past few days. If you hadn't called me, I would have been reaching out to you before too much longer. I think it would be best if you came to Cybertron as soon as you can, old friend.

I'm already on my way, Prime. Gryphon out.

He came back from autopilot in the elevator, returning from wherever he'd gone inside himself, and turned to Shepard.

"I have to get to Cybertron," he said.

She didn't ask what for. She'd known him much too long for that. Instead, she led them into the CIC, up onto the commander's platform abaft the holographic starchart, keyed the intercom, and said, "Joker. Set course for Cybertron. Fast as she'll go."

"Aye aye, Captain," Joker replied, his voice serious - he'd picked up on the urgency in his captain's, and it tamped down the delight he always felt at those last four words. "From this far out, even the Normandy'll need at least 12 hours to get there," he added, sounding faintly apologetic.

"Very well," she replied, and clicked off. "He'll get us there in 10 or kill himself trying," she added to Gryphon with a wry half-smile.

Gryphon nodded. "Good enough. Have you got someplace I can lie down for a little while?"

"Sure, use my quarters. Back to the elevator, all the way up - well, you know where it is, you designed the ship," she said. "Get some sleep, I'll com you when we get there if you're not down by then."

He nodded. "Thanks."

"No problem." Shepard gave him a slightly more complete smile, one that combined solidarity and sympathy - they were very old friends, and she knew both what he'd gone to Haestrom to do and that, obviously, he hadn't had a chance to do it - and touched his arm before he turned and went aft to the elevator.

Not knowing quite what else to do, Tali went with him; they went up one more level and were deposited in a small "attic" deck at the very top of the pressure hull, one just large enough for the lift, a private fresher, and a comfortable office-cum-stateroom for the commanding officer. She followed him down the steps from the office and stood next to him for a moment, admiring Captain Shepard's aquarium of exotic alien fish.

"What did you want to ask me?" she wondered.

Gryphon blinked, turning to her as if he'd just realized she was there. "Oh. Uh... " He put the helmet down on the desk next to Shepard's bunk; dismantled the Frame and folded it up into storage mode just to buy himself a little time; then put his hands in the pockets of the blue Tac Div jumpsuit he wore underneath it and turned back to Tali, who stood watching him thoughtfully.

"During the Federation Civil War," he said slowly, choosing his words with care, "I realized something. I have... a lot of friends. Really, really good friends. People I can trust... without hesitation, or even really thinking about it. They're all around me, all the time, supporting me, backing me up, making possible all the things that the galaxy mistakenly gives me the sole credit - or blame - for. My crew, my kids, my posse back in New Avalon, the GFC... I wouldn't be anything, wouldn't get anything done, without them, and they've never let me down. I never have to face a mess like the last few months alone. Someone's always got my back.

"And yet... at the end of it all, when the shooting stops and the mess gets cleaned up and everything goes quiet... ultimately I am alone. In that sense, I've been alone for three years. The war made me realize how tired I am of that."

He paused again, looking down at the deckplates, then raised his eyes to meet the ghosts of hers and said simply, "So I decided I would find you and ask you to come and be not-alone with me."

Tali gazed at him for a few moments in silence.

Then she said: "I have responsibilities."

He nodded. "I know."

"You're asking me to give up my command. My ship. My people. To abandon my country in what is sure to be a storm of controversy and come live in what, for me, is an inimical alien environment where I'm likely to be the only one of my kind."

"I know."

She took a step closer. "Because you're lonely."

"Yup."

"That is terribly, amazingly, shockingly selfish of you," she said, taking another step.

"I know," Gryphon said for a third time.

They stood face to face, her head tilted slightly upward to compensate for his three-inch height advantage, and Tali regarded him, the shadow of her features unreadable behind her visor, while she considered her response.

Then she said, "I... I can't give you an answer right now. I have... many things to consider."

"Of course," Gryphon replied - at once, and with evident sincerity.

Tali stepped closer still, putting a hand flat against his chest, and went on, "For now, I'll come with you to Cybertron and help you deal with whatever is going on there. After that... we'll see."

Gryphon nodded. "Fair enough," he said. Then he smiled and added, "In the meantime, can I interest you in a nap?"

Tali gave a snort of laughter, resting her forehead against his chest next to her hand. "From any other man," she said, "that would be the cheesiest possible line."

"Yup," he agreed cheerfully, shutting off the lights. "Sure would."

"Holiday in the Sun" - a Cybertron Reloaded/New Frontier Mini-Story by Benjamin D. Hutchins
with the advice and consent of Philip J. Moyer
Special to the Eyrie Productions Discussion Forum
© 2011 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun [View All] Gryphonadmin Apr-06-11 TOP
   RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Droken Apr-07-11 1
      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Prince Charon Apr-13-11 46
   RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Matrix Dragon Apr-07-11 2
      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Gryphonadmin Apr-07-11 8
   RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun WengFook Apr-07-11 3
      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Gryphonadmin Apr-07-11 6
   RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun mdg1 Apr-07-11 4
   RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Bushido Apr-07-11 5
      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun WereVulture Apr-07-11 7
      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Gryphonadmin Apr-07-11 9
          RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Star Ranger4 Apr-07-11 11
      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Terminus Est Apr-07-11 10
          RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Senji Apr-07-11 12
              RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Terminus Est Apr-07-11 13
   RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun trigger Apr-07-11 14
      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Gryphonadmin Apr-07-11 15
          RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun The Traitor Apr-08-11 17
          RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Matrix Dragon Apr-08-11 18
              RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun trigger Apr-08-11 19
                  RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Gryphonadmin Apr-08-11 20
                      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun trboturtle2 Apr-08-11 21
                          RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Gryphonadmin Apr-08-11 22
                              RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Apostate_Soul Apr-16-11 47
                              RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Bushido Apr-17-11 48
                              RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun The Traitor Apr-17-11 49
                                  RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun trboturtle2 Apr-17-11 50
              RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun BeardedFerret Apr-09-11 23
   I should point out... Gryphonadmin Apr-07-11 16
   RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Bodhi Apr-09-11 24
      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Eric Heckathorn Apr-09-11 25
      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Gryphonadmin Apr-09-11 26
          RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Eric Heckathorn Apr-09-11 27
              RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Gryphonadmin Apr-09-11 28
                  RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Star Ranger4 Apr-10-11 29
                  RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Meagen Apr-10-11 30
   RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Bitstream Apr-10-11 31
      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun JFerio Apr-10-11 32
          RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Gryphonadmin Apr-10-11 33
              RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun dstar Apr-11-11 38
          RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Bitstream Apr-10-11 34
              RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun dstar Apr-11-11 37
                  RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Bitstream Apr-13-11 45
      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Gryphonadmin Apr-10-11 35
          RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Bitstream Apr-10-11 36
          RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun CdrMike Apr-11-11 41
          RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Phantom Apr-20-11 51
      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Meagen Apr-11-11 39
          RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Matrix Dragon Apr-11-11 40
   RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Tzukumori Apr-12-11 42
      RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Matrix Dragon Apr-12-11 43
          RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun Tzukumori Apr-12-11 44

Droken
Member since May-6-08
417 posts
Apr-07-11, 00:30 AM (EDT)
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1. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #0
 
   That, my friend, was a thing of beauty. I loved the H2G2 entry, and it just kept rolling along from there. Brilliant.

-Droken

"If at first you don't succeed, bull-
riding is not for you."


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Prince Charon
Member since Jan-11-09
309 posts
Apr-13-11, 04:48 PM (EDT)
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46. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #1
 
   <Vorlon>Yes. Beauty in Dark and Light.</Vorlon>

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


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Matrix Dragon
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1893 posts
Apr-07-11, 01:16 AM (EDT)
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2. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #0
 
   LAST EDITED ON Apr-07-11 AT 01:17 AM (EDT)
 
I love any appearance of Tali, and throwing G in and bringing their relationship back into the readers view is perfect. The rest of the story, with the Geth worshiping Unicron (Expected, I think, but still done great), and appearances of Normandy and Lightcycles, was great fun.

Actually, it might not hurt in this case to put a link to this thread, or a HTML version of this mini, between CR5 and 6, when it's released.

Am I right in thinking that the Vehicons appearing in this story are the same as where seen in Collision Courses?

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter


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Gryphonadmin
Charter Member
22375 posts
Apr-07-11, 11:26 AM (EDT)
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8. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #2
 
   >Am I right in thinking that the Vehicons appearing in this story are
>the same as where seen in Collision Courses?

Yeah, the geth cycle drones are pretty much Thrust, except for their gethy heads (and they probably aren't purple).

When we see The Berlin Encounter again (you'll notice that the two released parts of CC have made their way to the Dustbin, owing to the way CR is developing), the Vehicons there will be different.

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


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WengFook
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Apr-07-11, 02:37 AM (EDT)
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3. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #0
 
  
That was nice. I wasn't expecting Tali right after the Hitchiker's guide but damn it was good to see her on screen again. :D

Everything from the Lightcycle race to the discovery about where Unicron was being rebuilt and hiding out was just a blast to read through.

I find it interesting that UF-Gryphon feels that Tali'Shukra is the one he wants to be not-alone with out of all the other ladies he has been with over the years, was it the amount of time they spent together or simply that she is the most complimentary for him?

Also, Unicron is the Reaper of worlds? I think Shepard has found her reaper threat in the UF verse. :D


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Gryphonadmin
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22375 posts
Apr-07-11, 11:19 AM (EDT)
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6. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #3
 
   >I find it interesting that UF-Gryphon feels that Tali'Shukra is the
>one he wants to be not-alone with out of all the other ladies he has
>been with over the years, was it the amount of time they spent
>together or simply that she is the most complimentary for him?

These things don't really lend themselves to quantitative analysis.

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


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mdg1
Member since Aug-25-04
1326 posts
Apr-07-11, 06:24 AM (EDT)
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4. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #0
 
   Dammit. Now I have to rewrite that "UF fic I'd write if I ever got a chance" in my head :)

I was wondering when Tron tech would show. But I'm more amused at Spider-Jedi... I now picture Aunt May cooking breakfast and trying to get Yoda to eat more.

Mario


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Bushido
Member since Apr-8-10
376 posts
Apr-07-11, 08:24 AM (EDT)
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5. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #0
 
   It's entirely too convenient of a plot device to use, but they could always pull the AT&T (Armored Tyranny and Terror) sphere out of mothballs. Planet sized machine god, meet moon sized planet destroying super-weapon. Of course, you have to wonder if any of the usual suspects have been tinkering with it in the intervening twenty plus years just for the hell of it. Imagine the size of the Reflex furnace you could install in it.

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


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WereVulture
Member since Mar-11-10
5 posts
Apr-07-11, 11:22 AM (EDT)
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7. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #5
 
   Would you really want to take the chance that it becomes one of his hands?


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Gryphonadmin
Charter Member
22375 posts
Apr-07-11, 11:28 AM (EDT)
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9. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #5
 
   >It's entirely too convenient of a plot device to use, but they could
>always pull the AT&T (Armored Tyranny and Terror) sphere out of
>mothballs. Planet sized machine god, meet moon sized planet
>destroying super-weapon.

You might want to consider, as you envision this, that Alderaan wasn't armored, nor capable of maneuvering or counterattacking. That might affect the outcome somewhat. Also, it depends on your definition of "mothballs". :)

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


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Star Ranger4
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2483 posts
Apr-07-11, 12:19 PM (EDT)
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11. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #9
 
   >You might want to consider, as you envision this, that Alderaan wasn't
>armored, nor capable of maneuvering or counterattacking. That might
>affect the outcome somewhat. Also, it depends on your definition of
>"mothballs". :)
>

which in my mind is: the RRBG was stripped out for parts, as well as any power stations, control units, etc leaving just a big moon shaped hunka metal that might have enough power for limited life support.

Of COURSE you wernt
expecting it!
No One expects the
FANNISH INQUISITION!

RCW# 86


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Terminus Est
Member since Nov-5-04
569 posts
Apr-07-11, 12:11 PM (EDT)
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10. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #5
 
   I've spent twenty minutes trying to figure out a way to say "Holy Hell, a reflex cannon that big would probably punch a hole in the universe!" in a more scientific-sounding way, to little avail...


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Senji
Member since Apr-27-07
260 posts
Apr-07-11, 12:45 PM (EDT)
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12. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #10
 
   Reflex Cannon *do* punch a hole in the Universe, that's how they work, and it's the application of that principle peacefully that makes Reflex Fold possible.

Why didn't I see that before?


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Terminus Est
Member since Nov-5-04
569 posts
Apr-07-11, 12:56 PM (EDT)
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13. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #12
 
   I was thinking more along the lines of a permanent hole, or perhaps one into a different universe. I mean, that's a LOT of power to throw behind a weapon that breaks the laws of reality already.


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trigger
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1500 posts
Apr-07-11, 07:09 PM (EDT)
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14. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #0
 
  
The Gelth I expected. The shacking up offer, I did not. Nor did I expect, after all this time, for Gryph to be so broken.

I'm a hopeless romantic, and I had to read that part a couple times. Ye gods. After that the Unicron stuff hardly registered. It reminded me a bit of an English novel of manners. All that heartfelt, but utter restraint, and determination not to hurt, and not to damage. All without the adolescent angst. I'm impressed, but really, who acts like that outside of literature?

t.

Trigger Argee
trigger_argee@hotmail.com
Manon, Maccadon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." - HST


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-07-11, 09:14 PM (EDT)
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15. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #14
 
   LAST EDITED ON Apr-07-11 AT 09:15 PM (EDT)
 
>The Gelth I expected.

This produces a deeply entertaining mental image, inasmuch as the Gelth are the shrieky murderous ethereal aliens from the Charles Dickens episode of Doctor Who ("I'm gonna die in a dungeon! In Cardiff!"), not the rogue AI constructs from Mass Effect. :)

>The shacking up offer, I did not. Nor did I
>expect, after all this time, for Gryph to be so broken.

It's interesting that the scene gives you the impression that he's "broken", since that's not at all the effect I was aiming for. I mean, yes, he's bit preoccupied in that last scene, but that's largely because the sudden and unexpected encounter with the dread shadow of Unicron has quite knocked his other train of thought all ahoo and he needs to take a couple of moments to chase it all back into order again before he can articulate it, not because he's having some kind of a breakdown.

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


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The Traitor
Member since Feb-24-09
1197 posts
Apr-08-11, 01:42 AM (EDT)
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17. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #15
 
   The Unquiet Dead, if memory serves. Zombies in Cardiff... just go out on the streets at about three in the morning, get them in Victorian costume, and you don't have to do any other special effects. Cheap, too; WKD doesn't cost much...

---
"Together we will build an empire of a million shining suns." -- Dave, Dictator of Utopia.

Why yes, I am an ale-drinking middle-class spod, however did you guess...


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Matrix Dragon
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Apr-08-11, 04:17 AM (EDT)
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18. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #15
 
   >It's interesting that the scene gives you the impression that he's
>"broken", since that's not at all the effect I was aiming for. I
>mean, yes, he's bit preoccupied in that last scene, but that's largely
>because the sudden and unexpected encounter with the dread shadow of
>Unicron has quite knocked his other train of thought all ahoo and he
>needs to take a couple of moments to chase it all back into order
>again before he can articulate it, not because he's having some kind
>of a breakdown.

I didn't take it as a breakdown, so much as G admitting how much he wanted Tali in his life more. I quite liked that scene actually.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter


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trigger
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1500 posts
Apr-08-11, 02:08 PM (EDT)
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19. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #18
 
   - Sorry about the Gelth/Geth typo. That is kinda funny, isn't it? The Geth seem like an excellent Doctor Who enemy. So does Unicron.

>>It's interesting that the scene gives you the impression that he's
>>"broken", since that's not at all the effect I was aiming for. I
>>mean, yes, he's bit preoccupied in that last scene, but that's largely
>>because the sudden and unexpected encounter with the dread shadow of
>>Unicron has quite knocked his other train of thought all ahoo and he
>>needs to take a couple of moments to chase it all back into order
>>again before he can articulate it, not because he's having some kind
>>of a breakdown.
>
>I didn't take it as a breakdown, so much as G admitting how much he
>wanted Tali in his life more. I quite liked that scene actually.

I like the scene too. But you've got to admit, given how bloody passionate some of their correspondence has been, the whole scene is so underplayed.

That isn't so say there isn't love, and deep friendship oozing all over the scene, just that Gryph's way of asking so...out of character given all the other times he's asked someone out/to bed/marriage in UF. It wasn't even played as a joke. Just kinda rawly stated. Tali of course, called it right, which is what bought me back to the whole question: why is Gryph (who has his faults) charging across the universe to ask a woman a question she isn't expecting? That's why I thought he was broken. The sort of need his actions imply is pretty astonishing.

but hey, I probably have my drama queen hat on this week. Clearly been reading too much Heyer and Sayers this year. I should get back to my stats until this all passes...

t.


Trigger Argee
trigger_argee@hotmail.com
Manon, Maccadon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." - HST


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-08-11, 03:31 PM (EDT)
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20. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #19
 
   >why is Gryph (who has his faults) charging across the
>universe to ask a woman a question she isn't expecting?

Well... no time like the present!

>That's why I
>thought he was broken. The sort of need his actions imply is pretty
>astonishing.

He had intended to approach the matter somewhat differently, but the fact that he arrived to an imminent crisis that led directly to the discovery that the geth worship Unicron rather altered the case. His sudden appearance on the scene in the Dholen system, of all places, was supposed to seem whimsical - a bit of charming unpredictability - but that was in the same notional world of things-going-according-to-plan in which Tali's shuttle wasn't detected and her team didn't get wiped out by the geth. After all that happened instead of what they both were expecting, he probably would have put the question off altogether if she hadn't asked him about it - laid aside as inappropriate while the cosmic threat was still on the table.

Anyway, I certainly intended to present it so that it was obvious he was taking the whole thing very seriously - he believes, and I believe, that Tali deserves to be shown that up front - but, honestly, the wounded-animal effect was not intentional, at least not consciously so. It is something he feels very strongly about, but at the same time, he fully recognizes that she's probably got other stuff to do. He's trying very hard not to apply any pressure, or even give the appearance of applying pressure; and so, recognizing that this is Tali'Shukra he's dealing with here, after all, he just comes right out with it and lets the chips fall where they may. The simplest explanation is probably the best one - Ockham's razor.

>but hey, I probably have my drama queen hat on this week. Clearly
>been reading too much Heyer and Sayers this year.

It does bear a certain resemblance to the end of Gaudy Night, now that you bring Sayers up. "Placetne, magistra?" Though she hasn't led him nearly as merry a chase as Harriet led Lord Peter - at least not on purpose.

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


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trboturtle2
Member since Jul-4-09
210 posts
Apr-08-11, 09:04 PM (EDT)
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21. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #20
 
   Does Gryphon have someone keeping track of his lady friends? Seems like to me SOMEBODY has to be doing it...... B-D

Craig

----------------------------
IAMTW-Nominated Author

Author of the Battletech Novels, Icons of War,
Elements of Treason: Duty, Elements of Treason:
Opportunity
, and Elements of Treason: Honor

Co-author of Four Outcast Ops
novels -- African Firestorm, Red Ice, Watchlist, and
Shadow Government.

Author of the The Russia-Ukraine War Factbook (Vol 1)

All-around nice guy!


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-08-11, 09:25 PM (EDT)
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22. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #21
 
   >Does Gryphon have someone keeping track of his lady friends?

As in "has he assigned a member of staff to maintain a current record of where they are and what they're doing?" Er, no, not as such. There's a word for that sort of behavior.

--G.
"creepy"
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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Apostate_Soul
Member since Aug-22-08
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Apr-16-11, 04:28 PM (EDT)
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47. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #22
 
  
>There's a word for that sort of behavior.

I would have said "Cullenesque".

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


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Bushido
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Apr-17-11, 06:55 AM (EDT)
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48. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #22
 
   Gryphon isn't the type of person to do it, but that doesn't mean Vision hasn't taken it upon herself to keep an eye on them. If nothing else, if any of them got into the kind of trouble they couldn't handle on their own (which is a lot of trouble given how competent the ladies in question are) Gryphon would want to hear about it in time to help.

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


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The Traitor
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Apr-17-11, 01:50 PM (EDT)
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49. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #22
 
   I think the other person didn't so much mean "stalking every girl he ever hung around with for more'n two seconds" as they did "some poor sap trying desperately to remember all their names for reference later".

And in answer to that, insofar as I can offer a credible answer... probably Gryphon himself. If nothing else, he could probably rejig the memory parts of his brain via fine-tuned Detian biocontrol to dredge up some fact from ages ago about who the hot chick currently flirting with him/pointing a large firearm at his head/having at him with a sharp thing actually is.

---
"Together we will build an empire of a million shining suns." -- Dave, Dictator of Utopia.

"So... you broke my jaw with a monkey wrench, then beat all the hell out of my ribs, six of which are cracked and leaking bone marrow, and finally you kissed me. You must be Erica... aw hell, are you arm-breaky or leg-breaky Erica?"


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trboturtle2
Member since Jul-4-09
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Apr-17-11, 07:39 PM (EDT)
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50. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #49
 
   >I think the other person didn't so much mean "stalking every girl he
>ever hung around with for more'n two seconds" as they did "some poor
>sap trying desperately to remember all their names for reference
>later".
>
>And in answer to that, insofar as I can offer a credible answer...
>probably Gryphon himself. If nothing else, he could probably rejig the
>memory parts of his brain via fine-tuned Detian biocontrol to dredge
>up some fact from ages ago about who the hot chick currently flirting
>with him/pointing a large firearm at his head/having at him with a
>sharp thing actually is.
>
That's what I meant -- not that he would have a lot of time to stalk any girl. But it does seem that most of the women he gets involved with seem to have a knack of ending up in trouble every so often (while most don't need his help for most cases, every so often they get in over heir heads....)

Craig

----------------------------
IAMTW-Nominated Author

Author of the Battletech Novels, Icons of War,
Elements of Treason: Duty, Elements of Treason:
Opportunity
, and Elements of Treason: Honor

Co-author of Four Outcast Ops
novels -- African Firestorm, Red Ice, Watchlist, and
Shadow Government.

Author of the The Russia-Ukraine War Factbook (Vol 1)

All-around nice guy!


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BeardedFerret
Member since Apr-21-08
514 posts
Apr-09-11, 11:02 AM (EDT)
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23. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #18
 
   >>It's interesting that the scene gives you the impression that he's
>>"broken", since that's not at all the effect I was aiming for. I
>>mean, yes, he's bit preoccupied in that last scene, but that's largely
>>because the sudden and unexpected encounter with the dread shadow of
>>Unicron has quite knocked his other train of thought all ahoo and he
>>needs to take a couple of moments to chase it all back into order
>>again before he can articulate it, not because he's having some kind
>>of a breakdown.
>
>I didn't take it as a breakdown, so much as G admitting how much he
>wanted Tali in his life more. I quite liked that scene actually.

I agree, I think it's a good and quite raw scene, but I still kind of hope Tali ultimately turns him down. Not because she doesn't love him, but because that's not what their relationship is anymore, and (perhaps) Gryph swinging back to pick her up might seem as if he's regressing back to Exile Gryphon, with all that that entails. Beyond that, I reckon she works better as that kind of friend, the near-miss, what-if type that was presented so well in the Correspondance shorts.


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-07-11, 10:15 PM (EDT)
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16. "I should point out..."
In response to message #0
 
   ... since Minis don't have annotations, that "Separate Ways" isn't actually here as a Tron Legacy reference at all; it's intended to hearken back to the use of the same track in Undocumented Features Volume Four: Crossroads.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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Bodhi
Member since Jan-19-09
24 posts
Apr-09-11, 09:10 PM (EDT)
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24. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #0
 
   Okay, so I'm just a little late to this party, but I had such an intense response to this mini that I thought, "what the hell?"

First and foremost I like how the character of Tali and UF-Gryphon's interaction with her hasn't changed. Deepened, matured, yes. But he still is willing to drop anything and everything for her in a crisis and she knows that, and would doubtlessly return the same. She is damn self-reliant, almost dangerously, recklessly so when it's just her neck on the line. I like how that is expressly stated almost as a reason for her not to contact him when things went pear-shaped. And, it feels to me that that is his justification for being willing to come to her "rescue". More simply, it feels like not so much a reunion as a continuance of an ongoing interaction.

I'd kinda like to see a database entry on Peter Parker, OJK.

I admit is somewhat odd that given all of the humanoid women that associate themselves with Gryphon, he'd seek out the one that he is the least biologically compatible with. Any other considerations aside, and unless I completely missed some detail, they can't even hold hands without one of them being in an encounter suit. On the other hand, maybe he missed her.

It didn't offend Tali'Shukra that her son thought she was a soft-sided theoretician with little practical field experience. He wasn't to know that she'd spent the decade before his birth almost constantly on the move, having adventures that made most of his naval career seem like a cushy job at an insurance company. He'd never asked and she hadn't volunteered.

That made me laugh. What do you mean that your parents were people long before your came about? Kids, always tactfully ask your parents those penetrating questions, like "So, mom do you have any experience with personal weapons and combat?" or "Hey, isn't that friend of yours, Benjamin actually over 400 years old and a bona-fide samurai?" It might save on the embarrassment.

Anyway, great work as always. Nice to see that your talent for interlacing the various details of the source material is still deft.

- Bodhi

It was a wise man who once said that our enemies make us powerful, but our friends teach us humility. - Don't know where I borrowed this, but I'm not that eloquent and I like the message.


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Eric Heckathorn
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Apr-09-11, 09:17 PM (EDT)
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25. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #24
 
   >Any other considerations
>aside, and unless I completely missed some detail, they can't even
>hold hands without one of them being in an encounter suit.

If you haven't already, you might want to read Star-Crossed and Correspondence. This issue is addressed there.


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-09-11, 10:23 PM (EDT)
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26. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #24
 
   LAST EDITED ON Apr-09-11 AT 10:34 PM (EDT)
 
>I admit is somewhat odd that given all of the humanoid women that
>associate themselves with Gryphon, he'd seek out the one that he is
>the least biologically compatible with.

Well, you know how it is. Bunty Bailey's character from the "Take On Me" video wasn't available; you make do.

>Any other considerations
>aside, and unless I completely missed some detail, they can't even
>hold hands without one of them being in an encounter suit. On the
>other hand, maybe he missed her.

Oh, Mordin took care of that ages ago. They think. They've never actually had an opportunity to test it.

>Anyway, great work as always. Nice to see that your talent for
>interlacing the various details of the source material is still deft.

I wasn't quite sure that bridging the Tron elements over to the "real" world was going to fly, but once I had the sequence all put together, it worked for me. And I've got an explanation for where that technology comes from and why it looks like that on one of the other burners; there are oblique callouts to it in parts of this text. So that's something to look forward to, if you're into that kind of thing...

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


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Eric Heckathorn
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Apr-09-11, 10:29 PM (EDT)
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27. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #26
 
   >Oh, Morden took care of that ages ago. They think. They've never
>actually had an opportunity to test it.

"What do you want?"

"Well..."

;)


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-09-11, 10:33 PM (EDT)
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28. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #27
 
   >>Oh, Morden took care of that ages ago. They think. They've never
>>actually had an opportunity to test it.
>
>"What do you want?"
>
>"Well..."

"Funny story. Turns out I can't make a simple vowel selection error without somebody in this joint thinks he's a comedian!"

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


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Star Ranger4
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Apr-10-11, 02:08 AM (EDT)
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29. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #28
 
   >>>Oh, Morden took care of that ages ago. They think. They've never
>>>actually had an opportunity to test it.
>>
>>"What do you want?"
>>
>>"Well..."
>
>"Funny story. Turns out I can't make a simple vowel selection error
>without somebody in this joint thinks he's a comedian!"
>
And this surprises you HOW?

Of COURSE you wernt
expecting it!
No One expects the
FANNISH INQUISITION!

RCW# 86


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Meagen
Member since Jul-14-02
567 posts
Apr-10-11, 07:07 AM (EDT)
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30. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #28
 
   >>>Oh, Morden took care of that ages ago. They think. They've never
>>>actually had an opportunity to test it.
>>
>>"What do you want?"
>>
>>"Well..."
>
>"Funny story. Turns out I can't make a simple vowel selection error
>without somebody in this joint thinks he's a comedian!"
>

Hey, as with the Geth/Gelth example above, when you have a universe this big, sometimes a simple typo makes the word refer to a completely different thing that also exists, with hilarious results.

--
With great power come great perks.


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Bitstream
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Apr-10-11, 12:03 PM (EDT)
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31. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #0
 
   So, huh. I wonder if this is why the geth were specifically abducting Minicons then. Considering the source material makes an explicit connection between them and Unicron. A connection that was promptly ignored, but still.

I do love that the unexpected reveal of Unicron's influence can still fill me with a sense of looming dread.


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JFerio
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Apr-10-11, 12:35 PM (EDT)
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32. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #31
 
   I suspect that it's concurrently enough with the goings on in Cybertron Reloaded that they basically don't have the information YET on what the Geth were doing.

Odds are they'll find out the hard way.





Jeffrey 'JFerio' Crouch
'It'll be all right... I think.' - Nene Romanova



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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-10-11, 01:34 PM (EDT)
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33. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #32
 
   >I suspect that it's concurrently enough with the goings on in
>Cybertron Reloaded that they basically don't have the information YET
>on what the Geth were doing.

Yes. "Holiday" is happening the day after the Little Iacon incursion, when the Autobots have only just started processing the intel that was gathered during the operation. That's what Optimus Prime is talking about when he says "particularly in light of some things that have happened here over the past few days," in his Lens conversation with Gryphon. (That and a few things that are happening in CR6. Basically, there's a lot going on that week, geth-wise.)

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


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dstar
Member since Oct-19-02
153 posts
Apr-11-11, 01:03 AM (EDT)
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38. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #33
 
   >(That and a few things that are happening in CR6. Basically, there's a lot >going on that week, geth-wise.)

You know, teasing like that could drive a man to Real Genius quotes. (But at least it's not a cliffhanger.)


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Bitstream
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Apr-10-11, 07:36 PM (EDT)
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34. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #32
 
   >I suspect that it's concurrently enough with the goings on in
>Cybertron Reloaded that they basically don't have the information YET
>on what the Geth were doing.
>
>Odds are they'll find out the hard way.


Of course, I can't imagine they have any idea themselves. I was mostly playing the speculation game here. Strong familiarity with the source material can be a curse around here, leading down a lot of blind alleys. Lucky for me it's always been about a 50/50 blend. (For instance, huge Transformers geek, never played Mass Effect.)


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dstar
Member since Oct-19-02
153 posts
Apr-11-11, 01:01 AM (EDT)
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37. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #34
 
   >(For instance, huge Transformers geek, never played Mass Effect.)

You should, if you like RPGs and don't absolutely loathe first-person shooters. I didn't try ME until a year or two ago, because of the FPS aspects, but I finally got interested enough to try it thanks to Gryphon et al (I believe it was Star-crossed that did it, but I may be mixing up the order of events) and really liked it.


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Bitstream
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Apr-13-11, 05:37 AM (EDT)
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45. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #37
 
   Oh, it's definitely got my interest. I just lack the hardware! The series has been on the top of my "I'd play it if I could" list for ages.


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-10-11, 08:44 PM (EDT)
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35. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #31
 
   >So, huh. I wonder if this is why the geth were specifically abducting
>Minicons then. Considering the source material makes an explicit
>connection between them and Unicron.

Oh! I've only just parsed this properly - you're talking about the link between the Mini-Cons of Transformers Armada and that continuity's version of Unicron. For some daft reason I thought you were talking about a link between the geth and Unicron (by analogy with the link between the geth and Sovereign in the first Mass Effect), and that the Autobots had then "promptly ignored" it in CR5, when in fact it's just that they don't know about it yet.

Phew! That's actually a lot less confusing than I thought it was at first. :)

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


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Bitstream
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Apr-10-11, 11:51 PM (EDT)
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36. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #35
 
  
>Phew! That's actually a lot less confusing than I thought it was at
>first. :)

Hah! Sorry, I should have been more clear. I did wonder why the main point of my musing had been sidestepped, heh. Yes, you have it exactly.

I'm afraid my knowledge of the other half of this source material here (the Mass Effect games) is quite small.


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CdrMike
Member since Feb-20-05
889 posts
Apr-11-11, 03:17 PM (EDT)
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41. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #35
 
   >For some daft reason I thought you
>were talking about a link between the geth and Unicron (by
>analogy with the link between the geth and Sovereign in the first
>Mass Effect), and that the Autobots had then "promptly
>ignored" it in CR5, when in fact it's just that they don't know
>about it yet.

Seeing Unicron and Sovereign in the same paragraph now has me thinking of the infamous exchange on Virmire, only now with a wireframe of Unicron instead.

"You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it."

--------------------------
CdrMike, Overwatch Reject

"You know, the world could always use more heroes." - Tracer, Overwatch


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Phantom
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Apr-20-11, 06:42 PM (EDT)
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51. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #35
 
   Gryph,
Excellent story! And thank you for setting up this Tali as the grandmother of the ME/ME2 Tali. I loved your version, but I also loved ME Tali.

Once again packed full of completely independent tech that is masterfully fused together in a way that we can believe.

I look forward to see CR6 and more.

To Those that question why Tali as a companion, Re-Read Star-Crossed.
Since Kei, even during the exile, Gryph was very seldom as close to anyone as he was with Tali.

Now I am still hoping Kei comes back, but then first crushes die hard ;)

The Phantom
"When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."


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Meagen
Member since Jul-14-02
567 posts
Apr-11-11, 03:56 AM (EDT)
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39. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #31
 
   >So, huh. I wonder if this is why the geth were specifically abducting
>Minicons then. Considering the source material makes an explicit
>connection between them and Unicron.

Wait, so if Unicron is basically Satan, and Minicons are basically Pokemon, does that mean the writers of that bit of Transformers were saying that...

--
With great power come great perks.


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Matrix Dragon
Charter Member
1893 posts
Apr-11-11, 01:49 PM (EDT)
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40. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #39
 
   >Wait, so if Unicron is basically Satan, and Minicons are basically
>Pokemon, does that mean the writers of that bit of Transformers were
>saying that...

Don't go there. The Fandom's done every single joke. To Death. Several times over. Besides, the comic never took the pokemon approach, and the show stopped that entirely right as they started hinting at Unicron.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter


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Tzukumori
Member since Jul-9-03
98 posts
Apr-12-11, 03:19 AM (EDT)
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42. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #0
 
   LAST EDITED ON Apr-12-11 AT 03:20 AM (EDT)
 
Admiral Zorah had been against assigning the mission to the Explorer-rated ship commanded by his own mother, but not because he was worried about her safety. Rather, he insisted, he lacked confidence in her ability to deal with complications that might arise, since she had spent his entire life as a Halo researcher and come to exploration only recently. The others, knowing that her technical prowess exceeded that of any other Explorer captain in the Quarian Navy, overruled him.

Gryph:

"since she had spent _his_ entire life" -- am I parsing that correctly as a strange, albeit creative, way of saying "since she, as far as -he- knew, had spent -her- entire life a Halo researcher"?

-T.Z.

==================================================
"I believe that when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.
Then find someone whose life gives them vodka and have a party."
--Ron White, stand-up comedian.
==================================================


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Matrix Dragon
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1893 posts
Apr-12-11, 03:53 AM (EDT)
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43. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #42
 
   By the time Rael was born, Tali was working on Halo full time. It never occurred to him to consider what she did BEFORE that.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter


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Tzukumori
Member since Jul-9-03
98 posts
Apr-12-11, 06:28 AM (EDT)
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44. "RE: CR/NF: Holiday in the Sun"
In response to message #43
 
   -She had spent last week...
-She had spent the last year...
-She had spent three summers...
-She had spent his entire life...

Oh, I get it now.

The syntax just gave me pause, that's all. I've never seen "Person A doing something for a duration of time that was expressed from the third-person context of Person B" expressed that way before. I usually see it written as "All his life/as far back as he could remember, she had been doing <insert thingy here>".

-T.Z.
==================================================

"I believe that when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.
Then find someone whose life gives them vodka and have a party."
--Ron White, stand-up comedian.

==================================================


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