Alas, Rogue Squadron. I even know how the rest of it goes, I just can't get it to come out in a form I'm at all happy with. It's tragic. I must be getting old.

>Man you understand yourself G.

Well, somebody has to. :)

>Somehow I cant see Cartwright having such a hate on for G,
>but thats probobly because I really buy into all the happy smily
>future that StarTrek prefers to present.

Well, that's not the specific reason why he was escaping; it's just what came to mind to ask Valeris to do when it became clear that he wasn't going to get out. But yeah, they've never liked each other. Cartwright, as a newly minted rear admiral, was responsible for shutting down the old civilian observer program under which G used to tag along on the Enterprise, and was more than a little nonplussed when G's response was to just shrug and join Starfleet. It went, as we saw in The Final Simulation, downhill from there. :)

>And the fact that Zoner just happened to be there when
>Valeris finally made it to Duke? screams either Chaos making an early
>claim on him and nudging him along, or possibly related to the call
>Grissom made.

That, or he really had been asleep on that couch since the beginning of the year. :)

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

Expect nothing. Enjoy everything. :)

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

Heh. Like that, but no Super Mutants. (I didn't have time for a random fight scene there, though I'm sure the Manhunt video game would have one. :)

>I do believe you broke Valeris. Or, if you didn't break her, you
>certainly voided the warranty.

She has the worst luck with telepathic encounters.

>Rick Sterling and Max Hunter, and Max being an Andorian...okay, you
>got me there.

Heh, I was wondering if anyone would notice that. I was very careful not to use the word "Andorian" there, just for funsies.

>I meant to ask this last chapter, but is Chief Giotto by chance
>related to a one LtC. Giotto, formerly of the good ship Enterprise?

His nephew, I believe.

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

Offsides

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>

Oh, you're probably right, though I hate to think of him as so calculatingly cruel, setting her up for an ordeal like that without so much as a warning. It seems almost villainously high-handed. Still, he had had the kind of day that makes a man feel like Ming the Merciless, and he probably didn't know it was going to hurt that much. I mean, yes, he was there (well, nearby, he didn't leave the Enterprise) when Spock nearly blew the top of his head off mind-melding with VGER, but even Raoul Duke isn't a galaxy-spanning machine intelligence. :)

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

Maybe not, but his mind needs to be a controlled substance... He wouldn't notice the difference :)

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

Justice League Unlimited, I believe.

>I have to say, the tone of it all is not very... Exile-y.

I'm not sure I could pull off the full Exile tone any longer, at least not without feeling like a complete ponce. :)

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

Looking forward to the rest!

Offsides

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>

Well, I would say that it's likely a side effect of Gryphon spending a couple of solid decades in a place where he wasn't constantly checking his six for the slug or energy bolt intended to finally punch his ticket. Such a breather, even someplace that technically wasn't 'home', would make for very much an improved attitude. :)

I get the feeling that what Our Most Majestic Leader is doing to Secrets will eventually be done to a lot of the older tales - or at least the ones He wrote, anyways. The backstory and universe (for want of a better word) in His earlier work is definitely less explored than is the case now. I've written a bit (admittedly it's rubbish, but hey) and the feeling of improvement, of knowing that you're mastering something you love to do, is one of the most intoxicating I've ever felt.

Okay, THAT was pretentious. I feel quite silly.

---
"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

Given that it's Joyce, odds are it's both. :)

>I get the feeling that what Our Most Majestic Leader is doing to
>Secrets will eventually be done to a lot of the older tales

Oh, Lord, I hope not. I feel bad enough about the time I'm spending on this one as it is, what with all the stories I haven't told once already that are languishing unfinished.

>least the ones He wrote

Please don't do this. Seriously, I know you mean the high-flown language and the capital pronouns to be flattering, but it's just... uncomfortable. As a friend-of-a-friend reportedly explained to someone who had him mixed up with his City of Villains character, I'm not really a sex-god supervillain. I like the boards best when we can all just converse like normal people. That may be oxymoronic, given that this is a board dedicated to a crossover fanfic, but there it is.

>and the feeling of improvement, of knowing that you're mastering
>something you love to do, is one of the most intoxicating I've ever
>felt.
>
>Okay, THAT was pretentious. I feel quite silly.

It's true, though. Being good at stuff is fun. My own fondness for that sensation has sabotaged my efforts more than once in life, for the simple reason that the converse is also true. I hate being bad at stuff, to the point where I'm often unable to stick with things long enough to pass through the inept newb phase and get to competence. It's why I can't really play the guitar, among many other things.

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

Okay then, Lord Of The Most- sorry. Conditioned response. People often tell me I'd've made a good herald at jousts...

I am aware you are not a sex-god supervillain, katana-wielding vigilante policeman, interdimensional traveller or Time Lord, depending on what one reads of yours. What you are is awesome, and I have a tendency to babble incoherently when faced with figures I aspire to be like. The fact that I babble incoherently a lot of the time anyway is neither here nor there.

Besides, the day I'm described as even remotely normal is a cause of great worry amongst the powers that be...

---
"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

I think Gryph's trying to point out that it's OK to just be whoever you are here, and not whoever you are to make an impression on a large room of folks you're somewhat intimidated by. Really. ;)

Ard Collier
that Janice chick
Usual Suspect and general menace

---
"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

We're fanfic authors. Believe me, it's not a glorious calling and it endows us with no superior attributes. For instance, Wedge still leaves the seat up. ;)

Ard Collier
that Janice chick
Usual Suspect and general menace

Do not do yourselves down. 'S'my job. OK, so you use other material. So? So did the authors of the Star Trek novels, and the Star Wars EU books... Using prior sources matters not a jot if you can make those sources your own. And the EPU staffers pull that off with aplomb.

Gah, I'm going all pretentious again. Gods above, help me! I'm turning into The South Bank Show!

---
"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

Not *always.* Geeze.

	Chad Collier Smirking Kilrathi The Captain of the Gravy Train

What?!? I'm ashamed of you. You know you are supposed to leave it up all the time. It's a guy thing! ;)

Michael

(trained by my first ex-wife to leave it down by her putting her wet butt against me at 3am....)

	Michael C. Fortner RCW #2n+1 "I smoke in moderation. Only one cigar at a time." -- Mark Twain

And Ard still mocks me for my commentary at a fanfic panel at Anime Boston on fanfiction.net.

(which was me miming curbstomping a theoretical being who represented the Pit of Voles.)

--
Geoff Depew - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lord of Sith Tech Support.
"And Remember! Google is your Friend!!"

"I... have had... enough of you!"

(sfx shot: ff.net falls into the volcano)

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

I would say the word "huge" there is verging a bit on bathos. (*) I'd have used something more in the same tone, like "immense" or "enormous", or at least "great". But I'm not an editor and the sentence didn't particularly jump out at me until you pointed it out.

>The writing here is good, but it's also somewhat artificial. Utena's
>rather a casual person and at a time of high crisis would she think in
>full sentences with nicely rounded periods? Probably not.

Utena has rather a lot of experience at contemplating Life, The Universe And Everything in the middle of deadly combat, and the paragraph you quoted shows up during a comparative lull in the fighting. Anyway, I don't think I'd enjoy having to wade through attempts at stream-of-consciousness at that particular point in the plot.

>Why do I say this (esp. so soon after "Clarion Call")? Well, because
>Manhunt could have been written (and can be read) without
>reading any of the source material.

I think this tendency is much older than Manhunt - it's a staple of Eyrie works. If I'm reading an Eyrie story, I can be sure that characters I don't know will be introduced and important plot events from their canon will be at least alluded to when necessary. Split Infinitive is one of the few exceptions to this rule (and not having seen the older Star Trek movies, I can't really make much sense of it other than the general outlines).

>You can strip away the Star Trek, sci-fi, BGC, and HST references and
>you'd still have a great story about a man wrongly accused and
>fighting to prove his innocence.

Eyrie still relies heavily on the sci-fi underpinnings, though. Even if the technology mostly serves as a handwavey explanation for why the heroes can do awesome reality-defying stuff (it's kind of like the magic in the Nanoha-verse in that way).

(*) I use this term not to sound all smrt and literary, but to create an opportunity to quote my favourite sentence ever: There will be bloody riots and savage insurrections leading to a violent popular uprising unless the regime starts being lots nicer about stuff.

Meagen

Bear in mind - I admit it's hard to tell in the old USENET format, where I can't use italics - that this isn't Utena's internal monologue being quoted here. It's not actually what she's thinking, it's the semi-omniscient narrator describing what she's thinking, and unlike her, he has time to finish his sentences. :)

I'm glad you like the bit from the end of Collect Telegram - I was very fond of the "little kingdom/little king" line when it came to me.

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

There are actually two deliberate O'Brien references in Collect Telegram; the other is somewhat more oblique. :)

>I am obliged to you for not
>repeating Dr. Maturin's wretched clench about the origin of the
>dogwatch in Manhunt 2.)

It's quite unnecessary - by the 2300s, everyone in Starfleet is well aware that they're called dogwatches because they're curtailed.

(Even, I am amused to note, the Wikipedia indulges in this definition, on its page about naval watches. :)

>I wonder if Utena may one day essay preparing a plum duff or
>lobscouse?

It's very difficult to do a proper Georgian pudding aboard a 25th-century starship, if only because suet is so hard to come by under those circumstances. Still, if they're ever hosting either of the Malcolms Reed, it might do to essay it, just to make an old Royal Navy man feel at home. Lobscouse is entirely possible, though if you have the bits to make lobscouse, you could just as easily do the ship's usual belgad stew.

>(And BTW, I'm glad to finally see some of the TOS crew get to do
>something more in UF than hang around in the background. Well,
>excepting, of course, Scotty!)

Jim Kirk's had a couple of cameos before! But I do confess that including the Enterprise and her crew in this piece (by extension from their appearance in Founders' Day) has made me re-think what they're like in the UF universe. I keep picturing them as they were in, say, Star Trek VI, but clearly they're much closer to their TOS ages when we first see them here in Manhunt, and assuming they did well at Second Zeta Cygni, they're probably still much closer to their TOS ages in the Symphony era. :)

One of these days, I'll have to do up a mini detailing how, when, and why Kirk's Enterprise made the jump from Starfleet to the WDF. As you might imagine, it'll have to do (at least peripherally) with their part in Manhunt.

I also have a mini banging around in my head about the other Enterprise, and it's conceivable that that will emerge first. It's hard to say with minis. They come and go as they please, even more so than regular stories.

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

Oh yes, and I took note of the good corvette Surprise. (Though, being smaller than a frigate, it really should have been the Sophie.)

-Joe-

You're probably right about that. (Oh, and if you went back and re-read the Colonial Fleet BPGD, ignore what it says about the Enterprise having been uprated per the Motion Picture in 2373. It's 2380 in Manhunt and that hasn't happened yet. In fact, it seems entirely plausible that the specs for the famous Enterprise refit came from Invincible. Which makes sense, in a way, since G helped Scotty with that redesign over in the Split Infinitive universe in the first place - having invented the original ship in his home dimension. Cross-time travel is so very confusing sometimes. :)

>Oh yes, and I took note of the good corvette Surprise. (Though,
>being smaller than a frigate, it really should have been the
>Sophie.)

Heh, you're quite right, though it wouldn't have interacted nearly so well with the dialogue.

Other names considered in the studio for the vessel in question included Black Pearl, Big Time Television, and Not the Little Belt - a deliciously obscure historical reference if ever there was one. We eventually decided on HMS Surprise because it's a triple reference: to the Jack Aubrey books; as the future namesake of the IPSF frigate class; and as a nod to the Klingon bird-of-prey in Star Trek IV, the HMS Bounty.

Incidentally, the second Surprise-class frigate to be built will be the IPS Not the Little Belt, "because that's what we almost named the old Surprise." :)

Also, I miscounted earlier; counting the name of the Surprise, there are three deliberate references to the Jack Aubrey books in Collect Telegram. See if you can spot the third one! (Or possibly find a fourth that I've already managed to forget I used. :)

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

1) "Avast That Bloody Hammering Day" and the subsequent care taken by Gryphon's crew not to wake him up. I remember several occasions on which the hands were _very_ careful not to disturb Jack or Stephen after one of them had really been through the wringer. But I may be reaching here.

2) G awarding Prescott an "acting order" as lieutenant. May not be specifically Aubrey-ish, but Jack does this on any number of occasions in the series.

3) This fellow, Bainbridge. I wonder if he's a descendant of the same Captain Bainbridge who commanded the USS Constitution (both in RL and in The Fortune of War, when Jack was aboard HMS Java at the time of its unfortunate and terminal run-in with the former).

Well, there's a fourth, though it's indirect rather than direct. The whole business with Gryphon taking a small crew and heading off in a tearing hurry ("There is not a minute to be lost!") reminds me of the time, in The Wine-Dark Sea, that Jack loaded up a boat with several of his best seamen and tore off to Peru to try to intercept an escaped detainee who was in a position to bollix up a particularly delicate mission that Stephen was on.

Of course, I may be totally off the mark with all of these conjectures!

-Joe-

Circle gets the square! On the morning after his first night aboard the Sophie in Master & Commander, Jack discovers to his chagrin that the ship's carpenters are following his instructions to move the bulkhead at the front of his cabin, which is right next to his head, first thing in the morning. They are under the mistaken impression that he's not in there until his voice suddenly roars out, "Avast that bloody hammering!"

I did say it was oblique. :)

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

2) Is 'circle gets the square' perchance a reference to The World's Hardest Game?

---
"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

Those of us who have been around long enough to know how big game shows were in the 80's and early 90's know a Hollywood Squares reference when we see it. =)

YouTube almost certainly has episodes, and I doubt there is one episode of that show that does not contain the line 'Circle gets the square!' somewhere in it.

"They say one should not speak unkindly of the dead, so I say, 'nice try'." --Lezard

Feel free to beat me with sticks.

---
"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

So I'll just grump at you and say, "When I was your age, there weren't mini-stories in the forums to read! They were still writing the first Symphony!" and shake my not-quite-as-old-as-the-authors stick at ye.

Offsides

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>

-Joe-

What, you don't stock your galleys with Suet? How are you ever going to make Plum Pudding for Christmas Day? :-)

S.

It's from part of Pink Floyd's The Wall, but I can't remember which specific track. (One of the "Another Brick in the Wall"s, perhaps?)

>Was Cartwright breaking her out, or was he escaping and bringing her
>along as
>a fellow conspiritor? Sure, you say a couple of paragraphs later
>Cartwright
>is a disgraced admiral, but that still doesnt mean he's a fellow
>prisoner...

Ah. Well, let me clarify. Cartwright was indeed a prisoner, locked up for the same thing Valeris was, and the escape was organized for him; but he got shot by a guard and couldn't go on (he's not a young man any more at that point), so he sent Valeris instead. What he would have done after escaping is unclear (presumably his outside conspirators had plans, and since Valeris couldn't accomplish them they just turned her loose, since Cartwright sent word that he wanted it that way).

>>(for some
>>strange reason, Hutchins always stopped at 401 inbound from rimward
>>exploration, rather than proceeding straight to Spacedock),
>
>Only strange to an outsider. I'm willing to bet 401 is more tollerant
>of 'decompressing' spacers than Spacedock is, what with it being right
>there in orbit over HQ.

This is true. The choice of 401, specifically, has to do with the number of his room back on the SDF-17, but that's not something anyone but his closest friends in that universe would know.

>Though I'd have thought he might have some
>concern over one or more of the crew being AWOL at departure, then
>again
>how could he know just what it meant?

Valeris's "victim" was probably a member of the starbase engineering crew. The uniforms look pretty much the same.

>Is Max full or only part Andorian?

Full. "Maximilian Hunter" is a translation of his Andorian name, which is long and difficult to say.

>Now how did Hunter know Spock should be on his way?

He knows that Valeris escaped from Starfleet custody and that Spock was the last Starfleet officer to question her. He also knows Spock very, very well. This was meant to be one of the first indications of that latter fact.

>*Snerk* The sort of doctor that you worry when she's NICE... cause
>it means
>your probobly a few seconds from Done falling over, eh?

Actually, in Selar's case the obvious thing would be to worry that she's about to DFO if she starts acting nice. :)

>I take it
>this is to establish Jamie's love of all things Klingon predates their
>arrival.

She was one of the first Starfleet officers to serve aboard a Klingon ship - before the Khitomer Accord, albeit briefly and unofficially.

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

Actually from "The Happiest Days of Our Lives", the short little piece right before "Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2". The lyric starts:

When we grew up and went to school
There were certain teachers who
Would hurt the children any way they could...

-- Bob
-------------------
Five years ago I was a four-stone apology. Today I am two separate gorillas.