Drunkard's Walk Forums

Character: Wire Geek, written by Kokuten
Notable Mundane Attributes:
*Yeah, I know a guy: For pretty much anything, he knows someone who can make it happen, or knows somone who knows someone.. not a fixer, a fixer _finder_.
*Yeah, I know a guy.. I'll have _him_ call _you_: Sure he can get you a thousand frammistats, or find someone who can supply you with young flesh (nutritional, sacramental, or sexual?) But you'll never get contact information, you'll get contacted. WG covers his sources religiously and in a most paranoid fashion.
Wait, wait, wait, do it _this_ way: WG learns systems rather quickly, though he's never really 'mastered' anything other than mining and oresmithing. Can-do good enough to get by on almost anything, and can learn himself up enough to get by.
It's all just Pascal to me!: WG cannot code, and has an active interest in not learning.
'Wavium Abilities: The 'Wavium biomod occured shortly before he left the planet, and worked out about as he planned. Going in a normal human, WG came out a dwarf.
You'll have... My Axe!: WG resembles a Tolkien dwarf, except he's usually wearing scrubby overalls, or black jeans and t-shirts. The resemblance is not just skin deep, he's relentlessly strong, works with earths and ores, and wields an axe to great effect.
Can't see shit, captain: While WG doesn't have very good far vision, his sense of touch, hearing, and smell, as well as his near vision, are very good. VERY good. Operating a bit outside the higher range of normal human ability, WG is able to effectively leverage his enhanced senses to work better with all manner of mining-related or technological tools.
Quirks:
Oh, did I say that?: WG can only handle so much personal interaction before the filters between his brain and his mouth start to fail. Depending on what he thinks, this may get him slapped, punched, or shot. These three have all occured before. This was a part of him, and it got signifigantly worse with the 'Wavium. Normally kicks in after three days of close quarters with strange people.
Oh, that's.. you?: Low Charisma. The Wavium left him lumpy and bumpy. Can pass in a crowd with well tailored clothing.. usually.
WOOO!: WG doesn't attend cons - but he's been known to throw very boisterous, short lived parties. Boisterous, to the tune of asteroids vaporized or gone missing, personnel showing up on the other side of the system afterwards with embarassing tattoos, and some of the best late-70's classic rock ever broadcast on conventional radio.
Because We Can!: Approximately 40% of WG's time is spent on projects that are.. nonsensical, nine times out of ten. A Trout-powered optical interpolation engine (should have gotten 50 or 60 megapixels of data out of a 2 megapixel image, ended up getting .05 megapixels out of a 2 megapixel image), a cosmic scale potato cannon (can fire the common potato at .3c, whereupon.. it immediately disintegrates in the cosmic particle wash), and on, and on.
Occasionaly, the nonsense projects pan out. Indeed, most of WG's profit comes from sales of a simple, easy to use communications module, which translates across almost all comm systems, and can clip into the interwave transmitters to rebroadcast, usually 802.11w, the current 5.8ghz wi-fi spec.
Ship:
Ship Name: Foundry Hephaestus

Created by Nicholas Casler (Wiregeek, Kokuten)
Registry Number:HSF-000
Base Hull: ten acres of good Alaskan glacial moraine, Portland/Handwavium Cement substructure and framework, pseudo-organic pseudo-geodesic air shield.
Drive Type: Speed (Adjusted Mass reactionless engine) (max velocity 0.001C)
Owner of Record: Dwarven Mining and Metalsmithing Unltd.
Flag of Record: Hephaestus was an unflagged private vessel until such time as the Fen flag was available.
Purpose: Mining and metalworking, heavy salvage and repair.
Launched: September 20th, 2009
Crew:
*Wire Geek 'Geek' (Notional Captain, chief of mining and salvage)
*Sparky (Chief of operations)
*'Doc' Raven (Chief of repair and maintenance)
*Hermes (AI, majordomo and computer core)
Supplementary Crew:
* Freyja (AI, chief medic, morale officer)
* Vioarr (AI, chief pilot HSF-009 stealth scout)
* Millie (AI, chief pilot HSF-006 dispatch boat)
* Dwarves (Staff and employees)
Known Vehicle Quirks:
* I'm sorry, Dave: Hephaestus is VERY finicky about its position. Asteroid fields are fine, a meter of 'Wavium concrete and a lovely resilient dome tend to just ignore the little bastards, but you want me to park this close to the sun _why_? It'll blacken my beautiful concrete!

* Let's Go!.. Slowwwwwly: Hephaestus is a platform, not a fightercraft. She is VERY, very slow, and is sensitive about it.
* My Children!: Hermes is host, in her role of the majordomo of Hephaestus, to flocks of shuttles and smaller vessels, and she is VERY protective of them.
* It's cold - why is it cold?: The flesh-and-blood original crew came from Alaska, and keep the ambient temperature at a comfortable 50 degrees farenheit.
* I'm BORRED: Energy production and AI core speed drop noticeably when there is no active production going on. Hermes wants to be _doing stuff_, but fortunately isn't too picky about whether it's reducing an asteroid, converting a battleship back into battle steel bar stock, or decorating for a bash.
Known Crew Quirks:
* Not Invented Here: Hephaestus is a center of design and engineering - but they tend to be hard to convince to do it any way but their own.
* Wait, dwarves?: The 'crew' of Hephaestus is composed of several dozen dwarves, short stocky miners and ironworkers par excellance. Noone knows where they came from, and WG aint' talkin.
Faction: Non-Aligned, mercenary.
Home Port: Self-ported, hails the orbital shipyards at the Moon when major repairs or deliverys are needed, and no hauler is available.
Current Location: Asteroid Belt, approximately 1AU out from Mars orbit, in opposition to Mars current position.
Status: ACTIVE
Trivia:
* Hephaestus is a semi-mobile mining and refinery platform.
* Hephaestus is also one of the largest producers of raw Handwavium currently extant. Most of it is for internal consumption.
* Hephaestus' most profitable product is 'Battle Steel', an iron-based Handwavium metal stock that sees common use throughout the Fenspace, and the cutting and welding tools for same.

Edit: Changed dome type, terrain type, current location.
Edit: Changed biomod date for WG.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

Nifty.
Quick questions. Are any of the dwarves female? If so, can anyone tell the difference?

Not sure about a duplicate "Grover's Corners" for a ship...
The character is GREAT, but you'd have to have some of the crew/owners of the Grover's Corner help you in the construction, and they're likely persona non grata in the US. Considering that a GC-style ANYTHING takes a couple YEARS to build....
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

there's a small problem with the current position. The Oort cloud is beyond Pluto's orbit, 1 AU past Mars' orbit won't even reach to Jupiter.
Unless of course, you meant that the Hephestus was actually far above/below the eliptic at that distance.__________________
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live. - George Carlin.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

Actually, all you'd need for the Grover's Corners-style dome would be access to the same stuff they had (which it is at least my vague understanding came from somewhere else) and instructions on how to use it. Setting up the drive might be a little tricky, but it'd certainly be doble. Also, this is Alaska. There's a lot of essentially trackless waste in Alaska. There are enormous chunks of Alaska where the roads simply do not go. All you have to do is pick a spot that's not likely to get any overflight, and you likely won't be disturbed. Also, this thing launched about two and a half years before Grover's corners, from a place that would have caused a lot less fuss. Perhaps the Corners got the tech from them?

Plargh, I missed the timeline entry for GC, I'd had it pegged in 2008 in my brain, ah well. Gonna edit the dome to a "multipart dome patterned after Alaskan Native structures, with 'waved carbon fiber instead of willow withes, and 'waved visqueen panels instead of, well, more willow withes."

ten acres of Alaska that doesn't get overflight is easy, dead easy. Especially given that this is Alaska, the rapid nigh-complete deforestation of a ten acre chunk would generate very few questions, especially if you had no neighbors..
The dwarves are male and female, the difference is physically drawn from the World of Warcraft dwarf models, and nothing else is drawn from that source. I don't have an origin explanation yet for them, I'm thinking they're going to be there after I get out of a biomod _coma_, three weeks or so after I get out of the tank. No sufficient explanation will be given.

Timote, Thanks for the catch - my research (wikipedia!) showed the Oort cloud approximately 1AU outside _mars_ orbit, not pluto. Aaand further research shows that you are absolutely correct, and I was thinking of the 'belt, not of the oort cloud.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

Well, one of the major benefits of the "Grovers Corners" technique was that it built itself. If you want somehting that covers multiple acres (and heads up appropriately far) then you are either going to have to have something that would grow itself or come up with an explanation as to how you put the thing together by hand. Personally, I figure the "grow itself" techniqe is a lot easier. Perhaps some sort of superplant?

The dome is building as we speak.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

You're seriously building a ten-acre single-roofed greenhouse in Alaska?

hrm, more-or-less, I'm using what I remember as a short-term 'lean-to' structure, which in the original was fast-growing organic withes covered in a thatching made from the same material.
You know, it seems outlandish, but.. trust me, this is gonna work just fine.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

Quote:

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Not sure about a duplicate "Grover's Corners" for a ship...

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Well, here's the thing... it's not. GC is a vibrant farming community in the midwestern style, full of life and love and people that care.
This is going to be an asteroid mining operation. Raw earths go in one end, _stuff_ comes out the other. it's peopled by dwarves, and children are specifically Not Welcome (not because we don't like them, but because having a rugrat get squished under a ten-ton steel vat of molten Wavemetal is.. contraindicated).
There's another major, MAJOR difference, but that will come out in story this evening.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

It does sound like they're going to look very different, too. Besides, it's not like I have a lock on the concept -- it was a riff on The Island, after all. Other people are going to riff with the concept, too.
-- Bob
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...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

Well, the ship's up.
Before I toss the character profile and the ship profile into the appropriate sticky threads, I'm putting out one more call for complaints, comments, criticism.
If you can slog through the MondoPost I made in the 'That's not a shuttle, that's a bulldozer!' thread, the dome has failed, and will need to be replaced/re-engineered. More on this tomorrow, but I am seeking an email contact with feinan, pursuant to an in-game contact with The Jason regarding my planting problems!
It's 5 am, the muse has finally climbed off my backside. I'm going to _bed_, and thank god I don't have to work monday.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

*chuckle* You can reach me at: FeinanCoX at gmail dot com, after taking care of the spambot filtering. That's available for anyone here that needs to talk to me via email.
Edit - *reads the bit about your launch, and winces* Yes, you DO have a bit of a problem, don't you. Hrm. If you're looking for a new plant to replace the dying carbon fiberweeds...you'll need something fast-growing, something strong, and something space capable. Well, I've already worked out ways to do the first and the third. I think your carbon fiberweeds might've worked if they could've survived space conditions, though I think incorporating spider silk in the construction would be a good idea. *chews his lip, considering, and works out an initial list of organisms/things to combine in a biomod.*
Kudzu - fast-growing vines
Leafy splurge - these have an EXTENSIVE root network. Useful for keeping the soil together.
Hummingbird cells - speed up the general metabolism
Shrew cells - likewise.
Anaerobic bacteria - got to make them able to survive without air somehow.
Succulent (Jade plant) - thick, water-retentive leaves, able to withstand harsher conditions
Extremophilic bacteria - more aid in resisting the harshness of space.
Spider webs, as well as spider spinnerets - silk production, hopefully incorporated in the vines.
Carbon dust - good idea that I'm not afraid to try for this. You'd need to add a carbon-rich fertilizer as the plants grow, I think. Advantage - should make dark/black leaves which would absorb even the faintest light. If you're going out into the Oort, you'll need that. Even if you're just in the Belt, it'll be useful.
You might have to keep the plants trimmed rather vigorously. This incorporates four out of five of the items I used in the tribble rose, and that grew FAST...as in 'Oh, look - I can see it growing.' If that's a problem, I can leave out either the hummingbird or the shrew, and that should hopefully slow it down. Leaving out the multiflora rose should slow it down a little bit already. But given the nature of your emergency, it looks as though you need something that will grow as fast as possible.
Email me, and we can discuss your contacting the Jason and what you'd need.