Movin' Right Along
From the Muppet Movie
(this is as it appears in the sound track, the movie version is slightly different)
written by Kenny Ascher and Paul Williams
Kermit:
Movin' right along in search of good times and good news,
With good friends, you can't lose,
Fozzie:
This could become a habit.
Kermit:
Opportunity just knocked, let's reach out and grab it,
Together we'll nab it.
Fozzie:
Ya! We'll hitch-hike, bus, or yellow cab it.
Kermit (spoken): Cab it?
Kermit & Fozzie:
Movin' right along
Kermit:
Foot-loose and fancy free.
Gettin' there is half the fun; come share it with me.
Kermit & Fozzie:
Movin' right along!
Kermit:
Doog-a-doon, doog-a-doon
We'll learn to share the load.
Fozzie:
We don't need a map to keep this show on the road.
Kermit:
Movin' right along we found a life on the highway,
Fozzie:
And your way is my way--
Kermit:
So trust my navigation.
Fozzie:
California here we come, come pie-in-the-sky land.
Kermit:
Palm trees and warm sand--
Fozzie:
Though sadly we just left Rhode Island.
Kermit: (spoken) We did what?
Fozzie: (spoken) Just forget it.
Kermit & Fozzie:
Movin' right along
Kermit:
Hey, L.A., where have you gone?
Fozzie:
Send someone to fetch us, we're in Saskatchewan.
Kermit & Fozzie:
Movin' right along
Kermit:
Doog-a-doon, doog-a-doon)
You take it, you know best.
Fozzie:
Hey, I've never seen the sun come up in the West.
Kermit & Fozzie:
Movin' right along
Fozzie:
We're truly birds of a feather,
We're in this together--
Kermit:
And we know where we're goin'.
Fozzie:
Movie stars with flashy cars and life with the top down.
Kermit:
We're stormin' the big town.
Fozzie:
Yeah! Storm is right, should it be snowin'?
Kermit: (spoken) No, I don't think so.
Kermit & Fozzie:
Movin' right along
Fozzie:
Do I see signs of men?
Kermit:
Yeah, "welcome" on the same post that says "come back again."
Kermit & Fozzie:
Movin' right along
Kermit:
Foot-loose and fancy free.
Fozzie:
You're ready for the big time--
Kermit:
Is it ready for me?
Kermit & Fozzie:
Movin' right along!
Movin' right along!
(repeat to fade)

Do we or don't we have it in the setting? I'd like to put an "ansible" entry in the glossary if we do.
And I post this seconds before I read the "Interwave" thread.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

Once again I'm probably not going to write anything but I had an idea for the setting that just wouldn't stop eating away at me.
The Interwave.
What is the interwave? Well, the porblem with hardtech communications is that it is all strictly SOL limited. Even then, it tends to not actually be that fast due to several problems with the concept of signal degradation and so on. This means that communications between fen, or dane/fen communications start acquiring appreciable lag once you get past a certain point (round about Jupiter the lag gets really noticeable for any Earth bound calls).
So some enterprising fan created the Interwave. The Interwave is a wavetech communication device that operates on some as yet unknown principle. It transmits at FTL speeds, however they are not infinite speeds. And they have a range limit.
Every Interwave device can send information virtually instantly to any other Interwave device within on AU of each other. It is also possible to piggy-back through the network. A transmission can be sent from one Interwave device to another at the extreme edge of its range and that device can then transmit to the next one and so on.
Another advantage of Interwave is that it proves information Wants To Be Free. No known shields or interference can block an interwave signal (hardtech can't even detect that a transmission is occuring). However since the recievers are about the size of a refrigerator they are inconvenient to move around into places they aren't wanted.
The problem is that only a Interwave device can talk to another Interwave device. So in order to set up a communication link a Interwave tranciever must be in place at both locations. The other problem? Only one fan knows how to make these things (or, at least, only he has been able to replicate the recievers successfully). Slowly but surely he is creating a series of satellites which he is seeding throughout fenspace to create the Interwave. He is firmly a member of the Gibsonian faction, believing in free information (and computer access) for all.
Of course, reavers/boskonians love pillaging the things. This means that just leaving them drifting in unoccupied space is difficult.
Wavenet is a fledgling internet that is being created via linked Interwave devices. The only limitation on this is the access to a reciever and the dreaded bandwidth. Even wavetech can only handle so many transmission at once through the same machine. This means connection rates out in the frontier (ie beyond Saturn) tend to be spotty due to lack of Interwave recievers to create enough bandwidth and reaver raids on Interwave facilities.
Anyway, I just had to put that out there. Use, abuse, reject or alter to your hearts content.
------------------
Epsilon

(Posting in installments stuff that will eventually end up in the Gazetteer, posted here for commentary and flan. New installments will be posted as my addled brain comes up with them.)

Every year, a call is sent out on the newsgroup rec.arts.anime.misc for daring participants to choose three characters from anime or manga, and write stories in which those characters and the writer attempt to resolve one, two, or three challenges within one week (which means precious little time for editing or pre-reading). I set the Challenges through to 2006, and wrote a story for one of the challenges in 2006; 2007 was the first year where I got to write the stories without pre-knowledge of the Challenges themselves. The Challenges were posted and judged by Bill Martin this year.
The characters I chose were Yomiko Readman (from the end of R.O.D The TV), Sakura Kinomoto (from the end of the Card Captor Sakura anime), and Chisame Hasegawa (from chapter 152 of the Negima manga).
Here's a copy of this year's Challenges:

Quote:

---

Easy Challenge
It's the new year. You've assembled your team and are awaiting the challenge. Your town was hosting the first ever NewYearCon, a week long event that will ring in 2007 like nothing else, and that's when all hell broke loose. At the morning's festivities, someone took all the catgirl and catboy cosplayers hostage, and is threatening to "Spay and Neuter" them if his demands are not met. Some of which are 1) a football helmet full of cottage cheese, 2) a 2 gallon ziploc bag of M&Ms, all the brown ones removed, and 3) naked pictures of Bea Arthur. We don't know if it was the umpteenth "Bring Me To Life" AMV or ManFaye offering him a lapdance, no one's pointing fingers here...
Your teams must bring about a successful resolution to this event.
Medium Challenge
Once you've summoned your team, you realize you are now face to face with 5 people, not 3. Two additional people have shown up. Keichi Morisato and Belldandy are holding a note for you which reads as follows, "To The Summoner, I, the All Father, am leaving these two in your care. The Yggdrasil crew is in the process of debugging their particular dimension, and since they are currently the major cause of the bugs, this seems the simplest solution. We will retrieve them in approximately one week." Belldandy also states that in the process of coming here, she sensed something ominous came along as well. She was right. Across town, Marller/Mara was just released from her CD. Your challenge is simple, survive the week without Belldandy saving your butts. She will not intentionally lead the fight against Marller/Mara, but she will not sacrifice her or Keichi's life.
Hard Challenge
I don't know how many of you are aware that Spiderman had his own live action show in Japan, but someone from last year, The Robot Controller, is enough of an otaku to know that. He escaped from wherever he was at, and decided to cobble together his own summoning device. He summoned Spiderman, along with the Spider GP-7 he was driving at the time as gear, the space battleship Marveller, which turns into the giant robot Leopaldon, and then he stupidly hit the "Random" button. NEVER HIT THE RANDOM BUTTON! His third character was also drawn from Stan Lee's creation, however, it was a bit more recent... the Carnage symbiote, before it merged with Kletus Cassidy. Upon summoning, the symbiote mergers with Spiderman, to form Spider-Carnage, and the insanity of the merger causes Spider-Carnage to kill the Robot Controller, wreck his lab, and remove the one thing that could undo what happened. Your team must stop Spider-Carnage from destroying the world. A time traveller, named Hiro shows up and tells you, "The future I am from, Spider-Carnage wasn't stopped. His robot was almost defeated, and it decided to punch a nuclear warhead to go out with a bang. The ravaged land I am from is a nightmare worse than any of your post-apocalyptic movies. I must tell you, 'Save the Spider, Save the World!'"
Partial wins will be awarded to those who defeat Spider-Carnage and his robot. Full wins to those who can redeem Spiderman.

---

Quote:That's right - it had only been a few hours for her.

Quote:More specifically, she had found the file {AQS}_MSN_c152_Extra_03.jpg in my "Negima scanlations" directory...

Quote:Off the top of my head, I can think of three ways that Sakura could kill Carnage

Quote:There's no such book as the Nekomimicon, and even if there was, Chiwa Saito is a voice actress, not a writer.

Quote:But she had started reading the closest book to hand - Schroeck and Schroeck's GURPS Robin Hood (128 pages).

Quote:I know three authors that well.

Quote:The one I've got is shot...

Okay, here's a good one for you guys to play with. What would it take to make a Stargate? I know that some of you would say that it breaks the rules, but I don't think that this is so bad. For one thing, in order for this to work, you HAVE to have a corresponding gate on the other end - tricky to pull off since Handwavium doesn't like 'mass production' even if you're doing it 'by hand'. You'd need someone like The Professor to build something like this - he has the ability to, more or less, force Handwavium to do what he wants it to.
Also, the 'Gate is only capable of moving limited amounts of cargo and personel and is not quite the miracle worker it is made out to be in the Stargate series. For example, if you open a gate into a vacuum, then you're gonna wind up with all the air getting blown out through your end of the 'Gate. Exact opposite applies if you gate into a flooded area. Yeah, this one will be indescriminate and bi-directional, with the results of two people jumping into either end at the same time being rather grotesque. A very dangerous way to travel, yes?
Thoughts?

Quote:

---

I could not agree more with your last post if I tried. Yes, of course, moslems are an alien body in our midst. Every day in London - on the tube, in shops, in parks, whilst shopping, whilst going about the 101 tasks that make up an average life - this is borne in on me.
In London today moslems dress differently, are rude to locals, jump queues, shout at us, wave their fists at us, call us worthless infidel in public and in loud voices. I have, just four days ago, been elbowed aside by a moslem couple, with sidekicks, whilst trying to top up my Oyster card at a tube station at the automatic machine. Apparently, I had taken longer than the ten seconds that they were prepared to wait and so three burly males forced me aside and, when I objected, pushed me to the floor and - quite literally - and took over the machine which I was attempting to use.
Not, in a crowded and impatient city like London that this was a surprise, but that in this instance that I was insulted by these people was a surprise. The eldest male in the group, dressed in the usual and ridiculous garb of mohammedans everywhere, looked directly at me amd said, in quite clear English, (and I quote verbatim) Get out of our way infidel slave.
You may imagine how I felt at that moment. To be so insulted in my own capital city was stunning. It took all my self-control not to do something rash at that moment.
Knowing that CCTV cameras would have captured this incident I complained, some three hours later (after having completed my journey and return), to the British Transport Police on the Broadway. I need not have bothered. Not only would no-one there take my complaint of technical assault and insult seriously but no-one to whom I spoke was even prepared to initiate any paperwork whatsoever nor were they remotely prepared to find and look at the video recordings. Indeed, one Officer even said to me that I should swallow my pride and live with it because - and, once again, I quote verbatim you are just being racist and you have to remember that its cultural with them.
Obviously, at this point, I indicated that I felt that I had been physically assaulted and that I would really like to have my complaint investigated. Well, this is really where everything about that evening begins to stick in my craw. When I said that, the Officer of the BTP who was listening to me actually cautioned me and warned me that if I persisted with making a nuisance of myself I would be charged under the The Race Relations Act 1976 and the RRAA (Race Relations (Amendment) Act) 2000.
I gave up at this point. Cowardice is sometimes the better part of valour. But, damn it, they won, didnt they? I have been intimidated into a dhimmi position by them and the very powers which should have protected me in my own country.
Happy New Year everyone, I say in a bitter tone of voice.
Dominic.

---

I just thought that Archer fans might want to know that Aortic whose done a number of translated Typemoon Doujins (which tend not to contain that much smut, if any) has translated one about gives a rather interesting insight to Archer's character.
Where the Doujin is: www.chiyochan.net/fate/res/29270.html
Aortic's Site: www.freewebs.com/aortic/index.htm
Dwarven Vow #16: You can do anything if you try! We're dead anyway if we fail.
-Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia)

...I'd appreciate feedback on it.
Concept: A "speedster" (ref. the Lensman series) which conforms to the Rules of the Handwave.
Specifics: Approximately one-fifth form-fitting spacesuit (with ship controls in the gauntlets and a HUD in the helmet), approximately four-fifths main drive, with small maneuvering drives and a thin layer of 'waved metal or carbon-fibre sheet on the outside to keep everything together (and provide a modicum of armour).
Top Speed: This is where it gets tricky. In Fenspace, the smaller a ship is, the faster it can travel. This would be the smallest class of ship (for a generous definition of "ship") that could possibly be built. It should be faster than 0.1c, but by how much?
Crew: By necessity, one person who doesn't mind being cooped up alone and essentially unable to move for the entirety of a trip. This limits the utility of such a craft to AIs and some biomodded people, except for very short trips.
Weapons, Comm Systems, and Other Frills: Absolutely none. Edit: Except for a short-range radio, so the pilot can contact traffic control. There's no room for them, and the extra weight would slow the ship anyway...
Intended Purpose: Emergency evacuation of ships and space stations that are close to inhabited bodies.
(If it wasn't for the atmosphere problem, this could be used as a Earth/Island shuttle. However, the L5 Warsies and the Stellvians could use these to get to Luna...)
Dramatic Purpose: Getting one of "Noah's angels" from L5 to Phobos before the end of Day 2 of the Con.
Is this "doable" in Fenspace? Does it step on anyone's toes? Am I overestimating the problems that appear to restrict its use to AIs and other people who can remain completely motionless for hours?

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Strange and simple question. Haruhi and the rest of the SOS-dan are all clearly NPCs - but from time to time, people are going to have to write them as characters in more than paragraph length. Mr Fnord has already put up the suggestion that the person tagged for this duty should be whoever knows Haruhi best, and this certainly seems reasonable. So... who's out there that is both interested in writing the required bits of Haruhi-focus and reasonably knowledgeable on the topic? Anyone?