"You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling"
-The Righteous Brothers
3:48
You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips.
And there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips.
You're trying hard not to show it, (baby).
But baby, baby I know it...
You've lost that lovin' feeling,
Whoa, that lovin' feeling,
You've lost that lovin' feeling,
Now it's gone...gone...gone...wooooooh.
Now there's no welcome look in your eyes when I reach for you.
And now your're starting to critisize little things I do.
It makes me just feel like crying, (baby).
'Cause baby, something in you is dying.
continued below...
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You lost that lovin' feeling,
Whoa, that lovin' feeling,
You've lost that lovin' feeling,
Now it's gone...gone...gone...woooooah
Baby, baby, I get down on my knees for you.
If you would only love me like you used to do, yeah.
We had a love...a love...a love you don't find everyday.
So don't...don't...don't...don't let it slip away.
Baby (baby), baby (baby),
I beg of you please...please,
I need your love (I need your love), I need your love (I need your love),
So bring it on back (So bring it on back), Bring it on back (so bring it on back).
Bring back that lovin' feeling,
Whoa, that lovin' feeling
Bring back that lovin' feeling,
'Cause it's gone...gone...gone,
and I can't go on,
noooo...
Bring back that lovin' feeling,
Whoa, that lovin' feeling
Bring back that lovin' feeling,
'Cause it's gone...gone...

*****
Two options that I can see. This one could either be a 'mind-control' song (sort of a "fall out of love for almost 4 minutes" song), or a 'freedom' song ("You've lost/won't get that mystically-induced lovin' feeling"). I don't know which best fits Doug, so I won't decide- but if somebody more decisive has an opinion.....

Some things I thought maybe we should do articles on, including a couple hopefully new ideas for the setting:
Ship Classifications

Berne Convention -- copyright and trademark holders trying to sue Fen for "diluting" their intellectual property
Coherent timeline
How are earth-bound governments reacting to the birth of a vital, ultra-tech spacegoing civilization that holds no solid allegiances to anything on the ground? Has any government yet gotten actively hostile (as opposed to USA-style unfriendly)? Some otherwise-unimaginative hardcase in a seat of power somewhere must be getting the heebie-jeebies over all those wackjobs with their supertech and their wild ideas and their two whole planets of lovely real estate and resources that he can't touch, tax or impound. Perhaps a minor subplot about the Gummint drafting SF writers to tell them how the Fen think -- and to warn them about what kind of nasties the Fen can throw at them if it turns to war. I'm sure some bright boy in the Pentagon or some other military has already realized that all those asteroid mining teams are also strategic weapon delivery systems.
Mars Terraforming Project
Venus Terraforming Project
List of Factions:
"Doc" Smithians
Cordwainer Smithians
shojo-fen
Heinleiners
Senshi
Whedonites
Warsies
Babs
Trekkies
Supers (pro-biomods)
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

The whole thing started at the first big con after handwavium was discovered. Yeah, it was that con, the one where some joker thought it'd be funny to spike the consuite with 'wave powder. We dodged that bullet by sheer chance; we were having dinner at an Italian place a couple blocks away from the convention center when the shit went down. By the time we got back to the con things the mayhem was in full swing & we quietly slipped away. Actually helped out a little with the big breakout from Manzanar, too - we weren't there, but we knew people who knew people and helped point them in the right direction. Even back in the beginning, the Nation took care of its own. But that's another story.
Anyway. So there we were, seven old friends who hadn't seen each other in forever finally getting a chance to talk face to face. We'd all met on the intertubes, and since life had us scattered across the northern hemisphere opportunities to get together were few and far between. As we enjoyed the meal and the wine and the conversation, talk started drifting towards handwavium.
We all knew about it, of course. We'd seen the reports of the Yokohama demonstration, read the popsci articles and newsgroup discussions and so forth. We started kicking around ideas on what to use it for - this was all blue-skying, we didn't think for a minute that we would ever get our hands on even the smallest sample of handwavium - and naturally it was KJ who came up with the idea.
"You know," he said thoughtfully, "if we had an airplane, or something that could already handle positive pressure, that would solve some of the big problems with building a handwavium spaceship." There was general agreement to this statement, and then the bombshell. "In fact," he continued, "the best thing to handwave into a spaceship would be an existing spaceship."
Silencio.
"Oh sure, like anybody's going to *give* us a spaceship."
"You never know. I mean, they're going to retire the shuttle fleet soon enough, right?"
"Yeah, but those are going to museums. Even if NASA was willing to sell one, which I doubt, the price tag would be *way* beyond anything we could afford."
Gloomy agreement, and then Zib spoke up. At the time he was working on an advanced degree in Soviet history; thirty years ago he'd have been one of Trudeau's top Kremlinologists. At this point, he just said, "Well, you know there *are* other shuttles out there."
Calc blinked. "The old Russian one? Isn't it scrap metal?"
"Yes and no. The one that actually *flew* was borked beyond repair, yeah. But they built two flight models before the funding ended. *That* one is almost complete, just needs a little touch-up work and it should be ready to go."
"Okay," said Kat. "But what about the money? Even assuming that it's up for sale, we couldn't buy it."
To this day, I don't know if it was the wine or Destiny knocking me upside the head, but all of a sudden I had a vision. I could see the path laid out in front of us. It *was* possible, we *could* do it. The risks were huge, but the rewards... I stood up (a bit unsteadily; I wasn't much of a big drinker then) and exclaimed "And why not? We're capable people, there's very little that stands in our way if we get our heads together and do the job."
Again, silence. "Um, there's the money issue-" Kat began.
"We'll get the money."
"-and the engineering problem-"
"We've got KJ, which is one hell of an edge on anybody else working with handwavium-"
"-plus we don't have any handwavium-"
"That's easy enough to fix with the right discreet inquiries."
"-and, I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure launching a non-NASA shuttle from the US is *illegal.*"
"We only have to do it once." I sat down and started speaking in as much of an undertone as the restaraunt would allow. "I'm not saying it'd be simple or easy, and I'm sure as hell not saying that if we blow it, a bunch of us might end up in trouble with the law. All I'm saying is, between our respective abilities we *can* pull this off." So saying, I started explaining the plan's broad strokes as they formed in my mind.
Twenty minutes later, I sat back in my chair and waited for them to finish digesting the idea.
"It could work..." mused Calc.
"Beats trying to hammer scrap metal into a ship," KJ said.
"Beats working for a living," Elena said with a grin.
I could see it in their faces. This was the sort of thing we all lived for, to do completely insane shit *just* to prove that it could be done. I smiled. "Well, I guess it's settled."
There was no going back, we were going to ride a space shuttle into orbit come Hell or high water. The die was cast.
------
The plan, on paper, was simple and elegant. Which of course meant that we'd find a hundred different complications while putting it into practice, but we knew that going in.
Our first task was to set up a series of shell companies. This was Calc's job; as the only one of us with any business management or legal experience, it was up to him to build the notational house of cards that was Sandwich.Net Interstellar Dungeon-Crawling Enterprises, LLC.
The company itself existed only on paper, as owner-of-record of all our property and as the parent company of The Wisconsin Flight Experience(tm), a fledgling flight museum that rented out one of the big hangers at Wittman Field, Oshkosh, WI. The WFE hangar was where we planned to house the shuttle until liftoff.
Once the business end of the company had been established, we embarked on the second stage of the project. This was the riskiest and most openly less-than-legal stage, and you'll forgive me if I don't say much about it. Not only are the technical details kind of boring, but a lot of people in New York still hold a bit of a grudge over that, blanket pardon or no, and I'd rather not let them know the exact particulars.
Anyway. The plan was, using our techgeek skills, divert half-cents from various corporate transactions on Wall Street and elsewhere into a numbered Swiss account. This particular plan allowed us to pull down hundreds of thousands of dollars into the account every day. More so when the market was trading fast. It worked so fast and so well that we had twice the amount of money we figured we needed in the first month. We kept it running for another two months, just to be sure. Once we figured we had enough money, we scrapped our diversion programs, destroyed the evidence and moved on to step three.
Step three was actually a little trickier than stage two. We had to convince the owners of record of the surviving Buran shuttle that a) we were totally legit, and b) were willing to pay top dollar for the orbiter. Simple in theory, right? Well, think again.
The Buran shuttles were a product of the Soviet space program. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, effective ownership of the space program and all it's materiel reverted first to the Commonwealth of Independent States, and then to the Russian government. The Russians then sold most of the flight hardware to the RKO Energiya cartel, which worked kind of like Boeing did for NASA at the time; the government owned most of the stuff, but the cartel did all the upkeep and flight preparation work.
Thing is, the non-flight hardware at Baikonur Spaceport - the runways, the buildings, and all the abandoned-in-place gear - technically didn't belong to either the Russian government *or* RKO Energiya. It belonged (on paper anyway) to the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The Kazakhs were willing to part with the orbiter; they had no intention on even trying to refurbish it, much less fly it. So they were more than willing to sell us the shuttle at the agreed-upon price of $20 million US. (I think they ended up using the money to finish building that giant transparent tent over the new capital's market district. Just goes to show that even Mundanes can be weird given enough money to play with.) The Russians and RKO Energiya were less happy with the sale. It took us a couple of months to smooth ruffled feathers and convince them that we had no intention of desecrating a significant Russian historical artifact.
We kept to that, too, even after all the modifications and our adventures across the steam line and the snow line. That's why the Star still flies the Hammer and Sickle on her wings, and why our "dress uniforms" all use Soviet insignia. It's not that we're commies - well, not all of us, and certainly not all the time - but it's a measure of respect for the Star's origins and the men and women who built her hardtech body.
I'm pretty sure our latent desire to do right by Korolev's great-grandchild is what sparked Ptichka, too. But we'll get back to that.
Once the money had been paid - plus a bit more thrown at the authorities to ensure smooth passage - all we had to was sit back and wait for our prize to arrive.
That's when one of the big unexpected things blew up in our faces.
------
You have to understand, when we started out on this path we figured that we could do it *completely* under the radar, without the 'danelaw noticing until we were ready to leave. And the first parts, the computer fraud, the negotiations with Kazakhstan, they all went exactly as we'd planned.
It was when the lake barge with the orbiter finally docked at the nearest cargo port to Oshkosh that we realized that we were in for a huge problem. It's not every day that a Soviet space shuttle shows up at a cargo transfer terminal, and the media had a field day with it. All of a sudden, we were national news, and we were *totally* unprepared for it.
About the same time the orbiter arrived in Oshkosh, our initial supply of handwavium arrived. We'd gotten samples of the two basic types; we'd intended to use the black boxes as our primary powerplant, engines and internal gravity system. The guacamole would be put to use in the life-support system. We also derived a form of the guacamole that resembled a clearcoat varnish; we'd use that on the outside of the hull as support for the heatshield.
Not that we could *say* any of this to the media, of course. The latest idiot in chief had been elected on an impromptu platform of cracking down on "this substance that makes a mockery of God's laws and corrupts our children." The new congress was unable to just say "no" to a save-the-chillins law, and the handwavium bans were just around the corner. If we'd come out and said that we were planning to turn this Cold War relic into a real by-Ghu spaceship using those 55-gallon barrels of handwavium over there in the corner? We'd have been in jail twenty minutes later!
Thankfully, the media stopped bugging us about it after the transfer was finished and we'd sent out a few noncommital press releases. A few folks were suspicious about where we'd gotten the money, and tried to track our funds. All I can say to *that* is thank Ghu for Swiss bankers. The Gnomes provide the finest financial black holes anywhere in the system, and I wouldn't be here to say so if they hadn't stonewalled like they did.
Our impromptu brush with celebrity made us realize, I think, that we were working on borrowed time. Between the media spotlight on us and the government crackdowns on 'wave, sooner or later some enterprising young reporter or ambitious prosecutor was going to pierce the veil and see what we were really up to. We knew the SEC was trying to piece together our diversionary scheme, and that the local cops were wondering what we needed the mystery barrels for. If we were going to get to the black, we had to start moving quickly.
------
It took us six months to be ready. We almost didn't make it.
The hardest part was getting the cabin extended and ready. The 1.02 airframe was built for flight, so it had a pressure hull installed. Thing was, it was designed as an automated model, so none of the actual crew gear had been installed. This was good to the point where we didn't have to rip a lot of crap out of the walls to install our own gear, but it meant we had to install a lot *more* gear on the middeck than we'd originally planned.
We persevered. Toiling around the clock - or as close as we could - all week for months on end we managed to get the orbiter flight ready. We stripped out the old orbital maneuvering engines (leaving the engine bells for aesthetic effect) and used the open space to install our cluster of Black Boxes. Three cubes and a sphere, arranged around each other in what (we hoped) would amount to a reactor and engine. We extended the pressure hull using sheet alumninum and handwavium varnish, running down the entire length of the cargo bay. We replaced the old Soviet flight instruments with equipment scavenged from junked Learjets and stolen from CompUSA dumpsters. The original ship's computers were replaced with a troika of 'wave-treated Athlon 64s. The exterior we repainted, replacing missing heat tiles with 'wave-treated polystyrene and covering the whole thing with the varnish. We kept her flag and the original two-tone color scheme, but renamed her with bold microgramma capitals just beneath the windscreen: EXPLAIN STAR.
The name is a bit of an old inside joke on our part. A long time ago, we'd been participants on a Trek MOO, and we'd played the part of Klingon privateers. We had *intended* to name our ship the Black Star, but somebody typoed the Klingoniasse and we ended up with Explain Star. Instead of correcting the error, the name... stuck. And so history is made.
When we first powered up the Star, the handwavium interacted with the CPUs and sparked something. It wasn't quite an AI, like other 'wave pioneers had reported, and it wasn't something as outre like a full humanoid avatar like you'd hear rumors about. As far as we could tell, the handwavium - *all* the handwavium, the guacamole we'd used in life support, the black boxes, the varnish, every last ounce - suddenly networked and started talking to each other. A few minutes later, we heard this questioning chime from the main control panel.
It took us a bit to figure out what had just happened, but once we did, we named her Ptichka, after the orbiter's original unofficial designation: "Little Bird." Since she only communicated with chirps, chimes and the occasional text message, it seemed appropriate.
By the time Ptichka arrived, fall was setting in, starting to turn to winter. We'd gotten all but the most trivial work finished, most of us had already moved our gear into the Star, and we were ready for takeoff.
That's when Murphy decided to bring the hammer down.
------
I remember the whole thing very clearly. I was on the flight deck when the call came in, working on sharpening my flying skills. None of us had any real clue what we were doing when it came to flying an airplane - logged time on Microsoft Flight Simulator nonwithstanding - and I'd taken itupon myself to be the chief pilot. My idea, my fault if we got ourselves killed. Anyway, I was on the flight deck racking up some simulator time with Ptichka when Shad vaulted up the middeck ladder yelling "MAL! WE'VE BEEN MADE!"
I didn't have to ask what he meant. "How many?"
"Townies, state cops, FBI, ATF, DHS *and* they've got choppers!"
"Where's everybody?"
"Getting aboard. KJ's disconnecting the hanger connections, everybody else is cramming as much gear as we can into the aft."
I switched on the intercom, toggling the hanger PA. "KJ! How long until she's ready?"
the intercom crackled back.
"Shad," I snapped. "Go back and help KJ." I switched on the intercom again. "Everybody else: Get everything you can aboard in the next two minutes and thirty seconds. We lift one minute after that!" I snapped off the intercom, took half a second to glance backwards, saw Shad jump down the access hatch, and turned back to the controls, getting us switched out of sim mode and starting preflight. Ptichka made a worried sound, and I patted the console out of reflex.
"It's okay, little bird," I said softly. "They won't catch us."
Two minutes later, Shad and Elena came up the ladder. "We're aboard!" Elena shouted. "Hatches closed, cables disconnected, let's GO!"
Just then, the hanger doors swung open to reveal a whole lotta cops. You remember that scene in The Blues Brothers, the one where they're at the register window and it looks like the whole Chicago PD was crammed in there pointing guns at them? That was sort of what the scene outside looked like. All these cop cars turned sideways in a clear effort to blockade the exit, lots of uniformed men pointing pistols and rifles at us. Very charming, really. At the center of the formation a dude in the traditional Fed windbreaker leveled a bullhorn at us.
"ATTENTION! YOU ARE UNDER ARREST! SHUT DOWN YOUR ENGINES AND EXIT THE AIRCRAFT OR YOU WILL BE FIRED ON! THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING!"
"Such a charming invitation," I noted.
"How could we refuse?" Elena asked from the right-hand seat with a feral grin.
"I just hope the deflectors work," Shad noted gloomily, "or we're all going to look really stupid."
I flipped Mr. FBI the bird and switched on the engines. The Star shuddered a little as the drive's gravity cushion took over from the Earth's pull. The landing gear retracted smoothly, without even the slightest bump. Outside, the cops tried to start shooting at us, but the cloud of debris the gravfield was kicking up inside the hangar kept scattering them. I raised the ship up to three meters and sailed straight out over their heads. Thanks to the hull cameras, we got a great view of the cops running for cover as we drifted past.
Once I had her hovering over the apron, I raised her up another twenty meters - scattering the police choppers in the process - swung her nose out to face the lake, and started flying off, nice and slow. I wanted to go exoatmospheric a fair distance away from the town, just in case. I let her pick up speed as we travelled, and once the shore was out of sight I pulled back hard on the stick and shoved the throttle forward.
The Star stood up on her tail and accelerated like a bat out of Hell. They probably heard the sonic boom in Minneapolis. The sky turned reddish-orange as the air compressed into plasma around our nose, then vanished into the deepest black you've ever seen. I gave it a few more seconds, then tipped her nose over. Below us was the curve of the Earth, the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen to that point.
We'd made it.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

The transponder (okay, a severely modified cellphone tied to the car's radio, but that's what passed for a transponder out here) chirped.
"Hi," said the message. "This is the pilot of the Vauxhall Cavalier you're probably looking at right now. At the moment, I'm in a parking orbit and I can't come to the phone. This probably means I'm asleep, on the pot, or most likely trying to stay as still as possible relative to Earth in order to maintain my internet connection over several light hours."
"If you're considering interupting me, and in the event that is should be the latter circumstance, please believe me when I say that I've got a little toy aboard that may well pop your structural integrity like a needle to a balloon and all I need is a test subject. So! If you feel lucky, please dial one-seven-zero-one. If you don't then go away."
"Is he for real?" asked the passenger of the Winnebago closing in on said piece-of-British-automotive-industry/improvised-starship.
The driver considered this and then dialled the required four numbers. "Probably."
The first sound to come through the phone was a few bars of music that were hastily dialled back in volume. "You're lucky, the download just finished. Who is it?"
"It's me," the driver said, apparently feeling that this sufficed.
"Lone Star! And his sidekick: Puke!"
"Very funny," the driver sighed.D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

I recently discovered a function in my control panel that will let me delete posts made before a certain date. Given that we have well over 10,000 individual posts here, I have to admit I am somewhat tempted to clear things out a bit. However, I know people may not feel the same. So I'm soliciting opinions. Should I, or should I not, nuke any of the older posts, and if so, how old should they be before they go bye-bye?
Thanks.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

The Teikokukagekidan 1940 area will be going away permanently some time in the next few days. If there's anything in there you want to rescue, now's the time to do it.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

This Thursday, I was planning to hit the Winter Event with Lady Nogitsune to try to get the Tuatha de Danan kill-badge, to expedite this, I'd love to have a full 8-person team.
To get a mixed hero-villain team, all members of the team and the invitee need to be in the same instance of Pocket D.
''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

(Initial entry lifted from Firvulag and Drakensis's 12/16 posts in the original thread. New/updated entries in blue.)

Acceleration Drive: A drive based on the concept of maximum acceleration, not speed. Fairly rare among the Fen. All Hard Tech spacecraft
drives are acceleration drives by necessity.

Ace: Extremely beneficial biomod, with no or relatively few negatives. Term originated with the Supers faction.

B-Arker: Derogatory term for someone who can't or won't consider the implications of a strongly-held position. From Douglas Adams'
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, spotted in Earthside academic usage before the discovery of handwavium.

Banzai Institute for Biomedical Research and Strategic Information: A non-profit organization that handles business concerns for the Blue
Blazer Irregulars in the 'Danelaw. The Institute concerns itself with altruistic pursuits as simple as literacy and as complex as disaster rescue and
relief. The Banzai Institute is registered in both the United States and the European Union. Its mailing address is listed as a P.O. Box located in Dallas,
Texas. Both the P.O. Box and the email domain, banzai-institute.org, are registered under a shell corporation, managed by a woman known only as Mrs. Johnson.

BDH: Another name for the Whedonite SMOFs, either real or in their own minds. Short for "Big Damn Heroes."

Biomod: 1. n. Anyone who has ingested enough handwavium to trigger a one-time mutagenic reaction. Quite indeterminant in outcome but not
typically fatal or crippling. 2. n. The result of any such mutagenic reaction. 3. v.t. To cause a mutagenic change in a living creature using handwavium.

Black Hats: Heinleinian faction term for Boskonian/Reaver types.

Blazing: Slang term for "random acts of kindness and/or good deeds" amongst the current crop of teens and tweens. Many people are
shocked at the accompanying massive increase in random acts of kindness from said age group; Buckaroo refuses to comment, only smiling like some sort of
well-fed Buddha.

Blue Blazer Irregulars: Followers of the teachings of Buckaroo Banzai, as set down by Earl Mac Rauch in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai:
Across the Eighth Dimension and by W.D. Richter in the movie of the same name. The term "Blue Blazer" refers to the dark blue jackets that
members of this faction wear when in public and "on duty." Even when not wearing the jackets, Blue Blazer Irregulars ("Blue Blazers" or
"BBIs" for short) wear either a patch or cloisonne pin depicting the back-to-back Bs of the Banzai Institute for Biomedical Research and Strategic
Information. Blue Blazers are known for their discipline and diversity of talent and knowledge, as well as their loyalty to Buckaroo Banzai. The Blue Blazer
Irregulars are closely affiliated with the Pulpers and Supers, but on the whole, are congenial with all factions.

Blue Hair Day: It has been said that the laws of drama seem to replace those of logic, and often physics, in the vicinity of handwavium and
its products, and while things usually seem to make sense at the time frequently someone will think back over recent actions or events and see this phenomenon
in themselves. Fenspace being what it is, this has become known as "having a blue hair day." Examples: the launch of the Ptichka, the events
leading to Wave Convoy's mind transfer, the Professor impersonator captured by Mr. Morden. The Professor himself is occasionally said to have "the
bluest hair in space," but the title is open to some dispute.

BNF: Big Name Fan. A fan who, as a result of his hard work and obsession, has developed his own fandom. In Fenspace, much the same, although
Fenspace BNFs tend to have influence on matters of import and policy.

Boskonians: Pirates who don't display the general ethics expected of Fen. See also Black Hats, Pirates, Reavers. Term originated
with Doc Smith/Lensman fandom.

Bowl, The: (Also called Bowl Lake and The Grover's Corners Memorial Strip Mine) The
0.7-mile-wide hemispherical hole left behind in West Virginia by the launch of the SV Grover's Corners.

Broadleaf: Notional source of thionite, the exact nature and origin of which is not yet completely determined,
although authorities are confident it comes from Venus. (After Operation Great Justice, it was discovered that "broadleaf" was not a plant, per se,
but actually a collection of certain strains of Venusian terraforming bacteria.) Term originated with Doc Smith/Lensman fandom.

Bughunt: To travel past the Limit in search of extraterrestrial life. (see bughunter)

Bughunter: A fan who's taken up searching interstellar space for life as a vocation. Very rare.

Cochrane Limit: The distance from a star, or other massive object where FTL travel becomes possible. For Sol the radius is about 40AU. More
commonly called the C Limit, or just the Limit.

Colonials: Faction who are fans of Battlestar Galactica (both new and old, although the two subgroups don't always get along).
Various members are trying to build Vipers, a Battlestar, and robot drones that look like Cylon Centurions.

Convention: The closest thing to a government possessed by the Fen. An annual gathering descended directly from WorldCon is held to modify,
ratify and reassert what little law exists off-Earth. Furthermore, Conventions can be called by anyone in times of emergency.

Cybers: Folks who use 'wavium for prosthetics/kludged cybernetics. Vehemently a different faction from "Cyb0rz." Poorly designed
'wavetech cybernetics turn into biomods.

'Dane: See Mundane.

'Danecrat: 1. (n) Government official of an Earthside or non-fannish nation. 2. (adj) Behaving in an authoritative and non-fun manner;
ex.: "Quit being all 'danecrat, you're harshing my mellow." (syn. 'Danemagogue.)

'Danegeld: See Paying 'Danegeld.

'Danelaw: short for Mundane Law. Refers to regions subject to the laws of terrestrial governments. Usually means the Earth and
all regions within the bounds of the Van Allen radiation belts although there are enclaves on either side. It is not by coincidence that it mirrors the name
for the northern, central, and eastern region of Anglo-Saxon England colonized by invading Danish armies in the late 9th century.

'Danemagogue: Synonym for 'Danecrat, definition 2.

Dark Kingdom: Senshi term for Boskonians.

Death Eaters: Wizarding World name for Boskonians.

Death Star, The: Warsie nickname for the SV Grover's Corners. Never used within earshot of its crew after the unfortunate Tennis
Ball Incident.

Deuce: Beneficial biomod, but not as powerful as an Ace mod, or else with one or more negative points to it. Term originated with the Supers
faction.

Diaspora: Term used by several factions for the first wave of Fen movement into space.

Discordia Accords: see Principia Universalis.

Divot, The: Fen name for the hole in the ground where the Island used to be. It seems to annoy the 'danes for some reason.

Extraordinary Events Agency (EEA): The British equivalent of the TSAB, this agency was created in 2008 and is affiliated with M.I.5. and the
European Space Agency. It has a smaller staff than the TSAB, but acts more like a law-enforcement agency (albeit a British one). When working in Europe, it
coordinates with Interpol.

Faction: (Also fraction.) Any of the various organized fandoms that made it into space and operate as a semi-coherent group.

Fen: Notional plural of "fan", formed by analogy to "man/men". Standard usage within science fiction fandom for more than
half a century. Since the early 2000s it also refers to the off-Earth culture that makes extensive use of handwavium.

Fendane: 1) (normal) Someone not a Fan, not a Mundane but somewhere in between the two. Most fendanes are individuals with an
interest in Fandom but no access to handwavium or Fenspace. 2) (derogatory) Term used to describe a Fan whose loyalties remain with 'Danelaw
powers.

Fenkinder: Children of fen, or children who are fen, who have made it to Fenspace. Anyone above the atmosphere and under 18.

Fenspace: Virtually everything between the top of Earth's atmosphere and the Cochrane Limit. Known space. Home to the Fen.

Fivers: Term for faction based around Babylon 5 fandom. See also Rangers.

Fraction: Variant Fen spelling convention for Faction, per "filk" and other Fen terms originating in typographic errors.

Gearheads: General "Ain't-it-cool" Mecha fans. As a whole, undifferentiated giant robot fans. Inclusive term.

Generalists: As opposed to the specialist, single-fandom type, these are the jacks-of-all-trades of fandom. They do have favorites, sometimes
a lot of them. They're just not as into any single one as a specialist fan might be, sacrificing depth for a wider range of scope.

Gondola: Colloquial for a Fenspace vessel intended primarily for passenger runs along scenic routes, like the Cloud Seas of Venus or
Saturn's Rings, to name a couple.

Gondolier: General description for the sort of easy-going, likable Fen who are naturals at playing tour guides around the Solar System. Those
with the best reputation and presence are known as Undines.

Grey Goo: Industrial nanomachines. Any nanomachines used for manufacture building, or otherwise constructive activities. There are other kinds
of goo, also named by colour:

Blue goo: police nanomachines that keep other nanomachines in line. Also applied to medical nanites which help biological systems (people) in good
health and repair.

Black goo: weaponized nanomachines.

Golden Goo: nanomachines used to filter specific substances out of common materials. The name comes from a theoretical plan to use nanomachines to
filter gold from seawater.

Green Goo: 1. Biological nanomachines (not microscopic robots, but engineered viruses) 2. Another term for Guacamole.

Khaki Goo: specificly military (as opposed to simply weaponized) nanomachines.

Paisley Goo, Plaid Goo: Alternate terms for handwavium.

Grey Goo Disaster: The ISO standard nightmare about nanotechnology. Essentially a kind of sorceror's apprentice mode failure where
industrial nanomachines escape control and convert the entire world into more of themselves, a big blob of grey goo.

One of the reasons Handwavium is illegal in 'Danelaw is fear of this sort of disaster.

Groundbounder: Teenaged rebellion, fen-style. Rejection of the Fenspace lifestyle in favor of a desire to live on Earth.

Guacamole: Semi-solid, semi-organic strain of Handwavium accidentally formed by seeding a bowl of dip at a convention. The primary known agent
for biomodding. Also called green goo.

Hand-Wash: Application of Handwavium by way of a power washer, spray hose or other pressurized delivery system. Frequently suggested
as a method for the "drive-by handwaving" of objects and craft to which the perpetrators would not otherwise have easy access. The actual viability
of this tactic has not yet been tested.

Handwavium: What lets everything interesting happen. A strange substance of indeterminate origin that when mixed with mundane technology can
give it strange and useful properties.

Pure samples are capable of self-replication, albeit rather slowly and with some odd limits. There does not appear to be much if any danger of a Grey Goo
Disaster. The exact methods by which it works remain unknown.

Illegal to manufacture and use in the 'Danelaw.

Has any number of names, including Plot Tech, Plotdevicite, Protoculture, etc.

See also 'Wavetech.

Hard Tech: Techonology that does not require Handwavium to work. Also called Solid State Tech. What the 'Danes insist on using.

Heinleinians: Faction based around the works of Robert A. Heinlein. Broken up into three main subfactions:

Juvies: Fans of the Heinlein Juveniles. (Rocketship Galileo, Space Cadet, Have Spacesuit Will Travel, etc.) Seriously Hard
Science types, mostly apolitical but rabidly anti-Nazi. "Going Steady" is as far as most of this type will ever go, if they have any social
life at all.

Longs: Fans of Time Enough For Love, Methuseulah's Children, and the Future History. Somebody out there is building a
Colony Ship for the Stars, and it's likely to be this type. Biomods tend to be life-extending (they think; too short a baseline to tell, really...). This
type takes the Old Man's statement "Specialization is for insects" seriously and are usually found with five or six heavily-marked-up
textbooks in tow. Some experiment with (or were already implementing, pre-Handwavium) "alternate lifestyles" such as polyamory.

Nesters: Fans of Stranger in a Strange Land, most can be found on Mars looking (searching desperately) for the Martians. Not to be confused
with the Church of All Worlders (who are mostly sane), these Fen take Stranger as divinely inspired Gospel handed down from On High. Weddings and
Water-Sharings are safe to attend (if you don't mind nudity leading into Other Things as the party goes on into the night), but never eat off the
buffet at funerals. 'Nuf said. If any faction is going to squick the 'Danes enough to make them come after the Fen, it'll be the Nesters.

Herbert: Synonym for 'Danecrat used by Trekkie faction.

Hidden Asteroid, Village of: See Village Hidden in the Asteroids.

Honey: (also Mnemosyne's Honey.) Name given to a "memory" strain of handwavium created by the Jason. Takes its name
from its appearance, that of a thin, dark honey. Used in enhancing/creating data storage devices. What effect it might have on biological memory has yet to be
fully explored.

Island, The: Flying shopping mall, hotel, supply and refueling point. Launched in 2008, the first station of its kind: "a chunk of land
in space". 'dane governments are still arguing about the legal implications of 'waving real estate. The Island was originally a hundred acres of
Nigerian countryside with associated buildings, though it has expanded somewhat since then. The Island is a neutral commercial station, welcoming all Fen and
'dane tourists alike. Located between Earth and Mars. Officially "The Floating Island", but also "Flying Island",
"Gilligan's", and other Fen-names.

Joker: Non-beneficial biomod. Could be disfiguring, at least compared to human norm, or it causes other harmful effects. Term originated with
the Supers faction.

Joker-Ace: Disfiguring biomod with beneficial effects (e.g., the "troll" -- superstrength coupled with ugliness). Term originated
with the Supers faction.

Jossies: Alternate term for the Whedonite faction.

Kaboomite: Explosive of uncertain and unstable composition invented/produced by the android Li Kohran. Actually
sub-critical nuclear weaponry, with fissionables looted from 1980s and 1990s-era deep-Solar-system space probes. This is known to the androids Li Kohran, Yayoi
Fujisawa, and Sora Hasegawa, and the human Noah Scott; the androids are under strict orders from Noah to not divulge this to anyone under any
circumstances.

Karasukage: (trans. "Black Shadow") The leader of the Village Hidden in the Asteroids. The Shodaime Karasukage is Ivan
"Maitovich" Solkin.

Kuni no Karasu: (trans. "Black Country") Hidden Asteroid nomenclature for parts of the Solar System distant from the actual planets.

Land Theft: Increasingly common term in the 'Danelaw for Unreal Estate, based on the argument that while land can be owned by
individuals, removing it from the Earth is effectively stealing it from future generations -- and (more importantly) eternally depriving whatever jurisdiction
it came from of any future tax revenue on it.

Lensmen: Faction based around E.E. "Doc" Smith fandom. Technically a subset of the Pulpers, but they hold themselves
separate from the other Golden Agers.

Limit, The: See Cochrane Limit.

Limit Break: Going FTL inside the Cochrane Limit. Considered the holy grail of engine research in Fenspace.

Lollipop Guild: (informal, SMOF jargon) Name of the group of Australian fen/fendanes who act on Fenspace's behalf within the mundane
Australian government. Rumored to have some very impressive blackmail material.

Mundane: Not fen. Person or persons uninterested in science fiction, fantasy, anime, space travel or anything else much beyond working a
9-to-5 job and amassing money, status and power. Among fen it carries connotations of being hidebound and reactionary, willfully dull and unimaginative, and
possessing a determination to make sure everyone else is that way, too, except when doing so interferes with making money and/or amassing power.

Mushytech: Somewhere between full out wavetech and hardtech, generally on the order of using handwavium for enhancements in capabilities of
something that should work anyway. Tends to be looked down on in principle by people of both camps as it requires far more work than either other way.

Nargle: Wizarding term for "unexpected-asteroid-in-an-inconvienient-place", since fallen into common usage.

Ninjaburger: Second-most profitable venture of the Village Hidden in the Asteroids, and one of the few subculture references
physically implemented in Fenspace that is properly licensed with its owners in the 'Danelaw.

Overfan, the: Hypothetical inventor/distributor of Handwavium. A mythical figure to whom all manner of powers and intentions are attributed.
Speculation as to the Overfan's identity runs rampant, with the Professor most frequently named -- he could have created the stuff and then completely
forgotten having done so.

Paying 'Danegeld: 1. (v) Submitting to taxation and/or regulation by a 'Danelaw entity. 2. (v) To openly espouse loyalty to an
Earthside/Mundane government.

Pirate: Fen faction who play at being mean, nasty space pirates, but who are actually quite nice, honorable folks. They get very upset when
people call Boskonians "pirates".

Pirates' Code: The informal standards of the Space Pirate fraction. Broadly: be one of the "white hats," stay true to yourself
and defend your ideals, live free or die trying.

Pratchett's Law: "Million to one chances happen nine times out of ten." One of the leading explanations for the large
amount of unique and useful Handwavium effects and the difficulty of reproducing them.

Prime Time Directive: "Put Things Back Where You Found Them."

Principia Universalis: In the same way that anyone can claim to be Discordian (hardliners disagree, and are summarily ignored), everyFan can
claim the Principia Universalis and the Discordia Accords if they run across a situation they need some legalese or religious wiggle room to get out of. Within
reason, of course (blatantly amoral acts, like, say ... holding the world for ransom with a kinetic weapon don't fall under the Accords, and neither does
slave-trade, Reaver-ism, and so on). If the situation can't be resolved by the Accords' invoker, a friendly branch of Her Church is willing to send
negotiators to aid those in need by ways of debate and legalese-nonsense-induced confusion. It's not just a faux-belief. It's a state of being ^_^.

P.S. 238: (Also Sky High.) Grover's Corners Elementary and/or High School. (Not yet in existence as of the SOS-Con.)

Pulpers: Faction based around Golden Age (and Gold en Age-style) SF. Technically, the Lensmen are Pulpers, but they hold themselves mostly
separate. Overlaps a bit with other factions/fandoms, including Warsies and Fivers.

Rangers: Militant sub-faction of the Fivers, formed in response to the call-to-arms issued by Operation Great Justice.

Reavers: Synonym for Boskonians, originating with the Whedonite faction.

Rugsuckers: A subfaction of the Blue Blazer Irregulars, the Rugsuckers are gun geeks and military aficionados that work with the
Banzai Institute for Biomedical Research and Strategic Information.

Scure (n., from obscure) A fan who follows a particularly obscure fandom.

Senshi: The Sailor Moon (and other Magical Girl/Action Girl) fandom. The cadre of the Venus Terraforming Project, their population is
centred at Castle Magellan.

Shadows: Fiver term for Boskonians.

Sith: Warsie term for Boskonians (especially, but not exclusively, Boskonian Warsies).

Sky High: See P.S. 238.

SMOF: "Secret Master(s) of Fandom". Faction leaders, either formal or informal.

SOS-con The emergency con called by the SOS-dan.

Space Rock: A space station or other craft built from a hollowed-out asteroid. Frequent final product of asteroid mining schemes. In the
proper orbit with a bit of renovation, often worth a good fraction of the value of the mined metals. Brokerage of said metals, and the Space Rocks, is the
primary business of Rockhounds, Inc.

Speed Drive: A ship's drive that works based the concept of absolute speed. Most ships in SF and space opera on TV and in movies use speed
drives.

Solids: Also sometimes referred to as Solid State Handwavium (not to be confused with Solid State Tech). There is speculatation that this is
simply an odd strain of Handwavium that crystallized. Exhibits many of the behaviors of its non-solid 'cousin', as well as individual peculiarities
such as, for example, having a power output.

Swede: Syn., Fendane. Punnishly coined based on the reasoning that the Swedish are between the 'Danish and Fennish.

Technomages: Subfaction of the Fivers, who take their inspiration from their namesake. Usually work and play well with the Wizards.

Tennis Ball Incident: We do not speak of the Tennis Ball Incident. See Death Star.

Thionite: A drug derived from a Venusian plant notionally termed broadleaf and including microscopic quantities of Handwavium (not
enough for a biomod effect without lethal doses). Rare and extraordinarily expensive due to the risks inherent in harvesting on Venus. Like its namesake it is
overwhelmingly addictive and destructive. Term originated with Doc Smith/Lensman fandom.

Timelords: Common name for the Dr. Who fan faction. See Whovians.

Transparent Carbon: Term invented by a Trekkie engineer who built a series of 'wavetech enhanced diamond deposition machines for the Venus
Terraforming Project. Transparent carbon officially refers to large sheets and rods of artificial diamond used for construction purposes, but some ignore this
distinction and use it to refer to all diamond. One of the Senshi's favorite building materials. When the Senshi talk about Crystal Cities, they mean
crystal cities. The name was really just a play on transparent aluminum, but common fen legend claims the name was chosen to prevent a certain
powerful company on Earth from realizing what was being built until full scale production was in progress. Also known as "Venusian diamond" in places
that do a large amount of business with the 'Danes.

Trekkies: Faction based around Star Trek fandom.

Trekkers: Alternate name for Trekkies. Usually used by factional leaders or BNFs who take themselves way too seriously than is
healthy.

True Neutrals: People not tied to any one particular fandom, at all. They honestly don't have any favorites, but just enjoy it all.

TSAB: Transrationality Scientific Analysis Bureau. NASA division responsible for analyzing 'wavetech.

Undine: See Gondolier.

Universal Adapter: Handwaved roll of duct tape. 'Nuff said.

Unreal Estate: Fen term for stations (and ships) like the Island and Grover's Corners -- chunks of land that were
boosted into space, and are still recognisable as Earth soil. See also Land Theft.

Venusian Diamond: See Transparent Carbon.

Village Hidden in the Asteroids: (also Hidden Asteroid, Village of). Home of the hardcore Naruto Fen, offering ninja
services and fast food throughout Fenspace (although mostly in the Belt). Exact location, unknown.

Warsies: Faction based around Star Wars fandom.

'Wavetech: Technology made with, or improved by, the application of handwavium. It works, but is notoriously quirky. Used mostly by people
who don't mind if their toaster starts conspiring with their microwave to get them to eat better.

Whedonites: Faction based around fandom of Joss Whedon's Firefly/Serenity.

Whovians: Alternate name for the Dr. Who fan faction. See Timelords.

Wizards: Small but vocal Harry Potter faction, possessing a disproportionately large number of fenkinder. Allied with both the Senshi
and the Fivers (who lump them in with the Technomages).

Xenites: Xena The Warrior Princess fandom, a distinct subfaction of the Senshi.

Zwilnik: Dealers in narcotics, particularly thionite. Term originated with Doc Smith/Lensman fandom.

(Will be updated as terms mature and are agreed upon. Discuss in this thread, too.)

-- Bob


---------


...The President is on the line


As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

This is the designated thread for posting/reposting Convention stories. I'll start us off with the initial announcement...
We were goofing off around Saturn when the call first came in. Officially we were on the clock; a friend of a friend of a friend who worked for JPL had asked us to take some HD movies of Titan for the enlightenment of the scientific community. This wasn't what we'd signed up to do way back in the beginning, but a job's a job, it paid okay (considering the bitch of a currency conversion rate) and it was as good an excuse as any to spend three weeks out on the edge of the system. We'd canned the Titan footage and were in the process of getting a few candid shots of Cassini just for giggles when the Explain Star's email server chimed.
It was the *ship's* email, not one of our personal accounts, that meant it was something the Nation wanted to discuss. Nation email is always interesting to read; when you've got several hundred ships in the solar system representing twenty different fandoms plus maybe another three dozen independent ships & stations comprising somewhere around a quarter-million people all told, and and there's *one* all-call mailing list that everybody's subscribed to... well. From our position near where the sidewalk ends, it's fucking *hilarious,* I'll tell you that much.
Anyway, I was on pilot duty, so I punched up the old laptop we'd crazy-glued into the Star's control panel and took a look at whatever the Nation wanted to herd us into *this* time. What I got was this:
Date:
From: command@sos.co.jp (SOS Brigade Supreme Headquarters)
To: all-call@nation.fan
Subj: CONVENTION!!!!
Note all fan:
We came empty here the earth of one thing of heart: Because you become the hero. Our hearts it echoes the dream of bravery in our centers, that is our obligations to those dreams fufill! Our 2 weeks of the group hearby call of SOS for splendid conference where that of heart and, at the place of Phobos it should you grasp from today. There we organize because because of the star you become the hero, start!
Everyone who obtains this message is invited. It has your boat and your story, do!
--SOS Brigade Supreme Headquarters!
From the message text, I could tell two things. First, somebody needed to shoot their machine translator before it could harm helpless verbiage again. Second, we were going to have to hit the inner system earlier than I'd previously thought.
Whoever "SOS Brigade Supreme Headquarters" were, they'd called a Convention. Conventions are serious business for Fen; since we moved off Earth, they've become sort of our United Nations. Every so often the movers, shakers and poseurs of the Nation get together, get drunk, get laid, exchange pleasant threats, debate the few issues that can't be handled inside our own little fractions, make a few policy statements like "bow before our might, pathetic Earthlings!" and then go home with hangovers and some interesting blackmail material. So it's not entirely unlike mundane government.
The *point* is, when somebody calls a Convention the major power players in the major fractions (along with free agents like us) *have* to come out, hear what the organizer has to say and be civil to each other for a week or so. We're so scattered through the system that Conventions aren't as regular as they used to be, so they're that much more of an event.
In this case, the SOS Brigade (whoever they were) had called for a Convention and had specifically invited *everybody*. Thankfully they wanted to use Phobos; the Martians were using it as base camp for their terraforming ops, the place had been mostly hollowed out and there was plenty of room for everybody and their rides. What they were calling the Convention *for* on the other hand... the machine translation fucked that up enough that I couldn't quite figure it out. Idly hoping that whoever was speaking at the con had better translators, I fired off a quick reply:
From: explain-star@sandwich.net (Sandwich.Net Dungeon Crawlers, LLC)
To: command@sos.co.jp
Subj: Re: CONVENTION!!!!
We'll be there with bells on. Will also bring booze from the Ringed Planet. -ES
Figuring that should keep them happy, if confuse them a bit, I turned off the email client, opened the navicomp, set up a brachistone for Phobos and turned on the intercom.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I said in my best airline-pilot voice. "I'm afraid that our vacation around sunny, tropical Saturn has been cut short. We've been invited to a Convention at Phobos, so if you guys will pack up the cameras and make sure we've got enough booze to last us, we'll be on our way. Launch window in-" I glanced at the nav window "-one hour. Cockpit out."---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

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