As was brought up, there's a lot of fics set within the solar system, but despite the fluff claiming the fen are moving out, there's relatively little fiction on actually seeing this move out. So, I figured an actual discussion on why that might be and what might be done to make the setting more friendly to that/make people want to set fics out there. 

For my own two (three) cents, I can see three major issues that are currently in the way:

One: Other than Mal, and (sort of) Dartz, everyone has stories that involve more small-scale issues close to home, or that would otherwise have no reason to go out. Jake has his characters dealing with a set of kids who are going through a second life after being horribly murdered and left to rot as undead animatronics; my story is going to deal with a character going through the hero's journey a second time and coming to the apex again trying to deal with solving the societal imbalances that are driving him through creating a new nation of ponies, blackjack, and harmony; the catgirls are doing sciency-stuff, but are more interested in their industry and trying to provide for their kind; so on and so forth. Nobody has a character arc that I know of that could be resolved by going Out, and there seems to be a distressing lack of new writers who might have such an arc planned.

Two: The sheer, cruel logistical equations. It's two days one way to Alpha Centauri. Out there, there's no hope of rescue, no hope of help should there be an issue. It became possible to have stories Up because it was easy to get up and space travel became possible for the layman. They could just wave their car and drive Up. But, basically it becomes impossible to really have any major story set beyond Jupiter orbit because of the distances involved. You're looking at really long distances that make it difficult at best for somebody to just go out and explore. It's a more hazardous proposition than trying to sail solo across the atlantic on a makeshift raft once you go far enough out in a car or other small-craft. And, to actually go to another star requires stupidly serious hardware. It restricts the pool of potential canidates because you need a character more and more connected to go further Out. Even Alpha Centauri is beyond the reach of the vast majority of the fen due to the involved distances and the fluff speeds and capabilities of fencraft, requiring a fairly major vessel in order to safely arrive there. And that's just the closest star. If you want to go further, you need a bigger and bigger vessel in order to safely make the trip, further increasing the backing required. Even to Delta Pavonis (I think, I can't look it up with the wiki still being derp. I really hope we had all that backed up somewhere)--the gate system--is a week long one-way trip. I think. How many ships are there in fenspace that could manage even that trip, let alone the return journey? It makes it pretty hard to tell stories out on the frontier.

Three: The fact is, the fen as currently depicted are a bunch of mad mexican jumping beans in a dump-truck full of empty beer cans. If the often-repeated demographic of 10 million people up is true, well... there's just not enough people to really force pressure to go Out. There's too many stories to tell in the solar system alone, and even then the Fen basically could multiply by a hundred-fold and not experience the normal pressures that would make them want to colonize outwards. There's no need for resources, not really any need for space with all the kupiter belt objects left unclaimed that could be turned into home bases, let alone Mars, Luna, or the Jupiter/Saturn systems. Uranus and Neptune are completely untouched, even. The Fen make a lot of noise, but they're basically outnumbered by most nations, and even a good chunk of the states of the USA.  And with the fluff having the danes being just uninterested in going Up for the most part even after a decade of Up existing and turning mundane, as said--there's not really the backing available or the real want to go out due to the sheer inconvience it poses to the masses. The feds and soviets would want to go out and look, but most other factions are too busy still trying to get their houses in order to really bother.

But that's just my opinion. Anyone else have any thoughts on the matters?

The Grateful Dead are finally winding up their five-decade-long tour.

http://www.dead.net/features/50th-anniv ... l-concerts
--
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

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/25/entertain ... index.html]Patrick MacNee has passed away.

(And he's the third in as many days -- composer James Horner and Eight is Enough star Dick van Patten preceded him this week.)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

... simply because.
Twenty-five years ago today, Peggy and I got married.
That is all.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

http://thechive.com/2015/06/23/google-h ... -8-photos/

Greetings and salivations!

It's time, once again, for my annual butt-chafing fundraiser! For the 8th time, I'm putting my ass on the line (literally) riding my bike from Boston to Provincetown (150 miles) to raise money for the National MS Society, an organization that funds cure and treatment research as well as providing assistance to people suffering from this debilitating disease.

The ride is this coming weekend, and I'm still short of my goal. Please consider making a donation. No amount is too small (or too big) and every dollar helps.

http://chaingang.zikzak.us (this will re-direct to the NMSS-NE site)

I'll be posting snarky commentary, photos, and running bets during the ride on twitter as @zed_live if you'd care to follow the festivities on the 28th-29th...
-Z, Post-reader at Medium
----
If architects built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/06/22/c ... ion-begin/
That's right kids, we are now officially in the days when Evangelion was supposed to have happened.  Fortunately for us, it looks like it's not going to happen.  But what about the things that Eva predicted correctly?  We have:

• Sea level still rising
  
• Japanese population falling
  
• People still using HOPE as a password (stored in plaintext of course)
  
• Given the above, computers trusted with life and death decisions anyway, sometimes with consensus algorithms
  
• Automated flying killing machines are available, but ours are smaller
  
• Most symbolism IRL is also irrelevant
  
• Dick Cheney lives in the GeoFront
  

OK, is anyone else having issues with the wiki? I can get to the pages, but none of them display the contents. Clicking on the view source tab shows the expected source, but doing 'view source' only shows the wiki framework.

The ONLY page I've got so far to actually DISPLAY was http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?title=Crystal_Cities . Links off it don't work EXCEPT for the Special pages.

I've been sitting on this for a couple days now, time to see it if it sinks or swims. Comment freely and with great vigor. --Mal
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http://www.wired.com/2011/09/ff_chickensaurus/
My first thought is that the guy's crazy. but people had said that and he's proven to be right.
A chickensaurus? *Thinks* Just another designer chicken. Would make a great pet.
Does the hive mind think it should be crowd funded?
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell