Little area that I came up with for my character to live in - it's a pretty open area for people to use.

JUMP STREET
SYSTEM: SOL (Neptune Trojans)
CLASS: Asteroid Cluster (None over 10km)
POPULATION: 165

A cluster of mixed asteroids, Jump Street is defined as a group of 40 asteroids and ice-balls in a 0.5x0.3x0.25AU volume on the trailing-in-above (towards the back, more in-system than the proper orbit, and above the persitent plane of the orbit) end of the Neptunian Trojans. None of the objects are above 10km on the longest dimension.
Jump Street was settled in Feburary 2012 by a group of 54 generalist fen who wanted away from it all. They promptly had to start low-volume trade with the inner system for the equipment they needed, which lead a Boskonian group to take over Jump Street as a backup base. Most of the personal moved to Jump Street were, as one of them put it "low-level wimps with some sort of ethics" - the sort of people who are good at setting up support systems, but not ruthless enough to keep on the front lines of the criminal underworld.
In the interest of making the base at Jump Street self-sufficient, the boss had several people kidnapped from Earth - primarily Amish farmers, believing that they would be unable to break their anti-tehnology restrictions to call for help or leave.
In June 2013, a crew of Boskonians hired as mercenaries for the war discovered all of what was going on - considering that they were part of a Mexican gang that prided themselves on keeping their turf clean of slavers, they were understandably pissed. So they objected to their terms of service, violently. A short raid later, they had a ship, some information, and a few people willing to follow them whereever. They went to Jump Street.
Now, Jump Street is free of Boskonian influence, except for the entire "we're probably wanted criminals, lets lay fairly low" culture of secrecy. Most of the Amish moved back to Earth quietly, except for one who somehow ended up convincing his family and several relatives to move to Jump Street (even he's not sure how that happened).

Notable Areas
22 Jump Street: Community Center, Community Cargo Hold, Docks.
18 Jump Street: Main home for the Amish
27 Jump Street: Main home for the ex-boskonians.

SV Ethereal Kathleen- One of the two ships that Jump Street uses to trade their goods. They get sent on 6 month stints that go no further in-system than the main belt (there are ex-boskonians on the crews - why risk it, is their opinion)

Notable Residents:
David Burke - Best friend of the founder of Jump Street, Jake Owens, who was killed by the Boskonians. Caretaker of the Community Center on 22 Jump Street
Elder Russel Austin - Patriach of the Austin clan of Amish families living in Jump Street. His current project is expanding the community farms more, and keeping Purity away from the un'waved fields.
Purity Austin - 8 year old daughter of Russel Austin, she is a biomodded Mad Botanist. Biomod allows her to survive 30 minutes in vacuum. Her current project is covering a ice/organics mixed asteroid next-door to Jump Street in rose bushes and other plants.

(I know I told Bob that I was working on a story that starts in the Neptunian Trojans, but this plot bunny grabbed me...) apologies for the lack of actualconversational German in this story, I'm on my phone...

___________

Of particular historical note in the annals of handwavium repression is one simple fact: if you attempted to stop what a person considered awesome, they would do it anyway. The 2015 German sports reporters covered an interesting application of this...
- March 12, 2015 - A farm field somewhere in Germany. 
"Drive me closer! I wish to hit them with my sword!" 
"Jawohl, Commissar!" Came the youthful response from below the hatch.
Commissar Elena thought.

the german sports world was facing a terrible crisis.

the refurbished Sherman was sitting there, drawing a bead on the speeding Panzer IV. 

Thundering machines marked the anarchy of gender-segregated sports.  A most terrible crisis had graced Germany's schools...

*BOOM-CLANG!* the Panzer shook under the impact of a simulated HE round. Microsensors talked back and forth, noting hit location, force, and simulated blast. A decision was reached with the consul of Central Computing. A white flag went up. The Commissar screamed in outrage.
Teenage girls driving tanks.

2 kilometers away, a Hetzer crew chuckled as CC updated their confirmed kills. Two tanks to go and their school would be in the finals.

PANZER VOR!

____________

Ok, hammered out in... Checks clock... 15 minutes. What do you think? (Yes, this is Girls Und Panzer brought to life in FenSpace) 

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

And it looks like they're possibly explaining a white Sue Storm and a black Johnny as step-, foster- or adopted siblings.  Given that Papa Storm is also black...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Holy cow.  SyFy's doing science fiction again.  (Yeah, I know, cheap shot, but still...)

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

So, once again I looked to see if there was anything new in the Eyrie thread. And there was a super-flashy icon in front of it... but that turns out to mean there *aren't* any new posts. When there are new posts, the board uses the same "new posts" icon for them as everything else.

So I contemplated making a more distinct "hot topic with no new posts" image, and assigning the two appropriately... but then I started thinking "what's the point"? Do we really need a special icon to say "there's a lot of posts in this thread"?

And I figured I should throw it out for discussion instead of making a unilateral decision. It'd be (extremely) easy to make hot topics use the regular icons. It'd be somewhat more difficult to make a different icon for "hot topic with no unread posts", but not too difficult... although you might suffer from my sense of humor as a result. Or you can pick a third option... as soon as you come up with one.

Thoughts?

-Morgan. However, "why not both" is not valid in this context.

I met a Tothric in a darkened midden
And he said: Two vasty mounds of waste
Stand in the valley.  Near them, half-hidden
In muck, a plaster visage lies, whose face
And pouty gaze, and stare of blank-eyed blue,
Tell that its maker not a whit did care
About its art, nor semblance of lifelike hue,
But only to make the twelfth that day ere
For coffee black and sweet could morning break.
And on its bust in Sharpie ink appear:
"My name is Haughty Mannequin, rack of chic,
Look on haute couture, poor ones, and despair!"
No scrap upon't yet hangs.  Round the chipped feet
Of that gypsum wreck, with putrid air
All trash and discards at last meet.
-- William "Spike" Pratt

Helen's still having problems writing, but we're getting a little more done here and there.  Just wanted to let folks know that this isn't forgotten by any measure, though.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

I noticed there wasn't much on shapeshifters in fenspace, beyond a mention on the Crystal Millennium page of the wiki. So I started putting something together myself. I'd like input from other people on this. Don't know if this just be part of the general biomod page, or it's own page.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shapeshifters in Fenspace are
rare. This isn't from lack of people trying, but the wave doesn't seem
to be inclined to actually product such mods normally. There are quite a
few of the Supernatural Fen stuck in one Were form or another after
attempting to do so. A lot just end up with the classic wolfman look. In
all most shifting tends to be minor things, like skin, hair colors and
minor size changes. Going onto rare, like appearance, gender and onto
full body structure changes. The last is very rare and they generally
have some sort of draw back. [[Andrew Fauho] takes days just to shift
into a anthro fox from human. It makes him sick if he tries to push it.
[[Dakota] can shift very quickly between a humanoid and quadoid form,
there are videos on Fentube of him doing so, but at the cost of having a
massive appetite afterwards. Some of the more minor shifts aren't
controlled, they are triggered by outside, mood, or subconscious action.

 
Not everyone risks a biomod in hopes of getting a
shiftmod. Some go with using sleaves, remotes, puppets or even in one
case, garou power armor. In order to simulate being a shifter. Others
are related, but part of their own Fendom. Some Cybers and even the rare
Transformer falls into this category.
 
...
  [[Vesta Institute of Biochemistry] and [[Kandor City]'s STAR Labs are eager to add any such 'mod to their growing biomod database.
...
 
There are no known truly unlimited shapeshifters out there.*
 
- Notable Shapeshifters -
 
[[Andrew Fauho]
[[N]
[[Jeph Antilles]
[[Dakota]
 
 
 
*Trekkies are paranoid about someone hostile managing a truly working changeling biomod
_______________________________________________________________
Characters
Sabre Fang
Dakota

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/04/20/auto ... r-repairs/

Quote:Automakers are supporting provisions in copyright law that could prohibit home mechanics and car enthusiasts from repairing and modifying their own vehicles.

Quote:The city of Carson, California approved plans Tuesday night for
a $1.7 billion NFL stadium to be shared by the Raiders and Chargers,
the second NFL facility green-lit in as many months in Southern
California.  In February, Inglewood approved a $1.8 billion stadium for the St. Louis Rams to be built near Los Angeles International Airport.