http://boards.cityofheroe.../showthread.php?t=297472
As the long history of City of Heroes draws to a close we understand you
have questions regarding the cessation of customer services such as
recurring billing and outstanding account balances. Today we have some
details regarding compensation and the refund process.

But before we get into the details, we want to personally share with you
NCsoft’s sincere thanks to all of our fans that have spent time with us
during the past eight years. We cannot reiterate how tough it was to
make the final decision to close this wonderful chapter in our history.
This has been a very special time for all of us, and we want to ensure
we close this chapter with the best possible gaming experiences for
everyone. To celebrate during the closing, we will host several of the
popular events we have enjoyed in the past. Exact details and timing of
these events will be shared shortly, as we are still nailing down
specifics.

Now for the details, starting on Wednesday, September 19, 2012, all
accounts which were previously subscribed as VIP as of September 1st,
2012 will be flagged as VIP for the remainder of the duration, sans
recurring billing. Unfortunately we will not be able to flag any
accounts that were not VIP as such during this period.

We will do our best to initiate automatic refunds Wednesday, September
26, 2012 for those customers who previously paid for either a recurring
subscription or purchased Paragon Points using either credit cards or
PayPal™ as set forth below:

• Outstanding subscription balances as
  of September 1, 2012 will receive a refund to the payment method used
  for the original purchase
• Customers who purchased Paragon Points after August 24, 2012 will
  receive a refund to the payment method used for the original purchase

• North America - Financial Institution, Account Number
  and Routing Number, and the 20-digit game time card applied to said
  account.
• United Kingdom - Sort code, Account Number and the 20-digit game time card applied to said account
• European Union – International Bank Account Number (or IBAN), Bank
  Information Code (or BIC) and the 20-digit game time card applied to
  said account
• In the event that a wire transfer is not possible, you may request to be mailed a check instead

DJ Amethyst and DJ Nexus of The Cape Radio are close to being homeless.  Please help your fellow CoXers if you are able.
They're good people and need help. I'm not able to send money myself right now. But I know some of you are Cape listeners and I figured I'd spread the word here. Even if you aren't, click the link and help a nice married couple who play COH and have given so much to the community in the form of great internet radio shows a hand with a few dollars to help them pay their rent for this month?
From the Chip-In site at the link above:

Quote:We've been trying desperately to avoid starting this Chip In. But
unfortunately we are now in a situation where we literally have no other
alternative. A little background on our situation for you.
Steven/Snorri/DJ
Nexus lost his job in February of this year. Stacy/Groa/DJ Amethyst lost
hers in May. Both of us were able to successfully file for unemployment.
Our roommate lost his job in June, and due to his being new to the state
was unable to file for unemployment. Steven's unemployment ran out
in August and we are still attempting to reinstate it. Both Steven
and Stacy have cashed in their 401(k)s and that money has already gone for
bills and rent and living expenses. We are habitually struggling to keep
a positive balance in our checking account and have been living on
pretty much ramen and grilled cheese for weeks on end and still are
months behind on every bill that we have. One side of the family is
unwilling to assist us, the other is unable to. Thanks to a friend that
has bought us groceries we have a supply of food in the house for a few
days, but that won't last for long.
The pressing issue is this. September rent is past due, and late fees are
stacking up daily. If we do not pay September's rent by the end of the
month, we will all three be evicted, and none of us have anywhere to go.
We don't have family that is able or willing to take us in, which leaves
us literally homeless if we cannot somehow find the money to survive
until we can turn our situation around.
It absolutely kills us to have
to ask you, our friends, for help, but we literally have nowhere else to
go,and time is running short. We have until the end of the month
to raise $874 to pay our outstanding rent. We then need to come up
with $724 to pay for October's rent before late charges start being
added to it. And our utility bills need to be paid as soon as
possible before things start being shut off.
Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

META
Even though Fenspace is a techno utopian setting (or at least not dystopic) not all technology, even critically important tech, should succeed.  This is a suggestion for some that was both very important, in what it did do, and the sort of failure, that makes people think twice, or even a third time, before risking repeating it.

Dopple Bot - 18/Sep/2012
Generation One
The idea was for fendane on Earth to be able to participate in the building of Kandor.  In consequence, (crude stick-figure humanoid) robots made from mined Lunar minerals and with a brain grown from a small living fragment of Brain Coral in a salt water 'brain case' were waved-up in large numbers.  The idea was these would be teleoperated from Earth, using a standard PC and a USB 'key' with a waved matching fragment of (dead) Brain Coral.  No telecomms bandwidth would be wasted in the process.
These 'dopple bots' became very popular, and there were such things as 'pimp my bot' competitions in 'rest time'.  Strangely, some operators seemed to be able to make their d-bots respond faster than speed of light limits would allow.  Some operators worked themselves to exhaustion, and this was overlooked in the fever to build Kandor.  There were reports of disturbed sleep, waking flash-backs, and body dysmorphism issues.  Finally, one operator killed themselves with dehydration and exhaustion, and 'woke up' in their robot, on Luna.
There was an immediate response from the Kandor engineers, and they shut-down the dopple bot program.  The robots were a problem, but they were shipped to Earth, Australia, and once they left the Moon they ceased to respond to their operators.  Many of them are still in their silica wool nests, in the bonded warehouse, in Australia.  The operators got to keep their 'bot keys' as mementos.
The operator who'd transmigrated to Luna ended up in a much better body (though with the same brain), and still lives in Kandor City.  People who'd had psychological problems fully recovered after a month or so of not being operators.  Some eventually bought their d-bots from the warehouse in Australia, but none of them would work on Earth.
Generation Two
It was argued that the dopple bots had proved so useful that they were needed as part of the Kandor Project.  One researcher had a variant which allowed someone to copy their mind into a bot, which could then work 24/7, and everything was OK as long as the original and bot spent 20mins per day, linked together in a meditative state, 're-synchronising'.  The hardware of these d-bots was identical to G1 variety, except the brains were waved loaves of bread, baked with a drop of blood from the original.  This was all claimed to be thoroughly tested and safe.
The d-bots worked brilliantly, and engineers pointed-out that with a d-bot they could do nearly four times as much work, as the bots needed no rest.  Some took to dressing their bots up as human, and as near to their own appearance, as possible.  Even putting them in pressure suits.  Others made them look like weird monsters.  The majority left them unaltered, except for the standard name tag, front and back.
A few tried to run more than one d-bot at once.  This didn't work for most people,leaving them with problems like blinding headaches, but a small number could run up to seven, and one man, a Carlo Espinoza, could run up to fifty on a good day.  These people became very popular for work requiring precise coordination.  All seemed to be going well.
Problems began to appear when people skipped the odd re-sync session, for things like health reasons, social pressure, or just bad luck.  The following session was particularly intense, and some reported similar symptoms to those that had caused alarm with the G1 d-bots.  Clear advice was given not to skip re-sync sessions, and the researchers realised they had no procedure to follow for when someone stopped using a d-bot.
A set of tragic accidents brought things to a head.  Carlo Espinoza was shot, dead, by a woman who claimed he was using several of his many d-bots to have affairs with other women.  It turned out that the culprit was in fact a cousin of his, who was in fact allergy to d-bot use, and who quietly left Luna to return to Earth.  All of Carlos d-bots, except one, went very strange, and a number had to be violently destroyed.  The one said that it thought it was him, he'd had a near-death experience of looking down on his shot body, and wanted some time off to think about things.
The second accident was a man who was slowly crushed to death, without anyone being able to stop this.  His d-bot went berserk within this time, and ran around grabbing people and other bots, insisting they must help.  All the bots grabbed had some sort of attack, very shortly afterwards, and permanently shut-down, for no apparent reason.  With so many people without d-bots it was possible to do tests.  Quite a few people became deeply depressed, though this cleared-up after a few months.  Those who tried to have a new, replacement, d-bot made found they couldn't re-sync with the new bot, and the bot went not at all pleasantly insane, and had to be destroyed.  This did, however, seem to stop any problem with depression.
Reluctantly, the project team put in a recall-and-shutdown scheme for all the d-bots.  Several people fled Luna, with their d-bots, rather than loose them.  All the other d-bots were shutdown in a sealed Luna cavern, cryogenically preserved, for when the problems might be solved.
Generation Three
Officially, no further work was done on dopple-bots, except research to solve the long-term problems.  Unofficially, there were people who were sure there was a solution, somewhere in there, to the chronic Fen manpower shortage.  Dr. Asmodeus Grey, who was still a respectable inventor and scientist at the time, was rumoured to dabble in this.  Supposedly some of his d-bots went very strange, and did research which was very ethically dubious, though nothing was ever proven.  People wondered later if this work had pushed him over the edge.
By accident a researcher discovered a way for an individual to use up to fifty d-bots at a time, with no risk to their sanity.  This involves making short-lifespan d-bots, which will automatically cease after 48hrs.  No re-sync is ever attempted, though the bots can leave records and notes for their original.  The critical trick is entering a light meditative trance in which you think about your mortality, and understand that you could soon die, then copying your mind to your d-bots.
The only researcher who discovered this told Brains one evening, while drinking at a science fiction convention held in the newly domed Kandor City.  He said he'd told no one else, destroyed all his notes, and was going off to become a nun.  Brains never heard from him again.  He did wonder if Emily was somehow involved in this event.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

As I write Shegomania, the composition of the all-goth-girl
magical-sentai team slowly emerges from the Pseudo-Gloom. Two of them
are specifically based upon preexisting goth-y characters : Pitchy is a
magical-tech kid very much in
the mold (I will be introducing her
Einheit--device--in some detail next installment.) of Nanoha's, Fate ;
Stygia is the vampire-goth quiet one in the style of the Teen Titan Go's, Raven.
Umbra, the brawny one, may not actually have a goth-ish
analogue. If
anything, I guess I stuffed Sandra Guts, a villainess from the Crassic
(spelling intentional) Dirty pair OVA series, into frilly black lace.
That and I cured her of her bad habit : I really don't want a psychotic
juicer on the team! Dies Irae,
the leader, is still rather foggy beyond
the fact that I want to make her, as her name suggests, to be very
operatic. The final girl, Nocturne Raven, is even less clear. Currently
she exists as a baseline magical goth-girl. Perhaps I will grow her into

the loose-cannon along the lines of  Puny Puny Poemy
I will goth-illy entertain suggestions to fill-out my more nebulous gals. Are there any burly-goth gals in Animé? What about operatic ones?

January, 2023

Nene ran another diagnostic on the drone attached to the standing pipe frame in front of her, then plugged into it with a cable running from the socket behind her ear. She raised an arm up, and the drone raised its matching arm. Then, both arms lowered. Nene closed her eyes, and with her arm only slightly twitching, the drone's arm raised up again, then dropped back down to rest.

Jet makes it look so easy, she groused internally. The telepresence drone was quite a thing she'd dreamed up, cobbled together from information from the Whole Fenspace Catalog, and was as hardtech as she could get it, and she suspected that might be part of the problem. But she felt it was only right to take it as far as she could that way before she dropped it into a tank.

"<Hey, sis, we're ready!>" Geo called from the lab door. "<Starbug's heated and ready at the main pad!>"

"OK, Geo, I'll be done in five minutes." Nene unplugged herself from the drone, packed up the various tools, and shut down the computer terminal she was using, and the drone sagged against the frame. Grabbing her phone, she made her way into the main office, where Jeph was working on paperwork, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and giving him a quick kiss.

"Good luck with Shinji, Nene. I'll try not to get buried in the paperwork here while you're gone."

"I'll bring a shovel, just in case," she replied, heading out into the corridor.

Six days later

Gorramnit, I should never have let her take Geo. I’m not even treading water with the paperwork right now, and this is one of our lighter periods, Jeph thought to himself as he contemplated the growing pile of physical paper on his desk. (Paperless office? HAH! They were bloody dreaming!)

One of the JMC express courier pilots came into the office, bearing a smallish box wrapped completely in polymer packing tape. "Hey, chief, got a delivery for you," he said, hefting the small box onto the desk. Jeph took the box in hand, tilting it so he could see the label.

Experimental Agricultural
Collective Farm #1
Korolevgrad, Daniell Crater, Luna 00005-1234

Upon seeing that, a big bright grin broke out on his face. "Thanks, Stan. I've been expecting this one." He broke out a small leatherman style tool, slit the packing seal, and opened the box. Contained within was a small plastic container, like one would keep food in, filled full of green coffee beans.

There was an unhealthy gleam in his eyes as he went over to the office coffee station, and poured a small handful of beans into the red-painted popcorn popper and started it up.

*****

Myk debarked from his craft, looking quite tired. After all these years, the grueling pace his consulting business ("Handwavium and You! A Two-Week Course on Using It, Without It Using You!") making him wonder, and distressingly not for the first time, if he should beat old age and go for a deliberate biomod finally. Given the emails he'd been seeing, he was going to have to go, take whatever sleep he could get, then hitch a ride out to Frigga to finally sit Jet down and make her listen to reason for a change regarding the need for some training on Handwavium Uses.

He was so preoccupied that he almost ran over Geo in the corridor, and almost missed that Nene was along. She looked a little worn out as well, but he knew that she'd been in the middle of things there.

"Hi, Nene," he croaked out.

"Wow, Myk, you look like you've had an even worse couple of weeks than we've had."

"Two of my students got themselves biomodded this round. Either I'm getting crankier in my old age, or they're actually getting sloppier as time goes on." He ran both hands down his face. "Thankfully, no Jokers this time. But Jamie got all sorts of shit from the others because of her earlier comment of being a lesbian trapped in a man's body. How's Shinji?"

"He's doing alright, given the sheer amount of company that descended upon Frigga," Nene said, as they started walking down towards the office. "I think he's through the worst of it now. He's turned out to be a motorhead, on top of it. We wound up showing him the Top Gear episode we worked on."

Myk chuckled. "And you did relate to him how insane the filming was?"

"Of course. Although we did have to pause it and explain about Jeph's particular biomod."

"I bet."

They walked into the office, and both Geo and Nene groaned as the size of the paperwork pile was revealed. "Great, looks like Jeph got buried in the paperwork again," she grumbled. "Must've gotten caught up in some project again like he always does." She went over to the far door, where the lab was. "Lights are on, he must be in there."

She looked inside, and then she whipped her head around to look at Myk.

"Aw SHIT. Stay out here, Myk!" With that, she and Geo both ran into the room, leaving Myk to contemplate the pile of paperwork, and the empty box at the edge of it... and the still-on but very empty coffeepot. He picked up the box, and noticed not only the label, but the unread letter inside. Taking it out, he quickly scanned it.

Jeph,

Sorry this took so long to get to you, we've had so many demands for the cuttings that we just finally had to break down and send you a small sampling of beans to try. Well, that, and Mal was swearing up and down that you and this shouldn't be in the same room. Hopefully, he won't notice that we've sent it to you.

We'll try to get you a cutting for your hydroponics this next Convention, if it turns out to be useful to you.

-Elena

Myk reread the letter again, his overly tired mind trying to process what he'd just read, then he looked over at the coffee station again.

There was the still-open container of unroasted coffee beans, and one of the mugs, specifically the black and gold "Babylon 5" mug, was missing.

"oh no you fucking didn't do that you can't have been that fucking stupid can you..."

"Myk, it's clean!" Nene called out from the lab, and he crumpled up the letter as he walked into the lab space proper.

Thing didn't seem all that out of the ordinary, except the chair in the middle of the room, that Myk realized was actually the desk chair that was normally in the office, and the coffee cup sitting on the terminal, and Jeph sitting in the chair, limp, one of the Handwavium paint sprayers resting in his hand with the nozzle against the floor. He looked like he was sleeping peacefully. Nene was kneeling on the floor in front of him, one hand around his unoccupied arm.

"I found this letter in a box outside... and the contents of the box are sitting next to the coffee pot." Myk handed the letter to Nene, who read the letter, read it again, and paled.

"Wait... they sent him Klatchian Coffee?!" she exclaimed. "Isn't that the same stuff that's sent three other biomodded individuals into serious Blue Hair states?"

"The same," Myk said, dryly. Then he noticed the open support frame near the work station. "Nene... weren't you working on some sort of remote drone project?"

"I was, why... where the hell is it?" Nene said, as she realized that the telepresence drone was not in the frame anymore.

"Jesus tapdancing Christ on a shit cracker," Myk said, kneeling next to Nene, grabbing one of Jeph's shoulders, and shaking him a little harder than was probably necessary. Jeph woke with a start.

"What?! Yes, mum, I'm just packing my satchel!" he cried out as he woke with a start at the jostling. "...and why do you two look like..." he started to say, then he realized he was still holding the paint sprayer, where he was. "Oh. Shit."

"'Oh. Shit,’ is right, Jeph," Myk said, most traces of fatigue leaving him. "What the fucking hell did you think you were fucking doing drinking that fucking coffee? I've told you when I heard about that fucking coffee that it fucks up biomods by making them fucking blue haired." He looked around the lab. "Where's the drone?"

"In the tank, Myk," a disembodied voice said, startling all four of them. Myk's eye grew wide.

"Oh, fuck, I know that lazy voice," he said.

Sure enough, the big screen on one wall came to life, and a middle aged bald man's head displayed on it.

"What's going down in groovetown then," Holly said.

Myk palmed his face with both hands, and forced his voice to remain level. "You. Created. Holly."

"I don't remember doing that," Jeph said sincerely, wincing. "Actually, I don't remember much of anything after the first sip of that coffee. What I do know is I have a hell of a headache."

“That’s what you get for drinking Klatchian cofee,” Nene told him.

"I'm going to regret asking this... Holly, what happened between that sip and us arriving?"

TVTropes' "No Outbounds" page?  Okay, if there are no outbounds allowed now, how did it link to a page on my site?  I found this looking at the inbound links on my site stats.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

http://news.yahoo.com/security-experts- ... ector.html

Read carefully.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

The spinner, a ridiculously technological analogue of the classic cardboard and plastic original, cycled through a spectrum so grim as to make even Mr. Poe smirk. The needle, a maser-compressed sliver of Drakkanite--whatever that was!--flashed by the circular arrangement of four concisely formed crystalline bubbles of exotic, electromagnetically fluoresced gasses to stop at the particularly moody damask gas. Van Loan’s voice, world-weary and desolate to the point of hilarity, sounded from within the super-over-engineered device : “ Left hand, Dead Rose.”
Five left hands, nails lacquered all of the penumbral shades of the loli-goth rainbow, scuttled listlessly for their assigned perches. The gordian goth knot of girls wavered ; Shego, who had been observing, the merest hint of a smile on her lips, lowered her sinister hand with gunfighter delicacy to hover an electron’s width over a beautifully self-explanatory button fashioned out of the miniature lightning storm of a plasma sphere.  “Shocker isn’t just to prevent me from getting into a game of legal Twister (tm) : it’s the game!” That gave the necessary impetus to finally begin the team soldering process.
Dies Irae, the eldest and by far the most gothic of the lot, cast a baleful glance at the sparking button ; snapped the stygian shackles of  self-absorption with her very first attempts at command.
“Umbra, stiffen your spine ; take the load!” The burly black frills in the midst of the tortured tangle looked surprised, affronted and grudgingly compliant all in about three millionths of a second.  Astounding thews were flexed, laughable seams were popped ; the House of Usherettes did not fall.  
Shego felt a sophisticated spate of sentiments : glee at finally awakening an Alpha Goth ; vexation at not being able to convey the conditioning amperage ; surprise that her tactics were actually paying off. During this moment of emotive tension, Irae continued, with a little more verve, to direct her goth gang.
“Pitchy, bring your left hand around behind Nocturne Raven’s posterior. Stygia, Nocturne...go to your happy places.”
The junior member of the nascent team, arched in the manner of an angry kitten, grumbled something unseemly in Japanese as she stretched her digits successfully towards the target colour on the game-mat. With this final effective body part placement the game-board lit-up with a brief victory peal that was an unholy combination of Close Encounters, Chopin’s Funeral March and the latest smash-hit of the all-catgirl pop-band, Sugar Rush. Stygia, the token vampire-goth, mumbled something inarticulate as her face was embedded within Nocturne Raven’s  considerable décolletage. Raven’s comment was a very audible, very put out : “ My moons! “ With solidity reestablished, Dies Irae made her first official leadership mistake.  
“Relax, Umbra, we’re fast.” The goth grrrl unclenched ; Shego’s emotional state simplified abruptly to relish.
“Don’t relax,” She depressed the electrically arcing button ; the structure of girls collapsed under the strain of a relatively mild electrical current. “until you know you’re clear. Clear?”
****
The montage was both impressive and asinine. Five depressingly attired monochromatic cuties worked with ever increasing efficiency and teamwork through a crazed routine of invasive-electrode party games. Van Loan, seated on his real-Nauga-hide couch, (It was like skinning Where the Wild Things Are!), an arm around Wandblume,  watched his girlfriend’s video compilation.
“Honey, you’ve created the most fearsome Dance Dance Commando unit ever assembled!” Indeed, on the giant wall screen in Van Loan’s den, the five members of Goth Action Freedom Force completed a flawless coordinated battle-ballet set at the fearsome Max-Dance-Maven setting. “They’ll own the party-game circuit, but that’s about it.” It really wasn’t a mistake until he rolled his eyes. She bopped him in the face with a tacky macramé throw-cushion bearing the slogan, ‘ "I didn't think; I experimented."— Anthony Burgess.’ “Would you prefer if they goose-stepped?”
Van Loan couldn’t help himself : he channelled his inner Dell Rusk. “Nein!” His German accent was muffled by the pillow.  “But vhat vill they be gut vor ?”
Wandblume,playing along, adopted a fairly decent Marlene Dietrich. “Mein liebchen (darling), the only volk (folk) that my girls are going to resent more than me by the end of their training will be the bastarde (bastards) eagerly awaiting their delivery.”  
Van Loan removed the cushion from his blue mug; threw his other arm around his girl. “What a beautiful Proof of Concept!” He kissed her enthusiastically ; received, from her, ample and energetic proof of the First law of thermodynamics.  
***
Togusa, well into her third tallboy, watched the unfolding couch-olympics with an air of familiarity that was almost not quite at all voyeuristic.  The conversation had been subtle enough that the tipsy, forlorn, and more than slightly horny Intelligence asset had missed Wandblume’s ‘Tora! Tora!Tora!’ moment. Togusa, also known as Jodie Starling, gave a weepy sigh  that covered, once again, any noise caused by the entrance of Batou. Rotating his faux cybernetic eye implants in his right hand as if they were Baoding balls, Batou’s actual eyes assessed the sad scene. He rested the large hand that wasn’t engaged in prop juggling companionably upon the shoulder of the very distracted girl. She startled slightly ; turned to look into the eyes that were in Batou’s head ; turned the waterworks on for real.
Batou found himself saying the usual, stolid nonsense as he cradled the hysterical Starling.
“That’s it : a good cry and we can get back to being...” She surged up and locked a desperate buss on his lips.
***Eleven hours later, Batou, sitting up in bed next to the snoring Starling, finally got to finish his statement : “...professional.” He snapped his eyepieces into place to hide the ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ expression.
***
“How interesting, Mikuru!” There was a slightly breathy quality to the voice.
There was no mistaking the elevated heart rate in the utterance of the other. “Yes, we may not be minions much longer, Yayoi!”

I really hope that there isn't already a group like this.
Initially formed by Japanese and American Fen who idolized the Super Sentai and Power Rangers franchises, the Super Sentai/Power Rangers sub-faction (they haven't agreed on an official name yet) was created in the post-Boskonian War era. Maintaining membership in both the Justice League Interplanetary and Crystal Millenium, they are seen as the clearest example of the diplomatic bond between the two "Superpowers" faction (pun not intended, but inescapable). Their most heavily promoted goal is to eventually create an actual Super Sentai/Power Rangers team, such as those seen in the two franchises. To this end, they focus on the creation of super-low-profile power armor, and have a heavy presence in the study of using biomods to create superpowers (when they can be dragged away from doing group poses, anyway). Creation of "morphers" to store the armor in a subspace pocket when not in use is a secondary objective. Storage and shipping companies are particularly interested in this secondary objective, which would allow them to drastically increase the amount of space they would have to work with.

Though I hope it isn't a farewell:
http://www.cohtitan.com/f...ex.php/topic,5058.0.html
by tim the enchater
most current version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cae81F4qTuE
to which I thought I could add by providing a shot we couldnt get without risking EULA breach:

Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children