Ah right. Ok - you're already familiar with what C8 and Kara look like.
So here's my CO interpretations - these are some of the most recent
screens I have, so they are up-to-date.




Not bad, eh?
Things have to get "interpreted" through the CO lens of course.
One thing that CO DOES do undeniably well - robots.  And as far as homages to specific characters go - here's a couple.

ClassicDrogn:
I kind of like the one from FLCL that splays out into a king (kong) size baseball mitt myself.

On a totally different tangent, do you suppose anyone has biomodded themselves a voicebox that lets them play with tractor/pressor focussed gravity waves and force bubbles yet? It only works if they're singing, or at least 'screaming musically' like a heavy metal vocalist, though...

Ace Dreamer
That sounds fun, but I suspect that would be beyond the limits of a normal biomod. You'd probably need something unique, like a biomod combined with a cyber voice box replacement for cancer of the throat. And, I suspect you'd need a collar connected to a low-profile backpack, with a power supply, if you wanted to do anything more than move small household object around, like wine glasses.

Star Ranger4
.... I think ace has the right of that conept

ClassicDrogn:
So, like the SES vest to get results more impressive than party tricks? Still pretty close to source material, here. And yeah, I was already thinking along the lines of having needed a replacement throat premod. Considering how much wavetech tends to respond to music, it might actually be a Spiritia-active substance like Fold Quartz. It's close enough to be the fen in question's working theory, at least. Maybe a former May-December idol singer who got shuffled off to low budget hentai VA after the industry

chewed her up and spat her out, took up smoking from the stress of having lifelong musical dreams crushed, and proved to be one of the highly susceptible fraction of a percent who get a rapid onset and quickly developing throat cancer. With the option of no voice, death, or space and the 'wave, option #3 was an easy pick when Minmay, Myung, and Mylene, plus their VAs, were all among her favorites. As a fen, she's loosely affiliated with the Gearheads by virtue of the Macross connection, president of the

Marsbase Sara chapter of the Musician's Aid Society, and specializes in recording new music that makes wavetech work, so the owners don't go nuts from having to listen to the same damn thing all the time. The fact that her music is just plain good now that she's using her own material instead of generic industry pabulum, and that some of her customers are BNFs with thier own following, gives her the wider audience needed to make a career of it. She has, however, refused all offers of an SES valkyrie,

citing a lack of Zentreadi, Protodeviln, or Vajra that would require such measures, and a tendency to motion sickness that makes flying in anything a misery.

Now she just needs a name...

ETA And naturally the thread has moved on while I was writing. Yeah, what Dartz said - Mars and Venus may be getting closer by 2020 but no one can really be totally self-sufficient in a space hab, there's just to much critical stuff that can break, and if you think you'll go without outside convenience items, tell that

to the half of your population who have a monthly use for Midol and tampons.

&%$#@!** PSP input box!

Star of Fenspace music e-shops, audio and video streams, Hoshikage Kouyou (Starlight Glittering) probably has a different real name, but between the fen love of image and the tendency to choose a new, genre appropriate name after coming Up, no one is too interested in calling her on it.

Edit again to use a name that's not an existing character

The Horse Smith is someone of no clear background.  His normal appearance is of a thin but athletic man, maybe in his mid-20, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a tanned skin on otherwise Caucasian or maybe Native American-influenced features.  He is someone who lives and breathes horses, can understand what they want, and can communicate with them about as well as you'd ever expect a human to be able to do.  If you insist on a name he calls himself 'Hess'.
He aims to bring horses 'back' to Fenspace.  You might think they weren't there before, but he insists their spirit is, where ever someone treats their vehicle as a living thing, where  you need a faithful companion, where you need work done with heart, not just mechanical perfection.
The Horse Smith is a master scrounger when it comes to providing for horses, and a talented orator when it comes to talking about their virtues.  He will arrive somewhere and within days will have a smithy set up, repairing local vehicles, and starting to persuade people that it'd be worth having a few horses around.  If they agree, he'll arrange to provide them.
What sort of horses do well in Fenspace?  They do tend to be a little different to terrestrial ones.
The simplest for people to understand are his robot horses, looking remarkably like the real thing, and, with a saddle, just as good to ride.  These have speed drives (capable of landing and taking off Earth), generate triple-redundant protective force fields to regenerate air and keep out radiation and meteorites, and move as if riding through the sky.  They have a talent for finding 'watering holes' (places with life support), and will carry injured riders home.  These drink hydrocarbons (ethanol at a pinch, though it gives them gas) and eat metals and some silicates.  Unless really badly injured their wounds heal over time.  Given a smithy, and the metal and silicates, he can assemble a riding or normal workhorse in about three days, two at a time, while doing normal repair work.  If you want a thoroughbred it will take a week, and will take his full time, as will something like a warhorse, or maybe a pair of dray horses.
Less understandable are his space horses.  For these he needs to build growth tanks, at least a months work full time, or several months in his spare time (generally he builds two at a time).  Then he'll need to source enough biomass to make growth medium for the tanks.  Growing a space horse to colt size, ready to decant, takes six months from finishing the tanks, and he will normally insist that at least two are made, a mare and a stallion.  Space horses are purely biological but have all the abilities of the robot horses, grow up as normal horses do, and can breed, though they have an indefinite lifespan (fertility decreases as they grow beyond normal horse lifespan).  They can eat normal food, but also raw hydrocarbons, and CHON in practically any form.  They'll only eat meat given no other choice.
Sometimes he has been pretty desperate.  He has done things he is not proud of.  The pony-sized space horses, that could talk, had allegedly human-grade intellects, generate manipulative tractor fields with their front hooves, and came in strange colours.  No.  Never again.  Not even if they use the puppy-dog eyes on him.  Or cat girls.

The Horse Smith's Abilities
He is far stronger than he has any right to be (could probably lift a tonne), and has the 'heft' as if he weighed a tonne - you don't push or knock him around easily.  This could be some sort of trick with a speed drive.
He wears a ring which produces a force field that'll protect him from small arms and hand-held energy weapons,.  He has a second ring that'll generate a protective bubble, and a holographic illusion, of a campsite, a log hut, even a small house made from irregular stones, and keeps out the elements (vacuum, radiation) while providing light and a pleasant atmosphere (air regeneration) - obviously this can't be used on the move. Neither ring has an obvious power source or will work for anyone but him.
He has a double-ended water bottle which will recycle any water into something pure and refreshing.  And a trail pouch that will make CHON and 'essential salts' from just about any source into nourishing but unpalatable trail rations.  Both these have no obvious power source but they will work for others as long as they spend most of their time near his person.
He has, of course, a riding horse, a thoroughbred, a saddle, some saddle bags with tools, and the clothes he stands up in.  His horse is, of course, a space horse, which rarely goes far from him.  Sometimes he has a (robot) pack horse, carrying extra goods.  He's armed with very keen edged blades, which he fights with and can throw with deadly accuracy; he normally has at least five about his person, and he can smith new ones.  In fact, he can repair or replace any of his horse tack.

The Horse Smith's Secrets
He makes some effort to hide these.
He, can in fact be a she, but isn't happy to do this due to past trauma (which involved guns), and will only do this in safe circumstances.  This change reshapes clothes, and to a lesser extent equipment.  Being female doesn't remove any abilities.  For psychological reasons, only the female form can fly without being on a (robot/space) horse.
He is, in fact, his horse.  Or, more accurately, they are one being, sometimes in two parts.  Killing one means the other may need to eat a lot to replace the lost body mass, but it's otherwise an inconvenience.  The horse can generate a holographic image of a rider to give people something to shoot at, which can be tweaked to be 'injured', or slump 'unconscious'; the holo image can't go out of contact with the horse.
Though he doesn't know it, the rings, the water bottle, the food pouch, with all their elaborate waved circuitry, are extensions of his personal abilities.  He doesn't believe this, as that would be 'non-human', and he still believes himself at base to be human.
Why a robot horse?  The person who became Horse Smith knew they had to
get away from Earth, so up into Fenspace was the only real option. 
Other people took cars, trucks, boats - you couldn't take a horse in
those, so, the horse needed to be able to survive in Fenspace, run
free.  And, any rider needed to be protected, too; a rider might be necessary to protect the horse.  Hence the 'star
walking' speed drive, the force field, etc.  This was also a person
who'd been a smith, a farrier, and a mechanic, who saw machines and
living creatures as being part of a single whole.  What the robot
horse could do then became a template for the (desperate) attempt to make a living horse (sanity and clear thought was a long way
behind by that time).
One theory is that a (female) Fen had her horse killed, on Earth, in a very unpleasant incident.  Claustrophobia and fear of imprisonment was the least of it.  She tried to revive her horse (which was in an ice room) using handwavium, first by transferring its spirit to an mechanical body (the robot horse worked, but didn't know her, and obviously didn't have the same character), then in a regeneration tank.  The tank gave her a living but unconscious horse.  Then she leaned over too far...
It could have been worse, if she'd been too self-centaured. [grin]
Edit: Added reasoning explaining robot horse and its abilities.

--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

One of the conflicts the majority of us reading Drunkard's Walk VIII look forward to the most is the showdown between Doug and that hate-filled, bigoted ball of slime known as Dolores Umbridge. We want to see Doug defeat her, not because we wonder who will win, but because we want to know how Doug beats her. But that doesn't mean we can't have fun speculating in the meantime.
"Minerva, did someone screw up a Tranfiguation spell on a toad?"
"Don't let her hear you say that, Douglas. Besides, that's an insult to toads."

Source: CoH Live Journal
(These were caught and transcribed last night. I was there for the Ascendant one in person myself, but I had a crash right after Ascendant made his, so I wasn't able to snag it. I'm glad someone did.)
Two speeches (like the title says) from two different people earlier
tonight in the game, on Virtue. Both of these are courtesy of [img]http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=96]eryntzun. The first from Freitag of the Community Relations team:
[Admin] NCsoft_Freitag: Hello everyone!
[Admin] NCsoft_Freitag: I know it's late, but I wanted to take a moment to say a few words to you here in-game...
[Admin]
NCsoft_Freitag: So for those of you who are not aware, Paragon Studios
was closed on Friday (I'm not sure what time zone you all are in)...
[Admin]
NCsoft_Freitag: I just wanted to come here, and tell you guys how
amazing you all are. If there ever was a great community to work with,
it's you guys.
[Admin] NCsoft_Freitag: Words cannot express the
honor, joy, and gratitude I, and everyone else at Paragon Studios feels
toward you guys.
[Admin] NCsoft_Freitag: You guys made the impossible
possible. You guided us, your creativity inspired us, and your passion
drove us to new heights.
[Admin] NCsoft_Freitag: I know you guys are
upset, and we're really sad too. I can't answer the questions you guys
have, but hopefully someone soon will be able to answer them.
[Admin]
NCsoft_Freitag: But I want you all to know that this is not what we
wanted. City of Heroes ... you guys, our players, are really special to
us.
[Admin] NCsoft_Freitag: I know that I, and everyone who has
worked on City of Heroes for the last ten years, from the oldest hands
to the newest hires, are truly honored to have been part of this amazing
journey.
[Admin] NCsoft_Freitag: Thank you all very much for your
kind words: here in game, on the forums, on Facebook, Google+ and
Twitter. The outpouring of love, support, and kindness has made his
horrible day a little bit easier for all of us.
[Admin] NCsoft_Freitag: I speak for all of us here at Paragon Studios when I say:
[Admin] NCsoft_Freitag: YOU GUYS FREAKING ROCK AND YOU'RE THE BEST COMMUNITY THERE IS!!!!!!
[Admin]
NCsoft_Freitag: Everyone who has played or worked on City of Heroes and
in Paragon has been touched in some way, big or small. Every bit of
that which you add to this world is an essential part of the whole, and
we would be poorer without it.
[Admin] NCsoft_Freitag: The memories
will never go away. Focus on the wonderful things that happened over the
last ten years. The amazing people who you've met and played with in
this game, and the wonderful experiences you have had.
[Admin] NCsoft_Freitag: I would like to go say a few words on some other servers now, but thank you all for listening.
The second from Ascendant, famed COH player legend, known for his one-sided phone conversations. This speech is no different.
[Local] Ascendant: I stood up when the Rikti first invaded, and I've never stopped trying to fight for its survival.
[Local] Ascendant: Along the way, I made friends that I'll value for a lifetime.
[Local] Ascendant: I've had the benefit of being a part of their lives, and the tremendous honor of of having them in my life.
[Local] Ascendant: Together, we've had spectacular adventures, and made amazing accomplishments.
[Local] Ascendant: We've inspired people to do good.
[Local] Ascendant: We've righted wrongs.
[Local] Ascendant: We've stopped countless threats.
[Local] Ascendant: But, most importantly, we've reminded people that when they look to the skies, they can always find hope.
[Local] Ascendant: I'll be damned if I'm going to let you take away the whole city.
[Local] Ascendant: To that end, I will make it my solem vow that I absolutely will not rest unt--
[Local] Ascendant: .. hello?
[Local] Ascendant: ...I can't believe he just hung up on me...
[Local] Ascendant: ...I mean, who even does that?
[Local] Ascendant: How big of a jerk do you have to be to shut someone down just when they're getting to the good part?

http://www.animenewsnetwo...-video-manga-novel-sales
edit: doh, meant to post this into general.

Purrfect Meddler was created as a homage to Stephanie Brown, the woman known as Spoiler/Robin/Spoiler Again/Batgirl (With a touch of Gold Diggers added to explain the 'Purrfect' once I realized Meddler was taken and I blanked on everything else). Steph is a subject of some controversy in the DC fandom, as her run on Batgirl was often considered one of the best comics out there. Then DC decided to erase the old universe and replace it, with Babara Gordon de-aged to Stephs age and turned intro Batgirl again, with Steph simply vanishing and every fan asking about her at conventions and panels getting utterly no answers. When I heard Staff Fighting was coming, I decided to make Meddler as a homage.

And now CoH is about to cease to exist. I'm not saying she's cursed to destroy universes and flee to new ones... But she DOES have a record of breaking things.

... I'm gonna go reroll her in DCUO and see what goes wrong there. (Aside from an odd sense of recursion)

Given some of the nature of Doug's bike.

http://jalopnik.com/59387...es-the-future-of-hoonage
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

Chapter Two is now available to Forum members.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=295621
I don't want to go all Chicken Little, but I think the sky really is falling this time.
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI