So, for various reasons we know that a lot of old style aircraft have been converted into fen areospace capable.
The Roughriders, even after the war, in fact seem to continue that trend.
Which lead me to thinking.  There seem to be 2 main types of combatants during the war years that appear 'on screen' to date.  Fen vehicles that have been weaponised, or 'large construction' heavy 'warships'.  But almost nothing in between, which is surprising.  Ben Rhoades, in particular, with his manic blue hair adaptation of airfraimes of all sorts seems like the type that might come up with something like this:

Of course I can mostly see it being used during the war, and mostly only as a 'Door Knocker'; designed to strafe and suppress exterior defenses (with extreme predjudice!) while the busses loaded with marines make their ingress?
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

I'm posting this here specifically because the subject is sensitive to some people, not because it's particularly political... unless you count the results of sucking up to a BNF when they obviously fucked up to be particularly political.
http://whatever.scalzi.co...eadercon-harassment-etc/
The irony is that the resulting firestorm from them trying to be nice to someone who was "showing remorse" (I'm going to go have a fit of deeply bitter giggles just from typing that) has done far more to his reputation than a permaban would ever have done. Literally half the first page of hits from Google are links to blog postings about the incident, and there's already a significant number of BNFs that have heard about the incident, including obviously one John Scalzi.
ReaderCon is also reaping the "benefits" of their actions, with again literally half the first Google page being links to blog postings regarding the incident. Pretty much all of it for them is that they basically "bent" a policy that was a "one size fits all" at the moment it was supposed to be applied, which anyone with a lick of legal sense can tell you is never, ever, ever a good idea. You apply it, then you amend it for later incidents. You don't amend at the moment. There is a distinct chance that they might very well not have a ReaderCon for Walling to return to in three years.
--

"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

Issue 24 introduces Martial Combat and Martial Assault as free-to-VIP secondaries for Blasters and Dominators

Quote:Martial Combat (blaster secondary)
•Chi Push (repel followed by knockback (cool new animation)
•Storm Kick (melee)
•Dragon Kick (melee)
•Dragon's Tail (PBAoE melee)
•Burst of Speed (AoE self TP)
•Reach for the Limit (Build up auto power—Chance for +dam and +ToHit on every power)
•Reaction Time (toggle—+absorb over time, +revocery, -move on enemy; 10 seconds of +speed on toggle off)
•Inner Will (self heal and ,ez break—only unsable under 50% end or health or when mezzed)
•Throw Sand (cone foe stun)

Martial Assault (secondary for Dominators)
•Shuriken Throw (has a new animation)
•Thunder Kick (melee—MA port)
•Trick Shot (chain power—shuriken bounces between targets)
•Spin Kick (front facing cone like the incarnate power without the teleport)
•Envenomed Blades (build up power; adds toxic damage to all attacks for a time)
•Dragon's Tail (PBAoE melee)
•Caltrops
•Masterful Throw (snipe; chance for DoT damage)
•Explosive shuriken (single target with chance for splash DoT)

Gore Vidal has passed away.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

KnK / Prototype crossover update.
(Some kind of lion-hybrid gets infected)
http://forums.nrvnqsr.com...K-Prototype-Crossover%29

You guys remember the toy rockets that you would fill with tap water and them pressurize, so that they would launch into the air?
Japan has a toy RPG like that.
I want one of these SO BADLY.
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

Innovative Fenspace Industries (IFI) was an Australian construction company set up, early 2008, to exploit the possibilities of near-Earth construction in space, using handwavium-based tools and industry.  Their first big project was intended to be a luxury hotel, with the core built on Earth, launched to L5, then construction completed there.
Unfortunately, while they had excellent engineering skills, they lacked on the business and financial side, and by mid 2008 they were forced to sell the project and the part-completed hotel core to an O'Niell organisation, to become an L5 private home, O'Neill Station.  The core was launched 9th November 2008, and successfully placed at L5.  They spent two months, working through Christmas and the New Year at triple-time rate, so by early January 2009 they could give a rough station completion of end of March 2009.  The station officially opened 8th April 2009.
Unfortunately, back on Earth, things hadn't gone smoothly.  IFI collapsed with allegations of mixing drugs, catgirls and Warhammer 40k, 2nd of January 2009.  Existing projects (including O'Neill Station) were pretty smoothly taken over by CHOAM.  The management had seen the writing on the wall, and they were already in serious negotiations.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Hey guys. I think some of you are readers/fans of the EPU material and Ben "Gryphon" Hutchins. 
Maybe you should know that he's had some serious medical issues. I won't detail the whole thing here because Gryph did himself here, and here. I had NO idea of this stuff until just a few days ago myself, as I hadn't been over to the EPU forums in a couple of months. But kind of a shock to hear about. 
Well he had his surgery yesterday, and it was dicey. VERY dicey.  Gryphon is out of surgery but he's in a medically induced coma. There were.... complications. 
Megazone posted on his FB page here about it. 
In part, MZ says:  

Quote:All I have are the details his clearly shaken mother relayed to me by phone, but apparently his renal vein tore during the surgery and he had a massive bleed which they had trouble staunching. They had to transfuse a lot of blood and she said he coded and had to be resuscitated twice on the table. They did decide to proceed with the primary objective and removed the kidney, and apparently that went well and they believe they got the entire mass and it doesn't look like the cancer had spread. So at least that is good news.
...
...
I'll pass on further news as I get it. Right now just think positive thoughts. He's not out of the woods yet, but they're going to be keeping a close eye on him in the ICU. Since they stopped the bleed, removed the kidney, and managed to resuscitate him, hopefully he's past the worst of it.

blackaeronaut Wrote:Sorry guys.  Things have been kinda hairy on my end.  :p
The
primary finish of most Roughrider ships (with the notable exception of
Blackbirds) is mirror-finish chrome in honor of the Apollo Astronauts,
whose capsules were finished in a similar manner.  On the Peacemaker,
it'll still have the blacked-out area over the nose simply to keep any
glare from the Sun out of the command crew's collective faces.  Of
course, this is gonna be one of those matte black finishes.
The Air Force roundels should be replaced with Republic of Texas flags
and the SAC shield with the Gonzalez Banner.
Every Peacemaker is a flagship, so it would only be appropriate that the
Unit Patch would be proudly displayed as tail art.
And, of course, replace USAF and US AIR FORCE with RR and ROUGH RIDERS.
(EDIT:
Oh yeah, and nix the checker marks on the landing gear doors, tail-fin
tips, and the yellow on the propeller hubs and engine intakes.  I don't
think I've ever seen a picture of a B-36 like that before and it looks
ghastly to my eyes.)
F-EZigs are carried on pylons under the
wings, between each engine (with the last ones outboard of the fusion
torch engines).  Properly fitted, a Peacemaker can touch down and take
off at a 'Dane-side airfield with its F-EZig accompaniment docked.
By
all means, Star, hack away.    And I don't lay sole claim to the
F-EZigs.  If I like what I see, I'll just say, "Yeah, Roughriders got
those, too." 
One final thing... Ben wouldn't be so evil as to
make that many people operate on a forward-deployed basis like that...
He'd give them several small facilities, hidden in the Belt on which
they can rest, recuperate... and, when needed, scramble and come flying
like bats outta hell.  It wouldn't even have to be an asteroid.  It
could be a small space station.  Nothing huge, probably on the same
scale as the ISS because it would have food, living quarters, plus parts
and munitions for the entire squadron.  (At this point, I'm gonna say
that a typical Roughrider Squadron is two Blackbirds, twelve F-EZigs,
and a Peacemaker.  Peacemaker carries eight F-EZigs each and each BB
piggybacks two more - their hulls are so short, after all.)
Long
duration configuration on a Peacemaker would probably be three-of-four
modular bays fitted with a living unit (racks for the entire crew plus
eight fighter pilots, plus galley and hygiene) and one heavy missile
unit (incase they run across something really tough).
For
more flavor, Peacemakers, despite being well built machines, are quirked
to break down in some bizarre way.  However, during the design phase
Ben did foresee a need for them to be easy to work on. 
Therefore, most breakdowns can be repaired in-flight by the flight
engineer.  Therefore, you can have the engineer grumbling about some
repair he/she just finished up (easy to work on, yes - convenient, no).
For
the flight engineer... you could use that character I thought up that
riffed off of All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku... she was the one
that started out as a farm girl who just wanted to help her dad out by
making sure the tractor never broke down again... and got herself a very
unique kind of catgirl biomod.  (The 'bio' part of that is debatable as
she is roughly 20% cybernetic now.)  Ah, yes!  Here she is: http://drunkardswalkforums.yuku.com/topic/5426
Someday I am really gonna have to do a better job getting some of this stuff wikified so it's not a big question mark.  :p
EDIT2:
Just for scale, Star.  Nothing really brings home the sense of scale on this thing like this picture.  Yes, those are chairs they're sitting in.

Consolidated Failure - 26/Jul/2012
December 2011, Asteroid Belt.
All alone in the dark.  Arthur waited.  The faint hiss of the air system.  The smell of summer days, that the bus always had.  And, the acrid smell of burnt-out electronics.
They'd used some sort of EMP weapon.  Easy enough if you had access to enough power.  Short-range though, and there'd been nothing on the radar.  A disguised space rock?  The bus depended on a lot of hard tech, and that had fried.  They'd even killed the co-pilot, the Alice Phone - didn't look as though that was as hardened as they hoped.
*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*  Better go and let them in.  They'd just do more damage, otherwise.
---

The leader was a woman, done up in a mixture of pirate and high tech.  The three followers were more mixed, but, thought Arthur, shouldn't be underestimated.  The leader's eye-patch was probably authentic, given the nasty scaring around it.  No!  It wasn't an eye patch, it was an 'eye drive'.
"I am the Dread Pirate Roberta!"  Seemed a bit over-done, thought Arthur.  "So, you are going to kill me?"  "Tell me why I should make an exception!"
"I'm an industrialist by the name of 'Arthur'.  If you're smart you can get a good ransom for me.  Dead, I'm not worth anything like as much."
She grinned.  Arthur noted that she'd carefully blacked-out some of her teeth. Obviously a cos-player.  The thugs were standing around, still fully-suited up, likely ready for nasty surprises.  There was a faint glimmer about one of them, that Arthur guessed as a force field.  Looking again at the woman, she was wearing a 'Wright Suit' - 'Interesting', thought Arthur, 'Rich pirate'.
"Take off that suit.  I know it's a spacesuit in disguise."  Remarkably well-informed pirates, thought Arthur, as he undressed.  The woman watching with interest, as you might watch a performing animal.  Then smiled again, as Arthur stool there in vest and underpants.
"Nice."  And she gestured.  The man with the glow did something to an armlet, and energy fizzed and crackled around Arthur.
"Much better", said the woman, looking at Janet in her underclothes, with a broken, smoking, belt, falling to the deck.  "You made two mistakes.  One, I know what to look for to spot a holo disguise.  Two, we've already got an 'Arthur'."  'Bingo!', thought Janet.
"You can take your helmets off, now, boys."  The woman gestured widely.  "Take a look around, and see how big a fish we've caught."  Janet counted, as they obeyed, and one man kept watching her, with more than casual interest.  The man with the glow had dead eyes, but while he looked at infinity, he seemed to move around OK, and the third went up the stairs to the upper deck.
"Becca?", called the one from above, "I think you need to come look at this." "It's 'Roberta'!  How many times do I have to tell you!"  And, finally, none of them was looking directly at Janet.
Leaping to one side Janet slammed down a hidden switch.  The gravity shut-down, and all the air rushed out of the lower deck of the bus, through the suddenly open emergency door.  'Now they're fighting against the environment, not just me', she thought.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man who'd been watching her fumble his helmet, then start to panic.  'One down.'  Everything was in slow motion, as she reached out, knocked the top off a container, and let vacuum spray the contents all over the leader's helmet.  Which went opaque.  The emergency force-field should keep the air on the upper deck, and the man who went up there.
The way the man with opaque eyes was moving implied he was thinking as fast as her.  Yes, he was surprised, but he'd almost instantly recovered.  However, he was obviously used to moving around in gravity.  And, Janet had trained for this.
'Gravity Punch!', though she'd thought it, rather than shouting it, and, anyway, vacuum.  Bouncing twice she plowed into the man, backed by all the power of her speed drive.  Used like this it would burn-out in minutes.  He slammed backwards into the stairway, which he'd stepped towards, then she kicked him in the neck, where his re-donned helmet joined the suit.
As she kicked she felt a tingle, and that foot went numb.  EMP?  She'd check later.  Another flip and she was stripping weapons and tools off the leader, who at least seemed to have some idea about moving in zero G.  One of her tasers in the right spot in the 'Wright Suit' fixed her.
The third thug had stood at the bottom of the stairway, watching the action. He'd been smart enough to put his helmet back on, even though he was in atmosphere.  His head moved, obviously assessing the situation, as she flew slowly towards him, dressed only in her underwear, one fist raised, and glowing.  Carefully he unlatched his helmet, and put his hands in the air.
After two minutes of vacuum Janet re-pressurised, to a fifth-atmosphere with enough oxygen to keep them alive.  She'd let the man on the stairway inject himself, after reading the instructions he was a lot happier, and now he was 'on ice'.  The voyeur, she thought he'd be OK, also 'on ice'.  Their leader, her taser had done something nasty to her cybernetics, and she hadn't regained consciousness, so Janet had to inject her.
As for Mr Dead Eyes, he seemed to have a broken neck.  Janet injected him with a metabolic slow-down drug rather than the full suspended animation dose the others got, but he got the full waved duck-tape coat, only leaving his face exposed.  EVA, wearing her Wright Suit as well - her 'Arthur' holo cloak was toast - led her to a van-sized space rock, which turned out to be camouflage.
Inside was a micro-base, run by an AI that claimed to have a bomb strapped to its brain.  It said it hadn't reported what happened, and had caught the full transmission from the eye drive; if she removed the bomb it'd be eternally grateful.  Janet had learned a lot about self-destruct mechanisms, so rolled mental dice, and gave it a go (Arthur would have done).  She'd rigged a powerful wide-band transmitter to scream her location if she didn't return to the bus and re-set it, so if the AI was working on a mutual-destruction ploy that'd be bad but not totally fatal.
Someone had rigged a thermite bomb to the AI, and a clever one at that.  Janet sweated, but spotted the secondary trap at the last moment.  The AI then admitted it'd been 'driving' Mr Dead Eyes, but it hadn't got any choice - the leader always carried a dead-mans switch.  And, seeing as the bomb hadn't gone off it presumed she was still alive.  Which is why it trusted Janet.  Janet doubted the logic, but wasn't going to argue.
---

That gave her a total of twenty pirates.  All but one on ice.  And, this last crew had done major but repairable damage (those FTL communicators were just too fragile) to the bus.  Or, 'Q ship' she guessed she should call it.  Finally she'd gotten some pirates she was pretty sure knew about Arthur.  And, it'd be best to get Mr Dead Eyes, and the AI she'd unplugged, to some competent medical attention.
Time to head home.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind