"Aargh! I think I need some Meta-muse-il. I keep sitting here at the keyboard straining, but nothing's coming out!"

Thank you, thank you, try the watress and tip the veal, I'm here all week.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

. . . but how about fixing them?

Question to everyone:  Is there a song out there Doug can use that can REPAIR any wrecked thing close to him?

Just to tide you all over until the 31st...

...Chapter 2 is now in preread.  Unless something absolutely horrendous comes up unexpectedly, I'm planning on releasing it two weeks from now, on 31 August.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Alias: Bootleg, The Sneaker

Powers/Gadget: extradimensional pocket space, usable on any small object in LOS

Signature Racket: smuggling, petty theft

Typical takedown: caught when fence or buyer turned out to be under surveillance, or tossed to the capes as a distraction by a doublecrossing A-lister.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

What it says on the tin... I touched on this in the main thread but I think maybe we should have a split off topic to hash this stuff out.
My idea is to have, post Boskowar (at some point not necessarily immediately) a general "taking stock of things" and a decision to work together at a strategic level.  What I had in mind for PEPPER (Space Arms Limitation Treaty) is some form of agreement to limit the amount of strategic class assets everyone is keeping under their own chain of command.  I know RR and VVS (and probably a lot of others - Warsies and so on obviously and so on) have and are developing strategic level assets and I see no problem with that, IC or OOC.  But everyone sitting independent of each other doesn't do much good for anyone's peace of mind.
Note that details of what constitutes a "strategic level asset" and how many factions can keep for their own uses aren't important for now - and frankly I imagine this leading to a lot of IC bickering anyway.
My vision is the unified command (NATTO - Not Actually Terran Treaty Organization) having its chain of command independent of the interests of the individual members.  How this would happen I'm open for debate; I'm thinking something entirely separate from OGJ in concept and with some aspects determined by bickering committees.    In peacetime, it would be concerned with taking care of things bigger than the Space Patrol and running exercises to simulate various potential *cough*dirtside*cough* opposing forces.  Part of this is as a show of force to people who might think about trying to use force to dictate policy, part of this is legitimate training into a professional volunteer military (as much as is practical with the people involved) and part of this is to have the members of all the forces rotating in and out of the NATTO chain of command working alongside each other, seeing each other as comrades to be trusted and not potentially dangerous people from other factions.
Comments?

Harry Harrison has curled up all ten stainless steel tootsies.
http://io9.com/5934884/rip-harry-harris ... lent-green

Moria Mining - 15/Aug/2012
Mid Spring 2008-2009, UK/Luna.
Moria Mining started as a bit of a joke between Brains and a number of other heavily-built members of British 'Maker' fandom.  They'd all heard of handwavium, and some of them were experimenting with it, though keeping this pretty quiet.  Things came to a head when James Kaden remarked that both his parents had cancer, and were very likely to die within a year or so.  And, where were all those wonderful 21st century medical advances everyone had been promised?
This was mid-Spring 2008, and Brains got in contact with some friends, Maureen and Dave, who had recently 'gone up'.  They were still getting established, but they put Brains in contact with others still in the UK who were investigating medical uses of handwavium.  Another member of Moria Mining, Dora J., had leukaemia which was almost certain to kill her, and she volunteered as an experimental biomod subject.
Working on the theory that handwavium needed a theme, and dwarves were a pretty tough race rarely affected by disease, they dissolved everything they could find on the appropriate sort of dwarves in a medical variety of handwavium, which had produced the most reliable set of biomods (though mostly on animals).  Brains suggested they dress it all up with ritual, so they constructed chants, in Dwarven, to do with health, long life, and rebirth.  And included special, Dwarven, stout beer.  He was rather embarrassed that they insisted he lead the ceremony.
Everything went well, though Dora only revived after being fed the beer.  She said she was in excellent health, and all the waved medical instruments agreed with her.  Being only 5'2" her height hadn't changed, nor her overall appearance, though a few tests showed she was considerably stronger.  And, she hadn't been weak, before.
James parents talked it over with him, and agreed to take the risk.  His father was a retired mining engineer, of similar build to James, but his wife was slimmer and taller.  He was a devout Christian, and had his doubts about the ceremony, but accepted the word of "The Moradin" (the name they gave him for Brains) that it was for the handwavium, not the gods.
Again, all went well, though James mother lost three inches in height, and was skin and bones after the ceremony.  She rapidly put on weight, afterwards, though she commented neither would her old clothes fit her, nor her friends recognise her.  Both of them had shed years of age, and now were firmly mature, rather than elderly.
Jesse Kaden wanted to have something to do.  His wife looked so different that she didn't have any legal existence, any more.  Healthy members of 'Moria Mining' wanted to take the biomod.  Eventually, one of them did, but without the ceremony.  Brains and the others reluctantly completed things when he fell into a coma, and he revived, having lost six inches in height and wanting to get back to work.
All the tests that they could do showed the biomods to be stable.  Dora and Jesse had a full range of tests, some on the National Health, some paid for.  Though, the doctors wanted to know why Jesse looked so healthy, and didn't think his 'foreign holiday' sun tan was a good enough explanation.
Questions were being asked about James mother, though she could talk to her friends on the phone, as long as she was careful about her new deeper voice. Brains showed them maps of the Moon, and the idea of creating a new home, and mining, to fuel workshops, somewhere on the Far Side was attractive to most of the 'Morians', as they were now calling themselves.
Eventually a dozen people went up, via Brains invisible spaceship.  This included three children, though a marriage and a long-term partnership broke-up in the process.  Partly balanced by a new (Morian) marriage before leaving.  Another half-dozen joined them later.  It was agreed that the rebirth ceremony would only be offered to children when they reached the age of eighteen.  As became obvious, after a little more than nine months, the biomod bred true, between a pair of Morians, anyway.
So were established the (initially secret) Mines of Moria.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

KJ Wrote:I thought we were trying to avoid grimdark... somehow the whole "slow heat death of hopes and dreams" and associated angst is even worse.

Nomar, from Spacebattles Wrote:The Boskone war ends in 2014. The war is important because it gives the Fenspace Convention credibility as a government on account of the Convention having done two very classical government–y things: it has enforced its monopoly on violence by waging a war. This means Fenspace is no longer viewed as the anarchic no–man's–land beyond the frontier where only complete nutters would go, it may be still a bit wild–westy but it's definitely a civilized place now. Also, by this time Fenspace has living space for rent, jobs to be filled and you can even buy regular commercial flights there (Swissair if I recall correctly). All in all, a recipe for a big immigration boom, especially if the first world's economy is still stagnating in the aftermath of the financial crisis (did that even happen in Fenspace? If not, why?). First contact happens in 2024, that's ten years for Fenspace to grow. Not very long, but quite enough if the economy is booming, especially given the miraculous properties of handwavium.

Briefly decribed in the now-locked thread, but doomboner free. I'll copy the previous bits here someday, but one of the things I want to remember to put in Borealis is a Wizards' Tower, which will house Odds End Gubbins & Bob's from the old not-quite-complete Guide to Fenspace arghticle. (the top of Horizont Alley is Evens End) The Pernie with mechadragon and the Escaflowne-r will also be residents, for the dragon/castles bit, and a YF-25 w/Macross: The Ride "Paladin Pack" lance equipped FAST.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows