So, Fred... Finally just decided to start plowing through TSY and see what was up.
I've made it up through the start of "My Darlings United" thus far, and I can already see where a lot of the ideas you've been using in your more recent fics come from. Looks like a number of things were on the Addventure, too? Any recommendations where to start reading, there?
And I can't think of a better way to put this, but... your writing quality has really improved a lot since TSY.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

AI Privacy - 16/Jun/2012
Janet sneaked.  Into Arthur's room.  Unheard.  And, she planned, unseen.  Invading his privacy.
She still feared there might be extra surveillance.  A tell-tale hair she might displace.  But, no.  Arthur wasn't that paranoid.  And, her AI core was plugged-in, down in the workshop, to the security system.  All ready to clean-up after her.
Janet knew she wasn't his sister.  After all, she wasn't human, and 'sister' was a biological relationship.  But, he'd called her 'family', and family looked after each other.  Looking after him properly meant she needed to know him better.
She'd been in the room, before, of course.  Dropping-off freshly cleaned clothes (if he wanted them ironed, he could do that himself!).  She'd even brought him a morning cup of tea, twice, when she knew he had a morning appointment, and he'd had a hard night.
But, this was different.  A deliberate intrusion.  More than just a surface visit.  A deep trawl.
She started with the books, and the magazines under the bed.  He really needed to get another girlfriend, maybe, one day, get married.  She'd have to think about that, for herself.  She didn't have quite the same hormonal drives, but she felt the need for companionship.  It'd be interesting to find out what her sexuality was like.
Every book was scanned, every magazine minutely perused.  She didn't need just the text, she needed everything.  The scuffs on the covers, the faint stains of finger oil, any turned corners, never mind any annotations (there weren't any). Frustratingly, many of the books were second-hand, and at first pass she couldn't tell what of their history was Arthur's, or previous owners.
Next, the cupboards and closets.  Mostly disappointing, though all the clothes were folded in ways she anticipated.  Just a few interesting nick nacks, she carefully recorded.  Pay-dirt!  Right at the back of a deep closet was a cardboard box, fortunately not sealed.  With forensic care she opened it, and found his original college hand-written notes.
She already had absorbed all his school books.  They'd been in a box in the spare room, and she'd good enough excuse to root around in there.  They'd been gold dust, too.  In particular his jotter, with all the random notes.
That fitted well with his book list, all the ones he'd ever read - apparently his aunt taught him keeping track of things like that was a good idea.  She'd already tracked-down and read as many of those texts as she could on-line, and was quietly searching second-hand bookshops, or if needed buying on-line, the ones she was missing.  All the ones in the house were, of course, red.
This allowed her to reconstruct most of his mind model.  The big gaps were to do with Kevin Wright.  She was pretty sure his interactions with Arthur had been massively influential, but no real records existed.  Reluctantly, she concluded that ex-girlfriends needed checking as well - she didn't like to poke into those parts of Arthur's life.
She could feel her own mind filling-out, becoming more complete.  Janet knew she wasn't Arthur, wouldn't want to be him.  She was her own person.  With her own aims and purposes.
But, where else would she get the raw material to build her actual self from?
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

I've been unable to access TT for several days. Does anyone know anything about this?

Kickassia - 16/Jul/2012
Kickassia is a private home.  For one or more incredibly rich Fenspace residents.  One really big problem.  Who are they?
With a little effort you can map the main financial flows in Fenspace.  This at least shows roughly where the wealth is coming from and where it is going.  Really big concentration of wealth, like 'kajillionaires' will have big impacts on these flows.  You should know roughly who, and where such people get their wealth.
There is another possibly.  It's all a hoax.  Someone with a lot of waved mylar, a flare for the dramatic, and a few imaginative friends, could put on quite a show.  They could launch the 'core' of a space habitat, then outfit it, say at an L5 location.  This could be mostly a shell with some farm bio domes, and a few people living there, using the place as an art project.  Coming and going in limos which are cheap cars with waved mylar over-shells.  Tinted windows, of course.
One rumour is that the residents are members of the Supers faction, who thought ahead, and are really enthusiastic about maintaining their Secret Identities.
Is this true?  No doubt somebody knows.  But, if they do, they've kept very quiet.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Returning Favours - 15/Jul/2012
Kelly had gone 'back up'.  With a large parcel of what looked like books.  Was she OK?  Hard to tell.  Kevin Wright refused to talk.  'Confidential'.
She'd looked a mix of angry and hurt, when she arrived.  Now she looked thoughtful.  She gave Janet a considering look.  "I think we might be working a lot together, in future", was her leaving remark.  But, she made it to Janet, not him.
"What was all that about?" asked Janet.  "Beyond the obvious, you acting as their Consultant, I don't know" replied Arthur.  "If I was a religious man, I'd say it looked like she'd had some sort of revelation" he continued, "But, what?".
The next few weeks were busy.  On top of all his normal work he was talking to civil right activists, some of whom crossed over with science fiction fans. Since the AI issue arose there'd been a lot of buzz about which legislature was going to 'bite the bullet' first.
Australia's stance of allowing AIs to incorporate themselves as companies, which they then more or less self-owned, was regarded as clever, but avoiding the real issue.  Allowing AIs 'company passports' was thought particularly suspect.  Current and ex-Commonwealth countries, including the UK, were accepting them on a 'wait and see' basis.  Some counties had banned them outright, some were waiting to see if AIs tried to use them at their borders.
The consensus was this looked to be something that could make or break legal careers, not to mention involve a great deal of money.  What more worried many people were the 'black projects' suspected to be very popular with a lot of the world's military.  For half a million dollars you could easily become a 'space power' - chicken feed.  And, if there weren't AIs enslaved in those projects the civil rights people would be very surprised.
Arthur was starting to get threatening letters, from people saying he was taking 'jobs from humans'.  He'd had to hire a mail checking service, just in case.  People were buying robots from "Wright Stuff Mechatronics" as fast as he, or Janet, could make them.  And, they'd had to start vetting orders very carefully, to make sure they were from legitimate companies.  He'd had to hire-out to do that, too.
There seemed to be about a 50:50 split of male and female models required.  Some interest in customising appearance, something he'd designed-in so not all the O'Neill Station AI remotes would look the same.  The initial orders from universities and research organisations had mostly shifted to companies.
He suspected some companies as being re-sellers, but, there were limits as to what he could do.  Some robots had to be ending up in the 'sex toy' market, but at least he could claim he wasn't selling direct.  Janet remarked that the next article might be 'King of Sexy Waving', and he shuddered.
Arthur was getting regular messages from Jane, now.  Mostly it was about the new Engineering department that Kelly was heading, mention of them hiring a doctor, but there was some personal stuff, too.  Someone called 'Lee Kay' (leaky?) was Kelly's engineering deputy, and apparently she was popular with a lot of the crew.  Some personal stuff leaked into the messages, to.  He thought Jane was a bit lonely.
He was now officially a millionaire, something he'd laughed about when he first set-up in business.  Why wasn't someone undercutting him?  He kept an eye out, but apart from some rather shoddy Greek attempts (the 'Pygmalion' and the 'False Maria' ranges), nothing seemed to be close.  There was stuff out there, but tests showed it all had handwavium residue.  Maybe his 'Body Builder' was making all the difference?
Kelly obviously thought she owed him some sort of favour.  She'd sent a workshop assistant, in the form of a robot crab, two-foot across, with legs that could telescope to let it stand more than six-feet high, and reach-out to grab stuff at twice that distance.
Janet and he'd checked it out, but they couldn't figure out how it worked, even after they'd unbolted its top shell and used all the analytical tools they could bring to bear.  It seemed to be steam-powered, and just needed the occasional 'meal' of a scoop of coke, and its water topping-off.
It had a manual.  An immense brass-bound thing, with illuminated pages.  The first thing they'd done was scan and OCR the lot, but sometimes new notes appeared in it, if the crab did something strange.  Janet thought it was some sort of joke, on Kelly's behalf.
Then there were two messages from Sarah.  The first talked about 'collaborative projects', and reading between the lines it was about his access to the Hollywood Machine.  He showed it to his lawyer who said it was a brilliantly simple legal document, with no traps or loopholes that he could detect.
The second was...  It was in two parts.  The first part was an offer to collaborate with him, using her own personal time, on rights for AIs.  The second part was a quite clear threat, that if he upset her sisters like that again (Jane or Kelly) they'd be finding bits of his body for the next fifty years.  Interestingly, both parts self-destructed, and, as far as he could tell, left no sign that they had existed, at all.
So, he had 'Angels' in his life?  How bad could that be?
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Because an idea was too oddball to waste.....

And so, stuck for money after the FDF screw up, and struggling to sell off the hardware, it appeared as if the Friggans would not be able to afford a project for the 2023 convention. Jet was most dismayed at not getting in to the exhibition hall early, while for Mackie it was a point of pride to say he was involved in the whole thing. Kotono enjoyed showing off at the booth while Daryl wanted something new and exciting for the armoury. Searching for something to do to keep the Friggan name on people's lips and not fold like some many other small garage builders, they set down to work.



Out of the mess, fuelled by hours of tea, coffee and a low fat snacks. came the idea.



Nobody can quite remember where the it came from. The original sheet of paper has names such as Kzinti Cannon, Fusion Rifle, Plasma Gun and Orion Cannon written on it, but in such a tangled mass of handwriting that nobody can tell who originally wrote it. The basic concept was to take a standard slughtrower cannon, and replace the chemical propellant with a nuclear fusion reaction. Prime advantages were listed... ringed by a coffee stain... as being adjustable on the fly, and being less likely to explode if shot by an enemy.



The first prototype was built into one of the unsold Havocs, replacing the 30mm cannon. It was, ugly, overweight and unreliable. It was little more than a light fusion thruster with the remass injectors and drive field assemblies ripped out, and a new narrow-angle collimator added in to focus the energy from the fusion reaction into a tightly confined beam. The beam would strike the back of an aerogel pusher plate, turning it to plasma in an explosive reaction that would hopefully propel a projectile out of a barrel.



The first prototype fired at less than a hundred meters per second, but with a really cool light show as the still-glowing projectile sped through the atmosphere riding a column of dissipating blue plasma with a wet warbling sound described by Mackie Jaguar as liquid blue death'. The action jammed solid before it could fire a second shot. Another test firing managed to get two shots out of it, before the third round stovepiped.



Weeks of refinement followed, steadily increasing the muzzle velocity and firing rate to match the original cannons. Power consumption was a problem, firing the cannon also ate into the chopper's precious fuel reserves. Reliability was an even bigger issue, with the 'Fusion Cannon' struggling to fire through more than thirty rounds before malfunctioning. Problems with feeding and fusion beam collimation were never properly solved. The aerogel pusher often shed debris which would ultimately jam the action of the cannon. With the 2023 convention date looming, a backup plan was needed.



The first Fusion handgun was finished with a week to spare. Based on the same operating principal, it used a spark fusion initiator taken from a cutting torch mounted to a six-shooter-style revolver frame to propel a modified .45ACP round backed by an aerogel pusher. Power came from an integrated battery in the grip, alongside a small fuel flask containing He3 fuel for the initiator. An adjustable dial on the initiator itself allowed the shooter to select the muzzle velocity of the weapon, from 'safe', to less-lethal velocities, increasing to a rated maximum of just over 400m/s. It requires a chambered round to fire, for safety reasons.



The simpler, six-shooter based weapon proved itself to be much more reliable, limited only by battery life, fuel and the availability of the specialised ammunition. The Cosmo Dragoon name came from a Lejiite who noticed the unintentional similarity to Tetsuro Hoshino's weapon. Not wanting to miss out on a money-making méme, Ford happily announced she would build more, adding a note that 4, and only 4, replicas would ever be constructed.



Each one found its way into the hands of a private collector, individually serial-numbered from one to four. The original unnumbered prototype is kept on Frigga's public firing range for general hire. Daryl Haur uses it as her personal side-arm with her SAM dress uniform. It's rather stylish.

Plans to construct a whole series of Cosmo Guns were quietly shelved when someone actually looked at the costs involved. The five Dragoons and their fusion action would remain unique curiosities. Pursuing the technology in larger-scale was beyond Friggan reach.

Cosmo Dragoon #001 'Kohran' (A Gift to Kohran Li from Noah Scott)

Cosmo Dragoon #002 'Antilles' (Bought by Jeph Antilles, who called in a favour to own one.)

Cosmo Dragoon Sabre:

Cosmo Dragoon #004:

Meta: If anyone wants one of the four originals for whatever reason, they can have one, either by buying one outright or by being close enough to Ford that she'll build you one. There're only four and will only ever be four. Ford sees them more as a halo project to demonstrate what she's capable of achieving, to sell either more Caster replicas or plain-old custom modified handguns.

Anyone who wants to develop the technology further can do so.... Ford thinks it's too unreliable and complex to take further herself and will share details with someone she trusts. It's only real advantage over conventional chemical-propelled weaponry is that the ammunition when stored is effectively inert....and it can be turned down to lower powers. It's not that much faster in muzzle velocity, and is a lot less reliable, while also reliably giving the shooter's exact position away and firing very hot projectile. It's a wild idea....and like most of Friggan hardware... currently being born out of ideas generated by the Battletech Crossover, washed through a filter of 'what do these people know about'.

Anyone with appropriate skills can improve on it and make it work as originally intended, if they should wish to do so that is.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

I like reading history books like some people read novels. I read those too, but I can curl up in front of the fireplace with a college level history textbook or just a book dedicated to a historical topic and be having the time of my life, and geeky as it sounds, I'd like to get into a good history discussion.
My problem is that I don't know where to look to indulge my inner scholar, so does anyone know where I can find a good history forum where people just talk about historical topics all day?
If it's allowed, I wouldn't mind getting into a discussion about historical topics here.

Projecting Confidence - 14/Jul/2012
He'd mugged the HR man who'd stole his job.  Well.  More questioned him closely.  'Bob' by name.  Quite a nice chap.  And, Arthur'd never really wanted to run a recruitment agency.
There was a whole industry to do with recruitment and evaluation that Arthur had only touched on peripherally.  Most of it with little scientific basis, Bob told him cheerfully.  Only way of finding out, for sure, if someone could or couldn't do a job was to actually have them try and do it.  And, that wasn't certain, as, for example, their dog might have died that week.
So, no real help there.
Arthur couldn't even figure-out how to think about the problem, properly.  He couldn't ask Ms Jones what the hidden brief was - he didn't think there was one.
O'Neill Station was effectively a complete world.  You could rely on a planet to keep on doing much the same thing, with the addition of fun like storms, or the odd earthquake.  Someone had to do all that on a space habitat, actively, and if they forgot or made a mistake, everyone could die.
On the station they were currently doing it piecemeal.  They had people assigned to various tasks, areas of responsibility, but no one, except maybe Black Team, looked for the gaps.  And, there was just Kelly looking at the overall picture. Did she even have time to plan for contingencies?  Was anyone running disaster drills?
Arthur'd tried to patch that.  Provide AIs to run the infrastructure, so there was someone watching out, 24/7.  But, that wasn't planning, that was disaster management.  You needed to see the problems coming, not just react to them.
It was an engineering problem that included human elements.  Human expectations. Human instincts and reflexes that suited a planet with an atmosphere, under 1G. It was a bit like a combination of a sea-going vessel and a sky scraper.  You needed to think everything through.  Opening a door could kill.  And, you needed to bring all the resources to you.
Handwavium made space a more friendly place to live.  It seemed particularly forgiving when it came to life support systems.  But, that only took you so far.
Hmm.  Kevin Wright owed him one after that article.  The least he could have done was consult him before submitting it.  How about...
---

"Charlie?", said Kelly, when the older man introduced himself.  "Sorry.  It's 'Kevin'.  'Kevin Wright'."  He smiled.  "'Charlie' is my older brother.  Lives in Canada.  Not seen him for years."
"So.  I understand I'm to call you 'Kelly'.  All very mysterious.  And, you need advice on engineering.  I'm not an engineer, but I've got a lot of them started in business.  What sort of engineering are you interested in?"
Kelly looked at 'Kevin'.  He sounded a bit like Charlie, but the accent wasn't quite right.  And Charlie didn't have that very faint slur, she could just catch on a few words.  Still, she needed to be careful what she said to him.
"I'm very interested in going into space.  Environmental engineering.  Also, mechanical engineering, electronics, cybernetics, systems theory, the lot."  She could name them, but that was as far as it got.  She understood all the theory. But, once she started on the practical side, Steam Punk crowded it all out.  How could she get help without explaining that?
"A major syllabus.  Do you have a sponsor?  Or, do you plan to go it alone?"
"I have a... focus problem.  I can start to study, then my mind goes off in other directions.  I'm OK with the theory, it's the practical side, the nuts and bolts."  She finished in a rush "I'm just not explaining this well".
The old man looked at her.  She'd seen his nurse.  Gave her a nasty look, when he couldn't see.  Something off about her.  Dangerous.  That's it!  She reminded her of the station AI remotes.  That's where she'd seen her before.  She was the AI remote that 'Arthur' made when he tricked his way on-board.  Why was an AI looking after this old man?  Was he someone important to the case?
"So.  It's a concentration problem.  Have you tried relaxation techniques?  Self-hypnosis even?"
Now she thought of it, that sounded like something she knew as part of her martial arts.  Relaxed concentration.  Finding a balance point that allowed instant action without thought getting in the way.  Attacking the problem with the correct tools.
She looked at the old man.  He was sitting back, looking smug.  As if he'd done something.  All they'd done was talk.  She hoped they weren't paying him too much.  All he did was sit there and project confidence.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Project Engineering - 14/Jul/2012
Arthur sat down and shook.  After getting back from O'Neill Station.  He nearly cried, thinking about Del.  Then he nuked and ate something random from the deep freezer.  And went to bed.
He woke thirteen hours later.  Ideas buzzing in his head.  He needed to organise an office for Janet, and somewhere secure, but radio transparent, to keep her AI core.  The idea of an AI assistant was something he'd been playing with for weeks.  So, it wasn't that much of a push doing it in a hurry.  But, there went all his recordings and notes on his work for O'Neill.  Into her handwavium.  And, he hadn't had time to take copies of all of them.
Still, he'd have Janet, and he could pick her brains.  Maybe get her to construct a master wiki of anything they knew of, to do with O'Neill?  Security was an issue, but they should be able to manage it.  This assumed, of course, that he'd got her AI right.  Nurse Blake worried him, sometimes, being a bit too focused.  Dave Mathers still had a few things to teach him.
Had he been too cruel to Kelly?  She'd made quite a few mistakes.  He thought she was smarter than that, but, maybe she was just trying to do too much?  If he understood her, she was trying to be Chief Engineer for a place that used engineering she didn't have a feel for, understand, beyond the mechanical side, and electrical stuff pre-thermionic valve.  Yes, she was also a brilliant conventional scientist, but that didn't translate into engineering expertise.
She was supposed to substitute for all the Stellvia super-scientists and engineers.  He thought he'd failed, there.  If he'd been smart he'd have made her a conventional engineer, but no, he had to be clever and make her a steam-punk.  From what he'd been told, that might make her a 'Spark' - some day he'd have to read-up on what that meant.
Overnight, Janet had cleaned-up his workshop.  Done the reorganisation that he'd talked about doing for months.  What's more, everything was just where he expected it to be.  How had she done that?  Interesting that she couldn't explain.  "It just 'felt right'."
With an effort of will, he restrained himself from digging-in, and they went out clothes and household shopping.  She could have the second bedroom above the office, it was rarely used by visitors.  If needed, he could clear enough of the junk out of the third bedroom for emergencies.  He encouraged her to buy a wide range of foodstuffs, so she could experiment and figure-out what she liked.
He kept quiet while she bought stuff.  Was she reading his mind?  All the colours and patterns were ones he liked.  Could The Machine have got at her? Where would it get his preferences?  He'd never so much as sat under one of the helmets.  Even sleep walking - he'd checked the security logs.
It was getting a bit creepy, so he suggested they go back to the office and discuss what needed doing next.  A nasty thought.  Hadn't some of his blood got into her handwavium?  He'd cleaned and sealed the cut as quickly as he'd spotted it, and he tested clean from handwavium.  Your memory wasn't in your blood, but, he'd enough evidence handwavium was tricky stuff.  So, clone sister?
Her legal existence was a problem.  Cash would only get you so far.  She'd come back down as part of his luggage, which fortunately he'd thought of in advance. But, that was no way to travel.  Fake documentation was really going to mess you up, sooner or later.  He wondered what Kevin Wright had done for Nurse Blake?
While they made notes and drew diagrams, a message came in.  Direct from O'Neill Station.  Looked like his next project was working-out how to solve their engineering management problems.
Joy.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

...the time of year when I find myself sitting on a wooden deck overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, and saying to myself, "dear gods, it's hot out here, I'm going back inside where there's air conditioning."
Yes, Peg and I are back on Long Beach Island with the whole family.
When I get a chance I'll have to upload some pics.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.