You know, guys, when someone sticks an RFC tag onto something, then some sort of response is desired, even if that response is something as rude and uncouth as a suggestion to perform an anatomical impossibility.
At this point, I get the message now.  I won't pester anyone with anything related to DSKS anymore.

Is available at:
http://www.twitch.tv/paragonstudios/b/322882107
Topics of Interest include a look at the new Cosmic Corsair costume pieces available from the new super card packs; as well as a look at Bio Armor and Nature affinity if your not the type that is always haunting beta....
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

Pulled out of the current Nano-Steps thread...

robkelk Wrote:Time unknown. Date unknown. Location unknown.

I woke up in an alleyway. As alleyways went, this one wasn't too bad - it was clean, and there didn't seem to be any surveillance cameras in the area. Which might just mean I couldn't see them, of course.

Then my bike started shaking. It took me a moment to realize that it was the back pannier that was shaking. I opened it... and Eimi climbed out. Not the laptop computer, but a jumpsuit-clad teenaged girl who looked just like Eimi would if she was human. Well, except for the blue skin. "This is new," she said while looking at her hands.

Then she looked over my shoulder and gasped. I turned around to see an unusual building dominating the skyline - it looked like a cross between an office tower and a hooded cobra ready to strike.

Eimi pulled me down behind the bike. "Doug, we've got to get you some face paint, quickly." Then she added to herself, "This is bad. Very bad."

DRAG0NFLIGHT Wrote:A quick snippet that popped into my head when I read Rob's post up above. Don't know if it's any good, but here it is.
===
I dropped behind the smashed aircar. The CPU's were taking a ferocious beating from the virals. It didn't help that this computer system's only real defender was what looked like a 14 year old kid. They were losing on all fronts, and it was everything I could do to keep pushing them back.
Mouse's idea for a firewall had been a good one, and Eimi had shared a few pointers about how to set it up so that it was self-reinforcing. But she'd taken a few too many hits from the Viral assault, and had been medevacked back to the Principal Office. Leaving me to coordinate the defense, prop up the remaining CPU's, and try to hold the Virals back while their leader made a push on the building behind me.
What sounded like some kind of energy weapon charging up in the distance was all the cue I needed. Diving over the bridge, I caught a reinforcing rod and hung just over the bridge as a massive bolt destroyed what was left of that car. I waited as most of it flew overhead, and down into the depths under the Principal Office. Flipping back up, I straightened my outfit, and waited on the far side of the flaming debris. The CPU's were badly mauled, but if I presented just the right amount of casual moxie, maybe I could make the Virals hang back. But against all the people rushing the bridge, I'd need an edge. ""
As the smoke cleared, I could see their leader. Megabyte looked like something out of a KISS concert. The dark blued-metal body, the evil green death's head icon covering most of his chest, and the metallic red highlights. He had a terminator-esque head, with what looked like an expression of satanic pleasure permanently etched on it. His eyes narrowed as he pointed at me.
"You're very persistent, Sangnoir!"
I grinned, and tossed back, "I'm also better than you!" I stepped through the remaining embers of the wrecked car and casually brushed my jacket, as the light blinked in my helmet visor.
Megabyte just chuckled. It didn't sound very friendly. "I've played that game, Sangnoir. I also won." He raised his arm again, the three claws extending one at a time. "I'm only going to offer you this chance one more time, Sangnoir. Serve me, or die!" Behind him, several Viral cars rose up, leveling rocket launchers, beam cannons, and other various items of mass destruction, while troops around him pointed rocket launchers at me.
I just grinned back, putting as much attitude as I could in the act, while actually hoping I could avoid all that firepower. "Let's ."
The helmet is designed so that competing audio doesn't affect my metagift. I can do this because the earpieces are capable of isolating me from outside sound while the music is playing. This can sometimes leave me unaware of sounds around me. But even the audio protection in my helmet couldn't hide what happened next.
As the first strains of the music poured into me, awakening my gift and creating the first of many metal balls in my hand, the whole system shook. The sky flickered several colors, and with no warning at all, music began to play from the sky above, pouring into the whole System.
I paused as what I'd done just sunk in. I'd just told the System to play my song. And since I was a User, the system did just that.
Megabyte looked around in surprise. The various Viral forces, also shocked by the event spent a few moments staring up at the sky in confusion. Not one to look a gift neohorse in the mouth (don't ask...) I attacked.
Megabyte responded with surprising speed. He smacked one of the balls aside and lunged forward, ignoring the damage the metal spheres were causing in the Viral ranks. Enemy soldiers were knocked around, weapons firing in all directions. Cars were hit and exploded in bright, video-game colors. Other vehicles, knocked off center by the metal madness, fired into the Viral forces, or into the shields protecting the Principal Office. The devastation wrought in the first few moments was impressive, to say the least.
Their leader didn't spare a moment's thought for his troops, however. He charged me, metal claws swiping, Wolverine-style, at me as he closed. I dodged, wove, and flowed around him, waiting for the moments. When I had a clear shot, I struck hard, polykev armored gauntlets smashing into the blue metal body of the Virus.
It was like punching a metal statue. I ducked a return swipe and put some distance between us, shaking my hand out. "Not as much fun as advertised." I'd barely had a moment to register the even before he was on me again. I pulled a metal ball back, but he sliced it into four pieces, and struck me hard as I tried to dodge past him.
The impact hurt, sending me flying back into the debris of that wrecked CPU car. Shaking my head at the sudden dizziness, I was treated to the business end of the claws as he held them just above my face. I almost rolled my eyes at the theatrics, but this really wasn't the time. Besides, Pinball Wizard had some nice defensive options.
Megabyte gave me a really evil grin. "Any last words?"
Before I could deliver the double-fisted can of industrial grade ass-kicking I was prepping, a blast of energy struck Megabyte in the chest, sending him flying back fifteen feet, to land in a sprawl. His claws struck the roadway, drawing sparks as he slid to a stop and surged to his feet, eyes narrow.
Eimi landed in front of me as I stood up slowly. She wore some kind of flight harness, and her 'keytool' device glowed with renewed power. She looked at me and grinned. "Back... And fully charged."

Proginoskes Wrote:In some ReBoot fanfic, there are specific kinds of Virus, based on powers and temperament. Megabyte is a Control Virus: he has powers specialized for brainwashing and seizing control, and corresponding megalomania. Hexadecimal is a Chaos Virus: her powers are vast, diverse, and unpredictable; her moods and thoughts are mercurial, but she helps as much as she harms. I don't like the idea of Doug being a User (judging by what little we learn about them, Users are everything Doug hates about Celestials), but I think it might be appropriate for Doug to look to Mainframe and its residents like a much weaker (and correspondingly saner) Chaos Virus. (I said "look", and not "Doug is a Virus", because my assumption is that Doug's person is invariant in transit: he can't be transformed by a Gate. On the other hand, a biological being doesn't fit into ReBoot's world very well, so Systems have to treat him as if he were a digital entity.)
On the other hand, if Doug isn't a User, there isn't really any reason why he shouldn't be treated as a Guardian himself. Bob (Guardian 452) merged with Glitch by giving it the instruction "Download". Doug and his Keytool were never separate, though he still needs to instruct his Keytool powers.
On the gripping hand, I'm not the one writing it, am I?

DRAG0NFLIGHT Wrote:Heh. The angle I was going with the snippet really wasn't thought out as in-depth as all that. I was just considering what would happen if a human (User) showed up with what amounts to his own portable computing world with him. I mean, if you assume that inside every computer is a microverse filled with self-aware programs, then inside Doug's helmet is the exact same thing.
So what happens when he gives the helmet an order? the Mainframe system essentially misunderstands the instruction, and assumes Doug is addressing it directly. It's like how Bob can give direct network commands, which he does on a few occasions in the series, because he has a higher level of access rights. (One of the reasons Megabyte tries to recruit him early in the series.)
I wasn't going with the angle that Doug knew it would happen. Instead, he issues an order to his helmet, but because certain people with the right level of access can issue verbal commands to Mainframe itself, when he addresses a "System" command, Mainframe assumes he's addressing it, and it responds appropriately.
Edit: That said, I may look at what I can work out of that. I'd probably write it as a half-hour episode, and see where that takes me. ...

Once again, our internet connection at home is dead.  As far as I can tell from some of the widgets and utilities I have running on my tower system, it died approximately 7 AM on 27 June, and hasn't come back yet on its own.  In the past this kind of thing has been a simple inconvenience, but now that Peggy works part of the week from home over a VPN, it's now a critical failure.  I spent about 40 minutes on the phone last night yelling at Comcast customer support, with the upshot that someone is coming out this afternoon -- allegedly; I've been screwed over by Comcast techs before -- to fix it.  If all goes well, I'll be on line from home again by tonight.  If it doesn't go well, I'm switching to FIOS and Dish Network, and I don't know what kind of interruption in my home service I'll have until everything is changed over.

Just a heads up for everyone.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Anybody else seeing this? Every page I've read since I signed on this evening has shown up as still marked unread. I have to click on "Mark Forum Read" to clear the flags.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Divided Loyalties - 31/May/2012
Early Summer, 2008, Luna.
"Big brother!  Big brother! What are you doing?"  The stocky red-haired figure looked up from his workbench, smiled briefly, then went back to working.  Uran frowned at him.
"You're just teasing me!  You've kept me out of here, every morning, all week. Now you've let me in.  What'ya doing?"  Uran stomped over to the wheel-chaired man, and mock-glared up at him, from all of her 1 metre height.
Brains looked down at her.  "You're not going to give me any peace, are you?" He sighed.  He reached under the bench, and pulled out a stool.  "Hop up."
Uran bounced onto the stool, not even bothering to fly.  She didn't normal fly in the house.  Unless it was to get at something high.  Or sneak up on someone, which she hoped soon would mean more than just Brains.  She gulped.
The figure on the bench wasn't Gerry the Robot, or even Doctor Venus, which she knew he was working on.  It wasn't even one of the mysterious long figures, which looking over she could see were concealed beneath their dust sheets, on trolleys on the far side of the workshop.  The cat-like tail hanging down from under one sheet briefly distracted her, but this was far more important.
"But, that's me!"  Brains had obviously just finished work on a robot girl figure, that looked identical to her.  A charging cable was plugged-in and she could hear a faint, familiar, hum as power was sucked from the house's accumulators.  The brain hatch was open, on the right side, where she had one, but she couldn't see any brain, at all, inside the head.
"You remember how I showed you, not long after you first woke, how to back yourself up?"  "Squicky!", was her quick reply.  "Yes.  Taking half your brain out of your head and putting it into a memory recorder wasn't really a fair thing to ask you to do.  But, it means that even if you're really badly hurt, then we could rebuild you."
Brains paused, obviously uncomfortable.
"I hope you remember how you said you felt a bit funny.  Almost as if you were in two places at once.  And, I ran all those tests on you, and the braincorder." "Huh!", she said emphatically.  "Yes, I know it was boring, but it proved that the entanglement between your two half-brains kept working, even though they were physically separate.  And, you seemed to be able to function fully, even with half a brain."
She looked at the body on the workbench.  "This is the spare body, that you said I'd need if I got really badly hurt?"  Brains paused.  "No.  This is so we can see if you're even more talented than I already know you are."
Uran stuck out her tongue at Brains, then dodged when he went to grab it with his fingers.  She knew she was being a bit childish, but it made Brains laugh, and he didn't laugh anything like as much as he should.  She realised she'd dodged into thin air, so she slid back onto her seat, thinking "I'm glad I'm not like the Coyote[1].  I don't fall if I look down!".
"I'm not going to like this next bit, am I?", she said.  "No, and if I'm right, Yes.  I'd like you to take out your half-brain, as if you were going to do a backup, and carefully put it into here", and he pointed into the empty head of the figure.  Suddenly a faint 'ping!' told them that recharging, or, she guessed first charging, was complete.
Reluctantly she went to open her brain hatch, then stopped, and carefully wiped her hands clean, first.  The half-brain disengaged, as it was supposed to, and with slightly blurred vision she placed it in the open head.  RESET.
She looked up from the bench.  Gradually sitting up.  Automatically her hand went up and closed her brain hatch, and a shocked figure looked at her from the stool and did the same.  She noticed Brains grinning widely.
"Who am I?", she said slowly.  "You're Uran."  And Brains pointed at the person on the stool.  "You're both Uran.  Now you can be in two places at once!"
The two Uran looked at each other, and slowly an immense grin spread across both their faces.  They bounced into the air, joined hands, and did a little mid-air skipping dance.  Each could feel the other, but they seemed to need to use their built-in high band communicators to actually exchange information.
"We're going to have so much fun!"  They looked over at Brains, and noticed he looked a bit wary, and, now that they looked more closely, his colour wasn't quite right.
"You've been over-doing it again!", said one.  The other flew up to at him, and sniffed.  "You've been eating Nutrition again, from your hot cup.  I bet you've not been taking proper breaks!  You said you wouldn't eat in the workshop.  And, you promised the doctor!"
"But, but", he spluttered.
The two looked at each other.  "Not a motorboat!  Off to bed!", they chorused, as one picked him up, wheelchair and all.  The other swooped-over and picked up a stack of brightly-coloured paperback books, and stuffed them in a bag marked "Andromeda Bookshop".
"You can rest, and read, in bed.  We'll get you your next two meals, there.  Yes, we know we can't cook properly, yet, but we know how to defrost things from the deep freezer."
They flew him into the bedroom, then landed, and stepped outside, while he prepared and hoisted himself into bed.
"Just to check, how long is it safe to be two of us?", one called.  "Six hours, or until you'd do your usual backup, whichever comes first, should be safe. We'll do some tests, tomorrow, that should tell us more about how far you can push it", came the distracted voice, mixed in with a few grunts, from inside.
"Why doesn't he dial down the gravity to Lunar normal while he's doing that?", radiopathed one to the other.  "You know how stubborn he is", came the reply. They nodded at each other.
"What are you plotting out there?", came the voice, probably now in bed.  A quick peek confirmed.
"I'll only do this for three hours", came the reply, "And, you're going to be working on Doctor Venus, tomorrow.  No matter how much I want to play with the kitties."
"You peeked!", came from an indignant Brains.  "I told you not to peek!"
"Oops."  "Anyhow, you need a doctor to keep an eye on you, far more than a robot pilot, or cute cat girls."
"They're not just cute cat girls, they're...  OK.  I'll work on Doctor Venus[2]. Expert in Space Medicine.  If I don't, I know you wont give me any peace."  And, he yawned.
Uran stood and watched, until she was sure he was asleep.  Then, went over and carefully tucked the covers in around him.  Time to go and study the medical databases, and figure-out what symptoms they should be looking out for, and might already have seen.  So they could brief Doctor Venus properly.
They might be in a house, on the Moon.  But, they were going to make sure that Brains, their big brother, was looked after properly.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

'Riding the Wave' is a weekly half hour TV show produced and transmitted from Babylon .5.  Each episode explores a theme/topic in fandom (such as Villains, Time travel, Tolkien, or Censorship).
Using a network of Fen and Fendanes on Earth, the show's producers interview various authors, directors, actors, comicbook writers, ect.  The interviews usually get the person's views on as many as a dozen topics in one sitting which are then spread out amongst the appropriate episodes.
The show's format and look are both heavily inspired by the canadian TV program 'Prisoners of Gravity' which ran from 1989 to 1994, even to the point of replicating Prisoner's 'pirating' of another show's timeslot.
******************
All of the recent story posts finally got me to finish one of the ideas I had bouncing around.
Prisoners of Gravity was produced by TVOntario (TVO), ran from '89 to '94, and starred Rick Green (The Frantics, The Red Green Show, History Bites)
http://ww3.tvo.org/program/120086/prisoners-of-gravity
The intro for Prisoners of Gravity would fit so well into Fenspace, despite been made more than a decade before hand. 8P
(starts around 1:08 into part 1 below)
There are several episodes on Youtube (usually broken into 3 ten minute sections) including this one I found, discussing Shared worlds. 8)
pt1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5BG_p3tkao
pt2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmTJ6oGqgvk
pt3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyjCYBFW_IA
edit for typo.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

Since I've found myself doing custom title graphics for the most recent Steps, I suppose that with DWS queued up behind DW8 I should start looking around for a good Sailor Moon-inspired font.  I've already found one, and I'm wondering if anyone knows of any others.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

On the spur of the moment I created a new forum for Drunkard's Walk S: Heart of Steel.  This doesn't mean I'm shifting that story into active production,  just that there are enough threads about it -- and it's close enough to active -- to make it worth consolidating into a dedicated area.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

This forum is intended for the discussion of the unnumbered" Step in the Drunkard's Walk, which takes place somewhere between Drunkard's Walk V and Drunkard's Walk X.  Entitled "Heart of Steel", it is set in the world of the Sailor Moon anime, during the first season.  As of this posting, it is not yet in active production, but there have been so many threads and discussions concerning it that I decided I would move them all into a dedicated forum in anticipation of attacking this project after DW8.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.