The man who, among Fen, goes by the hero-name "Adamantine Rapier" largely missed out on being one of the First Fen because he was an Australian. He was on the message boards, he got the 'Wavium in the early days. He just decided that, given how America was cracking down and Australia wasn't, he would rather stay on the ground with his family and finish his university degree before he went Up; in the meantime, he tinkered with his nanobots and sold cheap Earth stuff to the folks who had gone Up. As things turned out, his family moved shortly afterwards and he wound up starting almost from scratch on his new degree; he didn't mind, since he had almost failed so many classes he had almost been kicked out already (only the abuse of the university's disability policy to "Withdraw without academic penalty" whenever it looked like he was going to fail a course had stopped that). Fortunately, he did much better at his new university; he wasn't sure if it was the intelligence-enhancing side-effects from working with Handwavium, the fact that this degree didn't have one-off laboratories that he kept missing, or if they just had lower standards. He suspected it might have been a mix of all three. In any case, he graduated in 2012, and just as he was getting ready to go Up, the Boskonian War started. So he kept on going, spinning up his nanofabricators and selling flexible carbon nanotube sheets that could be easily applied to vehicled and then Handwaved on for extra armor. He also first experimented with ship design, producing the O'Neill-class Big Honking Space Gun, which he produced and sold to Operation Great Justice throughout the war. Then, Boskone Prime fell, and he finally got his shot at going up with the end of the war. So, he finished the last few ships Great Justice wanted, and built himself a factory ship and a few O'neills fitted out a semi-autonomous drones, and moved to Titan to set up shop. A pipe into the local hydrocarbon sea and a few runs by a tanker drone to Rhea for water ice later, and he was back in business, running the CHON into a nanofabricator tank to resume his business of selling biological materials to the Fen; a while later, once the dome was finished, he resumed his business of selling nanocomposites as well.

Mundane Talents:

Nanobot Expertise: He was the first Fen who mucked about with Handwavium-enhanced nanobots; when most Fen were building flying cars, he was pouring Handwavium on ultrafine graphite dust in the hopes of making general assembler nanobots (he succeeded, but all the first batch could make was Deus Ex action figures; it took him months of experimentation to get them to make anything useful). Ever since then, he's been one of the leading experts among the Fen on the subject of the combination of handwavium, nanocomposite materials, and nanobots.

Former Engineering Student: He remembers a fair bit of his Engineering classes, though he's no professional engineer. He still has more formal training than many Mads do, though.

Programmer: A fair hand at computer programming, better than most Fen, if not as good as many AI. Formally trained, too, thanks to his (abandoned) Mechatronics Engineering degree, and his Aviation Technology degree (which required 11 IT courses).

Pilot: Possesses a Private Pilot's License to go with his degree in Aviation Technology.

Business Management: Got a little bit of formal Accounting training from his Aviation Technology degree, and some practical experience running one, selling biomatter to the Fen in exchange for things he could sell. He's no corporate raider or Wall Street executive, though.

Quirks:

Sleep? What is this "sleep" you speak of: His sleep routines have been thoroughly fucked up from years of spending all night on the computer while at university. Injecting Handwavium-powered nanobots into his brain didn't help, either.

Strawman Political: He's way to the right on the political spectrum, and a combination of Asperger's Syndrome mind-blindness and Fen stubbornness means he can and will take it too far when discussing politics on the Internet. He's been banned from more message boards than he can count as a result; some of the Senshi on boards he's on have gone so far as to accuse him of being a Turnerite (he isn't, though he understands where many of their complaints are coming from).

Because Death Rays are AWESOME!: His suit of power armor is equipped with a wide variety of weapons, both 'waved and hardtech. Unfortunately, his still at actually using them in combat is amateurish at best. Fortunately, he's never actually been called upon to use them in a life-or-death situation.

There is life outside the Internet?: Addicted to surfing the Internet, and tends to procrastinate other, more important things in favor of more websurfing. Usually to his detriment.

Handwavium Abilities: He biomodded himself by getting one of his robots to use an electroshock harness to induce unconsciousness for a few seconds, and then inject a mixture of nanobots, guacamole, and Mnemosyne's Honey into his brain (through the orbital cavity, lobotomy-style), and a similar mixture into the marrow of all of his major bones. The rest of the day sucked balls, but it was worth it in the end.

My eyes are augmented: Turns out that injecting nanobots and handwavium into your brain through your eye sockets can have side-effects. Who knew? Now his eyes are robotic, capable of zooming in, recording video, and seeing in the infrared.

And so is my brain: Vastly improved intelligence, eidetic memory, learning ability, reaction times, and so forth. He's got a computer with an Interwave and radio transmitter in his head, and his bones have been replaced with pure computronium as a long-term storage method for his memories.

I'm definitely not going to die from old age...: His bone marrow has been replaced with nanobot-manufacturing machines, and his blood with nanomachines. His red blood cells are replaced with respirocytes, his white blood cells with a nanobot immune system, and his platelets with biological repair nanobots. The last of these is capable of repairing even the damage from aging, rendering him biologically immortal, as was his goal all along.

... and hopefully not from violence: His bones, being made of a handwavium-reinforced nanocomposite, are immune to everything short of anti-tank weapons. It's a pity everything surrounding them is still so squishy. Fortunately, his biological repair nanobots are capable of regulating his bodily functions to prevent him from going into shock or bleeding out, and can, with sufficient raw materials and a few hours, regenerate lost limbs. Additionally, with the assistance of his immune system nanobots, they render him virtually invulnerable to NBC attacks.

Handwavium Quirks:

Arrrgh, it burns: Highly vulnerable to EMP and electrical surges due to the degree he has been augmented with cybernetics.

It's night, and I'm wearing shades: Suffers extreme headaches if he spends too long without wearing sunglasses or tinted visors, especially at night.

Robots drink oil, right?: Suffers system degradation if he doesn't regularly eat fried food, or at least something sizzling in its own grease.

ZNN
ZNN is the premier news station in Fenspace and one of the more trusted sources of informations by most parts of the general public. It is known for a largely neutral stance between factions, but also to be biased against Haruhi Suzumiya, through not Great Justice itself.
History
ZNN started out as a small news blog in 2009 when Karen Corwin was forced to get into Fenspace as a result of a student prank that went wrong left her biomodded. Being a busty bunny girl she had to work in some odd jobs while in her free time, trying to finish her Master thesis in Journalism and running ZNN, a news blog in the style of Huffington Post.
In early 2010 she was joined by a contributor going by the alias of Walter Wilcox, who provided articles that contained very accurate analysis of current dale and fen situations, sometimes in relation to the past, making readers of ZNN believe that Walter Wilcox was an older fen.
The first big thing that catapulted ZNN into the open and paved its way to the future was the Boskone War and the first daily live stream.
The ‘5 O’Clock Follies’ life stream provided people with a central show to get updates about the conflict in a critical and analytical way that in parts contradict official press releases from Great Justice and Haruhi Suzumiya. ZNN was especially critical about Suzumiya and the way she handled Great Justice.
While that was nothing new the ‘5 O’Clock Follies’ were especially known to be the first appearance of the AI Walter Cronkite in an environment that was largely looking like a CBS new studio during the late 60s to early 70s.
The fact that it was Walter Cronkite, regardless of him being an AI, made the life stream one of the most trusted in Fenspace among the older Fen who grew up with the original and a good amount of younger ones.
Sometimes during the war ZNN got an anonymous donation that allowed Cronkite to get an android body and prepared the station for the future.
The next big event that made ZNN into what it is today was the now legendary ‘5 O’Clock Follies’ life stream from Serenety Con, where Cronkite turned the show into a life commentary of the Battle of Serenity Valley, and earning him the first Fenspace Pulitzer Award.
From there on ZNN was a rising star and began to expand its online and live stream program. The ‘5 O’Clock Follies’ were replaced by the ‘ZNN Evening News’ hosted by Cronkite and ZNN gained the ‘ZNN Morning News’ hosted by Karen Corwin.
Over the next years more specialist shows were added to the raising rooster of ZNN, drawing in advertisement customers, which allowed them to expand more.
Today, ZNN has at least small offices in all major Fen settlements and is one of the places where freelance journalists can get a major publicity for their work.

Trivia

• In 2017 Günter Wallraff, a German investigative undercover journalist, published a report about the Turnerite habitat of ‘New Stepford’ in the ZNN news blog. It lead to a large scale intervention against the habitat by Great Justice and Space Partol, freeing a large number of biomods and AIs.
• Maico Tange is known to work for ZNN at times, if she needs the cash.
• ZNN was named after a CNN expy from ‘NCIS’ and ‘JAG’.
• Walter managed to silence everyone at the Fnord Hearing of the Joint Committee on Extraterrestrial Security in Washington with a single sentence when the press was allowed to ask questions. “Walter Cronkite of ZNN. Please tell me, Senator Kellerman, have you ever heard of Senator McCarthey?” (optional depending on what Mal says)

The Secret World (TSW) is an upcoming horror, modern-day urban fantasy, Lovecraftian mythos-esque MMO by Funcom. The developers are best known for Anarchy Online and Age of Conan. As far as apologies go, TSW is a pretty good plea for forgiveness after Conan. Hold that thought, I know you're thinking it.

TSW is holding open beta weekends. You still have to register at Gamespot or something if you haven't preordered and still need a code, but it's pretty easy to get in if you're interested. I figured it was fair game to talk about it in our little community here, given the theme of the game. Which is basically shooting demons and zombies in the face with a shotgun, and then setting it on fire with your mind.

THE GOOD

For me, the initial draw to check out TSW was the setting. The user interface alone tells you a lot about this game - peek in the upper right hand corner, and there's signal bars for an imaginary cell phone. When I click to turn in a completed mission, it's an e-mail sent back to my boss at HQ. NPCs talk about Google and Oprah, compare the creatures I'm fighting to the Smurfs...

The hub cities exemplify this. The first open weekend showed off London, specifically the fictional neighbourhood where the Templars are based. Now, see, I lived in London for six years. And let me tell you, it's freakily accurate. Not perfect, but so very right. Those could be London streets. That's a perfect example of an older Underground station. There's huge attention to detail, and it shows. The tutorial mission takes you to Tokyo, and...well, look. I just visited Tokyo a few weeks ago. They got the subway signage right. Hell, they got the ticket machines right.

Of course, while I've lived in London, I've never jumped on the roof of a black cab while firing a shotgun wildly in the air, but hey. Could happen.

The other big draw for me is the combat system. The freeform character building is pretty sweet. In the weekend play alone, I started out as a shotgun/elemental magic guy, and quickly worked out a rough build where I'd spray 'em with my gun, let off a big debuffing cone blast, and then fireball or lightning things 'til dead. Then I started running into tougher enemies and needed some healing, so I found an assault rifle and went down the support medic-esque line. Because healing magic bullets are awesome.

The Skill Wheel UI is pretty damn glorious. It even has a search function. It's not altogether different from Guild Wars or even Champions Online, but TSW's implementation is solid, and you can even switch up in the field. Mind you, it can be...twitchy...if you manage to aggro something while in the middle of reslotting, as I found out. ("OH GOD I ONLY HAVE ONE WORKING ATTACK AHHhh thank the Lord it's the one that does damage while healing me.")

So, TSW is a well-thought out game. Not perfect, and I'll talk about flaws later - but they have considered things, and that shows in many areas.

Take the content. It's mostly open world stuff, but they do a lot to make it meaningful. For example, when I clicked on a phone book to look for an address, I got a window with phone book pages, and the business listing I wanted circled in red marker. When I examined a corpse, I got a window with the guy's driver's license. When interacting with the text-interface computer in the police station, the game gave me a window with an old-school basic menu and working text prompt.

Mission mechanics are the same way. An open world mission might have basic avoidance mechanics, like how I needed to stay out of line of sight from an airfield's guards. Instanced missions have slightly more complex booby traps to avoid, like tripwires and sensor cameras. It's not difficult, and the engine handles fine movement alright - but it's a nice touch in an MMO. It makes it feel like an adventure game hybrid.

THE BAD

Yet there are places where presentation suffers. NPCs are reasonably well-voiced and animated. But since your own character's a silent protagonist, they're just kind of standing there going derp through the whole thing. I can understand why they'd want to leave the player a blank slate, but the complete lack of facial expression is kind of freaky. Especially when an NPC is blatantly flirting.

Yes, I know it's an urban fantasy horror thing. That's not the right place to feel horror. 

While I like the writing on balance, there's places where it comes off as trying too hard. Casual profanity. The cultural references are nice, but can appear forced. Chatting with NPCs outside cutscenes is a topic-based interaction, where you can click on a subject from a menu, and they'll talk about it. Multiple times, since most subject headers have several strings of dialogue. But the fact the conversation is in-effect one-sided can be slightly disjointing.

Then there's graphics and animations. The graphics are nice enough, I think - but let's not pretend they are cutting edge, and there's times where the textures can be really crappy. This is especially jarring when there's high rez textures for everything except, say, that wall map. Or that shirt, even. 

The character creator has promise in terms of future flexibility...but right now, it's limited, and the lack of height options or even multiple body types is slightly irksome. We've been told there will be more cosmetic options and clothing available to start with the live release, versus beta, but right now there's not enough starting variation. I was almost tempted to make a female character solely because there were more hair and makeup (face overlays) and a little more clothing in the open beta.

Animations aren't always natural. The movement and combat is a little...floaty, sometimes jerky, I suppose you could say. Mind you, given that combat is very positional, very fluid, and players are supposed to move around...it's better that characters can shift around very fast and there's no weapon redraw, mechanically. Still, it's not the best game in motion.

There's clipping. Holster weapons with an assault rifle and shotgun equipped, and they clip into each other across the character's back. Go into elemental magic casting stance with a assault rifle as the alternate weapon, and your right arm clips into the rifle's carrying handle. It's things like this where the lack of polish shows. Mind you, I've never seen an MMO that hasn't had some kind of gear clipping - even SWTOR does. But TSW isn't any better in this respect.

THE UGLY

So, what's the verdict? Obviously I like the game, personally. The flaws are mostly cosmetic, and frankly to be expected in a game developed on a fairly low budget. This isn't a very costly title. I like the writing, for the most part. I love the theme and atmosphere. The basic mechanics seem fine, and the game appears stable. 

At the same time, the MMO marketplace is a harsh one. GW2's coming out as well, and that's gonna get a lot of attention. The Funcom factor's a turn-off for many potential TSW players, based on Conan's history. I don't know. It's also a conventional subscription-based model, though there's the option for a lifetime sub. You and I both know that the industry's increasingly shaky on whether that pricing model still makes sense in today's market.

One headache for any MMO is quality content stream, and it's not certain how much and how often TSW will be able to add. The open world questing and contacts means that new content is going to be very zone based. The content that does exist seems extensive and elaborate. The fact that almost all content can be repeated (on a timer), and the system is essentially level-less means that there's fewer issues with 'nothing to do at endgame' - there's no endgame per-se, you just keep building more skill options for your character's deck. That could work in the game's favour, but it's hard to make an assessment.

Is TSW worth it? I think it is. I'm willing to pay for what the game is now, and I think it has potential to stretch further. I'd take a gamble on it, but of course your milage may vary. If it does, though...I'll still be over here shooting zombies in the face.
-- Acyl

No; not a Dolan joke.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn; who you will remember as one of the bassists in the Blues Brothers or the guy who ripped it up in Booker T.
Damn.

Here's another entry for the wiki that I managed to get inpiration for. Comments are more that welcome (a.k.a. HELP PLEASE).
Please note, I've written this as though it was just before the current freeze point of Helen Scott's birth.

I was "doodling" with the 3D software just for fun, and this came out:



Tell me a story about it...

[size=smaller](There's a http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?titl ... Piracy.png]larger version of the image on the FenWiki. In your story, the one in the yellow Bolitho doesn't have to be Murphy Murphy, and the one in the armed Bolitho doesn't have to be Agatha Clay, but, yes, those are the models I used for the pilots...)[/size]
--
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

...the new team transport power thingy?  What's the visible effect, and is it worth the points?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Dren? Help? All I really know is that Min's not as survivable as I think she should be. That and I have no clue what sets I really should be thinking about, most of the start on these were based on what She'd gotten as she worked her way up the ranks.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.956
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Min Melay: Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Electrical Melee
Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Charged Brawl

• (A) Accuracy IO: Level 50
  
• (3) Damage Increase IO: Level 50
  
• (3) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (5) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (5) Endurance Modification IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 45
  
• (7) Defense Buff
  
• (7) Resist Damage IO: Level 45
  
• (9) Aegis - Resistance/Recharge: Level 50
  
• (9) Defense Buff
  
• (11) Resist Damage IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Defense Buff IO: Level 50
  
• (11) Red Fortune - Defense/Endurance/Recharge: Level 50
  
• (13) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 45
  
• (13) Defense Buff IO: Level 45
  

• (A) Healing IO: Level 50
  
• (15) Healing IO: Level 50
  
• (15) Resist Damage IO: Level 50
  
• (17) Resist Damage IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points): Level 40
  

• (A) Accuracy IO: Level 50
  
• (17) Damage Increase IO: Level 50
  
• (19) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (19) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (21) Endurance Modification IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (21) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (23) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Accuracy IO: Level 50
  
• (23) Damage Increase IO: Level 50
  
• (25) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (25) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (27) Endurance Modification IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Jaunt - Range: Level 43
  
• (27) Range IO: Level 50
  
• (29) Time & Space Manipulation - +Stealth: Level 50
  

• (A) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 45
  
• (29) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 45
  

• (A) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge: Level 30
  
• (31) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge: Level 38
  
• (31) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 45
  
• (31) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (33) Disorient Duration IO: Level 45
  

• (A) Defense Buff IO: Level 35
  
• (33) Defense Buff IO: Level 45
  
• (33) Defense Buff
  

• (A) Accuracy IO: Level 50
  
• (34) Damage Increase IO: Level 50
  
• (34) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (34) Efficacy Adaptor - EndMod/Accuracy/Recharge: Level 50
  
• (36) Efficacy Adaptor - EndMod/Endurance: Level 50
  

• (A) To Hit Buff IO: Level 45
  
• (36) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 40
  
• (36) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Accuracy IO: Level 40
  
• (37) Endurance Reduction IO: Level 40
  
• (37) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 45
  
• (37) Disorient Duration IO: Level 45
  

• (A) Defense Buff IO: Level 35
  
• (39) Endurance Reduction
  
• (39) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 45
  

• (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Run Speed, Jump, Flight Speed, Range: Level 50
  

• (A) Accuracy IO: Level 50
  
• (39) Damage Increase IO: Level 50
  
• (40) Cleaving Blow - Damage/Endurance: Level 50
  
• (40) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (40) Range IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Cleaving Blow - Accuracy/Damage: Level 45
  
• (42) Cleaving Blow - Damage/Endurance: Level 50
  
• (42) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (42) Range IO: Level 50
  
• (43) Cleaving Blow - Damage/Recharge: Level 44
  

• (A) Resist Damage IO: Level 50
  
• (43) Resist Damage IO: Level 50
  
• (43) Healing IO: Level 50
  
• (45) Endurance Modification IO: Level 45
  
• (45) Healing IO: Level 50
  
• (45) Endurance Modification IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (46) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  
• (46) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Healing IO: Level 50
  
• (46) Healing IO: Level 50
  
• (48) Endurance Modification IO: Level 50
  
• (48) Efficacy Adaptor - EndMod: Level 44
  

• (A) Kinetic Crash - Accuracy/Knockback: Level 50
  
• (48) Kinetic Crash - Recharge/Endurance: Level 50
  
• (50) Kinetic Crash - Accuracy/Damage/Knockback: Level 48
  
• (50) Kinetic Crash - Recharge/Knockback: Level 50
  

• (A) Defense Buff IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge: Level 30
  

• (A) Empty
  

• (A) Empty
  

• (A) Empty
  

• (A) Empty
  

• (A) Empty
  

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Run Speed IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Jumping IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Numina's Convalescence - Heal: Level 50
  
• (50) Healing IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Endurance Modification IO: Level 50
  

• (A) Empty
  

It is starting to look like this might actually see release!
http://massively.joystiq....oads-six-preview-videos/

Jammed in my head.  Had to get rid of it.  Enjoy?

Fascinating.

 

In the deep hours of the night, the cavernous library was
dark and still.  Overhead, the bright
waxing moon cast its light through the roof-spanning skylights, but the height
of the towering shelves created deep valleys of darkness.

Through the stacks moved a tall, bipedal figure, moving with
calm and silent efficiency across the deep-pile carpeting.  Weaving among the maze of shelving, it came
to a halt before an empty spot on one shelf, and a long-fingered hand raised
into the light, revealing itself to hold a book which fit perfectly into the
empty space.  Said hand moved to the adjoining
book and removed it with a smooth, practiced grace that made caution
unnecessary, despite the age and fragility of the tome.

Mission accomplished, the figure turned to retraced its
steps through the library, but paused as an unanticipated sound was perceived
by its sharp ears.  The figure remained
still for a moment, weighing options, then changed course towards the most
likely vector of the anomaly, moving with unhurried stealth but no real overt
caution.

The sound revealed itself to be accompanied by a dim
light.  Just around the nearest corner,
the figure paused.  At this range, the
anomalous sound resolved into a muffled voice. 
Young, female, strained, the figure judged.

“…almost…. Just a …. Little… ugh!  More….”

Additional sounds, filtered for reverberation and
distortion, seemed most likely to indicate that the owner of the voice was
climbing the high, freestanding bookshelf. 
A hazardous course of action.  If
certain random factors were to resolve in an unfortunate way, the young female
might well be at risk of harm.  Such risk,
if realized, would necessitate the figure revealing itself, with wide-ranging unforeseeable
consequences.

A sudden creak, accompanied by a frightened “oh oh,” signaled
that random chance had indeed tended towards maximum entropy in this case.  Aural analysis left no doubt that the tall
shelf had tipped its center of gravity past the perimeter of its base and had
begun accelerating onto a trajectory that would terminate upon striking the adjoining
shelf… or upon knocking down said adjoining shelf, and potentially crushing the
young female beneath it. 

The potential “chain of dominoes” effect upon the rest of
the shelving in this section would also be unfortunate, although potentially
interesting from a distance.

Such analysis required less time to perform than describe.  The towering shelf had only barely begun its
acceleration as the figure slipped quickly around the corner, leaving its book
tucked neatly into a handy space between shelves, and took several swift steps
down the length of the aisle.  One long
arm reached up to plant a hand against the central vertical support, at the
highest practical point in order to maximize leverage against gravitational
acceleration, while the other made a long calculated arc and hooked the young
female away from the shelf she was beginning to fall from and hugged her
tightly against the figure’s chest.

One leg swept back to the optimum bracing angle and dug a
foot into the floor, as the other remained braced beneath for lifting
power.  For long moment, strength and
calculation struggled with gravity and inertia. 
From the upper shelves, a few heavy tomes fell, one of them bursting
rather explosively on impact.  But with
inertia halted, gravity alone proved insufficient, and a carefully calculated
push pivoted the shelf’s center of gravity back inside its base perimeter.  The shelf tipped back towards, and then past,
vertical, threatening to topple the other way, but a swift tug at the correct
moment was sufficient to settle the heavy shelf back towards center, rocking
like an inverted pendulum.  Several books
–did- fall from the far side of the upper shelves, judging from aural analysis,
but serious harm had been averted.

Returning to a vertical stance, the figure finally free to
turn its attention to the young female whose back was still pressed against his
front, dangling from the curve of his arm. 
Said young female eventuated to be a young unicorn filly, whose horn was
still emitting the modest red glow (of nearly the exact perfect amplitude and
wavelength for a covert mission in low-light conditions, he noted) that he had
noticed just earlier.  The light made
ascertaining the color of her coat a dubious exercise, but other clues made
that unnecessary.  The filly’s identity
was not, he mused, much of a surprise.

“Twilight Sparkle,” he said in a measured, slightly gravelly
voice.  “That was an unwise course of
action.”

The unicorn, for her part, appeared to still be catching up
with events.  Indeed, her horrified
attention was fixated on the books that had struck the floor.  “Oh no, oh no, oh nonononono!  I broke a BOOK!  I broke a BUNCH of books!  Princess Celestia is going to banish me to
the moon!  No, she’ll throw me in a
dungeon, and then banish the DUNGEON to the moon!  With me IN it!  Ohhhh, and she’s going to be SO disappointed
in me, and I know she told me to stop staying up all night reading but I just
couldn’t stop reading the third volume of the biography of Starswirl the
Bearded and when I hit the end I just HAD to come get the fourth volume because
I was NEVER going to be able to sleep without knowing what happened but I knew
I couldn’t wake anyone up just to help me get a book and I was SURE I could do
it myself but now she’s going to be so DISAPPOINTED in me and that’s even worse
than when she’s MAD at me and I BROKE A BOOOOOOK!!!!!!”

That last was delivered in a strangled wail of despair that
still stayed at a volume low enough to avoid being noticed by any theoretical
authority figures which might for some reason be roaming the library at this
hour of the night.  Young Twilight, he
noted a bit dryly, was possessed of a rather impressive lung capacity for a
child with such a sedentary lifestyle. 

He bent to place Twilight gently back in contact with the
ground.  “Books,” he noted, “can be
repaired.  After all, what is truly
important is not the books themselves, but the information which they
contain.  Although as a fellow
bibliophile, I cannot entirely disagree with you.  To see books needlessly damaged is…
distressing.  Even if backup copies
exist.”

“But!  But!” Twilight
stammered in protest, turning to look at him. 
“Hurting a book is like kicking a puppy or a  kitten, but even worse because a book can’t
run away and… and… and….”  Her eyes
slowly travelled up from his knees to his face, growing rounder with each
millimeter to an anatomically improbable diameter by the time they made contact
with his.  “Who… what… are you?”

Moving slowly in order to avoid spooking her further, he
dropped into what his old friend would have called a “catcher’s crouch,”
reducing his probably intimidating height. 
“I am a friend of Princess Celestia’s, which is how I know your name,
Twilight Sparkle.  She speaks of you
often, and usually with pride and affection. 
Which leads me to conclude that your fears of banishment to the moon are
rather exaggerated.”  He felt the tiny
ghost of a smile cross his normally impassive features.  “I am a castaway, whom Her Highness was kind
enough to provide with a place to stay and access to her library, albeit after
hours, while I research a means of returning to my home.  My name is Spock.”

She stared at him long enough that he began to wonder just
how badly the series of shocks had affected her.  She hardly moved, indeed barely even blinked,
for an improbable length of time.  When
she spoke, her first question caught him completely by surprise, although he
later concluded that he really should not have been.

“What’s a ‘bibliophile’?”

……………

She trotted along at his knee as they traversed the library,
asking questions as quickly as her inexperienced but impressive intellect could
generate them (which was more quickly than she was capable of verbalizing them,
a bottleneck which obviously frustrated her). 
“You said you were a castaway.  A
castaway is someone whose ship broke and left them stranded, right?  But you must have come from an awfully long
way away because I’ve never seen anything like you in any of my books and I’ve
read most of the volumes on major life forms in Equestria and you would really
stand out.  So where did you come from?”

He paused and looked down at her innocent, earnest
expression… and found himself unable to resist indulging the sense of humor
that Doctor McCoy would have insisted he did not posess.  Lifting his free hand, he pointed up towards
the skylight… and waited.

Her eyes followed, and rounded improbably again after a
gratifyingly short pause (such a quick mind on one so young was, while
potentially exhausting, undeniably a pleasure). 
“The MOON?  But that means that
the speculations about ecological conditions on the moon are actually all wrong
since you can obviously breathe our air and move comfortably in this
gravity.  Was it a case of parallel
evolution or—“

“No,” he interrupted her gently when a raised palm proved
insufficient to the task.  “Further.”

It should not have been amusing to watch her head tilt
further and further back, as she stared up through the skylight at the
brilliant stars, until she toppled onto her hindquarters with a thump that
failed to pry her grasp from the firmament. 
But it was, despite the fact that he would never had admitted it to the
doctor.

“The STARS?” she whispered. 
Her expression was easy to read, exhibiting a sensation he recalled
fondly himself – that of one’s mental horizons suddenly and unexpectedly expanding,
of unprecedented vistas unfolding before the mind’s eye too quickly to be
grasped.  That bright, shining moment of –possibility-,
when limits and constraints momentarily ceased to exist.   Such moments came to him all too rarely now,
but the vicarious experience of seeing it through her eyes was in some ways
even better.  The thought of becoming a
teacher again was certainly taking on increased appeal.

She pried her eyes away from the stars with an obvious
effort and looked at him again, struggling to enunciate the first of what would
certainly be a lifetime’s worth of questions – and halted almost painfully as
he raised a hand for silence.

“Perhaps we should first retire to my quarters,” he
suggested, suppressing a smile, “and begin repairing this book.”  He gently gestured with the badly damaged
tome, bringing a shamed blush to her cheeks. 

“Oh.  Yes.  Right. 
We should do that first.”  Her
crestfallen expression tempted him to laughter with an intensity he had not
felt since… since the last time he had been in the presence of his
friends.  It felt good.

“Of course, I’m sure I can answer some questions while I
work.  It is, after all, only logical to
develop a talent for multitasking.”  She
brightened like Engineer Scott being presented with a new engine upgrade to
experiment with, and fell into step beside him, sparkling with questions like
her namesake again.

There was a line of dialogue, he recalled, from an ancient
Earth film which his mother had been quite fond of.  Something about “the start of a beautiful
friendship….”