Just something I cooked up after recent events.



"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of mobs?"
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

Right Stuf's started their "http://www.rightstuf.com/rssite/main/ne ... To=Archive]Twelve Days of Savings" sale...

Day 1: sixteen items, including Spice and Wolf Novel Bundle, Ah! My Goddess TV series 1 DVD Bundle, R.O.D. the Blu-Ray, and Ghost Sweeper Mikami DVD Bundle
--
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

Stan Lee Dreams Up New Heroes For The Web
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Basehull:             custom
Length:               35 m
Width:                22,54 m
Weight:               75,332 kg
Drive Type:           reactionless drives
Drive Rating:         Max Velocity 0.05c
Armament:             4x M61 Vulcan Gattling cannon, retractable
                      1x 20 cell Vertical Launch System
Primary Manufacturer: TBD
Owner:                Space Patrol Section 6
Faction:              interfactional
Purpose:              FESWAT unit delivery and support
Primary Crew:         pilot, comm officer, weapon systems officer, intel officer
                      one FESWAT unit (12 people) + gear
Nr. Launched:         4 (officially)
Operational Status:   Active
Shortly after the foundation of Space Partol, the Agent in charge of Section 6, 'Nanoha', requested four purpose build vessels or the delivery and support of FESWAT units and even provided the basic plans for such a vessel. Based on the 1966 Star Clipper concept the design was quickly finalized. Four Starclippers where build and delivered to Section 6 over the next two years.
Protected by reinforced battlesteel, force shields and a passive stealth system, the Starclipper is able to deliver a 12 man FESWAT unit and their gear to the operational area, support them with intelligence and fire support and extract them safely. Part of their sensory equipment, in this case the surplus Russian phased radar arrays, can be used in an offensive role to destroy delicate electronics in the target area or similar tasks.
They are also equipped with an extensive first aid station and FESWAT members or detainees can be medically treated. A small block of four cells for detainees also exists in the back of the craft.
The Starclippers are noted to be among the 'hardest to kill' vessels in Fenspace. Up until now (2015) only one Starclipper was removed from a fight, but only due to being extensively damaged. It was later recovered and repaired.
Known Units:
FESWAT Martin Riggs (FESWAT Unit 1)
FESWAT Roger Murtaugh (FESWAT Unit 2)
FESWAT Alexander James Murphy (FESWAT Unit 3)
FESWAT John McClane (FESWAT Unit 4)
The not existing Section 9 of Space Partol is not operating a not existing fifth and sixth Starclipper for ops that don't happen.
Class Quirks:
Like a Cockroach: Starclippers are very hard to destroy. Not to mention that its very hard to even damage them.
I want mine with sauerkraut: A crewmember has to throw a frozen hotdog into the beam of the phased radar array to be able to use it in an offensive role.
Like Sardines: Even through the passenger compartment of a Starclipper is rather roomy, every FESWAT member will feel like it is too small, not to mention rather uncomfortable.
Not on my watch!: No one who lands in the first aid station of a Starclipper has died up to date, even of the most grievous injuries. Up to date there was also no need for an emergency biomod on a Starclipper.
Trivia:
Two Starclippers have come under heavy fire during the assault on the Hell-Hole in Space, but have not been damaged.
--------------------
Just an idle thought...

Build number 12 is out - and it's a doozy - we have a go on launch to the Moon! 

First off - a few interesting additions to the program OTHER than the moon. 

First - Kearth now rotates and has a day-night cycle. 

A new feature you can add to craft is RCS Thrusters. It adds another option to piloting your craft other than just relying on the gyros and SAS inherent in the capsule. 

You can zoom out to an "Orbital View" that shows your spacecraft as just an icon and has the orbital vector drawn in as ray trace lines. Updated in real time as you boost. Which is an AMAZING addition - no more guesswork or using third-party calculators to figure out your orbital path. You can actually SEE it. 

And that's incredibly important too. Can you imagine trying for a lunar orbital insertation using nothing but a calculator and having to eyeball it? Well, maybe you can if you were trained as one of the orbital mechanics guys in "The Trench" at Apollo Mission Control. But for those of us a little weak on the math, this is a godsend.

Another godsend is the "Time Warp" feature. You can speed up time up to a factor of x10,000. This makes what would otherwise be an ultra long wait overnight into something that can be done in a few minutes to an hour. An entire mission to the Mun and back can be accomplished in 30 minutes to 2 hrs (depending on how much time compression you use and what for.)

So - the Moon (Mun). How easy is it to land on it? Oooogh... Not very. I've had live Kerbals make it down to the surface in one piece. But something on the craft always seems to fail and they get stuck there on the Mun. A lot of it has to do with the fact that given the weight requirements, it's almost impossible to bring along an extra SAS unit to help stabilize you. You have to use RCS thrusters and fly it yourself for the most part. You'll still have a weak SAS in the capsule itself. But that's not much. Still - better than nothing. 

So - some pics. And cue the Space 1999 theme music! 

So first, before trying to actually LAND on the Mun, I decided to take a page and some advice from the pros - the Apollo Program to be precise. Send something up to orbit the Mun first to see if you can do -that-. 

I used the now-venerable Falcon Mk VIII to test this the first time. Surprisingly I made it to Munar Orbit without a hitch. 











It's at the above point where in retrospect I made a serious error. Look at that green line back around the backside of the Mun. That's a damn near perfect "free return" trajectory! I didn't have to do ANYTHING and I could've simply looped the moon and come back, easy as you please. 

But no... I decided to "do it right" by establishing a parking orbit and THEN trying to boost home. Trouble is - the Falcon 8 wasn't really designed with this sort of thing in mind, as you will see. 





So I've got an orbit established, but I spent some more fuel to make it more circular, as I suspected the gravity of Kearth might yank me back on the high side of that. 



Ahhh! Is that the nuclear dump blowing up?! Is the Mun being blasted out of Kearth's orbit? ... No, it's just the sunrise. 



So after another boost to get out of parking orbit...


Trajectory looks good. 





I'm trying to bend that vector to intersect Kearth, but I don't have much fuel... I was hoping to establish an elliptical orbit and then tweak it on the Apogee end...



... but this is when I ran out of fuel... CRAP.

Oh it gets worse...



That extremely elliptical orbit took me far enough out of the Kearth/Mun system...



That it became a SOLAR orbit. Mark well, this is not what you want to see! 

On to the next set... 

Dude, would good food intrude?

Word nerd heard, inferred, bestirred.

"Bwah? Aha! Saw a law!"

Lie, decry, sigh... Reply!
--
"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

I'm sure that some of you already know, but for those of the herd that don't sign onto steam every day:

steam is doing a promotion until the 27th.
Lots of big package deals, lots of daily deals.

Things that I would recommend (daily deals good for another 20 hours):
sanctum @ $2.50 (75% off), lots of tower defense fun.
Deus Ex: human Revolution @ $25 (50% off)
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

Standing in the late fall rain, looking at the hole in front of him, Marcus Cole wondered if anyone had ever realized how difficult it could be to just hold still.

The entire situation was sketchy to begin with. Blitz was a madman who’d held most of the world hostage to prop up his dwindling little dictatorship for years. To think that someone who’d essentially declared himself dictator of his supposed “country” by nuclear extortion would agree to give up the sole thing keeping him in power was all but impossible. But there were always alternatives. Justin thought that potentially Arachnos had found a way to shield themselves from Blitz’s nuclear missiles If so, the “peace conference” was just a play to get the rest of the world to protect Warburg and Blitz from Arachnos when Recluse inevitably decided to punish his traitorous ex-Marshall. From that viewpoint, Blitz’s demand for Alexis as the opposing negotiator also made sense. It was a hostage situation to ensure that the heroes were not just trusted, but forced to negotiate in good faith, as neither Marcus nor his granddaughter Megan could risk the ambassador’s life by attempting to stage attacks on Blitz’s missiles while Alexis was under Blitz’s guns.

However, no one anticipated Malaise’s involvement, and the illusionist's powers had rendered Alexis’ protective detail completely useless while Blitz’s men kidnapped her. While a rescue attempt had been launched immediately, led by a still injured Manticore, they had been too late. Marcus wondered if he could have changed things by acting personally. Certainly, he could have saved the rescue team time by intercepting Blitz’s nuclear launch himself. But Blitz could just as easily have reacted to Statesman bearing down on him by launching all his missiles at once, killing millions. It was almost ironic. Blitz’s launch codes and the threat they posed to the world if he was displeased had made Marcus more powerless than anything that Recluse had ever achieved with the WEB. While Recluse had never ceased his attempts to harm Marcus and those close to him, Blitz had done more damage in a day than the master of Arachnos had in decades.

Around him, Marcus was aware that not everyone had been able to attend the funeral. The Sinclairs were both missing, with Shalice currently interrogating Malaise in the Zig while Justin recovered from his injuries and worked on tracking down any remaining leads to the greater plot he suspected this had all been tied into. More likely than not, both were also avoiding the funeral because they felt responsible. Shalice blamed herself for Malaise slipping back into his villainous ways without her noticing, while Justin doubtless was spending every free minute not dedicated to his current task going over the events in his mind in exacting detail, finding a dozen ways he could have prevented Alexis’s death, even though he’d had no idea of what was really happening until it was too late.

This wasn’t to say that the hero community was underrepresented. There were dozens, hundreds of them present. From Marcus’s personal associates alone, he knew that Raymond, Steven, Michael, Tammy, and Citadel had attended. Megan stood beside him, stoically showing little emotion along with her father Patrick. There would be open displays of grief later, certainly, but for now Marcus suspected his granddaughter was suppressing more violent surges of emotion now, much like himself. Megan was the commander of Longbow, the most visible anti-villain force in the western hemisphere. A contingent of Longbow arriving to “escort” Malaise and Blitz to a new location wouldn’t be questioned, and while investigations would be filed, it would be doubtful if anyone in Longbow or the federal justice system would particularly grieve if both conspirators were to mysteriously reappear as corpses. Assuming that Justin’s own operatives didn’t arrange an “accident” first. Marcus himself felt the urge, deep within, to simply go into the prison and snap both men’s necks with his bare hands, but both grandfather and granddaughter were here instead, willingly, because it wasn’t what Alexis would have wanted.

And more than that, Marcus refused because he knew the danger of what would happen if he were to simply give in to the drive that he could feel pulsing within him. For all his power, he was still one man, but Statesman was a symbol, and one that would drag down others with him if he were to pursue a course of retribution. Megan would come with the minute she found out, while Justin’s own sense of failure and long-standing battle with his own sense of vengeance would be sure to follow. Others might even come less full-heartedly, but out of a sense of obligation to Marcus himself, or worse, try to get in the way. A super powered battle between heroes would be the second worst thing that could happen in the midst of the war with Praetoria.

The first being what Marcus had rushed to prevent as soon as Justin had limped into Fort Trident to inform him of what had happened to Alexis. Few knew that the three sisters that Marcus regularly interacted with were in fact the Furies of Greek legend, though they possibly predated even those legends. Desdemona’s recent investigations into Praetoria’s First Ward had revealed that they far, far more than even that. The Well of the Furies which had contained the power of the Incarnate used them as enforcers of its ancient will, protecting against the misuse of its power...and the abuse of the ideals it had held when they encountered it for the first time, eons ago.

Malaise’s involvement in Alexis’ death had been a betrayal, and a grievous one. A similar betrayal had happened in Praetoria, and resulted in the summoning of the Furies’ most terrible servants: the Talons of Vengeance. They were a bloody sword that upheld the tenants of the age in which the Furies had been born: retribution for betrayal, swift and merciless. But the Talons were indiscriminate, and the misery and woe that they spread across wherever they touched was meant to drive the innocent into punishing the guilty by whatever means necessary, if only to gain respite from the torment of the Talons’ arrival.

And while the father in Marcus wanted nothing more than to tell the Sisters precisely where to find Malaise and where to let their bloody carrion birds loose, he had become a hero to uphold justice and fairness. His wife, his daughter, and his granddaughter had all taken up the mantle to fight alongside him for the same cause, and after their time on the front lines had passed, to uphold those same ideals as ordinary people just as well as they had as heroes. Alexis had died trying to bring peace and safety to the world...and the Talons would only take that away and ten times more. That was why Marcus had begged the Sisters not to intervene, however much their retribution might have been deserved by the betrayers now rotting in the Zig.

And so Marcus stood and watched as the solemn pageantry of the funeral proceeded and they laid his daughter to rest in the earth below. He waited, holding back the surge of anger and rage that burned inside him as his mind called forth every image of Alexis with the crystal clarity he’d possessed since he first drank from the Well. He waited, and hoped that Justin would be successful in his efforts to track down the true perpetrator.

And that for once, no other hero would arrive there before he did. Because somtimes justice and vengeance could work to the same ends, and right now, Marcus Cole felt a deep desire for both.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

Maybe you guys can figure it out. I was kicking around some ideas on Operation Have Cake And Eat It, and this popped into my head:

Quote:The OV-200 in 2064

The venerable OV-200 series space shuttle remains in service in and around the Sol system and the nearer interstellar colonies. While the ships built before 2025 have largely been retired and largely donated to museums across known space[1], the newer generation of shuttles continue operating much as they always have done. Overshadowed by the newer OV-400 and -500 series explorers and utility spacecraft[2] in recent years, the 200 series remains one of the top performers in Fenspace and a shining reminder of the early pioneer years.

While the original 200 series ships were largely scientific research vessels, most of the shuttle's modern work is related to support and supply missions for stations and colonies on the fringe. Out of the 55 OV-200s still in operation today, only one (OV-276 AFSC Ibn Battuta) continues to work as a first-in explorer. All the rest have been moved off the front lines to a support role. A few shuttles operate as high-end VIP transports: the oldest 200 series still flying (OV-206 SC Daedalus) started life as a personal yacht for a Lagrange millionaire and eventually became an exclusive charter tour ship.

Experts believe that the 200 series will continue to fly through 2100, if only as living museums, show displays and private bush spacecraft.

[1] To name a few: OV-201 USS Enterprise is on display at the Starfleet Museum; the Ackermanian Institution has multiple OV-200s both on display and in storage; the Museum of Martian History proudly displays OV-213-A PKGS Melchizedek; OV-215 AFSC Duyfken was donated to the NEMO Science Center in Amsterdam upon retirement.

[2] The OV-300 was a strictly notational vehicle, built in server farms in Utopia Planitia, Hephaestus and Black Mesa as a way to work out improvements in the shuttle design and test revolutionary new concepts that would eventually go into the physical 400 and 500 series. The OV-400 series is the practical heir to the shuttle legacy, a large (100m) utility vehicle, while the OV-500 series is the spiritual heir, a larger (~200m) deep space exploration craft. Both vehicles take design inspiration from Matt Jeffries' http://www.projectrho.com/SSC/index.html]Lief Ericson

And a very merry holiday season be unto you. Pass the turkey and cranberry sauce, please.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.