http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rika_chan

First some background:

I'm not sure if this belongs here or on the Legendary forums or both. (Bob - Move and/or Delete this thread as needed) I recently rolled a new character as part of the i21 headstart, and got him up to lvl 20 real quick. I then had to leave for about a week, and during that week, I got attacked by rabid plot-rabbit and the ideas just wouldn't leave me alone. Just to get some quiet in my head, I wrote them out. However, they in-turn have sort-of breed a life of their own and I'm seriously considering continuing this. Looking at what's written, the only CoH element is the character name, and that's easily changed.
Hence the need for input. What I think I've written is the basis from which someone can write a really good book, I've done a bit of world building mixed in with commentary other stuff. I have at least double what's typed below written out in my book and its still growing.
Its currently a sci-fi detective story grabbing elements from all over... Mass Effect, Deadliest Catch, WH4K, and D&D to name a few that I have lined up.
Thus without further ado:
[Request for Assistance]
[Request for Beta]
[Release for Comment]
------

I am Draek Shepard. That is: Commander Shepard of the Dragonic Horde, Wielder of FireSpitter, Protector of the Innocent, Chosen of the Hunt, Sentinel of Peace, Defender of the Tri-Alliance, Vinco Vicis and many other titles. 
Fear not my weapon: FireSpitter. ForgeCrafted in the Core Worlds.
With it I have tamed the beasts of Sjuk Major, Ganis Minor and hunted the Ghost Hounds of the Four Arms of Harkkuro.
Fear not my power: Temporal Bending. Honed in the Wildlands Regions.
With them I have made suns stand still, altered seasons and exploded stars and made planets shift orbit.
Fear not those that caused me to tread upon your world, to turn my attention towards you.
They will be dealt with shortly and shall soon feel the full weight of my ire.
Rather, fear the Authority which I represent, and who's Authority I wield.
Fear them and Live a prosperous life.

These are the journals of how I was grants these titles. Read them, so you don't fall into the same traps that I did.

Chosen of the Hunt

 

I can remember a time when I was what you would term a
"Greenhorn". We were hunting Gas-Skimmers on the Regis Narrows.

At the time, it basically involved some poor sap at the end of a long pole
setting off flares to enrich the veins of gas to lead the Skimmers into our
traps. And as the FNG guess who drew the short straw.

Still, there was a certain serenity, and certain beauty to the stars, when
its just you and the universe. Not that you get much of a chance to enjoy it.
They work the laborers tough on the hunting boats and the greenhorns doublely
so.

A typical hunt would begin with the Captain handing control over to the
"Findsman". On the Elexis, the Captain was a born Spacer, one a rare
breed of people (and I use the term loosely) that was both born in space, work
in space, and can handle the rigors of Space with the gift of Command.

The "Findsman" on the other hand is a different skillset. Despite
all attempts to breed and craft them, "Findsman" are born, never
made. They appear to be totally random and across all species boundaries. So
what makes them so special? A "Findsman" have this nack of feeling
gas vibrations and other funny things over great distance. Great as in stellar
distances. As such, "Findsman" were in great demand.

Captain to [Susan]: "Find us some cheddar"

Eyes roll back, body begins to glow faintly, eyes glow greatly. "Aye
Cap."

 The ship would then be in the hands
of the "Findsman" who's aim it was to steer the ship into the richest
gases for us to lay our traps, grabbing Skimmers. The thinking was that the
higher the concentration, the richer the gas, the more Skimmers there would be,
and thus the more we would catch. Simple. Where do the flares come in? They
apparently, I'm told, make the gas tastier.

Can we eat Skimmers? No, not directly. Skimmers need to be processed on a
Processor Ship in order to be consumed by most humanoids. Even then, it tastes
like rubber. Trust me on that.

So why do we even bother? Why the mad scramble to gather Skimmers while the
season is open?

Simple: For the portion of intelligent species that can actual eat raw
Skimmer, it is a high class exotic food up there with the likes of caviar and
green leg loxy meat. They are willing to pay top dollar for mere mouthfuls of
the stuff. (They are, in-turn, considered bonkers by everyone else, but nobody
says anything, as money covers a multitude of sins and talks a myriad of
languages.)

If that wasn't reason enough, there is yet another, simpler reason.
Skimmers make excellent Bait.

Bait for what? Bait for what is generally called Leviathan. Giant whales of
the sky. Now there is where the real money was. There were typically only one or
two Leviathans taken a season, sometimes none. Landing one was enough to keep a
working Captain and a larger boat going for a good decade or longer, which was
the average. The Elexis Captain had landed one every other year for the last
six years straight.

No one was that lucky. No one.

This year, if the pattern held true, would be yet another 'lucky' year for
the Elexis. That was why I was busy seeding gas veins when I could be busy
doing a million other safer and saner jobs, like say flushing fusion vessels -
while they were still active.

My cover this time around was that of a "greenhorn". Bottom of
the totem pole sort of stuff. We had to load the traps, haul them into the
launcher, launch them, scrub the decks, maintain the ship, cook, catch the
traps, haul the traps back across the decks, clear them, sort the catch, haul
the traps into storage, ready the traps again, and maintain the catch. And all
that was within the first two days. In amongst all that, we had to put up with
the shenanigans of the crew, and find time to sleep and eat. The advantage to
being a "greenhorn" was, we had the virtual run of the ship after a
few days (just had to say we were on doing an errand for somebody, only issue
with that was we actually had to be on said errand) and is was easy to hide
ones lack of skills in certain areas. But oh did I ache in so many places.

To illustrate: Each trap is about 2 tonnes in weight and expand to about a
mynok or 3 metra cubed. You have to run in, hang the bait sack in the centre,
check the beacon is charged and programmed, and ensure that the various lines
are secure and not tangled. All this while wearing a Chem-suit and operating
under funky lights, as the gas tends to react to normal lights. Not that the
lights or the suit bothers Kaleb, the [ ] methane breather. To him, its just
another suit and the lights actually help him see better.

Typical load time for each trap is 2 minutes, 3 at the maximum. Once its
ready, the trap is man-handled over to the launcher and flung into space when
the ship reaches its mark. While waiting for the ship to reach its mark, the
next trap it being prepared. And to quote the nice and friendly safety brief
spat at us "greenhorns" when we first stepped onto the rear deck:
"DON'T GET CAUGHT INSIDE DA TRAP OR IN DA LINE - WE AN'IT COMIN' BACK FER
YA!" The suits wouldn't have enough air to last until they came back to
pick up the full traps, and woe betide anyone who caused the Captain to have to
slow the ship down. Nothing like the constant threat of danger to keep one on one's
toes. I feel at home already.

The number of crew on the ships varied depending on the size of the ship,
the depth of the pockets supporting it, and few other factors that aren't worth
mentioning here. The Elexis, being typical of most hunting ships, was of a
particular size, although some are a bit bigger and some are a little smaller.
The Elexis was big enough to carry a decent amount of Skimmers when full, along
with a sizeable amount of traps, yet small enough no the disturb the gas too
much as it passed. It also carried the mandated Leviathan stun shot (LSS).

I should mention that even though Leviathan hunting and Skimmer hunting for
that matter has a lot if Cowboys and Characters, all aspects of the hunt are
strictly controlled. That is despite the fact that Gas-Skimmers can breed like plague-rabbits
when the time is right (never store an even number together in a confined space
for any longer than 5 mintra), and have shown a surprising resiliency. Out of
season hunting is particularly frowned upon. There are reports that someone
tried a spot of unlicensed out-of-season Leviathan hunting back in '06. They
say that the broken up remains of their ship were found on a ballistic cause to
the nearest space station. Weather that's true or not; no one is  in a particular hurry to test that particular
myth.

Every year there are at least 3-10 firings of the LSS. Some Captains go
their entire career without seeing one. So just to claim that they saw one and
"missed it my metra" or "it shook the shot off" they fire
the LSS off. The problem with firing the LSS is that it requires anyone else in
the area to drop what what they are doing and come and render aid.

Why would they need to come and render aid? The average Leviathan is
freaking massive. It is called a Leviathan for a reason. It out-weighs and
out-sizes even the largest of hunting vessels by several orders of magnitude.
The fact that they get so big is one of the greatest mysteries of the wider
scientific community. (How a Captain could miss a stun shot at something that
big and still call themselves a Captain was another.) Their typical diet was
Gas Skimmers and other stellar life, Star dust, and even the upper levels of
gas-giants. So we're doing the universe as a whole a service by taking a
Leviathan out of circulation. In return, the Leviathan breaks down into much
tastier food, fuel, vital medical supplies, and about a thousand other things.
The nerve sheath for instance, makes an excellent wiring harness for most
fusion drives and was so simple to maintain, even I can do it. (Read the color
code chart and take the appropriate action)

As the Elexis was such a successful ship, it was running with the full
compliment of crew. That meant we had the Captain in command of the whole shindig,
the "Findsman" and for once their apprentice was working besides me
as a "greenhorn". The two pilots worked also as navigators and split
there shift so that there was always at least one of them at the helm,
sometimes both of them. There was the Engineer in charge of the engine and
general systems of the ship, The chief Cook who also doubled as the doctor and quarter-marshal,
and the three deckhands. Then there was us two "greenhorns" where the
butt of everyone's jokes and given all the "real work" to do in order
"to toughen you up". The number of filters that needed cleaning was
ridiculous. I haven't seen that many filtres since my days on Fortunes Favorite and it was five times
the size.

Hands over a sludge and muck encrusted pipe

"Squid, I want this so clean I could eat of it"

Hands him a tooth brush

"Get to work!"

Mentally whimpers. "Yes Sir!"

One good thing about all the filters that they got me to clean, they were
excellent hideholes for Listeners... of which I found some and showed them to
the Captain, souring his mood for the rest of the shift. He made some nasty
comment about Port Authorities sticking their noses where they aught not, but
then all Spacers view them as a required evil. Of course, I then went about
replacing the Listeners with ones of my own knowing that I'll probably be the
one flushing them out before the cruise is over.

I felt particularly sorry for my fellow "greenhorn" [name]. In
addition to all the fun and excitement that came with being a
"greenhorn", she had to deal with tutage from [Susan], the ship's
"Findsman". While, true, it is a gift that is born and is neither
crafted nor made, it is not a free ride either. Neither does it mean that one
is endowed with skills or talents. Being a "Findsman" is as much a
curse as it is a blessing. She had a nations expectations riding on her
shoulders. From what little I glimpsed at, the training was rather unpleasant
on both sides.

To say stress and energy levels were running high on the ship would be an
understatement much like saying stars are hot, space is cold, and Torren as a
race are ugly. It was part of the reason why I was seeding the gas

It was mid-season, Elexis had filled her tanks twice already. One load had
gone to the Processor ship, and another had gone into raw storage. Thus even if
the Captain didn't have his prior Leviathan earnings in the bank earning who
knows what interest, the boat for this season at least, had reached break-even
point. It was something of a gentleman's agreement between hunters: They would
all make an appearance of hunting Skimmers for the Processor and the raw
market, and they wouldn't actively hunt Leviathans until the Skimmer season
closed. This made it fair for everyone including those that just hunted
Skimmers, and everyone had enough to pay the bills at the end of the season. If
you happened across a Leviathan during Skimmer season, eh, well, fortunes of
the hunt. When the Skimmer season closed, when it was called, you had whatever
was on your boat and in your traps to go hunting Leviathans. It added to the excitement
of the game.

There is always the element of risk that as the season progressed, the ship
will be caught empty and her traps will be hanging in dead space when the
season was called. Hence is was with good reason that Hunting Captains and “Findsman”
were some of the coolest heads and steadiest gamblers and risk-takers in the
known universe. The odds and other calculations that they make on a regular
basis during the hunt are rather daunting. Hence why little rituals and procedures
take place on the various ships. One Captain is known to fly alongside gas
fields and fire traps through them, while another only releases traps in a ring
fashion. One Captain is rumored to ritualistically kiss the first Skimmer
caught before releasing it and doing the same for one of the last ones as the
season closes.

The Elexis Captain mixed up their choice of traditions, doing a wide
varitey of little rituals, all aimed to ensure a good take. One of said
traditions that they employed was FOFI – First Out, First In. First Trap Out was
the First Trap In. It was so critically important to remember and log which
trap was the start of which particular lines, especially as the Captain would run
three lines at a time, 2 in a vein and one lurking nearby. During the peaks, or
when either the Captain or the Quarter Master is feeling particularly nasty,
there can be up to 5 individual sets of lines and the crew were expected to
keep an idea of where each line and trap generally was and in which order to go
grab them.

The practice of having two traps in a vein of gas and hanging another one
just on the edge outside the vein then ‘seeding’ the outside trap with flares,
while not against the rules per say, was against the spirit of the rules of the
hunt. It was like dragging a bleeding fish behind a boat in shark filled
waters. Unfair on the sharks and cruel to the fool holding the fish.

It was also one of the most foolhardy and dangerous things that an
intelligent being could do without being given a one-way pass to the Nav’bel
sector and automatic entry into the Idiot awards. The only thing anchoring the crew member
(usually the “greenhorn”) to the pole as they fired off the flares was the
Adhesion lock on their shoes. The pole itself? Well, it bends and flexes in
response to the various forces acting on it, and is only really firmly mounted
at a single point. Of course, by the time that a “greenhorn” has the honor of
riding the pole, they ‘know’ that the
safety line that holds them to the ship, it won’t work.

For the nth time since taking this assignment I asked myself what in the
blazes I was doing out here, and if the crew was actively trying to kill me.

"May you connect via a high-bandwidth service, may you receive every ad targeted at your demographic, and may you come to the attention of Anonymous."

Modeled on the Chinese original, of course.

- CD
--
"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

Hello all. I'm thinking of picking up CoH and I just remembered that you all have a good community going here. So I thought that it wouldn't hurt to ask if you all wouldn't mind me, a CoH newbe, joining up. Just let me know what I need to do to qualify for membership and I'll be happy to get'r done. My reason for wanting to join is from what I see I think you all seem like a good group of people to show me the ropes 

Some more silliness on the way to Infinities... *grin*

*******************

The spectre has arrived

It was a rainy day, the Summer 2016 on the east coast of had been on vacation for weeks. But what did rain and clouds matter if you could just streak past them, right into the blue sky above?

The Taxi driver looked to his right, it did not happened that often this days that people looking for a transport into orbit from the US had armor and weapon that could have just come out of a scifi movie.

“Its really your first flight up to orbit?” he asked.

“Yes, had a few problems to get all the equipment together, Handwavium is hard to get on Earth these days. I couldn’t believe there are Trekkies and Star Wars Fen here, but no Mass Effect ones. Its one of the greatest games in history!” Shepard replied.

“Oh, we got our share of Mass Effect Fen last year, even if it took us some time to recognize them. A space station full of them to be exact.” the Taxi driver corrected him.

Shepard became visibly happy, that was much better than he had feared. “Wow, that’s great! I cannot await to meet them. I thought I would have to start it all alone. Maybe you can tell me where I can find them?”

The taxi driver grinned visibly. “That’s no problem. If I remember it right, their station Jenga is currently in orbit around Mars, they are friends with some of the Cybers at Marsbase Sara. Should not be difficult for you to get in touch with them.”

Shepard was to much occupied with dreaming about all the adventures he would have for wondering about the name of the space station.

“Oh, just one thing you might want to know. They are all catgirls!”

“Catgirls...” Shepards eyes seemed to bulge. “Wait, WHAT?”

Shepard just stared in shock at the taxi driver, he could not believe what he just had heard.

“Yes my friend, its true. There is a bunch of catgirls who teamed up in 2015 and founded their own company, ‘Catgirl Industries’. The started with random stuff, but today a lot of their tech can be traced either to the Tron movies or to the Mass Effect games. I heard they have invented the Element-Zero strain of Handwavium and still have a monopoly on it.”

Shepard just shook his head. “There are no catgirls in Mass Effect. There are lots of other races in the games, its not one of those ‘only humans with funny looking faces’ universes. But NO catgirls. How could this happen?” Something was going badly wrong here.

The man on the other seat chuckled. “Hey, this is Fenspace my boy. Anything can happen here. I have no clue about the ‘how’, but if you start asking questions like this, be prepared to become very frustrated soon.”

“Catgirls...” Shepard still tried to wrap his mind around the concept. “A full space station of them? And they are the Mass Effect faction up here? Whats about Mass Relays and Biotics?”

“I think you have to explain this to me. I have heard about the games, but relays sounds a little bit too antique for Fenspace. Some kind of mechanical computer? Not sure if a Mad have tried to build one. And whats Biotics?”

Shepard smiled. “No, not this kind of relays. Mass Relays are space stations which have a huge Element Zero core that can propel other ships nearly instantly across the galaxy to another connected Mass Relay. And Biotics... its about integrating small bits of Element Zero with the central nervous system of a humanoid to be able to create Mass Effect fields just by concentrating. Think about things like force fields or telekinesis. Just technology based.”

“Never heard about things like this, it seems our local variant of the Mass Effect Fen are still limited to other parts of the Fandom. But give them a few decades, we might see something like this. Catgirl Industries mostly works as a research institute and a base for crazy tinkerers. They create new waved goodies and prototypes, but licence much of their tech to other people for production.”

Shepard sighed again. Mass Effect Catgirls... that sounded crazy in his opinion. But it was better than nothing at all, he needed help.

----

Getting a Taxi to the moon was easy, but he had underestimated how large a real space city could be. Kandor wasn’t just large, it was huge... and full of people.

It took Shepard nearly a week to became even a bit familiar with this place. He booked a long guided tour and bought a map of the city, but he quickly recognized it would take years to see every street and corner.

‘And that’s just one of the Fen cities, there is a lot more to see up here. Good that computer games had much more limited maps, otherwise you would not be able to finish a single side-quest’ he thought. There hadn’t been that much data about Fen settlements available in the US, and most of them seemed to underestimate their size a lot.

After two days of walking around in Kandor City, he had visited Tranquility Base National Park and watched the place where Mankind had first visited another celestial body. He stand there for hours, thinking about how space travel and exploration had changed since them. He had dreamed about standing here since he was a small boy, still remembering his dad telling him when he had watched the first Moon Landing on TV.

But now he was here, he had made it.

Now it was time to get to the start of his first real quest.

He had bought a cheap waved Tablet PC, which had surprised him with instant speech recognition, free interwave access through the whole city and even a real holographic display! Now he was surfing some news pages to find more data about that catgirls.

Fenspace Interwave was even more crazy than the one he knew from the US. More chaotic, more... more dynamic. The Fen seemed to own a lot more computerpower than anyone on the ground, and without the RIAAs army of lawyers present to sue anyone stepping out of the line, they were quite creative how to use it.

America had second life... and it was quite okay. Fenspace had KoFen and other virtual reality spaces, and a lot of hackers and AIs to improve on them. Stepping into a simulation of a Lord of the Rings battle had been breathtaking, beyond anything he had seen at home before.

But the same facts that made the Interwave incredible made it also difficult to search for a new user. In the Internet you just asked Google or Wikipedia about something, and you could be pretty sure to get a good tip what was going on. Here you had a lot of small ‘data monitoring and indexing’ services, and each of them were keeping track of a part of the Interwave.

In the end someone hinted that he should go to the Blue Blazers internet page and use their search engine. He had heard about the Blazers in the news, when they had appeared after the latest earthquake in south Asia. Fox news had cried out against the ‘illegal meddling of Fens in Earth things’, but nobody sane had listened to them anyways. It was difficult to talk badly about a group of people helping to dig out victims from their collapsed buildings.

Digging through tons of interesting information about the end of the war against the Boskones he finally found some useful information about the ‘Mass Effect catgirls’.

Much of it were rumors and discussions about the crazy tech they were working on, but a few documents described visits on their space station Jenga. It turned out that their station contained the second largest group of Catgirls in Fenspace, just one of the asteroids contained more of them. Most of them were said to be victims of the war against the Boskonians. A free floating, ever changing complex of large steel boxes, where they built stuff. Unfortunately it seemed they never produced something larger than a small drone, except for the base itself. But with their modular base design, this would be possible to change quickly.

They would certainly see how important his mission was.

----

Getting from the Moon to Mars was just a short hop for a modern spaceship. Unfortunately for Sheppard was that he had no spaceship, so he decided to take a bus.

He used the five hour long trip to go over all the data he downloaded from the Interwave again. The story of the Boskone war kept his eyes fixed on the tablett, it was incredible how close the whole Fenspace community had come to being wiped out or conquered by some damned criminals. But it seemed that they managed to turn the tide just in time. Their own variant of the Spectres, the Trouble Shooters, and the forces of OGJ and Space Patrol had worked hard until they had cleaned out the last concentration of Boskonian forces.

But it seemed the Boskonians had not been wiped up completely. There was suspiciously few information about where the fugitives that had founded Catgirl Industries were coming from in 2015, but it seemed small parts of the Bad Guys had survived. He had to make sure to gather more information about this later.

But of course the spectres had no perfect score either. They even had got a few traitors in their own ranks.

It was always a problem of support and resources. Without someone supporting him, the chance to make a difference was slim. Equipment, squad mates, crew, a ship, everything depended on external sources. In Mass Effect 2 the player had even worked with some insane pro-human militants called Cerberus, who were one of the bad guys in the first Mass Effect game. But they were the only group that had supported the player. After doing that much for the council in part one it shouldn’t have been this way, but the council had been a bunch of Jerks... as always.

Mars was already a huge sphere visible through the front window and a speaker announced they would reach Helium within the next ten minutes. Shepard sighed and put away his tablet. He would have liked to read more about the countless of military operations during the war, but it was time to find out where to go next.

According to his information from the Moon, the space station of the Mass Effect catgirls where still near Mars. It should not be that difficult to find someone who would take him to the station.

----

Traveling through Helium was a bad idea. At least that was Shepard’s thought as he left Helium towards Marsbase Sara.

This was the future. It was spaceship, space stations... terraforming! What were these sword-and-sandal movie fans doing up here and why did they built a city on Mars? Being told that their fandom was older than any science fiction show he ever knew had not been a pleasant surprise. Who could have known that they were slowly beginning to prepare for the celebration of the 100th birthday of the first book?

To be fair, Helium had been a nice and friendly place, great for tourists who were just visiting. Lots of things to look at, but not that interesting for a potential Specter on his way to the first mission. They had given him some friendly advice, but he had been unable to learn where this space station was at the moment, just that it was not in orbit around Mars. He had quickly left after a few hours.

Marsbase Sara was a totally different kind of city. There were mechanical constructs and mechs everywhere, it had a smell of a place of production and engineering, not the sight of a tourist trap. Both Mecha pilots and cybered humans made a large part of the people in the subterrain base.

THIS was looking like something belonging to Mars. Robot... Mechs... even flying Mechs! This was a place of technology, they would know where to look for the catgirls.

It had taken a while to descent into the catacombs of the base, but then he had been able to find someone who worked for the space surveillance office here. A nice guy with a mechanical arm, sitting in a bar and enjoying a free day. A couple of beers later Shepard was sure he had found the right man.

“Jenga? The kitties? Yes, of course I know. Must be a funny place, lots of engineers and mads doing interesting things.”

“So you have been visited Jenga in the past” asked Shepard.

“Me? No... just heard stories about how their base started. The original gang of Catgirls have been living and working in Helium for a month or two in 2015, before they got enough money to start their space station. I think they had something to do with the Panzer Kunstlers. You know, the guys from Grunthal.”

Shepard had read a bit about these Panzer Kunstlers in the files about the Boskone wars. They had participated in a lot of dangerous operations, including the raid on Boskone Prime. Maybe he could ask them about the Catgirls if this was a dead end. But he didn’t believed it was, he was close to the second part of his first quest, he was sure about it. This man had the information he needed.

“But you can help me so that I can meet them?” he asked.

“Normally they don’t have many visitors I think, most people that want to hire them for some research work just call them over the Interwave. Shall I give you the number?” the man tried to help Shepard.

“No, its really important that I meet them directly. You have to understand, some things should not be done by phone. Do you think you can get me the coordinates where they are at the moment?” Shepard asked urgently.

The man sighed. “Okay, I will see what I can do. You know, maybe they are still in Mars orbit, if they are I can help you from here.”

The man took out a small computer from his pocket and a series of commands flashed on the screen. “Lets see... Jenga... no, they are not in orbit anymore. Left two days ago, most likely to the belt.”

“Do you think you can find out where they are at the moment.” Shepard asked nervously. “Its a space station, it cannot be that quick.”

The man thought about it for a moment and nodded. “Okay, okay... you seem to be a nice one, just wait here while I call a friend who is on duty at the moment. Maybe he can help us.”

Shepard shook the mans hand and thanked him again when he finally got the coordinates of his target. In his mind he could see the quest status log updating again. It shouldn’t be difficult to find another taxi here to bring him to the space station now.

----

“I am John Sheppard, System alliance. At this date, the 10 July 2016 I am taking command of this space station.”

A few catgirls looked over the the man in his armor that had arrived with a Taxi a few minutes ago and began to giggle. Another one did not seemed to be that amused, but unsure if these armed person was serious or not.

While Shepard still waited for someone important coming, hearing his case and finally agreeing to his decision, a door of the hangar opened and three other Catgirls entered the room.

‘These three have spacesuits with helmets... and they have a mean looking gun’ Shepard thought, feeling uncertain how to continue. ‘Where are the dialog boxes when you need them?’

Finally one of the giggling catgirls responded. “Isn’t he cute? I say we allow him into the kitchen and drink a hot coffee, he has earned it for this spontaneous stand-up comedy.”

The tension in the room vanished and most of the catgirls were grinning or nodding. Shepard just stared at them, he didn’t wanted to believe what happened.

He was a command approved soldier, he had played all three episodes through on all difficulty levels. He would become the first Spectre as soon as the Fen found the first real Mass Relay and got involved with the Citadel Council. How could his plan had failed?

----

In her private quarters Cathy was just closing the helmet on her suit and grabbed her Gyrojet pistol as Cortana hit her with another update.

“I think you can relax Cathy, it seems he is not willing to draw his assault rifle.” she heard the AI saying.

The 6 shot ammo clip clicked as she pushed it into her weapon. Cathy wasn’t willing to let it drop that easy.

“Are you sure Cortana? Three of us with an armored spacesuit is good, but two of them just have a waved Paintball-gun! Remind me we talk about some weapon detectors for incoming vehicles, I don’t want this to happen again.”

Maybe it was time to call her friends from Venus for a few more real weapons too. Security was not very useful when only the other guys were armed.

Cortana chuckled. “You should see him, he looks as some kid who just got told Christmas has been canceled. I have no clue what he was trying to do with this stunt, but he doesn’t seems to be openly hostile.”

“I am not sure Cortana... get him somewhere he can relax a bit and keep me informed, I will stay close. We don’t know the capabilities of his gun, until he is willing to give it away for the duration of his visit here, I am taking no chances. If he draws his weapon to impress someone or enhance his arguments, I will see how good his armor is against a gyrojet missile.”

----

Shepard was sitting in an armchair in a smaller room near the kitchen area. He had his hands around a large cup of coffee, trying to regain his courage. It still wasn’t over, he had a chance to succeed. If he only could get EDI’s daughter to join his cause, it might be possible to push this back on the track.

He had thought about using a renegade option and drawing his rifle, but believing he could succeed against a whole space station alone was insane. When one of the catgirls approached him a minute later and asked him to put down his weapon, he had agreed to it. It didn’t matter what what chance he had, he did not want to start a fight.

It was not the right thing to start a fight.

“Cortana, you have to help me. I am sure I am the best here for command duty, but they just don’t listen to me. I have trained so hard, I cannot just give up and walk away. Everyone would laugh about me.”

Cortana was close to telling him that this might happen anyways. But there were worse things than to be laughed about by a few Fen. Maybe this was something Shepard had still to learn.

Shepard was getting desperate, he was at a crossroad of the quest of his life, and he feared that he was close to failing it. “If you support me, I might still have the chance to get this right. I had so much work with this armor and the weapon, it would all be for nothing.”

Cortanas virtual avatar sighed. “John... maybe you should open your eyes and look around. Two years ago nothing of this existed. The working areas, the drones, the waved cars... the space station! We built all of this and it was a lot of work too. Ten years ago Fenspace did not exist at all. Not the stations around Earth, not the flying cities of Venus, not the thousands of outposts through the solar system and beyond. Do you think you are really the only one who had to work hard to get to this point?”

John Shepard just looked to the ground. He just felt like he would start to cry in a moment. Could it really be that he had fooled himself? That he had that much looked into his role in this game, that he had overlooked that he wasn’t the only player? Had he planned so much about his future quests that he had lost sight of something more important?

“Oh what a mess. I don’t know what to think, maybe you are right...” he finally pressed out, still managing to prevent himself from just breaking down. “Can... can you leave me alone for a moment, I really need some privacy? Just a few minutes please.”

Cortana nodded. “I will mark this room as busy, so that no one busts in. Take you time and call for me on the terminal beyond the door when you need something.”

She shut down the holo projector and moved away from the sensor systems of the room, just leaving a small expert system to make sure she was notified if Shepard tried something stupid.

----

A small crowd of Catgirls had gathered in one of the rooms besides the kitchen, just one door away from the room where Shepard was sitting. Everyone was curious what had happened since their new ‘guest’ had arrived.

“No, he will not try to take over the station anymore” Cortana explained once again as a new catgirl joined the crowd, asking about the status of the invasion.

Everyone was whispering since Cortana had declared that their guest needed some private time and threatened to throw out everyone if they became too loud.

“Did he really threatened to take over the station?”

“Is he just the scout of a whole group, checking up if we would resist?”

“If he wants my room, I will personally throw him out of the airlock!”

Cathy sighed and decided to leave the room, there was no use to calm down everyone. A moment later another catgirl would appear and everyone would start exchanging rumors again.

She finally arrived in her private room and dropped onto an armchair.

‘May you live in interesting times’ she thought, it seemed Catgirl Industries was a magnet for ‘interesting’ things happening. Sometimes it was tiring, on the other side life would be very boring without it. And Fenspace wasn’t about being bored.

“Cortana, what do you think... do we have a crisis or can we just lean back and watch the show?”

Cortanas holographic avatar materialized, looking thoughtful. “I would say we don’t have a crisis... but our visitor might have one. I am not really sure what is going on, maybe it was just too much computer games and handwavium during the last year, but I am sure he believed it was the right thing what he was doing. I tried to be gentle to open him a bit for the real situation, but he is still in shock.”

“Maybe he needs a little bit company?” Cathy asked, but Cortana shook her virtual head.

“No, I don’t think he want to see anyone for the next hour, he is not the kind of person for this. Give him some time, he will get out of this mess on his own, I am sure. He just will need a new plan how to continue from here, taking over Jenga hasn’t worked out that well for him.”

Cathy laughed. “No, it has not. But if he really want to continue to live his fantasy, I am pretty sure I know a few good friends who would take him with open arms.”

----

Sheppard was standing in the hangar, waiting for another taxi that would take him to the Space Patrol recruiting office back on the Moon. He had been such a fool, how could he had believed he might succeed with this mad plan? He was lucky the cats had not just spaced him!

Cathy was standing besides Shepard, the poor guy needed some company while waiting for his new transport. Shepard wasn’t a bad guy, just a little bit delusional. Maybe an effect of the Handwavium he had worked with on Earth, or even a quirk of a subtle biomod.

“Its okay John, no one is angry about you. Fenspace is full of people who did all kinds of crazy things, a lot of them much worse than you. Just take it with some humor, and you will get over it. And to state something obvious, you don’t go from ‘joining Fenspace’ to ‘becoming a spectre’ within a few days!” She smiled to him. “But before you leave the station I have just one last question for you.”

Shepard looked resigning at the catgirl. It had not been his best day, he was very happy that he would have been out of this disaster soon. What kind of question could she have in mind?

“I don’t think you are the type of Fen who just wants to command people around, you seem to be too nice for this. So why did you need a space station full of Mass Effect Fen? You could easily have started working here in Fenspace for a living, earning some money and then start building your own stuff.”

Shepard sighed, maybe it was time to tell someone about his dream that never would come true. “I have to admit there is a slightly selfish reason for it... I am not really the great engineer. And without a larger number of people and a reasonable resource base, who could built me my Normandy?”

----

The shuttle was gone and Cathy walked back towards the research area to meet some friends. It had been a really crazy evening. Not the only one this week, but a special one.

Beyond the door Vivio was waiting for her, still grinning about the things that had happened. “He is gone?”

Cathy nodded. “Yes, he is gone. I think he will follow Cortanas suggestion to join the Space Patrol, maybe it will help him to see if he is as good as he thinks doing this job. And maybe finding his place here in Fenspace. I have called a few friends I have to get in contact with him, if he is serious about it he will not have any trouble.”

“He seemed to be a nice guy, except for the fact that he planned to take over our home... but at least he had a good taste for computer games.” Vivio said. “Don’t you think too the Normandy from Mass Effect looks cool? I admit, the bridge was a little bit strange and the Maco was really crazy, but it felt like something really fast and stealthy... and nasty, if you try to hurt it!”

Cathy sighed. “Yes, it looks nice, but only because its larger on the inside than on the outside, a lot larger. And even with this enlargement, it was a damned submarine, not a space ship. Think about it, they didn’t even had a kitchen or a bathroom on the first Normandy. I like the SR-2 more, it was a ship that felt usable. More realistic... large enough!”

They were still talking when they arrived at the research area.

----

“So you want to join Space Patrol?” the person on the other side of the desk asked him, looking over Shepard, his armor and the weapon. “Looking for an exciting job with lots of shooting and adventures?”

Shepard just wanted to open his mouth, but then thought about it for a moment.

“No. I am here because I want to do the right thing, help making Fenspace a little bit better... but...” he replied, searching for the right words.

“But?”

“But there are so many things I don’t know. I need a place to learn, someone who can tell me where I am wrong and what would be a good way to correct it.” Shepard sighed. “I learned the hard way today that Fenspace is a little bit different what I expected. Luckily no one got hurt, but I don’t want to rely on luck alone next time.”

The other person nodded silently and smiled.

“Then welcome on board. Keep this attitude through the training, and we might have a job for you.”

FTL Neutrinos? http://io9.com/5843112/faster-than-ligh ... ot-so-fast]This guy gives a reason why he's skeptical, beyond "It cannot be done!"

- CD
--
"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

Okay, branching off the "Crossovers That Should Be" thread, here's the current seed of the fic idea:  (Copied from that thread)
You have a point. Not to mention, Washuu doesn't modify anyone else in
the house, and Ryoko was built from scratch, something she can't do
with Harry. (Although I imagine it might be an interesting option much
later in the plot. Perhaps Harry gets all-but-killed in a year 5 or so
encounter with Voldie or DEs, and rather than leave him paralyzed or in
a coma or something she moves him into a custom-built body. But rather
than becoming Superboy overnight, he has to learn how to use its
abilities and it takes him a long time just to get the simple
ones, like flight.)

I have my own problems with the ping-pong-ball Harry idea, where he
bounces back and forth between Dumbledore and Washuu -- I think after
the second exchange, Washuu's going to go after Harry with the entire
Tenchi cast as help -- especially if any of them have managed to
meet Harry. (In fact, I can see Sasami and Harry becoming
playmates -- depending on what physical/mental age you see Sasami at;
I've seen her pegged at anywhere between 8 and 12.) And I think there's
a little fun to be poked at all the fanfic Harries who show up at
Hogwarts speaking Japanese, wearing kimono and carrying katana; this
Harry may end of speaking Japanese (if he learned it honestly; I can
also see Washuu just injecting him with translator nanites or something
because it's faster, in which case he can talk to everything,
not just snakes), but he'll be as ignorant of Japanese culture as he is
of Wizarding -- though he might have a somewhat confused grounding in
Juraian culture...

Okay, boiling down this ramble, how's this for a basic concept?

Mihoshi does something Mihoshi-like, and connects Washuu's lab to
Harry's closet in a (for the purposes of the story) permanent and
undoable way, when Harry's 8 or 9 years old. It's not door-to-door,
otherwise the Dursleys would notice; it's more like the Wardrobe to
Narnia, in that the back wall simply goes away and Harry can keep
walking deeper and deeper in, until he's in the lab proper. Which he
does, visiting several times before Washuu notices him. Under the
crazy, we know Washuu's a big softy for kids, so while she calls him a
minion and keeps him hopping, she's also treating him well and healing
what needs healing. etc. She injects him with translator nanites right
from the start (for much fun later on, when he's at Hogwarts and finds
he can talk to snakes, centaurs, merfolk, house-elves... practically
anything that has its own language), and while she doesn't actually
teach him a lot of really powerful stuff, she finds he's a
polite, attentive and quiet child and talks to him about what
she's doing, from which he picks up a mixed bag of information, though
little in the way of actual skills. (Said information will make him
seem almost as odd as Luna, once he gets to Hogwarts...) The first time
he shows up bruised and battered from Dudley, she gives him a personal
force field unit.

The rest of the house discovers him when Ayeka comes in one afternoon
to inform Washuu that dinner's ready, finds the two of them together,
and Washuu drags Harry to the meal when she learns he was sent to his
closet without dinner. As a result he ends up with a playmate in Sasami
and a big sister in Ryoko, and a stuffy but kinda nice spinster aunt in
Ayeka. And Mihoshi thinks he's the cutest thing since Hello Kitty. Oh,
and a kinda confused big brother in Tenchi. And he loves the temple.
And he learns a little kenjutsu from Tenchi and Grandpa. And of course
Sasami and Harry cook together, which is the first time he does it for
fun and people who appreciate it. All in all, getting sent to his
closet is actually a pleasant refuge for him, and the only problems he
has are a growing lack of sleep (because of the time difference between
England and Japan), and not letting the Dursleys know.

And when he starts doing accidental magic, well, he goes right to
Washuu and tells her about it, because hey, he can do stuff like all
the girls can. Why is that, Washuu-oba-chan? "Well, Harry, if you'll
just stand here, and hold these two electrodes in your hands, and this
third one in your mouth, we'll see what I can find out."

And when he gets back from the shopping trip with Hagrid, he
immediately goes to Washuu's lab to tell her about the letter and
Hogwarts. Which results in him going to school with a few "gifts" from
the household, a couple of cloaked sensor drones. and anything else we
can think of that's fun but not overpowering.

Oh, and a door to the Lab materializes somewhere in the Castle...

And from there? Well, we can figure that out next.

As http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=83443]this thread on the SJGames forums points out, there are literally dozens of settlements named Bristol, Canton, Springfield, or Wellington (and over a dozen named Birmingham).

Where are they in Fenspace?

I'm tempted to grab Bristol for a Sammie base, but I don't know where to put it. There doesn't seem to be an asteroid named "Bristol"...

Edit: A-ha! Takeuchi Shipyard is in Mare Marginis, but we never named the settlement that supports the shipyard. "Bristol" it is. (Not that there can't be other "Bristol"s in Fenspace, of course.)

Re-Edit: Rather than adding each name to the list, I'll just point at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... lace_names]Wikipedia's collection of place-name disambiguation pages. My, but there's a lot of them...
--
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

Zwill has confirmed that they're in the process of switching inactive accounts to the premium model, so if you're inactive, it might not hurt to go check.

It's that time again!  No, it's not time to spin the Wheel of Morality (TM), it's time to select panelists for the Anime Central 2012 Fanfiction Panel!

What's that, you say?  It's entirely too early to be recruiting panelists?  Well, the new window for submitting panels is October 1-31, no exceptions.

Anime Central (www.acen.org) will take place on April 27-29 at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Rosemont, Illinois.  If you're going to be attending Acen and you're interested in being on the panel, please send the following information:

1.  Your name or preferred handle.

2.  Your real name, if different.  By that I mean full, real name, including first and last names for the panel review board.

3.  A list of your preferred works, including any you may have written in the past year.

4.  The URL of your website, if any, or where your works can be found.

5.  If you've been on a fanfic panel before, and if so, where.

6.  (OPTIONAL) Why you'd like to be on the panel.

Please private mail me at pmui1@NOSPAMPLEASE.prodigy.net by September 30 if you're interested.  The panel will be selected shortly after that.

(I'm sure you know what to remove--it's in capitals.) 

Hope to hear from you soon!

--Pearson "Doc" Mui