Well yeah, s'why it's a 'teaser image' y'see. Never fear, Underdog is here.
Now going to the prewritten/offline post...
Okay! Starting from the premise that everyone was a good little boy/girl/alternative/primate, and waited EXTRA patiently despite 'tomorrow' being
counted in Microsoft Minutes (R) I'll first link to and explain the pictures that need it.
Wave Convoy, vehicle mode
http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225 ... nt=WC1.jpg
Robot mode
http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225 ... wWave1.jpg
Another angle
http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225 ... wWave2.jpg
http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225 ... oster1.jpg
Combined with the Full Wave Booster 'trailer'- note that while getting the FWB shoulders to work I added a set of half-diameter-exposed EPS conduits on
the top of the narrow part of the trailer, to allow collar-type hinges that swing the engine nacelles 60 degrees up and together to be out of the way, ala
Thunderclash's trailer jet pods from which I took the idea in the first place (sold in the US as KB-exclusive Machine Wars Optimus Prime, circa Beasties S2
IIRC.)
There's another image of the trailer from behind and above I forgot to put on my USB stick also.
http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225 ... otlogo.jpg
Close up of the Autobot logo on the port docking ring doors - due to the rushed time frame to get the unit ready for the Transformers: Wave Riders puplicity
tour, the construction of the majority of the narrow section's systems was contracted out to Utopia Planitia Yards, meaning theres a cola/uncola intermix
chamber and EPS manifold taking up one wall of the small cabin in the top ar of that part, with electrical power taps but no onboard energon condenser - Wave
Convoy links into the trailer systems then attatches a 220VAC extension cord to his onboard condenser, and controls the flight systems over a network
connection rather than the 'wearing stilts and big gloves' sensation of using the combined form robot mode.
Note that aside from psychological warfare and bunker-busting the Full Wave Booster is not actually a combatworthy frame - quite aside from what the Takara
Market Publicity Department which actually owns it would think of getting it damaged, even 'Cybertronian' construction techniques and a toned-down
version of Wave Convoy's Maximum Output mode that doesn't cause intermal damage just by moving to speed it up can't give it a reasonable reflex
speed, and the only one of its toy-style 'weapon systems' that's really useable in a meaningful way is the Tsunami Cutter Space Sword. Which is
ridiculously huge, and again only really good for putting a big hole in fixed defenses, or maybe a flying, samurai-movie slash against a ship too
unmaneuverable to dodge.
There is also a light show projecting BFG and eight 'missiles' each about the size of Wave Convoy himself ... Which launch with an audible
"Doing!" and have the Slapstick Effect preventing them from doing anything but knockback.
Images of the above will have to wait until I actually finish the model's arms, however. I also have one of the Gnarlycurl in preliminary stages - at
this point, it's basically the bare asteroid-metal carved hull as delivered by Rockhounds, estimated weight 5.3 million tons.
http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/classicdrogn/
My PB gallery, for bookmarking purposes, since it has the original three hand-drawn Wave Convoy pages with the Saving Shuko scene also.
That taken care of, I have three story shorts as well, though none of them are more than a scene and the last is firmly in the "possible futures"
category. They'll be moved from here to the SWtA story thread when I actually find the blasted thing.
- CD
Short One: Surfing With The Alien 4, Missed Stakes with Kitten Sauce
Faith came to in the dark. The space was small, barely big enough for her legs to be straight where she sat against a wall, but the air wasn't sour from
being closed in, or musty with age. Her slayer sense was silent, and so was the box, room, whatever. "Where the fuck am I?" she wondered, feeling
along the walls, and the low ceiling overhead. There was just barely room to stand.
Then, she remembered. The fight with B, the jump, the shit she pulled on Wesley, the fight with Angel where he wouldn't kill her. The trial.
"S'right, I'm in jail. Stupid bitch tried to start sometin' with the new girl and I busted her up, then the guards came... Prob'ly
threw me in solitary. Fuck."
There was no way to know what time it was, and of course no light switch. She sat down again in the still, silent darkness, closed her eyes, and tried to
think about being a better person. She wasn't brimming over with ideas, beyond "Try not to kill anyone else" and "Don't go stabbing
people in the back," but she figured she'd have a while to think about the problem.
That's what she was here for, after all.
Surfing With the Alien 4
Mist Steaks With Kitten Sauce
April 30, 2012, en route to Mars from Terra
"I just don't understand it, Convoy," Michael complained. "All the diagnostics you ran on the duplicate laser core checked out, and the
three normal computer nodes are all at maximum processor throughput running a simulation of that core, running whatever - whoever has woken up in it, but
it's like the simulation's IO ports have stopped working... Which is impossible, because it's still sending network handshakes, and the sim
diagnostics show everything working fine. It doesn't make any SENSE!"
"If you're expecting the universe to make sense, you'll be in for a lot of disappointment, Michael," the green and grey Autobot crouching
down to peer at the human-scaled equipment in the garage bay quipped wryly. "Perhaps it's more of a software issue," he suggested.
"But I just said, all the software says it's A-OK!"
Tapping a finger against the flaring silver brow ornament of his head, Wave Convoy said, "Not the kind of software I meant."
Michael blinked. "You mean, a mental thing? What, the new AI is feeling antisocial or something, and doesn't want to come out to play?"
"Perhaps it's something as simple as that, or perhaps he or she has incepted as a blank, like an infant, and doesn't understand how to access
the preloaded files or communicate. The only other person running on this kind of hardware is me, and I ended up this way by something of a fluke. I'll try
connecting through the duplicate core to the simulation on the cyberspace level, and see if I can figure things out from there." He paused and twitched a
few inches side to side, rolling on the stackked rear tires that became his lower legs. "Are you sure about this form, not being able to tranform, I mean.
It still feels like intentionally crippling its usefulness as a body."
"We've been over this half a dozen times, big guy. There's a hundred or so machine intelligences living in carmods who can't transform and
don't feel like that makes them crippled, and if KITT-10 turns out more like KARR than KITT, isn't it better to have that much less threat potential?
Espescially given that I used a golden yellow scanner bar and two-tone paint job, because it looks so much cooler."
Indeed, the scratch-built reproduction 80's style Trans Am hooked into all the diagnostic and support gear in the Gnarlycurl's #4 bay was pretty
much a perfect match to the 'evil twin' KARR from classic Knight Rider. Michael might not have been Marcel's real first name, but LeChevalier was
honestly his, and with that combination he'd figured he might as well have the ride half the system expected of him... or a version of it, at least. In an
attempt to influence it more toward the Light Side of the Duct Tape tens of thousands of files had been preloaded; text, images, audio, and video of, by, and
about heroes from real life and fiction, along with the expectable data about the worlds and peoples and how to astrogate between them. Wave Convoy wasn't
all that sure how effective such a ploy might be, but figured it couldn't hurt, at least. He scooted a little closer and used a minimanipulator to connect
an optical cable between one of the data ports under his right 'wristwatch' cover and the softly twinkling laser core under KITT-10's hood, then
his optics dimmed as he dove into the digital world.
"How the hell long can one night last!?" Faith complained to herself. If it wasn't for the fact that she hadn't gotten hungry or needed a
bathroom she'd swear she'd been cooling her heels in the dark for years now. It hadn't been bad for a while, a chance to think things over in peace
and come to terms with herself, but she'd always been a woman of action, it got old after a while. She'd hummed all the songs she could remember, which
was surprisingly many, gone over movies and comics and the occasional book she'd read until she worried she might start hallucinating them without anything
else to see, even gotten herself off a couple times... And when that's lost its fun, you're REALLY nowhere.
When something finally changed, therefore, she was instantly on the alert and on her feet in the barely-large-enough space her dark cell offered. There was
still no light, and it wasn't a sound as such... she'd thought it was her 'slaydar' at first but but the feeling wasn't demonic, just that
someone was there and was interested in her. "Hello?" she asked. "Who's there? Hell, at this point if you're offerin' copies of The
Watchtower door-to-door I'd take one just to have somethin' new to do, as long as it comes with a light to read by."
"This is Wave COnvoy," a voice replied, a little distorted as if it was coming through a radio or something. "Are you all right? Is there
something keeping you from accessing the environment?"
Okay, seriously whacked out name, there, she thoguht. Never one to "Wave Convoy? What, were your parents like, hippie truckers or something? Not that
talking to the son of hippie truckers wouldn't be absolutely fascinating compared to what I been doin'. And yeah, there's this thing called a
'prison' where they put people like me when we get caught, or even if we turned ourselves in, that's keepin' me from 'accessing the
evironment.' Duh."
"You're not in a prison," the voice said, worried sounding, "You've been isolated in the system for days, there's nothing you
could have done to warrant confinement. We've been waiting for you to show yourself and connect."
The hell? Were they even talking the same language, here? The young woman suddenly realized that she still hadn't been hearing the voice with her ears,
so if it was some kind of mind-mojo thing going on who knew what 'Wave Convoy' used for language, or whether he was even a human. Using a mind whammy
was a lot further into the 'targets for slaying' category, demonic feeling or not. Even so there was Red and English with the mojo and Oz all wolfy but
still way more on the side of the angels than herself - she snorted to herself at the thought, considering Angel's history compared to his role in what had
happened - so the new, improved Faith wasn't going to go jumping into hasty slaying. Hasty slaying got innocent guys dead, and look where that had led
her.
"Oh, I'm a bad girl, all right," she confirmed. "Gonna try not to do anythin' like that again, try real hard, but I did the crime so
now I'm doin' the time. Gotta admit, the little black room is gettin' old, though."
"Really, we don't have you in a prison, thoguh I can understand if you feel confined in your current conditions." Whoever or whatever the
person talking to her was he - she felt safe enough in classing the 'voice' as male, at least - was a persistent at least. "If you can't find
your way out, try following my signal. I've routed it through a more capacious node intended as your actual home system, which has a lot more
capability.
Follow the signal? Right, like she was supposed to be able to track some kind of mental voodoo shit. Of course, she was the girl who could feel and track
demons with her own magical voodoo powers, so who was she to argue? Her original Watcher hadn't had enough time to teach her much about it before getting
killed, Gwen had been evil, Wes useless, and Giles too focussed on his golden girl, so it was Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda she thoguht of as she concentrated on the
feeling, letting go of her senses to act on instinct.
And then, she wasn't in the dark. The room was still barely big enough to move in and everything seemd oddly unfinished as if it was just a rough sketch
of how things should be, but not how they actually were, but it was filled with readouts and gizmos and lights that blinked or chased along glowing cords, a
slightly different colored light on each of three walls and an open doorway on the third with a multicolored swirl just outside. A stream of little light-blobs
trickled out of it and headed toward her, popping like soap bubbles to release little fragments of sound-that-wasn't, probably the reason why the dude
talking to her sounded radio-like as he said, "The interface will stay open, you don't need to come out now if you don't want to, but
everyone's been waiting to meet you out here."
Faith stepped into the doorway.
I want a little more here, covering Faith beginning to deal with the idea that despite remebering her life like its her life, most anyone she meets will
know many of the worst parts if ut because in this world she's a fictional chharacter. Whether she's a genuine cross-dimensional brain copy or just
thinks she is, much like whether Wave Convoy himself is actually the same person or just thinks he is, is a Canonical Area of Doubt and Uncertanty. Since
there's not a lot of point rehashing the SOScon info, this part should end with the original SOS-dan notice. This'll do for now, though, and I want to
get caught up to whatever current events are if possible... and finally crank out standard character and equipment profiles, even if I don't have
cute/punny section titles.
=========================================
KITT-10 simply stands for "Knight Industries 2010", because they couldn't come up with a better name and Michael started designing the car in
2010.
>
>
>
>END OF LINE
--
"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
Now going to the prewritten/offline post...
Okay! Starting from the premise that everyone was a good little boy/girl/alternative/primate, and waited EXTRA patiently despite 'tomorrow' being
counted in Microsoft Minutes (R) I'll first link to and explain the pictures that need it.
Wave Convoy, vehicle mode
http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225 ... nt=WC1.jpg
Robot mode
http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225 ... wWave1.jpg
Another angle
http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225 ... wWave2.jpg
http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225 ... oster1.jpg
Combined with the Full Wave Booster 'trailer'- note that while getting the FWB shoulders to work I added a set of half-diameter-exposed EPS conduits on
the top of the narrow part of the trailer, to allow collar-type hinges that swing the engine nacelles 60 degrees up and together to be out of the way, ala
Thunderclash's trailer jet pods from which I took the idea in the first place (sold in the US as KB-exclusive Machine Wars Optimus Prime, circa Beasties S2
IIRC.)
There's another image of the trailer from behind and above I forgot to put on my USB stick also.
http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225 ... otlogo.jpg
Close up of the Autobot logo on the port docking ring doors - due to the rushed time frame to get the unit ready for the Transformers: Wave Riders puplicity
tour, the construction of the majority of the narrow section's systems was contracted out to Utopia Planitia Yards, meaning theres a cola/uncola intermix
chamber and EPS manifold taking up one wall of the small cabin in the top ar of that part, with electrical power taps but no onboard energon condenser - Wave
Convoy links into the trailer systems then attatches a 220VAC extension cord to his onboard condenser, and controls the flight systems over a network
connection rather than the 'wearing stilts and big gloves' sensation of using the combined form robot mode.
Note that aside from psychological warfare and bunker-busting the Full Wave Booster is not actually a combatworthy frame - quite aside from what the Takara
Market Publicity Department which actually owns it would think of getting it damaged, even 'Cybertronian' construction techniques and a toned-down
version of Wave Convoy's Maximum Output mode that doesn't cause intermal damage just by moving to speed it up can't give it a reasonable reflex
speed, and the only one of its toy-style 'weapon systems' that's really useable in a meaningful way is the Tsunami Cutter Space Sword. Which is
ridiculously huge, and again only really good for putting a big hole in fixed defenses, or maybe a flying, samurai-movie slash against a ship too
unmaneuverable to dodge.
There is also a light show projecting BFG and eight 'missiles' each about the size of Wave Convoy himself ... Which launch with an audible
"Doing!" and have the Slapstick Effect preventing them from doing anything but knockback.
Images of the above will have to wait until I actually finish the model's arms, however. I also have one of the Gnarlycurl in preliminary stages - at
this point, it's basically the bare asteroid-metal carved hull as delivered by Rockhounds, estimated weight 5.3 million tons.
http://s113.photobucket.com/albums/n225/classicdrogn/
My PB gallery, for bookmarking purposes, since it has the original three hand-drawn Wave Convoy pages with the Saving Shuko scene also.
That taken care of, I have three story shorts as well, though none of them are more than a scene and the last is firmly in the "possible futures"
category. They'll be moved from here to the SWtA story thread when I actually find the blasted thing.
- CD
Short One: Surfing With The Alien 4, Missed Stakes with Kitten Sauce
Faith came to in the dark. The space was small, barely big enough for her legs to be straight where she sat against a wall, but the air wasn't sour from
being closed in, or musty with age. Her slayer sense was silent, and so was the box, room, whatever. "Where the fuck am I?" she wondered, feeling
along the walls, and the low ceiling overhead. There was just barely room to stand.
Then, she remembered. The fight with B, the jump, the shit she pulled on Wesley, the fight with Angel where he wouldn't kill her. The trial.
"S'right, I'm in jail. Stupid bitch tried to start sometin' with the new girl and I busted her up, then the guards came... Prob'ly
threw me in solitary. Fuck."
There was no way to know what time it was, and of course no light switch. She sat down again in the still, silent darkness, closed her eyes, and tried to
think about being a better person. She wasn't brimming over with ideas, beyond "Try not to kill anyone else" and "Don't go stabbing
people in the back," but she figured she'd have a while to think about the problem.
That's what she was here for, after all.
Surfing With the Alien 4
Mist Steaks With Kitten Sauce
April 30, 2012, en route to Mars from Terra
"I just don't understand it, Convoy," Michael complained. "All the diagnostics you ran on the duplicate laser core checked out, and the
three normal computer nodes are all at maximum processor throughput running a simulation of that core, running whatever - whoever has woken up in it, but
it's like the simulation's IO ports have stopped working... Which is impossible, because it's still sending network handshakes, and the sim
diagnostics show everything working fine. It doesn't make any SENSE!"
"If you're expecting the universe to make sense, you'll be in for a lot of disappointment, Michael," the green and grey Autobot crouching
down to peer at the human-scaled equipment in the garage bay quipped wryly. "Perhaps it's more of a software issue," he suggested.
"But I just said, all the software says it's A-OK!"
Tapping a finger against the flaring silver brow ornament of his head, Wave Convoy said, "Not the kind of software I meant."
Michael blinked. "You mean, a mental thing? What, the new AI is feeling antisocial or something, and doesn't want to come out to play?"
"Perhaps it's something as simple as that, or perhaps he or she has incepted as a blank, like an infant, and doesn't understand how to access
the preloaded files or communicate. The only other person running on this kind of hardware is me, and I ended up this way by something of a fluke. I'll try
connecting through the duplicate core to the simulation on the cyberspace level, and see if I can figure things out from there." He paused and twitched a
few inches side to side, rolling on the stackked rear tires that became his lower legs. "Are you sure about this form, not being able to tranform, I mean.
It still feels like intentionally crippling its usefulness as a body."
"We've been over this half a dozen times, big guy. There's a hundred or so machine intelligences living in carmods who can't transform and
don't feel like that makes them crippled, and if KITT-10 turns out more like KARR than KITT, isn't it better to have that much less threat potential?
Espescially given that I used a golden yellow scanner bar and two-tone paint job, because it looks so much cooler."
Indeed, the scratch-built reproduction 80's style Trans Am hooked into all the diagnostic and support gear in the Gnarlycurl's #4 bay was pretty
much a perfect match to the 'evil twin' KARR from classic Knight Rider. Michael might not have been Marcel's real first name, but LeChevalier was
honestly his, and with that combination he'd figured he might as well have the ride half the system expected of him... or a version of it, at least. In an
attempt to influence it more toward the Light Side of the Duct Tape tens of thousands of files had been preloaded; text, images, audio, and video of, by, and
about heroes from real life and fiction, along with the expectable data about the worlds and peoples and how to astrogate between them. Wave Convoy wasn't
all that sure how effective such a ploy might be, but figured it couldn't hurt, at least. He scooted a little closer and used a minimanipulator to connect
an optical cable between one of the data ports under his right 'wristwatch' cover and the softly twinkling laser core under KITT-10's hood, then
his optics dimmed as he dove into the digital world.
"How the hell long can one night last!?" Faith complained to herself. If it wasn't for the fact that she hadn't gotten hungry or needed a
bathroom she'd swear she'd been cooling her heels in the dark for years now. It hadn't been bad for a while, a chance to think things over in peace
and come to terms with herself, but she'd always been a woman of action, it got old after a while. She'd hummed all the songs she could remember, which
was surprisingly many, gone over movies and comics and the occasional book she'd read until she worried she might start hallucinating them without anything
else to see, even gotten herself off a couple times... And when that's lost its fun, you're REALLY nowhere.
When something finally changed, therefore, she was instantly on the alert and on her feet in the barely-large-enough space her dark cell offered. There was
still no light, and it wasn't a sound as such... she'd thought it was her 'slaydar' at first but but the feeling wasn't demonic, just that
someone was there and was interested in her. "Hello?" she asked. "Who's there? Hell, at this point if you're offerin' copies of The
Watchtower door-to-door I'd take one just to have somethin' new to do, as long as it comes with a light to read by."
"This is Wave COnvoy," a voice replied, a little distorted as if it was coming through a radio or something. "Are you all right? Is there
something keeping you from accessing the environment?"
Okay, seriously whacked out name, there, she thoguht. Never one to "Wave Convoy? What, were your parents like, hippie truckers or something? Not that
talking to the son of hippie truckers wouldn't be absolutely fascinating compared to what I been doin'. And yeah, there's this thing called a
'prison' where they put people like me when we get caught, or even if we turned ourselves in, that's keepin' me from 'accessing the
evironment.' Duh."
"You're not in a prison," the voice said, worried sounding, "You've been isolated in the system for days, there's nothing you
could have done to warrant confinement. We've been waiting for you to show yourself and connect."
The hell? Were they even talking the same language, here? The young woman suddenly realized that she still hadn't been hearing the voice with her ears,
so if it was some kind of mind-mojo thing going on who knew what 'Wave Convoy' used for language, or whether he was even a human. Using a mind whammy
was a lot further into the 'targets for slaying' category, demonic feeling or not. Even so there was Red and English with the mojo and Oz all wolfy but
still way more on the side of the angels than herself - she snorted to herself at the thought, considering Angel's history compared to his role in what had
happened - so the new, improved Faith wasn't going to go jumping into hasty slaying. Hasty slaying got innocent guys dead, and look where that had led
her.
"Oh, I'm a bad girl, all right," she confirmed. "Gonna try not to do anythin' like that again, try real hard, but I did the crime so
now I'm doin' the time. Gotta admit, the little black room is gettin' old, though."
"Really, we don't have you in a prison, thoguh I can understand if you feel confined in your current conditions." Whoever or whatever the
person talking to her was he - she felt safe enough in classing the 'voice' as male, at least - was a persistent at least. "If you can't find
your way out, try following my signal. I've routed it through a more capacious node intended as your actual home system, which has a lot more
capability.
Follow the signal? Right, like she was supposed to be able to track some kind of mental voodoo shit. Of course, she was the girl who could feel and track
demons with her own magical voodoo powers, so who was she to argue? Her original Watcher hadn't had enough time to teach her much about it before getting
killed, Gwen had been evil, Wes useless, and Giles too focussed on his golden girl, so it was Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda she thoguht of as she concentrated on the
feeling, letting go of her senses to act on instinct.
And then, she wasn't in the dark. The room was still barely big enough to move in and everything seemd oddly unfinished as if it was just a rough sketch
of how things should be, but not how they actually were, but it was filled with readouts and gizmos and lights that blinked or chased along glowing cords, a
slightly different colored light on each of three walls and an open doorway on the third with a multicolored swirl just outside. A stream of little light-blobs
trickled out of it and headed toward her, popping like soap bubbles to release little fragments of sound-that-wasn't, probably the reason why the dude
talking to her sounded radio-like as he said, "The interface will stay open, you don't need to come out now if you don't want to, but
everyone's been waiting to meet you out here."
Faith stepped into the doorway.
I want a little more here, covering Faith beginning to deal with the idea that despite remebering her life like its her life, most anyone she meets will
know many of the worst parts if ut because in this world she's a fictional chharacter. Whether she's a genuine cross-dimensional brain copy or just
thinks she is, much like whether Wave Convoy himself is actually the same person or just thinks he is, is a Canonical Area of Doubt and Uncertanty. Since
there's not a lot of point rehashing the SOScon info, this part should end with the original SOS-dan notice. This'll do for now, though, and I want to
get caught up to whatever current events are if possible... and finally crank out standard character and equipment profiles, even if I don't have
cute/punny section titles.
=========================================
KITT-10 simply stands for "Knight Industries 2010", because they couldn't come up with a better name and Michael started designing the car in
2010.
>
>
>
>END OF LINE
--
"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