Crazy Little Idea

[Bob Schroeck]

Not all us fen want to be in space, you know. Folks like me, say, who get airsick real easy. 'Sides, I like my creature comforts. Those fenships tend to be a bit cramped. 'Cept for those folks from West Virginia. Now they had the right idea.
Anyway, there's a lot of us. The fen in space don't think highly of us, I know. They call us "fendane", like we were something less than proper fen because we didn't pack up everything and take off for orbit in an 82 Ford, because we're not out there working on the Mars terraform. Well let me tell you, bud, sometimes it's harder to stay at home and change the world you know than to travel halfway across the system and change a world you've never seen before.
I'm not the only one to feel that way. There are a lot of folks who share my opinion, folks who think the balance of goverment and people has shifted to someplace where the government and its cronies in industry and organized crime have all started thinking of the people as their little toys and servants. There are a lot of folks who want to see that changed. We're not putting anything "back the way it was" -- most of us aren't fool enough to think things were much better in the past, and some of us are historians enough to know it was pretty damned worse at times. Doesn't matter. There's an idea involved -- the same one behind the Declaration, behind the Constitution, the one that got shoved aside as soon as the Government settled down into "business as usual".
We aim to change that. And not by gallivanting out in space.
The folk in space do have a few good ideas. Front companies, foundations, things like that. We set one up. One of the things we did with the 'wave made us a lot of money fast. (Not going to tell you what it is, because we're still going to be using it every once in a while.) We put that money into a not-for-profit group of our own making, a cross between a charity and a college, sort of. We didn't name it what we actually call it, that would be a dead giveaway. It was enough that it just existed.
Then we, as the foundation, got busy. Built us a couple supercomputers with the 'wave, complete with AIs. Used them to worm our way into a few systems here and there. Changed a few records. Hid a few people from the eye of officialdom. Righted a few wrongs while we were at it.
And we bought us a bunch of used cars. Trans Ams from the early 1980s. Refurbished them. Kitted them out, you might say. And waved the lot.
And now they're on the road, criss-crossing the country, righting wrongs and fighting the kind of folks who want power over other folks. Their drivers don't exist, not in government records anyway. Neither do the cars. Our AIs with their hooks in the DMV systems all over the country make sure of that. But the people recognize them when they come to town. And they know what name to give them.
They call them the Knight Riders.

---

Just a little idea that struck me right now. I decided to write it into an edit box rather than wait and possibly lose it. No editing, no critical thought, just a plotbunny for one thing the so-called "fendanes" might be doing.
Not all science-fiction, good or otherwise, takes place in space, after all...
-- Bob
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...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[KJ]

... that's some kind of wonderful, that is.

[Kokuten]

that's a crazy little thing I love.
And you know, you KNOW who will be running the show.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Bob Schroeck]

...I do?
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Kokuten]

oh, you do. You may not know that you do, but you do.
Consult the end of the Character thread
Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Bob Schroeck]

(goes and looks)
Well, that name was my second choice for how to reply to that. Glad to see my instincts weren't that far off...
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Kokuten]

what was your first choice?Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[robkelk]

---

what was your first choice?

---

I'm guessing a certain owner of a certain lingerie shop in MegaTokyo, or someone biomodded to look like her...
"Kight Riders, sanjo!" (in-car MP3 deck starts playing Kon'ya wa Hurricane)

-Rob Kelk
--
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

[Bob Schroeck]

No, my first choice for reply was the one I used: "...I do?"
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Sirrocco]

...Not sure how I feel about dragging in non-author-based real people as characters. Specifically, do you actually know enough about the man to be sure he'd go for this? For that matter, do you know enough about him to be sure he'd be any good at it?
Beyond that, though, you forgot to mention his status as a beloved rock star in Germany.

[Foxboy]

How about "the Hoff" being a biomodded fan?
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Kokuten]

sirrocco - if we can have the russian air force going so far out of character as to throw someone in the river, I'm sure we can have an actor who's already known to be a pretty cool and irreverent guy step up for this.
biomodded fen works as an alternative, though, but why not The Hoff himself?Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Sirrocco]

I was not aware that throwing someone in the river was out of character for the Russian Air Force. I actually know next to *nothing* about the Russian Air Force. The idea of combining "You're one of us now." - style hazing and "Time to grab some payback." - style hazing by subjecting someone to the indignity and brief discomfort of a river (assuming they dragged him out and dried him off again afterwards to avoid hypothermia) sounded at least reasonably in character for Generic Military, so I let it go.
I guess most of the reason I'm raising eyebrows at using the Hoff is that he doesn't seem like much of a Fan from where I'm sitting. He had a role in one (mildly) sci-fi show, and he wasn't at all a techie character in it. His most famous show (and the one, by the looks of it, he cared about the most) was Baywatch. I dunno. I admit that I don't know much about him, but he looks to me like a guy who's sunk most of his points into charisma and acting ability. If he really is cool with stuff, he'd make a fine Face, but I just don't see him doing all that well as the shadowy leader of a conspiracy.

[Kokuten]

I actually, on further consideration, agree with you, Sirrocco, but the sheer _rightness_ of the original Knight Rider working as a Face for a humanitarian organization _of_ Knight Riders, well, it just calls to me.
The 'gimme' in the character writeup is just that, the The Hoff is a Face. He's not a tech, he's not an engineer, he's not even a vigilante. He's a pretty 'big guy' who's concerned about the rights and liberties of the people, and this organization is a damn fine way to support them. Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[drakensis]

---

I was not aware that throwing someone in the river was out of character for the Russian Air Force. I actually know next to *nothing* about the Russian Air Force. The idea of combining "You're one of us now." - style hazing and "Time to grab some payback." - style hazing by subjecting someone to the indignity and brief discomfort of a river (assuming they dragged him out and dried him off again afterwards to avoid hypothermia) sounded at least reasonably in character for Generic Military, so I let it go.

---

Domo arigato. It wasn't a squad of armed soldiers or anything, just the pilots of the fighters he'd been playing tag with taking him out drinking and impulsively getting a little harmless payback.D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[Sirrocco]

Looking at the writeup, though, he's not *acting* like a Face. He's acting like a Shadowy Leader. He's even disguising himself when he goes out to talk to people. This is not what Faces do.
...or were you tracking on that already?

[Bob Schroeck]

I think I would rather not involve Hasselhoff in this idea. It just doesn't pass the reality check for me.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Kokuten]

done and editing/editted - NutFen Shadowy Leader who looks like The Hoff, but answers to Wilton Knight.
Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Bob Schroeck]

Thank you.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Kokuten]

My pleasure. I like the idea enough that I'm happy to see it live, even if we blew the rust off and discovered something rather different. Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Bob Schroeck]

I have found one of the used cars purchased for this project. It's for sale, yet!

-- Bob
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The Internet Is For Norns.