[Draft] Rockhounds Pages

[robkelk]

A minor "strength and toughness" upgrade is completely okay. Lum's electrokinesis may be a bit much - Leda Swansen was at the high end of what you could do there for a Season 0 character. Flight... will need some sort of tech assist, even at the end of Season 1.
--
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

[Rakhasa]

It's worth noting that she does not need to advertise how she manages the things she does. She may have a normal(ish) biomod, and the rest is done with artificial help: Oscar, which originally was a fantasy fen, always carries an entire Adventuring Party worth of "magical items" -everytime he finds, or makes, an interesting gadget, he adapts it for his personal use. But he never tells anyone (who is not his family/close friends) what those items are -so when he decides to levitate down a tower in Crystal Tokio, he lets any onlookers gossip and try to guess if his vanpiric biomod is absurdly overpowered or he is actually using antigravity shoes/levitation belt/etc.

Oscar does love secrets and conspiracies, but that does not mean that more normal (saner) people will simply blab everywere about their gadgets -Jennifer may not hide then to her accuaintances, but she does nto know everypne, after all. Gossip and exageration will atke care of the rest

[ECSNorway]

{{Infobox Character
|name = Lynn Dolittle
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|residence = [[Greenwood City|Greenwood]
|nationality = [[Fenspace Convention]
|ethnicity = Caucasian
|citizenship = Dominion of Canada / [[Greenwood City|Greenwood]
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|education = M.S. Computer Science ([[Greenwood Technical Institute|Greenwood U)
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|employer = [[Greenwood, Unltd.|Stonewell-Bellcom Aerospace]
|occupation = Information Warfare Specialist
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|home_town = Toronto, Dominion of Canada
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''Created by ECSNorway''

Lynn Dolittle got her start as a prototypical 'genius juvenile delinquent'. A gifted hacker with little respect for rules and regulations, she has a sealed juvenile criminal record with both the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario. She went 'up' more out of a desire to avoid further brushes with the law than out of any particular fandom.

== Rockhounds ==

Lynn got a basic support position with Rockhounds easily enough to give her access and a basic income stream. Three months later she appeared in the office of Alan Griffon, the lead designer at Stonewell-Bellcom, with a forged pass. "You need an EWAR specialist, ''badly''. Congratulations, Doctor Griffon, you've just hired the best." After walking him through exactly how she had uncovered the then-secret think-tank's existence and gained access to his office, Griffon agreed to hire her, on the stipulation that she complete a college degree.

== Greenwood U ==

It was at Greenwood U that Lynn met up with the other two loves of her life. One of these was flying: the 'yacht club' took over her life for several months. Through it, she met the other, Jenny Lambretta. The fiery young rebel and the cool, competant businesswoman made the 'romance of the year' in the eyes of their classmates, and they were married immediately after Lynn's graduation.

== Stonewell-Bellcom ==

While taking classes Lynn also continued her work for the aerospace think-tank. She was involved in several projects including the flight computers for the [[VF-1 Valkyrie] and the electronic warfare suite on the [[Belisarius|''Eagle''] class frigates. Rumor has it that she hand-built the original VF-1L prototype (and FAST packs for it) simply to be her personal craft. (The rumor is not true, she did it after one of her co-programmers bet her that she couldn't match the just-finalized ''Eagle'''s EW suite on a fighter platform.)

== Personality ==

Lynn finds it hard to trust authority, mostly because she's usually smarter than they are. In the rarefied heights she operates at now, however, she has found those she can respect, especially her wife. She remains hot-tempered and aggressive but more often shows a cheerful, playful side, tempered with an edge of wicked humor.

== Lifestyle ==

Lynn lives with her wife, Jennifer Lambretta, in Greenwood City. She participates in several "hack-a-thon" competitions, including remotely accessing some held Earthside. She has a number of friends among the Cybers and Browncoats that she keeps in close contact with. In 2018, Lynn and Jenny adopted five-year-old Sally Ford, whose parents had been killed in a mining accident.

== Mundane Skills and Abilities ==
* Very skilled hacker, expert at computer security and electronic warfare
* Valkyrie pilot licensed by Greenwood City
* ''Bifauxnen'' - Lynn is often mistaken for a boy, and good at making it an easy mistake to make. Cosplay events often see her as the male partner to Jenny's character. (They do a surprisingly good Haruka and Michiru act, to the amusement of many Senshi.)

== Handwavium-based Abilities ==
* Lynn's personal computer is a wristband-mounted unit that projects a holofield screen and keyboard when she needs access. Rumors that she has a direct neural interface have been denied despite what some have asserted to be evidence to the contrary.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[HRogge]

{{Infobox Character
|name = Lynn Dolittle

...
== Mundane Skills and Abilities ==
* Very skilled hacker, expert at computer security and electronic warfare

"Lynn? She is really nice and clever. Talking with her is always fun, she knows a lot more about electromagnetic communication than most other Fen I know." - Cortana, 2019

[robkelk]

{{Infobox Character
|name = Lynn Dolittle

...
== Mundane Skills and Abilities ==
* Very skilled hacker, expert at computer security and electronic warfare

"Lynn? She is really nice and clever. Talking with her is always fun, she knows a lot more about electromagnetic communication than most other Fen I know." - Cortana, 2019

"I'm glad Lynn's on our side, because I don't think I could keep her out of the StellviaCorp systems if she really wanted in."
- Takami Sakuragi, in the same conversation
--
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

[Star Ranger4]

"Sure you could. by totally isolating your system from the rest of the world. Of course, that would defeat the purpose, wouldnt it?"

-- Anonymous hacker chiming in
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[ECSNorway]

Nargh. Why is the template screwing up?

http://fenspace.net/index...title=Jennifer_Lambretta
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[HRogge]

Handwavium powers: Jennifer possesses all the abilities to be expected of a Royal Urusian Oni, thanks to her biomod. These include flight, a minor upgrade in strength and toughness, and of course Lum's signature electrokinesis.

Didn't we agree that this is a bit much for a biomod? Especially the flight and electrokinesis?

[ECSNorway]

Handwavium powers: Jennifer possesses all the abilities to be expected of a Royal Urusian Oni, thanks to her biomod. These include flight, a minor upgrade in strength and toughness, and of course Lum's signature electrokinesis.

Didn't we agree that this is a bit much for a biomod? Especially the flight and electrokinesis?

... not really. We agreed that it would take a bit more than just a biomod to provide that kind of ability, but that it's not necessarily public information how she achieved it.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[HRogge]

not really. We agreed that it would take a bit more than just a biomod to provide that kind of ability, but that it's not necessarily public information how she achieved it.

Still, I think the wiki entry is misleading... I would push her being able to flight/do electrokinesis maybe into the trivia section.

[ECSNorway]

not really. We agreed that it would take a bit more than just a biomod to provide that kind of ability, but that it's not necessarily public information how she achieved it.

Still, I think the wiki entry is misleading... I would push her being able to flight/do electrokinesis maybe into the trivia section.

... *shrug*. It's a wiki. She gets it from handwavium. It's a handwavium-based ability. 
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Ace Dreamer]

not really. We agreed that it would take a bit more than just a biomod to provide that kind of ability, but that it's not necessarily public information how she achieved it.

Still, I think the wiki entry is misleading... I would push her being able to flight/do electrokinesis maybe into the trivia section.

... *shrug*. It's a wiki. She gets it from handwavium. It's a handwavium-based ability.

Does that come down to the distinction between what is known to the characters within the Fenspace setting, and the Meta information that is known to the writers?  Saying some information isn't (currently) even known on a meta level, because this is not an Open Character, could be one approach.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[robkelk]

What Ace said. Clarify the power source or scale back the abilities, please.
--
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

[ECSNorway]

And yet nobody has any problems with telekinetic horses, the existence of the Supers faction, or people who change gender when wet.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[robkelk]

Well, I have problems with telekinetic anything. As for the Supers faction, the name doesn't mean they have metahuman abilities. The Lensmen can't read minds and the Timelords don't have a TARDIS, after all.

The gender-benders have all been originally male IIRC. All the genetic information is present for the 'wavium to work with...
--
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

[LynnInDenver]

And yet nobody has any problems with telekinetic horses, the existence of the Supers faction, or people who change gender when wet.

Jeph: "The last one to say outright he had serious issues with us gender bending mods did so in the presence of both A.C. and KJ at once... we're still amazed he survived."
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

[Ace Dreamer]

If you look at the character Lum ('Lum Invader'):

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

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

in UY canon her horns are the basis of her power (flight and electricity). If these are removed (say via magic) or tampered with (ritually blessed yellow ribbons) then she is reduced to normal human status.

This would make them the obvious route to reproducing these powers in Fenspace. The other ones would be her clothes (she says she has 'only one set' very early on), but that would be less canon. Lum is classically dressed in a tiger-stripe bikini, and long tiger-stripe boots. You might also suspect her of having something that restrains her hair in its normal shape (back away from her face), though I don't recall anything in canon about that.

Lum is equipped with all sorts of tech, quite a lot of which she's seen to pull out of her bikini top. Given Fenspace's general lack of dimensional pockets this might seem to present a problem. But, as long as you don't object to the gadgets being nearly weightless you could fake this up with carbon nanotube or diamondoid 'origami'. The classic example I've seen of this is a theoretical design for something the size of a pencil which can unfold to human proportions, and act as a human-scale robot, exerting human levels of strength. This ignores the possibility of doing similar tricks with handwavium super-materials. Faking-up mass or inertia becomes possible via something related to a speed drive.

Using Lum's clothes as the basis of her powers is a bit tricky. You might be able to wave a speed drive into her boots, but to get that to provide Lum's smooth and acrobatic flight might be difficult. She's also shown (I think) as flying without wearing those boots. The bikini top is out for the flight, as she 'looses' that in the tag race for the fate of the Earth. That basically leaves the bikini bottom, which you could hide under a lot of other clothes. The electrical discharges seem to come from her hands (this ignores electrocuting 'hugs'), and she has no bracelets or rings to use to pick-up directions from her gestures, which again makes it tricky.

If you want to have Lum horns be the basis of the flight and electrical powers then you'd probably be best if they generate an invisible force field that covers her body, and extends a little beyond it as an 'aura'. This gives you a conduit to deliver electrical discharges from the hands, etc. It also gives an anchor for a speed drive gravity control effect, otherwise she is having to 'fly' the horns, which presumably are firmly part of her skull, and have that drag the rest of her body around - messy.

A force field also gives you somewhere to store potentially massive amounts of power, and if necessary protect against vacuum and radiation (I think Lum may appear to ignore vacuum in at least one episode). You might also be able to extend it to cover someone you're in contact with, so they can can be 'flown', or protected from vacuum too.

Implementing the horns is quite feasible if you've got a microscope and steady hands or use of micro manipulators. Build and wave a power storage 'core', then layers of micro circuitry which generate the force field, shape super-conducting flows and power discharge points in it, generate the speed drive and interface it to the force field, and add all the control interfaces to the brain, for control and feedback. I'm not sure what sort of sensory systems you'd need, but I'd be very surprised if the flight and electrical generation don't include some, given how smoothly Lum flies around, and precisely controls the electrical discharges so they don't do permanent injury to anyone (or, the handwavium may include a 'no injury' protocol).

You might want to include an ability for the horns to reshape themselves into hair barrettes, or at least look like them, which I think may be canon.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[Ace Dreamer]

And yet nobody has any problems with telekinetic horses, the existence of the Supers faction, or people who change gender when wet.

The TK is faked-up with tractor-pressor tricks, the Supers faction in general have no or extremely limited powers from biomods (everything is faked-up using external tech gadgets, or occasionally cybernetics, internal or external), and the gender shifting is done in a number of ways.
As far as I know the gender-shifters conserve mass, or have to acquire or dump mass externally (this is a plot point in a number of stories).  If the gender-shifters have a genetic basis, handwavium should certainly be able to fake-up a 'Y' chromosome from an 'X', and supposedly women retain cells from the babies they carry (male babies would be an obvious source of Y).  I think some research showed men and women retain cells from their mother (a source of X).  You could also do gender-shifting using holographics, and force fields, most easily with the smaller of the two shapes being the base one.  Or, the gender shifters might now be non-biological, and be faking-up a human body with a metabolism in a number of ways.  This ignores the ones who are now basically living handwavium in a human form.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

[ECSNorway]

I think Ace has got a decent handle on how it probably works.

ETA: And I've thrown a one-line summary onto the wiki.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[ECSNorway]

I've also implemented a slight retcon. The Eagle-class frigates (see the Belisarius page) are now going to use the Southern Cross 'Banshee' hull rather than the BT Eagle hull. Going to try to stick to a closer-to-faction look for things now that I'm adopting the Macrossians.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[ECSNorway]

*prods BA*

I've posted a smodge of story to the CIDT doc for you, with some GSS fighters coming to the Roughriders' aid. I'd love to see that incorporated into a more full story if you've got some to write...

*nudgenudge*

*winkwink*

*knowwhatimean?*
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[ECSNorway]

A couple of characters created mostly for the CITD story, but will exist in 'canon' Fenspace as well:

Commander Alanna Briggs

CO, VFS-201 Spartans

Petite, red hair, blue eyes. Former US Navy aviator. Qualified on "every airframe in the Navy inventory", including F-14, F-18. Politicked out in the 90's RIFs. Spent several years trying to get a commercial flying job and hating it, went "up" in 2010. A huge Macross fan, biomod has left her "half Zentraedi" with pointed ears and prehensile hair. The Professor and AC Peters have both confirmed their beliefs that she -should- be able to be macronized to full Zentraedi size... but to date, no one has built the required recloning equipment.

Personality: Bright and cheerful on the outside, hard as stone on the inside. Alanna is great at getting along with people, but once she's got herself set on a path she's almost impossible to move from it.

Lieutenant Charlie Kowalski

Charlie Kowalski was a Captain in the USAF until 2018. He has a certain reputation in Fenspace, having flown for the TSAB during the Boskone War and racking up an impressive record there. Charlie was in many ways a stereotypical fighter pilot -- hard-charging, agressive, and confident in pretty much everything he did. Unfortunately this lead to a medical downcheck in 2018, barring him from military flight status in the US. Charlie resigned his commission and disappeared into Fenspace, last seen boarding a space taxi heading for Jenga. Three weeks later, a catgirl with blue hair, retailored USAF BDUs, and Charlie's dog-tags turned up on Greenwood to sign up with the GSS. As of the Pirate Invasion, Charlie is XO of VFS-201 Spartans, flying under Commander Briggs.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[HRogge]

Lieutenant Charlie Kowalski
Charlie Kowalski was a Captain in the USAF until 2018. He has a certain reputation in Fenspace, having flown for the TSAB during the Boskone War and racking up an impressive record there. Charlie was in many ways a stereotypical fighter pilot -- hard-charging, agressive, and confident in pretty much everything he did. Unfortunately this lead to a medical downcheck in 2018, barring him from military flight status in the US. Charlie resigned his commission and disappeared into Fenspace, last seen boarding a space taxi heading for Jenga. Three weeks later, a catgirl with blue hair, retailored USAF BDUs, and Charlie's dog-tags turned up on Greenwood to sign up with the GSS. As of the Pirate Invasion, Charlie is XO of VFS-201 Spartans, flying under Commander Briggs.

"You know, normally we don't allow people access to the catgirling machine without first talking with the Cats in Paradise to make sure they really want it... because its a one-way street."

"They will not let me fly ever again! Maybe no one will because of this stupid medical problem!"

"Hmm... okay, you have a point."

[ECSNorway]

Lieutenant Charlie Kowalski

Charlie Kowalski was a Captain in the USAF until 2018. He has a certain reputation in Fenspace, having flown for the TSAB during the Boskone War and racking up an impressive record there. Charlie was in many ways a stereotypical fighter pilot -- hard-charging, agressive, and confident in pretty much everything he did. Unfortunately this lead to a medical downcheck in 2018, barring him from military flight status in the US. Charlie resigned his commission and disappeared into Fenspace, last seen boarding a space taxi heading for Jenga. Three weeks later, a catgirl with blue hair, retailored USAF BDUs, and Charlie's dog-tags turned up on Greenwood to sign up with the GSS. As of the Pirate Invasion, Charlie is XO of VFS-201 Spartans, flying under Commander Briggs.

"You know, normally we don't allow people access to the catgirling machine without first talking with the Cats in Paradise to make sure they really want it... because its a one-way street."

"They will not let me fly ever again! Maybe no one will because of this stupid medical problem!"

"Hmm... okay, you have a point."

Yeah, Charlie had some ... issues ... adjusting. But it all boiled down to "I'll be able to fly again," vs "Desk job, worse yet, PENTAGON desk job". The possible horror of the latter was all the motivation required.
(The fact that, as a catgirl, Charlie's eyesight, hand-eye coordination, and reaction time are measurably increased over the best recorded for his human life... well, that's icing on the cake, as far as Charlie's concerned.

...

Charlie's still working on the gender issues.)
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[HRogge]

Yeah, Charlie had some ... issues ... adjusting. But it all boiled down to "I'll be able to fly again," vs "Desk job, worse yet, PENTAGON desk job". The possible horror of the latter was all the motivation required.

(The fact that, as a catgirl, Charlie's eyesight, hand-eye coordination, and reaction time are measurably increased over the best recorded for his human life... well, that's icing on the cake, as far as Charlie's concerned.)

I wonder if they managed to persuade him/her to try out some Exocomp riding.