Weapons!

Yes...

Christmas Carols, the root of all evil.

Honestly, I thought this years Christmas was good. In fact, I thought it was great, even if I hadn't quite gotten to the point of it actually being Christmas yet. Why? Because I didn't hear the plethora of badly sung, overdone and horrifyingly rendered Christmas Carols on the radio. Honestly, why do people seem to associate this crap with Christmas? It's just people selling out for your buck doing their own "Wonderful White and Wispy Wankers Wreath of Wackiness Christmas"-something-or-rather. It's the pushiness of it all, the fact that I have this crap forced upon me wherever I go. I walk through the mall, there's something about Rudolf. Who the fuck cares?

I'm tired of "Winter Wonderlands" and "Santa is Coming to Town" and however many other bloody Santa songs that have been produced in the swollen anus of the music production business. The feces flung through the fan to rain down on me isn't pretty. No, it isn't snow. No, it doesn't make me happy. And no, I don't want to hear the shit, let alone feel it sliding through my ears to interfere with my eardrums and give me the proverbial headache.

Yes, some Christmas Carols are fine, but the majority...no. And they won't be. Ever. I hope you have a Happy Christmas. I know I will...when the Christmas Carols stop.

Such is Life

Life sucks. Life is like gravity -- it weighs you down, it sucks, holds you back, keeps you from getting ahead. It's a nasty bitch with something against you and you never quite know why. It's like a video game, suicide is the level skip cheat to get out of it. Some people live for life, some people have life and don't live. But I'm not talking about the difference between simply existing and actually living today. Maybe another time. I'm just bored and wanted to add something.

So, tomorrow I head down to Kamloops to pick up my sister and bring her home so we can spend Christmas together. Too bad my older brother decided to head up North and visit friends. I won't see him till after New Years, maybe for a day. That'll suck. While I'm there I can do some shopping, not that I need to do Christmas shopping -- it's already done. I was smart that way. But it'll be more along the lines of shopping for me, stuff I might want and all that, like a couple DVDs or something.

Even better, a good friend of mine is coming up to visit, stay for Christmas and stay for a week and a bit. Can't wait for that. Been looking forward to this all year long. Words cannot describe the excitement I'm feeling. It'll be awesome. It'll be more than awesome. Dear Lord.

As an aside to everything else, I sometimes watch anime. I recently picked up Mobile Suit Gundam 00. I was surprised that it didn't suck horribly. I remember Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny. Both of those were like wading through open sewage -- a disgusting experience that scarred my psyche and left me hating the entire genre of anime. At least this has some redeeming points so far. Hopefully the producers didn't screw it up later.

Who does poetry? I know I don't...not really.

So, a long time ago I wrote poetry. I still do now and again when I get really bored. So, here's a poem I wrote when I was a misguided teenager of the age of 15 or so. Feel free to laugh at it, I know I do.

The Angel Did Die

Feathers falling, like wizened white snow
Dripping and dropping, along air currents slow
Twisting in twine, under moonlit sky
Fallen and gone, the angel did die

Spiraling downward, lost chance to try
The truth is before you, I do not lie
Your guardian is gone, taken the blow
Died away, for this you should know

Hazy quills of white lackluster
Their life has ended, no endurance to muster
Complain as you might, about their death tonight
Go cry for your fallen with all of your might

The arrow has pierced their once pure breast
A quarrel of death flew through its chest
There are no more answers for your curiosity to bequest
The angels of high have fallen from nest

And now with wings black, they descend from above
Looking all the world like an unholy dove
They draw their blade to take a life
And spread more pain and further strife

It is this angel of death's minion
Falling from the heavens as the devil's pinion
Twisting in twine under a star filled sky
Fallen and gone, the angel did die

Leave

Leave.

I have it as of tomorrow. I'll be doing the long trek from Manitoba to British Columbia starting tomorrow once I can get away from the lines and the proverbial wonder that is my job. Oh, and what a wonder it is. Probably why I can't wait to go on my extremely long deserved leave. Spend some time with friends and family.

Can't wait to leave.

There can be only one.

From: LTU.

Mupod Negnirt | Posted 11/26/2007 2:49:17 AM

Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels.

Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the "loser," and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.

I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theater of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.

Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment.

When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc., Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A., along with a 3x5 card reading, "Please use this M&M for breeding purposes."

This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this "grant money." I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion.

There can be only one.

Fathers: How Cruel

Dad should read my blog and leave comments. If he doesn't, I feel sad and empty inside. He's so mean.

Dominion - Threat Counter (cont)

Dominion: Threat Counter

-> Unknown Serpents

1030 Hours, 3.22.5E50 / GCM Stealth Ship Andregalheit
Akagassiz System near Kyatzet V

The boxlike monstrosity slid through the inky darkness on white flames, slashes of light flickering along its flat surfaces. Starlight reflected off the silver-colored hull of the metallic craft, glinting reflections of a bluish tinted star that burned brightly at the center of the system. From afar, a different ship swam in the darkness of space, the Vadasian stealth ship, the GCS Andregalheit. There were no drive flames from this craft, its matte black outline an eerie contrast to the system it watched, looking like a pocket of pure emptiness.

Aboard the bridge of the small craft, Naether^[01] Grus Valhg-Zelov cracked his knuckles obsessively. He had been in system observing this new species for thirty-one days. Sent by a paranoid government that flagged every new species it encountered as hostile since the encounter with the volatile Hagasian, Grus Valhg-Zelov found himself passing over the blasé contact reports submitted by the initial survey craft that had been through the system a total of seventy-two days ago. It described a pre-hyperdrive capable socity that was capable of dealing massive blows with weapons that were flagged as highly dangerous after initial scans confirmed a strange ability to possibly pierce shields. It didn't help, either, that since the outbreak of the war with the Hagasian, and subsequent violent outbursts by species that the Gre'kuquen Confederation came into contact with, they felt that each new species should be observed first before any kind of first contact could commence.

So Grus Valhg-Zelov sat aboard a bridge gnawing on bruised and split knuckles with a hackneyed snarling as he listened constantly to comms traffic in a clacking, jawed tongue that was summarily translated by a stale software program put together by his boring comms officer and his tactical officer who happened to have a passing interest in computer programming. He had become nearly indifferent to the whole as a bored comms officer monitored the comms traffic and reported back in monotone every last translated word and message to his rather uninspired commander. A repetition of a few words had revealed over time the name of the species: Jyet Nyural. He was beginning to think that the monotone was just his comms officer attempting to be funny, or to annoy him. Either way, it wasn't funny, and it was really annoying. But he couldn't do disciplinary action for a Vadasian doing his job. He grunted.

Naether Grus Valhg-Zelov called up the last communique he had just gotten, looking over the new orders he had just received; reconnaissance missions on the surface. Luckily, those orders had come with twelve Intelligence Division Naval Insurgents. They were affectionately called INTDIV NAVINS. Locations were already sited into the firing computer linked into the Needler fire-control structure, ready to send the waiting twelve onto their destinations at horrifying speeds and be subjugated to severe gees upon entry into the atmosphere. He didn't envy them their job.

"Report Needler launch readiness status," Grus Valhg-Zelov asked.

"Needler tubes locked onto targets. Awaiting orders to fire," fire control officer Gustav Hakr-Visarett said.

"Fire when ready."

There was a physical vibration through the floorboards as the Needlers began to fire on their predetermined flight paths. Each shot shook the stealth craft as the two launch tubes fired several times. Grus Valhg-Zelov mentally counted the number. One... three... seven... ten... twelve. Once they were away, he barked out a series of orders to monitor the drop and the Needlers themselves as they flashed through space before plummeting into the atmosphere. He wanted to see if the Jyet Nyural noticed the incursion. He hoped not. It would mean more paperwork if they died, a lot more than if the INTDIV NAVINS succeeded. He made a silent prayer to Ankra Anris, Mother Creator, then began his brooding.

- - -

It was called a Needler by those who used it. The brass called it a Long-Range Deployment Vehicle. Call it what you will, it worked. A boarding-action and orbital drop craft, the Needler got its name because of its shape and look. It looked like a giant, over-sized needle with a large, high-powered ionic thruster slapped on the rear and enough room left over from all the gadgetry that made it work to cram a full-sized and raging Vadasian in it. It was equipped with a hyperdrive, probably one of the fastest in use, along with shield generators and an ionic frequency generator. The last item giving the Needler the ability to pierce shields, very useful since one of its primary uses was boarding-actions against enemy capital ships. The launcher for the Needler was built like an archaic projectile weapon, fed by a series of "magazines" where the Needlers were housed. Each Needler would cycle into the main launch tube and be fired from a series of gauss coils that would accelerate the craft up to speed before the main thruster kicked in.

The twelve agents lined up next to the hanging Needlers, stepping into their appropriate machine. The cockpit covers slid down.

A jarring, rumbling motion ensued as the craft was dropped into the firing chamber and locked into position. The launcher irised open, already pointed toward its target destination. There was a lurch and a bang. The Needler flew with agonizing speed, aided by its own ion engine that now flared brightly behind it. It hit the upper atmosphere, the ceramic tiling sloughing off in chunks and boiling off in a reddish haze. It looked just like a meteorite. The agent had four days.

01) Naether: Vadasian naval rank equivalent to Captain.

Planetfall / Objective Reconnaissance

Newsworthy

So, I made the -- fictitious -- news (KAGIN) today...

Genesis Dragon | Posted 12/2/2007 9:58:07 PM

KAGIN Weekly Issue #8

More truth than a room full of monkeys with typewriters.

... In today's news, we discuss VTD Ltd, and ... *

Visarett Technologica Designs: What Are They?

Visarett Technologica Designs (Ltd) is a company run by CEO and army server Wolfgang Visarett. The company seems to be purely focused on weapons research and development, which may be why so few people are willing to get on Wolfgang's bad side. This company is intriguing in that it caters to the general public by asking them for ideas, then creating weaponry and gear based on those suggestions. It is, of course, up to Wolfgang's discretion as to what gets created, which raises the question of exactly what his criteria are for which he deems acceptable and which he doesn't. True, he has a list of some rules, but he also includes the rather sinister message that he can "refuse to make any weapon/gadget at any time." Does he have specific plans and he's looking for specific ideas to fit those plans? Only Wolfgang knows for sure, but since it's a big company they're required by law to be involved in some sort of sinister conspiracy. And with the vast stockpiles of military equipment they must have, one can only assume that whatever they would be involved in would be huge.

Very sinister indeed...

*: parts omitted because they don't pertain to VTD.

WPCA - When Purple Clouds Attack

When Purple Clouds Attack

I wasn't sure exactly how I got here, or why. I saw this strange vortex, if it could even be called that. Just some swirling cloud of purple about the size of any man within the six foot range in height. Normally I wouldn't give too much thought into such things, such as seeing a swirling cloud of purplish stuff floating off several feet away and keeping pace with me, but the thing looked to be following me. It was straight out of a sci-fi b-movie, except where the effects in the b-movie would look utterly fake, this was borderline real on the edge of being hallucinatory.

At first my pace quickened, the cloud followed suit. My heart began to beat a little bit faster around this point, and I was fairly certain my mind was going into a sort of hysterics about now. It was about the moment where I had gone into a full out sprint that the world began to vanish from view. I couldn't tell you whether or not the thing had any sentience to it. I don't think I'd ever know, really, because the next I knew, I was no longer in Kansas, or rather Canada; and for that fact, I was no longer on Earth.

WPCA - There's No Place like a War Zone

Alderick rubbed his head with a hand covered in blood. Whose, he didn't know. All he did know was that his head ached something fierce. There were screams, and what appeared to be scaffolding distributed on the ground in a fashion that just screamed new-age art and was funny; and as far as Alderick was concerned was that there really was screaming going on.

People weren't just screaming for the sake of making noise, they were yelling specifically at him. He eyed some of them in the kind of woozy disposition that generally belonged to drunken individuals. He couldn't quite make out the words, but the frantic way this one woman in an orange uniform of some sort was motioning for him to move away from his location, he got the gist of the situation, or at least hoped he did in some corner of his mind.

Standing on his feet rather unsteadily, he moved out from under falling debris and detritus to make his way toward a quickly thinning crowd of people. Alderick wondered where those people were going and why they were leaving so quickly. The orange-suited woman grabbed him by the upper arm and began to bodily yank, pull and shove him toward something that looked rather silvery to him.

Alderick didn't know it, but he had a kind of stupid smile plastered on his face that was making him the envy of everyone around him. He didn't know they were consumed with fear. How could he? He'd just woken up a moment ago, and as far as he was concerned, everything was going fine, despite the constant ruckus and the sounds of metal falling from the ceiling onto the concrete below to make twisted patterns that somehow were recognizable to Alderick.

He was shoved aboard the silvery thing, which manifested itself to be a plane of some sort, but with the shortest wings Alderick had ever seen for a plane of this size. He was going to ask how the hell they planned on getting off the ground without a runway, but any attempt at making noise came out in a gurgle that probably sounded like a baby about the spit up.

The orange-suited woman again appeared in his field of vision and forcibly pushed Alderick into a seat. She strapped him in as though he were a baby, then sat down next to him and strapped herself in as well. A voice came over the intercom, but Alderick couldn't make sense of it. He began to wonder if his ears and vocal cords might have been damaged, and this sent him into a panic. The events going on around him weren't making him go mad, it was the thought of never being able to speak or hear again that were.

Those who were around him just thought he was finally coming around to the gravity of the situation, but that was as far from the truth as you could get. He was just worried that he would never again be able to ask that waitress on the 5th and Jordan Ave. coffee shop for his usual; to flirt with her momentarily as he mad his way off to...work?

Alderick suddenly found himself at an impasse. He became silent, his face screwing itself into a sort of feeble attempt at concentration. The rotors of the helicopter spun, but Alderick was certain he was on a plane, wasn't he? And the woman in the orange suit next to him was a flight attendant. She would give him directions to wherever he needed to go.

There was something about a secret code to save the world or something hidden away in the back of his brain. No, wait, that was a movie, no his life, but Alderick had the distinct feeling it might have been his life at some point. Or at least he felt he had partaken in such a thing at some point.

"Shut the hell up already!" someone screamed from behind him, or was it beside him?

Alderick finally opened his eyes to the world around him, and noted that truly, he was in a helicopter and not a plane as he had first suspected. Second, he had been moaning madly which was why the remark 'Shut the hell up already' had been made and aimed in his general direction.

Also, the group of people around him weren't suited in orange; oh no, they were clothed in desert camouflage and carried rifles of a sort that Alderick couldn't recognize, although he was certain that they might be Windsor FSU-4's, considering they had grenade launchers slung under the barrel of the weapon in a most ominous fashion. Why he knew this, Alderick couldn't begin to understand, but he did.

As an afterthought, Alderick decided to turn his head and regard the woman who had shoved him on board the helicopter, to thank her and ask for her phone number. Instead he was shocked to find a petite looking man, with a gruff face and the most devilish looking brown eyes he had ever seen.

"What're you looking at, chump?" the man said in a very disgusting sounding voice. Alderick thought it was like the sound of an animal vomiting or something, real throaty and completely unpleasant to hear.

Everything was completely different from what he had imagined things as. Deciding to actually look through the porthole behind his head--was he on a ship?--Alderick did confirm he was in the air, and that the rotor churning above his head rhythmically were helicopter blades and not something else. The view afforded by the porthole in the side of the copter was one of desolation. Far below and behind him black clouds rose, churning and broiling into the air in a most ominous fashion. Tangles of wreckage lay strewn about. Twisted girders and malformed metal siding and sheets with small fires splashed around for effect.

And during the way back, all Alderick would do was wonder why he too wore desert camouflage like the others around him, and bemoan why he couldn't speak in a sobbing tone. His wondering was cut short when a missile fired from a hidden SAM took out the copter he had been escaping in. Alderick would be mourned as a hero, when in fact, he had cracked under the pressure. A kid in combat that left the world in a blaze of fire and incandescent gas to rain wreckage across the desert landscape.

In other news...

I'm crazy. So, I took this quiz, and this is what it says:

Your Aspie score: 70 of 200. Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 105 of 200. You seem to have both Aspie and neurotypical traits.

I'm not quite sure what to make of it all. I just think it means I'm crazy. Take the quiz yourself.

WPCA - Explosions

It's ten PM. The sky's dark; pissing rain. My trenchcoat is soaked, my fedora along with it. The streets are turned slanted under the streetlights. It's twisted how the world changes in the dark.

I hear footsteps and turn. A guy walks up on me, says, "Gotta light?" I rustle my hand through my pocket before coming up with this tarnished silver thing. He flips the top and rubs his thumb along the igniter. A spark blooms into flame and he puts his coffin nail up close, inhaling to pull the small flame into it.

It puffs up good and orange in the dark. He hands it back, smiling and saying, "Thanks."

That was when the sky blossomed down in the bay area, turning from a molded over fuzzy black to a halo of yellow, orange and white. Lit up like a fucking Christmas tree. I can see the fires from here, hear the boom of the explosion, and watch the hazy smoke floating up only to hover as if the rain is pushing it back down to the ground.

"Holy shit!" the guy next to me exclaims. "What in God's name was that?"

I shrug, pulling out my cell and plying my fingers to the buttons. A moment later and its up against my ear and I'm hearing this voice like satin, smooth and delicious; could've sworn it was expensive sweets like chocolate how silky and rich that tone was. Except that even though this is like the voice of heaven, the words coming from that sweet sounding voice are all about something downright wrong.

I hang up. I got my orders. I smile to the guy next to me, tip my hat, and wander off toward the bay area. I don't look to see if he's following me. If he is, he'll find himself with a bullet straight through his eyes so fast he wouldn't even know he's dead for the next five minutes.

My black dress shoes slosh through the puddles as I cross over pools of collected rainwater. The bay area isn't too far off, and now I can hear fire engines wailing in tune to the roar of the now nearby fire.

WPCA / Dominion

For those wondering...

WPCA: When Purple Clouds Attack, a series of random shorts/crap I write that's too short to have a larger over-arching plot. Falls under this.

Dominion, is a larger series relating to a fictitious universe I've created with dozens of characters and locales. Has some kind of plot to it, but it's still rough. Some of the stuff is in the Dominion universe, even if it doesn't tie into the over-arcing plot line.

Chat - Vol 1

(2007-11-24 16:23:50) Demon: http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=422&topic=39754350

(2007-11-24 16:23:51) Demon: Epic

(2007-11-24 16:24:54) Wolf: Yeah, I saw that. I grabbed some soap, some steel wool and then proceeded to scrub at my eyes for about five minutes while listening to "Bleeding Under My Eyelids" by Blindside.

(2007-11-24 16:25:06) Demon: BWAHAHAHA

Forum Dueling Basics - Flow

Flow in writing is the toughest, and probably one of the most asked, questions to be answered. Flow is a bitch. She comes at you with a knife in one hand, a silver tray on the other, and when you think you got both of those steadied out, she kicks you in the balls.

The best way is to relate flow to Lego. Your words are the bricks and you're attempting to build yourself a nice "wall" of text. Now, you can grab any word, or brick, you want. Builds up a wall fast, but it won't look right, you get mismatched colors, and it won't feel right. It becomes gaudy, messy, and puts people off. The other side of it, though, is that you choose the wrong parts for the job, or wrong words, and the whole thing crumbles under its own weight. You have to do a balancing act. And even then, supposing you get all the right pieces, the right words, and fashion a wall of a single indiscriminate color, you get something that stands good, but is bland. You need some color to liven things up, but you don't want to over-do it and make things seem gaudy or right out to lunch.

There isn't really a definite answer, and won't be, since you style your writing however you want, and some people will either love it or hate it. This brings back the balancing act where you try and use the right pieces for the right role. I can't say I'm perfect in this aspect, as even I fuck up and I know it. You can only do your best at it.

Probably the best advice I can give is to read more, unless you happen to be TEW. It'll give you more ideas to use, and to see how different authors and writers approach writing. Some things, you'll find, either reach up and grip you by the throat in a choke-hold of death and won't let you go until its done and you feel like you were raped in a most unpleasant way, while others will put you in a headlock and barrel you through the most awesome things you've seen and never let go until the end where it leaves you satisfied and wanting more.

It comes down to a trial and error thing. Find what works and what doesn't. Plain and simple.

Dominion - Origins (cont)

-> Message in a Bottle

0912 Hours (Galactic Standard) 2.52.4E1453 / LDE InOps Division,
Lyzrantii system, Lyzrant

The overcast was the usual above Lyzran. A calm, collected conglomerate of white-grey fuzz spread from horizon to horizon and past. The mishmash of grey on grey was like a thick blanket that threatened rain and made a hub-bub about it constantly, but it didn't rain. Just thundered. The shaking of windows was the outcry against the rain, but the rumbling didn't stop. It was a sky tossed above a grim city, with archaic architecture that had once been pearly white but had a thin coating of charcoal grime on every surface, marring everything. Some said it gave character. The whole of Lyzran was like that -- tall, gothic structures with plazas and statues set in all sorts of poses cast from iron and copper and built from various kinds of stone.

The Imperial Navy held one such monolithic structure, with tall towers and gilded domes. Gargoyles scrambled for perches amid the security wares nestled high on the buttresses that overlooked the surrounding 'al Torro Velthseda Plaza and the giant fountain in its center with a defaced statue of what had once been Nel Ent 'al Torro.

Admiral Gabriel James Ravensdale sat in that officer. He sat and glared with glum dis-compassion at the number of reports on his desk. A line officer, reduced to being nothing more than a clerk. The military ran off this outdated, outmoded form of bureaucracy; the politics were beginning to wear on him. The asinine, inane and redundant meetings over the same things, addressing the same policies as if they're new every time. It wasn't new now, it hadn't been new five, ten or even fifty years ago. It was the same relentless bullshit -- a kind found only in paper format. Those papers lived, hibernated even, in Admiral Ravensdale's in box, determined not to leave. By comparison, his out box looked like a desolate wasteland, having never seen a report in probably the last two years he'd been in the office. In fact, every time he had put a report in that out box in the past four hours, it had disappeared faster than he could blink as his aide came in.

And even for the small opulence afforded him to this office and his position, it never liked it. Never liked the view offered by the window of the more luxurious portions of Lyzran. It could never distract him from his boredom or annoyance or his own feelings of inadequacy. Every day it was like this. The repetition had already begun to erode his sanity, shaking its foundations like earthquakes, attempting to shatter what little resolve and will he had to carry on.

"I'm more a bureaucrat than an officer," he would mumble from time to time, realizing he spent more time with councilors and advisor's and other rank and file officers in the same conundrum as he than his own family. And it was all to pull deals, ask favors, call in favors, put words here or there, possibly even the Emperor's ears. Vain attempts for funding where it was needed. It sickened him.

He probably would have continued thinking along the same lines he had always thought after assuming this position, only the door to his office burst wide breaking the monotony and a winded junior officer stood there heaving like he'd run the worlds fastest sprint.

"Sir!"

"Catch your break, son. And when you do, try that entry again, and properly."

The junior nodded, gasping loudly, sucking down air while he close the door, rapped a couple times, heard the Admiral say enter, then entered and saluted sharply. Admiral Ravensdale returned the salute just as crisply, then: "And what the hell was that previous entrance for?"

"Sir, if I may?"

Admiral Ravensdale just motioned his hand in a circular fashion, gesturing the junior aide to get on with it. Instead, the junior didn't say anything, and walked over to the blank wall holo-projector and activated it. The junior cycled through a few menus before arriving on a news channel feed. Immediately it began showing fuzzed and grimy audio/video footage of what looked like a standard LDE scoutship being destroyed by a blast from an unknown and strangely designed and configured ship. The visual cycled several more times, moving in and out of depth, showing scans of the energy blast that had ripped apart the small ship and various other bits of data.

"This footage was obtained just recently. It depicts the LDE scoutship, Starflung, which had been on a standard mapping mission of the unknown regions of space for the past seven years. As you can see, the ship was destroyed after encountering new, and hostile, alien life. Now we go to our panel of experts on what this could all mean; they are..."

The junior muted the news feed.

"And what in the hell is this supposed to be?" Admiral Ravensdale said.

"It's a recording from a slipspace probe of the last moments of the LDE scoutship before it was destroyed."

"So...this is real?"

"It is the official recording."

"Why in the hell am I finding this out from a news channel? Better yet, how the fuck did the news channel get this? Isn't it supposed to be classified?"

Ravensdale was fuming. How did a news corporation know more about a possible situation developing than he did? Weren't there supposed to be normal procedure for this kind of thing? Under normal circumstances, yes. But something had gone terribly wrong, both with the handling of the information, and with the LDE scoutship if this report were in fact real. Things would have to be done, no doubt. A taskforce would have to be mobilized to investigate, as well as a first contact group. Fuck, the Lyzrantii Dominion Empire hadn't encountered any new species since the Je'Kenkari, and that had been a shit show all by itself. The ensuing war had been terrible. The peace, however shaky, had thus far held. Ravensdale didn't want a repeat of that fiasco.

Before the junior could answer any of his voiced questions, though, Admiral Ravensdale cut him off with a chop of his hand.

"Nevermind, just get me Colonel Blythe over in InOps. Tell him I want a full report about this bullshit on my desk thirty minutes ago. And find out who the fuck gave that news corporation that recording! I want them fucking hanged!"

The junior nodded, snapped off a salute and left the room, huffing away.

It would take thirty minutes for Colonel Blythe to get there, in which time Admiral Ravensdale was left to stew in his own mired thoughts and aggravate himself further. The tabloids were going to have a field day with this. The only consolation by Colonel Blythe's arrival was that he looked just as perturbed as Admiral Ravensdale was, if not more-so. A short stocky creature, Colonel Blythe was heavily muscled, with a strong jawline, the darkest eyes around and hair thinning from too much stress. He also lacked any kind of pigmentation in his skin and looked like a ghost, ideal considering his job. He looked flustered, very unlike him, and more frustrated and angered than anything.

Saluting sharply, he dropped himself into the seat in front of Admiral Ravensdale without waiting to be ordered to.

"The problem is two fold, sir," he said.

Admiral Ravensdale arched an eyebrow, then said, "oh, so you already know what I was going to ask then?"

"Yes, sir. First is that the leak came from within InOps. I've already got some people snooping around for the retard who let the recording fall into the public domain. I'll deal with whomever did it personally. Second is that we have no spin control on this one. Completely out our hands. Already the public relations offices are being plagued with calls. What's worse is that two of my junior officers in InOps have already testified that the footage, however grainy, is from the Starflung."

"Who gave them permission to testify as to the alleged validity of the imagery?"

"No one," Colonel Blythe said. "They decided to take their own initiative. Don't worry, we're already grilling them downstairs, reinforcing the rules in the most...corporal sense of it."

"So this threat is real, not some punks idea of a practical joke?"

"No joke, sir. As far as I can tell from what we've dissected from all the records present in the probe is that the Starflung emerged into the system and began routine scans. They then discovered possible alien ships, at which point the captain, a lieutenant Kim Wong Tei, made a judgment call and loaded all data onto the slipspace probe. Probably the smartest thing he did, otherwise we wouldn't even know about this threat."

Admiral Ravensdale was silent several long moments, starring off into space. Finally he looked at Colonel Blythe.

"I want a threat analysis done yesterday on this, and mobilization of the sixteenth fleet based on that analysis. If this threat is real, which I believe it is, then I want to nip it in the bud. Also, put together a xenoc mitigation and first contact group. If possible, I want a peaceful resolution to whatever we may have started, if anything -- I don't want to see a repeat of the Je'Kenkari foul-up of fifteen years back. Hopefully this is all a misunderstanding."

Colonel Blythe blinked a few times.

"You have your orders, Colonel."

"Sir," Blythe said standing, saluted and left.

"What a royal fuck up," Admiral Ravensdale said, looking out the window at the heart of Lyzran for the first time in five years.

Previous: Dominion - Origins: Birth of MAN / Encounters

Remembrance Day ... All Screwed Up

Okay, so I go to some small town yesterday (Moosomin), where we're going to conduct Remembrance Day ceremonies. First we head to a Victoria Cross (highest Canadian honor) winner's grave site and hold a quick ceremony there. Our drill was atrocious, because we haven't done any in a while.

Get on the bus, go to the Legion (which is a building in every bloody town across Canada for army vets to congregate). We conduct a ceremony there. During the ceremony, the flag bearers come in (color party), deposit the flags as per, then one of the bearers, a senile old man, starts an argument up right in the middle of the whole thing because an old woman "stole" his seat when there were more than a dozen available to him to sit in.

Finish up the ceremony, then head to the cenotaph where we conduct more atrocious drill and look like fools. The Air Cadets looked even more ridiculous than us, though, so it wasn't so bad. Afterwards, back to the Legion for drinks.

Back at the Legion, an old man comes up and talks to me. Begins talking about Stalin. I think 'cool, I'm gonna get a story about WW2.' The guy was old enough, in his 90's or something and still walking. Well, he launches into his story about Stalin, then switches half way to talking about gutting camels to get the cold water out from inside them.

I can only stare blankly for a moment as my mind attempts to put together just exactly how he can go from talking about Stalin to talking about gutting camels for cold water. Before I can even ask him about this illogical leap, he asks me how fridges work.

I tell him, since I do know how a fridge works. Thing is, after I tell this old man, he tells me I don't know what I'm talking about. Then he says, "do you know that old French guy who took over most of the world?" I stop, wondering for a moment, the hazard a guess and say "Napoleon?", to which he goes, "Yeah! I knew him real well." It was at about that point I started ignoring the old man.

Well, long time...

I haven't done anything here for a long time. Can't help it, though, I haven't been doing too much in the way of writing right now. Well, that's a lie. I'm currently in two duels on RPFF and I re-started my Create-a-Weapon on Veteran's, so saying I'm not up to anything is just an out-right lie on my part. But, even for all that, I still haven't put anything up here or on the site. You'd think it were dead for all intents and purposes. Maybe it is. I dunno.

Maybe I'll get some more of Origins up. I am working on the third segment, on and off that is. Well, as per, I'm a lazy bastard.

Forum Dueling Basics - Forces

During my two months in the field, there are times when you get moments to sit around on your ass and wait for the next phase, the next thing that's going to happen. This can sometimes be mere minutes or several hours. It's called the "hurry up and wait" syndrome, and happens all the time. Well, while during one of these lovely sessions I was graced with, I had a thought about RPing, as it struck me purely out of the blue.

Prior to going into the field, I had had an argument with a number of people about characters in general and the amount of powers they were "allowed" and what overpowering was and all that jazz.

No character is made the same; in this no character have the same abilities or powers or even thoughts. To assume they are is asinine. We're told constantly to get away from the cookie-cutter mould that a lot of characters are created from, to seek originality of concept. Well, in doing so, in making these different characters, they all come in different shapes, sizes and varying degrees of ability. And it is because of this inherent difference that it is difficult to properly match skill levels of the characters without it appearing that one is overpowering the other.

The answer? Simple. Regulation of the force necessary to the bare minimum to accomplish a specific task, such as beating so-and-so into a bloody pulp. It could be reasonable to suggest that a person who is considered an excellent role player would limit his power and ability, not take it away altogether, to the minimum levels necessary to fight. But the average person can't believe this, and whenever they see someone who is highly capable, instantly think that said person will overpower because they can't.

Sure, it's an assumption on both sides, but the whole "well you can't use that because you're going to overpower" rather inhibits more than a "well, sure, fight the guy, but keep it reasonable."

Just a thought. I might be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time, but leave some comments on what you think.

Legendary

THE Legendary Speech

So you hit 350 karma, eh? You’re starting to take that title to heart, huh? Legend...you must have really made a name for yourself by now, and you’re about to leave the lowly Veterans for bigger and better things...

Well, let’s get a few things straight before you leave:

1. We. Don’t. Care.
2. Why waste board space? It’s just a new level showing you’ve logged in about a year.
3. I have more karma than you (and so does about 30% of the Veterans Board).
4. You can still come back here. It’s not limited to just Veterans.
5. Watch that last step on your way out, it’s a doozy.

Enjoy the board ahead of you. It just goes downhill from here.

Written by Corbow6. Sponsored by the Veteran Board

Wainwright

I'm going back...for two months. Dear Lord, please make it so it doesn't suck too, too bad.

As Per Usual - Weapons

As per usual, I am both extremely tired, as even were I to sleep eight hours or more, I'm tired, and I create weapons. Lovely, wonderful weapons. Maybe I'll actually do something else. Oh, wait, I spent my entire day optimizing my computer, un-installing unnecessary programs and just making my computer faster overall. So...wonderful.

Forum Dueling Basics - Tech, Vol 1

Tech.

Tech is varied and diverse in its function, its limit being only the users imagination. Tech has long been considered one of the more difficult aspects to duel with, since it can be unpredictable, versatile and deadly in the right hands, with no real ability cap at the high end. It can be made to do anything at any time with absolutely no lag time in-between, unlike magic. This is what makes tech both deadly and difficult to use without over-powering.

Most people can easily relate to magic. Magic is used in fantasy novels, movies, anime and cartoons the world over. Because of this, those who role-play magic users can see the magic, its effect, and can then take the attack they've seen previously and modify it to suit their needs and purposes. Tech, on the other hand, encompasses a more scientific outlook; one must have at least some understanding of the method behind the machines ability to create the phenomena. This is actually a misnomer: any particular joe can use tech. But remember, to an uneducated person who doesn't understand tech, it is magic. By using this parallel thought, it's easy to use tech. All you have to do is think of it as magic that a machine makes using internal power supplies instead of your character using his own essence.

Tech offers up more bonuses than magic does without the side-effects of wear on the user that would inhibit or otherwise cause the user of tech to tire or exhaust him or herself over time. While in reality, a gadget can be prone to failure from any number of internal errors, most tech users simply choose to ignore these common-place effects. This furthers the difficulty in tech use, as wear-and-tear on the devices and gadgetry used are ignored in the same fashion that most role-players and duelists ignore the devastating effects the casting of large, powerful spells have on their characters.

To further the gap between magic and tech, tech requires literally no training time to use by comparison. And the devices need not be large to contain enough power to level four city blocks. These differences differentiate one from the other by large extremes, and make tech look to be extremely over-powered with just a glance, especially in high-end/level tech which is styled more towards massive matches against like opponents.

However, tech isn't as over-powered as many might think. Take for example a rocket. It's generally assumed that because it's a rocket, it's over-powered. But if a magic user knew anything about a rocket, they'd know that a rocket has no guidance systems and can travel in only a straight line, unable to deviate from its initial flight path. This makes a rocket fairly simple to dodge, as it contains no sensors, just a booster and a warhead. The average magic user doesn't know this, and doesn't bother to educate themselves about this, which is where the problem with tech begins: a complete lack of understanding. Magic is easier to understand. Everyone has an innate understanding of it, even if they've never been told about it. Tech is the opposite. Not everyone has an understanding of it, and fewer go out of their way to learn about it.

Mimicry

Spastic Inhibitions now mimics Juryrigged in look. Did this because I like the two to at least look similar. Took me a bit to figure out the float mechanism because what works on my site doesn't seem to work on the blog. Go figure. Anyway, enjoy the new, extremely simplistic look.

Forum Dueling Basics - Attack/Counter Scenarios

A little something I put together with Tier a while back. A cause/effect on strategies and possibilities for attacks and counters to attacks. Some attacks are similar, and remember, while I might see several openings, I might not catch them all myself.

So, a setting for the attacks to take place in:

* Stent stood in a small glade, a light smattering of water sliding along her scaly legs. She wore only a set of dull black knee-high trousers with orange stitching. A tank-top that was the same orange, but dull and lackluster. She only wore a pair of finger-less black gloves with silver markings on the back of the knuckles. The sun shone, a breeze played with the leaves, and her thin, muscular arms were tattered with an array of silverish tattoos that seems to course like veins. A dull armband around her left arm was the finishing touch. Everything about her bespoke boredom and dullness--not a thing of interest, even with the tall grasses flicking against her legs. She was...bored.

Now, comes a reply from my opponent. A basic attack.

* Tier launched forward from the shadows his blade flicking from its sheath to launch upwards from the ground spraying Stent with mud and hopefully drawing her attention away from the blade ripping through the ground to come up towards her groin area.

Now, from this there are several possible replies in which to do, several ways to counter it. I'll use only a few physical counters, although even using the ones I had there are dozens upon dozens of possible counters. from such a generic attack.

1. Stent's chest and face was wrapped in mud. She paid it little heed, forcing her left hand into a fist, she smashed it into the incoming blade, a small force shield eminating from the silver contact points on her knuckles. This was coupled with a spin to the left, turn and swung an outstretched right arm, also a fist, at the face of the unnamed warrior, knuckles flashing with energy...
2. Stent jumped up and forward in a dive. The blade came up past where she had been while she used her whiplike tail as she twisted in the muddy water to slap at the legs of the foe and drop him into the water.
3. Stent backflipped, landing on her feet out of range of the upsweeping blade. before rushing in. Both hands came up to form a grip ready to take the blade if it suddenly came down as she jumped up and forward, her knee blazing for the face of her new foe.
4. Stent rolled to the left, came up onto her feet and as the blade swept ever upward, brought the palm of her left aimed for her opponents chin while her right sought his elbow.

These are just four possibilities that can be used to counter the initial attack. There are still many ways left open to use. Now, if we continue the example as above, using say counter number 1, then we could possibly get something along these lines:

* As the knuckles slammed into the blade driving it into the mud Tier released the hilt swiftly to keep the force from breaking his wrist. As he looked up to see the spinning reptile's backhand whipping towards his head Tier moved in and grabbed her elbow and brought his left elbow towards the back of her head.

Now, I have three possibilities, although you still have to remember, there are more than the ones I put forth.

1. Stent let the fool grab her elbow, continuing her twist. However, she ducked her head as though to go under her own right arm, grabbing the arm of the moron who now held her elbow. Using the twisting momentum and bending forward to bodily throw him out into the marsh.
2. Stent stopped her turn. She brought up her left hand, still a fist and moved to smash it into the oncoming elbow, her knuckles ready to impart their deadly energy.
3. Stent stopped short, ducked her head in the motion and twisted her arm to release the sudden hold on it. But she wasn't finished. She bent backward into an arch as the elbow came in--and her tail flashed between her legs straight for the man's groin.

This is then followed by using counter number two:

* As soon as the attack was launched the reptile stopped spinning and Tier looked over in time to see the knuckles flying towards his elbow. Grinning he grabbed her wrist and used the two contact points to exert enough force to throw the creature over his head and out into the water. His body arched forward to help keep momentum.

Again, various combinations to use.

1. Stent flew, twisted in the air and landed. As soon as she touched water, a small splash, except that the water kept rising, kept moving. The ruddy, brown water rose up in a wave , the forward edge nearly becoming solid with spikes coming down on the fool.
2. Stent landed with a splash, the globules of water spraying everywhere. But it wasn't enough when she didn't surface right away. There was an inky blackness that crawled through the water, a shade of depth that suddenly rose from the water, a blackness that shot forth as though to wrap around his face and gag him to death.
3. Sploosh! Stent landed in the water, the noise abrupt and prompt. It didn't end, though. She stood up, covered head to toe in mud, her muscled arms glowing silver. She raised both hands in the air, the knuckle points glowing an intense aquamarine before she brought both arms down and thrust them forward. A series of aquamarine lasers flashed away seeking the man's gut.

You will notice that by adding distance between yourself and your opponent, the style of attacks suddenly changed. In two of the last three possible instances, the character Stent reverted to distance attacks. In this case, however, we must note that if you are a specific distance, more than say twenty-one feet (roughly seven meters, although a little less) distance, it would be considered optimal to resort to some kind of distance attack.

Distance attacks vary in two types: technological (guns, lasers, missiles) and magical (spells). There are, however, varying kinds of attacks that could be strung together. Like saying you used your telekinetic powers, if you had any, to pick up a rock and whip it at your opponent. This is a simple example of a distance attack. Distance should be equated with power attacks. The more distance you have, the more time you have to power up a massive attack. If you plan on jumping back, you better have a good reason to.

The more distance you have, the larger and more powerful your attacks can be because your opponent can't get to you in time to stop it.

Remember, you must:

1. Use the enviroment to an advantage
2. Be creative
3. Use everything at hand

By using the environment, you can be assured or a near-constant advantage to be exploited throughout the match. Creativity nearly always trumps any kind of brute force attack. Why is this? If your opponent is trying to beat you to death with some kind of over-sized weapon, evading and coming up with creative ways of tiring him/her out and forcing them into a corner will almost always get you a win. By using everything at hand, again I mean using your surroundings to advantage.

Special Thanks:

A big thank you goes out to Tier Bladesinger, who acted as our dummy throughout a good many of the examples given. Without him, the inception of this guide probably would never have begun.

WPCA - Murderer's Plight

The heat of the yellow star baked the ancient, decrepit and pot-hole filled streets of the San Daneldez Valley on the fifth moon of the gas giant Dobus Eltka. The moon was Pailamour, and being a world with a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere suitable for human habitation, was one of the first celestial bodies colonized. As Pailamour was settled early in the expansion, it carried many of the marks of being touched by human colonists early on, those being a high number of squat, low, poorly built twenty-first century Terran project-styled low-rent housing.

Sprawls of mismatched, box-like, walled-in suburbia's protected by robotic foxdogs with matching low bungalow accentuations were scattered between dense commercial districts filled with graffiti and gangland turf wars. There weren't too many high-rises on Pailamour. After the initial investment of a mass-driver and the generators for the wormhole generator to link it with two other planets, Pailamour was left alone. It developed, as any world in the Terran United Confederacy of Worlds would. It prospered, developed some specialty items that could only be produced on location, and managed to have some semblance of an economy amid the sweatshops and gangland murders.

Pailamour's chief export was small bits of technology; chips and chipsets and controlling units and various other technical doodads. The only reason this somewhat backwater place held that kind of reputation for a high level of technological know-how was thanks to the very same gang wars that took place: there was such a need for the ability to overcome each other that it produced an environment where computer hacking and computational skills took a kind of precedence. It also led to the construction of various exoskeleton armor suits being designed and built.

This third-rate moon that spent all its days sweating under an unforgiving sun in the shadow of an orange blossom of a gas giant produced two things: gaudy trinkets for sightseers and tourists and high-end computers and weapons-grade software and armor systems, which was a contracted commodity that Earth, or rather Terra, bought en masse.

- - -

There was a whisper of a breeze through the open window causing the curtains to flutter and lisp listlessly for a moment. The buzz and quiet whirr of the bulky air conditioner filled the lower portion of the window, and filled the room with a chill. Beyond the window, the sun began its slow ascent into the horizon above the peaks of the cities towers and skyscrapers and square monolith-like apartment blocks. Its light cast strange angles through the open portal, a trapezoidal shape on the floor outlining within the dust mottled edges two figures. One lying on the floor in the middle of a circular rainbow carpet stained various colors with age and one standing over the fallen.

The carpet, despite its age stains, carried a new load in the style of a ruddy red-brown ensemble of blemishes ground into its woven surface. That same substance now glistened abstractly on the fallen man's face and nose and side where his entrails were the leading edge of a new plaything for the housecat to play and gnaw on, which it was now sniffing at profusely. Bright streaks of congealed blood splattered the wallpapered walls, marring the lamp on the bedside table next to the Queen sized and opulent bed that was a monstrosity somehow wedged into the tiny room. Throw pillows adorned it, strewn about the room as if in a struggle.

The man, the murderer, looked up into a free-standing mirror next to an ornate, three-drawer dresser, seeing the dark streaks on himself too. It was on his hands, up his arms, mashing into his black pullover with white skull emblem on the back. He peered into his own slate-grey eyes, the cold orbs staring back remorseless at the half tattooed face. His blue jeans carried red palm prints and grasp marks in their faded and aged surface. His brown hair was tussled and filled with new dark highlights, and he didn't dye his hair.

"Waking up, I see. Good morning to you, my dear."

And as he says the words, sirens split a shrill note in the distance, drawing closer.

- - -

Drenard Alekseyev Romyal was a creature lost. With little in the way of memory left to him, and no knowledge of a past or future or present that truly belong to him, he turned to crime. He was half-way decent, a petty thief, a murderer without conscience and a small-time hacker with above mediocre skills, but his lack of a past even to himself made him believe that what he was doing in this lowly predicament was a fall from grace. Always keeping his slate-grey eyes on the lookout for an in-route to something better, he performed his tasks in life with a kind of dazed and glossed over listlessness reminiscent of the comatose.

He had no girlfriend or friends or family, only a collection of contacts that provided him with jobs to get him by, and even those contacts didn't like dealing with him, calling this tall, lanky fellow a bestial animal. But it was on a Thursday morning, at about seven, while Drenard sat in a diner whittling away an unappealing mass of eggs, bacon, and hash browns and a glass of orange juice that looked like cream corn, that he was approached by a contact.

"Hey, man, got a job fur ya -- in'erested?"

He shrugged, shoveling the sloppy mass of food into his mouth with a fork.

"Just gotta knock off some low-time broad."

He mumbled around the mass. "S'what I gotta do? Just kill 'er?"

"Yeah, jus', like, make her dead. Tha's all we need."

Choking down the orange juice, he asks, "What'd she do?"

"Don't matter, make tha broad dead, 'kay? Pay's up front."

"Fine, I'll do it."

A picture of the broad was handed over. She was a tall, slim Asian number with long hair done up and clad in a business suit. She was looking to a side, walking down some marble-looking stairs with iron handrails. Pedestrians marked the street around her. She was smiling, white teeth glowing from beneath happy brown eyes. Drenard shrugged, flipped the picture over and starred at the back of it. There was an address. He nodded, pocketed the picture, shoveled away the last contents of his breakfast, dumped a wad of bills on the table and left, leaving the contact there.

- - -

Drenard scratched at the tattoos on his face, little golden and silver lines that crisscrossed on one half, starring at the body of the dead man. The broad, Janice Wong, was dead in the living room. He could hear the sirens clanging away and getting closer. He'd been ratted out, or felt that someone had. He was the fall guy. He glanced about the bedroom then dashed into the living room beyond. Hard wood floors streaked and stained with Janice's blood and her body crumpled in a mess beneath a broken lamp, her head caved in from the now destroyed lighting piece.

The couch was flipped, several pictures smashed and broken. He began scrambling, looking through the room for something. Finding nothing and cursing, he turned to the fire escape and jumped through the window, knocking over another quietly whining air conditioner. It clanged and crashed loudly, waking several people at this early hour on a Friday. A woman began shouting, a cat mewled and Drenard slipped down the iron entanglement clinging to the side of the building swearing the whole way. This sucked.

- - -

He woke at five thirty in the morning, his eyes snapping wide as the small rays of light began to filter in through the blinds of his window. He blinked sitting up, scratching at the sleepsand scuttled in and around his eyes as he groped on the floor for his track suit with the other hand. Pulling it on with robotic efficiency and motions, he reached for his runners and double-knotted them about his feet. Rising, he rushed out the back door on his morning run.

Forty minutes and nine kilometers later he returned in a sweat, his face stinging in the salty sensation as the liquid oozed down his spine like trickling fingers. He showered, shaved and dressed in the span of fifteen minutes, the motions again robotic, muscle-memory guiding him. He didn't even stop to think about what he was doing even as he went to the fridge, an old thing that looked like it was from the 1940's. A breakfast of cereal, scrambled eggs, orange juice and anti-depressants followed as he wallowed about in masticated, self-pity.

The kitchen was small. An L-shape counter set with sink, stove, fridge and minimal counter-top space. A small circular table with three chairs was set in the tiny nook, looking dejected, like it was stuffed there and forgotten. Piled high with random books of military history and newspapers, it looked ready to collapse under the weight it bore.

Dumping his dishes in the sink, he clawed at his face and nose with a hand, scratching away an itch he didn't feel. He opened the back door again, cracking it wide to the sunlight that pressed in heavy and confounding to blind him as he moved to the lean-to on the side of his ramshackle house with a beater of a Buick sheltered beneath its weathered surface. Sliding into the drivers' seat and igniting the ignition, he drove away.

His name was Drenard Alekseyev-Romyal.

He wasn't sure where he was or why he was here, and yet memories bobbed about in the ocean of thought that thundered through his cold mind.

- - -

Drenard hit the pavement running like a frightened animal. The clanging rattle of the escape ladder continued to ring away its cacophony amid the shouts of the awakening people who were fraught with anger at being so disturbed from slumber. Not that it mattered. He rolled first, his legs buckling before the garbage piles enveloped him for a moment before he burst forth stumbling and fumbling and scraping the ground with hands trying to stabilize his frantic momentum-filled frame as he fought for a forward direction against the sideways lolling his body attempted.

He escaped the alley in mere moments before dashing along its wide and empty boulevard. The few pedestrians gave him distasteful glances as he rushed, the deep shadows of the buildings cloaking him for ounces of time as he passed store fronts and graphics and holo-images that danced and whirled and spun through the air.

He didn't know how long he ran for, or how far. He found himself shuddering and breathing heavily miles away in a trash-riddled alleyway outside a Chinese restaurant feeling cold and distant. What was it that he'd just done? He seemed to ask himself that distantly, but he knew. Some part of him felt satisfaction at the act. Another part, maybe a part of him that could still be called human after a fashion, was profoundly disgusted. Either way, the woman was dead, Drenard was several grand richer, and he had at least gotten away with the act -- for now.

More Weapons -- Less Fluff

There are more weapons in the Create-a-Weapon post. This time with more destructive powers and less fluff.

Random Paragraphs

Each of these paragraphs is random, and a stand alone. Feel free to read into them all you want. I wrote them about seven months ago.

---

Lies that deceive me from the truth that I hide from behind the plinth of obscurity. A vagueness surrounds me, forming like the whisper of a cloud, a thought that hasn't formed fully. The synaptic reaction courses through my brain, weaving into being the intricacy of this deranged feeling that the untruth I speak to myself daily is nothing more than a hopeful prayer -- the bread I partake of to fill my stomach and hide my fear.

The stillness of breath crept down her throat in a shudder, like she were puking in reverse. It was painful, this swallowing, as the gush of oxygen flowed in and ate at her lungs, a poisonous cancer she required to live. A disease that she couldn't live without. Coughing ensued, blankets showering over her hunched frame and shivering with a thrill of nervousness. Possessed as she was of her initial mentality, she dragged on her cigarette, blowing the smoke, hazy and insubstantial, away to be batted at by the undercurrent of a breeze. She breathed.

Almost. His grip wasn't quite, his hand slipping, his mind faltering. His will broke, shattering like a blade untempered. He felt himself falling, the ground rising up, a maw full of teeth waiting to swallow him whole, the gurgling laughter of something strange and terrible nearby and far off at once. His eyes slide open, a slash in the skin of their covering, the near perfect orbs crying intensely. Blurred, his vision sprinkled with moisture, he choked on something that sounded like laughter, the wracking sobs writhing down his body as the throes of death grasped and crushed his body. He sat up with a start.

Manicured nails clack like a train, hypnotic rhythm sending distress signals across the desk. Nervous and anxious, a playful hand bats aside hair. Tucked behind an ear and trembling for release, she looks on with crystal eyes, fearful and waiting. Papers shuffled, the man across the way smiles, white teeth portrayed as giant cliffs set in the basilica of pleasant resentment. "I'm sorry, you aren't what we're looking for."

Eyes waver as the picture dies. Blackness crawls up the room, long fingers spreading its inky grasp over the crowd, swelling up and swallowing and chocking and regurgitating the masticated mass of men and woman. The light quivers at first, dim and purposeful, drawing strength as the flux of popcorn pellets dabble along the feet of the passersby.

Something's in the way. Immovable and impassible, blocking the shot. A page is turned, shivering in the fingers, small prints marring a pristine, lacquered surface. The images float along as if by want, colorful and cheerful. Bright smiles plastered into virile facades with gumdrop eyes and plastic lips. Buy me and feel loved, it says.

Hands bumble about in the cold. Frozen, elongated, twisting through the serpentine depths of ill-made gloves, gripping handles and rounds and fumbling. The chill bites, shallow fangs cresting the surface. Streaks of red crest the exposed flesh. A boom resounds, a pale thump prior. He smiles behind the snow-caked scarf, white teeth chattering like a wind-up toy.

Petulant and remorseful, it hangs heavy and grey against the backdrop of the sallow and dulled. Wavering tenderly, shook by the disturbance of a sudden breeze, it glows amid the orange flickering from within.

The insanity that quells my being shutters for an instant, a still frame of momentum. My train of thought caught on the brink of the brick wall in black and white tatters. The image shatters, a mirror reflecting disjointed ideas, jagged and piercing like the shafts of sunlight penetrating through the blinds of my midmorning blunder through wakefulness. A blur, a flash, a blink and momentum is restored, and I am again watching the scenery. No longer from some distant vantage point. The trees fly by, and then the car collides with the oncoming traffic as my horror becomes realized. A stillframe of thought caught in the intrepid waking moment of my own demise. And then the scene ends, brought to a close with the billowing shutter of metal clashing along my frame and the sharp impact and screech and then silence.

A specter flung sideways. Twisted in a parallel fashion, the colors sloughed at 45 degree angles obtrusively in neon-Technicolor. Puke rushed up and backwards over a shoulder as indigo flashes pulsed seizure-like and furious. The world was dizzy. It didn't know which direction it was going, a flat-land set on a top and spinning with all the power it could get. And then falling. Falling with legs turned to mush and bleeding pink rivulets of pepto-bismal. Laughing hysterically as the skateboard flew overhead. Gravity was falling upward. The rush of concrete was happening in real time while everything else moved in a shutter-frame. Off to a side, head squished onto pavement and a clashing, cranking sound as wood spattered grotesquely against a wall off someplace other than here. Splinters rained downward while pebbles flew upward in a dyslexic world that couldn't read the rules of nature.

Dominion - Tangmarpok

Tangmarpok had three seasons: cold with snow, cold with rain and cold with sun. It was currently cold with rain, and it sloshed down the rock faces of the canyon city Tangmarpok with a vengeance, slathering the decks of the bridges that spanned the crevice in the mountains. A parade of figures marched stolidly through the downpour without umbrellas--just overcoats. A crowd of hunched people moving in an unhurried pace as though their business would get done rain, sleet, shine or snow.

It was a city set deep in the Rauwok mountain range, North of the equator on this world known by a strange name--Gre'kuquen. The sky itself above this city was streaked with small meteorites twice a year, always during the 'cold with rain' season. They were burning up now, long red and orange streaks that illuminated the thick layers of cloud with a ghastly, off-kilter glow before expiring in the atmosphere; rarely did they touch ground. Few if any in Tangmarpok paid any attention to the bombardment except for young children, and even they paid scant attention after seeing it a dozen or so times.

The military base North-East of the city, however, monitored those earthbound rocks in case some kind of entry vehicle were planted in their midst. The Vadasian people weren't like to be caught with their pants down, so to say.

A figure marched forward through the rain past the populous of animals and beasts, furred creations dressed as men, or was it men coiled in the furs of animals? He didn't know, he was one of them. Another beast clad in mans skin, or was it a man with an inner demon? Didn't matter, as he walked hunched, passing "men" and "women," some openly showing that they were giant, hulking and deathly creatures, furred with claws and fangs both.

Drenard didn't.

He could, though; no one would think less of him for being in either form, this shapeshifter. A race of shapeshifters that learnt the trait only to infiltrate and kill and debase their sole foe, a foe they now called friend and ally against the numerous other foes of the universe. Didn't matter. He pushed through a door, under the neon lights that flashed past through the air, holograms depicting items to be bought, to be sold, to be collected and numerous other things of some intricate value.

His eyes adjusted to the light.

"Sergent Romyal," a voice said from behind some kind of display, "what can I do for you?"

He looked at the man, information flashing in the backs of his eyes. A name was called up along with a photo ID, two images transposed of the man and the beast both--one person.

"Need to find something for my mother on her anibvik, Dausth," Drenard replied.

"I think I got exactly what she would like," the Vadasian said.

WPCA - Hung

The track twisted through the darkness, turning back on itself again and again in a strange switchback pattern. A full moon, partly obscured by picturesque clouds lit the way. Leaves skittered and branches cackled in the hot, humid breeze. It had been storming only hours before, thunder and lightning both unleashing their pent fury before absconding. But the night wasn't young and full of vigor anymore. She was aging fast, and with her anger spent, the air palpitated with her one-thirty-in-the-morning stroke. The face of the night buzzed with flies that consumed the flesh. The trunks of trees looked like spun-dried bones, pinnacles rising into the sky, clawing away at the trail that cut a swath through its skin. Blackness oozed at the edges. A series of creaking noises escaped now and again, drowned by a whisper.

Framed in silhouette against a star-filled backdrop was a figure, bent, kneeling, uttering prayers and sobbing gently. Prayers to a deity of unnamed origin and nameless itself. Just a continuous repetition. She was saying please again and again, croaking out "no" and "stop" again and again. Cool and clammy her skin was to the touch, as the braided rope began to twist its way around her neck.

"Don't do this," she breathed for a moment, a last breath.

The cord tightened, her frame rising as if by magic off the ground. Her feet dangled, the flies buzzed, her eyes bulged and her face turned a grim shade of blue-white. A ghastly glow illuminated by an impartial moon above that lay witness to this. Shaking, her hands clawed at her face, drawing deep gashes, but the mutilation she made to herself didn't work against the rope snug against her adams apple. She swung, and as she stilled, a quietness came over the clearing. Looking closely, there were three others beside her, all drifting in the breeze and the flutter of flies. Three women, sisters, all taken from a nearby town--all hung.

---

The morning mists coughed up the three women strung like blackened pearls. They floated in space, looking like reeds waving above a rippling lake surface in a breeze. The crows had already come, a murder and more, stripping flesh and turning the once lovely faces to ashen ruin. Eyes were missing and the skin had turned grey and pallid and the scent was overpowering. The smallest of the three was no longer holding together, either. Entrails spewed onto the ground in a ragged trail, falling into the mist like a fishing like that was being tugged at by unseen forces.

"My God!" a woman cried, turned with teary eyes and beginning to fight back her gag-reflex. She lost, puking and dry heaving away even after a man had hauled her to her feet and bound her within arms in an attempt at comfort.

"Who coo'dove done this?"

Nobody had an answer. The mist began to retreat slowly with quiet animosity as a woman wept for her dead children and men looked into each others eyes with grim determination. Someone would die for this atrocity, they seemed to say to one another.

Dominion - Origins (Cont)

More Origin's await. Re-did the second part and just tacked it onto the end of the current post as is. I think it's better thanks to the change, and works better with what I have planned.

In the Shadow of Giants -- Duel Intro

The road twisted between the mountains, hard-pack trodden underfoot by thousands of people before, perhaps millions, or even more. There were no toll booths to keep track, but the steady roar of the old-age wheeled vehicles and the much more modern hover-craft blitzing along the highway wafted up the craggy heights of the age old monoliths that stood watch. Great boughs of jutting granite lay crawling and bulbous hands along the valley floor, making for a convoluted pass, and many smaller valley's hidden in the waiting arms of the larger mountains.

It was up a trail that switchbacked several times. A steep trail set near forty-five degrees with large trees canvasing the overcast sky, clawing away with thick branches and a just-after-rain stench. It was about five kilometers, that a lake stood. It was small, with reeds dotting one edge, the other framed by a towering face of granite and sparse pine and hemlocks. A thin mist blanketed a corner of the lake. The only indication that there was a waterfall was the sound, but beyond the roar and gurgle, there were more trees and rocks. The trail circled the small lake, scrambling up the large building-block-like rocks even higher into the ridge-line.

The weather was in a foul mood, overcast in a belligerent frown and blustering out an even fouler wind. The day had started with a light drizzle, but with a kind of cold that infiltrated bones and set about an inner freeze that made everything especially lethargic, like time slowing. It began to sleet. The rain and snow mingling in a perverse near coitus act, sloshing into the ground in a rough-and-tumble play as they moved in and around one another. Mud began to bubble up as the cold ground rejected the skies urination. A curse and a ruffle of clothing followed as a hood canvased a head and arms pulled in tighter around a body. He danced a short jig, blood flow warming extremities that began to chill. He reminds himself why he's here, and why he feels cold instead of warmth.

"Stupid, bloody, cold. Just had to pick the worst spot, didn't you."

Nobody answered; he didn't expect anyone to answer, not now.

Amarouk turned dead eyes at the sky, then turned them on the waterfall percolating at the far edge. It seemed to always have a renewed sense of vigor, like crystal-clear coffee--nothing but a warmth and a feeling of wired purpose. A jazz that tingled the nerves. He barked out a curse at the cold again, which normally never affected him, and at the waterfall, and at his opponent, who had yet to show his, or her, face. What a rout.

im in ur intarnetz, writn mah blogz

So, in the past couple days I've done a fair amount of writing. Random paragraphs, stories, duel intros, you name it. So, here's some random crap I've written in the past couple days.

---

It coiled like a snake, slipping upwards. Tightening as it did, he puked up the anxious butterflies that had been fluttering in his stomach. A caress of techno-colored slosh sprang up and spilled from his slack jaws. The other kids cried out in disgust as the dead butterflies with their multi-culturally colored wings turned to wax and a janitor came up with a sponge, a mop and a bucket. He placed his sign, covered in graffiti, and began the arduous task of both cleaning and scolding, no easy thing by any means.

---

Filled with delicious filling, it waits to be eaten. A cake standing tall, proud, before the knife. It denies the knife for a moment, just a moment, and then succumbs. A city overtaken by the forces that slash through, breaking wall and door and tower all at once. The people fall as the city falls. The cinder blocks ring with the screams of the slain, a cry that echoes. And then there was nothing.

Dominion - Origins

Dominion - Origins
-> Birth of MAN

1.48.4E1246 / Palace of the 'al Torro
Lyzrantii System, Lyzrant

They stormed the last bastion of Nel Ent 'al Torro in the deep of the night. Silence, determination and the clatter of assault rifles followed them. Across blurred marble floors and past hanging paintings and tapestries they dashed. Firefights exploded and died as quickly as a trigger was pulled. In the end, only death and victory waited for them. The moon hung in the sky while a smattering of cloud cover rained down tears as the bulge of the celestial body wove a strange dance as it watched on. Two hundred years ago, it was; the night of 'al Torro Despada, or "The Great Unification." Nel Ent 'al Torro died, and as his body fell limp to the flecked marble flooring on that night, a gun in his hand and a bullet through his head, the United Lyzrantii States rose up to take his place.

General El Antigo vel Maro's quest to unify the world was at long last completed with the last Warlord painting abstract macabre art on the floor in the form of a twisted corpse before him. He chose his senate wisely, suppressed any rebellion before it could form, and created an empire that he headed. A single ruler. Such a thing had never before been, and all the years of fighting and cajoling and pleading had paid off. But in the end, El Antigo vel Maro would die of a heart attack on the senate floor giving a speech to rally the people to his cause. But instead of something to inspire them with, the speech was punctuated with him collapsing to the floor as he coughed, quite literally, pieces of his own lungs and blood onto the floor. His dying words were "My friends!"

His good friend, or the only person who could even be called a friend, superseded him -- Nathanial Jacobs-Elsandro. He assumed El Antigo vel Maro's title, and would later be crowned the First Emperor of the Unified Lyzrantii States. El Antigo vel Maro and all he had stood for would soon be forgotten. Nathanial Jacobs-Elsandro led for many years and later sired a son, who would be crowned Second Emperor of the Unified Lyzrantii States upon his fathers death when he was aged 42. But with the beginning of Lennard Jacobs-Elsandro's reign came an unexpected turn. His father, known for his zealous ravings, had said that their enemies were not the people of Lyzrant, but the threats that came from the stars themselves. It was said that Nathanial Jacobs-Elsandro had seen in a vision their enemy from the beyond. Lennard Jacobs-Elsandro believed his father.

Many believe Nathanial Jacobs-Elsandro was mad, especially in his later years, and the fact that his son, Lennard, believed him and began a space program, only furthered the rumors. Slipspace travel through the stars was something newly discovered, and Lennard Jacobs-Elsandro sent many scouts into the uncharted regions, hoping to search out and find the threat and extinguish it before it could ever come back and hurt his people. But his drive and motivation became his downfall.

A religious figure, rather zealous at the least, Matthew Alexander Nault, would murder his way to and usurp the thrown. Elsandro Entiga, "The Elsandro Eradication", began with gusto, and Lennard Jacobs-Elsandro would soon find himself starring wide-eyed at a ceiling, gasping for air and a goblet of poisoned win splashed along a carpet. His death created two factions, those for him and his programs, and those against. The following in-fighting caused many return calls by scoutships to go unheard and be forgotten altogether. After ten years of continued fighting, Matthew Alexander Nault ascended the great Imperial Thrown to become the First Emperor of the Lyzrantii Dominion Empire, the First Empire of MAN.

---

-> Encounters

1420 Hours (Galactic Standard) 2.15.4E1453 / LDE Scoutship Starflung
Unknown system

The system was quiet. The seven planets moved in their preexisting tracks, slowly racing around a yellow primary like children on a merry-go-round. Distant stars dotted the blackness and added color and depth to the nothingness. A small star seemed to brighten, flashing closer for a moment. It twisted and oscillated, the space around it scintillating until an object burst into view and the corona of light snapped shut as the ship exited the event horizon, dying in the instantaneous transition from slipspace to real space. An LDE scoutship, the Starflung, pushed at the bounds of space for a moment before settling. A small craft, an oblong sphere with four distinct bulges in the rear with glowing efflux and smaller cancerous bulges along the craft.

Long- and short-range sensors slid out of their jump recesses with smooth animosity, metallic silver inset with circular gold mirror lenses. They began to scour the space all around the craft, hungry for specific shapes before focusing on the farther celestial objects. Every molecule was searched and prodded for an instance, and then, when it was deemed safe, the craft began its slow, arduous journey inwards.

For the first ten hours, the Starflung and its crew of five remained diligent and extremely bored. The system looked like the hundreds they had already seen over the past seven years. Continuous readings and bets were taken on the probability of them finding life on any of the planets based on the fact they hadn't in the past seven years. The man in charge, lieutenant Kim Wong Tei, was sitting in his seat and yawning ferociously and attempting to distract himself from his boredom by flipping a coin and watching it tumble in the three-quarters standard gravity.

"What's the count, Kimmy boy?" Gregory Fitzpatrick, his lead sensor specialist asked.

"Twenty one heads, fifteen tails."

"So, what, heads no life found, tails life found?"

"I always say heads for life, tails for no life, because no life sucks tails."

They lapsed back into silence. Janis Del Garcia noted two objects moving in the asteroid belt that didn't look right, referred it to Kim, but it was shrugged off. More hours later, return readings suggested that two of the inner-most planets were habitable, but there was no way to tell from their current distance. It would be another week before they reached the third planet in system, and were just now passing the seventh, an enormous gas giant tinged brazen orange and yellow with a dozen or more moons and dotted by a giant swirl of a storm that took up a quarter-hemisphere. Kim left the bridge to go get some sleep, leaving everything to those awake.

"That's odd," Mandy Anderson said. She and Lisa O'Reilly were the only two people awake.

"What's odd?"

"There's something moving just beyond the convex of the gas giant. It's too small to be a moon."

"Maybe a meteorite trapped in a degrading orbit?"

"No, no. It just seems, wrong."

Lisa moved in behind Mandy, looking down at the screen. It was already at full zoom. The image was grainy, fuzzed and heavily distorted from the range they were viewing the object at. It had a fairly distinct shape, though. A long shape that tapered back from the front into a set of massive blocky features that were glowing.

"Those are engines!"

"Jna'eehn! Wake the others. This is big, way, way too big."

Moments later, Kim strode in, stumbling and fumbling and attempting wakefulness while rubbing sleepsand away from the corners of his eyes. He asked what was the problem, why the excitement. Mandy told him. Whatever sleepiness that was in him drained away with the color in his face as a surge of adrenaline took hold.

"A-, a ship?"

"Not just one," Mandy said, "two. A second one is just starting to come around. Both look like they're heading our way."

Kim somehow went whiter than he already was.

"Can you figure out how big those ships are?"

"Not at this distance, but they're closing fast enough. Will probably be on us in another couple hours."

Kim made a command decision, the first and last in his career.

"Core dump into a slipspace probe and send it back to Lyzrant."

"What? That's crazy, we'll lose all our astrological data, everything!"

"Do it!"

Five minutes later, it was done. They were now sitting blind, all records on their ship transfered to a missile-like probe. Kim hovered his hand over the launch button a moment, seeming as if to have second thoughts. He breathed out and his hand fell hitting the switch. He watched as the slim shape of the slipspace probe slid out from under the cockpit and into view. Watched it trace a long curving arc away and stared at the blue efflux trail. It was an hour and a half later that he got a good look at the enemy ships, kilometer long beasts. He had Janis hail them, but the calls went unanswered. Moments later, Kim didn't feel anything anymore, and never would.

The probe was still rocketing away, but wouldn't enter slipspace for another hour, not until it was outside the systems gravity field. The probe would watch with unfeeling, inhuman eyes as the Starflung was touched by light before turning into a cloud of ever-expanding incandescent gas and debris. The two alien cruisers had fired when in range. The Starflung was gone, her crew with her. Moments later, the probe launched itself into slipspace.

A Good Day

So, this weekend was awesome. It was the best weekend I have ever experienced in my entire life. Friday night I got drunk, which isn't usual, nor unusual. But that's not what made this weekend so awesome. I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End today, but that also isn't what made this weekend so great.

It was yesterday, and I got a once in a lifetime thing: I fired a Browning 30 caliber machine gun circa WWII mounted on a jeep of the same era. I also got to fire over 1600 rounds in three hours. That's a pretty awesome weekend.

Lingo

In my time in the Canadian Forces (army), I've found that my vocabulary has changed. Not really for the better or worse, but changed in such a drastic way. I can't say the same stuff that I'd say to a friend here what I'd say to a civy, or civilian.

Your stuff is "your kit," your home or where you sleep is "the shacks." Speaking a sentence without the word "fuck" in it is difficult. When something goes wrong, the idiom is often "are you fist-fucking me?" Idiots who can't do anything right are "shit-pumps" or "shit-bubbles." A person who's constantly acting up is a "shit disturber." Stuff that sounds stupid that you're supposed to do regardless is called "chicken-shit." A rifle is a rifle or a weapon. It is not a gun. A gun is a shotgun or a machine gun or a cannon. Doing something that gets your buddy in trouble is called being a "blade", and often gets you labeled a "buddy-fucker," while your actions are often called a "dick move." Stuff that seems stupid and stresses you out and screws with your head is called "cock." Being confused or disorganized is called being a "cluster-fuck." Stuff you don't want to deal with right away is "dog-shit." Civy clothes are "mufty." Standing around doing nothing is called "dog-fucking" or "smokin' and jokin'."

The list goes on.

Most everything is turned into an acronym at some point. You have your BMQ, PLQ, BFT, PWT, IPSWQ, QL3, CGT and others. You might not even know what the acronym means, but you know what it refers to. The lingo you learn just by hearing it and passing it on is amazing. There's a whole host of insults and slang, most of it only relevant to what you do.

I don't even know why I'm posting this. Thought it'd be interesting.

Dominion, Back-Info, Dalaquen System

Just some background information on the Dalaquen System and its inhabitants. Not done, but gives a general idea of just two of the species I'm playing around with.

***

SYSTEM:

The Dalaquen system, home to seven planets, Dalaquen I through VII, although Dalaquen III is more commonly known as Gre'kuquen, and Dalaquen II, which is more commonly known as Gre'Dakan, the only two habitable planets in the system. It is also home to two highly volatile and sentient species, although those two sentient species both originate from the third planet in the system. Between Dalaquen V and Dalaquen VI is the Dakan asteroid belt, which is home to the Dalaquen Sovereignty Pact Space Mining Authority. The seven planets rotate about a yellow primary, Ankra Jhrakis ("Mother Light"). Dalaquen I is a solid sphere of molten rock. Dalaquen IV and V are both gas giants, either with numerous moons. Dalaquen VI and VII are a solid chunk of rock and a gas giant with rings respectively.

PLANET (GRE'DAKAN):

Located in the Dalaquen system, the first of two habitable worlds, it is the oddity as it never once in its existence produced sentient life. Second from the yellow primary, it is commonly referred to as "Dalaquen II" on galactic star charts.

Gre'Dakan lacks any major mountainous regions and is made up primarily of water and long island chains, tropical and sub-tropical. It lacks any major resources, and much of what is found on the planet can be easily found and mined on other worlds. Instead, it is used largely as a park and resort destination.

PLANET (GRE'KUQUEN):

Located in the Dalaquen system, the second of two habitable worlds, it is the only world in the system to produce sentient life. Third from the yellow primary, it is commonly referred to as "Dalaquen III" on galactic star charts.

Gre'kuquen is a windy world covered in large strings of tall mountain ranges and empty plains. The northern hemisphere is swept by tornadoes and wind storms constantly, as well as a barrage of meteorites on a yearly basis; the raging storms is caused by the oscillations of the two orbiting moons of Gre'kuquen, Dasque'taque and Kuquen'tar. The southern hemisphere, punctuated with the only ocean the planet has (fed by the many lakes that dot the planet), is home to a near-hemisphere-spanning desert. Due to the higher axis-of-rotation of this strange world, a long, continuous mountain range spans the axis-of-rotation, or equator. The planet itself also has a higher than normal gravity, 1.5 times the norm, for an Earth-sized planet.

The world itself, while habitable, has temperatures lower than what is considered a human habitable standard, caused by a farther orbit from the primary, Ankra Jhrakis ("Mother Light"). because of this, growth seasons are limited, making for vegetation that is long lived but goes into hibernation during the longer winter season. Also, what vegetation there is on this planet doesn't grow over two meters in height, the majority being various kinds of grasses, roots and and tall, blossoming flowers--this is due to the ravaging storms that easily uproot taller plants. The majority of plants display a diffuse root system designed to anchor the plant down so the scathing winds don't affect it; however, the more edible variations of plant life have a more taproot like structure. There are also kinds of fungus that grow like a moss in the rockier regions that are also edible. Some produce a milky sap that is used for foodstuffs by the Galandrian, as the sap is high in nutrients and has a high sugar content. The plant most prized by the Galandrian of Gre'kuquen, however, is the Delyar cacti that grows only in the desert regions. Its inner sap contains the sweetest substance known to any species; the Galandrian use it to manufacture many of their universally prized sweets.

The Vadasian, who were relegated to the mountains long ago in wars against the Galandrian, make their home among the winding ranges, eking out their existence along the sheer rock walls of the many ravines and valleys. Often they cut steps into the crooked and twisting mountain ranges to act as fields. Their cities literally cling to the rock walls of many ravines and mountain sides, with bridges of artistic stone passing between the two. The Galandrian, however, have created a series of warrens deep under the plains of Gre'kuquen, hidden away from the blistering winds. Underground travel routes connect the various underground sections of Galandrian warrens. Specialized carriages moved passengers and cargo through the tunnels. There are many warrens so large as to earn names and likened to above-ground cities in both size and scope. The only species other than the Galandrian to ever set foot in one of these gargantuan maze-like warrens are the Vadasian, a privilege earned after years of peace between the two races.

HISTORY:

When the first scramble for sentience began on the windswept world of Gre'kuquen, two species both gripped that sacred chalice of thought and looked into each others eyes. It was at that point that the bloody, violent and gruesome war between the two species began. Before they had been sentient they had fought against each other. But once they learned to make weapons and devise strategy, they fought all the harder. However, it would be an ill-fated day for the Vadasian early in their history. One of the earliest recordings in Vadasian and Galandrian history, passed down in stories and myths, was the Great Victory and Great Defeat, whichever side you happened to look at. It was the first time in these two respective species' history that they collaborated against one another in pitched conflict. But it was the Vadasian who would lose, and in losing, were banished from the plains to eke out an existence in the mountain ranges.

At that point, the once united Vadasian would splinter, forming into twelve distinct clans and sixteen slave clans. The Galandrian would also splinter, forming the seven major clans. Once the Vadasian were gone, the Galandrian turned to in-fighting to see who would get the spoils of their conquest. This is the only thing that kept the Vadasian from being purged from Gre'kuquen, it gave them to time to flee and to lick their wounds. It would also make them harder in the long run. Throughout the entwined history, the two species waged wars against one another. The Vadasian evolved within their mountainous environment. It changed their development, probably for the better. The Galandrian, however, were anything but stagnant on the plains.

Border conflicts between the two species continued as they developed. Each side going into the others territory and raiding the other. Pitched battles were kept to a minimum, since both species had gotten such a population base that going into and outright attack in the others territory was always suicide. Both species continued to in-fighting up until fifty years before humans came. At that point, the Vadasian again united under a single leader, the Jhaheit, or "Supreme Leader." Vadasian had reached a dark age society, partly tribal, partly Renaissance in flavor. They began experimenting with art and sciences. The Galandrian united fifteen years later after the Vadasian did, instead forming committees instead of a single ruler.

Thirty five years later, the much more technologically advanced humans arrived. The Vadasian and Galandrian were both awed by these near hairless, white skinned creatures who had strange powers and abilities. At first, the Vadasian and Galandrian revered these new creatures as Gods come from the skies because of their powerful "magic." However, the tides turned. These new creatures began to hunt the Galandrian. The Vadasian took this for a good omen, as the humans were killing off their long hated enemy.

The Vadasian, though it should be noted, are partially telepathic. They could not read the minds of the humans at first, but became more familiar with their minds during the interim years the humans were there. A total of three years the Vadasian watched from their high mountains as the Galandrian were hunted, always getting closer to understanding the human mind. It wasn't until the Galandrian finally killed a human that they were swayed. These creatures were not gods, and when they were done with the Galandrian, they reasoned, would come after them next. This is the turning point in Vadasian/Galandrian history, where the two species unit completely for the first time against a new, common foe. During the night of Betlheit Kohne ("Black Moons"), where no light except the stars shone, the Vadasian and Galandrian waged a pitched battle against the humans. Their losses were great, but they were hundreds of thousands where the humans weren't.

They won at cost, but won. And with it, they had the human technology. With the telepathic Vadasian reading the thoughts of the humans before they died, they were able to interpret the new technology. Within the first two decades, the Galandrian and Vadasian, still united against this foe beyond the stars, advanced technologically in leaps and bounds. Within two centuries, these two species were on par, if not more advanced than their galaxy-spanning counterparts. Their next encounters with the various species around the universe would be a series of bloody wars as the Vadasian and Galandrian pressed outward, intent on destroying all other species before again resuming their age-old conflict against one another.