Sundog

Re: Interplanetary colonies The problem is, if you're looking at prison colonies especially, you need to make them economical. Shipping convicts to the 13 states, or later to Australia, worked because the cost of shipping someone was dirt cheap. People will resent spending money on criminals, no matter what the good intentions. Unless your interplanetary/interstellar drive is real cheap, it's more economical to send motivated, strong-willed colonists to set up colonies than a bunch of convicts who, besides being criminals, all have the distinction of not wanting to be there in the first place.

Re: Smart Metals? Instant crowd control barriers have turned up in one of my campaigns. The police just unrolled these strips across the road, and pressed a button - the strips, once exposed to electricity (built in 9-volt batteries) sprang up into razor wire barricades. Something similar was used when the team was on Mars - the survival tent was just a thick tarpaulin until you unfolded it and pressed a button. Again, a 9-volt battery was used to initiate the change - then you just hooked it up to the life-support pack and it slept six in a pinch...

Re: Using the Warlord I'm bringing the Warlord and his forces into my game - but Weldun and Dhroz read these boards, so I'd better not let on the details!

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Se a vida e, Pet Shop Boys.

Re: Re-Imaged Hero(ines) What was it? Dane Beresford walked around the high-tech portal twice, gazing upon the - thing - that sat upon the receiving cradle. The idea had been to punch a hole into the fifth dimension - a dimension at right angles to all others, even time - send through a camera, and photograph the reality of the trans-dimensional matrix of reality. But what ever it was that sat upon the receiving cradle, it certainly wasn't a camera. At least, not anymore. It maintained no shape for more than a microsecond. Parts seemed to fly off in orbits - and fly straight through the appartti surrounding the cradle. Other parts disappeared without trace - or appeared in place without fuss or bother. It's utter, roiling chaos extended to it's spectra - according to his devices, the thing radiated a varying amount in all visible light colours - yet not at all outside that spectrum. Dane couldn't help himself - he had to touch it. Instantly, the suddenly liquid material engulfed him - entered him - became him. And Dane Beresford ceased to be what he had been. Moments later, three men in green and yellow uniforms burst in. The Viper troops wanted the pictures - to certain researchers, they'd be worth a fortune, and the stupid university would have released them for free! Instead, they found something beyond their imaginations - or terrors. When the local police arrived, they found one Viper agent had exploded; another was found merged with the steel floor. The last, still alive despite having his limbs neatly shorn off, could only mumble - "that thing. That unearthly thing..." as he was rushed to the hospital. The Thing that was Dane Beresford now stalks the streets of his city, without form, but with purpose - those that harm others must be harmed in return. And harm he can. The Thing can control the molecular structure of itself and whatever it touches - making it insubstantial, changing it's shape, increasing density or chemical makeup - even forming explosives from living material. And somewhere inside, so deep even the Thing cannot hear, Dane Beresford is screaming...

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Thorn in my Side, Eurythmics.

Re: Comics Magazine Association of America Original Code for Editorial Matter The code underwent a wholesale revision after Marvel published a very strong anti-drugs story in Spider-Man in the early seventies. The story was one of the best of it's kind - but the code didn't allow even the mention of drugs. So Marvel published anyway, without the code - and whaddaya know, there was no downturn in sales. The CCA, panicking that they might become completely irrelevant, made a major revision. Of course, these days, I don't even know if the CCA still exists. I seem to recall Marvel and DC withdrew from it, and Image and Dark Horse never applied to use it anyway.

Re: Does your GM play too? I don't use a GMPC, but I run one game and one of my players GM's the other, which I'm in. I definitely find it a relief to be able to sit down and roleplay just ONE character!

Re: Star Frontiers Conversion No, it's about getting big bullets on target. What's the point of having great penetrating power and man-stopping ability if you can't hit the broad side of a barn?

Re: WWYCD: Registration

Re: Need help with a Group name. Well, Metaforce comes to mind, or maybe Aegisforce.

Re: WWYCD: Escalation of Villainous Power Terminus would assume that The Disruption was likely behind the situation (increased mayhem is part of their modus operandi) and get the team together for intensive training, while getting PRIMUS and UNTIL involved in tracking down the source of the powers - then hit it. Hard.

Re: Name Help: Super Patriot The American Legionnaire. G.I. One. Or just: Liberty.

Re: I need a function! The Seraph Kiss is a simple stone rod, surmounted by an exquisite carving of a nude woman with six sets of wings sprouting from her back. The Kiss acts like a religious symbol against evil. Unlike most such (such as a presented cucifix against undead) no belief is required for this to function. But it's true use is aginst Krim and his minions. Within a thirty foot radius of the Kiss, no artifact of Krim's making will function - including the infamous Crowns. The Seraph Kiss is believed to reside in the restricted area of the Vatican Museum. Next: The Living Projector.

Re: WWYCD: Evil in Innocence Terminus would place his Retributor Pistol to the kid's head and pull the trigger. He's seen evil with a beautiful face before.

Re: WWYCD: Registration Terminus would have serious reservations about this. In his universe, he was a soldier for the Earth Directorate Security Office, and finds the sovereign nation concept - or as he would say, "tribalism" - a little worrying, particularly as he has knowledge and use of certain technologies that could easily turn any nation into a superpower to rival the US - or give the US such a lead as to be permanently unbeatable. However, he is also a tremendous believer in human freedoms, and human responsibilities (which is why he has a public ID). Terminus would probably lobby against sections 2 and 3. If that didn't work, he'd almost certainly join UNTIL.

Re: When Champions Begat Terminus is the product of radical genetic engineering; worse, even among the ranks of the Terminus Soldiers he was an experimental variation (his "civilian name", Kex, is short for "Series K, 001, Experimental"). It would take Teleios or someone of equal genius to make him fertile with anything.

Re: I need a function! "Oh Why the Bay!" (or more accurately, in the original Atlantean, Ovva(i)th'pay) is one of the major artifacts of the Poseidonian religion. Consisting of a grey wristband surmounted by a trident, each tine being made up of a different precious metal (Left to right: Platinum, Gold, Silver). The artifact grants a measure of control over the sea itself, capable of calling up waves, waterspouts, and whirlpools, as well as currents and temperature inversions (the latter two being more useful underwater, of course). The writings mention that the priests of Poseidon could call upon much greater power, being closer to the god. The religious leaders of the Atlantean people would like to see it returned, but it was last known to be among the possessions of the last Archmage before his death at Tunguska. It has not been seen since. Next: The Jagermasque.

Re: Name Help: Super Patriot The Citizen Soldier.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... (Starship Troopers game) "The guys we were sent to relieve are in bits, our commanding officer is dead, the Corporal has gone AWOL in the head, and the facility is crawling with bugs. If you want to stay here another 44 days, go right ahead."

Re: WWYCD: Mirror Universe Terminus would probably be in a bit of a quandary. He's from an alternate Earth himself, so he very well might not have an Evil Counterpart; but if he does, then there's an entire Legion of Terminus Soldiers on some other Earth entirely... I think he'd probably just go "screw the metaphysics, I gotta get back and eliminate the Disruption. This is a waste of time!"

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Just finished Ben Bova's Saturn, part of his grand tour of the solar system. Not bad. Not as good (or as soapy) as his trilogy on the Asteroid Wars, but better than Jupiter. For the first time, we see the New Morality as something more than just neo-luddite power mongers. Also an interesting treatise on politics and political power in an enclosed environment. Venus next, I think.

Re: Real Life Nebulas But that's more a cause of the Pulsar than the Nebula. The particles that make up a nebula are pretty harmless; unless you're moving at relativistic speeds (.2C and up) you can treat the area as a pretty high-grade vacuum. Though come to think of it, star sightings could get hard to take. You'd need an inertial navigation system of some kind to get around, especially in dense nebulae like the Horsehead.

Re: Random SF Science Questions

Re: Day of 1001 Superheroes Captain Tree! Defender of the untouched wild! With his Living Shield to protect him, his sidekick Giant Beaver and a nationwide network of Green activists to inform him of any wrongdoing, he guards against any Ecological Malfeasence! Once, he was just Chuck Woodpecker, mild mannered truck driver. Then, a corporate logger dropped a Sequoia on his truck as it sped by on the highway! The doctors were amazed. They'd never seen anyone take that much brain damage and survive before! But if Chuck could still have formed words, he'd have told them that he'd been spared for a reason. The spirit of the ancient Sequoia had entered him even as it's body had attempted to do likewise. As soon as he could, Chuck wheeled himself out of the hospital, and planted himself in the forest, knowing the good soild and wind and sun would heal him. Fortunately, the police found him before he got more than a little frostbite. Later, after he had learned to walk, talk and dress, they let him go from the hospital - he may've been crazy, but he wasn't violent, and he really had healed remarkably fast. Chuck trained himself to physical normalcy, found the sacred Living Shield (a disc of rose and blackberry all woven together, tight enough to stop a bullet) and started to have conversations with a six-foot tall Beaver. It didn't bother him that no one else could see his new friend. Poor Chuck is a complete loon, but - his shield works. And as long as he listens to his sidekick's advice, he almost never loses fights. And he really is good at finding polluters and other ecological criminals... Next: Lord Johnnie