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21
Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: Ch 4: S [D01 |1830] Second Station from the right and straight on till its over
Last post by RyeTanker -
[Lieutenant ThanIda zh'Wann (Lt. zh'Wann or Ida) | Aerodrome | Erudite | Hobus System] @Tae @Eden @ob2lander961

Lieutenant ThanIda zh'Wann frowned at the plan the Wolf was proposing.  It wasn't the worst idea that she'd heard and in the absence of anything else, the shuttle crew wouldn't have a choice but to go along with it.  She was frowning more over the what she remembered from the Academy about the disastrous consequences of the strike on the 3 Gorges Dam since the US military hadn't been able to totally knock out communications and word had gotten to the leadership of the group leading China at the time.  It had been a case of demonstrating the need to maintain open lines of communication and keep them secured.  The petrified reports from NORAD of retaliatory ballistic missiles had been quite shocking to all the students in class and it hadn't helped that the airborne assault had been a bloody shambles in the face of fierce and unexpected resistance, and the nuking of one of the landing zones.

Lt. zh'Wann stopped for a moment as an exuberant and short pilot joined while making sure she was going to be part of the mission.  The Andorian quirked an eyebrow fervently hoped to avoid any nasty fates since they were placing all their eggs in a few baskets.  Weapons wouldn't amount to much on a shuttle, so there was no need to power those.  "Whatever you're going to do to the fighters, we'll also need it done to the shuttle.  While I hope to avoid any fights, we may have to shoot our way in as well." 

The mission commander stopped for a moment as she worked out the ground component's plan. "So you'll have to breach shuttle bay doors, or an area of the hull that has access to a command node.  Barring that, we'll need access to an area with major computing power.  If we can sneak our way in, all the better, but otherwise, we'll need to fort up while the engineers and scientists can pull any useful information, the find a way to self-destruct the place."  Ida took a moment to look around at the pilots who were going to need to keep their exfiltration route clear.  "And in the mean time, whatever ideas you have to keep your selves alive so we can all get out of the station, voice them now." 

22
Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: CH 2: S [Day 01 | 1435 hrs] When Trolls Dance, Vulcans Growl
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Lt. Cmdr. Cross | Sickbay | D. 21 | V. 3 | “Ranger” of USS Theurgy] Attn: @EnigmaTales

He hadn’t even thought of his senses being a part of the problem, and now he felt like an idiot. Of course, they could be! He’d started using a nasal numbing hypospray, recommended by Hathev, only a few days prior and had yet to figure out what to do with all the noises the ship and its crew were giving off. He highly doubted there was such a thing as an auditor number, at least not one that would still allow him to do his job effectively.

“I think I’m good for now. Thank you for your time and efficiency.” Cross hesitated at her request for a recommendation. He only really knew one counselor on a more intimate basis than most. “I’ll be upfront with you. I only know Lieutenant Commander Hathev well, though the whole department has high ratings. Right now, though, with our vectors hither and thither and yon, whoever you can find should work. You should have access to their professional files to ‘browse’ the options and if you prefer, wait till we’re all back in one piece and go for the one you feel most comfortable with.” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “As for the judging, I can assure you there isn’t a person on this ship qualified to judge anyone for having put something off, like getting counseling. We all have our ghosts that we’d rather not tango with.”

Giving himself one more once over, he shifted toward the door, “If that’s all, I should return to the bridge.”
23
Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: CH 2: S [Day 01 | 1700hrs] Cross on the Titan
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Lt. Cmdr. Cross | Lower Gymnasium | D. 14 | V. 2 | “Ranger” of USS Theurgy] ATTN: @Krajin

Winters was good with his tail sweep additions to the sparring. He appreciated the variations as they kept him physically engaged while the conversation tugged at his mind. He supposed this duality was part of what his body needed to keep the headaches at bay since so many of the traditional Vulcan meditation techniques were a mixture of honing the two, physical and mental. Cross worked to keep the grin neutral, not wanting to confuse the Kzinti with his beam of delight.

“I don’t want my heart surgeon to be mussed with emotions while she’s cutting into me. Likewise, I don’t want my pilot to give in to crippling insecurities while we’re in the midst of an escape. The emotional or philosophical concepts of honor and respect can only be manifested after the crisis is adverted and you are presented with enough of a lull to use the empathy or emotions or what have you to assess. Like you said, having to make the hard choices sucks balls, and it isn’t healthy to try to moralize them at any time really, not if you want a long career in command. You keep yourself highly trained, keep yourself up to date and on the cutting edge of what’s out there, stay informed, know your people, and employ the tactics you believe fit the scenarios. I see it as more precision and follow-through than inviting discussions on the morality of honor and respect. Granted, the precision, follow-through, and preparation before the crisis can and should be based on a values system suitable for the culture. And, of course, our values system may come into discord with another culture’s, hence the crisis.”

Cross appreciated the brief lull in the conversation and sparring to do a few stretches and bounces to loosen up before Winters launched into another set and adjusted the conversation accordingly.

"Loosely connected to the ear-obsession, I have to confess one of the vainest things I ever did was not about my ears but about my cock.” Cross chuckled. “When the Savi ‘fixed’ me, my Bajoran physical features receded, including the ridges on my cock. So, thinking that it may help me adjust to being in this new version of me, I went to have the ridges on my cock surgically…reinstalled? In any case, it was one of the most awkward procedures of my life.”

He waited while Winters laughed, the rhythm of the sparring thrown off momentarily. Cross laughed at the mental image the Kzint drew for him.

“It isn’t the hormonal shit for me. I never really had the same issues with pon farr or only wanting to fuck once every seven years. I just crash and burn when it comes to talking romantically with women. To the point that aside from potential drunken escapades I still don’t remember and my own hand, I never scored until just this year. It is a sheer miracle that I managed to score the woman I'm with now. She's far superior to me in so many ways, and she deals with my foot-in-mouth syndrome whenever we talk about anything unrelated to work, which is a testimony to her good graces.”

Cross laughed, earning himself a knock to the shoulder for his lowered guard. Aside from reeling back a few steps, he was unharmed and waved a hand to reassure Winters as such.

“Why the cockpit, if you don’t mind my asking?”
24
Alternate Universe Stories / Re: Sprinkles on a Soup Sandwich
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Lnc Cpl Hirk tr’Aimne | Bravo Base | Gila DN6 | Imperium Frontier Space ]ATTN: @Hans Applegate

Hirek followed Knox from the mess hall, chewing on the remainder of what the higher-ups tried to pass off as jerky of some sort. While he certainly had fantasies of showing bits and pieces of Knox inside Sobel to make the Lt squirm, Hirek kept these thoughts to himself as they crossed the compound to kit out for the mission.

“Hey guys! I’m going with you!” The chipper voice of one of the last people Hirek expected called out a greeting as they entered.

Hirek stopped in the doorway, his body jolting slightly when another team member walked into his back. He exchanged a look with Knox before moving further into the gear room. If Lt. Enyd Madsen was coming with them on this mission then he could discern a few things: 1. This mission would not be dealing with only bugs, 2. This mission was fucked. He’d been on only one mission with the chaos-magnet, manic pixie interspecies specialist before this, and it was by sheer luck that he’d survived.

Of the various lt’s on the base, Madsen was ok, except for her penchant to go off the grid without warning, wander into danger in an effort to accomplish a mission, and seemed to have a target on her back for whatever deity controlled chaos. She was good-looking enough, but Hirek got the feeling that her head was often too far up in the clouds to recognize when someone wanted to fuck her. Not that he’d ever offered.

“Did Sobel brief you on our mission?” Madsen shimmied up to Hirek’s side as he began pulling the gear from the shelves he’d been assigned.

“No, he did not ma’am. Knox and I were assigned point duty with extra ammo and grenades. That’s all we know.”

“Oh,” Madsen frowned and began chewing on her lower lip, brows furrowed in thought. “Well, I don’t want to spoil his ‘fun’ in letting you know in the official briefing but,” she eyed the extra gear Hirek was strapping to his body, “I personally don’t appreciate so much obvious firepower for a potential first contact scenario. This calls for delicacy.” She lifted up her shirt for Hirek to spy an assortment of bladed paraphernalia neatly strapped to her torso.

Hirek smiled, “I’ll be as delicate as a porcelain maker with my grenades, ma’am, don’t you worry."

Madsen gave a wincing smile before returning to her own kitting out. Their group, a patrol of six men plus Madsen, was on the tarmac waiting for Sobel moments later.
25
Main OOC Board / Re: STORY WORKSHOP 2022 | EPISODE 02, SEASON 2
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
Hopefully, this helps folks know who is where and what is what with the episode 2 chapters: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KjU5XQH6Qv8dwJEnN5Rms-gPfhnOoUIlrEQHwI3Y6xc/edit?usp=sharing

Don't forget to use the Cosmic Imperative calendar to ascertain when/where you can write with characters who may not be in your chapter (there are time slots before the separation of the vectors): https://uss-theurgy.com/w/index.php?title=Cosmic_Imperative_Calendar

The bolded/hyperlinked names are active writers; those that are listed as NPC can be offed or maimed to your heart's delight just give the GM of the chapter a head's up on that; the unbolded non-NPC names are those who do not currently have active writers but are not slated to be maimed/killed as their writers may return from their current temporary hiatus.
27
Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: CH 2: S [Day 01 | 1857 hrs] Expectations
Last post by joshs1000 -
[CPO Avandar Lok | Arboretum Cafe | Deck 20| Vector 03 | USS Theurgy] Attn: @Ellen Fitz
[Show/Hide]

“I’ll take a look next time I’m back down there”, he offered. He didn’t want to sound too dismissive but he also was just trying to figure out what this bald officer was all about. A Vulcan who smiled was already a bit strange but he had never known any senior officers so interested in talking to some lowly NCO like himself. Of course it wasn’t exactly like he was just some human who could blend in, he had plenty of other external features that people noticed first. Being an over two meter tall cat person, people tended to notice that first. This Reaver better live up to the hype, he thought to himself, as he focused his mind back to the conversation at hand.

Having finished his first sandwich, Lok picked up the next one and started to gobble it down. Cross meanwhile had asked about engine types, more specifically, getting down to the specifics of what made a specific engine specifically good. The Vulcan then proceeded to use various firearms as an example of what he meant.

For Lok, guns had never been of much interest. As he told the Commander, he thought of them as a tool, broken out when needed; the personal wrinkle for Lok however was he didn’t think there was ever a need for a gun…one that killed anyway. This wasn’t some idealized opinion he had from watching a few politically driven ads in favor of banning phasers, but rather formed from his own experience in the War when he was forced to kill several Jem'Hadar to defend his crewmates. One particular memory that always made him sick to his stomach was during an enemy boarding, a Jem'Hadar he shot didn't die right away and instead suffered for several minutes, convulsing on the floor.

As Cross continued, describing in great detail his fondness of guns from their looks to their function, Lok showed some bit of discomfort but just silently ate his sandwich, not wishing to be rude. Finally when he was finished, Lok swallowed his mouthful of rather good tasting turkey and thought on the original question about “what makes an engine good”. There were many things really, but he figured this was probably more of an opinion based question, getting an idea of Lok personal preferences.

“Well”, he started, “I guess the best thing is reliability…a fast ship is only as reliable as its engines, and if that engine isn’t reliable then that ship isn’t all that fast.” He smiled a little as he remembered the similar quote told to him by his mentor what feels like a lifetime ago now.

“But, it’s like you said, different applications have different requirements.”

He nodded in approval to Cross’s request about taking his discarded veggies then continued. “For a ship like this, you want something very powerful, as fast as you can make it without sacrificing too much reliability or efficiency. That’s something that Starfleet has perfected over the past two centuries, fast reliable ships, and as a bonus, the ships have highly adaptable systems.”

“Then take a class like the Freedom Class, they were not designed for speed but rather for reliability, owing to their duties as workhorses, spending more time traveling short distances between worlds, courier duties, low level transportation, supply runs, and all that. So you had a very stout engine that wasn’t pushing the margins one bit. It was rare for those ships to suffer issues.” Despite their rather uninteresting and underwhelming capabilities, Lok did have a bit of fondness for the Freedoms, one of them was his first ship after all.

“Now if we are talking about fighters, those are all speed, you want to push those margins as close to the edge as possible without the whole thing just exploding. Basically they are all intentionally designed with too much engine for their size, whether it is warp or impulse.”
28
Parallel Universes - "What if?" / Re: [2376] Entanglement of Chaos
Last post by RyeTanker -
[Ensign XamotZark zh’Ptrell (Ens. Zark) | Cardassia Prime] Attn: @Ellen Fitz

Ensign Zark tried to not groan under the pressure of her ascent back to relative safety as the sound of massed energy fire screamed behind her. It was hard though despite the effects of the pain killer running through her veins and an occasional whimper would escape if her exhaled breath couldn't hold back the pain. Her head was sort of swimming, but not enough to induce nausea as she focused on putting one foot in front of the other while the motorized clamp assisted pulled her up the high tensile polymer rope.

The battered Andorian also didn't mind when she reached the lip at the top and was pulled over the side onto nice safe flat ground. A pat on her shoulder instinctually told her it was Enyd, and she gave the hand a solid grip as she reached it. Her mind wondered at the feeling of just lying there for a bit, but she had to roll over to relieve the pressure from her abused front.  Lying there for a moment, she breathed of a moment, enjoying the few seconds of tranquility she had, then set to painfully coughing as smoke and dust hung in the air.  This was soon lost a crying rogue tech was carried up and unceremoniously dumped on the ground. "This would go a lot faster if you untied me and let me walk." Trooper Eset snorted his disdain of this idea. "And give you some tools to escape, hardly."  The chubby looking soldier gripped the back of the alien's shirt and picked her up.  "That's enough relaxation, time to go." He took a moment to look at the laid out Andorian. "Sorry sir, but that goes for you too. No time to waste." Ensign Zark nodded at this and summoned her strength to get moving as more Cardassian commandos made their way up the lift shaft. The sound of fighting was definitely getting closer, so Ghin Tolran's counter attack hadn't quite broken the will of the enemy into a full retreat. Said officer soon came up, and looked back down.  "Come on Sevet!! I'll cover you!" He unsung his rifle to get ready. Zark took off with everyone else, but there was a muted scream from the bottom of the shaft and the Ghin let out a stream of invective. "You can still make it!" Zark didn't hear the reply, but a short while afterwards, a loud pair of explosions reverberated from the direction of the lift, and Zark said a silent prayer for the man who'd blown himself up to cover their withdrawal.

The group quickly made their way out of the building, being delayed briefly as they discovered their original exit route had been collapsed from a hit that got close enough.  It was still a relief then they reached the exit and were treated to the sight of a wrecked base that was once again smoking and burning. Several had collapsed and new craters dotted the moonscape with some smoking while others had set other bits of detritus on fire.  "Enough gawking, let's go!"  Ghin Torlan commanded and the group rushed out.  Ensign Zark was unsure if artillery was still going to fall on the base, but she needn't have worried as a bright lance of fire descended from the sky and smashed a location not too far off in the forest.  Whatever fireball would have erupted from the target was lost in the space grade explosion over the tops of the trees that signalled the annihilation of their tormentor that had set the entire fiasco in motion.  A massive pressure wave roared over the forest, shaking leaves to the ground in great sheets while animals bolted in every direction in terror.  Zark felt herself get buffeted by the blast and her body complained eliciting a grunt of protest a she held up one arm in front of her face and gritted her teeth waiting for the pressure wave to pass.  Lowering her arm for a moment, she saw the rising fireball turn itself into a mushroom cloud and her lips twisted into a grimace at whatever had been on the receiving end.

Shaking her head, the group ran into the tree line as fast as their legs could carry them. This was not that easy since they now had a couple of reluctant prisoners, one of which who was actively trying to free himself from the two big troopers dragging him bodily, letting his feet create tracks in the ground. The Ompayan was mostly trying, but it was hard with her hands tied behind her back. Ensign Zark was trying, but having gone through the equivalent of a one sided boxing round versus male heavy weights left her panting and coughing. About three quarters of the way, she could feel the pain killer and stim start to wear off and she collided with a tree in an attempt to catch her breath. Her body wretched a few times as her head swam for moment, and the sound of her being violently ill followed. She was on her knees, hanging onto the wood, breathing putrid bile, a string of mucous stubbornly clung to her before she snorted a bloddy glob and spat it off. Wiping her mouth, someone helped her up, and she groaned as her torso and neck sent throbs of pain through her nervous system. Thus it was a relief when they reached the vehicles and she threw herself into the seat and buckled the safety harness. Zark gritted her teeth when the straps pressed against her body and she tried to steel herself one more time for the bumpy ride ahead.
29
Main OOC Board / Re: Main OOC Thread
Last post by Dree -
Wow!  I'm so sorry!  Hoping and praying that you get better quickly.  If, in the meantime, there's anything that we can do, don't hesitate to let us know.
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