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11
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.
12
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.
14
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.”
15
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.
16
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.
18
Main OOC Board / Re: Main OOC Thread
Last post by Griff -
Apologies to people waiting on me. I'm dealing with an illness that, to be frank, is kicking my arse, and makes it extremely difficult to stay on the computer for any length of time. I'm scheduled for a hospital stay in June, where the doctors will hopefully work some magic.
19
Alternate Universe Stories / Re: Star Wars: The Wanderer and the Teacher
Last post by Ellen Fitz -
[ Eny’dInraln Mirwirr “The Mureyca di Grezme” (The Kiss of Danger) | Command Bridge | Sojourner 2 ] ATTN: @Griff

It was quiet. Too quiet. Eny’dInraln Mirwirr, Eny for those she deemed close enough to drop the formalities, sat alone, contemplating finding some space debris to blow up to pass the time. Her mentor/boss/friend had opted to finally take that vacation he’d been complaining about putting off, leaving her in charge of the Sojourner 2 (named the second as a jest since there’d never been a first) until his return in three weeks. That left plenty of time to be driven mad with boredom. Or find something to blow up.

To put off the temptation to burn unnecessary fuel and send new coordinates to Khanak for when he decided to return, Eny dropped her booted feet off the console and shimmied out of the pilot’s chair. She could check on the plants in the hydroponics bay and maybe feed the fish. When she’d first come aboard about eight years prior, Eny had mistakenly named one of the more colorful and personable fish. Khanak had found it more than a little amusing at dinner one night, telling her she was eating Davin. Only after she’d eaten had Eny found it amusing as well.

Hooking her boots over the ladder rungs, Eny slid down, hands protected with black gloves. She preferred to wear a light-weight, form-fitting black suit at all times, something suitable to wear as the base layer under her armor. Even before taking up with Khanak, Eny had learned the necessity of remaining vigilant.

The Soujourner 2 echoed with a salacious drinking song as Eny went to work. She knew every bolt and joint of this ship like the back of her hand now, having helped Khanak make repairs in the middle of more than a few skirmishes and even adding on new modifications as they came available on the market, whether legit or black. The mimicked VT-49 Decimator base had been built in the shipyards orbiting Fondor. While Khanak hadn’t been able to install the two sets of quad laser cannons, he had four laser cannons, two atop the main hull and two below. He had been able to keep with two concussive missile launchers like the Empire’s official Decimator boasted. The YT-1300 Corellian light freighter modular aspect for additions and maneuverability had been manufactured in the Corellian shipyards, with the Firespray-31-class patrol craft wing shifting and hull stabilization capabilities and class 1 main hyperdrive and 0.3 back-ups installed at the Kuat shipyards. Capable of docking and carrying two smaller starfighters or shuttlecraft at the airlocks on either side of the wings, Khanak kept one heavily modified N-1 starfighter, the Saina, docked for personal use, leaving the other open for visitors. He’d taken the Saina for his vacation, destination uncertain, though he’d at least given her the frequency he’d keep open for communication.

With enough hull space to transport six full-sized Empire speeder bikes along with their drivers and supplies, steerage for six passengers aside from pilot and co-pilot, and storage for consumables last up to a month between hubs, the Sojourner 2 was a nomadic base of operations for the nefarious and do-gooder alike. It just so happened that Khanak was a bit of both, depending on the contract, and Eny was happy to go along with either aspect as well, so long as they got to end idiocy in whatever form it was manifesting. As a former Jensaarai apprentice, she was well-equipped to live happily in the borderlands between so-called good and evil.

Khanak Ris was Myr Rho, a subspecies of the noble Cathar, so while he possessed some feline aspects in his appearance (fine golden (hair covered him from head-to-toe, maintained retractable claws, and stood at 1.9 meters tall) and reflexes, he did not possess the exact drive for high morals as the Cathar. Khanak was just as passionate and quick-tempered as a Cathar and an efficient hunter and fighter, but he was rarely plagued with moral questions. He took jobs that aligned with what moral compass he did possess and ignored the rest. Having a hydroponics unit on the Sojourner 2 and a vast network of allies across the galaxy allowed Khanak to focus on jobs for the sake of jobs and not just for the sake of profit.

When they’d first met on Susevfi, the Jensaarai home planet in the Suarbi system, he’d found her feline-influenced armor “adorable.” Having never met a Jensaarai before, being among the majority in that regard, Khanak hadn’t known that such a term could be deemed offensive to a Jensaarai apprentice. Though they abhorred the Jedi and their faux perfection, they did have in common with them the development of light sabers as a part of completing their training and, like Mandalorians, the development of customized armor. Over a generic cortosis-imbued flexible frame reminiscent of ancient Sith battle armor, the armor took on the style of the animal the apprentice felt most kinship to. The chosen animals were typically not overly aggressive but were capable of fierceness when threatened, showcasing a typical Jensaarai mindset.

Eny had always felt an affinity for the sand cat common in the savannas of Susevfi, the fel’tro’ik. This was why she’d installed retractable claws into her armored gloves and boots, dual hand spears that could extend from the gauntlets, and feline-like ears atop her atmospheric breathing capable helmet with built-in macro binoculars that acted as UV and IR sensors. With the cortosis elements of the armor, an element that had
unusually high energy absorption and transmission coefficients, to the point where many energy weapon blasts dissipated along the fibers without damaging the fibers themselves, she could walk through a barrage of blaster fire for limited time periods without risking injury—unless the bastards targeted one of the weaker joint areas repeatedly.

Her preferred armament was an energy short sword and a blaster, along with multiple pouches that she kept filled with various metallic debris of numerous shapes and sizes. In the few times she’d been disarmed, the fools had left these pouches alone to their own detriment. Eny, like most Jensaarai, possessed ballistakinesis, a Force power that allowed her to accelerate objects at lethal speeds. She could also use mechu macture, a Force power that allowed her to deactivate and destroy machines through a purple stream of pure energy. With these abilities, along with Force push and thrust and an unprecedented ability to mask her presence in the Force, Eny presented herself to Khanak as the perfect partner for his growing business.

As a not-quite bounty hunter, not quite marshall for hire, he presented himself as a jack-of-all-trades problem solver, and with Eny’s Jansaarai background, he could expand the types of jobs they took and their working area. At the time, Eny had been more than keen to leave Susevfi. Years prior, her parents had been killed by the Jedi when they’d murdered the Jensaarai’s first leader, Nikkos Tyris, and her cousin, the son of the Saarai-kaar, the leader of their people, had then been cut down by Darth Vader himself, with members of the Inquisitorius coming to Susevfi soon after to destroy the remaining Jansaarai. But just as they’d masked their presence from the Jedi many years before, they did so again, and while many were lost to both attacks, a foundational number remained to build back. 

Though Eny believed in the tenants of her people, she no longer felt tethered to them. Her cousin had been the last tether keeping her there, and with his death, she’d been left adrift, no longer focused enough to finish her training to become a Jansaarai defender. Khanak’s arrival had been timely and beneficial to them both. The eight years since had been filled with more than a few near-death experiences, jobs that pushed Eny far past the reaches of her Jansaarai training. Khanak had been the one to bestow the nickname “Kiss of Danger” on her, telling her that every great entrepreneur required a moniker for further success. While Eny knew the name stemmed from the tendency for things to backfire on her, therein requiring her to use all her abilities to get out of the hole she inadvertently dug for herself, Khanak claimed no one else would. They’d think she was a sexy fighter. This had earned a heavy sigh and eye roll from the former Jansaarai apprentice.

Eny was still sipping from a portable packet of Sullustan ale when she meandered into the shared office space just below the command deck. With a wall-sized viewing glass, it was the perfect place to kick back and –

“Oh, what have we here?” Eny rose from her near attempt to sit on the plushy sofa they’d acquired on a recent job and deviated to the communications console.

It took her only a few minutes to read, deliberate, and decide. The job seemed simple enough, the location not too terribly far that Khanak would be hard-pressed to join her here if it took longer than three weeks to solve, and the reward was humble enough to tell her that the people were desperate and the idiocy level of the nefarious circumstances were high. Quickly sending off a message to the sender that The Mureyca di Grezme would arrive in less than a day to take the job, Eny then sent off another message to Khanak updating him on the job and coordinates. She was fairly skipping as she returned to the helm, no longer so bored that she felt the need to blow up space junk.
20
Episode 02: Cosmic Imperative / Re: CH 2: S [Day 01 | 1435 hrs] When Trolls Dance, Vulcans Growl
Last post by EnigmaTales -
[ Lt. JG V'lana | Sickbay Lobby  | D. 21 | V. 2 ] Attn: @Ellen Fitz  

"I think I can clear my own schedule to accommodate.", V'lana mused. She had been grabbing every shift available - yes, against the medical advise to take it easy - and didn't really have any other plans other than sit in her quarters and look at the not-very-interesting wall. Which sounded bad, but was essentially just what V'lana had always done after depleting her social batteries either in the company of friends or patients. That, and reading badly written novels.

"Those things are not bad to vent.", she grinned at the remark on the journal idea. "Just make sure no one ever finds it, or you earn yourself mandatory counselling for the next ten years. But usually, your brain is pretty good at filtering out what matters. Even chewing too loudly might be an indication of what is going on. Vulcans have a keen sense of smell and better hearing than Bajorans, so that, too, could be the cause of your headaches. I suppose I just want to exclude the minor stuff in case it's a relatively easy fix."

She closed down the console, sending a follow-up appointment to his personal calendar.

"Is there anything else I can do for you? Reasonable requests only, please. Oh, and can you recommend a counsellor? Apparently I have to meet with one, and I need someone who won't judge me for putting it off as far as I already have."

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