The Last House of Eros Newsletter

April 04, 2017, 03:39:15 PM

Here is the last newsletter sent out on House of Eros, for your reference:

... INCOMING TRANSMISSION ...

Greetings Theurgists!

Well, the time is here. After almost six years of hosting on House of Eros, we now have our own site to continue the story on.

After some complications two weeks ago with the SQL file in the first attempt to port all our writing to uss-theurgy.com/forum, this weekend, Eros and I were successful. We owe it all to Eros, frankly, that the transfer was so complete. He is a real wizard when it comes to these things, whereas it was over ten years ago I delved into the intricate difficulties of databases. This past month of building the new site has let me brush up on a lot of old programming knowledge, but it's Eros we should thank for preserving all the old content as thoroughly as he did.

Before we get into the details about the new board, let's talk about the story.

STORY DEVELOPMENT IN COST OF TRUTH

The development in Cost of Truth has been up for a while now, and most of you have likely already read what happened when the Simulcast was sent. It should be plain how screwed over the Theurgy crew was by Jona, but since we have a lot of new members, I got word that some of you felt lost because you didn't have enough knowledge about the history of the ship and the characters involved. So, I decided to write you all a brief synopsis that should help getting everyone on the same page about what is going on, and just exactly how screwed over the crew really is. I have divided the synopsis in a couple of subjects.

Edena Rez

While you can look up Edena Rez on our wiki, she was a Trill who had a defect joining, making her former hosts incorporeal 'ghosts' around her. Figures that only she can see, and yet they can possess her body too. Edena Rez is actually a kind of Zhian'tara collective of four people, one of them being the owner of the current host's body. Their names were Edena Rez (formerly Lal) Illya Rez (a grifter) Kiya Rez (a doctor) and Jona Rez (a former Commander in Starfleet Intelligence). Edena Rez was in Starfleet Intelligence too, on the virtue of inheriting Jona's symbiont and carrying on his work. Edena was not Jona, however, and she had come to oppose the Jona host and become loyal to Ives.

This came to its head when Jona decided to take over Edena's body and betray Captain Ives in Episode 03. In the aftermath, this caused her to resign from her XO position and step down from active service on the ship, simply out of fear that Jona might use her body to try and do something even worse.

In Cost of Truth, Jona did take over Edena's body again, and as to how he could do that, you can read about it in the brand new Epilogue of Interregnum 03-04.

The Implications

Jona Rez's motivations in Cost of Truth does hold some merit, despite his callous regard for the Theurgy crew. He had quite an interesting argument, didn't he? Not only did I mean to make the false Simulcast that Jona compiled (where the false holo-image of Ives denounced the Federation on the basis of the fascist way the policy of the Prime Directive was used) compelling and believable in its own right, Nolan and I also wanted Jona's true argument as to why he erased the real Simulcast and all the personal messages from the crew valid in its own right. For just as much as one might agree with Ives' sentiment to fight the usurpers, fearing Jona's methods of spy-whispers will run the risk of being silenced, Jona actually thinks Ives' method of smoking the enemy out into the open will run the risk of civil war, where distrust to Starfleet officers would shatter the fleet. Which is, actually, quite a plausible risk. As to whether or not civilian lives might be at risk too, that might be speculation, but a risk nonetheless.

Oh, and as for that shirtless, false Simulcast transmission, the Theurgy might actually gain help from allies who share the sentiment that the Federation is a fascist regime and must change the policy of the Prime Directive. Which... would be quite funny if the Theurgy is approached by such potential allies.

Them: "But the Prime Directive is baaad!"

Ives: "No, no, the PD is awesome, but you see, there are these aliens..."

Them: "But... but..."

Jokes aside, the idea here is to drive a wedge down the middle and split the Theurgy's crew into two camps before the Interregnum. One camp who oppose Ives' method and want to protect their families back home from a potential civil war, and the other camp which believes Ives has to get the word out about the usurpers regardless the cost. It is, essentially, the Cost of Truth that gave name to the current chapter.

Sufficed to say, I think we will have plently of fodder for the Interregnum, where anything can happen! Imagine what stories we can weave and scenes we can write with that kind of social climate aboard the ship!

2) The Phoenix Project & Sarresh Morali

As for the Cult of Morali (unofficial name, they have not claimed a name just yet), there is some stuff to know here too.

Sarresh Morali used to be an Ash'reem, and he was also a Temporal Operative on the USS Relativity, a timeship from the 29^th century that came to the Theurgy's rescue at the end of the Niga Incident (Episode 01). Since the Theurgy ran the risk of falling victim to more temporal incursions like the Niga trap was, Sarresh Morali volunteered to stay on the Theurgy. Doing so, however, ran the risk of causing too much damage to the timeline, with all the knowledge of the time-stream Sarresh possessed. So, he underwent MEM treatment - Memory Engram Manipulation - where his knowledge was stowed away in his mind. But, ahem, he is a bit grumpy about being on the Theurgy, because the MEM treatment caused him to forget he volunteered, lol. He still believe Ives forced Captain Duane on the Relativity to leave him behind. Right, Brutus? *smiles*

There is a trigger built into Sarresh's MEM treatment, however, a device that detects when there is a temporal breach within the device's sensor radius. At which point, when such a breach is made, all his dormant knowledge floods back into his mind, enabling him to prevent or answer the threat to the best of his abilities. Like... Did you see the TV-series named Chuck? Where they were in some Wal Mart and the protagonist was some sort of super agent unbeknownst to himself? He had a similar trigger, making all his super agent know-how flood into his mind. Morali has these seizures when a temporal breach is made, so he could be a key factor to the success of the Theurgy's mission.

Anyway, as I said from the start, Sarresh used to be Ash'reem, but on Theta Eridani IV, the volcanic ash from the tetonic eruptions during the dramatic finale caused the thermal pools in the valley to become acidic. His Ash'reem mate - Amikris Neotin - was dying on a piece of driftwood out on that acidic lake, and while Ives tried to talk him out of it, Sarresh waded out to her anyway, getting submerged in acid. Ash'reem being a frog-like people, their skin moist and hydrating themselves with both skin and hair, it was quite catastrophic for Sarresh. He was barely beamed out in time to save what was left of him. Captain Ives was with him, and he ordered Nicander to try and save him to the best of his ability, since they needed Sarresh's mind for the mission - to detect the next temporal breach the enemy might spring on them.

Fortunately - as grim as the prospects looked at first - Dyan Cardamone stepped forth, revealing her Asurian nature after having posed as a human on the USS Harbinger. Being an infiltrator, she still chose to help Morali, if nothing else earning credit to her species by letting Nicander tap her Velsren sac of regenerative 'blank cells'. A Velsren sac allow Asurians to regenerate, and its a quite potent ability too. Therefore, the Phoenix Project was underway, where Sarresh would 'rise' from his chemically burned shell. The problem was that the Ash'reem had too difficult DNA to regenerate for the Velsren sac. So, sparing you all a long but quite interesting scientific validation involving the Aquatic Ape theory, Morali's DNA had to be re-sequenced into Human DNA for the Velsren sac treatment to work, which Dr. Nicander did with the help from Eve Jenkins and Amelya Duv. Once Morali's DNA had been re-sequenced, the blank cells of the Velsren Sac was able to regenerate Morali into a human. The only thing too foreign for the treatment to fix was Morali's Ash'reem eyes, which had to be replaced by ocular implants (implants taken from a dead medical officer from the Harbinger, hence Morali's knack for detecting health issues etc.) Now, he basically have medical tricorder eyes, even if he is no doctor by any means at all.

So, you all can imagine that with that kind of resurrection, his abilities to respond to temporal breaches, the tragic loss of his mate, his self-sacrifice in trying to save her against all odds, plus how he was one of those who helped saving the ship during the mutiny in Ep03 after he turned human, Sarresh Morali has been put on a pedestal of hope for some of the crew that might need a figure of faith after all they have been through. A kind of messiah figure. Hence, the cult movement, and why the security guard on the bridge did what he did.

So...

..I hope this information will help explain what just happened on the Theurgy's bridge, and that you all see the potential for the Interregnum, where we might have another mutiny on our hands... I suppose if depends on whether or not the Rez symbiont survives and can be put into a new Trill host. Not just in regard of the Rez sympathisers we might have, but because Jona Rez might still live on in some fashion, and divulge whom his secret contacts are. Remember? I am talking about the only ones that can decipher the message Jona embedded in the false Simulcast, where he told them alone about the alien usurpers. As it currently stands, Jona did give up one of the names.

Elim Garak, the Cardassian ambassador on Earth.

NEW FORUM INFORMATION

By now, you all should have gotten your new login details via PM, so make sure to head over there, log in, change your password, and your email address so that you can get notifications. You can also spend some changing your Custom Title field and your signature.

Some of you have already visited the new site, and you might have noticed a couple of things that I will address now. But first of all, I would love if you all could visit these threads on the new forum and click "NOTIFY" in the top right corner. That way, you will be notified when new posts come up in those threads:

A) https://uss-theurgy.com/forum/index.php/board,1.0.html
B) https://uss-theurgy.com/forum/index.php/topic,1002.0.html
C) https://uss-theurgy.com/forum/index.php/topic,1201.0.html
D) https://uss-theurgy.com/forum/index.php/topic,1202.0.html
E) All the threads you are writing in on the board Interregnum 03-04 (https://uss-theurgy.com/forum/index.php/board,8.0.html)

Oh, unless you have done so already, please report in that you made the transfer in the "Welcome!" thread.

You might have noticed how Esyel's posts appear to be posted in my name in the OOC thread and on the Director's Cut board, and the reason is simple. I had to create dummy accounts for all of you in order to associate all your old posts to you. Before I imported the file Eros generated for us, he needed lists with names and IDs for users and boards in order to preserve that Post ID and User ID association. In Esyel's cae, I sent this information to Eros before she joined, and the fail-safe Eros and I agreed upon was that if some non-member post (without a listed User ID) appeared in the script, those posts would be associated to my ID. So, since Eros did not have Esyel's new user ID, her posts up until today ended up in my name. To rectify that oversight would take a lot of time and it could constitute a risk to unravel the script we've imported, so Esyel kindly agreed to have the old posts remain as they are.

You might also notice another member present by the name John74. He is a friend of mine that have been crucial in making the site look as good as it does. All the times when my programming expertise have failed me, he has stepped in and solved matters for me. John74 has no interest in the story or anything Star Trek related, only present to help me when I need him for site maintenance. That is awesome since it frees up time for me to write instead. So, since John74 is only on the site to help me whenever there are any complications, you can just consider him a sleeping webmaster that won't engage with the group at all. If he feels so inclined to post in the discussion boards, I would be surprised, but he is most welcome to do so. He won't, however, participate in polls or the story, lol.

In-between writing, programming and waiting for John74 to help me out with issues, I have been able to create a couple of new animated avatars, and I uploaded them to a few user accounts. It was a low priority task I'd set for myself, and the result is that not all of you got those. Of course I will make any such avatars you want me to, so just let me know and I will send them to you as soon as I can. Remember also that the use of avatars is not at all regulated, and you may use whatever avatars you want. No one needs to use those I've made.

As for the new forum itself, I am eager to hear what everyone thinks of it! I have vested a lot of time into it, but that doesn't mean I don't want constructive criticism.

Here are a few issues with the site as of the current date, which I am still working on.

1) Skype. There should be a skype profile field for you all to enter your username into, but as you might have noticed, Skype information is not seen on the member list. The reason is that when I built the forum, I saw how my own Skype name was viewable even when I was not logged into the site, meaning that anyone could see that info. I thought it was just a setting on the forum that would make it so that neither guests not Applicants (a member group which I created for those who have yet to complete the joining process) could see the info, but there wasn't any such setting. Available, however, was the setting that only Admin could see Skype information, but neither guests nor regular members. Thankfully, Elkarte staff (the people who developed the forum platform) have granted me tailor-made solutions over the course of the past month, being really cool and helping me out, so they might solve this too for us. So, for short, I have made it perfectly safe to submit your Skype details, and eventually, I will make sure access is restricted to approved members and not just for Admin. Entering your Skype info is, of course, completely optional.

2) Mobile devices. I am not too keen on the layout for the cellphone view of the forum. Like Brutus just mentioned in the Main OOC thread, the results can be a bit skewed, colours not coming out right. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the results either, just wonky overall. Therefore, until I have had Elkarte staff agree to completely disable the mobile view of our forum, making all devices only show the desktop version of it, I recommend you switch to Desktop view when accessing the forum on your cellphones. It might be Elkarte staff or John74 is able to fix the mobile view too, so we'll see how it turns out. For now, just select the desktop view until further notice. You can switch to it in your phone's setting easily enough.

3) Drop-down menu. That cool drop-down menu below the logo took a lot of time to make, and that's because the add-on I used was glitchy as hell. I think I have remade it three times by now. One thing I could not do, was to make the Forum button have a drop-down menu too, showing the different boards. Reason unknown. The forum button must be coded differently in some way. So, you will simply have to click the Forum button and navigate the old fashion way. Elkarte staff or John74 might be able to fix this, but it runs the risk of me having to create all the buttons and enter all the links a fourth time, so I am not too keen on messing with that code for the time being.

By the time this newsletter is out, I am working on fixing the mobile device view first, and Even Angels Cry pointed out in the new OOC thread how you can turn your phone sideways to get a better view of the site. That could be a great temporal remedy for the issue, so thanks for that!

Regardless of these few issues, I hope you all like how far along the site is already.

STORY OVERVIEW

Because of the move to the new site, I won't be listing all the threads in the Interregnum or Episode 04: Simulcast, since the old list only have House of Eros links. I will instead just list the threads that are unfinished this time around, and who should be posting next in them. It would take too much time to collect all the new hyperlinks, so I hope the essential threads will do this time around.

Here it is!

INTERREGNUM 03-04

DAY 03: Upgrades [0805 hrs.] Next Poster: ch'Xinya
DAY 05: Creature Comforts [0930 hrs.] Next Poster: CanadianVet
DAY 05: Alligator Shoes [1300 hrs] Next Poster: Kaligos
DAY 05: Alien Therapy [1400 hrs.] Next Poster: The Counselor & Doc M. (joint-post)
DAY 05: Changing Ways [1500 hrs.] Next Poster: Kaligos
DAY 06: Visitations [1600 hrs.] Next Poster: 1) ch'Xinya 2) CanadianVet 3) Auctor Lucan
DAY 06: Good Old Times [2100 hrs.] Next Poster: 1) Arista 2) Auctor Lucan 3) Brutus
DAY 06: A Special Request [2245 hrs.] Next Poster: 1) The Counselor 2) DocReno 3) Nolan
DAY 06: Inner Space Next Poster: [glow=red,2,300]Everyone who hasn't posted yet![/glow]

EPISODE 04: SIMULCAST

CHAPTER 06: No Cosmic Justice
- Boarding Team 01: Finished!
- Boarding Team 02: Komial + Thea + O'Connell JP (Doc M. is next)
- Boarding Team 03: Sel + Marquez + Henshaw + Hawthorne/Ida/Drauc/Zaraq (Striker N7 is next, the Nolan)
- Wolves Defending Vector 02 & 03: Covington and Rawley JP (Auctor Lucan sends starter)
- USS Allegiant: Finished!

CHAPTER 07: Cost of Truth
- Vector 01 of the Theurgy | Main Bridge: Posting order on this bridge scene: 1) Carrigan Trent / Wenn Cinn & Ravenholm JP(do not wait for the other, just post and adjust depending on who posts first if needed) 2) Captain Ives (and all present from the Resolve independently) 3) Sarresh Morali + Stark. 4) Miles Renard (and all fighter elements + the Allegiant can post after this, independently) 5) Derik Veradin, going to warp. 6) Any loose ends.
- Vector 01 of the Theurgy | Battle Sickbay: Liam Herrold (last post in the scene)
- Vector 02 of the Theurgy | Isolation Ward 02: 1) Hylota (+Vinata in ER/ICU) 2) Maal 3) The Counselor
- Vector 02 of the Theurgy | Temporal Observatory Lab: Nicander + McMillan Joint-Post (Auctor Lucan sends starter)
- Vector 03 of the Theurgy | Main Engineering: 1) Duv 2) Rihen Neyah + Thea (responding to MasterRat)
- Starbase 84 | EOC Command Center: 1) ThanIda zh'Wann (after No Cosmic Justice JP is up) + Hawthorne 2) Captain Kendrick 3) Striker & Sel, depending on development.

DIRECTOR'S CUT

Deleted Scene: Supply Run, Interrupted Next Poster: Auctor Lucan
Deleted Scene: Recovery at Starfleet Medical Next Poster: Auctor Lucan

There we go! I will be sending out individual posting notices too, all in friendly spirit and not meant to nag at you all.

FAREWELL TO EROS, AND OUR GRATITUDE FOR EVERYTHING

As I have said before, without the House of Eros, our sim would never have gained traction and become what it is today. We owe it to Eros for hosting our still growing community, and I will remain on the Eros staff even if we move Star Trek: Theurgy to its own site. But more than Eros hosting us, he was so considerate in understanding the need to move to our own forum, and by helping us - despite his limited time - to compile the SQL file that allowed me to import our writing to the new site.

Now, our story will continue at uss-theurgy.com, wherever it might lead our crew...

I will see you all there!

Best Regards,

Auctor Lucan
Game Moderator