[dskswdyhms][HALP!] Musically Driven Muse, and other things...

[Black Aeronaut]

One of the things that I've noticed that helps me get into the proper mindset of certain characters or events is the right song to loop continuously for a while.
That said, can someone suggest appropriate theme music for my other DSKS characters?  More than one song is generally preferred for different 'moods'.  List as follows:
Lum Invader (critical need ATM)
Teletha Testarossa
Miyuki Takamachi
Kuno Kodachi
Also, music for other associated characters might be nice.
Couple other things I'm seriously considering.
One would be a practical item - shifting the time frame of my character's arrival a few months over so events line up a little more properly - such as the Cardian battle during the Cherry Blossom Festival, and my character missing the deadline for enrollment for the spring term and having to wait until summer (this gives the background movers time to set up the 'Special School' to which most of the characters will go to).
The other... well, I'm considering dropping Melon from the cast as well as all the other Akikan stuff in favor of Rocket Girls and Matsuri Morita.
Matsuri, I think, would be perfect for several reasons, but primarily she would probably be the one that keeps the girls from going at each others throats all the time.  Thing is, Matsuri's dad has something like six or seven wives (God knows how many brothers and sisters she has!) so she is perfectly at peace with the idea of sharing a man and is quick to chastise her new 'Sisters' whenever they don't work together.
Zeke meets Matsuri because the school he's at, being progressive and everything, decides that a trip to the Solomon Space Agency is just the thing to get the kids interested in technical careers.  Insanity ensues, not sure exactly what yet.  Still in development.  (^_^  Anywho, Matsuri takes a shining to him for many reasons.  Good with kids, smart, technical, but still talks to the spirits.  Oh yeah, have we mentioned how the Tariho Tribe could use a new Medicine Man? 
I'd still like to throw in characters from Chobits.  Before anyone brings up the old argument about Persocons making AMALGAM's human-scale armslaves look old-hat, hear me out.  I've been giving the idea some thought.
Chi, as before, is a prototype, the first of her kind.  Thing is, though, there's only her and a handful of others, and they are being designed by AMALGAM as a sort of 'softer side' of their human-scale armslaves.  These Persocons are not simply elaborate human-form PDAs... they also serve as Escorts and body-guards.  Yes, they are built to do some hurting.  No, they are not invincible.  Bullets can stop them, but they'll take a few more rounds than a human will.  However, the two scientist that built Chi and a few others doesn't want 'their babies' used as sex-toys/assassins/gun-fodder - especially not for wealthy despots and military dictators.
Of course, Murphy's law being what it is, their defection to MYTHRIL goes terribly wrong: one of the scientists is killed and all the Persocons wind up getting lost and falling into the hands of normal folks in the Tokyo area.  Zeke... dunno yet if he's going to be one of them.
Although it would be hilarious if it was Sousuke Sagara - with him I'm trading Aino Minako for Teletha Testarossa, and adding the Chinese Sisters trained by his nemesis.  Adding Chi will bring his harem to five people.  She'll have an interesting dynamic on the other girls because she'll be hitting their berserk-buttons by unwittingly following her 'please the master' programing... but as she's so sweet natured Kaname and Minako will have a hard time bringing themselves to even attempt to do harm... and the Sisters will have a hard time dealing with her because her defense programming is based on them!
... I think Sumomo would be perfect for Usagi.  The tiny Persocons wouldn't have that Escort package, but they would still do the whole protect and assist schtick.  Imagine cheerful, chirpy, boisterous little Sumomo... laying out caltrops and triplines and polishing her laser with that happy little smile and cheering Usagi on with her homework...  "Usagi-chan!  Fight-o! ... Intruder detected!"
Also, is there any more material featuring Miyuki Takamachi?  I've sat through Triangle Heart: Sweet Songs Forever and she's just kinda... there.  Like as if she was thrown into the story line as an afterthought (something I'd like to avoid myself - note to self: must write shorts such as Kubiak and Makoto's First Date).

[Bob Schroeck]

Okay, this is just a quick-and-dirty set of recommendations off the top of my head. 

Lum Invader (critical need ATM)

Stephan Monahan & The Terminators Of Endearment -- Teenagers from Outer Space (if you can't find it, I'll send you a copy)

Teletha Testarossa

Mike and the Mechanics -- Silent Running

Miyuki Takamachi

Sorry, I got nuthin'.

Kuno Kodachi

Fine Young Cannibals -- She Drives Me Crazy.  IIRC, your Kodachi is not so much insane as a nearly-metahuman spoiled brat, correct?  Or am I crosslinking another story?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Jorlem]

Regarding the Persocon, I seem to recall Leonard Tesstarossa having two Arm Slaves of roughly human size at the end of Second Raid.  I think he said something along the lines that it was amazing that they had been able to miniaturize the AS technology that much.  They looked like they were around seven or eight feet tall.  Would the Persocons be related to these in any way?
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

[Necratoid]

The other... well, I'm considering dropping Melon from the cast as well as all the other Akikan stuff in favor of Rocket Girls and Matsuri Morita.

Using the Wikipeadia article as a basis... I'm going to declare gibberish on that.  Seriously, Armslaves are a fact of life.  The tech level is two or four generation beyond current day... for the civies.  Adding a weak sauce Japanese space program that for no real reason can't get rocket tech equivalent to late 60's America... so somehow this five to ten tech generations behind Space Program of Japan gets apparently massive funding and manages to produce something that can't lift a single random satalite into space... then get permission to build it.  Very much an W-T-F?  Thing if I ever saw one.  Your going to have to justify a whole lot of stuff to slap into the timeline logically.
Speaking of logic... wouldn't justifying that kind of thing pretty much require a Whispered being behind it?  Which makes the weigh issue, the driving force apparently driving the Rocket Girl's back story, largely nonsensical.  Even worse if you up age them to Zeke's age.  Then comes the why don't you just use midgets questions?  You can use those for more that one or two flights as well.  they don't size or weight up by definition.  Basically, the plot behind Rocket Girls implodes if you try to mesh it into the existing story.  Either from logic failure or from gutting drama. (at least from the story as described by Wiki.)
Then we have how the rest of the cast sees this.  Zeke get a lolly stalker who is trying to be the maniger/participant in his harem.  Not seeing what this adds to the story.  Rei and Lum are creeped out... Sailor Scouts combined attack: Tease Bombardment.  Lum is likely to get creeped out and look for a way to remove her.  Granted more likely to if she shows up first year than second.
Then you have to realise how easily the Rocket Girls' back story is warped by perception or maybe truth.  Lets try adding in the RG canon as is:  See there is this corporation and it wants to make a Japanese Space Program.  Only their strangely bad at it.  So bad they decide that rather than asking for help from Japan's ally that has their own space program going on for 40 or 50 years now... they are going to do it from scratch.  Somehow despite drawing up plans that fail be able to send up a single satalight, due to ridiculous (for a viable product) levels of inability to carry mass of any substancal level, it gets funding.  Which is drying up do to the massive singularity of fail this project generates.
Rather than fixing this on the drawing board they instead decide build it and 'solve' problem by using 12 year old girls... which again due to being a bad design require paper thin skin tight fetish gear as uniforms.  Then they do embarassing apparently medical exams, likely filmed and archived for historical purposes, and train them to be in their death trap.  That they will likely outgrow the weight restrictions in one to three flights is made irrelivant as they apparently aren't destined to have enough fuel to get back in the first place.
So now lets stick the canon into the most likely spot in the current back [dskswdyhms] story as is.  I mean the logical entry point from Wiki is Lum and Zeke decide the tragedy in progress on TV (bad press is better than no press at all, and it can be played up for funding to do better next time) is made of stupid and go pick up the girls in space at the end of their series.  Again, drama kill leading to Lolly stalker for Zeke.
Now less assume Golden Darkness makes it into the story... she hears and explaination of how some coroporation did experiments, illogical, unethical, probably illegal experiments that resulted in the under aged girls in fetish gear in what is effectively a stuff film/reality TV show (apparently unintentionally one but still)... only unlike her the girls are the snuffies instead of the snuffers...
So then the screaming begins.
I repeat that I haven't seen the series... but from the Wiki I can't figure out how any of it meshes into the [dskswdyhms] verse.  With Akikan you have one of Amalgams leaders old college wingman turning out to be Whispered... one that works for the Japanese government and is tasked with an inane task of deciding if steel or aluminum cans should be the standard.  Something he accomplishes with style.  Deranged style, but style.  Add in a few cameras and he actually makes the country money solving said inane issue.  That this involves Whispered and an unusual application of magic  makes it mesh into things well.
In short... ignoring the characters... how the hell does Rocket Girls actually logically work into this story?
For Chobits it won't hit until Second Raid does... and I don't see a conflict.
Edit: Just for the record, a cross between say GateKeepers and RG would work.   This mix will be either Golden Darkness offing most of RG's cast and their funders or making the story of RG completely rewritten.

[Black Aeronaut]

Thanks for the suggestions, Bob.

As for Kodachi, spoiled - yes. Meta... not quite so much. She's talented as a martial artist in her own right, but in fights where she and Miyuki were to go at it Miyuki would come out on top, easily. Kodachi's specialty is simply being her conniving, backstabbing self - all part-and-parcel with her being raised as a Yakuza Princess as was discussed in an earlier thread. She adds an interesting dynamic because she'll use ruthless strong-arm tactics that the others may be reluctant to use. And she has to be kept around because she's a compromise between several Yakuza families to keep them all from going to war.

(As you may recall, the idea goes that Rei's father asked of his Yakuza contacts that Zeke be taken care of because he doesn't like the idea of Zeke and Rei dating - bad for his image among the hardliners in the Diet. Zeke is a friend of Sousuke and when Sousuke gets mixed up in the mess as well, his friends among the Yakuza are not pleased and a Yakuza war nearly breaks out. Principal Kuno, secretely a Yakuza using Nerima as a recruiting ground, offers a compromise: his daughter, Kodachi, will try to woo the boy away from Rei and everyone else will cease hostilities.)

Jorlem: Yes in the sense that the AI tech and internal structure is derived from these armslaves. The miniature armslaves, however, are still far more powerful and quicker than a human, plus they have the advantage of being fully armored and carry heavy caliber weapons. A Persocon, however, would serve a much different purpose - robotic bodyguards hidden in plain sight. Bonus for being attractive and... anatomically correct. The tiny versions like Sumomo would have a much simpler AI - nowhere near the likes of Chi who would have creative thinking and problem solving abilities. Sumomo would be purely reactive while Chi is proactive. Plus Sumomo and her like would be strictly assistants with a side interest in protecting their master. Chi would be a bodyguard first, an assistant second, and a bed-mate last.

Necratoid, armslave tech does not translate into rocket science. Think about it for a second. The primary goal of the SSA is to provide a cheap alternative to other space agencies for lifting repair crews to service satellites in orbit. The price-point is that lifting a crew to service said satellites and extend their lifetimes by doing so is cheaper than buying new satellites to constantly replace the ones that break down.

And there is nothing weak-sauce about being able to lift personnel into orbit. At this time there are only two nations in the world that does that and it is the USA and the Russian Federation.

As for the reason why they use older tech with new spins... why not? The primary differences are in the materials used for construction: lighter weight, stronger, and less expensive. This can be derived from armslave tech. Some of the chemistry can be as well... Their head chemist, Mihara, is loopy enough to be a whispered for certain. And while a lot of their 'advancements' are still considered quite feasible by the Real World, you don't exactly see evidence of it in FMP. Things like the skin-tight space suits, for example. (The nearest equivalent I can think of in any mecha-anime would be the plugsuits from NGE.) Really, nothing in FMP translates into advancements for space exploration, unless your talking about militarization. Hell, even the reactors used in more advanced armslaves would only be useful for long-term space flights, such as trips to the Outer System.

One final clue to the puzzle, and possible the final nail in the coffin: the Tuatha de Dannan uses Harpoon missiles as their primary anti-ship missile. This missile has been around for decades! So why not use some snazzy new super-missile? Possibly because the Harpoon is reliable and cost effective - the two biggest things to worry about when man-lifting. I wouldn't put it past MYTHRIL to be working on some newer model missile system, but until they actually put it to use in the field...

So, anyhow... the SSA wants cheap, reliable, and lightweight orbiters. Computers and radio equipment could be made smaller using Whisper-Tech... but there is the question of its reliability. Plus, does an upstart private sector space agency even have access to a Whispered? Mihara would be a fluke that got under the radar, and her specialty is chemistry - the SSA would have to have special connections to get more than one Whispered.

So, instead they go with older tech that is very reliable. Sure, it means some of it is quite heavy - we still use vacuum tubes here on my ship because transistors simply cannot handle the kind of power the radio equipment demands. And even if you had some kind of Whisper-Tech transistors that could, I bet they'd still be a bit on the bulky side, if only to handle the kind of wattage the transceivers need. Oh, and these vacuum tubes? Even in the rough conditions we deal with out here in the open sea, they'll last about four years handling loads in the neighborhood of a thousand watts. That's the kind of reliability you want when dealing with man-lifting.

Now, we can work with the idea that the SSA does have some long-term goals in mind for cheap man-lifting such as linear-rail launch systems, more compact computers and radio equipment, and other goodies... but these would be items that come as their company and their pilots grow up together. Especially if MYTHRIL contracts out to them for their lifting purposes. (After all, those high-end toys of theirs are expensive. It's nice to be able to use a cheap solution here and there to save some money.)

As for the girls... C'mon, man. We'll have them intersect with the story line when the girls are sixteen - same age as Zeke and the others. By then we can say that the orbiters have gotten lighter, but the girls have unavoidably gotten heavier as they've grown, and the SSA, already past their initial growing pains, are looking into other lifting options such as linear rail tech.
And BTW: you really need to see this series.  The seeming foibles aside, it has it's moments of awesome and its moments of Awwwwww.  (Mild Spoiler: Such as the one with the flight director spilling his guts about how he wanted to becomes an astronaut after seeing the Moon Landings, but found that he couldn't due to a heart condition, and telling Yukari and Matsuri that they should let others hopes and dreams be what carries them when their own are not enough.)

[Jorlem]

You probably already know this, but just as a heads up, I think you might be crossing into Loads and Loads of Characters territory. I'm starting to get a bit worried that when I read this, I won't be able to keep track of everything that will be going on. I've seen fanfictions get dragged under by the sheer number of crossovers involved, and I can't help but think that you might be getting near a sort of critical mass.
I hope you don't take this the wrong way. I'm looking forward to reading more of this, and I don't want to see it implode.
-----
Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

[Black Aeronaut]

Someone mentioned that a while back. I'll probably need to keep charts, but I'll do my best.

[Black Aeronaut]

Quick! Anyone here Jump-qualified? I need those last-minute directives the jump-masters give to the n00bs right before their first jump.
PS: This tidbit is the last thing I need for Chapter 6 before it's ready to go.

[paladindythe]

I'm not jump qualified, but we used it as a running cadence.
Hm.  Right before the jump?
I know the steps: stand, hook up the static line, shuffle to the door (you're pretty loaded with gear), and whee!
So, the commands are something like STAND! HOOK UP! JUMP!
Someone who's actually been to jump (airborne) schoolmay wanna correct me on that.
A bit of searching:
Jump!
a ha! HERE!

[Black Aeronaut]

I'll have to check those Youtube links later - we don't have the bandwidth to support them out here at sea. Fortunately, I won't have to wait too long...

[Necratoid]

And there is nothing weak-sauce about being able to lift personnel into orbit. At this time there are only two nations in the world that does that and it is the USA and the Russian Federation.

You have failed to convince me.  Your in gibberish mode again... that coffin your putting nails in is your hand.  Your setting this in a universe with alien expletives everywhere who have been in space for centuries if not millennium.  Once they hear about a planet that will gladly buy up their entire stocks of lemon space ships... ones that can't get much farther than local planetary orbit.. stuff people won't buy for there stupid kids driving lessons... Used Space ship salesmen will descend in freighters like a biblical plague of locusts.  Then move into their brand new, custom made islands off Saudi Arabia and live in luxury forever and ever.

The company in Rocket Girls is apparently canonically failing... because they can't pull off their mission of 'upgrading' '60s rocket tech and in fact make it less useful than the original while working from a higher tech base.  It goes so horribly wrong they force through a deranged program.. that eventually probably kills off all their off sight personal, as part of a publicity stunt to get more funding.  So yeah... how does this work in this fic when they try to either get funding for near worthless tech with competitors popping up with functional self launching, slef landing, orbital craft... or try to take a proven failure company and bring it up to speed with competent people just starting out.

Also this story contains Zeke.  Zeke will risk his life on a dime, without thinking over it twice... literally because its the right thing to do.  What do you think his reaction to a classmate or five explaining they were/are part of a company's program to force train little girls so they can be astronauts for a private company... do to tech issues.  They have to go through some of the harshest training in the existence of mankind... at an accelerated pace.  starting before puberty (or the pace is even more crushing)... AND possibly become master engineers so they can do the most hazardous noncombat job available to mankind... Space Walks.  They'll be human Guinea pigs for the effects of zero G life on barely pubescent girls... for a job that lasts until they hit a growth spurt and weight a few ounces too much.  This is a recipee to make kids that burn out at reentry level... in ways that make child actors look good.

Again... how do these series mesh without thrashing the tone of the story and going all dark fic?  Zeke will find out eventually and he will tell his dad.  This can only end in blood or lawyer descending like rain?  Raven will make this happen on principle.

[Black Aeronaut]

... You have only read a wikipedia article and you are claiming all-knowing knowledge. And that aside, you have yet to see me put forth any of the material. I'm actually holding off on writing these parts until I get my hands on the book.

You haven't even seen what I got in mind yet.  Let's just say the Oni don't like seedy characters hanging around worlds they take a shine to, especially when they're trying to conduct good business.  After all, how do you expect to attract high-rollers when there's a bunch of fucking Pintos in your parking lot?  Meanwhile, the original-Earth craft would be looked at as something quaint... like the native islanders coming out in their canoes to greet the sailors on the steam ship.  But soon those natives will start upgrading.  First those canoes are gonna get little outboard motors to help them motor from one island to the next. 

That aside, you think Zeke's gonna wig out over the Rocket Girls?

Tell me, do you know about the first woman to go into space? Yes, she was Russian... but you know what the surprising thing about her is? The Russians made it a point to tell people that she used to be a factory worker with no special education whatsoever, except as an amateur parachutist. This was Real Life, not some animated fantasy.

With that in mind, it's not too much of a stretch to me that a fourteen year old girl (BTW: she's one helluva late bloomer if she hasn't hit puberty by fourteen) could become an astronaut. Hell, even better if they start training at an early age. It's easier for someone to get into shape and stay that way as a teenager than it is when they're twenty-five or thirty. And that aside, astronaut training's got nothing on what kids put themselves through these days. Haven't you heard the latest freakouts over repetitive motion injuries in children that play sports? And children can handle stress better than adults if they're trained in how to deal with it - they adapt more quickly, after all.

Finally, Zeke's in no position to say that kids shouldn't be getting into life-threatening situations. What do you think he did on some of those summers he spent with his Grandfather? Sure as hell didn't just sit around the camp fire, that's for sure. Go around and ask anyone that grew up on the Reservation about what they did when they were kids. Betcha some of the answers you'll get are gonna make your jaw drop. Hell, my own mother used to go looking for horned toads, praying mantises, and scorpions (!!) in her back yard when she was a kid... and this was in the middle of San Antonio!

As for dark-fic... yeah, some aspects are gonna get kinda grim-dark. It'll be unavoidable, especially once some of the big-bads start to realize that some of them have overlapping goals. But it's not gonna be Warhammer40k Dark. More like Diane Duane's Young Wizards Light vs. Dark.

We live in a world that is dark fic. Right now there are thousands of child soldiers in places like Africa and Burma. Do you think it's going to be any better in a universe where China had a civil war and is now divided into two countries, similar to Korea?  In this universe, fourteen year-old girls as astronauts is gonna seem tame, if not enlightened.

Once again, you need to see the series yourself instead of just going by wiki article. Most of the time the girls are the ones calling the shots on the big risks. Yukari demanded that they launch after a series of postponed launches despite a glitch detected in the rocket. After a perfect disaster where the capsule first goes off-course and then gets nailed by space debris, Matsuri makes the call to ditch all her electronic and radio gear from her capsule so she can rescue Yukari, and takes Yukari at 10-G across her midsection. Brilliant little Shinobu blacks-out for every launch and re-entry, but she's always game for more (Yukari or Matsuri are always driving anyways).

Zeke won't fault them. In fact, he'll commend them. The world needs more brave people, after all.

[robkelk]

What do you think his reaction to a classmate or five explaining they were/are part of a company's program to force train little girls so they can be astronauts for a private company...

I thought BA was going to cross over with Rocket Girls, not whatever-the-heck story you're talking about. SSA has an all-volunteer astronaut team.

Again... how do these series mesh without thrashing the tone of the story and going all dark fic?  Zeke will find out eventually and he will tell his dad.  This can only end in blood or lawyer descending like rain?

Or Zeke's dad might say "SSA? That company that was all over the news around the world a couple of years ago when they launched teenaged astronauts? I hope you aren't planning on signing up to become one, but go ahead and visit their launch facility."

Really, go read http://www.rightstuf.com/cgi-bin/catalo ... 6630/4/0/0]the first book or watch http://www.rightstuf.com/cgi-bin/catalo ... 1279/4/0/0]the anime. (The translation of http://www.rightstuf.com/cgi-bin/catalo ... 8710/4/0/0]the second book won't be out until March.) This story meshes with DSKSWDYHMS "without thrashing the tone of the story and going all dark fic" quite easily - he'll have a more difficult job with meshing Triangle Heart / Lyrical Nanoha and keeping the story bright than he will with Rocket Girls.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Black Aeronaut]

he'll have a more difficult job with meshing Triangle Heart / Lyrical Nanoha and keeping the story bright than he will with Rocket Girls.

I'm actually gonna have a bit of fun with that.  The villains from Triangle Heart are about as badly screwed up in the head as Gauron and Gates are in FMP... well, maybe not quite, but close enough for government work.  With deviants like that in AMALGAM it makes me wonder what exactly the goals of the upper echelon are.
At any rate, Zeke and company can go completely all-out on whack-jobs like these and not feel terribly guilty about it.  (Zeke takes the same POV as Bob's character, Douglas Sagnoir, on the matter: mad dogs need to be put down, no matter how much pity you may feel for them because of their circumstances.)  I'm debating on whether or not to tragically kill off a character somewhere - not one of the mains, but someone close enough to hurt the others.  Don't worry, it won't be happening anytime soon.
That aside, dealing with the nastier villians will be as dark as it gets.

[Bob Schroeck]

(BTW: she's one helluva late bloomer if she hasn't hit puberty by fourteen)

She doesn't have to be a late bloomer nor does she not have to have hit puberty yet. One of my best friends in college, and my roommate for a year after college, was an exquisitely tiny, lovely girl of Italian descent named Gabriela who has looked no older than 13 or 14 in all the decades I've known her. Her first job out of college was as a schoolteacher, and the kids wouldn't believe she was a teacher. When she joined Peggy and me on a trip to Disneyworld in 1996 -- when she was thirty-four -- she got carded when she ordered alcohol in a restaurant. And not just, "look at the ID, okay you can drink" carded -- she got the manager coming out and staring at her license and at her, trying to figure out if it were a fake. She was (and still is) about 5' even and about 80 pounds -- and the only hint these days that she's not still in her teens is that she's ever so slightly going grey.

Now according to the book, Yukari is 154 cm (a hair over 5'1") and 37 kg (81.4 lbs), which is almost exactly the same size as Gabriela. Text in the book (along with the cover illustration, which is of course less trustworthy, but hey) make it clear that she's definitely pubescent, so it's a non-issue.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Proginoskes]

I think you've got a typo, Bob. I'm having a little trouble believing your friend is five inches tall.
EDIT: Note to self: point out errors in PMs in future.

[Bob Schroeck]

Fixed.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[paladindythe]

[b][b][b]blackaeronaut[/b][/b] wrote:[/b]

---

I'll have to check those Youtube links later - we don't have the bandwidth to support them out here at sea. Fortunately, I won't have to wait too long...

Aww man. You may wanna reference those vids, but here's the (official, by the book) commands:
Jump Master: Get Ready!
Jumpers: Get Ready!
Jump Master: Inboard personnel, Stand Up!
Jumpers: Inboard personnel, Stand UP!

Jump Master: Hook Up!

Jump Master: Check Static Lines!
Jumpers: Check Static Lines!

Jump Master: Check Equiment!
Jumpers: Check Equipment!

Jump Master: Sound Off for Equipment Check!
Jumpers: Sound Off for Equipment Check!

Jump Master: Standby!

Jump Master: GO!
 
Keep in mind, the above is the formal Airborne School version. If Zeke is jumping by himself without brass around, it's probably be the same steps with less formality. Also, jumpers have some practice practicing the various parts of the process--Airborne School is 3 weeks long--and *someone* is going to have to give Zeke a crash course.
The most important part is when the jumper is on his own. The landing is pretty hard (rather like jumping off a 3 story building), so you need to land in a certain way to not injure yourself. Feet (with knees together and bent), Calf, Thigh, Buttock, Shoulder: that's the "Points of Contact" for landing from a jump. As soon as your feet touch the ground, you roll with the landing onto your shoulder to absorb the impact. (Incendetally, this has led to the creation of Army sayings like "Get your head out of your Forth Point of Contact!" )
Chris

[Black Aeronaut]

Thanks so much, Paladin! And we're in port now so I was able to see the videos. Pretty much just what I needed, and being in the military myself I can pretty much guess how an informal jump for a first-timer would go. Hell, they'd probably make him honorary Airborne after that! (^_^)