[Meta] RFC: Aliens! Let's eat 'em!

[classicdrogn]

WRT the aliens who left the bouy that the Miranda found/will find Dec 12 2012, I've had a few thoughts:
A: Two years of travel time back is a long, long way for story purposes, but the Miranda has been following a loose spiral out - it's entirely possible, even probablethat they have in fact circled around behind the aliens' home system, and will pass near/through it on the way back. I personally vote that they don't actually make first contact, or at most do so with some barely-established colonial group rather than any central body, but I'm very open to suggestions on this - my main plot involving them is the ship's holographic navigation and recreation computer AI, actually.
B: How alien are they? Judging by the audio clip played in the 12/12/2012 thread spamfic/scene, they're at least mentally similar enough to be comprehensible once the language barrier is overcome, and use speech and/or song to communicate, but that leaves a LOT of territory. My concept to start discussion is along the lines of cephalopodian/arthropodian, a squid with a hard "helmet" and (2-4) exoskeletal legs plus two more arms, ending in cartilage-skeleton "tentacle" fingers (though technically an appendage is only a tentacle if it's around the creature's mouth) and an elephantish snout that is its food/drink orifice and a separate mouth for breathing and speaking. Their atmo mix is roughly compatible with humans but has about 3x the oxygen, and they like it at heat-stroke-inducing temperatures and near 100% humidity - Like the... Cretacius, was it? ... period when plant life ran wild on earth and there were dragonflies with six foot wingspans... Only around a bluer star as well. This nicely shorts out the clich invasion plot, as they consider Earth a frozen, twilight, desert hell where they'd need an oxygen mask and humidifier just to syrvive, while humans can't take the temperatures in the areas they consider habitable planetary zones and sunburn in minutes under their preferred lighting. (The Senshi would undoubtedly love to get their hands on some of the Squidleigh plants for their terraforming, though - relatively high temperature, high oxy-output, and liking the extra solar energy from a closer orbit!) Close enough to visit, similar enough to get each other's dirty jokes, not really interested in setting up shop on each other's real estate.
That's not to say that militant factions can't find a reason to fight over if it's wanted, but "I claim this land for Spain!" is not an issue, or at least not an immediate one.

C: How long have they had the 'wave, what can they do with it? I say, 20-30 years, and not much more than we can, just on a production basis for the more basic applications rather than having to one-off handcraft everything. Maybe their drive technology is faster, if they are two years away at best human speeds, so that can be shortened. Still no lambent beams of energy to be seen except possibly short-reach, directed gravity manipulation for cargo handling, more's the pity.
D: Goodies! What kind of standard gear do they have!? I'm really not going to comment on this one, I'm a RABID gearhead and want them in meksuits too much. Just... Consider the possibility, as second or third generation Squidliegh-fen (or whatever, bird-men or cat-men or ameobaoid slime creatures, or just guys with a funny skin color and ridged foreheads, though I'm rather opposed to the last), that they've standardized on a van/station wagon with arms and legs rather than wheels as the typical model of small craft. When I get around to writing it, the first scratch-built fencar made aboard Gnarlycurl on camera has no wheels - who needs them when you have a speedrive for hover and flight?

Pi: Timeframe - none of this is urgent, per se - there's a couple years in-'verse and only the beginnings of plots in my head, but for a shared world something as mojar as first contact CANNOT be laid out by one person alone.
- CD
PS: the subject line comes from a trailer I once saw for a Disney-talking-animals version of ... Oliver Twist, I think? ... where they'd edited two lines from the same character together like that - it's just something that amused me and stuck in my head. SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[classicdrogn]

BTW, does anyone want to create a character to be aboard the Miranda? All I really have is the captain and the AI, who is also the Rec Deck computer and "hologramatic" Astrogation officer.
- CD
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[robkelk]

---

Close enough to visit, similar enough to get each other's dirty jokes, not really interested in setting up shop on each other's real estate.

---

If we're that close, then terraforming their homeworld will be an easier job than terraforming venus or Mars... and vice versa. ("It may be a frozen, twilight, desert hell, but we can qxn$rk-form it in a few decades...") We're going to have to come up with a few in-story reasons why the extremists on both sides wouldn't be allowed to try some planetary engineering of the other race's homeworlds.

---

BTW, does anyone want to create a character to be aboard the Miranda? All I really have is the captain and the AI, who is also the Rec Deck computer and "hologramatic" Astrogation officer.

---

I've got an idea for an engineer (maybe not the chief engineer, but I'll let other folks decide). I don't have time to write her up right now, though - maybe later this evening.

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
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

[Foxboy]

I am in favor of making Handwavium terran-only, mainly because of the long tradition of aliens finding the Human tech-tree barking mad. So let the squidleighs have developed their tech slow-and-sure... allowing for a possiblity that they haven't had some of the technological false starts that Earth has had.
So our friends might be less combative than we are, making any conflict they enter VERY logical. That is, their reasons are impeccably thought out, not just: "I'ma gunna kill them thar li'l green men 'cos mah invisible frien' tol' me to!" or "Destroy the nonbelievers!"
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Valles]

---

If we're that close, then terraforming their homeworld will be an easier job than terraforming venus or Mars... and vice versa. ("It may be a frozen, twilight, desert hell, but we can qxn$rk-form it in a few decades...") We're going to have to come up with a few in-story reasons why the extremists on both sides wouldn't be allowed to try some planetary engineering of the other race's homeworlds.

---

1. Distance. Even if their drives are faster than fennish ones, their home system is a long way away from our centers of power and vice versa. Raw materials might be available on-site, but all the needed equipment would still need to be shipped pretty much the whole way.
2. Hostile natives. I imagine that the crabphants would have just as many objections to a terraformed homeworld as we would to having Earth turned back to the Pennsylvanian - and as violent ones.
3. Morality. The moderate and bleeding-heart lobbies would never hear of it.

Besides, Drogn's description of them sounds like a low-gravity bauplan to me. If the next world out from their homeworld happened to be a largish one that they avoid because the gravity is dangerous and unpleasant...
Ja, -n

===============================================
"I'm terribly sorry, but I have to kill you quite horribly now."

[Kokuten]

---

I am in favor of making Handwavium terran-only, mainly because of the long tradition of aliens finding the Human tech-tree barking mad. So let the squidleighs have developed their tech slow-and-sure...

---

Agreed and Agreed... Which gives us _hardtech gravity manipulation_, as well as _hardtech speeddrives_.
Turns out, the Squiddies have developed a reactionless speeddrive roughly identical to the most common of 'fen ships, but they _know why_ and _know how_ theirs works.
The Squiddies would have an interesting reaction to the 'Wave.

---

Besides, Drogn's description of them sounds like a low-gravity bauplan to me. If the next world out from their homeworld happened to be a largish one that they avoid because the gravity is dangerous and unpleasant...

---

Agreed and perfect - the Squiddies have a low-grav Homeworld, and are not terribly interested in Earth-like planets. I would personally also ratchet down their requirements for sunlight/heat/humidity - these can be replaced with a nice heated vest, and a spraybottle.

More on sunlight: I would think that these wonderful sapient squidleighs would _not_ dig on the harsh bright sunlight, as it would crispify and roast their tender, delicate skin (except for the calloused, durable tentacle tips they use as manipulators).
So we've got squid, now, that are lower gravity, higher humidity, higher temperature, but can be perfectly comfortable on Earthfen ships and stations, given grav reduction (all I gotta do is ask Hermes to make it so, and adjust a few industrial processes), a heated torso cover, and a spraybottle.
And sunglasses. SQUID WITH SUNGLASSES. If you don't like that image, I think you're bent.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[KJ]

Somehow I'm picturing the aliens from some of the Metal Slug games. Albeit, granted, less hostile.

[classicdrogn]

I have no counterlogic for the aliens as they're developing above, it all sounds good to me so far. Keep it up, sounds good!
RE Miranda crew - think of the Trek show model - the main cast are the Captain and department heads, so if you give me an engineer, the only reason (s)he won't be Chief Engineer is if you specifically request it, or someone else puts up a more interesting/ealier Chief character.
Departments are arranged along late DS9/Voyager lines with DS9/TNG movie grey jumpsuits with color coded turtlenecks underneath as duty uniforms, Astronomy is a 'civilian' department of its own with uniforms optional (unofficilly, as long as you've got the critical points covered and it's appropriate for your duty station, uniforms are optional everywhere, but these are mainly hardcore Trekkies...) and if they do want to wear one (with a helmet and wavescarf, they're functional pressure suits) they get Scince turtlenecks.
And I agree, squids in sunglasses for the win! Wraparound mirrorshades all the way!
- CD
ETA: body specifics, as I first saw them - start with a squid, but plate the body over with a turtle shell. Replace the beak and tentalcles with snout as above, and extend the head/body junction a bit to make room for the limbs to connect at the bottom. Legs are the first and third limb-pairs, and have crab-style exoskeletons, they are relatively short. The middle limb pair arms are much lomger, and have partial heavy shells along the outside so the whole critter can crouch down and have the body and legs well protected, curling the snout in underneath. There's another heavy plate on the top of the head where squid have that thick leathery bit. Each arm ends in half a dozen or so prehensile fingers, relatively tough-skinned and muscular, with stubby ends ala human fingertips. Watching one type is probably fascinating, and possibly a turn-on for some of the less inhibited types among Fen.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Kokuten]

oh lord in heaven, harold be thy name..
character submission coming tonight, if I can get mom's laptop working.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[robkelk]

---

RE Miranda crew - think of the Trek show model - the main cast are the Captain and department heads, so if you give me an engineer, the only reason (s)he won't be Chief Engineer is if you specifically request it, or someone else puts up a more interesting/ealier Chief character.

---

Well, she's fresh out of school... but that might be the only type of engineer the Miranda project attracted. It's your call.
For your consideration:
M.L. da Vinci
Chief Engineer, USS Miranda
Appearance: Italian-American female in her late-20s, 5'6", 130 lbs, medium build, jet-black hair, brown eyes, attractive but not beautiful (unless she goes all-out, which she almost never does).
Notable Mundane Attributes:
* Re-route around the damage here and it'll be almost as good as new: Crack engineer.
* It isn't that good, really: Has a talent for sketching, but rarely uses it.
'Wavium Abilities: None.
Quirks:
* My parents hated me: Never goes by (or answers to) her full name, just the initials "M.L."
* Say "cheese"! Compulsive photographer, but more enthusiastic than skilled.
* I am happy: Never smiles.
Faction: Trekkie
History:
M.L. was the third and youngest child born to parents who had immigrated (as children) to the US from Italy after World War II. Post-war racism was just as bad as any other sort - they had suffered the minor indignities of other people's unthinking comments while growing up, until the Civil Rights Movement made people realize how ugly such comments actually are. But this meant the da Vincis saw no reason why their children shouldn't have some minor obstacles placed in front of them, too. It's a pity, too, because if they had given Mona Lis... sorry, just "M.L." ... any other name, she probably would have become a successful model.
As it was, M.L. put as much distance as she could between herself and the worlds of glamor and art - she went out of her way to not be attractive, she did her best to never smile, and she even watched reruns of Star Trek instead of playing house or hanging out at the mall. She also studied the physical sciences while her classmates were starting to date each other; this lead to a scholarship to M.I.T. and a distinct lack of socialization.
Mind you, it's almost impossible for an attractive female to attend an engineering school and not discover boys. M.L. finally loosed up a bit and learned about the wonders and heartbreaks of dating, but never seriously connected with any of the guys she dated. This meant that, when M.L. graduated from M.I.T.'s mechanical engineering program summa cum laude, she was available to answer a very unusual "help wanted" ad in 2008. Much to her surprise, she was already familiar with the project... because she had worked on it during her final year at MIT.
Personality:
Emotionally repressed. (Maybe even "dangerously emotionally repressed.") But she's functionally sane.
She's noticed that "Number One" is a good man, and doesn't seem to be romantically attached... but she has no idea how to go about expressing her own interest. She's not even sure she has that sort of interest in him, actually, but she knows she feels something towards him. It might simply be "friendship", but it's been so long since she's had a friend, she isn't sure...

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
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

[classicdrogn]

Okay, small problem, as written - Robert April in the scenelet is a man, April Roberts my cousin is a woman. Lack of family gossip to the contrary strongly suggests she's a straight woman, whatever the AAF's stance on such things may be. The crushy feelingsan easily be switched over to a First Officer guy, however, with little practical difference. Trekkie genre conventions and the usual bad possibilities of workplace romance are all that stand between giving it a shot, however - Miranda is a civilian ship despite the Starfleet trappings and has no 'ironclad regs' as such.
- CD
ETA: If she graduated at the end of the Fall-Winter'07 term, she may well have been doing design work for the Miranda as a capstone course, or even in on it from the beginnings - I did say it was a collaboration between SETI, the Trekkies, and "several colleges" after all. Knowing the systems from initial bistro-napkin sketches and having built a fair number of them herself would go a long way to getting that Chief Engineer pin.
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[robkelk]

Fair enough - I hadn't caught the gender change. Now to edit M.L.'s description...

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
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

[robkelk]

I just realized:

---

they've standardized on a van/station wagon with arms and legs rather than wheels as the typical model of small craft

---

A.K.A. Traveller's Air/Rafts... there's no reason to put wheels on something with a grav drive, after all.

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
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

[classicdrogn]

did you catch my eETA? You replied before I finished it
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[robkelk]

The messages crossed in transit, CD...
But, yes, that's a good explanation why M.L. would be Chief Engineer - she knows the ship's systems because she designed some of them.

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
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

[classicdrogn]

Looks good! Now, if only ... Kokuten? Foxboy? somone earlier in a message not visible now that I'm in the composing screen - can manage to post before my battery runs out and I'm gone again until next week...
To be completely explicit about it, while Miranda is mostly 'my baby' so to speak, I'm offering character spaces because First Contact is a staggeringly Big Thing and it's not fair to hog it alll with a ship literally two years travel away from the rest of the shared setting. As such, initial postings of Miranda story segments (and I have something in the works for each date in the Timeline thread post) will be rather outlinishh, to let the other people's characters chime in on the action. The game is about the PCs, after all.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Kokuten]

For your consideration:
Kenneth Barnum, Security Chief
Appearance: Brunette, Hazel-eyed Caucasian male in his mid-20s, 5'9", 190lbs, wiry-yet-tough build. Slightly slimmer than your Stereotypical Space Hero. Attractive, but devoted to wife/child who remain at home.
Notable Mundane Attributes:
* Oh _no_, I'm a dead man: Refuses to wear his Security branch 'red shirt', has a set of black Starfleet Uniform togs with red pinstripes and red trousers instead. Does not posess a 'red shirt', will not wear one.
* Book-of-the-month-club: Voracious reader, personal effects included several gigs of plaintext. Will read any book of any genre, and is familiar with quite a large swath of authors.
* Go Speed Reader, Go!: Speed reader, fast enough in daily use to catch people who aren't off-guard. This perception ability also works on security threats.
* Combat Trained: Starfleet combat-trained, competent with all current Starfleet weapons, as well as the bastard "TV-Fu" taught in the hand-to-hand classes, which is surprisingly effective. Much more comfortable, however, with a chunk of rebar in his hand.
'Wavium Abilities:
Minor Green Lantern: KB ran into some Guacamole during his graduation party from the Academy, and ended up changing.. not at all. Except for the limited absorption and redirection of energy, and emotion-based generation of a visible green glow from his eyes. He's not aware of this yet, and routine testing shows 'biomod, unknown'. He thinks he got a 'dud bullet'.
Quirks:
* Voracious Reader: Carries PDA with him at all times, 'waved for superior battery life and durability. At all times. The Captain has given up giving him demerits or gigs for having it with him on formal occasions/away missions/security operations/emergencies.
* Limited Respect for Authority: Admires and respects April Roberts, will not hesitate to tell her that she's Nucking Futs, regardless of venue.
* Impulse Buyer: Signed up for Miranda on impulse, and while he's doing his best to see it through, wonders what the hell possessed him to leave wife+kids behind.
* Hotbutton: Southpark: Ken is aware that he shares a name with the frequently-dead Kenny from southpark, doesn't want to talk about it, it's not funny, no, he knows about it being funny that he's a redshirt, and it's not funny, and I WILL PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE, CAPTAIN, IT'S NOT FUNNY.
do not press hot button.
Faction: Trekkie/Generic, the Fleet is just a job, ya'know?
History:
Kenneth Barnum grew up in Alaska with the Wiregeek, but left Earth before him, when one of the Starfleet recruiting drives happened to stop into town. Chasing the educational and career opportunities (and hey, outer space!), Kenny shook the dust of Earth from his sandals, and went Up with his wife and two children.
Personality: Kenny is a fairly excitable person, and has a lot of passionate interests. Fortunately, the safety and well-being of 'his' crew are one of the big ones. Kenny is usually going a thousand miles an hour, working a couple of computer games or self-educational projects, taking classes, working his job, and reading more than he really should.
Kenny is a family man, and is always willing to take a minute to play with his kids (the Ravening Horde, as he refers to them) or make time with his wife. He is also an avid computer gamer and reader, so he's always got _something_ going on. Due to living like this, Kenny doesn't take waiting well, and will either show signs of The Twitch, or simply whip out his PDA and read.
Starfleet was everything Kenny had hoped it would be, and immediately after completing a 2-year course, and graduating with honors, Kenny embarked with the Miranda for Parts Unknown.

Your basic security geek, emphasis on the geek.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Foxboy]

Okay, let's set some ground rules for the "Squiddies'" language. We're using a conceit that a human can produce the sounds of their language with minimal difficulty or using VERY simple mechanical aids, right?
What sort of sounds do we want for them to use? I recommend few if any labial plosives as we know them [ p, b, and the like] and a different focus of their vowel system. That is, lets say they can use these sounds [letters are presumptive "normal usage" English]:
Consonant-ish things:
h
s
sh
f [as a variant on h]
k
l
r
g
z
j [as variant on sh]
Tongue clicks [human approximation, at least three variants]
Cheek-finger pop [likewise, without variants]
Semivowels:
w
y
glottal stop?
Vowels:
Mostly the things usually written with o's, u's, and quite a few umlauts, with several other sounds possible.
Some human language sounds may likely require "strange" behaviors from the Squddies to produce as well.
Meh, just an early idea right now.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[robkelk]

---

Starfleet was everything Kenny had hoped it would be, and immediately after completing a 2-year course, and graduating with honors, Kenny embarked with the Miranda for Parts Unknown.

---

Er... the timing doesn't work. Even assuming Kenneth was the very first person to graduate, and the Academy was the very first thing opened on either Starbase 1 or Utopia Planitia (even before things like the life-support systems), a two-year course wouldn't have been over until a few months after the Miranda left the Sol system.
Hmmmmm... the Security Chief hates his name, the Chief Engineer hates her name... we've got a running gag going here. And they're going to be pissed off when they get back home and discover other Fen have been changing their own names...

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
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

[Kokuten]

---

Er... the timing doesn't work.

---

Ya know, I was hoping that would slide, but..
I'm open to suggestions.

---

discover other Fen have been changing their own names

---

heh, he wouldn't change his name actually, he's weird like that.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Bob Schroeck]

---

Ya know, I was hoping that would slide, but..

---

He's completing the course by correspondence?

-- Bob
---------
The Internet Is For Norns.

[robkelk]

---

Ya know, I was hoping that would slide, but..
I'm open to suggestions.

---

Having gone over the numbers, I think turning it into an (accelerated) 18-month course would do the trick.

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
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

[Kokuten]

---

Starfleet was everything Kenny had hoped it would be, and immediately after completing a 2-year course, and graduating with honors, Kenny embarked with the Miranda for Parts Unknown.

---

Starfleet was everything Kenny had hoped it would be, and immediately after completing the 18-month 'panic course', graduating with honors, Kenny embarked with the Miranda for Parts Unknown.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Murmur the Fallen]

How do you cook 'em?
The aliens, that is.
If, uh, if you're gonna eat 'em.
-murmur
I'm thinking as a bisque.

[Kokuten]

Cephlapodian beings would probably benefit from preperation using almost all of the common earth methods of cooking squid - rings, butter, deep fry, stew, what have you.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979