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"Walker..." they chanted, staring at me in awe....
Children. Tens of them. Dressed in the bare minimum necessary to consider clothes. They were the most bedraggled bunch I'd come across in my travels, but not by far. I wondered where the adults might've been, and how long they'd been left alone, with trinkets of civilisation as toys. One seemed to be carrying a record player, hooked up to a pilot's headset. They were extras from Lord of the Flies, in an oasis paradise deep in a sandstone
"Captain Walker,"
"I fear," I began, trying to put a gentle smile on while inwardly seething at the sort of society that would abandon children to themselves like this. "...you have mistaken me for someone else."
They stared, wide-eyed, questioning my existance. Hushed whispers raced around the crowd, some of the toddlers being hushed down by the teenagers who may have been their parents...
"So, where're all your parents then?"
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OMG! THAT'S a blast from the past!
Canadian lighthouse to U.S. Warship approaching it: "This is a lighthouse. Your call!"
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Huh, I wonder if Mel's gonna stumble in there while Doug's around, to add to the confusion.
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I seem to be missing a reference. To me 'Captain Walker' implies a 1940's destroyer in a strange new world. 
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Mad Max III.... the bad one with Tina Turner in it. It just happened to be on TV.
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Oddly enough, I've been occasionally visualizing Doug in the Thunderdome, with his helmet and "Lightning's Hand" making it frighteningly literal.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Dartz Wrote:Mad Max III.... the bad one with Tina Turner in it. It just happened to be on TV. Mostly a not very good movie, yes. But I still love the final voiceover -- oddly appropriate to Doug's quest, when it comes to that -- spoken by the leader of these lost children: Quote:And we lights the city ... not just for him, but for all of 'em that're still out there. 'Cause we knows ... there'll come a night, when they sees the distant light ... and they'll be comin' home.
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Big Brother is watching you. And damn, you are so bloody BORING.
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Amen
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I always liked Max's refutation of the children's identification: "I am not Captain Walker; I'm the man who carries Mr. Death in his pocket."
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ECSNorway Wrote:I seem to be missing a reference. To me 'Captain Walker' implies a 1940's destroyer in a strange new world. heh, that would make for an interesting world for Doug to visit (possible with Serenity's definition of 'interesting').
Bradford would be talking Doug's ear off with questions.
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The last of the punks drops his blade, sheepishly raising his hands....
"You're not one of the drokking judges....are you?"
I smirk. "I am the loon"
"Oh thank God."
And so, Ten minutes after arriving, I already knew Megacity One was going to be one of those stops.
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Judge Dredd . . .
Whoo-boy! Is this EVER going to be one of "those" stops . . .!
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Well, we did Judge Anderson way back in the first stretch of the NanoSteps, so this could easily be the beginning of that step. The real problem is that a) the UN is not a recognized entity in the world of the Mega-Cities, b) the Justice Department frowns on extradimensional visitors, and c) the Justice Department REALLY frowns on vigilantes. And they've dealt with superheroes before, quite ably (though such encounters are always controlled by the Rule of Drama).
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Yeah - MegaCity One is definitely a place where Doug gets taken down a peg.
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Is it just me or do cities with 'Mega' in the name tend to be dark, brooding cyberpunk dystopias?
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MegaCityOne, MegaTokyo, MegaWorcester...
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Dartz Wrote:Is it just me or do cities with 'Mega' in the name tend to be dark, brooding cyberpunk dystopias? Megalos (GURPS Banestorm), Megaframe (when Megabyte has conquered Mainframe, in ReBoot)... You may be onto something here.
Edit: except that there's no cyberpunk in Banestorm, it being a fantasy setting. It is dark and brooding, though.
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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
I figure it's mostly because of the sheer arrogance inherent in naming a place 'great', especially when you do so in reference to a location that already exists.
It tends to mean the leaders are blind to the social unrest (barely) contained beneath their feet.
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Back to the NanoSteps...
"I've sometimes wondered what 'a voice like a horny angel' would actually sound like. I never thought it would be as foul-mouthed as yours, Ms. Anarchy."
--
Rob Kelk
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Well, I read the Arrows trilogy from Mercedes Lackey, and it inspired me to try my hand at a nanostep. It's probably too long, but oh well.
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When I first woke up in the new world, I was lying in a pleasantly warm grassy field, surrounded by an old stone wall. There was a large tree in the center of the field and a big pile of junk near a farmhouse. An old blue tractor sat near the utility wires, from which I guessed that it must be some time in the late twentieth century in this world.
I turned around, and saw a sheep standing on two legs with a puff of wool over his face, bleating a warning about me to a yellow sheepdog wearing a blue knit cap. The dog peeked over his magazine and finally noticed my arrival, and began barking at my intrusion in order to protect his flock of sheep.
I had a bad feeling that this world was going to turn out as strange as that trip to Manor Farm. I reflexively pulled God's Toothpick out of its holster, just in case, though in hindsight I doubt the dog could have bit through my armor.
It was just as well, though -- the dog's demeanor instantly changed, as he sat down and panted happily while staring at the hunk of wood. "Oh, you want the stick?" He nodded emphatically. Not wanting to grant divine power to a canine -- intelligent or not -- I picked up a small broken tree branch off the ground, and threw that instead. As the sheepdog fetched, the sheep that had warned the dog rolled his eyes and covered his face with a hoof.
I ended up having a pretty good time with the farm animals, once they calmed down. Which is not to say it was dull. The most massive of the sheep -- the one that looked like it had evaded the shears for over a decade straight -- tried to eat my helmet whole.
It always surprises me when I find a use for the most obscure songs. When the little lamb got ahold of a cup of coffee and blitzed across the farm, I had just the thing to make his mother (a sheep in hair curlers, of all things) a happy ovine.
"System: Load song Holderkin Sheep Song. Play song." Thanks to my metagift, the silly little sheep drifted right off to sleep.
-- ∇×V
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Can't say I'm familiar with that one...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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It's by Aardman, who also did Wallace and Grommit. It's very much in the vein of the old Warner Brothers cartoons where no-one actually speaks. It's billed as a kid's show. I have several on Region 1 DVD.
Episodes are kindly available here: http://www.youtube.com/user/aardmanshaunthesheep
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It's also on Netflix Instant, which is where I caught it.
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Thanks, I'll have to check it out.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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"Introduce a little anarchy," said Joker as he made sure Harvey's aim was firmly on himself. "Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Urk."
Harvey blinked. His good eye flickered closed and open, at least; the eyelid on the other had been burned completely away. The man in the smeared clown make-up and the nurse's uniform had suddenly toppled over and landed on the floor with a meaty thud, revealing a figure in grey leather and a grey motorcycle helmet. A shield-shaped patch with the letters "LT" sat on the left side of his chest.
Harvey dropped the gun as the grey figure lowered his outstretched (and glowing?) hand. "Sorry, Bozo," a mellow tenor voice echoed from inside the helmet, "but according to reliable sources I'm the Avatar of Chaos, and I'm pretty damned sure you're not on the payroll."
The figure turned his black-goggled gaze toward Harvey. "Sorry about that, Mr. Dent. Ooooh, that's a nasty burn you've got there. Let's take care of that, why don't we? System, 'I'm Alive'. Play."
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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