Crazy_Dragon

I wouldn't say I was 'back' just yet. I've still not brought myself to firing up the game lately.

So... did I miss anything, Union arrpee-wise, since the start of November while I've had absolutely zero will to fire up the game after NaNoWriMo? Plots? Funnies? Departures and/or general poopstorms?

I disappear for a month to tackle NaNoWriMo and return to this!? D:

Oh, well. Good look in whatever makes you rage in the future. :P

I'm giving it another shot this year despite not giving my last one any love since dinging the big 50 (thousand words). However, though my planned NaNo is superhero fiction (centring on a singer who develops sonic powers and extreme sound->colour synaesthesia), it's in its own universe rather than that of CoX.

Can you expect any less fail from Future? :\

An email to all Liberty Force members from Falcon Force:

Regarding our "guest" that keeps waltzing out of her cell AND assuming nobody's prematurely and permanently put her out of her misery, I think I have something that can keep her locked down. It's an artifact within my own private collection, a recent item by the name of Steinberg's Time-Lock. I won't go into the details of its history, but it's designed to chronologically freeze a single entity, be it an object or a living being, for an indefinite period. Ideally.

I say "ideally" because, unfortunately, the thing has been partially dismantled somewhere between its creation and my acquisition of it, so in its current state, it's somewhat limited in how long it can keep someone frozen. Perhaps a few days to a couple of weeks, I don't know. But it's worth a try considering the current unsuitability of the base's penal facilities, isn't it?

I'll bring it to the base tomorrow.

-FF

I smell a rat... Or a joke carrying the stench of dog mess and vomit.

And seriously, give everyone a hell of a lot longer than 2 minutes to even consider responding. Contrary to popular belief, we do have lives away from the keyboard.

((Moar lateness...))
Several minutes post-impact...

"Richie..."

Richie Stacker, also known as the Crazy Dragon, found himself greeted by blurry silhouette hanging over him, shoulder-length red hair being the only thing immediately recognisable to him.

"Gimme five more minutes, will you, Mo?" he groaned as he rolled over and closed his eyes again, much to his girlfriend's frustration. So she promptly kicked him.

"Dammit, Richie!" she barked. The bed didn't simply rattle to the sudden boot it had received, it shifted a few inches and threw the Durham lad's face against the wall. "When I tell you to get up, you'll get... the HELL... UP!!"

"Ow, man, Mo!" Richie cried as he clutched his nose. "What the flamin' hell's the emergency?"

"Try looking out what's left of the window." another voice grumbled. "It appears the city is under attack."

Blinking a few times to clear up his eyes, Richie then complied. The disembodied voice was right. Where the window to his bedroom once was, a large gaping hole now remained and outside, as Richie quickly discovered to his horror, Galaxy City was getting hammered by meteorites all over.

"We really need to get out of here," Momo Serizawa sighed with a heavy heart. Behind her, the source of the voice that directed him to the 'window', his Praetorian double, Richard was leaning against cracked doorframe, calm and collected as ever. "Preferably before one of those rocks decided to hit this place again."

Richie turned and glanced around the room in search of something. For a sharp exit, he quickly figured, breaking open a portal into the pocket dimension Thin Air and sending everyone he could to the Obsidian Fortress couldn't be quicker. He just needed to find the lens he needed to boost the spell enough to open a large enough portal for long enough. Frantically, he searched under the bed, scrambled to the wardrobe and cleared out a couple of bookcases until...

"Ow!" Momo squealed. Ever-protective of her, Richie swung around to see what happened, only to find his girlfriend glaring at him disapprovingly, lens in hand and nursing the top of her head. Above, a small box fixed to the wall above the door had burst open.

"Ah, right, the box up there." Richie muttered as he accepted the lens from the irritated Mo. "Sorry. Richard, find my folks and anyone else stupid enough to be stuck in this building and bring the buggers over here."

****

The apartment of Molly Longstaff, or what's left of it...

Julia awoke with a pounding headache and a mouthful of dust that took a few good coughs to clear out. And, for some reason, a very heavy burden upon her.

"Erica?" Julia groaned. As she called out to the robot butler, she struggled to free one of her arms from under herself in order to brush some stray hair aside. "Do you think you can get off me, now?"

Erica complied without fail and picked herself up from the floor. "My apologies, Miss Julia."

"It's okay, really." the secretary reassured her as she dragged herself to her feet, only to be struck by a short dizzy spell after getting up too fast. "What just happened, any-"

Looking past Erica explained all, right down to the fact that of the entirety of her boss' apartment... There wasn't much left.

"-way? Oh my god."

It was then that Molly stuck her head around the corner leading bout of the apartment. "Get your prayers out of the way as soon as you can think straight, Jules, because we need to get out of here before this whole building decides to crash down on us all."

Julia gave her boss a curious look as well as noted that her dress was tattered all over. She then compared the state of her own attire which, thanks to Erica, saw just the tiniest of tears at the based of her skirt.

"Right." Julia concurred. "Let's make like a tree, then."

"Oh, and by the way," Molly added. "Tell me you're armed."

Julia sighed. "Don't tell me some monsters have come out to play..."

"Yep, we're probably gonna need to do a little hunting along the way. I'm getting reports from all over. There's Shivans all over, practically coming out of the damn walls."

****

Down on the streets...

Incoming call. Accept? ... Y

Accepted. Call type: DATA
Downloading 459MB... Done!
Open Kickstart.zip? ... Y

Contents of Kickstart.zip:
STAGE2.tar.gz
STAGE2.sh

cmd: extractall
Destination: /home/DocBrock/Kickstart
Extracting... Done!

exit
sudo /home/DocBrock/Kickstart/STAGE2.sh
Password:**************

Running...

A pile of rubble in the middle of the street, right between the epicentre of several meteorite impacts, erupted like a lava-less volcano, revealing underneath a roaring Dr. Capello, slightly battered, his cybernetic parts a little scratched and dented but otherwise unharmed.

"Alright, Ned, I'm good to go." he called out to his absent robotic friend over the airwaves. "Get yourself outta there before something hits the fan a few more times. I'm gonna go work out what the hell just happened and if there's anything I can help with. And if there's blood to be shed in the process, so be it."

(( A little late on account of life conspiring against meh! D: ))
Galaxy City, seconds before impact...

"Look," Dr. Brock Capello sighed to Ned. "All I'm saying is that is that you can't just write off a whole sitcom just because the whole cast are portrayed as a bunch of morons. That's the whole point!"

The duo had just left a local convenience store, the big man himself hauling stack of grocery-filled paper bags that towered over his own head, a balancing act that could have been made all the more impressive were it not for his cybernetic arms. Aside him, Ned, a small Council MekMan no higher than the doctor's waist, rebuilt from the remains of a much larger MekMan that had the audacity to storm his lab months prior, struggled to carry just the one.

Ned emitted a series of clicks and bleeps in response as they crossed a nearby road on the way back to the lab. Only Brock seemed to understand him crystal-clearly while passers-by gave confused and mildly concerned looks, both at his form as well as his manner of 'speech'.

"Yep, little guy." Capello answered. "And that's why it's called a sit..."

Ned tilted his head at Brock as he slowly cut himself off and looked to the skies. Something was wrong, but it wasn't immediately clear to the small MekMan until he attempted to trace the general direction of the doctor's line of sight. That's when he noticed several red dots in the sky. He'd never noticed them before. Nor, did it seem, had Capello.

And they were getting bigger very fast.

"...com. Yeah, that's not good."

Ned jumped up and down on the spot, flailing his limbs and screeching out more clicks and bleeps out of blind panic before the doctor grabbed him by the arms to steady him.

"Ned!" he barked. "Dammit, Ned! Stay calm and focus! I need you to get back to the lab, use the Central Rig, alright?"

Ned appeared as confused as an almost-faceless machine could appear. The Central Rig, the server within Brock's lab that governed all its other systems had been off-limits to all but the doctor for some time. That Ned was being granted access worried the robot greatly.

"Password's 547231756d7068616e37. Once you're in, run blockbuster.sh, got it, little guy?"

The Mini-MekMan confirmed with a rapid nod and, once set down onto the ground again, proceeded to rush off back to the lab, having the sense to leave his burden of milk bottles behind.

Brock returned his attention to the red dots in the sky once more. Through his artificial eyes he'd already traced their trajectory, realising all too well that Galaxy City was about to get a cosmic punch in the face. He grabbed the shoulder of his beige long coat and tore it from his back without a single care for its well-being. It was going to be torn to shreds in moment anyway, he figured.

The man who would become Dr. Block took a calm sidestep to the right, predicting his new position to be the closest safe spot out of reach of the blast radius of the imminent impacts around him. It was all he could do until Ned triggered that script.

****

Molly Longstaff's apartment, Galaxy City, hours before impact.

Julia Cravic hadn't counted on feeling a newspaper lightly bouncing off her forehead any time soon, not while she was, for the next few weeks at least, living under her boss's roof. After all, the apartment of Molly Longstaff was a technological wonderland compared to her own place, which was currently being renovated and reinforced after a neighbour failed to keep an eye on his chip pan. In place of magazines and newspapers were a few tablet devices, which left the young secretary wondering why he was being beaten back into the waking world.

Then she remembered she'd invited her boyfriend to sleep over for the night. He wasn't a fan of replacing print with pixels any time soon and for good reason too, Julia had to admit.

"Rise and shine!" she barely heard Bob Lead, a news stand owner from a small corner of Atlas, proudly proclaim before she even had a chance to pull herself into a seating position. "Your clock's battery died when I got up myself. I figured you didn't want to be late for work, after all."

"Thanks, I guess." Julia groaned "What time's it now?"

"Almost half five." Bob muttered before bringing the mug of coffee in his other hand to his lips.

"HALF-FIVE!?" she answered, raising her voice sharply enough to make the man in her life jump mid-sip and send hot coffee splashing into his face. "Dammit, Bob, you do remember that Erica would have come in to check anyway, right?"

"Yep." Bob sighed. Julia let herself fall back into bed, grabbing a pillow and promptly dumping it onto her own face. "Relax and think about it, Jules. What if that thing broke down?"

Julia simply responded with a soft pillow projectile on collision course with Bob's back.

Molly Longstaff's apartment, Galaxy City, moments before impact.

"You look a wreck." Molly observed, and to Julia's irritation she was right. As always.

"Sorry," she answered. "Bob thought he'd do a 'good thing' by getting me up at half five."

"Didn't he know that Erica wou-?"

"Yeah," Julia interrupted. "He worried that she broke down. Oh, and referred to her as a 'thing', too."

"Cue arguement?"

"Cue arguement, Miss Molly." Erica answered before Julia could do so herself. The robot butler, an 8-foot feminine android arrived almost on cue herself with a couple of fresh mugs of coffee. The contents of the mug offered to Julia were as black as tar and its caffeinated scent gave the secretary a much-needed pickup long before she took her first sip.

"Thanks, Erica." Julia discarded her tablet onto the hot pink sofa behind her before claiming her cup. "Yeah, Bob's not too approving of Erica. Frankly, it's getting on my nerves now."

Molly herself accepted her beverage and found herself a seat on the sofa opposite. It was a credit to Julia's tiredness that she hadn't realised until now that Molly was wearing a party dress, as ever in a colour that matched her boss's bright pink hair.

"People are bound to be nervous around her, Julia." Molly smiled. "Just give him time to get to know her better, trust me."

"True, I suppose." Julia conceded. "But it would be nice, you know? If he just accepted that Erica was sentient enough to -not- be looked at as a mere machine?"

"Which I am, miss." Erica answered. Julia always thought she was bring modest.

"I mean if he stops referring to you as..." Julia stopped herself when something caught her eye. Something foreign in the daytime sky that both Molly and Erica soon came to notice.

The next thing Julia remembered was the coffee failing her momentarily. She awoke from her microsleep to find herself bundled in Erica's arms, distressingly unaware of what was happening as she also soon deafened by the unexplained noise that assaulted her ears.

And then everything went black again.

(( To be continued when I get chance to bash out some more ))

There's already a link that opens the Server Status page in your default browser in there. It shows up when you select CoH in the Launcher.

A voicemail message arrives. The caller seems to have an Icelandic accent.

Hello, Liberty Force. This is K- I mean, Falcon Force. You may remember I attacked one of your own two weeks ago under the ill-informed impression that she was guilty of a crime she had no part in, and in turn I had some sense duly knocked into me in the process. Honestly, what on earth was I thinking?

Well, in any case, now that I'm no longer suffering periodic dizzy spells from that unfortunate encounter, I'm calling to request a meeting to discuss the possibility of joining your ranks, if the chances of that hasn't completely gone out the window and flown over the War Walls. How does, say, Steel Canyon Campus sound? If that's not possible then feel free to suggest an alternative location. You can call me back on (XXXX) XXX-XXXX.

'Bye.

On the subject of terrain, what about disabling such powers over certain terrain and within certain maptypes?

Realising that my Handbook of the Union Universe pics were kinda... bland, I looked to demo editing to try and make some better character shots for my pages. I'm still very much bumbling about with it, since there doesn't seem to be a lot of up-to-date literature on it. It takes me the best part of a few hours just to get a shot I'm satisfied with and I can't help but wonder how anyone has the patience needed to pull off full vids, but baby steps are better than naff all, right?

I'm just going to plop a few of my first efforts (and I mean efforts... the "SPLAT!" one nearly had me bashing my face into my keyboard many times) here and await any pointers anyone might have.



For the record, a couple of the above pics have also been mucked about with in GIMP.

I have a few character ideas I want to roll, but I CBA to roll them until the Freedom rolls.

As for my RP, I'm not involved in anything too major at the mo, so it's all good. :x

It's entirely up to you, really, though if they're common characters in your SG's RP, then perhaps arranging for them to be killed off in the course of a current plot or writing up a small story on how they meet their untimely demise might be less jarring than "He just got shot by a Hellion offscreen, game over, man, GAME OVER!!"

As to keeping the characters, again, up to you but at their level consider whether you enjoy playing them enough to keep for OOC play. If you do keep them, you'll also have the options of either returning them to RP (classic comic book rule: death is little more than a minor inconvenience) without having to grind a new alt or turning them into a new character by way of the tailor and rewriting their bio. Character rename optional.

*scratches head* Guest Star characters. Forgive my half-tired brain (spontaneously waking up at 3-4am two days in a row is not fun), but how does that work again?

I don't even know anymore.

Also, where the hell have you been, CB? o_O

A few years back Pious formed the SG "R.A.P.I.E.R.", which originally carried the theme of being a US Army-backed super soldier group up until he had to leave the game temporarily. At that point I was landed with sole leadership and despite my best efforts everyone involved generally stopped giving a flying fardle and the SG pretty much died with a whimper. Seriously, how the hell Pious managed when he was effectively doing all the work still eludes me to this day.

Cut to the present day and I discovered that while I'd pretty much given up on the SG, one player who remained in the SG in spite of its pitiful death had been busying himself building up the base to something awesome. Currently still unfinished, but awesome nonetheless. Which has pretty much inspired me to want to try again with the SG, only preferably with a fair bit more input from its members than I got the last time around.

This time around, though, it won't be Army-backed. When I took over I'd severed that link and made the SG privately-owned by one of my existing characters, which I thought allowed for a little more freedom as to what kind of characters could come into the SG, so technically, as mentioned in the title, it's now sort of a PMC, only operating in the service of Paragon.

So, the burning question: Anyone interested? Need to know more?

Sexeh! :O

((*checks stopwatch* Nearly 10 hours and 20+ views and nothing, not even a WTF. Welp, either people are slow on the QQ or I made it far too obvious that I was taking the mick.))

A stonking great boat drops out of nowhere onto Steel Canyon. Buildings crushed, people die, and it'll be a sad day if nobody rushes to the scene.

((Don't mind me, just letting off some steam))

Shirley'll most certainly be showing up.

Is that 7pm GMT or BST? x_X