Mr_Grey

Well done, Kid. Well done.

Drop by Grey's Army if you'd ever like a tour of a base with some interesting design. It'll probably help inspire you in your own base design.

After some consideration, yes, I would think that Luminary would send Positron a Father's Day card. He'd probably be confused, and a little weirded out when it starts shooting fireworks and singing.

Happy birthday, you guys.

That was my bad, apparently.

According to myth, they checked our shotgun-toting hamster, and found he was dead. I'd forgotten to send the last set of airlift supplies for his Freedom Weasel Corpse-lined bunker.

He'd apparently written this note before he went...

Sure, Sokyoku. I know exactly what you mean about "Way too serious."

Grey's Army is extremely casual. If anybody needs a place to drop characters for whatever reason, my offer still stands. There's no reason why a player should have to wander the city without some support.

Grey's Army has updated.

I've been meaning to write this story up for a while now to help explain a portion of my base which is somewhat different from the rest.

Randall's been expanding his base under Kings Row for a while now, but now he's about to learn that he's not the only hero who thought to build a base under the gritty city's streets...

Kipland walked into the lobby of the Grey's Army base and looked at the couch. He saw Roland watching television with the catgirl Snuggle Purr. She was sitting on the other end of the couch and he could see her tail swishing agitatedly.

"You two doing alright?" he asked and Roland nodded.

"Randy and the big robot are out in the back chambers," the brown-furred girl said simply.

"Thanks," Kip nodded to her.

Normally, Snuggle Purr pounced on people, hugged them tightly (which was a little uncomfortable considering her prodigious bustline), or said suggestive things. Lately, however, she'd been hanging out more often with Matt McGinty and Roland, and they were apparently having a calming effect on her general attitude.

Kip made his way to the back of the base. He saw Sheldon hard at work with a couple of the Ryats and Dale Simms. Simms was nodding to what the inventor was saying, but the young man was tapping his foot with impatience.

He resumed his trek to the base's rear and found Randall and the large android, Ryat99, standing next to the kitchen/microbrewery. They were discussing some of the latest work Randall had been making for expanding the base.

"I'm telling you," Ryat99 was apparently repeating himself, "You need to ask the city planning board. Something is back there that we haven't been told about."

"What's the problem?" Kip asked.

"I got a permit to expand the base..." Randy started.

"Yeah, I know, you got that permit over a year ago..."

"Right, well, I've been using it. Now, we've got some space over there that we can make use of, but Ninety-nine here has been telling Sam, Dustin and the big robots to hold off..."

"Androids," Ryat99 reminded his employer, "We're androids, sir. Robots don't have minds, despite what Asimov wrote. Once sentience is determined, the term is shifted to 'android.'"

"Not in all works of science fiction," Kip murmured, "Well, why're you stopping?"

"That wall over there..." the big machine jerked one of its triple-jointed thumbs over to the end of the corridor, "It's not sewer construction..."

"So?" Randy asked.

"...And the wall sounds oddly hollow when I strike it. I think there's something back there. Something... Unexpected..."

"I already told you, Ninety-nine, I asked the city planning board. They said there's nothing back there."

"Then we need to have something set up for security," the machine finally folded his arms over his chest and glowered at the big man, "Because if there's something back there that the city doesn't know about, it's probably a terrorist cell."

"Oh, you..." Randy bit off the end of the phrase.

Insulting the android wouldn't work. The Ryats were notorious for simply deflecting the words by arguing semantics.

"It's a good idea, Randy," Kip finally interjected, "We can finally use some of those turrets we've got in storage from the BWO base."

Grey grumbled, then walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. When he came back with a six-pack of beer, the other two just shook their heads.

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It took a few hours to set up and install the two working turrets. The rest were corroded from sea salt and simply unusable. Sheldon took the broken weapons and started disassembling them for base components. Dale and Ryat10 helped install the defenses while Ryat99 and Sam Bibbins, who had been found bouncing off the ropes in the BWO ring, set to work planning the most efficient way to take down the strange wall.

Once the weapons were set, they stepped back to allow for a firing test. Dale and Ryat10 plotted points as directed by Ryat99 and further weakened stress points in the wall with short bursts of chaingun fire. They weren't able to crumble it, however, and shut down the weapons so Sam, Randy and the big android could get to work finishing the job.

"Just so I've got this right," Dale asked, "If something comes out of there, we turn these on and they go ahead and blaze away?"

"We'll be alright," Randy grunted as he reared back one of his his great, stony paws for a strike, "Even Sam's got somethin' from his Carnival days..."

"Sir, please don't remind me," the (almost as) big man said quietly as he drew back his sledgehammer.

"It's just better to avoid getting shot," Ryat99 said simply as he pressed his three-fingered hands to the wall and started pumping his high-powered coolant into the seams of the stone blocks, "Even if you can resist bullets."

"Enough people shooting will take even Statesman down, eventually," Sam sighed as he gripped his hammer tightly for the work to come.

With that, they set to work. Randy slammed his fist clean through the wall as Sam's sledgehammer bashed its way through. Ryat99 followed up his freezing the wall with strikes. In a few moments, the wall crumbled inward...

...Into darkness.

Alright, I've been following as best as I can since the beginning, and I've got something to say.

Frozen, you've got a good story here. It's complex, intriguing, and quite entertaining.

However, your dialogue is a killer for me. You have full on conversations, but the reader is left having to interpret (and reinterpret) who is actually speaking. Normally, you do provide information on who the speakers are after the fact, but that leaves the reader having to go back and re-read the dialogue to figure out the specific speakers.

Normally, you determine the speaker within the dialogue, usually after a pause in speech...

Example: "Hello," Bob said, "I'm here to fix your cable."

And you can get away with not explaining who a speaker is if you've established the speaker and that nobody else is talking...

Example: He proceeded to check the cable box and the cables connected to the television. Finally, Bob looked over the machine to me, his face perplexed.

"There's nothing plugged in back here!"

But when you have upwards of five people speaking in a scene, you need to establish who is saying what. You catch it sometimes, but for the most part, I'm left wondering just who is saying what in most of this machine gun dialogue.

Alright, then. Have fun, and welcome to Protector.

That's exactly what my SG was built for.

Grey's Army has telepads to just about every zone on Blueside. We've got a medical bay and a few fully-stocked Inspiration bins that could use somebody else bleeding into them. We've also got a number of Salvage bins dotted throughout the base, most of which are set up for regular access for just about anybody in the SG.

Send a Tell to @Mr Grey for information.

Play the Seer Marino arc, Ghost Widow's own Patron arcs and check out Paragonwiki's entry on her: Ghost Widow

My ears are burning...

It's nice to see that players actually ARE seeing the same problems I've been seeing.

Whenever I brought up my issues with the Reichsman TF/SF story, I would get in response a lot of "Oh, well, maybe it's this..."

Considering a lot of the storyline for I-17, it's good to know that the Reichsman TF/SF is NOT a strong indicator of the direction of the writing for the game. Sure, the new arcs are a little strong on the assumption side (Villain: "No, I don't want an army of people who can do exactly what I can! I can see hundreds of ways that can go WRONG!" Hero: "...I helped arrest Vahzilok... I disassembled the Wheel of Destruction! How can you even BEGIN to think I would commit these despicable crimes!?"), but they've got solid writing in them.

I believe the Reichsman TF/SF is in serious need of an overhaul. Frankly, I would have made the whole thing about the Fifth Column fighting the Council... Or at least half of it, anyway. Limiting it to five missions is... Odd.

Frankly, if there were ever a story that was deserving of the six-hour slog timeframe that the Quaterfield TF is, it's the Reichsman plot. That is a lot of story that simply should not be compressed into five missions because, simply-put, most of it gets squeezed out by the constriction. I mean, the Council isn't even mentioned in those arcs, and they're still QUITE active.

One of the statements I got in explanation of that is "Oh, well, in the Kheldian arcs, they're broken down and trying to recover."

That's a bull-plop excuse. The proof? The Redside Viridian arc, where the Center has regained control and has Requiem and Arakhn firmly in their place. The Council is still a force to be reckoned with (though it's hard to tell with the level disparity in the street sweeping; four-out-of-five times, the one level higher 5th Column troops win, simply because they're one level higher), and they should have a presence in the storyline that brings back to the forefront one of their greatest enemies.

It just irks me that all of this nonsense is happening, and the Center simply goes "Hm. That's interesting."

You would think Nosferatu at least would look at Schadenfreude and go "HEY! That's MY idea! And my FACE! And my UNIFORM! You little <expletive deleted>! Did you go through my closet! Did you touch my teddy bear!?"

I think either the Fifth Column or the Council needs a major overhaul. More likely, both. It would be kind of cool if the Council stuck to a "Safe to Handle" type of Super Science (Force Fields, Sonic Weaponry, Robots, Cybernetics), as opposed to the Fifth Column's "Tearing Me Apart From the Inside!" type (Vampyri, War Wolves, Galaxy Soldiers). This would, of course, necessitate a new Column/Council war in which the leaders of the two groups split apart from each other (rather than maintaining their status quo). I could see the Council becoming more of a "gray area" enemy group. Sometimes they fight heroes because they're ruthlessly violent and indiscriminate in their assaults, sometimes they fight villains because they're actually trying to develop some form of control and order. I can see the Fifth Column being full-on evil (unquestionably so), though, as their continuing experiments upon themselves drive them further and further into insanity and depravity (Nosferatu would fit RIGHT in! I can see him coming up with something that makes him actually merge with Schadenfreude and further empower himself).

I don't believe it's a good idea to simply gut one or the other and do away with the carcass. I mean, come on, they did that with the Fifth Column initially, and look how the fanbase reacted. Plus, there is more story, story that the Council is involved with. It would be another tremendous slap in the face of the game's community to simply Copy/Curbstomp/Paste one of the groups and move on.

I discussed a lot of this in the I-17 Closed Beta forum, but didn't request that it get saved because, frankly, I figured the Devs had seen enough of it (if they even cared to look it over). If anything was learned, considered or contemplated upon, we'll obviously have to wait until future Issues before we see a change. For now, we have something different headed our way, and it's probably better to look forward to that.

My biggest gripe with the Reichsman SF, however, the one thing that KILLS me on the whole storyline (aside from his costume being a Fifth Column outfit OUT OF THE BOX; how did they get it to him in the first place!?) is his line "I serve the Fifth Column!"

He doesn't. He simply has too much power to be shackled to the whims of a group that didn't have the gumption to stay in the game in the first place. If he serves anybody, he serves Axis Amerika. However, I don't see that being the case. I see him being a leader in his own right (much like Tyrant/Emperor Cole). Where the Praetorians are intent on making a "Lie of Utopia" world, Reichsman has no qualms about keeping his world in a state of perpetual war (a la Nineteen Eighty-Four).

The rest are plot holes that have been covered in this thread (Who is Gyrfalcon, and what is he doing here? Why is Countess Crey here? How would Reichsman know about Vanessa DeVore?). Some that haven't been really touched on include Schadenfreude simply being a renamed Nosferatu (all of the same powers AND the same outfit) and the odd explanation for Reichsman's health being that he's abducted a number of alternate Marcus Coles (implying that he's kidnapped Statesman and Tyrant, but when the Hell did THAT happen, and why are only eight heroes/rogues being entrusted with putting this massive global threat down?).

The rest of the arc is game mechanic gripes, which have been done to death (Oh MAN! More HP!? How long have we been doing this? Forty-five MINUTES!? On this last fight? I'm late for my date! Hey! Stop laughing! She's not a prostitute! She's not a man! Come on! He's healing! We're gonna be at this even long-! WHY ARE YOU ALL JUST SITTING THERE!? STOP LAUGHING AT ME! *RAGE-QUIT*). Frankly, the mechanics have been beaten, but they remain a slow crawl through molasses (molasses that is full of razor blades). They can be dealt with, albeit slowly (Master Run! And now, I go to stick needles in my ear canals...) or quickly, though you won't necessarily be working with a full team (Okay, five of you have Venge? Queue up... New Meat! Go over there and die!). Mechanics can be tweaked and altered, so can tactics for defeating them. Players have beaten these arcs, so it's not an impossibly grueling task. It's just like bashing your face in with a rock, though. Sure, it dulls your senses, but there are less painful ways of getting that buzz.

Finally posted another chapter to Grey's Army.

It seems Daniel Taylor and Shadeheart have chosen wisely in their friends, for Null has spared them. What follows is a discussion of the political situation in the Rogue Isles and the futility of dealing with it.

Meanwhile... Black Scorpion (whom I realize is WAAAAAAY different from his in-game incarnation...) brings a villain back from the brink of death.

I also still have stories over on my DeviantArt profile: http://ryat66.deviantart.com/

I'm not entirely sure where this whole Angel Falls thing is leading my characters, but, hey, it wasn't like they had very solid stories going on in my normal work anyway.

"Good morning, sleepy-head!"

Daniel awoke to a dark room with blue lightning. As his blurred vision cleared, he was able to pick out details, and what he saw was most certainly unusual. It was most certainly a chamber of Arachnos design, but something about the blue lighting...

"We're off the grid, so you don't need to worry about what you say," he heard Null's voice from behind him, "If you're particularly upset with me, I would understand."

Taylor rolled over to prop himself on his elbow and get a better look at his prior assailant. He'd seen Null without his helmet before. Not without his armor, though.

At least, most of his armor. From the waist up, Null had removed the plating to expose his unusual blue skin. It was obvious he was some brand of reptile-like creature now, but Daniel couldn't even begin to fathom what kind.

"I'm an extraterrestrial, of course," his friend explained, "I'm sure we've been over this..."

"And your association with Arachnos?"

"Arachnos has an inordinate amount of resources for such a poorly managed organization. It makes acquiring resources from under their noses an extremely simple matter, which I'm sure you already knew."

Daniel thought of how he was able to pay off the Disruptor crews with only a few hundred dollars and nodded. His armor, his rifle and ammunition, and eventually his Nullifier Mace... They were all technically stolen equipment, but nobody had ever come after him for them.

"I have needs of the things I can acquire from Arachnos," Null concluded calmly, "And I get a free backstage pass at one of the movers-and-shakers in the world to watch how things unfold. It's not an entirely unenviable position."

"And the more distasteful parts?" the former Arbiter asked as he rubbed his chest where he remembered getting shot.

"Ah, well, I treat those moments like a rare treat. You see... There's a risk in sending somebody's best friend to kill them..."

The door to the chamber opened and Shadeheart's voluptuous form walked in. She saw Daniel on the operating table and smiled warmly. Even in the blue lighting, he could see tears causing her eyes to glitter.

"I'm glad you're alright," she explained as she walked over and rested a hand on his shoulder, "I don't know what I would have done if you had been hurt."

Taylor sat up. There was a dull ache throughout his body that he was mindful of, but otherwise, he was quite fine. Shadeheart leaned in close and planted a kiss on his lips. One of her tears fell on his cheek and he reached up to embrace her.

"...I am a great many things, Daniel," Null continued, "I like to put 'unpredictable' at the top of that list. In Arachnos, all ties are expected to be severed at a moment's notice. Apparently, they believe everybody can be swayed with money or power. They never understand what a higher purpose truly is."

"Recluse just wants to conquer the world," Daniel sighed, "He feels that's all the higher purpose the rest of us need."

"And such small-minded thinking will get him nowhere! Look at Nemesis! He's already hard at work to conquer multiple Earths across dimensions! He's got outposts in the Shadow Shard! If he ever needs, he pits whole species against each other in total all-out war! Recluse makes himself stronger and starts bludgeoning things. He hires a super-powered renegade to do what he's never been able to himself. Of course somebody like you, somebody with vision, would feel disenfranchised by that."

"I just... I always thought the trouble in the Isles was because Arachnos was overwhelmed..." Daniel sighed, "Now... They actually WANT things this way..."

"It's easier to oppress the people if they're already at each other's throats. The most unified front they ever dealt with was Scrapyard's miner strike, and look how that turned out. If somebody had helped that great man, if somebody had stood with those men who had finally learned the value of hard work, I imagine these islands would have broken out in a civil war that would be continuing to this day."

"More than likely, the U.S. would have sent aid that would have escalated to Martial Law," Daniel said thoughtfully, "In a few short years, Martial Law would turn into annexation, leading to becoming yet another island-based commonwealth like Puerto Rico. It would make all these territorial disputes we've been having with Longbow moot... And would probably elevate Arachnos to 'criminal organization' status in world politics."

"You would think the Warburg situation would cause a similar situation," Null chuckled, "And I'm glad my little performance hasn't done any damage to your mental faculties."

"Warburg's considered a 'handled situation.' The missiles fired haven't caused any lasting damage to any large region, and they've always been in the control of people considered 'reliable,' though how a super-powered criminal can be considered reliable is an unsettling concept. Anyway... Thanks for not killing me."

"Your death has been recorded in the official logs," Null explained, "You were recorded as killing your opponent, Operative Fulkerson, then Miss Shadeheart here in an attempt to cover your tracks as you began work on an assassination plot against Arbiter Daos. I was introduced to the plan and I did my 'civic duty' by putting down a dangerous, threatening element in the Isles."

"I'm sure you'll put in to receive a medal that will be reduced to a pat on the back," Daniel chuckled, then rubbed his ribs from the ache.

"And I'm sure that will be reduced to a reprimand for not anticipating your behavior earlier... To be upgraded to a warrant for my arrest for allowing a threat to Lord Recluse to persist because of my emotional attachments..."

The two shared a laugh, but Shadeheart was not amused. Her and her lover's lives were now turned upside down, and they didn't know who to blame for it.

"Arbiter Daos, of course," Null explained, "He's been looking to get at Sands for a long time and he never really cared for Daniel's approach to how society works in this nation."

"How do we fight that, though?" she asked, worry creeping into her voice.

"We don't," Daniel replied somberly, "We don't need to, anyway. As far as Arachnos knows, we're dead. We can do whatever we wish."

"Well..." Shadeheart bit her lower lip and sat down on the operating table next to her lover, "What do you want to do?"

Daniel thought for a moment. Null stood and lumbered out of the chamber to let them have some privacy. When he finally came to a decision, the former Arachnos agent turned to the only woman he had ever had the chance to love and gazed into her eyes.

"I want to know your name."

She looked at him incredulously. She couldn't believe that in all this time that they'd known each other, he'd never learned her real name. Of course, she was a Night Widow. Anything she'd told him before, he'd have been right to dismiss as a lie.

Now, however... They were free. She could tell him the truth. She didn't feel any reason not to.

"It's Candace, Daniel. Candace Lawrence."

"Lovely," he croaked before leaning in for another kiss.

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Arbiter Apolis stalked past Rein and plunked his security code into the door. His Arachnos Class "C" assault rifle was gripped tightly in his other hand and the safety was off.

"What're you doing, Appy?" the other asked.

"I'm going to go let Daos know how I feel about his politics..."

"Uh-huh... And what do you think is going to happen to you after that?"

"I don't care!" Apolis shouted, "That ******* keeps pushing us around because he thinks he's in control! If he keeps this crap up, he'll be losing that control quick! This quick!"

The enraged man pointed his rifle to the sky and squeezed off a burst. Rein still watched him calmly until the weapon was lowered.

"First off, you're not going to kill Daos. Simply put, you won't do enough to him before the reclaimator takes him to a secure location. Then the Arbiter Drones will get at ya, and we both know what that'll do to you."

Apolis paced a couple steps back and forth in front of his associate.

"Second, do you really think Taylor's dead? You really think that Null guy finished him off? Come on, man! We saw both of their careers! Honestly, there's something creepy about Null. Creepy enough that I think he'd twist things around and keep Danny-boy alive to stick in Daos's craw."

"I... I guess..."

"I know it's been getting unbearable. I know we're chafing under Daos... But it can't be like this forever. Sands is already working on his plans... I'm sure we figure in somewhere. You just play your part, alright? Let it go for now... I'm sure we'll see our friend again."

"Rein... You're a good friend," Apolis sighed and switched the safety on his rifle, "You're right. I'll return to my post..."

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"The operation was a success," Weaver-1 said over the intercom, "Whatever debt I owed you, Ernest, it's paid. Don't ever bother me again."

The big, armored form walked up to the body lashed to the plate on the wall. As he yanked the lashes off, Silver Mantis's sleek form stepped whisper quietly behind him before snaking her arms around his blaster arm.

"Are you sure this was a good investment?" she asked as they looked over their latest toy.

"Yes," Black Scorpion replied quietly, "I need to start looking outside my normal scope. There are many things in this world I don't understand... I need to use people who've dealt with them. I need soldiers like this..."

The cybernetic hulk dropped to the floor, landing in a kneeling position before the two Arachnos leaders. Black Scorpion figured it was an appropriate introduction.

"Operative Fulkerson," he explained, "I've turned considerable resources toward restoring you."

The head raised up to gaze at the broken man's benefactor. A pair of milky, dead eyes looked over the respirator covering the lower half of his face into the big, armored man's red glowing one.

"I owe you my life, my lord," Fulkerson lowered his head, "Use me as you will."

Definitely a nice story, Witchfrost.

My family's first experiences with combat were apparently with the Battle of Sackets Harbor. They had just come to the area a couple generations prior and had settled in when war reached their doorstep. A local skirmish at the "South Landing of Sandy Creek" left a group of Union soldiers unable to deliver supplies to the besieged Sackets Harbor through Lake Ontario (because the lake was full of British ships patrolling the coast). They had soundly defeated the British troops, but more would be coming, so they had to act quickly. They sent runners to the local farmers and towns and my ancestor and his brother were two of the first to volunteer.

They force-marched for three days to Sackets Harbor, hauling supplies and a gigantic anchor cable for the largest ship in Lake Ontario (which was currently harbored in Sackets). When they arrived, many of the farmers left the service of the militia, others stayed. My ancestor and his brother were among them.

They found themselves ordered to go out into the fields to retrieve 12-pound cannonballs for the defenders. Sackets Harbor had a large supply of 12-pounder cannons, but they had mostly 8-pound shot. They fired back the same ammunition the British were using on them, and still made use of the 8-pound shot by wrapping it in dirty laundry.

It's been an interesting battle for me to learn about, even if it's been the source of a lot of headaches for me the past couple years. It's also nice to know members of my family played a rather crucial role.

I didn't find out until after I was done with the Marines what my grandfather did for the Navy in WW2. One of his best friends spilled out to me a story of body retrieval from wrecked ships... And how he was amazed my grandfather was able to just get up in the morning and go to it. This was something that was breaking other seamen, but my grandfather stoically set to it with pretty much the attitude "Somebody has to do it."

My uncles on my mother's side were in the Marines. One of them ran into his cousin, they didn't even know they were both in until they were on the plane to Vietnam, looking at each other from across an aisle. According to the story, they each cocked their heads to one side and went "Hey! I know you!"

My father's oldest brother did everything he could to avoid conscription (meaning, he tried to stay in high school as long as possible). It didn't pan out. He wound up kicked out of school and got snatched up by the Draft. He's an odd sort, though. When he finds himself in a situation, he deals with it as best he knows how, he doesn't do like the majority of draftees did and try to mess everything up around him in an effort to get away faster. He wound up working E.O.D., and he's apparently still got some nightmares of some of the things he had to deal with.

Myself, I didn't learn much of this until I signed up to become a Marine. I went in to learn how to work on computers (skills which are fading from my memory, sadly). My mother was still convinced I would wind up on the front lines. I didn't get much help from my cousin (an aircraft mechanic in the Corps) because he was often too drunk to give me a straight answer, but he did give me the encouragement that, even skinny as I was, I'd do fine. I like to think I did. I never saw any action, but I did my best to make sure everything I worked with was in proper order (earning me a nickname from one of my coworkers, "6th Reich"). I like to think it was a positive experience for me, that it continues to help me in my daily life, allowing me to cope with difficult times.

To those who came before, I salute you. To those who continue, I salute you as well. Someone has to do it, and I'm glad there are those with fortitude who do.

Happy birthday, man.

Happy birthday, man.