OOC 1

[Atreides Conscript]

This thread is for all things Out Of Character.

[celest]

question, where is my father. Is he on board or esle where? Also what happened to the children?

[eunhathes]

This sentence is totally out of character and, thus, belongs here. In any case, I assume we are cleared to start from anywhere we want, so here goes nothing. <example>

[Atreides Conscript]

but there's been a slight snafu with your original starting PM. Yours somehow got sent to Orenjiro by mistake (yeah, I don't know how in the Hell that happened).

For this reason (as you will realise when you read the PM), your original post has been stricken from the record. If you wish to preserve any of that post, it has been sent to your inbox as well.

Sorry again.

[Atreides Conscript]

The crewman that you are all (except for he of course) waiting for is named Threl Jondro. The opening post failed to tell you all this... and combined with Gryphonpoet's message going to Gryphon, it has caused a bit of confusion.

The opening post has been modified to reflect this properly.

[Atreides Conscript]

A Note On Conversations:

While this first time is an exception, from here on out conversations will be handled differently. While I will continue giving updates for multiple characters at once, I will not give any information regarding the conversation itself whenever it occurs between two characters. I will give information about surroundings (so long as the conversation or other circumstances are not to involved to prohibit your noticing) and other ambiance, but what is said... and how it is said... and how it is interpreted is up to you.

Sometimes there will be exceptions to this. For example, alcohol gives a GM a bit of liberty on how a character interprets something. Psychoses are another example of this. This will only happen where dramatically appropriate however, as to not lessen the role playing experience of a character's drunkenness. One last note on this is that... IF YOU FAIL TO ROLE-PLAY THE AFFECTS OF ALCOHOL OR OTHER DEBILITATING MENTAL EFFECTS, THEY WILL BE ROLE-PLAYED FOR YOU IN GM POSTS.

I truly doubt any of you will have problems with this, so don't worry too much about the warning. I only have to step in if it interferes with everybody's ability to have fun.

[eunhathes]

Wha ken aye doo ferya, mish kwiggnee?

How's that for impairment? Ha!

[gryphonpoet]

Atreides,

Is there a ship on landing pad 426? Or has it left already and the pad itself is down for repairs?

[Kensai]

admin said:

Wha ken aye doo ferya, mish kwiggnee?

How's that for impairment? Ha!

Such genius, such amzaing writing in the 'drunken' style. How do you do it? Do you recall past conversations when you were completely trashed?

[Atreides Conscript]

In response to your question Gryphonpoet, Pad 426 (like all landing pads on the station) is raised about one story above ground level. Due to this, you cannot tell which pads have ships unless those vessels are large enough to be noticed above a one-story structure.

There is a loading dock with each pad that allows goods to be moved aboard via anti-grav unit. Another way to get goods aboard is via the service lift directly below the ship for ventral-loaders. The quickest way for crew to access the pad is via two staircases within the structure.

In order to access the loading dock (glorified term for large ramp), you would need to be able to get to the other side of the pad. This isn't easily possible for virtually every pad due to large retaining walls with equally large (and very well locked) doors.

You could access the lift, but if the ship isn't a ventral-loader there is the slight risk of being crushed to consider.

Last, there are the access stairways that have no doors, but are sometimes under surveillance or (even worse) armed guard by the docked ship's crewmen.

[Atreides Conscript]

but I will be incommunicado for the rest of the week (that means "out of touch" for those of you that don't habla Espanol). It's finals time at my college and I just can't keep up with the posting schedule here. Feel free to take a breather for a while, and I'll see you back again next week!

[gryphonpoet]

I took a breather once and called a woman. The police arrested me for making an obscene phone call. I guess I was breathering too hard?

[Kensai]

gryphonpoet said:

I took a breather once and called a woman. The police arrested me for making an obscene phone call. I guess I was breathering too hard?

The short question is Yes.

As for the habla Espanolling, I have a sister who did Spanish for a year, so every once and a while she throws a few words in to the mix. In a country like South Africa, where we have 11 offical languages - Spanish isn't really at the top of my list of 'speaking and learning' In fact, as a typical 'rascist' white South African or Anglo-African as coined by someone the other day (ie. English speaking whitie) I can only really speak English fluently, understand Afrikaans and speak a few, mainly slang terms, in the other languages such as Zulu and Tsonga and Ndebele (though I never know which one I am saying in a point in time!)

[gryphonpoet]

No worries, Mate. It is their problem... being a racist that is.

Once someone told me that it was MY fault that THEIR family came here from the Mother Continent (Africa). I promptly informed that person that none of my family lived in the US prior to 1885, long after the outlaw of slavery. Then, I observed that they had their minds made up already and I apologized for confusing them with facts.

Funny thing, though. When people of that mindset do that sort of thing, they are looking at you but really talking to themselves.

[Kensai]

gryphonpoet said:

Once someone told me that it was MY fault that THEIR family came here from the Mother Continent (Africa).

If I hear another American say that the reason they came to stay/visit South Africa was to visit their 'roots' I swear I'll kick them. If you ever hear that, tell the person that wants to return to their roots, tell them to return to Sierra Leone and Rwanda - I am sure they would love to have their 'old countrymen' back! Let's get one thing straight, South Africa is not, I repeat, not the African-American 'homeland', they just think we are as close as they can get to their country (USA) without having to deal with the actual poverty and dirt poor and war that is actually going on in Africa.

[Lylie]

Hmm... Speaking on that, I was called racist once, and was also blamed for slavery. I looked and them and told them I was german and Native American, I didn't have anything to do with slavery. They called me racist again. Eh. Some people.

[gryphonpoet]

Once again, I insist... Some people have their minds made up, so don't confuse them with facts.

[Kensai]

<I'm moving this discussion to a more appropriate area >

eunhathes.proboards30.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=debate&thread=1147609810

[Kensai]

Hey guys,

This doesn't really apply to some, but it does to others. If you need any help with info or details on Star Trek stuff (i.e. what phaser to use when ) You can drop me a PM or email, I'll be happy to help.

As a Voyager Trekkie and a person that has been doing Star Trek sims for almost three years, I'd like to say I know a bit about the Star Trek universe.

So feel free to ask, just don't ask me which episode Ensign <insert name here> made his only appearance because I won't be able to answer!

[Atreides Conscript]

My only problem with all of that is the fact that Voyager isn't very relevant to much here at all. I suggest a healthy dose of DS9 for you all. Voyager and DS9 have remarkably different feels to them. Voyager is a conflict between despair and hope, while DS9 bounces around between a Star Trek cultural lesson in the early parts (which is very important overall), and an epic struggle between good and evil later on. Late DS9 should be a good focus for feel, with much of it involving winning only at high costs, but it still doesn't fill out the despair Maquis fighters have to deal with constantly.

Anyways, the title of this post does actually have relevance. It is important to note that phasers and disruptors are quite different in their overall composition and use. There are things that it would take multiple phasers to do, that a disruptor would do very easily. The Maquis, for the record, are commonly fitted with Bajoran disruptors (like all of you are).

A disruptor is a phased plasma weapon. Its basis for energy is a plasma energy cell (which is only stable due centuries of perfecting), unlike the phaser which uses electrical energy to form light and heat (which are then condensed and refined into a beam). The end result is that a disruptor has much higher settings than a phaser, but is less stable and has fewer shots in the high end of the spectrum.

A single phaser is hard pressed to slice open a door, but a disruptor could either slice or melt a large gap (whichever suits your purposes, of course). Unfortunately, disruptors run out of energy almost twice to three times as quickly as phasers (actual statistics are dependent upon manufacturing party).

For example, Bajoran disruptor pistols come with roughly twenty shots on lethal (but not vaporize) setting, while Starfleet phasers have roughly forty-five shots on a lethal setting. Both can be set to vaporize (or disintegrate in the case of a disruptor), but it halves your shots from lethal. Bajoran disruptors have no stun setting, but rather may be reconfigured in the field to use a different power pack (which is surprisingly similar to a phaser's ), but this takes the time to flip a switch and change packs. Changing one of these disruptors to stun also halves the effective range due to the crystal matrix being optimized for plasma and not simple light.

Last, disruptors and phasers may both be set to auto-destruct and explode like a bomb. This works in different ways for both weapons though. A disruptor ruptures its plasma cell, which then mixes with gases held in the chambre and becomes unstable... thus exploding. This causes shrapnel from the disruptor's casing and various mechanisms flying at high speeds. This may also start a plasma fire, depending upon the surroundings.

Phasers rather expend all of their energy into one shot (which the focus shard cannot possibly handle). The focus shard (which is merely a line of multi-tiering crystal slides) reconfigures to act as a reservoir rather than a narrowing tunnel. This pulls all of the phased energy into the shard, which gathers both light and heat. The inner chambre walls of the phaser act like an oven and focus the heat, gases, and light into plasma, which then melts the shard and phaser... thus exploding. Phaser explosions rarely produce much shrapnel, and the small amount of plasma quickly mixes with the cooler environment outside to separate back into light, heat, and various gases. Thus, a phaser's explosion will not start a plasma fire, but will burn everything and blind everyone foolish enough to be watching.

Since you're all Maquis, and thus prone to violent problems (which usually require violent solutions), I figured you all should know the differences. Any questions can be put up in this thread. If the conversation grows too long, then posts may be moved into another thread as needed. This will hold for any conversation of length in here.

Last in all of this, I have cut my index finger rather badly and cannot use it to type (this post was dictated by another person... HI!). This means that posts from me are unlikely before the end of next week (in all sections Eun). I would also prefer to put the game on hold until then, but you have my word that this is the last delay for quite some time. These past two weeks have been terrible, and I need some time to work things out. Thanks for your patience guys... I really like how this game is running, and I'm looking forward to getting back to it.