Star Fleet Battle Writers Group Archive
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 09:29 am: Edit To all authors and would be authors, is anyone here interested in forming a writers' group for SFB and GURPS PD fiction? This can be a local thing where we meet in person, or an email discussion group. Post your thoughts here or email me
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 04:06 pm: Edit Good idea! Count me in.
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 04:28 pm: Edit Thanks John, but it was Sean Bayan Schoonmaker's (Schoon) idea. He bought a TOS DVD from me the summer before last, and suggested the idea. Unfortunately I was too busy with other things to really entertain the idea.
Some questions to consider;
1) What kind of fiction should be written? (themes, etc.) 2) What're the easiest stories to convey? 3) Experimental fiction? 4) How should we communicate with one another?
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 03:13 am: Edit Well John, it looks like it's just you and me. Where do you want to start?
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 12:09 pm: Edit My basic goals in writing a SFB fiction story, in approximate order of importance.
1) to entertain the reader with an interesting story and good characters;
2) to expand the history and background of the SFB universe, by filling in the blanks of things not yet established or fleshing out those things that exist only in skeletal form;
3) to take advantage of a unique opportunity to make some small contribution to this corner of the larger universe of trekdom.
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 02:19 pm: Edit Those are good motivators. I also just want to write good stuff. I'm not big on the whole historical thing. I've written a lot of action oriented stuff, and I like that genre, but I'm more of an episodic kind of guy (albethey long episodes).
What do you like about the GW history that attracts you?
By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 02:26 pm: Edit I'll sign. I have been woriking on an Orion story, and am suffering from writers- block.
-- JonB
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 05:15 pm: Edit Cool.
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 05:43 pm: Edit George: Well, the whole universe attracts me. I got into SFB because of TOS, and I think the history that's been worked out over the years makes more sense in most ways than what the franchise has done. The GW is interesting simply because I'm interested in military, political, and diplomatic history. But the rest of the history, not just the GW stuff, is fascinating too. I especially like the Fed/Kzinti War, and really want to do more with that in terms of scenarios and stories.
I'm often more interested in developing background and a history that makes sense rather than the action stuff, although I like that too. But I find the history/background easier to write than the action scenes. That's one reason I've been so excited about GPD...because we can do fiction and stories and background without having to worry about it fitting into a SFB scenario.
I'm working on a GW story now though.
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 05:48 pm: Edit Continuing on a theme:
One of the things I like most about TOS is that Star Fleet is a muscular military in the service of a liberal state. Although Roddenberry in his later years became a pacifist, back in the mid-60s he was a more traditional somewhat hawkish liberal, at least if the scripts to "A Private Little War", "Omega Glory," and many other episodes are any indication. Since "somewhat hawkish liberal" is my own orientation, I appreciate this. Of course, maybe that's my orientation because I grew up watching TOS and it influenced me!
The franchise shows (with the exception of DS9) have forgotten the pro-military flavor of TOS, but SFB has not.
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 06:37 pm: Edit Yeah, I can see that. I was particularly excited about the GURPS PD move because of the huge amount of venues it opens up. One of the drawbacks is that not all of the source books are usable as such, but for myself they provide a good deal of inspiration. I came up with approximately ten storie concepts after the announcement for GURPS, only five of which really fit inside a SFB/Trek frame work. But even those stories are more about exploring the possibilities of "going way out there" as opposed to venturing through a domesticated galaxy (a-la TNG).
I think your observations on Roddenberry are spot on. I think I would take those thoughts a step further and might label him as a Wig. For myself his "liberal" politics, from the way I was raised, fall more in line with the classic definition of the word, and not the political connotation it's taken on in the last century. That being said I think he kind of lost track of himself, and his shows followed suit.
And yeah, I guess we've discussed the politics of Trek and all that on the other thread. Ever since I saw Klingons yell up at the sky when one of theirs passes on I've always thought real Star Trek to be dead. I'm glad DS9 has such a huge following, and it seems to be favored by a lot of folks. I have to confess I never saw much of it, but what I did see was pretty decent.
Getting back to GURPS: I talked about this with a couple of other folks (two in my current gaming group, and a few others via email), and one of the thorns in my side was the restriction put on some of the usage of the GURPS moduals. And where I can totally understand why that's there there's still a part of me that wonders what it would be like to put Kirk and Spock on Planet Krishna Call it an evil fantasy.
I don't know if you or anyone else'll remember, but I wrote an e-novel on the old fiction thread before the site got revamped. It was about the old Fed-CVA (or CVA(O)) battlegroup venturing corewards, where they ran into a bunch of races off of Sean Young's Core Worlds website. I had fun doing that because I got to write stuff that I had always wanted to, and I didn't feel myself restricted to Klingons and their various ship classes and idiosynchrosies. I like Klingons. I think they're fun to write about. But back then I wanted something different.
Yeah, Star Fleet's a military organization. In Jeremy Grey's words "they're not a peace corp with guns"
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 07:33 pm: Edit Too late to join? If not, count me in also.
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 08:14 pm: Edit I wouldn't mind finding a proof reader for some stuff.
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 08:17 pm: Edit More coolness. Welcome guys.
By Donovan A Willett (Ravenhull) on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 10:17 pm: Edit I'll step forward too. Now if I can just get those revisions in. ;) By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 12:31 am: Edit I've tried to write fiction for years. Unfortunately, it comes out really stinky. Maybe I can figure out what I'm doing wrong with help.
MJC: I'd be happy to proofread for you (or anyone). Use my regular email.
By Piotr Orbis Proszynski (Orbis) on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 11:37 am: Edit I am interested. However, given personal issues between George and me, I am quite willing to observe only, without commenting, for the sake of the group. Writing criticism can all too easily be taken personally, and given how each of us is the red flag to the other's bull...
Until being asked to shut up, though:
GE: Some questions to consider; 1) What kind of fiction should be written? (themes, etc.) 2) What're the easiest stories to convey? 3) Experimental fiction? 4) How should we communicate with one another?
1) No preference. PD should be opening whole new vistas of stories possible to be told. 2) the ones for which there is the most background already, i.e. General War battle fiction. 3) Yes please! But what does it mean? Experimental in technique or experimental in setting or... 4) a Yahoo Group should be easy enough to start and manage.
JS's goals: 1)to entertain the reader with an interesting story and good characters;
2) to expand the history and background of the SFB universe, by filling in the blanks of things not yet established or fleshing out those things that exist only in skeletal form;
3) to take advantage of a unique opportunity to make some small contribution to this corner of the larger universe of trekdom
Of these, 2 would be my primary motivator. For 1, I only try to entertain myself, and for 3, I don't really feel like a fan of Trek as much of SFB proper. In fact, I like stories which center on races and events unique to SFB... Down with Klingons, up with Selts!
Who was it that was writing Lorilyll fiction a while back? Sandy Hemenway? Can we track him down and see if he's interested in coming back to SFB as a writer, even if he's burned out on playing?
By Russell J. Manning (Rjmanning) on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 12:14 pm: Edit I would be willing to be a proofreader.
I wish I could write. I am great for coming up with ideas for plots and even scene's within the story, just can't write the dialoge (sic) worth a dang. Back when I was GMing FASA Star Trek roleplaying, my friends/players said I came with great adventures with awesome background.
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 01:44 pm: Edit Piotr Orbis Proszynski (Orbis); you're welcome, but this is pretty much an SFB BBS / email affair. Just steer clear of the political commentary, and everyone should get along fine.
When Sean first came up with the idea he suggested we meet in the Redwood City Library (five miles south of where I live), which I thought was kind of odd since A) he was attending UC Berkeley at the time (and may still be, I don't know) which is almost an hour's drive, and B) SFB's a pretty niche market, and I wasn't convinced then (and am still not now) that there're too many authors interested in writing SFB fiction; and C) there're SFBers all over the globe (though I'm pretty sure he meant Bay Area SFBers). Myself, I just didn't think there'd be that many people interested locally.
I think the second point (B) is a little more salient because where SFB is somewhat more liberal in terms of Trek "physics" and overall story dynamics than the Official Trek Writers' Guidlines, there're some game restrictions that I think would turn off a lot of would be SFB authors (read that as author's who know little to nothing about the game). Myself, I've only ever submitted one story because of the guidelines dictated by the game rules. I hate having to write about Captain So-and-so ording his ship to Warp 2.357, because A) it doesn't make sense (would the captain really have a mind capable of calculating speed to the thousandth's place?), and B) it just sounds kooky But that's pretty much what we're stuck with.
Sandy Hemenway wrote the faery-Omega stuff. One of his original notions was to write their narrative in verse, but I think he dropped that concept. He used to have a page dedicated to his Kzinti stuff, but I think he dropped that too. Last I heard he was writing for Ken Burnside.
Russell J. Manning (Rjmanning); that's what a writer's group is all about
It's about reading some guy's stuff, critiqueing it (in a nice way), and then offering some suggestions on what you read. We're getting off to a good start here.
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 04:07 pm: Edit Firemane's old web page
By David Kass (Dkass) on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 07:55 pm: Edit I'd be interested in a passive way (ie don't go putting me on a mailing list).
George, in one of the captain's logs, there's a list of warp speeds and the "short hand" reference used for each. Very useful for that specific problem. I think most are rounded to one decimal place. From a fiction perspective, I look at it as jargon that everyone on the ship is used hearing and understanding...
I realize you were just describing one piece of a larger problem (I've run into it on occasion as well trying to write SFB fiction).
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 08:50 pm: Edit Captain's Log #16, page 9, for the warp speed conversion.
I would just like some critiquing for validity every now and then. I'm in a writers group from DragonCon, but they had a great deal of trouble with critiquing Rimworld. For example, they all asked, wouldn't overloading photon torpedoes be a bad thing? :0
So, instead of educating a group that has no concept what the game is about...
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 09:44 pm: Edit
Quote:
Myself, I've only ever submitted one story because of the guidelines dictated by the game rules. I hate having to write about Captain So- and-so ording his ship to Warp 2.357, because A) it doesn't make sense (would the captain really have a mind capable of calculating speed to the thousandth's place?)
Me, I just write 13 C.
I recognise that ships move at varrious warp speeds but they also move at Impulse speeds and full impulse isn't the speed of light but people pretend it is.
So I'ld say there were dozens of ways to express speed (mph, kph, kps, ms, etc) and one of them is as a multiple of the speed of light. I might leave it as one captain uses multiples of the speed of light and other captains use WARP FACTORS.
I like multiples of the speed of light for warp speed combat, for strategic warp I'll use Warp Factors in whole units. At those high end speeds the captain really shouldn't be able to tell the difference between Warp 8.0052 & 8.0104 ( 513 C & 514 C respectively ) and since the difference between either of those and the time taken to travel at warp 8 to the same destination is less than 0.2% why would he care!?!
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 10:12 am: Edit Monday, August 04, 2003 - 10:47 pm, I wrote a piece under the "Once and future echelon thread..." (alternately search for keyword "q'lever")
Was this the kind of thing you guys were considering?
I love to write, and I'd REALLY love help turning random stories into useful and compatable sfb fiction.
Unfortunately, books are in KY (parents basement) while I am in Afghanistan...
Mike
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 08:17 pm: Edit Howdy all; the speed thing, to my way of thinking, should reflect more of the feel and gist of what the captain (or whoever's in charge) wants out of his/her/its ship or device. I think expressing it in various ways should be no problem, as long as the reader knows what you're talking about, and as long as it makes sense in the story.
So if Captain Smith orders his ship to warp 1.2, but then says "Hey, helmsman Johnson, kick it up to 500c..." as long as the context of what the captain is trying to convey, or if the whole message of the story is clear to the reader, then there should be no problem. In other words Daivd Kass' observation about it just being on board jargon I think is a good description.
A potential pitfall is mistaking rule terminology for in-game fictional terminology, or allowing "Rules-speak" to creep into both story narrative and dialogue. Such as Captain X asking Science Officer Y about ESG-Web interaction, as opposed to asking if his ESG's (or the enemie's) will work through an energy field like a web. Or Captain Siamese-Cat telling weapon's officer Morris to "prepare a scatter-pack" as opposed to "fill a shuttle full of drones, and rig a delayed detonation device so it'll...*blah blah blah*..." But those are just my opinions.
Also keep in mind that you're not just limited to stories about ships and their crews slugging it out in space. You can write about characters involved in odd situations, and really take the sci-fi in SFB to another level.
Piotr; sorry for not explaining this earlier. Experimental Fiction is stuff that's just way way way out there in terms of prose, story structure, narrative, setting, even format. Imagine writing about two Gorn-lesbian captains in chalk on the fast lane of a major interstate artery. Admittedly there's probably little room for the avante-garde in SFB/GURPS fiction, but there maybe a niche or space for something that isn't too unconventional. Maybe a free form poem?
OK, now that that's all out of the way, I'm thinking people might want to communicate privately about their stories, but possibly announce here that they'd like someone to critique their work. And maybe those criticisms could be posted here, as long as they weren't too revealing or whatever. And we probably shouldn't use SPAM, unless a group of writers/participants agree to. It's up to them, really. For this larger group let's just keep it here and in private mano-a- mano emails. That'd probably work best for us.
Something to consider; a single ship or base may make an interesting setting for a collaborative effort. Say one person writes about the events of one set of characters, while others do the same with their own characters and what not. Imagine "The Battle of New London;" an anthology of five different authors. Just a thought. Don't take it too seriously. And remember, now it's true sci-fi with GURPS and not just SFB space opera. Let's have at it
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 05:41 pm: Edit I hope I didn't scare anybody with my "Experimental Fiction" example.
I'm just hoping people will take the opportunity to create some really unique stuff.
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 06:24 pm: Edit I never thought I would read the words "Gorn-lesbian captains." Let alone in a post by Ebersole....
How about Deian lesbian captains? (duck)
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 11:14 pm: Edit Actually made me think in new, uh directions. ;)
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 12:29 am: Edit A comment on rules-speak George. It is one of the harder things to avoid. But I can think of a few examples from history that might argue that some of it would be ok. One prime example, the wild weasel. Everyone that's been around combat aircraft knows what a wild weasel is. They don't say, "I fly a fighter packed slam full of electonic gear and my job is antiair suppression." They say, "I fly Wild Weasels and I kick the crap out of whoever is stupid enough to fire at me." I can very easily see scatterpack making the same kind of entrance into Starfleet's militarys lexicon. However, I agree with you in saying that if someone said, "Fire all the Type One Offensive phasers in the Right Front Arc," well that would just be bad writing.
Mike Grafton: I read the q'lever stuff, and it seemed to be a mix between a tactics note and fiction. It does have some potential though, so give it some thought. Basically, what I think George has in mind is just a writers group where we try to help each other out however we can.
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 01:15 am: Edit John; it was either that or skywrite the history of the GW from a ice-molecule's perspective .
Years back I had a couple of creative writing instructors at State who spoke of experimental fiction, and some of the stuff they talked about was just really out there.
Randy; sure, I can see that. All the Phantoms still in the USAF inventory aren't called HARM platforms, but, as you say Wild Weasels. So that kind of stuff holds up. I think your observation holds: The bad writing verse being technically acurate thing.
Mike; what Randy said. It's just a group of folks who like to help out with SFB fiction. That's all I'm trying to get started here.
Right now we're being hit with a huge tropical storm here on the west coast, and after I saw the power flicker on and off I'm debating whether or not to continue to work on my Mech-Trek story ... Oh great, thunder and lightening now.
By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 06:05 am: Edit
"Twas a dark and stormy night"
I'd offer to participate. But I've got too many items on my plate right now.
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 10:02 am: Edit Need some imput for a story I'm working on.
How would Star Fleet deal with a crewman (say an experienced CPO) who is starting to develop a drinking problem? Remember, this is TOS-era, when booze was still booze and men were men and women were women.
By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 12:21 pm: Edit John,
It may depend on how the problem came to light. Certainly the CPO would receive discipline if, as a result of a drinking binge, he damaged something or someone (including himself).
But Starfleet, being a "kinder, gentler" military, even in TOS, may have some kind of diversionary program for active-duty soldiers to have the opportunity to get clean from alcohol or drug abuse.
Third, in the future, there might actually be some kind of sound and assured medical treatment to deal with addiction (especially in the case of physical dependency...don't know if that would apply to your scenario or not).
Last, unless the CPO was with a crew who was unusual, his ability to lead other enlisted personnel, and perhaps even get along with others, would be adversely impacted because of the possibly perceived "weakness of character" in becoming addicted in such "advanced" times...
Just brainstorming. Other thoughts?
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 01:35 pm: Edit In the story, the CPO has been on a drinking binge "recently" (i'm thinking a couple of months) due to a family crisis. He's not drunk on duty, but is often hungover. His supervising Lt. is aware of the problem and is telling him he has to clean up or get reported to the ship's surgeon. The CPO decides not to re-enlist so he can go home and deal with the family problems once his term is up (3 months). AT least that is how I currently have it written. the drinking problem is not going to be a major plot point, but rather some character background.
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 02:42 pm: Edit John; if I recall correctly a heavy drinker back then was just that, a heavy drinker. I remember scenes from Hollywood movies at the time where one character grabs the other, slaps him, tells him to pull himself together, and possibly throws an open bottle across the room where it shatters dramatically. But that was movies.
I don't much about the history of addiction, but didn't AA start in the mid to late sixties? I don't really know.
My personal thoughts are that it may help to have your character's problem interefere with his performance. Or better yet maybe he needs to take a swig before beaming down into a hostile environment. Then he becomes inreasingly reliant on the stuff, explaining that he can quit anytime but only uses it to help keep himself focused, or to "take the edge off." Maybe he hides bottles around the ship?
Just some random thoughts.
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 06:16 pm: Edit
Quote:
Remember, this is TOS-era, when booze was still booze and men were men and women were women.
And green fuzzy things from Alpha Centari were gree fuzzy things from Alpha centari!
Quote:
In the story, the CPO has been on a drinking binge "recently" (i'm thinking a couple of months) due to a family crisis. He's not drunk on duty, but is often hungover. His supervising Lt. is aware of the problem and is telling him he has to clean up or get reported to the ship's surgeon. The CPO decides not to re-enlist so he can go home and deal with the family problems once his term is up (3 months). AT least that is how I currently have it written. the drinking problem is not going to be a major plot point, but rather some character background.
I'm sure his leiutenant is glad that in a few short months he'll see the back of his CPO ( What is that? ) and sure that on the surface of a major planet he'll have access to AA that he might not have on a starship. But that's basically the root of the problem, not has starfleet got a policy for drunkeness but rather have the personnel actuating that policy got the "hutsparhh" to actually bring it to fruition...hence storys are always about people...I'm sure Stan Lee wrote that once.
Quote:
Then he becomes inreasingly reliant on the stuff, explaining that he can quit anytime but only uses it to help keep himself focused, or to "take the edge off." Maybe he hides bottles around the ship?
Or maybe he doesn't forgo re-enlistment and rather is kicked-out. His career-minded opportunist Captain says he can either get the hell of his ship or spend the rest of his tour in Psych-hospital!
By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 07:23 pm: Edit Michael,
It's spelled "Chutzpah."
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 08:48 pm: Edit I'll try to remember that.
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Friday, February 27, 2004 - 02:11 pm: Edit John; also, if it's not a major plot point, then you might just want to mention it in passing. Let the reader know, but don't make a dig deal over it.
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 08:41 pm: Edit Nobody has any other projects they're working on, and need help with?
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 11:34 pm: Edit
I've got so many projects going I can't concentrate!
Between Gurps Romulans, this story I'm writing about Mak Kroree, and my regular baseball stuff I'm stretched thin.
By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Sunday, February 29, 2004 - 02:16 pm: Edit George: Some where I have a few dozen pages of some Star Fleet Marines fiction that I'd like to Post somewhere for consideration.
Do you have a site for this?
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Sunday, February 29, 2004 - 02:30 pm: Edit Patrick, alas I do not. But I don't see why you can't open up a new topic under the Fiction thread Call it "Major Dillman's Tale" or something. I would think people would love to read new stuff on the site by a different author.
That's assuming you have no plans to submit it . With the exception of the two teasers I posted the only stuff I ever post on SVC's website is stuff I just write for fun. Both Teaser 1 and Teaser 2 are snipits of larger stories that I plan on submitting for official publication, so they're not complete installments. By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Sunday, February 29, 2004 - 03:14 pm: Edit George: Just might do that. It's been sitting around in a notebook for nealy a year now. Anyways, I'll need to type it in to the confuser since it's mostly long hand
By Piotr Orbis Proszynski (Orbis) on Sunday, February 29, 2004 - 04:10 pm: Edit The fiction I have been working with is a Fed/Kzin/Rom/Orion historical scenario fiction piece. But it's been shoved aside by real life and there it remains, for the nonce.
By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 11:30 am: Edit I'll bring out my piece (An Orion LR attempting to evade Romulan pursuit just before the Day of the Eagle) when there is something to bring out.
-- JonB
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, March 01, 2004 - 08:53 pm: Edit Patrick;
Just remember, I believe the policy is, if you post it on a public website, you can't submit it, as George reiterated. The writers group I belong in has a group on Yahoo (memebers only) where we upload the files for review and critiquing. I'm sure if you need help with editing or something like that, you can ask for volunteers (like me) to do a once over for you.
By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 08:54 pm: Edit Randy: what about teasers?
Anyways, I found the material, but won't have time to input it until saturday. Okay if I e-mail it to you around then? To your one listed in your profile?
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, March 02, 2004 - 11:35 pm: Edit I don't know about teasers, but I would rather play safe than sorry.
Yeah, the profile one is good. Looking forward to it.
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 05:42 am: Edit G.M.E.:
I had asked John Sickels if he's like to proof read some fiction I had written and he replied simply "SURE" but I have not even got an email stating that he got the files and the above post makes me wonder.
What's your take, as you two seem to know each other...was he probably pulling my leg?
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 01:44 pm: Edit MJC; I don't really know. I don't really know him all that well other than through this BBS. I'd guess he's just real busy these days like he stated. Especially since he hasn't posted recently.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 02:33 pm: Edit JS is working major projects. I doubt he has much time left after working on those and getting his eyes to un-cross. I know after a couple thing I did it took me...well untill the next day to un-cross mine.
By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 04:41 pm: Edit I might be interested in this. I'm working on an SFU short story that really wouldn't fit in an issue of CL. I'm thinking it might be somewhat long and more suited to GPD.
By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Thursday, April 01, 2004 - 03:32 am: Edit Found this on usenet:
If you are interested in joining a group for science fiction writers (both fan fic and original) and in receiving critiques of your writing, go to this link
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, April 12, 2004 - 09:05 pm: Edit Is it safe to assume Romulan space has dozens or hundreds of colonizable worlds vs. the thousands located in Klingon (GK page 33)and Federation space? I'm not talking about major, industrial worlds, just minor, minor planets.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, April 12, 2004 - 10:17 pm: Edit Randy,
We discussed this down in the GPD topic ... each F&E hex is 500x500x500 parsecs (125,000,000 cubic parsecs), and may contain upwards of a million stellar bodies. Even if you assume that only one percent have planets (ten thousand), and further assume only one-tenth of a percent of those have Class-M planets (ten) .... with 171 F&E hexes in the Romulan Empire, your assumtion seems pretty safe. On the other hand, as they only had NTW tech until they made a deal with the Devils ... I mean, Klingons ... they weren't able to properly explor, survey and colonize very many of them.
Garth L. Getgen
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 08:32 am: Edit Thanks Garth! A million stellar bodies per hex? Almost inconceivable...
Another question.. is there a preferred format for submissions from writers? Cut and paste into email? That's a little unwieldy for big submissions, but every time I send something, I think they come out with a large amount of errors, which pretty much wastes the time I spent proofreading, spellchecking and formatting.
By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 03:53 pm: Edit Randy: PDF!
BTW, I'm about a week away from posting my SFU marines stuff. I'm going to put it on one of my web sites soon. Stay tuned for the URL.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 04:17 pm: Edit PDF, doh.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 04:18 pm: Edit Randy,
You mean for you to send stuff in to be published?? Just about everyone uses Micro$oft WORD anymore ... just give in to the fact Bill Gates in the original BORG. I know that SVC & SPP are able to import M$-WORD 2K .doc files okay.
As far as how I get a million stellar bodies per hex ... assuming an average of one per five parsecs (16.5 lightyears), which is actually pretty thin coverage, spread over the 500 parsec width/length/thickness of a hex, that's 100^3 objects. So, a million is probably a low estimate.
Patrick,
I would not submit something in PDF format unless it's something you don't want the publisher to be able to edit. And I would suspect most publishers want to be able to edit stuff they print.
Garth L. Getgen
By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 04:32 pm: Edit Garth, I understand what your saying, especially if submitted for ADB publication. But I've always had a hard time trusting editors and publishers in regards to my copyrights.
If Randy is sending to ADB, Inc. than use the M$ word formats if that can be handled by their email. But I think he ment that cut-n-paste into the body of the his e-mail means losing the special fonts, tabs, endents, ect. that would be included with the .txt. Of course it could be a function of Randy's email service that strips that stuff out.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 05:31 pm: Edit Patrick, I know what you mean. Our gaming group submitted a bunch of stuff to a publisher via one of their play-testers .... guess whose name was in the by-line.
But, yes, I have been able to send SVC & SPP WORD.doc files as attachments, and they have been able to open them just fine. Now, whether they liked what was inside is another matter ....
Garth L. Getgen
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 05:42 pm: Edit I've posted something on my recent experiences writing in the thread PROPOSAL BOARD: NEW FICTION: ADVICE TO AUTHORS
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 12:25 am: Edit Hey guys and gals, I was reviewing the story in CL28/SSJ2 "Step into my Parlour" and was wondering if the irony was put accross so that others saw it.
Over the years I've studied writing now and then and one of the subjects of study was irony. I'm curious, can anyone tell me the subject of the irony of that story? (there is events and unintended consequences but that's not what I'm talking about).
I'm asking because I'm genuinely curious if it came accross to others (as intended). I'm studying and want to do more, go semi-pro perhaps. I've got a long way to go so that's why I'm asking; to learn.
By Richard Sherman (Rich) on Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 08:20 pm: Edit I presume that the main ironic point you were trying to highlight was the Tholian ruse regarding a new Tholian BB (and also presuming that the Tholians thought construction of such a monstrosity truly impossible, but that the Klingons might be gullible enough to believe it), by "side-effect" caused the Klingons to at-least- mentally reinvigorate their all-too-real drive to build the B10.
Did I get it?
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 08:38 pm: Edit I suppose that might be a "side irony" but no not the main one.
Thanks for participating! I'd like to hold off pointing it out for a bit but if no one posts it I'll post what I tried to do.
Also, it is a bit ironic that Koraths orders are partly what lead to Korgan making the mistake he did but no one could have foreseen that sort of situation and it is the sort of mistake that would only come from inexperience (or stupidity). Hence the Emporers statement that this is Koraths mess to clean up (an example of a Commanders responsability for his underlings actions).
Regarding the possible "Renewed vigor" to build the B-10 one could say the irony switches back against the Klingons in that the B-10 nearly bankrupted the Klingons and had they NOT built the B-10 (something they were doing anyway but from the Tholian point of view could be seen as a result of their ruse) they might have had more resources to put into Operation Nutcracker or even into the General War effort. An extra ship here and there might have turned the tide in many a battle.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, May 21, 2004 - 10:08 pm: Edit Ah well, I'd hoped more would join in but such is life.
The irony I started with was that which kept Korgan from advancing in his career of choice ended up being that which would both save his life and redeme him.
Having been raised in a Marine family Korgan found it all but impossible to advance in the DSF until fate brought Korath to him. When he made a mistake (primarilly due to lack of experience) it was a ground mission that would help him recover his career in the DSF. And save his life, his alternative punishment was to be sent to serve on the penal frigate Blood Agony. History shows that ship was soon destroyed. So, that mission also saved his life.
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Monday, May 31, 2004 - 06:57 pm: Edit OK, guys and gals, I'm putting it on the line.
I have spent the last YEAR struggling to write a story about Commodore Mak Kroree, explaining who he was and why a carrier was named for him. I've had the story plotted out in my mind, the characters sketched, etc., but after writing the first ten pages I've been completely blocked for over 9 months. Gurps Romulans has taken most of my SFB time, as well as my usual baseball work.
But the mental block about Kroree seems to have eased a little, and I've written a couple of pages this week. Tonight I'm going to sit down and write and write and write as much as I can on this. I will let you know how it goes.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, May 31, 2004 - 09:05 pm: Edit A question for our military members.. probably should be in Real-World Military. If someone leaves the military, then rejoins, say six months or a year or so later, will they rejoin at the same rank, or lose a couple of ranks? I'm talking enlisted ranks, not officers. I know for us Guard types, if we go active, we often lose a grade or two, so I was wondering what would happen if someone left, say Starfleet, and then wanted back in.
Good luck with the writing John. Most of us wish we had the time problems you had with G-R and the baseball book you wrote. ;)
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Monday, May 31, 2004 - 10:31 pm: Edit Fair progress tonight. I have to go do laundry now. I may write more tonight, but I may wait until tomorrow. Things are percolating.
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, May 31, 2004 - 11:21 pm: Edit I'm not sure if it's true for enlisted ranks, but I was under the impression that one's "pension" was linked to one's rank and that if one were to re-enlist one would go back to the same rank so that if you got wounded and discharged you'ld keep the same income as if you hadn't re-enlisted.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, June 01, 2004 - 12:29 am: Edit Randy,
Usually, the person will come back in at the same rank, with a "pause" on time- in-grade/time-in-service for promotion points, retirement, etc. If the person goes from the Active Reserves or National Guard to Active Duty, they usually drop one rank. Of course, milage may vary, but everyone I have every known that's had a "break in service" followed those rules. I don't know what would happen if one stayed out for more than a year-and-half or so, as that's the longest break I've heard of.
Garth L. Getgen, MSgt USAF
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, June 01, 2004 - 01:20 am: Edit John: I for one am glad that your time has been devoted to GR. I'm really looking forward to it.
Good luck on the story. I've been writting a lot lately too.
You are a more experienced writer than I but I'll ask anyway. Do you carry a note book with you? I bought a 8 1/2" x 5" wire bound note book and carry it every where. Almost every day now I'm writing stuff in it. As I read things I often get inspired along totally different tangents. So I jot them down (it actually helps me move on. Wish I'd thought of this long ago!).
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Tuesday, June 01, 2004 - 01:54 am: Edit Loren: no, I don't carry a notebook, but that's a good idea. I do keep a file on my computer where I put snippets of ideas as they come to me. I'll write something down on a scrap of paper if I have to if something strikes me in a weird place.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, June 01, 2004 - 03:39 am: Edit Last friday I wrote an entire story during an extended lunch in that note book.. I finished it up today (some reworks and edits) and will be puting it through the copyright process after which I'll be sending it to Asimov's SF magazine. The story is an homage to my litterary hero Asimov.
It will be a personal achievement to have this story published there, I hope, I hope.
I'm gonna need a lap top, I think.
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, June 01, 2004 - 09:09 am: Edit J.S.:
How do you stand with that proof reading?
If you've got it but don't plan to read it then just save yourself some hard disk space and delete it, I have a low embarrasment threshold ( Hard to beleive I know ) and so would rather it deleted if it was going to be untouched.
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Tuesday, June 01, 2004 - 11:06 am: Edit MJC: I apologize for not getting this done sooner. My computer went on the fritz recently and I had to dump a bunch of corrupted files during the recovery process. Could you please re-send the files?
By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Wednesday, June 02, 2004 - 01:17 pm: Edit John, it may help to discuss where your story is having the writers block here so that you can get suggestions on how to overcome it.
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Wednesday, June 02, 2004 - 05:00 pm: Edit Well, it's hard to say. I was still in the developing character and background part of the story. But I've advanced a lot in the last couple of days and am almost to the battle scenes. This will result in another pause as I have to play the battle to see how to make things turn out the way I want.
It's funny...as I was writing the characters sort of took on a life of their own and some stuff that I was planning on happening actually ended up the opposite of the original intention. But it makes better sense with the way the characters are.
By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 01:04 pm: Edit Good characters can do that. Sounds like you are well past the block for the most part! By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Thursday, June 03, 2004 - 03:00 pm: Edit Yeah, I think so. Now my concern is that the story is too much like a soap opera. So to counter that I need to have some kick-butt battle scenes! Actually the soap opera part will make the battle scene more meaningful because the reader will (hopefully) care about the characters in the battle. So when Ensign Cimon's fighter gets incinerated, it will have more of an impact because we know Ensign Cimon and we know people that care about her.
Of course, I don't know if Cimon will die yet or not... The only person who has to die is Commodore Mak Kroree.
By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Thursday, July 01, 2004 - 11:52 am: Edit Could someone tell me the naming conventions for Lyrans?
And do they use thier Political (i.e. Count...) or Military (Admiral...) ranks when being adressed?
-- JonB
By William J. Beasley (Agrícola) on Thursday, July 01, 2004 - 12:55 pm: Edit I've been considering writing a story with some of the material I've been working on for a GPD campaign (which may never come to fruition), and I've got a technical question: How does the whole heading thing work? Do you use a certain direction as 0, and mark everything off by that?
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, July 01, 2004 - 01:36 pm: Edit As I understand thing and I could be wrong it goes like this:
There are two types of heading measured in degrees (typically 360); one relative and the other is based on the direction of the galactic core.
The relative type is referred to a "barring" and is used for finding a relation from one ship to another, the source ships heading always being zero. So barring is defined as three positions on X, Y and Z axis's. X is the relative degree, Y is the distance from the ship, and Z is the up/down degrees (I refer to this as "Mark")
So an enemy ship that is 40,000Kk away, barring 300 degrees, mark 12 would be four hexes to the left and slightly up. Mark is giving in + or – degrees. So down would be written in negative such as -12 degrees.
Heading places degree 0 as towards the galactic core. A ship with a heading of 90 degrees would be traveling parallel to the core counter clockwise around the galaxy. The above would be written as:
"Sir, the Orion raider is uncloaking at 40 Kkm, barring 300 degrees mark 12, heading 245."
The mark for Heading is not usually given since ships are often in the same mark relative to the galactic core but might be given for distance on a strategic scale. The SFU is generally on a two dimensional plane so "mark" is usually just color text. It is best (IMO) to keep the mark numbers low (as in single digits).
By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Thursday, July 01, 2004 - 06:45 pm: Edit Bearing.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, July 01, 2004 - 07:10 pm: Edit
Geoff:
Thanks. It's weird, sometimes I spell it right and sometimes I don't.
By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar) on Thursday, July 01, 2004 - 09:07 pm: Edit Jon, if its a military situation, use rank, if it's a civilian (semi-formal or better) use title. Outside of that, using the title will work most times...
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Sunday, July 04, 2004 - 11:51 am: Edit Orion Females? As intelligent as the males? Gurps PD doesn't say, so I assume so...
By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Sunday, July 04, 2004 - 02:34 pm: Edit Actually, GPD does say so. If female Orions were less intelligent than males, then you'd see "IQ-1" under Attributes in the racial profile. It's not there, which by default means that they're average. (If you want an example of Truly Stupid, take a look at Seltorian Queens.)
"DX+1" for both male and female Orions means that on average, they are slightly more dexterous than your average human.
Orion females have "ST-1", meaning that on average, they are slightly weaker than humans.
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Sunday, July 04, 2004 - 03:37 pm: Edit Check this out, for all your Orion female needs. http://www.fortunecity.com/marina/trinidad/1487/
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, July 04, 2004 - 09:37 pm: Edit J.S.: How's that proof reading going?
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Sunday, July 04, 2004 - 11:21 pm: Edit Thanks for the quick reply Gary. I'm not proficient (yet) at reading Gurp stats. So I take it, Seltorian Sages are actually smarter than the average human?
And John, thanks! That site answered the question that has always lain in the back of my subconcious mind and tormented me as I lay awake, staring at the ceiling each night until exhaustion claimed me weary soul. Namely, what would Charisma Carpenter and Christina Applegate look like if they were Orion Slave Girls..
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 12:46 am: Edit I wrote an essay explaining how the ISC could use command orders to explain 3 d space warfare... August 04, 2003 - 10:47 pm under the once and future echelon.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 01:44 am: Edit Randy, yes but how would they look...together?
Sweet dreams!
By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 11:43 am: Edit Randy: yes, Seltorian Sages are as smart as the average Vulcan.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 11:48 am: Edit You're killing me Loren. ;)
Thanks Gary. That helps me out a lot when I'm looking at background material..
Jon: Best chance for you to find that material is some of the older Captain's Logs. Captain's Log #15 had a Lyran-Kzinti story in it, so you might want to go over that one again. Module R6 has Lyran military ranks in it (page 26). You might want to look at LDR history also.
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 01:01 pm: Edit M.J.C.: I got about half way through it but my attention lately has been on 1) real work and 2) Gurps Romulans. I'm sorry I haven't finished it yet.
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, July 05, 2004 - 09:17 pm: Edit Well the big question is, does the single long shot of the entire combat just run together such that it can't be understood or is it okay?
By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 11:22 am: Edit Actually, I don't have acess to CL#15. For titles, I'll just go for the military rank, unless someone is trying to pull political rank.
Also, how do Lyrans names work? Gorns sound like something that is hissed out, Kzinti have the whole 'Cat-With/Who-' thing going on. I can only find one example of a Lyran name, and that's in CL13.
Thanks in advance.
-- JonB
By Matthew J. Francois (Francois42) on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 11:22 am: Edit MJC: E-MAIL
Orion Females: They don't have a negative to IQ, which means they aren't any less smart than your average human or Orion. BUT, they do, as a whole (unless it's bought off, and I would say, depending on the circumstances, it also might require the purchase of an "Unusual Background" advantage) have the "Uneducated" disadvantage. Tricky at first, but fairly simple once your realize it: Someone can be very smart, but not educated.
If I remember correctly, IQ in GURPS represents your capability to learn, remember, and improve. But the Uneducated disadvantage makes it such that you've never been taught... so you've not had the opportunity to learn, remember, or improve.
Besides... there are some people out there who like Uneducated women.
-Francois
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 11:36 am: Edit
Quote:
Someone can be very smart, but not educated.
And keep in mind this is, in part, what makes them dangerous! This applies to all being that are of good intelligence but uneducated, especially in the SFU era where misuse of things can have great consequences.
By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 03:29 pm: Edit This is really regarding SFB background.
I submitted a scenario, and got the year wrong that I had wanted it based, which made me have to go read through all the old scenarios and find shipnames which would then 'fit' the background for the scenario I wanted.
Which led me to this thought. Does anyone have a 'database' of shipnames/locations they were spotted for future referances?
Exmaple: The Feds fought everywhere during the GW. I mentioned the CVB Yamamato as being on the Klingon border, then found later that it was on the Rom border (sigh, version 1.3 here we come). The CVB Nelson was on the Klingon border.
So does anyone have such a database that would be: 1) easy to use (ie Excel, as it would be quicker to move around then Word) 2) easy to update 3) freely available, ie we can post it on the Yahoo-SFB group, and it's free to use as-is. 4) no SVC interaction, as this is really only a resource to write scenarios/fiction. And freely available from the scenarios.
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 04:20 pm: Edit MJC: honestly, I don't know yet. I have your file sitting on my computer desktop and on my "SFB tasks to do" list, but it is below some things that will go to press next month plus my regular work.
I do not want to just give your story a cursory look-through. It's a big story and I want to give it the attention it deserves, but I haven't had time yet. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to put you off, but I don't want to give you bad or rushed advice.
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, July 06, 2004 - 08:36 pm: Edit Sorry John, it was just that I took your meaning to mean you'ld read past that section and that section is what I think will be the point where it comes undone or not but I do recognise that it is awefully big ( although sreenplays go that way and would probably run only for about 65 minutes if filmed ) and as such can see that it would go to the bottom of the to-do pile.
Just so you feel better I've been trying to write another adventure ( for MPB ( or MPC or MPD )) and have had my computer at the foot of my bed running for 10 days straight in the hope that I might add some more to the 40 or so "para's" I've done so far...so you're not the only one who really should be doing something else with his time ( good thing I make non-commital statements when asked ).
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 12:09 am: Edit Anyone have a good idea what an Orion LR, operating in the Stardust clan area, (Rom/Gorn/Fed border area ) would have in its option mounts? I was thinking 2 Plasma F's and 1 Phaser-1.. that sound reasonable?
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 02:20 am: Edit Randy, can you get a couple games going and try out a couple packages?
You could try them against monsters for solo play.
By Jon Berry (Laz_Longsmith) on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 12:10 pm: Edit I've found that two Pl-F's on the LR tend to take to much power. If it wants to fight with them, it has to double at least one engine a turn.
I prefer f11 myself for this class.
-- JonB
By Kerry Drake (Kedrake) on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 02:07 pm: Edit My last customized LR in that region was Photon in the nose, PL-F in one wing and Phaser 1 in the other.
This gives 2 Torp hits, and a big first round punch for not much holding cost. You also get to fire both Torps up to 8 impulses after your first torp hit (assuming you take the Plasma F) AND you get a Pseudo to just mix things up.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 10:06 pm: Edit
Thanks guys.. it's for a story, so I just needed a couple of suggestions.
By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 06:45 am: Edit Anyone have any favorite Andromedan scenarios?
I'm asking for a project SVC has given preliminary approval on.
*Note: First Encounter in CL#25 is off the table.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Saturday, August 14, 2004 - 04:00 am: Edit The one in Captain's Log #27... ;) After that, both the mini campaign where the Dominator blew up and the satellite ships had to make a run for it and SH 221.0 Target:Rigellax;Objective Unknown in Module J2.
By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Saturday, August 14, 2004 - 10:10 pm: Edit Well the CL#27 story is understandable. But thats why I ruled out First Encounter in CL#25 Anyone else want to chime in? Speak now or hold yer peace later on
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Saturday, August 14, 2004 - 11:15 pm: Edit I figured that was why you did it Ken.. I still like SH 221.0 though..
By Robert Cole (Zathras) on Saturday, August 14, 2004 - 11:49 pm: Edit Target: Rigellax; Objective Unknown is cool. The 2xDOM vs. Romulan SB is cool as well (was that in R5?). Who could forget the Return of the Darwin? 42
By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Sunday, August 15, 2004 - 12:25 pm: Edit Starbase Sanguinx (sp way off) is the 2 Dom assault. And Darwin is cool as well.
By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Sunday, August 15, 2004 - 05:25 pm: Edit What's that one from CL#6? Meeting of the Giants or some thing like that? The one with two dominators, a Fred SCS and two B10's?
(don't have acess to my stuff right now, just geting a nice shower and some shut- eye real soon.)
By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 07:41 am: Edit Two Doms + sats (mambas(?), a terminator and Eels) against a Fed CVA, Fed CX (the Paris Commune) and some other smaller Fed hulls. Klinks: B10 (with SFG) DX (IRC) and some other hulls incl. the Vandal. The decisive moment was when a Dom failed self-displacement and got caught in a SFG field.
Note that all this is just from my memory.
By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 07:49 am: Edit Scott, the "analogue" Shipname registry is the source for that kind of info, if you can get it*. It consist of two parts of which one is a listing of the ships in analfabetical order with a brief 'history' (if the ships have been mentioned in any fiction or scenario). I have constructed a Fed OB for the Rom invasion using info from that module.
*Don't expect SVC to put the files from that Mod on the website. IIRC it was a best-seller.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 12:49 pm: Edit He did post all Federation ship names somewhere. But gee, I forget where.
By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 12:55 pm: Edit SVC did post all of the shipnames for all races in another thread on the BBS.
I downloaded it already, thanks Carl. By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 03:47 pm: Edit Did it include the combat records too??
By Scott Tenhoff (Scottt) on Monday, August 16, 2004 - 03:51 pm: Edit No, but I scrounged those up in the scenarios from the Modules
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, October 14, 2004 - 11:01 pm: Edit Grrr, I was wrong in one of my earlier posts. The warp speed conversion for fiction is not in Captain's Log #16 on page 9... does anyone know where it is?
By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Friday, October 15, 2004 - 01:13 pm: Edit Ummm, Nexus 12? Seems to me it was in one of the old nexus mags. IIRC, the warp factor is the cube root of the hexes traveled per turn.
PHD
By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Friday, October 15, 2004 - 01:19 pm: Edit No, it's also in one of the Logs. CL18?
By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Friday, October 15, 2004 - 01:28 pm: Edit Could be, I'm very very far from my game room right now, like an ocean away. Still I seem to recall that if one cubed the warp factor, one gets the number of hexes traveled per turn.
By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Eagle) on Friday, October 15, 2004 - 02:10 pm: Edit that could be the case. My reply was perhaps a bit unclear
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, October 15, 2004 - 02:13 pm: Edit "WARP SPEED!" is in CL#16 page 9.
By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Friday, October 15, 2004 - 04:00 pm: Edit Thats where it is in my CL16.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, October 15, 2004 - 04:26 pm: Edit
Hey, we got the same CL16?
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, October 15, 2004 - 06:20 pm: Edit Here's a strange idea just for fun: someone open a new topic here and post the first five hundred words (five paragraphs or so) of a story. Then someone else writes another five hundred words or so of where they think the story is going; then another person, etc. You can't post an new section unless there's been at least two other posts since your last. Anyone can jump in. Any takers??
Garth L. Getgen
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Saturday, October 16, 2004 - 12:43 am: Edit Doh. That's what happens when its late at night, and you need a warp speed conversion calculation right then. You check your notes, read that CL16, page 9, is where the speed conversion is. So you pull out your binders, pull out issue #16 and panic when you see no sign of the chart where it should be. Not until your friends on the BBS tell you that it is exactly where you thought it was, do you go back and re-check. And realize you were looking in NEXUS #16.. Sorry guys!!
Garth, that sounds interesting, but it might be better to say between two and five paragraphs, and limit each person's turn to 500 words..
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, October 16, 2004 - 11:39 pm: Edit Randy, if memory serves, a typical paragraph in technical writing is about 100 words. But in fiction, paragraphs can be much smaller, which is why I didn't want to count by paragraphs. I have something in mind for the start ... let me sleep on in and maybe I'll have it to put into writing in the morning.
Garth L. Getgen
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Sunday, October 17, 2004 - 03:11 pm: Edit Cool.. sounds like it might be interesting. I thought you might have something in mind to start with.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 01:12 pm: Edit MJC: thanks for getting the topic started. The story wasn't what I had in mind, but we'll make it work.
Maybe I'll just save what I had for round-two, or for another project. No idea where I was going to go with it, but the idea I had was: Summer Y171, a lone Fed FF near the Klingon border. There's a F5 on a mirror-image path on the other side. We find out that the Fed is waiting for an Orion they know is going to cross the border, and that there is a support squadron someplace nearby outside of sensor range. Presumable, the Klingons also have a fleet nearby. We don't know, at first, why the Fed is looking for the Orion -- to stop it? to help it cross for a clandesant mission? to rendezvous to complete some covert mission? Something else??? Is the F5 waiting for the Orion, too?? Or just shadowing the Fed?? And the Feds are worried about a possible invasion (see F&E timetable .. Klingons attack Feds in Y171), so could a border skirmish be their excuse to invade??? All I had for the story is an idea for the opening and the title, "The Start Of Something Big."
Garth L. Getgen
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 09:49 pm: Edit Yeah stories are odd.
I knew a girl who's sister was adopted ( my sister was adopted from India, just so you know ).
This girl's sister was teased by another girl ( when they were both about 11 ) over being adopted...and then latter found out that she herself was adopted.
When I heard the story I knew my family were quite lucky...everytime my sister looks at the back of her hand she knows my mum never gave birth to her and so it's easier for us because there is no temptation to tell the east lie.
Actually my sister favour game, is interoduce her friends tio her famuily and wait for her friends to say something dumb, like "no, that's impossible" or "So you mother remarried!?!" or equally stupid stuff...it's usually best if you don't understand to just say..."so can you fill me in on the details?"...but there arn't many smart people in this world and racism is nine times out of ten the child of ignorance.
I thought I laid enough clues to make it seem that finding out for Surrock should be a central point in the story but maybe I'm looking at things from my own personal point of veiw...because certain concepts are very important to me personnally...but if I enter into a chain story I've gotta let things got the way other think would be cool ( unless I want to surprise them with an ulternate direction).
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 10:11 pm: Edit Huh?? I got the last part of that but you might want to read that over a bit, Michael.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 11:02 pm: Edit MJC: That's part of the "fun" of writing a story this way ... you might know where you'd like it to go next, but you never know where it will go until someone else takes it there.
Garth L. Getgen By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, October 19, 2004 - 11:12 pm: Edit Yeah...it's like going to "the track". You place your bets and takes ya chances...but I was certain I had a sure thing.
Guru L.K.:
What part didn't you understand?
R' had a sister K' who was teased at school by some girl ( S.G. }. The teasing turned out to be about being adopted. Then S.G. found out that she herself was adopted and the teasing STOPPED.
Or are you asking about my sister's favourite game?
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, October 23, 2004 - 09:13 pm: Edit Am working on the next section of the Chain Story ... unless someone else posts one before I do.
Two more "rules" that should have been self-evident: (1) You must try to keep the story within SFB-rules / SFU-history; (2) You must post something that logically follows all previous sections -- you can't ignore a post just because it didn't take the story where you wanted to go with it; either make it fit somehow or go someplace else with it.
Garth L. Getgen
By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Sunday, October 24, 2004 - 09:26 pm: Edit Then you just hope that 2 people dont post at the same time.
I would think typing it somewhere else, then cutting and pasting after refreshing the screen would be the safest way.
This also means you can spell check.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, October 24, 2004 - 09:56 pm: Edit Jason, that's what I did -- write off-line, then paste. But I also refreshed before I posted just to make sure I didn't cross-post.
I just did a Google search for "chain story", and it came up with 5,670 hits. Guess this wasn't a new idea afterall. Garth L. Getgen
By Craig Tenhoff (Cktenhoff) on Sunday, October 24, 2004 - 10:26 pm: Edit Having occassionally posted in a chain story in the old SFC BBS, I can tell you that this can be difficult to coordinate.
I used to write in word, spell check and then cut and paste, to make sure I got all the errors out of it and so I could save it for future use and reference.
Keep up the good work. Just wish I had time to write some with you all.
By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, October 25, 2004 - 10:38 am: Edit I just noticed a minor glitch (I think) in the chain story. It's set on the "GSX Linus Pauling, Y181". I don't have my books handy but I'm pretty sure Y181 is too early for the GSX. Can someone confirm?
By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 10:59 pm: Edit GSX is Y186. You could probably sneak in a year early, but 5 years is probably a bit too much.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 07:39 pm: Edit Hey, don't blame me ... the guy that posted it, by all accounts, as so much time on his hands he sits around reading the rulebook all day to look for ideas for term papers ... I just assumed he'd look that up!! {MJC: BIG GRIN -- don't take that personally!!!}
Garth L. Getgen
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 08:28 pm: Edit Dale McKee must be my secret identity.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 08:47 pm: Edit Nah...
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 09:16 pm: Edit Okay, my bad ... I thought MJC posted the Year as well as the ship. Sorry about that.
On the other hand, while i do have an idea of the next section, I'd almost like to ignore that last posting as just a bad dream......
Garth L. Getgen
By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 09:24 pm: Edit Ah the classic childhood story
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 10:52 pm: Edit G.L.G.:
So he had dream about being calmed after having a bad dream!?!
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...because he every four years he might be someone else. If your free to post go right ahead, it is after-all a chain story.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, October 29, 2004 - 11:49 am: Edit MJC: No ... that I had a bad dream that I read a part of the story that went waaaay off in a direction I didn't expect. But I'll live with it.
Garth L. Getgen
By benjamin sun (Ben2207) on Friday, October 29, 2004 - 06:58 pm: Edit GSX in 181 would have been interesting lol
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Saturday, November 27, 2004 - 12:32 am: Edit Please tell me it is a big universe and that it is possible that a nebula might have a system with an inhabitable planet in it......
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, November 27, 2004 - 03:02 am: Edit Randy: Nedula are, fortuately, nebulous. An inhabitable planet could be conpletely surounded by nebula; living in it's own pocket of space. The main issue is that I assume you want this planet to have a star. A star is going to clear the surounding space for a ways but not too far.
I suppose there could be a starless planet actually in a Nebula that is lighted by ambiant lighting of other stars and nebulous energies (in continuous twilight). This planet would have to have special conditions to make it habitable. There would have to be some sort of energy barrier and something that kept the nebulas edies from tearing away the atmosphere. A very strong magnetic field would do.
Without a sun you might expect a very cold planet but a powerful magnetic field and the nebulas energy might interact to maintain a habitable level temperature wise. This might also be your light source (but not too bright and should be no day and night). Could be a habitable moon (class M sized)around a gas giant. Or duel planets orbiting each other. One has a huge interaction with the nebulas energies and provides the light and heat and day and night (but still a cool planet with dim lighting compaired to earth).
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Saturday, November 27, 2004 - 10:45 am: Edit Thanks Loren. It would be a star system, with a habitable, but cold planet. I have to assume the star would clear away some of the effects of the nebula. Gracias!
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, November 27, 2004 - 11:16 am: Edit Perhaps random dust clouds then.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, November 27, 2004 - 02:57 pm: Edit Randy, I'm no expert, but I think if a star went nova, the resulting nebula could "swallow up" a nearby star system. The initial shock wave would cause all sorts of havok, possibly even disturbing the planet's orbit. On the other hand, as Loren elluded to, the planet's sun would eventually gather up a lot of the cloud in the immediate vicinity and/or its light-pressure would push a lot of it away. In either case, I would expect to see a star system in a "hole" (an area of less-dense gas/dust, but not nessaccarily completely cleared out) burried deep within the nebula. (Indeed, I have a half-written story that uses that very idea as a side plot
.... you been hacking into my computer to read my stuff?? )
Another thing to remember is nebula are not only a stellar grave yard, they are also a nursery: new stars will form in the denser pockets of nebula dust/gas. However, by the time planets could form and evolve into "Class M" worlds, the nebula would probably disipate to almost nothing.
Garth L. Getgen
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, November 27, 2004 - 04:30 pm: Edit I have a chapter in a story where a nebula is a stratigic issue in a battle.
I've alway wanted to have a scenario where part of the map is nebula and part isn't.
(Probably will have three maps with one as open space, one as dust and the third as nebula.)
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Sunday, November 28, 2004 - 02:02 pm: Edit Thanks Garth. I am going with the "half-cleared out idea. The nebula is a stellar nursery type. The planet in question is a Class O planet, with no indigenous life.
And no, I didn't hack into your PC... yet. Loren, very nice art for CL#30 btw. Is Arloh a descendent of Carlos? ;)
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, November 28, 2004 - 02:08 pm: Edit Could be...
Your choice of planet is good as far as class and that it has no life. Impossible to dispute at our tech level, so you're good to go as far as I can tell.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 06:00 pm: Edit SVC: Right here. Of course there are others along side this one too.
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 07:07 pm: Edit If we are, someday, to try to publish paperback books (novels and/or anthologies) one of them would certainly be Day of the Eagle.
Four of the stories exist (Republic, Surprise Reversed, Denobola, Art of Duty) but there are several other ships in the sector and the DotE anthology would need to cover all or most of them.
Hence, any of our veteran writers with CL#5 might take a look at the situation map and just maybe you'll be inspired to fill in one of those blanks. Such a story could always go into CapLog.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 09:57 pm: Edit Question gang: Most of the Carnivon background material is in Y1, correct?
By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 10:42 pm: Edit Randy - Yes.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Saturday, December 11, 2004 - 01:03 pm: Edit Thanks Andy. Just read your Carnivon primer in CL #30. Excellent article. I'm sure it will be useful in the near future.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, January 06, 2005 - 10:16 pm: Edit Continued from another area; Loren;
SFWA stands for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. If you can ever meet the membership requirements, it can open a lot of doors for you as a professional writer. It is what (IMHO) every one of us interested in writing should be striving for if we want to be a serious Science Fiction and Fantasy writer. I assume membership is what Kenneth was asking about when he was talking about the number of copies sold of each issue of Captains Log. I'm just not sure if CL can meet the cents per word requirement, but I may be reading the membership requirements wrong... what do you think Kenneth? If you think we can band together and get them to consider it, I am all for it..
Here is the link Loren; http://sfwa.org/
Randy
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, January 06, 2005 - 10:19 pm: Edit That would be nice. Although (without having looked at the site yet) I would guess that it would be a nice supporting thing. Alone it seems iffy.
But I'll check that out. Thanks!
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, January 06, 2005 - 10:29 pm: Edit Anyone; Off the top of your heads, can anyone remember a Log or module dealing with Romulan Fleet deployments on the Fed Border, time frame Day of the Eagle? Seems like I remember something showing the Romulan Capital ships and which fleet they were in... maybe I can adapt that..
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, January 07, 2005 - 09:58 am: Edit I think that was in CL5.
By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Sunday, February 06, 2005 - 03:16 pm: Edit Is it anywhere stated how long it was between the Organian disappearance in Y171 and the Klingon invasion? I'm thinking it must have been at least 3 months for the Klinks to have got their act together, probably more like 6-9.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, February 07, 2005 - 01:01 am: Edit Jim, if I read Dale McKee's story correctly in CL#25, the Hood was attacked on 5 Aug 171. So, say the Organians took off sometime in January, gives you six, six and a half months top before those warmongers ;) attacked.
By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 12:08 pm: Edit I asked this a long time ago, but I don't know if its been done. Has there been a class history article for the Federation heavy battlecruisers? Is there one in the works? If not, how would I go about requesting one or possibly putting my name in the hat to maybe write one?
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 08:35 pm: Edit By typing in this thread:-
Quote:
SVC:
I'ld very much like to write the class history of the Fed BCG/J/F class if it hasn't already been done. By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 12:10 pm: Edit Actually, I almost never read this thread, and if you want a class history you need to mention it in the working topic for the next captain's log. CL31's class history is already set but at the end of CL31 we moved any good ideas to the CL32 topic.
By Chris Bonaiuto (Epyon) on Sunday, February 13, 2005 - 12:27 pm: Edit ok, thanks SVC. I'll check it out.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 05:23 pm: Edit Here's a story I wrote while deployed last summer. The idea was cooking around in my head for several months, and I just didn't know how to start it. One day, I just sat down and started typing, and the story about wrote itself.
I sent it to SVC to consider for publication. His response about floored me ... he absolutely loved it, but said his lawyers advised against ADB publishing it. I checked with a couple Trek publications, but as it has some roots in SFB, they don't want to touch it either. Their lawyers said "no" too. {sigh} http://members.cox.net/garth.getgen/timelines.pdf
Garth L. Getgen
By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 06:12 pm: Edit Wow. Nice work.
By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar) on Thursday, March 10, 2005 - 08:05 pm: Edit Garth, very nice writing and I can see why the 'NOs' appeared. Too bad, it's a good story...
By Craig Tenhoff (Cktenhoff) on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 12:37 pm: Edit Garth did you considering submitting it to the yearly Star Trek Strange New Worlds short story contest? Since there is no actual SFB battles sequences, and references to alternate time lines, I think it would be acceptable.
You'd have to go back and edit it to put the proper character names in ;), but I think it would have a shot at publication.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 06:19 pm: Edit Craig,
I contacted one of those publication's editor. I e-mailed a one-paragraph synopsis of the plot, plus a couple sentences explaining the SFU tie-in. A few issues: My story is 7750 words, over the 7500 word limit.
As you said, they would want to re-write it to use character's proper names ... likely making it even longer. Odds are, they would want to cut about half of Page 3, right hand column, to get it under word-budget. That would destroy the peice, in my opinion.
Once I send it (via snail-mail), it becomes "theirs" whether they publish it or not. I would forego any rights to re-submit it to another publication.
Their lawyer was afraid of the word "Kzintis", just as SVC's lawyer was afriad of "it". (If you want to know what "it" is, read the story -- I'm not giving away spoilers!!)
Their lawyer was also afraid of putting "SFB" or "SFU" or "ADB" in any preface statement. However, without such a statement, I feel the story just loses something. I wrote it with the SFU/ST connection in mind, so I beleive the reader must know a little about both to understand the story. No???
Garth L. Getgen
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, March 11, 2005 - 07:18 pm: Edit You know what's funny? I wrote it, so I've read it about a hundred times, and I just found yet another "Easter Egg", albeit a small one.
Garth L. Getgen
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 03:18 pm: Edit Outstanding story, Garth.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 04:28 pm: Edit Thanks, John. Praise is even better when it comes from a professional writer.
Garth L. Getgen
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Saturday, March 12, 2005 - 09:39 pm: Edit Very good story Garth. Quite entertaining.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 01:13 am: Edit Garth, we've talked about this before and it's interesting that you post it now. A few days ago I was thinking about this story and I realised I'd thought about it many times while working on the various GURPS stuff. I was surprised how much it had stuck with me and I must say it is how I now think of things to be.
On reflection I now consider it to be even better than I said it was before.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 04:39 pm: Edit Loren ... yeah, I know what you mean. I think you gave me feedback on an earlier draft before I re-wrote part of the last section due to Petrick asking "one simple question" about the Captain's motives. It's funny how he can cut thru the fluff and zero in on the one problem with a story.
Garth L. Getgen
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, March 13, 2005 - 04:57 pm: Edit An "Easter Egg", for those that asked, is a hidden reference to and/or a quote borrowed from another story, epsiode or even a nod to a differnt series, such as on B5 when Bester says "Be seeing you" with his hand cupped to form a "6". I included several Easter Eggs throughout the story; some are fairly tenuous, others are blatent. For example, the very last paragraph was intended to be a possible explanation behind an entire ST:TNG episode.
Garth L. Getgen
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 11:16 pm: Edit By the wya, guys, you did all notice I reactivated the SFB Chain Story topic, didn't you?? I figure that first attempt was going deep into dark place in character development and no=where fast towards any real action sequence, so I started over with a whole new setting.
Garth L. Getgen
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, March 15, 2005 - 11:40 pm: Edit My definition of an easter egg is a little more expansive Garth. Along with your definition, I include nods to events or history and even old novels. The problem I have sometimes is remembering each one that I put in.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 12:26 am: Edit Randy,
Okay, I can work with that definition, too. Don't think I had any of those in there. {shrug}
Garth L. Getgen By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 09:34 am: Edit MJC: Re= SFB Chain Story.
Dude, just how does your brain work, anyway?? I left a bunch of clues for various places the story can go -- wrong Orion shows up, three or four blips on the scope, some in the same general direction as the Raider, Fed & Klingon fleets just off the map, etc, etc. I even picked the hex that's the closest to Hydran space, should anyone have thought about it. But Space Dragons?? Where did you come up with SPACE DRAGONS??????? Dude, you've been living Down Under too long ... all the blood's rushed to your head. You are seriously wacked. Get some help, dude. {grin} Yeesh .... what the heck are we supposed to do with Space Dragons???? (And here I thought Space Dragons were found closer to the Galatic Core, towards the north edge of the F&E map.) Oh well.
Garth L. Getgen
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 01:11 pm: Edit MJC: Bear in mind the above post was (mostly) done in jest. Keep adding to the story ... if nothing else, you'll help keep it "interesting".
Garth L. Getgen
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 02:43 am: Edit Thanks Frank! I was just trying to use the measurement system from Gurps:Klingons.
By David Slatter (Davidas) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 05:05 am: Edit BTW Garth. My understanding was that both sides could patrol in the neutral zone. Probably wrong. In any case, we managed to drive it to a combat situation....
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 06:27 am: Edit Three way battles are bad scenario generators. The players can't agree on whom to gang up. The players reaslise one guy is Orion and "do the historical thing". It's not so much fun. Now the three players have to gang up on a set trio of baby Space Dragons ( or one mother ) and after defeating them; sort out their own dispute, well that might not go the usual way.
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 08:53 am: Edit I'm really begining to like Floyd as a plot-foil.
I wonder if the Steves would like the idea of Floyd as an NPC for GPD. A MAD XENO-ARCHEOLOGIST NPC has the potential to turn lots of other PCs into Indiana Jones and that might be fun for the odd adventure here or there.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 10:09 am: Edit MJC: True, but we don't know why the Fed was waiting for the Privateer. Or why a Raider showed up in its place. I thought I had opened up several possible plot lines already (and yet some more with Ensign Jameson), but your warped mind just blew it all wide open, no?
David: I guess that's true, but I just assumed the Fed would stay out of the NZ ... remember how high tensions are running (ie, F&E history = Klingons invade by F171, just a month or two away ... or is this the opening battle of the invasion??) ... but, yeah, weapons are going hot. It's going to get interesting, no?
P.S> Funning how the XO on both ships are female ......
Garth L. Getgen
By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, March 22, 2005 - 11:41 am: Edit Small thing
I had intended to leave things so that the dialogue would switch to the Klingon ship, which would reveal whether the disruptors hit. From Garth's text and the lack of hit or shield talk, it rather looks like the Klingons missed now...
Just saying that I was not intentionally making the Klingons miss.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, March 22, 2005 - 02:31 pm: Edit Or a timing issue .. my part could be just before the Klingon fired ..... {shrug}
Garth L. Getgen
By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 07:44 am: Edit Just for fun I started doing a fiction piece on Fan Fiction.
Maybe a few ppl will get a kick out of it so I'm posting a linky here.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 08:52 pm: Edit Looks like a great start CK. Please have Buffy and Daphne look strangely alike, yet not realize it themselves. ;) And looking forward to the rest of the story.. By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 11:10 pm: Edit Hey, what do you get when you put Dorothy the Dinosaur and the Wiggles on the bridge of a Fed NCLa+?
Your typical SFB fan fiction.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 03:09 pm: Edit
Hmm, not sure I can regard that in a positive light MJC.
But it does bring up a question.. What does it take to elevate an SFB story above the "Dorothy and The Wiggles" category? One thing, or a combination of things?
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Thursday, May 19, 2005 - 04:36 pm: Edit Good characters with some measure of depth. And a story which is more than just bang-and-shoot, and provides the characters with a decision that has to be made, or a dilemma to solve, or a no-win situation they have to deal with somehow, that does not necessarily have a happy ending.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 12:52 am: Edit An answer for Jeff Wiles question in the CL#32 development thread.. my best guess anyway
List of Captain’s Log Fiction
Issue Story Title Author Approx Approx Pub Date Length Cover Blurb Words
Captain’s Log #1 “Objective: Juggernaut Christopher Allen 11.5K 1983
Klingons/Tholians/Federation/Orions vs The Juggernaut
Captain’s Log #2 “Refiner’s Fire” James Ashauer 13K 1983
Gorns/Federation vs The Romulans
Captain’s Log #3 “The First Round” Steve Kacarides 8.5K 1984 Orion/Klingon/Federation/Gorn/Lyran characters and ships
Captain’s Log #4 “When Wisdom Fails” James Ashauer 7K 1986
Klingons* vs. Hydran (Klingon POV only)
Captain’s Log #5 “And to the Republic” Mark J. Kicmol 7K 1987 “Encounter at Denebola” David Wellwood 8K Day Of The Eagle! “The Surprise Reversed” Stephen V. Cole 7.5K “Day of the Eagle” Stephen V. Cole 2.5K
Romulan vs Federation (Denebola had Orions also)
Captain’s Log #6 “A Meeting of Giants” Tony Zbaraschuk 3.5K 1988 B-10 Briefing
Klingon/Federation* vs Andromedan
Captain’s Log #7 “What Price Victory?” Mary Beth O’Halloran 8K 1989 What Price Victory?
Klingon vs Federation
Captain’s Log #8 “Escape from the Holdfast” Jim Hart 21K 9-7-90 “The Battle of Olsen’s Reach” Stephen V. Cole 3K Cease Fire Collapse!
Tholian vs Klingon Orion story
Captain’s Log #9 “”Ghostlight: Day One” Ed McKeown 4.5K 7-22-91 Fighters Inbound!
Federation* vs Klingons
Captain’s Log #10 “Hold Until Relieved” Mel Lee 5K 7-18-92 Special Tactics Issue!
Federation story
Captain’s Log #11 “Cold Front” Robert Tweedy 11K 12-23-92 Origins Of The General War!
Lyran vs Kzinti
Captain’s Log #12 “The Long Road Home” Stephen V. Cole 7K 7-26-93 Preview: Early Years
Lyran/Wyn/Kzinti/Orions/Klingons
Captain’s Log #13 “Behind the Glory of the Heroes” Joseph McCarthy 4K 11-14-93 The Best of Nexus
Federation* vs Romulan
Captain’s Log #14 “Betrayal!” Greg Dieckhaus 7K 1-22-94 Betrayal At Oxwind V
Federation vs Klingons
Captain’s Log #15 “Too Close to the Flame” Tom Gondolfi 11K 5-23-94 Too Close To The Flame
Lyran vs Kzinti
Captain’s Log #16 “A Sense of Obligation” Bruce Graw 7K 11-14-94 A Sense Of Obligation
Federation* vs Tholians
Captain’s Log #17 (Unknown. I have not been able to outbid the hustlers on E- Bay) (Found out recently, there is no story in this one)
Captain’s Log #18 “A Dragons Story” Bruce Graw 5K May, 1999 “Romulan Raid” Robert Crapnel 9K A New Start “A Friend in Need” Allen Gies 6K
Space Dragon story with a bit appearance by the Romulans Romulans* vs Gorns Federation vs Klingons Captain’s Log #19 “Another Point of View” Jeffrey Zellerkraut 6K 20 Oct 99 From Another Point of View
Kzinti story
Captain’s Log #20 “Field Promotion” Shelly Stuart 5K 15 June 00 “The Razor’s Edge” John Sickels 10K The Eye Of the Storm “A Really Bad Day” Craig Dylke 6K
Federation* vs space monster Federation/Romulans vs space monster Federation vs space monster
Captain’s Log #21 “The Art of Duty” Tom Gondolfi 6K 6 Nov 00 “Mutiny on the Harasser” Howard Berkey 4K The Art Of Duty
Romulans vs Federation Klingon story
Captain’s Log #22 “Fight Fire with Fire” John Sickels 16K 16 May 01 “A Plague on their Houses” Scott Moellmer 3K Fire Fight
Neo-Tholians vs Klingons Klingons* vs Hydran
Captain’s Log #23 “First Blood” Shelly Stuart 3.5K 8 Nov 01 “Not Good Friends” Scott Moellmer 3.5K First Blood
Federation* vs Romulan vs Orion Hydran* vs ISC* vs Andromedan
Captain’s Log #24 “Flashpoint Mantor” John Sickels 16K 20 June 02 “Jason and the Dilithium Fleece” Jim Davies 9K Flashpoint
Federation vs Kzinti Federation vs Orions
Captain’s Log #25 “Return of the Hood” Dale McKee 12K 4 Nov 02 “First Encounter” Kenneth Jones 10K Return Of The Hood Federation vs Klingons Federation*/Klingons*/Orions* vs Andromedans
Captain’s Log #26 “Rescue the Kishawk” John A. Picheco 6K 2 June 03 “For the Honor of the Flag” Mark Tippet 14K Combat Rescue!
Gorns vs Romulans Federation vs Klingons
Captain’s Log #27 “Rimworld” Randy O. Green 23K 10 Nov 03 Battle for Rimworld
Gorn*/Romulan*/Federation* vs Andromedan
Captain’s Log #28 “Come into my Parlour” Loren Knight 13K 6 April 04 “Arrow” Jeff Wile 1K Wings of Terror “Cold Soup” Frank McLaughlin 1K
Klingons vs Tholians Federation story Federation story
Captain’s Log #29 “A Mission of Vital Importance” Randy O. Green 17K 20 May 04 A Mission of Vital Importance
Gorns vs Romulans
Captain’s Log #30 “Threads of War” Loren Knight 13K 26 November 2004 “Flotilla Commander” Stephen V. Cole 7K Threads of War
Klingons/Lyrans vs Orions Klingons* vs Kzinti
Stellar Shadows #1 “Career Man” Geof Mahl 4.5K 11 April 2001 “Assault on the Imperium” Ryland Leyton 3.5K Shades of Reality
Hydran vs Klingon Romulan vs Romulan (Civil War) Appearance by Race;
Klingons 20 Federation 28 Orions 9 Gorns 6 Romulans 17 Hydrans 4 Tholians (4 Tholian, 1 Neo) 5 ISC 1 (plus 1 ISC paragraph in CL#27 story) Lyrans 5 Kzinti 6 Andromedans 4
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 03:18 am: Edit Thanks for that Randy. That was helpful for me too.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 08:26 am: Edit I think there was a one or two page Jindarian story (probably in the Jindarian module) and there was also a half page Orion story somewhere else that I missed. And I got Kenneth Jones name right this time. I called him Kenneth Kludge last time...
By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 08:43 am: Edit
Well I do Kludge around but thanks Randy
By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, June 06, 2005 - 04:31 pm: Edit Thank you Randy, it illustrated the point very well.
If you accept the premise that the Lyrans are a "major" race (based on the F&R build rates, if nothing else) then the number of stories written with Lyran involvement is very low.
They should have 7 or 8 stories rather than just 5. by that standard, the Hydrans and the ISC are under represented too.
The only possible response is for fiction writers to get busy!
(now if I could only get motivated to write a pro Lyran story!!!)
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 12:32 am: Edit I also missed Scott Moellmer's story in CL#19, "Phon Home." Sorry Scott! Chlorophon vs Drex. The only Omega story I know of. I think that's about it though. To finish this up, here is what I have on the Nexus fiction.
Nexus Publication Dates and Fiction
Nexus #1 no fiction story 1982
Nexus #2 no fiction story 1982
Nexus #3 no fiction story 1982
Nexus #4 no fiction story 1983
Nexus #5 no fiction story 1983
Nexus #6 Missing
Nexus #7 no fiction story 1984
Nexus #8 Missing
Nexus #9 “Frontier Patrol” Michael E. Bennett 2.5K Kzinti vs Klingon
1984
Nexus #10 “Report by Tiercellus” Tony Rogers 2K 1984 Romulan* vs Federation
Nexus #11 “First Command” David A. Sieko 3.5K 1985 Klingon vs Federation
Nexus #12 “A Warrior’s Death” Jim Hart 3.5K 1985 Klingon vs Federation Nexus #13 no fiction story 1985
Nexus #14 Missing
Nexus #15 no fiction story 1986
Nexus #16 “First and Future Shock” Josh W. Spencer 2.5K 1987 ISC vs Romulan
Nexus #17 “Brothers” Mark J. Kicmol 2K 1987 Hydran vs Lyran
Nexus #18 no fiction story 1987
Appearance by Race Klingon 3 Federation 3 Romulan 2 Kzinti 1 Lyran 1 Hydran 1 ISC 1
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 12:46 am: Edit Which leaves only the Selts, Paravians and Carnivons and maybe LDR (although use of an LDR base occurred in one story somewhere) as the only races in the Alpha sector with no fiction.
Jeff, get motivated.
By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 12:45 pm: Edit Hey, at least I got one story published!
SVC could confirm that I have submitted other things... I'd be willing to take a crack at a Carnivon story. the problem is fitting it into history in a believable way that doesnt actually change history. I'll see what I can do.
By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 06:27 pm: Edit
Well you could do a Dog Faces story
Or maybe. A Boy and his...
Or you could just do a story about a S O B
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 07:27 pm: Edit Dog Day Afternoon.
I heard a Carnivon howeling out a country song. He sang that his bitch left him and took his human. It was real sad.
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 08:03 pm: Edit I'll be taking my story posted at http://members.cox.net/garth.getgen/timelines.pdf offline before ORIGINS. If you care to read it, do so now.
Garth L. Getgen
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 09:45 pm: Edit
Garth, you spammer
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, June 24, 2005 - 01:34 pm: Edit Loran,
I finally got a chance to sit down and read your fiction in CL30. Pretty good story. But I think I hate you ... your "punchline" is kinda sorta similar to one I have in mind for the story I'm working on.
Garth L. Getgen
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, June 24, 2005 - 05:53 pm: Edit George E./ Loren K. -- See e-mail. Garth L. Getgen
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, June 24, 2005 - 09:39 pm: Edit Thanks Garth and sorry but I really didn't know exactly what Santana had until I wrote what it was near the end. That is Korgan had to find it before I knew myself. It was what it was.
Can't change the source tape as you know.
I'm pretty embroiled in writing myself these days. I'll look over that e-mail but my reading time is limited. But you know, if your story is too long then try for the novel project. I am and I need for there to be at least three other writers to write a novel so the product line can be started (SVC says he needs at least four books to start the line with if he were to start on.) So in a grand gesture of self interest
I encourage you to go for it!
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Saturday, June 25, 2005 - 11:58 pm: Edit Question: Do most writers here use outlines or the make up as you go method? I'm not expousing one method over the other, just curious.
I prefer using outlines. It helps me write faster, although not necessarily better. I did Rimworld using "the pieces fall into place method" :-) and even though, imho, it was probably the better of my three stories, it literally took years to finish. Some of those pieces just took a lot longer to fall in.
Loren, I also liked your fiction in CL#30 the best, btw. Santana was the one that to me, made it better than your other story, although that one was quite good also.
I also like to try and highlight certain rules in my stories. For Shield.., I used D17 as much as possible (but I did get to throw in a narrow salvo of photons). For Mission.., I had to use the EY rulebook extensively. For Rimworld, I think I ended up using several major rule sections, but it was about as long as the last two stories combined. For my next.. well, I haven't picked anything out yet... maybe the HDW optionals systems rule needs me to write about it... not!
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, June 26, 2005 - 12:44 am: Edit I think a vague idea of where you want the story to go helps plus some really good sense and dialogue you definately want to put in.
Once you're about 80% of the way a long; it really does write it'self.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, June 26, 2005 - 02:51 am: Edit Thanks Randy. To answer your main question I do both methodes. The original story for CL28/SSJ2 started as a somewhat longer background written for Mike Rapers Tholian Battleship design. My intention was to make it a real factor in SFU history without trying to make it a real ship (which we both felt would never actually happen). It also occured to me that the Tholians had just been attacked losing Argon station. They might, in a somewhat desparate move, try to con the Klingons into thinking that attacking the Tholians again like before would be way to expensive. Tholians had Battleships before in the old galaxy so the concept was no new to them. It was to everyone else though.
So SVC, generally liking my concept told me that he needed to make the Tholian BB a central piece for SSJ2 and needed a full blown story.
So I set to writing one. I thought I'd try to do something different and present a story as a sort of documentary piece with action scene played out intermitantly. SVC liked my fiction scene but wasn't too interested in my documentary approach.
Also as I developed my characters in the rewrites I started to want to present the Klingons in a new way. One that explored real Klingon life through the eyes of a somewhat non-everyday Klingon.
SVC helped me quite a bit in the final stages and did quite a bit on Koraths personality that I was ill experienced to flesh out.
Another goal was to carry the reader though an adventure. I hope that story was a fun ride.
That experiance paid off very well for me. Shortly after CL28/SSJ2 went to print I began writing a backstory to Step Into My Parlor from the Tholian point of view. I wanted to explain why a Tholian Senator was there to practically push the Battleships data into Korgans hand. Much developement had to be done to present the Tholian government works, thier daily lives and life on the sphere. I began with a University student standing on a balconey looking out and around the spheres cities and horizons as he was just about to leave to serve his Turn of Duty and be station on Argon Station in Y166. (This story may still be seen.)
It is this work that lead me to being assigned to write PD Tholians and the Seltorians. As a teaser I can tell you I have pretty much all of the Old Galaxy history written. It's epic and full of surprises.
For the CL30 story I just had a deep hankering to expand my character Korgan. I wanted to delve further into Klingon military life. To begin with I had two goals. First was to use a technique that had won me praise in my collage days where I bagan a story in the heart of the action. So I began right smack in the middle of a huge fleet battle and put Korgan through one of the toughest events of his career. The second thing I began knowing was that I wanted to write my tactical analisys of the D5 in a story. I had posted this analisys on the BBS but I wanted to explore it further. To make sure I had it right I discussed it with Petrick. We had some great dialog and this confirmed for me that what I had was good. SVC used this also add a bit to make a point about the D5 that he'd always wanted to put out there. Once I reach the goal of putting Korgan on a D5 and him sending his report I had to carry on with an adventure. I typed from 8pm to 4am writing that story out and just went straight through it. It was a great adventure for me.
So the CL30 story was only planned as two basic goals and then I just set out to tell a story and tried to have my fingers keep up on the keyboard.
NOW, I am also writing a novel about Korgan. It is a huge adventure that will see him from his childhood to his finally setting into command. There is some mystery and horror involved and enemies must ally in the middle of war to overcome something more sinister. For this story I have outlined every chapter because I have so many ideas and no time to write them right now. I must work on PD Tholians and I also have another non-Korgan story in the works. Since I could not set to work on that one right away either I outlined it. SVC wants the story and it will introduce a new SFB monster.
Sorry for the long long post but I hope you find it of interest.
The bigest thing that I do is to try to put myself in the action of my stories. I try to imagin myself actually there and describe the reality of it. I studied the Stanislavski Method of acting in school which helps a lot with this. I sort of act the parts as I write them I suppose.
In the CL30 story I tried to have fun with Sanatana but due to several nessasary changes in the story Santana didn't come out as sinister as I'd originally planned. He was to be a raally charming talker with little regard for life. He cut your throat while appologising with a smale and saying "but you understand you are not fitting in with my plans." He might be back, not sure if he's dead or not. We left it open on purpose.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, June 27, 2005 - 01:06 pm: Edit Boy, can you tell I was getting sleep toward the end of that (it was late). I hope you all didn't fall asleep while reading it!
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Friday, July 01, 2005 - 11:26 pm: Edit Will a low axial tilt mean longer growing seasons for a colony world?
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, July 01, 2005 - 11:58 pm: Edit No, but it will mean a harsher change from season to season. That is winter will be bloody cold and summer will be bloody hot ( assuming you're in a temperate zone rather than on the equator, on the equator you'll get temperate zone like seasons and on the poles you'll get some fairly warm summers.
Basically a heavily tilted axis within the obital plane will result in cities effectily moving in location. So instead of Boston moving to D.C. and New York moving to Atlanta in the shift from winter to summer, you'll get New York shifting to Miami. Relatively speaking.
By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar) on Tuesday, July 05, 2005 - 02:28 am: Edit MJC, actually a low axial tilt means less variance in temp, not necessarily a longer growing season....
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, July 06, 2005 - 09:40 pm: Edit I was watching a U.S news programme and the interviewee said that the Senate Judiciary Commity was trying to "trim the sails" of the supreme court.
And it occoured to me that the intention of the cleche' was infact to "furl the sails", as to trim the sails actually makes the vessel more efficient which was the opposite of the intended meaning.
Has the phrase changed meaning over the years or was it simply one person's mistake? Have other phrases changed meaning over the years??? Will there be any changes by the 23rd century that fiction writters ought take note of!?!
By Jonathan Biggar (Jonb) on Wednesday, July 06, 2005 - 10:35 pm: Edit They should have used "clip the wings" instead.
"Furl the sails" would be accurate, but isn't common usage in the US as a cliche.
"Trim your sails" is used, but has the more appropriate connotation of "adjusting your path" or "getting underway".
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, July 06, 2005 - 10:46 pm: Edit Thanks Stewart. That is what I thought, but I was too lazy to do the five minutes of research that was required to find the correct answer, (which I ended up doing anyway. )
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, July 06, 2005 - 10:58 pm: Edit There are sure to be changes by that time MJ, but it would be almost useless to try to incorporate that into SFU fiction if it does not add anything for the reader. Unless, of course, you have thought of a way. In that case.. Gangway! ;) By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, July 06, 2005 - 11:27 pm: Edit I did love that line in Back to the Future III, where Marty says to Bufford Tannen;" Hey, lighten up, jerk!"
And Bufford looks at his posse and no one knows what it means so bufford just assumes.
"Them's mighty strong words."
Also "take the wind out of the sails of" is a fairly common cheche' and I think the one that the speaker was looking for.
By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, July 07, 2005 - 12:22 pm: Edit Just out of curiousity.
Would anyone be interested in writing a fiction piece that is a "story from the other side"?
It would require you to have a copy of Captain's Log #9.
The Fiction Piece in that Captain's Log was "Ghostlight: Day One". But between the fiction piece and the "how things were done" is a wealth of data that could be mined about the actions of the F5M. It strikes me that there is no real fiction from the point of view of a minesweeper participating in an attack on a base and performing its mission of breaching a minefield under fire.
By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Saturday, July 09, 2005 - 08:50 am: Edit For fun I've been writing this non-SFU story.
If anyone is interested here's the link.
SPP I May take a look at it. But I'm not sure if I'd have anywhere to go with it.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, September 07, 2005 - 09:49 pm: Edit Anyone know if one of the hexes the Vudar "occupied" would be close enough to have an encounter between Hydran/Klingon/Vudar cruisers?
Any luck with that story Kludge.. (I don't know if I could make a story like that more exciting than watching paint dry...)
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 10:40 am: Edit Klingons call Feds "Flatheads" and they call Hydrans "Snakes." Anyone know what they might call Vudarians? (Besides rebellious scum..)
By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 11:34 am: Edit Randy. In the SFU, the Klingons don't call Feds "Flatheads" (as Klingon heads are remarkably similar to Human ones).
I'd go with "Ion Lizard", personally.
By Don MacPhail (Dontz125) on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 12:38 pm: Edit CL6, "A Meeting of Giants" (Fed SCS Group + B10 vs Andro Doms)- It went something like, "My lord, the Flathead admiral wants to talk to you."
By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 12:43 pm: Edit Don - yes, those "franchise-isms" have snuck in on occasion.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 01:26 pm: Edit Any number of individuals might use any combination of terms and labels to refer to the enemy.
I had Klingons calling Tholians "Rockheads" but that may not be a common thing at all. Since each Empire is quite vast, there are literally millions of individuals who will never meet another million. So fashion and words of the day will go in and out of style.
So on that particular B-10 the term Flathead circulated around for a while, probably because the Admiral used it one day when referring to another Fed commander that had a buzz cut.
Randy, I suggest making one up and using it. Just don't imply that all Klingons use it.
By Michael Powers (Mtpowers) on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 01:27 pm: Edit I don't think it has anything to do with racial features. I think it's a reference to the details of ship construction.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 09:27 pm: Edit Thanks all. I had remembered the "A Meeting of Giants" story and then a couple of other places like one of the Tactics manuals, etc. I think "Snakes" came from a
Log as well. Ion Lizard?
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, September 26, 2005 - 10:24 pm: Edit Could use a made up Klingon word too.
By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Thereplicant) on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 12:28 pm: Edit Well, "Orm" is Swedish for snake. "Ödla" = lizard. The "Ö" is pronounced like "U" in the word Burn. I guess you could spell it "Oedla" Oh, btw, the word for "slug" (Hydrans you know) is "Snigel" This all sounds odd to you, of course, but so would Klingonese.
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 10:09 pm: Edit How about "Earther"?
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - 10:17 pm: Edit Capitolist Scum? Fed Heads? Human Kulthaks? Peace Mongers? Softies?
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 01:33 am: Edit *Jumps in*
Are there still spaces for writiers to make a post in SFB fiction? And if so, can we post art somewhere too?
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 02:14 am: Edit You could make your own thread for it, although I have a hunch that you'll lower your chances of getting published if you post it on the BBS.
You could ask Joe Butler to post your art somewhere as just letting anybody post anything would run the risk of people posting pictures of naked women ripped off the internet and that'll cause copy right problems. Although simmilar problems will arise if you're hoping for publication.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 10:45 am: Edit Mike, this is a text only forum. As such you can post links to your art but posting the art so it appears on your post is not possible. Only SVC can do that.
Bandwidth costs money and the BBS doesn't make money (pre se'). It is a very useful tool for the SFU developement and community contact but post art wouldn't likely be used (it already been seen and it's already getting passed around) and cost ADB Inc. cash everytime is pops up.
If you have a web site you can link to then post links. Or you can sign up with a Image Hosting site like Photobucket.com and post links to your image there.
Another common site used on art forums is Imageshack.com
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 03:39 pm: Edit Actually I would have posted links instead of actual images... since it's rare I see any images here (Especially SSDs). And I do have my own Deviantart account, but it's filled with things other than SFB for now... I was curious to see if there was any interest, thanks.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 05:12 pm: Edit If you post the link people will click. If you do work they like then they'll comment I suppose.
I'd still suggest that you get a Photobucket account as it loads faster than Devenart (in my experience. I usually hate it when people post using DA). Anyway, put your SFB stuff in Photobucket as well and link each pic. Type a backslash then "link{" then your URL then close it with a "}" (don't use the quotes).
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 05:50 pm: Edit I also have a Comcast.net account with someplace to post a pic also. DA is just my portfolio to impress passersby :D
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 03:42 am: Edit Loren, is has also come to my attention that you're doing PD Tholians. As an avid fan of the Tholians (And who wasn't satisfied with the ENT enterpretation or franchise neglection...) I would also like to offer my creative talents if I could.
...not that I have any to show off here at the moment, unfortunately
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 02:04 pm: Edit Well, post something. A link to your DA account? Are you a CA or CGT forum member?
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 03:39 pm: Edit Not sure what you mean by CA or CGT... I just 'came back' to the SFB boards after getting back into SFC. With FC's release just around the corner I might be around for a little while.
My DA account is, not surprisingly, http://norsehound.deviantart.com/
Years ago I drew some sketches based on SFB, and the only noteworthy ones where what I wanted to be the 'TMP' version of the Tholians. Since the franchise went an entirely different route, there's no stopping the SFU versions from adopting this design if they wanted. They are: http://home.comcast.net/~norsehound/Tholian-1mod.jpg and http://home.comcast.net/~norsehound/Tholian-2mod.jpg
And I'm guessing DTK (Breezegonne) might be honored to be the first Tholian I drew in this style... it was his site that got me to the SFB boards in the first place.
I don't have any fiction for SFB written now, and I haven't hammered out anything other than fanfiction for the past few years. I do have something in the works for SFB, but nothing solid as of yet, and nothing for the Tholians (though I have some ideas...) enjoy.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 03:59 pm: Edit CA = Conceptart.org
CGT = cgtalk.com
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 04:04 pm: Edit Those are interesting sketches but the SFU already has some art of Tholians done and that's what I based the model sheet on (a miniature is being done from that). I balanced between what was already displayed, what TOS showed and filled in the rest. There will be a full biological work up on the Tholians with no new data contradicting already established data (which is kinda hard at times).
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 05:35 pm: Edit Hmm... Well, Neither to be honest. I'm not established on either site. Honestly; i'm a poor college student with a lot of spare tallent an an interest in SFB :D
A shame my artwork can't be put to good use, I guess this version of the THolians will only exist in my backyard Still, I would like to post some kind of contribution to SFB.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, September 29, 2005 - 07:54 pm: Edit Mike, I had been playing SFB for more than 20 years before I jumped on the world wide web and the SFU BBS. I took about two years to get into the swing of thing to start getting stuff published.
There is an input guide on this site of which I was a contributor sharing what I had experienced. I suggest you study this and do tons of SFU reading.
The SFU is both easier and more difficult to write for in that you don't have to make up your own universe. On the other hand you don't get to make up your own universe. Remember above all, you are adding to the highly established and well cared for Star Fleet Universe. What you create must fit.
Your Tholian designs are neat. I like them but they don't fit with what is already established in the SFU. What's printed is what is. It takes an act of G.O.D. to change what is already published. The number one thing to avoid is any change in SFU continuity.
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 12:06 am: Edit Oh I know I can't hope to challenge what's already established (unles SVC has any say about it) it's like an ant moving a brick.
I actually came to most of this realization at work when I had lots of time to think. Problem is, I need to look at my expsnses and how much I can sink into SFB... then again, christmas/birthday is around the corner... Any recommendations as to 'where to begin?' I currently own the basic set and F&E.
Thanks for the responses and advice, sir.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 12:32 am: Edit
Sir Knight??? Hey I like the ring of that!
Seriously, your next step is Advanced Missions. BS and AM make up the main core of SFB and a great deal of history is presented there.
THEN, to really focus on purely the SFU you can get your biggest history bang for the buck with Prime Directive; GURPS or D20, whatever the history is the same.
Still, a great deal of history is told in the SFB scenarios. The scenario books have a LOT of scenarios and a lot of history in them.
SFB is highly devleoped but there are still holes available for exploitation. Finding the Tholian POL that was published in R8 was the result of a lot of other conversation. I didn't just make it up out of the blue. Two separate discussions about a Tholian story I was writing lead to uncovering an inconsistancy. It wasn't too hard to realize the basis of a solution that has it's roots in yet another discusion some six months earlier about vulnerabilities of ships a high warp. The pieces fit together that were gathered of a years period. SVC did the SSD and the Tholians had the Police Cutter. The really crazy thing was the pieces came together just as they were needed for R8.
The Gorn double wing DD in R9 was the result of a toy my son had that looked something like a Gorn DD with an extra set of small wings. I looked at it for a minute, SVC was currently doing R9 and it hit me. I took a picture of it, sent it to SVC along with my proposal and it made the cut.
I've had quite a lot of stuff turned down too. But the key to success is keeping an eye on what's going on at ADB, knowing the game and its history, and staying open to spotting needs in the game system. But you also have to rmember that this is a working game system design for fun play. A proposal can't just be interesting anecdotes to the SFU but something fun to play... except in the case of historical fiction.
Art is an odd thing. Most of my art goes with stuff I write. SVC has never asked me for art. A few pieces have been something I drew that happened to be relevent to a current project, like the Romulan Tank in PD Romulans. Only one other piece was not something for my own writings.
So, take some time to get to know the SFU history a bit more. Then try writing some fiction and doing your own art. ADB's needs are specific but not strangling. Go with the flow on rewrites because they have WAY more experience in these matters. Learn from them. And be patient. It will take a few swings to hit the ball but it's darn satisfying when you get a hit.
Did you read the entire INPUT GUIDE?
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 03:05 am: Edit Completed and saved parts of the Input guide. Good stuff... nothing that doesn't seem impossible though. I've only had one published item before, and that was poetry.
Question: by the submission rules, does this mean my Tholian drawings are now ADB property? I never intended them to be that way, just to make that clear.
Since there isn't a D20 Lyrans/Kzinti/Tholians (yet) I think I'll get AM and then hit C1 or C2 (Neo-Tholians). I have some story beginnings in motion but I'd need to form some kind of direction with the plot. All I know is what's presented in SFC (Which I think is a major advantage, as I'm dealing with 'non-paramount' races).
And beleive me- my creativity can come up with some interesting things. I've been playing with the concept of drawing out some of the SSDs from the X2 section into real starships, but I doubt anyone would want to see them. I also thought about building my own X2 cruiser with stats, but as I am ignorant in SFB rules I don't think this would be a good idea (Unless I rearranged one of the prexisting ships...)
Thanks again...uhm... 'sir.' You are a senior here at the boards, which commands some respect from a newbie like myself And a final question; can anyone point me to the 'official' ADB timeline? I can't seem to find it...
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, September 30, 2005 - 11:58 am: Edit No, just posting a link to your art isn't submitting them. If you sent them to SVC then yes but it's not really final until they get published. But you could right him and ask him to withdraw them from submission. I think that's in there somewhere... perhaps in the FAQ.
Interplay tweaked a few things in SFC. Don't use SFC for anything other than SFC.
Get modules in order is the best way. The Scenario (Modules S1 and S2) books have a very large amount of history in the scenario headers and historical outcome.
There isn't really any seniors here. We are all just part of the community. When I was new around here people were kind and explained things to me. Mike Raper was invaluable to making me feel welcome.
TIMELINE: There was one published in an old Captains Log, I think there is "A Short History of the General War" on this site, Basic Set has a short one but the official most up to date Time Line is in the Prime Directive core rulesbook (either GURPS or D20, your choice).
By ADB time line you meant the SFU time line, right?
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 01:36 pm: Edit It appears as if the Captain's log pages have dissapeared from the main site, as I am unable to find them.
Would you then recommend getting the S1-2 books over the World modules? I personally wouldn't mind having those ships and rules in the world modules... plus I hear SPP likes to reinact the scinerio on a board. Though I have the SFB pack that came with SFC (Complete with ESG rules...) I think it might be wiser to have that module before writing of Lyrans and Kzinti.
And yes I meant the SFU timeline.
By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 02:08 pm: Edit A Brief History of the General War
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 02:24 pm: Edit Well, ya. If you're stictly looking to read history the S books have quite a lot but the racial descriptions are in the C modules and you certainly need those to understand the rest. SO you'll need C3 too. Just take your time and every now and then pick up a new thing. Play the game (you need to understand the tactics of SFB to write about them) and have fun.
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Saturday, October 01, 2005 - 11:53 pm: Edit Thanks Starsabre.
And one advantage ADB has is the inexpensiveness of it's modules. Now to think about shipping and handling...
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, October 02, 2005 - 12:42 am: Edit Mike: If you don't live in Texas then it's simple math. If the tax in your state would cost more than $6.00 then it's cheeper from ADB. For me that begins a 75.00, although my local store doesn't usually carry everything so I just order from ADB.
Orders are alway handled nicely and you get to read a little of the Amarillo News (packing paper).
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Sunday, October 02, 2005 - 12:51 am: Edit *shrugs* I'm in CA to be honest. Like I said in another post; ADB products are virtually unheard of here. I'm hoping SVC will be reasonable with the FC price to have more of a following in the dwindling boardgame market. Haven't looked for any of the SFU RPG books at the local gaming store, but I doubt they'll have 'em.
Hence, easier to order from ADB directly.
And thanks for the answers!
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, October 02, 2005 - 12:25 pm: Edit Ya, me too. Where in CA?
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Monday, October 03, 2005 - 02:28 am: Edit Ehm... East Bay, trivalley.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, October 03, 2005 - 02:53 am: Edit Huh... I've no clue where that is. Not So Cal I'm guessing.
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Monday, October 03, 2005 - 03:12 am: Edit No. More like Mid-cal.
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 - 05:49 am: Edit And what's the current demand for SFU fiction? How long approximately should I limit myself?
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 - 09:55 am: Edit If what I've read in CLs is anything to go by. If it's great it'll go to the top of the pile. As too limit yourself...huhh???
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 - 10:10 am: Edit We need fiction for CL32, CL33, and on and on. A good story well told can be of any length, but if it's more than about ten pages of 9 point helvetica it better be really good at keeping me interested.
By George M. Ebersole (George) on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 - 08:19 pm: Edit Double column?
And can it be a PD story?
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 - 09:08 pm: Edit Figure about 1000 words per page. Figure that there might be a couple illustrations so coming up short less than a 1/2 page is OK. Edits will also alter the length some.
This is a VERY loose guide in that the story should dictate the final length more than anything.
But still, if your like me you want to get some idea of how it might look in the final product (I usually do my best to format a final copy for printing and final proofing to get a feel for it.)
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Saturday, October 08, 2005 - 11:25 pm: Edit Not sure if this is really the place to ask, but, how much of the 'ancient empires' was established?
Also, I went hunting down some source things for the Lyrans and discovered the cover for an old Captain's Log... I think it was #5. Anyone have the story that was in that CL or have anywhere I could possibly get it?
And Lyran ranks... has this been adressed yet?
I plan on submitting three stories when I have them all done.. I have one done so far, working on #2, but I'm flying a little blind here since not much has been established where I'm going...
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, October 09, 2005 - 01:56 am: Edit CL18 has a military insignia table, that should give you what you're looking for in the way of ranks for the purposses of fiction.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Sunday, October 09, 2005 - 09:01 pm: Edit CL#15 is probably the one you are thinking about Mike. Had a Kzinti vs Lyran story in it. "Too Close to the Flame." Think #11 might have had one also.. "Cold Front." Kzinti vs Lyran also. Module R6 has all the ranks for all the races. Also gives Commando team organization for each race. Very handy module.
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Sunday, October 09, 2005 - 10:23 pm: Edit Randy: LOL to your statement! I visited the local gaming store today after a haircut and something compelled me to look at a box of old game books. Sure enough, CL#15 was in there at something like $2.09. Needless to say, I snatched it up without second thought.
And to think the manager there thought ADB went out of buisness I enjoyed the story, but the only thing of ranks in here is the LDR ones. Still, it's insightful.
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, October 09, 2005 - 11:10 pm: Edit The INTERREGNUM has done that to a lot of game stores.
Be sure you tell `em otherwise and how to get hold of ADB directly if needs be.
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Monday, October 10, 2005 - 12:11 am: Edit This question comming from a new person: What?
Yeah, I told the manager person that ADB still existed and that they had a 'new product' (ala FC...) comming out at the end of november. If I return there sometime soon I'll put in a request to have it ordered. They mostly stock Manga and action figures now, and they have all kinds of RPG books (including GURPS and D20... but no SFU stuff), but most of their miniatures/gaming selection is dominated by WH30K.
By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Monday, October 10, 2005 - 11:17 am: Edit Mke Ptak:
The "Interregnum" refers to a period of time (roughly three years) in the late '90s during which the Star Fleet Universe was effectively out of production, as Task Force Games had gone belly-up and Amarillo Design Bureau had not yet taken over the publication end of the business. There are many stores that are unaware (or unbelieving) that the Interregnum ended some six years ago.
By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Monday, October 10, 2005 - 01:52 pm: Edit Mike, if you would like to, we're looking for people to demo Fed Commander during Launch Weekend (the weekend of the 25-28th of November.
Please contact me at [email protected] if you're interested in demoing it at the store there. Jessica, we're about 90%+ likely be including the miniatures turn gauges (and mapless rules) as part of Fed Commander. I seem to recall that's your preferred mode of play.
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Monday, October 10, 2005 - 04:36 pm: Edit I'm terribly interested (since there is little or no SFB out here in LIvermore) but I'd have to consider it... talk with Fantasy's manager... and make sure everything was fine with my classes (i'm a community college student after all...). I'd also need to look at the rules ahead of time to get some kind of familiarity with the game.
I can guarantee that some of my freinds might be interested, but I'll have to get back to you about doing public demos (and besides, the local gaming store here Fantasy books and games has nothing in the way of table space. Our local library perhaps?
Or maybe even at Las Positas college? Y'never know, there's more than enough teenagers here who might be interested. There's also more than enough table space here with a liberary, our cafeteria and a small lounge.
Jessica: Thanks for the insigtful knowledge. I just hope ADB can return to the mainstream eye with FC.
It would also explain why I saw the box for F&E in a hobby store as a kid, but didn't fully hear about SFU until Starfleet command came out.
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, October 10, 2005 - 07:41 pm: Edit Does anyone know where I can find ( or can post them ), the strategic warp speeds as expressed in multiples of the speed of light?
I just don't want to say, rocketing through a lightyear every day and a half ( 216 C or there abouts ) and have actually be a snail's pace.
By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Monday, October 10, 2005 - 09:29 pm: Edit Michael, I know it was in a captains log, not sure which one (and all my CL's are sadly in storage, but the answer is out there)
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, October 10, 2005 - 09:58 pm: Edit CL16 has the tactical warp speed table but those speeds are too slow.
If a ship moves six F&E hexes in six months and each F&E hex is 1000 parsecs across, then the ship is moving at 3000 light years per months of 100 light years per day or 36,500 times the speed of light (or warp 33 by that measure) and that fails to include DASH speeds...still I could be wrong about the size of an F&E hex.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, October 10, 2005 - 10:08 pm: Edit Was in one of the more recent (ie, last 10 issues) I think... someone did an excellent write up on how long it would take to travel around the SFU. Thing that blew my mind was it only took a Fedex ship 4 minutes (IIRC) to travel from Earth to Vulcan. But that was only for something that had to absolutely, positively, had to be there....
Now for a table that shows tactical warp combat speeds translated to SFB speeds..
CL#16, page 9
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, October 10, 2005 - 10:22 pm: Edit MJC: An F&E hex is 500 parsecs.
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, October 10, 2005 - 10:34 pm: Edit So ships are cruising around at 18,250 times the speed of light...it's still too fast for tactical warp speeds.
By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 12:47 am: Edit GURPS PD 4E, Page 160. I assume the information is also in the D20 PD book but I haven't picked that up yet.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 09:56 pm: Edit Also David Lang wrote an article called "How to Get There" in Gurps Module Prime Alpha. Standard travel time for Earth to Alpha Centaur, 1 hr 25 minutes at warp 7.25.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 10:41 pm: Edit All that stuff by Lang is now in GPD4e (and is improved).
By Craig Tenhoff (Cktenhoff) on Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - 02:11 pm: Edit Information is in PD20 book.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, October 13, 2005 - 09:28 pm: Edit Loren, Craig, Alan, just curious. Does GPD4E have any of the Hydran units of distance measurement or time measurements?
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, October 13, 2005 - 10:17 pm: Edit No.
And with a cursory look neither does MPA.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, October 13, 2005 - 10:50 pm: Edit Thanks Loren. I couldn't find any in MPA either, so I was hoping it might be in GPD4E. By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 04:03 am: Edit I think this is a good a place as any...
I have a Kzin artpeice that I thought about sending in. I'd like to know what you guys think though... http://home.comcast.net/~norsehound/Kzin-Bloodye-fin-1.jpg
I could try to make it a little bigger, but this is the size it was 'drawn' at.
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 07:29 pm: Edit No commentary? I guess I'll send it in then...
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 08:26 pm: Edit Mike, I just noticed it. There is a lot of very good qualities to it but it looks more like a fox than a kzinti. Mainly because the nose is too elongated.
There is also some contrast issue in the composition but those are too bad. Another issue is the shoulder strap looks like is floating a bit; that is, it doesn't appear to be part of the picture.
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 09:01 pm: Edit Shoot. And I just subitted it to SVC...
Heh. I guess I'll just resubmit when it's ready then...
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, October 14, 2005 - 09:29 pm: Edit Kzinti have a bit of a tiger look but with different markings.
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 12:45 am: Edit What about the Lyrans?
From what I have read, the Kzinti and Lyrans are 'superficially similar'. Lyrans are smaller than Kzinti and are more like lynxes than Kzinti Tigers.
The way I saw it, Lyran colors are mostly gold/yellow/olive while the Kzinti were orange/red/burgandy.
Also, do the Lyrans have tails? The Kzinti appear to have them, at least according to CL #15.
By John Wyszynski (Starsabre) on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 12:52 am: Edit (R11.0) ... Lyrans have short fur-covered tails. ...
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 12:59 am: Edit Thanks John! I am now pressured between persuing to buy everything Kzin-Lyr related... or saving up for FC. Stupid choices
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 01:18 am: Edit Lyran, more like a Lynx. Smaller in stature, both are bi-ped humanoid.
By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 09:07 pm: Edit Funny, and I thought humans looked all alike. Would you say Klinger (on M*A*S*H) was any less human for having a bigger snoz? How many differences between cat breeds, or dog breeds for that matter, are there? Assuming there isn't something written that the Kzin or Lyrans or other races adhered to genetic manipulation to keep their appearances absolutely uniform, I'd easily say that you did a great job, Mike.
By Mike Ptak (Norsehound) on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 09:44 pm: Edit Thanks Glenn!
The fun think about possibly doing the Lyr(an)-Kzin(ti) book is tracing out all these neat variations. Still, it's no excuse for trying to draw a better Kzinti
Edit: As for SVC's reply: "I don't know what creature this is, but it's not a kzinti. Maybe a carnivon. Or something else.
Nicely done."
I dunno weather to faint or to cry. I think I'll try doing pure pencil sketches for my next shot, since my Tholian images were 'closer to the mark' Xx;
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, October 15, 2005 - 11:25 pm: Edit Mike: Pet Peave of mine: "I dunno weather to faint or to cry." ... you meant to say "I dunno whether to faint or to cry.", didn't you???
Garth L. Getgen, MSgt USAF Weather Forecaster
I'm the guy that tells you whether or not it'll rain tomorrow.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, October 16, 2005 - 02:04 am: Edit Don't sweat the typo Mike (but don't do it again!), Garth nailed me on that same thing a few years ago. I never got it wrong again. Take your time, Bud. Continue gathering source material and getting to know the SFU. It's a bit like a full time history class if you really get into it. And it is tightly and internally consistant. Nothing (hopefully) conflicts with anything else. The SFU is really a master piece of Universe design that is much more carefully and skillfully constructed than anything in the Star Trek Universe.
======
Glen H., true there are going to be variations but humans don't have ape lips or dog snouts either. Their is going to be a base line of appearance and that didn't look like a fit for Kzinti's based on established art work. Mike asked for a critique and I gave him one. I also know he is short on back ground material so he needs the help until he get thuroughly down into the deep end of SFUdom. I wasn't being hard on him but I know what SVC would say from personal and similar experience. I came up with a Carnivon design that was totally cool and totally not workable way back when. It didn't work because I didn't bother to double check the source material (which is much worse than mikes situation since I had the proper references but didn't look in the right and, as it turns out, the obvious place).
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, October 16, 2005 - 02:04 am: Edit I think I'll always have certain problems. "the player who looses the battle"
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Saturday, January 21, 2006 - 10:31 pm: Edit Get on the stick guys. With the schedule I have the first half of this year, it is unlikely I will have anything done for CL #33. (I'm beginning to feel like the fiction hog anyway, robbing you young whipper-snappers of your chance to successfully run the gauntlet of Petrick's "Green Pen of Doom" (tm) and then getting your chance to shine in CL afterwards!) .
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, January 21, 2006 - 10:39 pm: Edit See now that's where you guys are getting scared of things, it's not the Green Pen of Doom, its the Green Pen of Enlightenment. Just writing fiction and sending it in and discussing the particulars is a sure fire way to become serious SFU historians. It's like taking a Masters course in SFU Historical Science!
Really, ya for real. Uh huh.
What?!!
But seriously, he is a live interactive SFU encyclopedia. SFB is way too big to always get it right unless its a living and for SPP that's exactly what it is. By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, June 12, 2006 - 08:54 pm: Edit I don't have access to my J2 SSds right now, can someone tell me if the Seltorian ACS has PFs, or just 12 fighters? (Z-YBs if I remember correctly.)
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, June 13, 2006 - 11:18 am: Edit An interesting coincidence? Dictionary.coms word of the day for today is "Warp Speed".. last Friday's word of the day was "Kludge". Did you nominate those entries for WOD Kennth (Jones)? ;)
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, June 13, 2006 - 06:54 pm: Edit Found my J2 SSD book. Looks like it has 12 Z-Ys and 6 BAFs. So ignore the prior request.
By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 06:12 am: Edit Perhaps it was the scent of freshly spoiled milk that caught his attention, or the putrid haze that seemed to emanate from the food replicator or maybe it was the feel of the counter top – a thin layer of grease from a cooking expedition involving frying oil and French fries from a month ago, something normally forbidden on a starshp. which lead Lt Billy Faulter to look at the curtains (an oddity in a starship that only paid off when the light of a nearby star was too glaring) which had browned through constant exposure to cigarette smoke (still not illegal on starships), cooking grease, cat hairs and week-old body odor, a clear indicator as to the events that caused the death of Nathanial Bloome who was lying next to the holographic fireplace, a not-so-holographic brass candle- stick still stuck in the skull of his step-brother, a sight which Faulter didn’t fault himself for allowing the small smirk when all the other security officers were distracted by all the Orion nude magazines splayed all over the coffee table which had experience its own phaser wound when Bloome had mishandled the antique rifle as he was trying to clean the 4 month old cooking grease some nine months ago before he was divorced by his 19 yr old wife whose picture was plastered all over the coffee table between the covers of the nude magazines which effectively distracted all the security officers as they attempted to ascertain why the curtains were so vitally important to Faulter’s theory that they held clues as to who stuck the candle stick in Bloome’s head, but they didn’t realize how important it was that the sky over Septic 3, a planet they orbited yesterday, was mostly cloudy with only a 15% chance of rain.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 10:54 am: Edit I think that's the longest sentence I've ever read.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Saturday, June 17, 2006 - 09:32 am: Edit Ok, where do you order the Orion Nude magazines? ;)
Anyone know if the Seltorians had fighter pilots of their own, or just used Klingon provided fodder? By George M. Ebersole (George) on Saturday, June 17, 2006 - 11:32 am: Edit Right here http://linked.mroach.com/orion_slave_girls.jpg
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, June 17, 2006 - 03:37 pm: Edit Randy, I think you'd need to put that in Q&A and it's a good question. One I'd be asking soon enough.
By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Saturday, June 17, 2006 - 09:33 pm: Edit Orion magazine: http://lightspeedimages.com/images/Kristin_vina_web/ORION1.jpg http://lightspeedimages.com/Orion_Slave_girl1.htm
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Sunday, June 18, 2006 - 11:43 am: Edit Loren, I found a reference in R6 stating that they used Klingon provided (mostly non-Klingon volunteers)pilots since the Seltorian workers were not able to handle the fast, three dimensional aspects of fighter combat.
Tos and George, thanks for the links. ;) I went ahead and bookmarked them for uh, later research.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, June 18, 2006 - 11:48 am: Edit Randy, right, I recall now.
That aspect should be GREAT fodder for some fiction in the future.
By Michael Lui (Michaellui) on Sunday, June 18, 2006 - 07:42 pm: Edit George
But WHERE'S THE ORDER FORM!!!???
And here's yet more images of Orion slave girls: http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&rls=HPIC%2CHPIC %3A2005-19%2CHPIC%3Aen&q=orion+slave+girl&btnG=Search
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 10:41 am: Edit Dave Adams said: The Vanguard series is GREAT! I'm a TOS fan, though, so I'm probably biased. The books present a grittier (more realistic) look at character development than a lot of ST novels I've read, and the plots are good. One bad thing about them is tat they have a LOT of characters. It took me quite few chapters to get them down.
======
Dave, that's an interesting point you make about too many characters. Since I haven't read the story in question I'd like to ask you a couple questions.
How many are you talking about and when does the character count get to be a burden, in your opinion?
Do you think they could have just done a better job of making each character memorable when first introduced and that would have made it a simpler read?
A novel I am writing for the SFU will involve many characters. In most cases they will be involved during small snipets in their own little story but there will be a time when I have the survivors of two starships on the ground together. We talking about two hundred people interacting. Of course I won't be writing about all of them but I'll have a point where I'll have to be careful about how many characters I introduce.
So I like you and others to share your thoughts, as a reader on this if you like.
By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Monday, June 26, 2006 - 10:58 am: Edit Well, vanguard starbase has several main characters:
Station Commander Station physician Station security? officer (the vulcan) Station JAG rep Civilian Freighter Capt Discredited Journalist Orion crimlord (and assorted hangers on)
And has many secondary chacters:
Various crew on the station (some of which get killed off).
Various Tholians, Romulans, Klingons (some of which get killed off)
Various officers and crew members of other starfleet ships assigned to the vanguard station (some of which get killed off)
Various research scientists/civillians on interesting planets in the area around the vanguard station. (some of which get killed off) James Kirk and crew of the Enterprise in the first book (some of which get killed off, well no, just kidding, well, maybe a red-shirt, I don't remember).
The primary characters aren't hard to keep track of, there is a large cast of secondary characters and that is where it gets tricky, but it's not too bad in my opinion. I am enjoying the series and wish they put them out more often.
By Dave Adams (Roguecop) on Tuesday, June 27, 2006 - 07:33 pm: Edit I won't parrot Nick (above) because he does a good job of covering the bases.
What he said about the secondaries is where my head started spinning, as well. I had to try and trace back what that person's involvement in the plot was, and where we were in the plotline, and how the other arcing plots may or may not have involved that person.
I can handle books like that, mostly (ever read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William Shirer? Ooof. Hitler had a LOT of stooges.). I'm not much of a writer, so please understand if my feedback and suggestions aren't what you need.
I had a hard time getting a mental picture of many of the characters. Any accents or mannerisms they might have had were lost on me by the next time I saw them (except the Jindarian, who is very unique).
I play a lot of RPG stuff and so keeping PCs and NPCs in my head isn't too hard if I have a memorable scene attached to them. Pictures are nice, too, but I know getting artwork done for a novel would be cost prohibitive.
Not sure if any of that helped. Let me know if I can do anything else for you.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, June 27, 2006 - 07:55 pm: Edit Jindarian???!!!
Did you mean this? There is a Jindarian in the Vangard series?
By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Tuesday, June 27, 2006 - 11:03 pm: Edit No, I think he means the Chelon (race), who has the name of Jetanien. The Federation ambassador on the station. Think of the Xchaa from Twilight imperium, sort of a turtle like, dinosaur like, reptile like species (from what I remember of the initial description of the character), and good at diplomacy.
Of course I haven't finished the second book yet, so who knows?
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, June 27, 2006 - 11:09 pm: Edit Ya, I figure it ha to be a mistake but if not then we just scored for ADB! By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 11:06 am: Edit If anyone is interested, I had a flash fiction story accepted by Alienskin E-Zine. It's at http://alienskinmag.com/flash.htm
The name of the story is Sand.
By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Sunday, August 20, 2006 - 04:28 pm: Edit Randy, I just read it. Definitely a good read! If my thumbs are worthy, I'd give two of them, up.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, August 21, 2006 - 11:09 pm: Edit Glenn, thanks for taking the time to read it. I'm sure your thumbs worthy are. Both of them!
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 - 12:03 am: Edit I read it. It was good and I couldn't help but visualizing just a bit further than the end a huge wave suddenly sweeping in.
Of course the set up didn't really go there but...
Where did you get that idea from?
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 - 10:48 pm: Edit Thanks for reading it Loren. Glad you liked it.
A dream.
A note though. I got rejections from a couple of magazines because they thought it was too similiar in concept to some novel where all the water in the world becomes frozen solid because of a newly invented super-molecule. (Or something like that.) As I still haven't read it, or found a copy anywhere, I can't really say how close the concept is. But at least it's published!
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, November 27, 2006 - 03:04 pm: Edit Garth, just looked at both your stories. You must have a really deep-seated interest in the innermost workings of the Federation Police Force. Do you want detailed feedback (by email)? (Not that I'm a professional by any means..)
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, November 27, 2006 - 03:35 pm: Edit Actually, more like general observations, not detailed feedback.. you know what I mean, lol. By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 - 09:16 am: Edit Sure. I'm on the road right now, so it'll be a few days before I'll get my mail, tho.
Garth L. Getgen
By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, November 30, 2006 - 05:07 pm: Edit Randy, I'm back home now, so if you still want to fire that e-mail at me, go ahead.
Garth L. Getgen
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 11:12 am: Edit Would an admiral be in charge of a SCS group? (Klingon style)
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 11:23 am: Edit Likely but could be a Commodore. I don't have any direct info on that though. Usually and DN has an Admiral on it.
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 03:02 pm: Edit Someday down the road I'm going to need two or three stories about monsters. Not juggernauts or doomglares. Monsters that don't have stories would be good.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 04:52 pm: Edit SVC, would you be interested in a new monster?
They are half race, half monster. I intended them to be a monster scenario but could be player units as well.
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 04:55 pm: Edit Monsters have to be approved by Petrick for use in SFB.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 07:01 pm: Edit Yeah, I best spend my available time on the projects in my lap.
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 09:59 pm: Edit You know, a monster that is analogous to a Pheonix might be cool.
A giant plasma creature that flies through space and "nests" for a while in the surface of stars and feeds on the hydrogen isotopes. Unfortunately when feeding, the star becomes disturbed and sends out solar flares, gravity waves and other solar phonomia that could make colony worlds less habitible. Thus when one of these creatures is sighted heading for a colony/major world star then the creature has to be either driven off or killed; by the nearest starship.
Kinda like a flaming space-dragon.
By Craig Tenhoff (Cktenhoff) on Monday, January 15, 2007 - 11:21 pm: Edit OK, just to refresh my aging memory, which monsters currently have stories?
Mjc, I'm afraid that one was done in the Star Trek: New Frontier series. Only difference was that it nested on a planet. Provided plenty of power, etc, while it was in it's "egg" state (which lasted on the order of a thousand years). Unfortunately, when it 'hatched', it cracked the planet in the process. OUCH!
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 - 01:10 am: Edit CT: I don't remember. I think we did space boars or sheep? Three doomglare stories and a fourth still on file. A dragon story with romulan telepaths. And two juggy stories.
MJC: Read more, think more, post less. Instead of posting every idea that comes into you head, write them all down, divide into groups of ten, and post the best one out of each group (and never post the other nine).
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 - 01:43 am: Edit "And two juggy stories."
Man, and won't the fans of the Man Show be so dissapointed!
By Kenneth Jones (Kludge) on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 - 08:33 am: Edit Well all I can say is that the Solar Phoenix monster is a major plot hook in the stalled Shield Galaxy module.
(Before anyone asks. It's not Petrick. Its me. During my work week I'm lucky if I get 20hrs sleep in total. On my days off all I want to do is catch up on some of what I missed. So until I change jobs or can go w/o sleep, the SG project is sitting idle.)
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 12:29 pm: Edit A project for you guys. I want you to chat about it, and AFTER ORIGINS one of you can email me the compiled list.
What I want to create is a list of "resource documents" that should be made available (one way or another) to writers. This like military rank quivalencies, planet lists, ship name list, style guides, capitalization guides, warp factor vs hex speed conversion, and so forth. So, get your heads together and think up what documents should be on the list.
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 12:36 pm: Edit BTW, Jean Sexton has helped me compile a list of words to be capitalized and not capitalized and capitalized only in certain cases. If one or two of you would want to review the preliminary list to find mistakes and ask questions before we post it life, I'll be happy to send it to you. In the meantime, we have ...
THE TEN RULES OF SFU CAPITALIZATION
Capitalization Rule #1, Proper Names: Capitalize proper names, such as Steve Cole or Jean Sexton. Nicknames such as Benjamin "The Beast of New Orleans" Butler are capitalized as literary titles (rule #5).
Capitalization Rule #2, Other Proper Names: Country names (e.g., England) and proper geographic names (e.g., Klingon Empire, Amarillo, Alpha Sector); "race" names (Kzinti, Seltorian), and species names (e.g. Hilidarian); military organizations (Deep Space Fleet, Empire Security Service, Star Fleet Marines — and political ones such as Romulan Senate) and specific military units (e.g., Third Squadron, Fourth Battalion, Sixth Fleet); and starship "code names" or "reporting names" (SparrowHawk, Dominator, Siberian Tiger) are capitalized as proper names. See Capitalization Rule #1.
Capitalization Rule #3, Special Proper Names: Product names (e.g., SFB Module R11) and ship names (e.g., Constellation) are capitalized AND shown in italics. This courtesy also extends to the titles of magazines and newspapers.
Capitalization Rule #4, Ranks and titles: Military ranks (e.g., Major, General, Corporal) and political titles (e.g., Senator, Count) are capitalized when part of a name (e.g., Major Kenyil, Senator Hart, Count Chocula) or when used as a name substitute ("I tell you what, Major, you’re not going on the mission, and that’s that!") but not in a generic sense (e.g., "that job requires a qualified captain of the combat engineers."). Military duty positions (e.g., navigator) are capitalized when used as a name substitute (e.g., "...the Navigator said") but not when used in a generic sense (e.g., "Get one of the navigators up to the Bridge"). As a general rule, if you can swap the rank/title/job with the name of the person, then it gets capitalized, e.g., "I tell you what, Fred, you’re not going on the mission, and that’s that!" but not "Get one of the Freds up to the Bridge." Although, come to think of it, it would be entirely proper to say "One of the Steves will have to make that decision" when speaking of ADB, Inc., but it would be, in that case, wrong to capitalize corporate officers in the sentence "One of the Corporate Officers will have to make that decision" and that just confuses everybody.
Capitalization Rule #5, Titles: In a literary title (i.e., the title of a magazine article, as opposed to a title of nobility), where it is not in all caps, capitalize the first word, the last word, any word that would normally rate a capital, and any "big" or "important" word. Small words such as "to", "and", or "the" are not "big" or "important" words but might rate a capital by one of the other rules. (In proper English grammar: articles, conjunctions, and prepositions -- like anybody who writes for SFU knows what those are -- don't get caps. Words such as "is" and "be" do get them. Certain small words such as "a", "an", or "the" get capitalized if they are the first word of a title of a specific thing (e.g., The New York Times), such as "Steve Cole Refutes The New York Times" or "Leanna Cole Lands Leading Role in The Lion and the Lamb".
Capitalization Rule #6: Major historical events (e.g., War of Return, General War, Four Powers War, Day of the Eagle, Day One) are capitalized under the rules for Titles (#5).
Capitalization Rule #7, game terms: Steps and Phases of the turn (e.g., Economic Phase and the Tractor Beam Step), are capitalized under the rules for Titles (#5). These need to be checked individually on the list below (in CapLog article, this will refer to the website) because some items logically included in this category do not rate capital letters.
Capitalization Rule #8, acronyms: These are always in all caps, such as SFB, CL, ESG, and so forth. Klingon ship classes are alphanumeric (e.g., D7, F4, C8) and capitalized as shown.
Capitalization Rule #9: Technology items (e.g., Light Cruiser, Web Breaker) are capitalized in (and only in) the specific rule defining them, or closely-related rules (e.g., "The Web Caster can cast a Strand of Web from a Corner Anchor to another Anchor.") and then only for emphasis and identification (in effect, to say "Hey, dummy! THIS is the thing we were talking about!").
Capitalization Rule #10: Our roleplaying games have their own special rules. In GURPS, all "skills," "attributes," "advantages," and "disadvantages" and certain other game terms are capitalized for recognition purposes. For d20, specific stats, skills, and feats are capitalized for recognition purposes.
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 12:58 pm: Edit SVC close your eyes until after Origins:
1) A basic understanding of the crew of a ship. And how they divy up the work. Like the old "Officers on a D7" article in CL.
2) A basic outline of what a BP member carries on his/ her person. Armor/ environmental/ sensors/ weapons...
3) A better system of ranks for enlisted. I mean "Torpedoman 2nd class" is better than "Crewman E4" right? The officers already have detailed ranks. Persoanlly I LIKE the old navy "a thousand ratings" system just for its color...
By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 01:17 pm: Edit a Who's who guide in the SFU access to a consitant listing of the major players in the General War Naval Commnaders Fleet Commanders Government leaders etc...
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 01:46 pm: Edit How fleets and squadrons are organized (Ie the Klingon model with a cruiser squadron, a F5 squadron, an E4 squadron, etc VS the Fed model The first division is centered on the CC with an NCL, CL, DD and Frigate completing the division)
By Kenneth M Drushal (Kdrushal) on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 02:12 pm: Edit That is an excellent suggestion Michael.
Although I'm not a "writer", I do run campaigns and large battles. It would be great to define what a Fleet, Wing, Task Force, Squadron, Division, etc is for each of the races. Also, how fluid were the orginizations. Just look at the US Navy during the battles around Guadalcanal in WWII, major fleet units where transferred into 2 or 3 different Task Forces during a six moth period.
Along that same line, since fighters use a lot of the same orginizational terms, define what each of those mean for each race.
Ken
By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 02:31 pm: Edit A detailed SFU timeline.
A list of "avoids." For example, "avoid writing a story about XX." "Avoid attempts to change the timeline." Or whatever you want us to avoid.
A list of "do's." "Do consult with SVC before beginning a story." "Do draft stories that are in accordance with SFB rules." Or whatever else you want us to affirmatively do.
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 02:43 pm: Edit Kenneth, I would think this is part and parcel of how each race "thinks" about organization.
I think there is extensive canon available from F&E (for fleet totals and mixes) and CL background (day of the eagle, etc).
PERSONALLY, I am more interested in thinking about what kind of mission my E4 squadron would perform that wouldn't be better served by the same BPV of F5's. And WHY organize this way?
For example, the DNs in the game are the homes of the Admirals (more or less), so the captains of the CCs are really the most "senior captains" at least as far as having independent decision making jobs. I mean who would want to have an Admiral looking over your shoulder full time? When you could command a CC AND some other ships too!
There was a CL that discussed the Fleet Ketrick died leading into the Wyn Cluster and it was both fascinating (with the way it divided up the ships into divisions) and strange (In how it divided up the ships in divisions).
I mean, the CV got a division (and therefore a commdore equivalent to command its CV/Escorts/Fighters) but the PFT (with its 6 pf)didn't?
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 03:00 pm: Edit Quick answers ===== A basic understanding of the crew of a ship. And how they divy up the work. Like the old "Officers on a D7" article in CL. - - - - SVC: Plausible. ===== 2) A basic outline of what a BP member carries on his/ her person. Armor/ environmental/ sensors/ weapons... - - - - SVC: Varies a lot, and a given writer can find a valid reason to add or delete anything. Body armor, combat harness, canteen, dagger, pistol, rifle, grenades, rations. ===== 3) A better system of ranks for enlisted. I mean "Torpedoman 2nd class" is better than "Crewman E4" right? The officers already have detailed ranks. Persoanlly I LIKE the old navy "a thousand ratings" system just for its color... - - - - SVC: I really hate the way the US Navy does things. ===== a Who's who guide in the SFU access to a consitant listing of the major players in the General War Naval Commnaders Fleet Commanders Government leaders etc... - - - - SVC: Most of this has never been defined, and there is no need to define it. We can make a list of what has been defined so you can use the same data if you are in the same place and time. ===== How fleets and squadrons are organized (Ie the Klingon model with a cruiser squadron, a F5 squadron, an E4 squadron, etc VS the Fed model The first division is centered on the CC with an NCL, CL, DD and Frigate completing the division) - - - - SVC: Doubtful, this is too highly variable, it changes ever week. ===== A detailed SFU timeline. - - - - SVC: We did this a long time ago. http://www.starfleetgames.com/documents/Timeline.pdf ===== A list of "avoids." For example, "avoid writing a story about XX." "Avoid attempts to change the timeline." Or whatever you want us to avoid. A list of "do's." "Do consult with SVC before beginning a story." "Do draft stories that are in accordance with SFB rules." Or whatever else you want us to affirmatively do. - - - - SVC: Good to do. =====
By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 03:20 pm: Edit
Quote:
SVC: Most of this has never been defined, and there is no need to define it. We can make a list of what has been defined so you can use the same data if you are in the same place and time.
that would work
By Joe Stevenson (Alligator) on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 03:34 pm: Edit Taht resouce would be good.... it wold help me finish my SFU screenplay....
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 10:04 pm: Edit Besides the capitalization rules, and the style sheets, what I would find most useful would be a consolidated document with the ranks from each race that also included the commando team organizational structures from R6. Fighter squadron and PF flotilla rank structures might have a remote chance of being useful to someone. Throw in the fiction warp speed conversion chart from Captain's Log #16, page 9. The other stuff might require too much work for ADB to give away as a freebie, specifically a comprehensive list of ship names for each race, which would doubtless require a lot of valuable SVC time. Race backgrounds and planet lists would be nice also, but again, that is why we buy Prime Directive products. Why should ADB give away something that required significant designer time? I certainly won't mind buying PD:Feds and PD:Tholians when they come out because I know they will contain a wealth of valuable background data. Until then, we can just dig through the R-sections for whatever race we happen to be writing about.
Just my two cents.
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 09:29 am: Edit SVC and Randy:
I would suggest that there should be a MASTER UNIVERSE BACKGROUND (MUB) product FOR SALE! Style guides for writers should be free and just available for download from the site (or on request).
1) To be useful a MUB should have all the rank structures. And an encapsulated version of the rank stories (like the Romulan one with the diagrams of the Eagle Insignia and the Kzinti one that explained the "captain 3rd class" deal)
2) Each race should have a short version of the PD data for every race. So the ISC entry might have Pronhuilite (sp?) data. Kzinti, Lyran and Hydran might have subject race data.
3) An outline of crew organization.
4) PD racial data SHOULD be available for people that do not RPG (anymore). Include the R introduction for each race. Also a more detailed description of each. Do Kzinti have long tails? Lyrans and Kzinti have different ears? Claws?
5) This file would be dynamic and subject to growth as time goes on. The beauty of POD tech.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, May 31, 2007 - 09:42 pm: Edit Mike, MUB. I like it. I'd buy it in a minute.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 01:18 am: Edit Including all the scenarios (mostly just name and scenario number) published in modules, including the S modules but not Cap Log (unless fully historical) in the Timeline would be SUPER helpful.
A basic OOB per historical era would be useful too. This could be simply the OOB's from the main F&E scenarios.
An expansion/update of the "Index of ships in SFB fiction" from MO#3 would be great. One could then easilly cross reference this with the ship name index to find available names.
By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 01:33 am: Edit I don't think a seperate MUB book is necessary. I bought all 3 GURPS PD books just for the background. The "race" books (Klingons, Romulans) are almost entirely background, containing the rank data and insignia data that appeared in Cap Log. There's a little bit of RPG rules in there, but not a great deal.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, June 01, 2007 - 09:55 am: Edit The RPG books do contain a lot of data but there is a lot of stuff missing too. The Universe is just to big for one game system.
Fleet and ship data are needed and the RPG timeline is good but not complete. The new one posted is better.
The idea of the MUB is to consolodate the raw Universe data and that would be most welcome.
By Joe Stevenson (Alligator) on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 08:17 pm: Edit Hi all,
It's been a long time, and I no longer have all my old SFB stuff (I've recently repurchased my F&E stuff, and I have a fair amount of FC).
Anyway, I'm trying to write a story from a Lyran's perspective, and I'm trying to get my facts straight.
Lyrans are most similar to what Earthly cat? (is it lynx or panther) Where can I find a list of Lyran ship names? I know it's an empire, but what is a good source for the hierarchy of their government and military?
By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 08:53 pm: Edit
Quote:
Lyrans are most similar to what Earthly cat?
Lynx
Quote: Where can I find a list of Lyran ship names?
StarShip Name Registry
Quote:
I know it's an empire, but what is a good source for the hierarchy of their government and military?
I can't remember what number but there was a CL that had an extensive review of the various Duchies and their counties...
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, August 07, 2007 - 10:54 pm: Edit SVC and SPP;
I am posting this just to let you know I am having difficulty working on the CL story because of a bizarre legal situation. I am also posting this in the forlorn hope that someone on the BBS may have run across a similar situation. Basically, friends (now former friends) of the family are legally keeping my wife from seeing her 13 year old son. He is my stepson, and is the one you met at Origins. I say legally, because the local Sheriff's Dept will not do anything about it, the local Circuit Court will not do anything about it, and the local Juvenile Court has, so far at least, been unable to do something about it. We had trusted these people to take care of him while we were working, and he had enjoyed staying with them so much over the years that we had let him stay over there an inordinate amount of time. Over the last few months I had thought their behavior was growing a little too "possessive" and we began to try to exert a little more control over his life. To make a long, long story short, they evidently became paranoid that we would take him completely away from them and used the time to prepare themselves. So we let him spend the night with them Saturday, with the stipulation that we would pick him up Sunday evening. Sunday afternoon comes, and the daughter of the couple in question (the daughter is 38 btw) calls me and informs me that Zachary does not want to come home with us, and that they are not going to force him too. I am stunned. I grab my wife, we go on over there to try to talk reason and are ordered off the property. I call the Sheriff's Dept and after a couple of hours a pair of deputies show up, determine that the child is in no danger and tell us their hands are tied and to meet with the Sheriff in the morning at 8AM. Frustrated, we go home and give Zachary's dad a call and tell him we are having problems. He drops everything and makes the three hour drive from Florida to make sure he will be there at the meeting.
Monday morning comes. We meet with the Sheriff, who tells us to get an attorney because we had willingly left Zachary with these people (and from talking to them, they had told him that Zachary had been with them every day of his life except for about 20 days)and that this was a civil matter. And that the boy was 13 and had told him that he did not want to go back home. Frustrated, we go and get an attorney, who is flabbergasted that people with no legal right have managed to take our son. He finds out that they have an attorney and that they are going to claim we abandoned Zachary, which is patently untrue. He threatens them with kidnapping 2nd degree (which he does not think will stick) and interference with custody (which he thinks will stick). Nothing seems to matter to this other attorney. About this time, the lady's daughter calls again and wants to meet to talk. Our attorney tells us that he can't see where it would do any harm, so we agree to meet with her. Our attorney tells us to give her a deadline of 9:30 PM to return our son, or we would file criminal charges the next morning. We deliver the ultimatum, the rest of the meeting did not go well (I did not want to meet anyway with anyone that had taken my stepson away from us) and in the end it looks like we will have to file charges Tuesday morning.
Tuesday morning. We go to the circuit clerk to sign paperwork for the two charges. They tell us that they cannot do this, that we will have to go to the Sheriff's Office to initiate this. We go to the Sheriff's Office and after an hour and a half of waiting (with mom and dad and stepdad growing increasingly frustrated, they come out and tell us that we will have to go back and see our lawyer so that he can get a court order filed, because they are not going to do anything. Fine (although tempers are flaring as both dad and stepdad are OIF and OEF veterans and are not used to total BS like this). We go back and see the lawyer (who was highly recommended and seems to be highly competent) who is very busy of course. He works us into his schedule though and cannot believe these people still have our stepson. He talks to their lawyer again, talks to the sheriff, etc. He does the paperwork for the court order and goes to see the circuit court judge. Who looks the case over, sees the the boy is only 13, and promptly declares it a juvenile court matter. Our lawyer hurries back to his office and faxes all the pertinent info over to Juvie. They get it, look everything over, and cannot find a single way to make the Sheriff's Dept go out and pick the boy up. And by the way, the Sheriff has now told our lawyer that the boy had talked to him, felt he would be beaten if he returned home, and therefore he was not going to go get the kid.
So, as it stands now, the Juvenile Probation Officer is going to talk to our lawyer first thing in the morning to try to approach this from some other angle. But she suspects that it could take as long as three weeks to resolve this, each day of which will enable these people to solidify their "guardianship" of Zachary. They are also planning to file for custody of Zachary, using his testimony and the numerous time that he spent at their house as a basis for their claim. I would not have thought before this happened that anyone would have a chance of success in taking someone's kid like this, but apparently, it is easier than I thought.
One of the deputies canvassed the neighborhood around their house and reported back that everyone in the neighborhood (this is way out in the country) thought that Zachary was their adopted son. So that does not look good. And apparently before we got married, (seven years ago)my wife would leave him with them while she went out partying or to work for extended periods of time. But she never gave them custody. Or signed any kind of agreement. And would not have for any amount of money in the world.
I also still have him on my insurance, I have paid numerous medical and dental bills and we have hundreds of pictures showing that he indeed lived with us far more than the "twenty" days they claim. None of that seems to matter. He is still at their house, and we are still sitting here frustrated.
We will see what the lawyer's can come up with tomorrow. I am thinking of calling the Alabama Bureau of Investigation though, or maybe the FBI to see if they can at least send an independent investigator. But they would probably just talk to the sheriff and drop it after that.
Randy
By William T Wilson (Sheap) on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 01:42 am: Edit The FBI will not get involved unless this involves crossing state lines. The local TV station would be more effective.
You probably should not have delivered the ultimatum first thing in the meeting with the daughter, instead keeping it as an ace in the hole. But, bygones.
The fault here lies with the family court. They can issue a court order which has the same weight as any other court order. Why they have not done so is for your attorney to determine.
The good news is that it is unlikely that Zachary is in any real danger so a delay of a couple of weeks will not really hurt anything, unless they flee with him (in which case that would be kidnapping which would stick and which would involve the FBI, but that scenario is highly unlikely).
There is no court of the neighbors' opinion. Neighbors routinely think abducted children are related to their abductors. Their filing for guardianship doesn't really matter either as they were already planning to claim he was abandoned and they are basically two aspects of the same claim.
You should probably not expect the sheriff to be helpful in a case like this without a court order. The primary goal of law enforcement, other than covering up each other's misconduct, is to preserve the status quo. If the child is not in imminent danger they will generally not do anything. So this is insulting and aggravating but not really surprising or a particularly bad sign.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 07:31 am: Edit Thanks William. It's just frustrating that people with no legal claim to the child, and no relationship either can do this.
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 08:14 am: Edit Randy: This situation is, obviously, ridiculous. While not involving children, I once walked into an ambush with somebody who had spent weeks preparing his "evidence" and his "witnesses" to events that never happened and situations that never transpired. It was a mess to get it taken care of, but truth will out, and lies will not stick. I cannot think of anything that we can do to help, but if you can, let us know.
By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 08:23 am: Edit Randy,
I'm not too surprised that you have not had any relief. The law in most jurisdictions favors biological parents, though because the child is older, and has made the claims he has, you will have a harder time. Your attorney will know more, so consult him as to your next move.
Definitely be all over your lawyer and keep in mind that you might have appeal options if you don't like any rulings handed down by judges. Be proactive about working with the attorney. Make sure that your attorney is prepared when you get your day in court. Even if your lawyer comes highly recommended, watch him closely to make sure he is handling your case appropriately and promptly. Time might be of the essence.
By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 08:26 am: Edit You might also consult with a second attorney. Tell him/her about the situation and tell him/her about what your lawyer is doing now. See if the second attorney thinks that what the first attorney is doing is appropriate. You might spend a couple hundred doing so, but the second opinion could be valuable - and at a minimum reassuring.
Like doctors and medical care, you should be proactive about your own legal issues.
By the way, what state do you live in?
By Seth Iniguez (Sutehk) on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 09:01 am: Edit Randy, Best wishes for you and your family. Sorry, no advice I can offer, but I sympathize with your plight and am keeping you in my thoughts.
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 09:55 am: Edit I had an old and dear friend who had a wife and two children. But she divorced him and ran away with the kids...partly because she was told to do so by a women's shelter. He went to the women's shelter to try to get his children but he could only find his daughter there...so he took her and skipped the country to New Zealand (where Austalians don't need a visa to go, just a passport). And latter his ex-wife shacked-up with a new defacto. And one day his ex-wife went out and left her defacto with the boy and the boy cried and the man couldn't stop the child from crying and so he beat the child to death with his bare hands. And so my friend returned from New Zealand and was promptly arrested for the kidnapping charges that had been laid against him. And when the matter came before the courts the Judge determined that in hind- sight what he had done was indeed in the best interests of the child and dismissed the charges.
The moral of this tale is; things could be a hell of a lot worse. I wish you success (and feel that a united front between the child's biological parents should yeild success) and will pray for you, your wife and her child.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 11:24 pm: Edit Thanks all guys. I am hopeful that all will work out in the end, especially since we have a united front with myself and both biological parents. Today, the Juvinile Court judge refused to sign our statement of petition, saying the child was in no danger. So in the morning, we are going to the Circuit court (in front of a supposedly friendly judge) with a verified Emergency Petition. If that does not work, it will be sometime in Septemeber. Cost so far... $312 with a $2500 retainer fee due tomorrow. Sigh.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, August 09, 2007 - 04:11 am: Edit So you can, over time, turn a kid against his parents and then finally kidnap him and the law will do nothing as long as he is in no danger? WTF?!?
By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, August 09, 2007 - 04:46 am: Edit If you can get the child to "speak" of Child Abuse before a judge (purjury or otherwise) you'll get some really unexpected results.
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, August 09, 2007 - 08:24 am: Edit You need to get the kid away from those people and into the temporary custody of a competent counsellor who can explain what it means to lie.
By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, August 09, 2007 - 09:35 am: Edit Quote:
You need to get the kid away from those people and into the temporary custody of a competent counsellor who can explain what it means to lie.
The legal buzzword for this type of concept is a "guardian ad litem" (pronounced "add light-em") for the child. Talk to your lawyer about using this idea as a possible backup.
By Craig Tenhoff (Cktenhoff) on Thursday, August 09, 2007 - 03:02 pm: Edit
Quote:
So you can, over time, turn a kid against his parents and then finally kidnap him and the law will do nothing as long as he is in no danger? WTF?!?
Yeah, happened to a coworker of mine. Son said the "magic" words and eventually ended up being a ward of the state, and my coworker had to pay child support.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, August 13, 2007 - 10:08 pm: Edit Update. Got the kid back Friday (but only after the DA over the two local counties weighed in and said this was BS and we could file criminal charges. The wife and kid are now visiting relatives in another state, while I'm looking for a new house in another county. I've heard that they filed a lawsuit for custody, but have seen no papers yet. We'll cross that bridge when it comes to it I guess.
By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Monday, August 13, 2007 - 10:20 pm: Edit Thank God that the kid is back. You still have worries, but at least you can start to undo some of the damage.
By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Tuesday, August 14, 2007 - 01:18 am: Edit Randy: I refrained from making a comment earlier because it would have been along the lines of a commando raid, and I didn't think that was productive or helpful. But glad to hear it ended well. My suggestion: put as much geographical distance between you and them as possible.
All my best wishes.
By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Tuesday, August 14, 2007 - 02:28 am: Edit Randy, you should also make sure you try and get a restraining order to prevent them from trying harass you and your family, do not trust only to geographical distance.
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, May 08, 2008 - 05:08 pm: Edit http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/firemane/fiction.htm reread the Sandy Hemmingway story about Firemane and most of the other links are dead...
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, May 19, 2008 - 04:58 pm: Edit Mike, is "Doomward" the Lyran story I read? Hope it gets in..
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 - 07:45 pm: Edit Ok, just a question based on the Year of the Book thread.. how hard would it be to write a GW-era Carnivon story? Would a SSJ Carnivon story necessarily have to be about GW-tech? I resist any idea that you would target a SSJ Carnivon story on the existing rules because, IMHO, you'd try to get that into a regular Captain's Log. Any thoughts?
By Jonathan Jordan (Arcturusv) on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 - 07:50 pm: Edit Well... They do have the rule that battles in Fiction need to be replicatable on the game board. Started doing that in what, Captain's Log #9? But there's a lot of good fiction that doens't need a Starship to Starship confrontation. Look at one of my favorites "Behind the Glory of the Heroes". About the only thing close to having to follow the rules of SFB would be... uh... detection of cloaked ships in the area with counter jamming? Another one of my favorites wwas the old SSJ Arrow and Cold Soup combo. That and the "Alternate View of the General War", GW history from the Kzinti perspective. All without starship combat but excellent pieces.
I'd guess it'd be possible to write a modern Carnivons without the GW Era rules. Though doing it without the background/history the powers that be create for the Alternate history Carnivons I see as a bigger problem than not having the ship rules.
By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 - 09:31 pm: Edit It sounds like a story for Olivette Roche (as told to Randy Green) ;)
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 - 10:08 pm: Edit Randy, first I'd want to be sure SSJ3 was a go and that GW Carnivons would be part of it. Then I'd stay in touch with SPP. I agree that the story should then be about GW Carnivons and as such should display some of the GW Carnivon rules. For that, you need at least the rules draft.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 10:19 pm: Edit Hey, anyone know the name(s) of the Federation GVX ships?
By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 04:19 am: Edit One GVX. NCC 1783 Colin Powell
5 GSX with a YIS of Y186. (Not Avail for F&E yet) 1820 Einstein 1821 Sakharov 1822 Teller 1823 Fermi 1824 Feyman
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 11:09 am: Edit I need fiction for CL39 and I need it NOW.
Do NOT make he write it myself.
By Dale McKee (Brigman) on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 12:49 pm: Edit "NOW" meaning "Get writing" or "NOW" meaning "send me something you've already written"?
By Jason Langdon (Jaspar) on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 07:54 pm: Edit Michael said: "http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/firemane/fiction.htm reread the Sandy Hemmingway story about Firemane and most of the other links are dead..."
That is one of my all time favourite sci fi pieces. Thoroughly engaging story. Some of Sandy's comedy sci fi stories are great as well.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - 09:36 pm: Edit Thanks Ryan!
I think either would work Dale.
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, April 30, 2009 - 07:23 pm: Edit If you have written it, send it.
If you have an idea, send an outline.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, May 04, 2009 - 02:34 pm: Edit I've been reading SPP's excellent use of labs example in the last CL. Anyone have any idea what monster that example closest approximates? By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, May 05, 2009 - 10:42 pm: Edit Randy, it's not a Space Boar...
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, May 18, 2009 - 01:59 pm: Edit Can anyone tell me, off the top of their head, the crew size of an F-111, and if the F-111 EW variant has any extra crew?
By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, May 18, 2009 - 03:10 pm: Edit Randy,
There is no "F-111 EW variant". Unlike PFs and single-space fighters, heavy fighters and bombers have one unit within the squadron programmed to be able to lend EW to the rest of the squadron. It's purely a software issue. Only one heavy fighter (or bomber) in the squadron can be programmed like this at a time. But if that specific heavy fighter/ bomber is destroyed, one of the surviving squadron members can be reprogrammed to take over that function when the rest of the squadron returns to the carrier or base to rearm.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, May 18, 2009 - 08:06 pm: Edit Thanks Alan! Exactly what I needed to know.
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 - 10:59 am: Edit F111 has a crew of two.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 12:14 am: Edit Alan, anyone... is the F111 in SFB known as the Aardvark? Warthog? ?? What did you call your fighter Alan? (Just curious... )
By Joe Gallagher (Draxdreadfeare) on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 02:05 am: Edit The F111 is known as the Aardvark. The A-10 is the Warthog.
By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 04:41 am: Edit Randy,
We called it the Aardvark, or often just the "Vark". For most of its USAF career, which lasted almost 30 years, the F-111 had the distinction of being the only fighter* (maybe even the only aircraft - but I don't recall for certain) that did not have an official name. It had a variety of nicknames over the years but most never stuck and it was almost universally known as the Vark. In 1996, during its retirement ceremony - the name Aardvark was made official.
"Warthog" is actually the nickname of the A-10. Its official name is the "Thunderbolt-2", the original Thunderbolt being the P-47 of World War II fame. The A-10 is one of those aircraft whose nickname is much better known than its official name is. *Technically, it was classed as a "fighter", even though our mission was entirely air-to-ground. The FB-111s in SAC (Strategic Air Command) were classed as bombers.
By Jim Pennington (Cutlass401) on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 09:20 am: Edit I don't recall the B-1 having a offical name, I remember it being refered to as the Exclaibur somewhere but I don't think it was offical.
JBP
By Mark Steven Hoyle (Bolo_Mk_Xl) on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 09:37 am: Edit Never seen it used, but apparently the B-1 is officially called the Lancer ---
By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 11:31 am: Edit I have heard people refer to the B-1 Bomber as the "Bone" which is simply "B- one", but I don't know of any Air Force personnel who used it... mostly Navy and Army types who assumed the bomber contract was a "Bone" that Reagan tossed to the Air Force while he built up the Navy and Army during the 1980s.
By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 01:01 pm: Edit From the USAF Fact Sheet - the B-1 (actually B-1B) is indeed the Lancer.
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 01:06 pm: Edit And the EF 111 is the "spark vark?"
By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 01:37 pm: Edit Michael;
Correct. (Well, actually it's Spark Vark - capitalized.) The official name is the "Raven", which isn't as cool as Spark Vark. But it could be worse. When Grumman was awarded the contract to convert F-111s to EF-111s, someone at Grumman wanted to call it the "Electronic Fox". Now there's a pathetic name for a military aircraft!
By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 02:00 pm: Edit Didn't a Spark Vark (which are unarmed) get credited with a kill during Desert Storm?
By Joe Gallagher (Draxdreadfeare) on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 04:15 pm: Edit What terms would SFU officers use to describe the direction that ships or fleets were traveling in? For example, suppose I was standing on Earth looking at Tholia (clearly I ate all my carrots as a kid). Would ships heading away from Tholian Space towards Federation Space be described as moving "coreward" (i.e. towards the galactic core). Or would we say South, as in a Galctic South.
Same question if they turned 90 degrees to port, are they now headed "Galactic East" or would we use other terms like "Spinward" and "Counter-spinward" (in relation to the rotation of the galaxy)? Or are there already terms in use to describe this?
I realize that the simplest thing to do is to simply say "Hey those ships are moving towards Earth." I'm looking for some terms like north/south or clockwise/counterclockwise that are useful to describe direction of movement in open space without requiring a specific point of reference.
Thanks,
Joe
By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 05:58 pm: Edit I would imagine that they use a degree system for course.. I would imagine that core-ward was Galactic North, so heading towards Tholia from Earth, would roughly a course of 180.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 09:42 pm: Edit I have been using a baring relative to the ship itself with forward being 0° and the mark in degree plus or minus. I believe regular navy navigation uses a 400° circle.
So Baring 200 mark -4 would be directly behind and four degrees low. For fiction I usually keep the Z mark within a few degrees. It sounds better and stays in the realm of SFB's two dimensional system.
Someone a Star Fleet Heaquarters might use a 400° galactic system (like Tim posted). ) degrees being galactic center. Fleets would move relative to the galactic center.
Hmmm, I might be quoting from how it's done in Trek.
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 01:32 am: Edit I use a very similar system to Loren, including keeping the Z mark to 10 degrees or less in a combat situation.
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 01:53 am: Edit Pah.
I just say XYZ mark whatever. Where whatever is the shield facing they are off.
For the same reason I use MyKm for measurements. 1MyKm = 10,000 km
As an aside, I am trying to write a story, but my play is VERY subpar.
Anyone with a play partner willing to play a scenario in test that is supposed to support my story?
Ease of visualization...
By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 03:11 am: Edit Naval navigation uses a 360 degree circle (more specifically 000-359).
Course to steer is typically given in true not relative bearing. The order would sound like this:
Conn: "Right standard rudder, steady on course 270."
Helm: "Right standard rudder, aye. Coming to course 270."
Conn: Very well.
Helm: "Steady on course 270."
Conn: "Very well"
Another way to manuever (more common in close quarters manuevering where exact heading is not importants) is to simply give rudder commands: "Right standard rudder, Left full rudder, Rudder amidships, etc", with no ordered course given. If you're in a turn, lets say at Right Standard, with no ordered course given, the conn could give the order: "Steady as she goes"
Helm: "Steady as she goes, aye" (Helmsman marked the ships head when the order is given and is now frantically cranking the wheel the other way to get back on that course. When he gets there...)
Helm: "Steady on course 187."
Conn: "Very well"
Changing course by relative heading is not common at all today, but in the age of sail, when ships heading was as much about the direction of the wind and set of sail, it was much more common. Something like "come one point to starboard" would not have been an uncommon order. With no compass at all, you would have little choose but to use relative bearing to guide yourself (no way for the helmsman to steer a specific course without a gyro or a magnetic compass), but in that case, the Conn would simply use the rudder orders I mentioned above and steer by seaman's eye.
When manuevering ships in formation, it gets more complicated. It is not uncommon for a formation to be ordered to "TURN PORT THREE" or turn to port 30 degrees, but on each bridge, the OOD will direct the Conn to come to a specific true course. If it is a tight formation, that is everyone maintainting a specific bearing and range to the "Guide" ship, then the Conn will make a lot of minor course and speed changes to maintain position.
Finally, while realitve bearings are not used for course changes, it is not uncommon to use relative bearing to discribe another object. Example, a contact report given to the Captain by the OOD in the middle of the night would sound like this (keep in mind to CO just woke up and i strying to build the picture in his head):
"Captain, this is the Officer of the Deck. We are on course 090 at 12 knots. I have an unknown contact, probable group 3 merchant, bearing 330 relative, range 10,000 yards, on course 260 at 10 knots, with a CPA of 1000 yards on the port beam in 13 minutes. This is a meeting situation, and I am the give way vessel. My intention is to come right to course 100 to open the CPA to 2000 yards. I will contact the vessel on bridge to bridge to ascertain his identity and confirm a port to port passage."
Typically the bridge will percieve the contacts they see out the window in terms of realtive bearing, but the watch in CIC will all tend to work in true bearings, as they have no visual reference other than a radar screen. Those displays are typcially aligned to true north so they can be easily compared to charts (maps to all you land-bubbers). When the two watch organizations communicate to each other, they have to be conscience of this and report contacts in a manor most easily understood by the other. So if a good OOD was talking about that same contact to the CIC Watch Officer or TAO, he would probably call its bearing 060 true, not 330 relative.
Confused yet? And all of this is confined to two dimensions!
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 11:27 am: Edit Well, SFB is about as 3D and naval combat (you guys have subs and planes to worry about).
Jeremy, thanks for that. The more stuff like that you can think of... well, we will drink it up!
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 11:32 am: Edit I like Army navigation better.
"See that tree over there?"
"Yes, sir." "Take your squad over there, avoid that swampy spot on the way, better stay behind that little ridge, and set up facing that way."
"Yes, sir."
By Jeremy Gray (Gray) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 12:32 pm: Edit Loren, on an Aegis ship, I don't worry about planes.
As the old Aegis saying goes, "If it flies, it dies."
By Joe Gallagher (Draxdreadfeare) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 12:54 pm: Edit Jeremy and others: thanks for the responses. Your information is very helpful, especially the detailed example.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 01:33 pm: Edit It's amazing the coordination it takes for the Navy of opperate (and confine "If it flies, it dies" to the enemy).
One day us writers should put together a multi-writer project about a carrier group and explore the operations of that group.
Indeed, that may be one way to get Operation Remus done. Multiple writers and multiple advisors.
By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 01:50 pm: Edit Remus would make a great Novel idea, maybe an anthology of short stories that cover the campaign....
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 02:08 pm: Edit Day of the Eagle is an example of a series of stories that represent an major but far reaching event.
What I mean to suggest is something more tightly coordinated where different writers would write about a particular ship but not whole stories. The story would be one cohesive story with multiple contributors, organized by one lead and then overseen by the one an only SVC. With the various talants we have here it could be an amazing work that could break free of simply being a novel for SFU fans.
And yes, it would have to be a novel.
And yes, another BIG idea from the guy who has too much on his plate at the moment.
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 02:34 pm: Edit Loren, I think there is almost enough Day of the Eagle material to do a book.
Magnificent Panzers, the CL special etc. By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 03:21 pm: Edit I'd love to help out with such a project.. I'm in the middle of a story that ends just prior to Operation (Story ends with the fleet assembling). Would love to take that to the next level.
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 03:42 pm: Edit Tim, I am also working on a Day of the Eagle Story.
About the lesser lights.
Specifically a FFT, a small convoy, and colony getting ravaged by a small Rom CVE force.
By Tim Losberg (Krager) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 04:01 pm: Edit Michael, I meant mine was just prior to Operation Remus...
By Joe Gallagher (Draxdreadfeare) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 04:49 pm: Edit The piece I'm working on is a Day of the Eagle story too: Yefimov's Anabasis. It's a longer piece, but considering that I had the outline and first couple of chapters done by Origins 2008, it's a little embarrassing not to have finished it by now. This pesky "real life" stuff keeps getting in the way.
Loren, your Operation Remus idea sounds great. Happy to help if it gets going.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 10:03 pm: Edit When I get a handle on things I will put together a proposal for SVC. THere is not much point in proceeding without his blessing because it would have to involve him and small portions of his time periodically.
The story would need a rock solid outline in order to keep the project organized.
Joe, SVC liked your Anabasis story more than mine (which I really didn't have time for), so get crackin' because I want to read it!
Oh, and DoE is supposed to be the next book, IIRC.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, August 10, 2009 - 04:51 pm: Edit Loren, what was that writer's aid program you mentioned not too terribly long ago?
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, August 10, 2009 - 10:22 pm: Edit http://www.write-brain.com/power_writer_main.htm
It's called Power Writer. Check out the free trial. There is a little tour in the help section. Once you see how it is organized you see how it totally fits for SFU short story writing. You can put all your SFU note in each section. It lets you organize your story by act/chapters/sub-plots. An SFU story would be one act but each scene change could be a chapter with the scene heading as the chapter name.
What is cool is that you can use all the organizing stuff or none of it or part of it, whatever.
And when you get to writing the next great American novel, it can handle that too.
By Michael Bennett (Mike) on Monday, August 10, 2009 - 10:41 pm: Edit How long does the free trial version last?
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, August 10, 2009 - 11:11 pm: Edit Thanks Loren!
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 06:59 pm: Edit Some time ago someone asked what was the system used for navigation in the SFU. The answer is in CL18, page 26.
The Federation uses a 400 degree circle. 200 is rimward, 100 is east, and 300 is west. Zero is coreward.
Personally, I've been using "mark" to account for degrees up or down of the ships possition on a tactical level and based on the galactic plane for strategic level possitions. I've used barring as a measurement of degrees based on the ships heading, but navigational orders for turning might be given in one of two ways.
1) As a number of degrees to turn from current heading and in "come right (or starboard) 23 degrees".
Or
2) As a galactic heading as in, "come to 0-1-0 degrees, mark 6." This makes it easier to maitain tracking on a play map if you consider direction A to be 0 degrees. It's nice since you will rarely need to call out even degrees except for direction D (if you are sideslipping then it will probably be something off that a bit anyway).
A 400 degree circle means each hex facing is 66.666 degrees. I'm sure that any unit is never perfectly facing any hex side so rounding off to a few degree is probably fine. I've never had SVC mention any problem about this when editing a story.
BTW: While the note in CL18 pg. 26 is official, nothing I added is. By Michael Bennett (Mike) on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 07:44 pm: Edit Seems like I remember the old game "Star Fleet Battle Manual" had those 400 "degree" circles on their ship cards.
By Glenn Hoepfner (Ikabar) on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 09:18 pm: Edit Whatever happened to 360 degrees? It's not like anyone of here have a problem with a system that's around for centuries. The math is even easier. Instead of each facing being 66.66666 degrees, its a more simplified 60 degrees. Heh, oh well.
By Will McCammon (Djdood) on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 09:52 pm: Edit I'd have to look, but I think this also matches what FJS had in the Tech Manual, way back when.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - 11:16 pm: Edit I think in the future they needed something more "base 10". 360 degrees comes from ancient Sumaria when they thought the year had 360 days (one degree of the zodiac = 1 day). This probably led the Babylonians to use base 60 math.
The 400 gradiant circle is British military. Obviously they don't use hex maps for official military documents.
So, the 400 degree navigational circle is a mix of both (degrees instead of grad).
Anyway, I thought you all would like to know where that bit of data was in CL18.
For fiction, rounding out the degree really isn't a problem. If you still use the 360 degree circle in most case it probably isn't a problem either. It depends on how exacting your telling of the action is. In most cases no one would be able to decifer the difference.
One thing's for sure, do make note of which you use. I'd hate to have to answer an SPP question and not remember.
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 10:48 am: Edit I can tell you the easiest plan.
When you say the enemy is "bearing 345 mark 5" you can just make up the bearing part and use the "mark 5" part to say the shield facing they are off.
1) It makes visualization much easier
2) No one gives a darn what the imaginary number system you have in your pointy head, so don't lose sleep over the invisible details. 3) If you insist, you need to account for AT LEAST 5 sets variables in your scheme, even if you know that some are "assumed" and as such no one talks about them:
-a) Is your system a polar system? Based from where? Galactic center? Your empires home system? The "origin " or point "0,0,0..."
-b) Are you using angles or cartesian distance measurements? What are those angles and distance measurements? Measuring from where and how?
-C) Which way is X, Y and Z? So X is straight out from galactic center through Vulcan? Y is in the direction of galactic spin? Z is straight up useing the right hand rule? d) Skew from the "base" your system has. e) Time f) Rotation
I actually wrote a story about "Q'lever" and his echelon that dealt with some of this crap a long time ago. Its buried on the BBS somewhere, but Randy has read it.
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 11:04 am: Edit FOUND it!!! Written in 2003... http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/messages/12031/5007.html?1060135354
A Story follows
Captain Kidiot looked around the bridge the D7L Bunny Slayer (a Killer Rabbit, slain by the holy hand grenade of Antioch, to be exact... (http://www.funnypop.com/funny/posts/131.shtml) to the squadron formation repeater at his knee. D6D PumpkinHurler (http://www.siege- engine.com/BustiHurl2001.shtml) was in place 2 mykm (http://www.essex1.com/people/speer/large.html) astern, while the 5 D5s were tightly arrayed in their assigned places, within 3000 km of his flagship. Superstacked, the flatheads called it for some reason. This was his first multi ship command, he had never had a F5 or D5 Squadron, just a series of commands of every larger ships...
Charging forward at warp 7, his squadron was preparing to show the ISC who was the rightful owner of this sector. Astern of him, 1,000 mykm, mobile base 14 was still getting its repair pods attached, a small repair ship in attendance. Once operational, the Klingons would be able to support a logistic network to regain control of the entire subsector, 22 (very)minor races, fledgling colonies and outposts of varied types. Each too small to be worth planetary heavy defenses, each too important to be left unexploited and unprotected.
"Squadron orders! When the invaders get to 80 mykm, we will emergency decellerate and quick reverse at maximum rate to get up to retrograde speed. We will use our concentrated disruptor fire and heavy phasers to kill these trash with the death of a thousand cuts. Ships will reserve use of UIM and special drones until I order it."
Lt Hairball (a favored daughter to a lyran Duke), looked up from her sensor boards. "Captain, I do not understand. Why so far out?"
Catain Kidiot looked down at the Lt, just recently promomoted up from leading a PF flight (Called "Ant Music") aboard the EBS CWS Blue Aardvark (Captain Kidiot had NO idea where that from), his snarl barely kept in check. She looked both sincere and had demonstrated an excellent grasp of individual ship tactics in the simulators. "Their phasers are theoretically effective to 75mykm, and under strategic warp we are a few dozenfold times more vulnerable to fire. We have to account for their speed of advance. When we stop and accelerate in reverse, they will have to drop into tactical warp to fight. Their plasma is ineffective when fired far from a retrograding force, it loses power as it travels, so they will dirve into us at the maximum speed they can sustain to close the gap between us. Until we reach our objective retrograde combat speed of warp (speed 26?) or so, they will be closing rapidly. Since our disruptors are effective to 30mykm while they only have a few PPDs we can batter their shields down with coordinated volleys. We will hold our offensive phasers to make Miza (A master tactician with the name of a marine!) attacks. We are putting the onus on them to come through our effective fire while they reamin marginal to ineffective until they reach point blank range"
Then the Captain bared his teeth. "Cub, the question was a good one, but question my orders again and your pelt will warm my consort!"
"Aye Captain, I meant no disrespect and see the wisdom of your words." She returned to her tasks.
Aboard his Command Cruiser, ISCV The Mounty Dudley Do-Right (Dudley, for short), Commodore Q'lever looked at his flag captain. "I want you to be at all four critical stations, flag, bridge, Aux and Emer. If I am taken out, you need to survive and continue the mission. The native sophants deserve a chance to be their own masters. If that base becomes active, the subsector becomes a slave to the Klingon war machine." He looked at the tactical and squadron screens. Formation 15B at warp 7, his escorts (2FF, a DD and DDL) in advance and spread to deal with any possible threat, the PFT and CS echeloned in their places... And far ahead, the Klingon squadron had LEFT the objective and was apparently tryig to force an open space battle. Hmmmmm.
15 minutes later: "Captain, approaching the programmed decelleration point." said Lt. Hairball.
"Squadron orders. Prepare to execute option 1... NOW!" the 7 ships shuddered as their warp fields deformed and massive power was rerouted to reshape the fields to get the ships moving in reverse. The manuver was flawless, with the ships keeping their tight formation, getting back up into warp (max speed 10 in reverse?), powering phasers and disruptors and a spare bit energy going to shield reinforcement to mitigate sniping.
Aboard the ISC CC Commodore Q'lever instantly reacted to the change, keying his mic: "Squadron! 12 Left, 60 port, zero, zero. Execute!" Finely trained crews reacted as the precision team they were, changing tactical formation and their base course 60 degrees to the left while remaining on the same plane.
Since ISC squadron orders are ALWAYS Formation, Base Course (in the navigational plane currently being used), THEN changes to the pitch and roll of the squadron navigational plane, every helmsman, navigator and captain knew instantly what had been ordered. The use of planar geometry instead of projective, spherical, or other more "correct" systems was convenient for tactical situations. While navigators struggled to change the convenient terms into actual course projections (taking into account local and galactic space time distortion, obstacles, the minute variances of warp drives and helm commands as well as keeping track of where the objective was), the helmsmen made changes on the fly.
As Commodore Q'lever thought of it, he was conducting a marching band: his baton waved, the crews marched and played, while the poor navigators both recorded music that had been played and tried to write the next piece in advance, KNOWING he would make changes of rhythm, key and instrument at nearly random. Gifted navigators could make options clearly visible allowing him to achieve the difficult easily, while the worst ones made things...hard. Helmsmen? They just jammed along and played it by ear.
Since his squadron at warp 7 was moving at a speed over 34 times as fast as the Klinks would be able to attain for the first chron segment, (7^3 = 343) he was "juking" the entire Klink squadron. Considering the limitations of the D5s space keeping ability and his own LACK of those limits, it was time to show these jerks why the echelon disdains open space battles! Swiftly, the Gunline smoothly shifted its formation, like musicians in a marching band taking the field and spelling out a message (Commodore Q"lever had played first Fluorine Funk-O-Fone at the academy). The heavies snapped to their new courses while the gunline formation rippled into a new configuration.
"Captain Kidiot," growled Lt Hairball. The enemy has shifted course to flank us!" Kidiot looked at the tactical display. The ISC were heading around his squadron trying to get on his flank! All ships, course $%^ mark #@$, execute!" The klingon ships turned their sterns away from the flanking echelon as they continued to accelerate in reverse.
Q'lever broke into a laugh. "Squadron, accelerate to max warp on a bearing to the base after we leave these idiots behind. Navigators coordinate a MIMIMUM CPA (Closest Point of Approach) of 77mykm from the Klingon Ships. Keep us out range! Hmmmm... Squadron navigational orders. Give us a Plane change of, say, negative 28mykm, and adjust our terminal approach to avoid the path the klinks just used, Plot out a final planar change with a pitch and roll manuver to avoid any impromptu minefields, since one of those ship could have left some surprises in their wake...
Aboard IKV Bunny Slayer "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRG. The cowards refure to fight us in open space! Squadron orders! All stop and max acceleration on a pursuit course after the invaders..."
Aboard IKS WarArmorer (the small repair ship) "Battle stations! Base crews to use emergency transporter option 3 at evacuation rates. Accelerate at max warp on our best heading to escape."
Aboard Mobile Base 14 "Gratz! What was that idiot thinking?" Now the base is dead and the shuttles will be sitting ducks for the ISC above and the DANG natives below. And that repair ship doesn't have a chance either.
Aboard Dudley. "We will engage using formation 34 Delta to start with. Threat axis Alpha, while Beta will be the squadron we left behind. Scan for a minefield, if they are present we will use Formation 92 variant 3... Hmmmm. We will use the planet and both moons to sceen us from long range sniping once those trailers get in range. We'll start fire at maximum range according to fire plan 6 if htey stay in high warp, fire plan 4 otherwise. The PFs are to be held aboard until they can attack effectively..."
3 hours later. Message to sector fleet headquarters: Captain Kalloween, IKV Pumpkin Hurler, D6D as acting squadron commander. "Mobile Base 14 has been destroyed as has WarArmorer, BunnySlayer, and two D5. ISC losses consist of 4 pf, 2 frigates, and a destroyer leader.
My assessment of the tactical situation is that the correlation of forces remaining is unfavorable for attrittion be be a valid option. The remaining ships of this squadron will be returning to Battle Station Kessica Klynch for repair and reprovisioning. We have aboard many survivors of lost ships, with Captain Kidiot under close arrest. Also, Lt Hairball has requested reassignment back to Lyran service...
I realize that the Klingon squadron is unrealistic, with all optimal cruisers and a D6D as UBER scout.
The force correlation was made up in my pointed head without actually looking at BPVs. Change a D5 or 2 to variant or leader, or delete one they never really matter anyway.
The point is that forces opposing the ISC have to: 1) be where the ISC are going (ie sitting on the objective, hence limiting the possibility of an echelon bypassing them. OR 2) come to where the ISC are and must stay. That basicaly means a base/ planet. hence cover from long range sniping and/or the bases EW support. OR 3) make the ISC fight in open space (ie, to drop into tactical warp). You have drive directly at the ISC to get so close that the ISC can't just zip around you (remember SFB speed is the CUBE of the "WARP" speed) AND far enough out that the ISC aren't suddenly atop you with Enveloping and F torps flying, Phaser 1s and ppds firing.
Say you emer deccel at range 41, semi sorta safe from Phaser 1s and outside PPD range as does the ISC. You then have to drop to speed zero and then accelerate in reverse. They ISC gains about 30 or so hexes towards you... They can suddenly change their vector and disengage by distance or acceleration while you are putzing around trying to get up to speed -25 or so. Or they will just charge in and launch tons of Plasma while you are still laboring under acceleration limits in reverse (you did remember to pay for quick reverse, right? now would be a BAD time for a breakdown) Guess your emergence range wrong and the ISC will drop out FIRST and volley a pack of phaser 1s (SPP/SVC, one or the other I think, wrote that in High warp a phaser 3 could cripple a cruiser...) at range 75 or less an echelon gunline could put out a bunch of phaser 1 fire, say enough to cripple a cou;ple of cruisers.
Maybe that's why they are so far out front when travelling thru open space, so they can drop into tactical warp (Emer Deccel) and volley into closing ships. The rest of the echelon maunvers away. Pursuers are then faced with dropping out of warp to kill the screen while the main echelon zips away, or getting smacked around by a Frigate! And later another FF then another FF,... While the interceptors are messing with a few FF, the Echelon is getting somewhere (and having a memorial service for the FFs too)
The Historical cant accounts for all of this!
And NO, I have no opinion on superstacking tactically...
I welcome my superiors (of whom most you are) guidance on any errors I have made...
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 11:14 am: Edit That actually seems more complex and SFU fiction should have some continuity. CL18 defines what directional system is used. Other than that, just say the top of the map, direction A, is zero degrees (galactic ceter). No empire is going to use a coordinate system other than that since galactic ceter is the obvious best landmark (the number of degree would vary, but you, the writer, are translating that for the reader).
Sure, star maps of each empire will put their home planet at zero degrees, but ship navigation will be the same for two ships in proximity.
Using "mark" to denote shield direction doesn't help if the reader doesn't know this, and would disappoint readers if it were "officially defined" this way. If "mark 5" means shield five, then why give a frivilous bearing number?
A simple chart to use for calling directions in a 400 degree circle: Direction center facing call between A 0/400 390 - 10 B 66.7 60 - 70 C 133.4 125 - 135 D 200 190 - 210 E 266.7 260 - 270 F 333.4 325 - 335
Just pick a number in these ranges. I don't think it's critical. Maybe pick a number between these ranges to suggest a side-slipping maneuver. Of course, we all can continue to do what gets us published in the past. I'm not trying to make anyone do anything. Just sharing the way I do it.
The main point was to point out the Cap Log article.
By Stewart W Frazier (Frazikar1) on Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 10:34 pm: Edit hmmm, I thought the mark was for elevation (+/- 90)
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 11:34 pm: Edit That's what I do. Mark for elevation. Degrees for either absolute heading or glactic cooprdinates. To summerize (what I do, this is not official):
Objects/targets are reported as being n degrees and mark degrees from zero which is directly forward and through the ship center.
Navigation is galactic heading, with zero degrees being direction A (or whatever) on a hex map.
A captain may order a course change by a number of degrees or to a navigational heading.
By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Friday, September 11, 2009 - 02:48 am: Edit Why would you use a 400 degree circle for the horizontal plane and a 360 degree circle for the vertical one? Wouldn't your angle of inclination be expressed in +/- 100 degree increments?
Also, you'll want some way of indicating pitch and roll...
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, September 11, 2009 - 09:42 am: Edit Loren and Ken
I agree somewhat.
But aboard ship in combat you have only 3 real issues.
1) the plane you and your opponent are on.
2) Your heading (both sides)
3) Your relative headings.
SKEW and such are outside the 2Dimensional environment.
And I DON'T agree that every empire uses the same basis for navigation and such. Perhaps the klinks use Klinshai as 0/0/0 as the center of a 3D grid while the Feds use Galactic center, aline running through Vulcan (as the earliest warp culture why would they reinvent the wheel?) and angles... etc etc
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, September 11, 2009 - 12:19 pm: Edit The matter of plane is solved when there aren't too many ships. In fleet battles I have written about I keep the story to one or two ships dealing with one or two enemies. In a duel, the combat plane is set to whatever is between the ship and the target. To maximize shields and weapons ships operate on this planes. So The "mark" is usually kept to a few degrees. It is a fudge but the game is 2D so it simplifies matters. I don't want to bog down the story by continuously reporting 3D bearings.
I suppose it isn't important what each empire uses as 0-0-0, but galactic center would be the prime navigational marker. It is an extra step to use something else but maybe there is some special motivation. If you ship breaks down you won't be able to find Klinshai out of all the other starts and without a refernece point and powerful computers with intact data sets, star patterns won't help either. Galactic ceter is the one thing everyone can always see (except in a nebula, then your fracked). So, everyone is going to use galactic center as a prime navigation point. It doesn't have to be 0-0-0 though, I guess.
Ken, You are right. It should be +/- 100 marks, not 90. Silly me. Data for pitch and roll is going to bog down adventure stories like those for SFB. Combat in stories for the SFU are always checked against the history and rules of the game. Sometimes SPP checks the combat by plotting it out (so I've heard) and has asked me to play out my combat scenes on a map to make sure what I'm writing can actually work. I think it's a good thing to do when the combat gets complex (remember, a scenario might come from it).
I think it's a mistake to get too far into combat details. Pitch and roll have little to do with characters, nothing to do with SFB, and can be subsummed into the background.
Now if this were hard science fiction... well, pitch and roll would be the least of the issues.
By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Friday, September 11, 2009 - 02:33 pm: Edit If you're listing a mark for pitch angle, you're implying a 3-D fight, which really can't happen in SFB. On the other hand, not too many people would notice.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, September 11, 2009 - 02:47 pm: Edit Ken, right, so that's why I keep the mark to a single number. It's about sounding cool while keeping up the pace of the action.
I figure you can go a little 3D if you keep it to a one hex thick plane.
Believe me, I'd love to see a Klingon D7 do an Immelman turn or a barral roll to bring opposite phasers into arc, but that won't pass the green pen of doom.
By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Friday, September 11, 2009 - 04:34 pm: Edit Next time I'm on a convention in your neck of the woods, I'll show you how to play that out.
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, September 11, 2009 - 05:25 pm: Edit Sounds fun.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 08:31 pm: Edit Anyone have any idea what you would call the people that assist the doctor during an operation on a typical Federation GS-class ship?
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 08:44 pm: Edit Also Doctor. Nurses do help but not directly on surguries. Otherwise, it would be other doctors, just maybe not of the same rank. Residents are doctors and they call each other doctor.
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 08:58 pm: Edit USS Enterprise NCC-1701 had at least three doctors on staff, Dr. McCoy, Dr. M'benga, and Dr. Sanchez, plus various nurses.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 09:40 pm: Edit Thanks guys.. that's what I thought, but I wanted to be sure.
By Joe Gallagher (Draxdreadfeare) on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 11:33 pm: Edit A Question about Romulan Great Houses: In the CL31 fiction, one of the Romulan protagonists is grumbling about the incompetence of the guy who let his squadron get sacked by Stocker's pre-emptive strike. It's mentioned that he had strong political connections: being a member of the Praetor's own house. Which house does the Praetor (in power on the Day of the Eagle) belong to? I feel like I've seen the answer in print before, but I'm not having any luck finding it in GURPS Romulans or CL. Thanks!
By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 11:59 pm: Edit never mind
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Monday, October 19, 2009 - 01:37 pm: Edit House Selnirak, Page 33, Gurps Romulans.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, October 19, 2009 - 04:48 pm: Edit Nice work John... it's like already knew that from somewhere... ;)
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 09:55 pm: Edit It's like "you" already knew that from somewhere.. lol.
Ok, next question... any guess at the rank of the being that commands a Prime Team? I know that from Captain's Module R6, a Prime Team typically has 5-8 members, that usually includes the commander, a scientist, and engineer, a doctor, a heavy weapons expert and a scout...
By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, October 23, 2009 - 11:13 am: Edit O3, O4, O5
O4 is most likely, extraordinary O3s might keep command after assuming it in action. Guys who are really good might stay around even if promoted to a rank O5 that normally would kick them upstairs.
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, October 23, 2009 - 01:13 pm: Edit You have to figure that
O1 command "vanilla" platoons of Marines
O2 XO companies or command special (or independent) platoons (Force Recon)
O3 Command Companies or elite force platoons (Green Beret A teams, Seal Platoons, SAS troops, NEST teams)
O4 Command the special duty companies (like the unit that guards Camp David) or extreme duty platoons (platoons in Delta Force or Seal Team 6).
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Sunday, November 22, 2009 - 09:12 pm: Edit Thanks to Ryan Opel and Alan Trevor for their help in providing me background information in my story for the latest CL. The story would not have been as good without them. And thanks to SVC, Loren Knight and John Sickels for their quick answers to my questions, and to Mike Grafton for his input as well... it made me think a little. Also, and most obviously, thanks to SPP for the very detailed example article that it is based upon and for his input via email when I was working on the story. His well-thought out replies precluded several painful scene re-writes. :-)
By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, November 23, 2009 - 12:36 pm: Edit As an aside,
You would consider that there should be a network of troops that a Prime team is imbedded in.
Yeah, they are the elite of an empire (what, 6 to 10 prime teams (say 60 people all up) in the entire Federation of hundreds of billions of sentients?).
But I would hope that there are also very specialized certain versions for all kinds of strange stuff. My "special team one" from the Lyrans would be an example of a version biased towards extreme environment engineering capture missions.
But there should be versions that are all about training indigs/ resistance forces. And others specializing in first contacts or psi stuff. then ones that are all about working in "urban" environments. Then a few that are the stuff in the ocean (ie working with sentient water creatures like the phelan/ ranel whichever one are the dolphin guys) zero gee (like jindos) and low gees environments. Then the ones that know mining. etc.
The point is that the prime teams in SFB are the cats meow in flexibility and such. But there are some strange duties that demand specialists.
Perhaps there are special forces batts?
A company or three of cannon fodder/ perimeter guards.
Some specialist MPs (more like MP detectives for those specialist CSI missions)
A full platoon of combat engineers.
A full platoon of commandos (why use the primes when you can get some DA specialists?) heavy weapons, a variety of vehicles, and a few sniper teams...
A dedicated HQ platoon. A crew unit or five to run the transporters/ power stations and such we capture or otherwise need to use.
A horta to bore through inconvenient rocks.
And the prime team is one of the assets the SF batt Co has to use (of course he very well may be an ex Prime CO himself).
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 - 11:41 am: Edit Nice looking medals John, Loren. By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, May 04, 2010 - 11:56 am: Edit I plotted my revenge carefully through the years. A life redirected by the foolishness of a misspent youth, when the foul demon I loathed drained my college fund for the quarter of Winter, 1979 at Troy State Unversity... two quarters at a time. My path was forever changed. But now my revenge is here. Thanks to the miracle of Ebay, I now have my first Minion of Evil, one guaranteed to be immune to Petrick's Flamethrower.. Fiends, er, Friends, I present to you, GORGAR! The Magnificent Minion! http://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=1062&picno=1046
Yes.. I won an auction and shall enact my revenge by beating this machine mercilessly, 1 pinball at a time. As soon as this deployment is over anyway...
(Link approved somewhat, reluctantly,... (suspicously too!) by Jean. )
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Sunday, May 09, 2010 - 07:49 am: Edit I have fallen prey to a bad case of Starfleet Universe writer's block. Sigh. I have a pirate story kicking around in my head, but kind of want to see how this Dread Pirate Aldo rpg thing looks.
By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Sunday, May 09, 2010 - 09:34 am: Edit Randy, to be truthful, the focus of the story is the Pioneer Team and the lone scout sent out to explore the planet. It shows what an experienced team would look like, the types of skills they might have, what might overlap and what might not. The Dread Pirate Aldo is a typical smart Orion Pirate captain ... as far as the story shows.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Sunday, May 09, 2010 - 11:29 am: Edit Well, still something to pick up when it comes out.
By George Duffy (Sentinal) on Sunday, May 09, 2010 - 11:47 pm: Edit Smart Orion captain?
I would think that Aido to be a atypical one, as opposed to being a typical one.
(After all he's got a rep to uphold )
By Jean Sexton (Jsexton) on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 10:02 am: Edit Try "typical of smart Orion captains"!
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 - 10:33 pm: Edit Got CL43 two days ago and just finished the 2 stories. Both were solid entries into the Star Fleet fiction collection. Bravo!
By John Sickels (Johnsickels) on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 - 11:43 pm: Edit Thanks, Randy. I tried to tie up loose ends from the original episode.
By Randy O. Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, July 28, 2011 - 07:27 pm: Edit Very, very, nicely done.
I likely would have tried to figure out a way to have the survivors... survive. :0) If only to use Makarov in a future story. But I can easily see, with the Romulans, being Romulans, why you chose to end it that way.
Looking forward to more of your fiction in the future, and SVC as well.