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17th Jun 04, 2:41 PM
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# 804
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Not a Cylon
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Clarion, PA
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Ha! We got out May 29th!
Ahhhh, no more studying, walking to classes, or anything involving the moving of my muscles. I can feel them atrophy already..... Wait, we have to go back next year?! How long until you're out Rusian? |
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24th Jun 04, 8:21 PM
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# 811 | |
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Guest
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Quote:
I think hes trying to communicate with us...... but I cant understand what hes saying. This post killed a grammer fairy. :Slap: |
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26th Jun 04, 6:39 PM
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# 812 | |
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Guest
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Quote:
some1 kindly translate this primtive post plz or at least rewire his brain if its not fixible begin termination proccess 11096 :hover: :sniper: |
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26th Jun 04, 8:01 PM
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# 814
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You want new space ship? NO!!!
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Missouri USA
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LOL@RN
yeah yeah we got the shoutbox back now all the nonsense spammers are coming back, run for your lives, but give me a 2 mile head start before you do. anyway....hows the chapter coming along RN? |
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28th Jun 04, 4:07 AM
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# 817
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Stealthy Defender of Russia
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Sydney, Australia.
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Well the chapter is coming along pretty slowly, but that's probably due to the fact that with less than a week to the holidays I've been pretty lazy. I'll try and post something interesting to keep you guys occupied though.
Oh well, better get writing then. From now on though I'll try and edit through them before postage to get rid of the blatant errors and improve the general quality in parts where I've rushed it. |
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3rd Jul 04, 9:03 PM
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# 821
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Stealthy Defender of Russia
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Sydney, Australia.
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Well the chapter has been coming along pretty slowly; I've only just started my holiday break, and not only that but I've got all these assignments and assessments to hand in, so :weep:. Oh well, I'll post it as soon as I can.
But I do have something here to keep you guys occupied for the time being. I posted this story earlier, but not nearly enough to get the idea of it across. It was kinda like an emergancy post anyway. I've changed a few things from the previous post, not much but still a few, but I've added what I can to this story to make it actually readable and understandable. Oh well, here's Garamatherus (Ga-ra-ma-tha-rus). Chapter 1, Introductions of sorts Picture in your mind a city. An almost magical city, if such a thing can exist in this day and age. No, don’t get the wrong idea. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill-perfect-happy-go-lucky city where dreams come true, unless your dream happens to be slaughtering the other inhabitants of this said city for little more than a round of credits and, if they’re lucky, some loot that was probably looted from someone else by the original owner in the first place. It is not a peaceful place by any means, for constant battles rage every day in its catacombs. And nor is it magical in the strictest sense, for in our world Technology is our magic, and this city is a monument to such technology. This city isn’t small either, quite the contrary as it covers the surface of a small moon, its catacombs reach into the depths like tree roots reach into soil, whilst its earthbound structures reach out to grasp at the stars. It is a world where dangers run amok, but as always some just get so bloody attracted to these places that it makes you wonder if there’s something more to the world than just looting second-hand items and killing others over a few measly credits. Then again, given exactly what this world is like, it’s probably not surprising if it really just is all fun and games to some twisted minds. As always, whenever humams gather in any reasonably quantity, factions emerge. Typically the smaller scale of human infestation, the less quarrels there are and the more chance that the groups of them will actually start fighting their mutual enemies rather than each other. Typically the actions that these humans take against each other fall into 2 categories, actions that involve violence and actions that don’t involve violence (direct violence at least). The first group is all the straightforward stuff like wars, battles, attacks, killings and so on and so forth. All really account for the same thing, people killing each other. Politics on the other hand is perhaps a whole lot more deadly and dangerous, certainly a lot more protracted, long-lasting and drawn-out than regular violence. And in some ways more like a game, a game where the stakes are often your life and the life of whatever you represent, but still a game none-the-less. And just like any other human world, this one here is full of politics, some of it more forced than other parts of it, but still loads of politics. And we all know how evil Politics can be. But regardless though the fact remains that even on non-hostile terms mankind generally likes to divide itself up into various factions. These factions can range from just people who share like-minded opinions to massive guilds and political parties that are filled with people who generally agree with what is being said (except of course for all the spies that infest such organisations) and will act on it if they’re provided enough motivation. Whatever this ‘motivation’ may be differs of course, but it’s pretty easy to think of some types of motivation that people can easily get into. Anyway regardless though there are many types of guilds and factions on this world, each specialising in what they’re supposed to be specialising in as normal. Police are out policing, robbers are out robbing, hookers are out to ‘hook’ someone and ‘reel him into somewhere nice, dark and out of the way’, stunt doubles are out doing what stunt doubles do, innocent bystanders are out doing what innocent bystanders do, shifty top-secret agents are out doing what shifty top-secret agents do and so on and so forth. And now we come to the scene of the action for this chapter. It is an open landing zone, rather unremarkable except to those who know the codes of the territories of the local area, in which case to some it might seem like home sweet home, to others it might seem like a sharks nest of AA guns. This landing platform was located on the middle upper decks of building Ds76-b122-C32-131, a rather meaningless number to most except the zealous government bookkeepers who could probably state exactly how many cupboards there were in every building on the planet, as well as which one contained the best hidden food. But our action is not focused on the large metallic-with-some-cheap-plywood-added-in building, but rather on the two small, fleshy, carbon based life forms that occupied a small section of the landing pad. Our first subject we see approaching appears to be a young looking male human, aged probably around the 20 mark. His face appears to be largely unmarked except for a trio of scar lines that run down his face from the left eye to the lower cheek. Oddly enough they look like they were pre-fabricated, like they were more like tattoos than actual scars. His eyes were a dark crimson red colour, which gave him a rather sinister appearance, though given the fact that Red eyes aren’t exactly normal, they looked a little fabricated as well. His raven black hair provided a good back-up in terms of looks to his eyes. The young human here wears what appears to be a basic black-as-night synth-leather jacket, but on closer inspection it is actually padded Flak armour, reinforced synth-fabric material capable of deflecting minor blows and shots, as well as shrapnel and flak, for which it was named after. It wouldn’t really actually do much against a direct hit from pretty much anything, especially explosives or superheated Plasma, but it would help deflect a fair bit of the damage. It is also very light, and easy to move around in. He wore little armour underneath, which was surprising as a Flak Jacket is generally worn with the intention of having heavier armour on the inside such as light Duro-plate or Fibro armour, for a lot more protection against direct hits. All he had underneath was a light Flak vest coloured khaki green with brown patches. It was said that this was the imitation of some age old type of basic camouflage, used centuries ago well before personal ultra-spectrum scanners and other sensors had rendered such clothing camo obsolete and primitive. His pants were long black ones that had sections that had padded sections to them that as well, which gave some measure of defence but increased manoeuvrability greatly compared with bulkier armour. Clearly what this human lacked in defensive power from his equipment he made up for in his speed and agility, a trade off that many make in terms of equipment. His weapons were a pair of pistols, both holstered at his waist. One was clearly a Laser Pistol, also know as a Las Pistol for short, as the weapon’s rear glowed red, where the artificial power crystal for the thing was stored. The other Pistol weapon appears to be a more antique weapon, which doesn’t look like it was energy based. This is odd as most weapons on this planet are energy based; projectile weapons and other primitive weapons falling out of favour long ago. Also at his belt was what appeared to be the hilt guard and handle of a Rapier, an ancient type of sword that’s primarily designed to stab the other guy with its long, sharp point. The blade of the weapon was missing though, so there would be a bit of a problem with achieving the whole stabbing part, though those wires running down the handle of the rifle looked a little suspect. In addition to the 2 Pistols and the Rapier Hilt guard was a long barrelled Plasma Rifle. Built with a solid rifle stock and about half a metre of body length with attached to long, smooth & silver barrel, The weapon was capable of firing heavy bolts of Plasma energy, but the problem was that the internal Plasma accelerator had to be ignited and charged before launch, and that process took about 20 seconds. However once the accelerator was ignited, the weapon could fire off high-powered bolts in a rather quick succession, but firing too quickly would extinguish the Plasma Accelerator and require the use to reignite it again, which sucked. He had a companion with him, a man of about the same age. His face was unscarred and looked a lot more cheerful than his fellow human. His blond hair and much more normal looking blue eyes were at odds with his companion’s equivalents. He wore Duro-plate carapace armour, which covered his chest as well as his arms. He had a set of Duro-plate pants as well, which protected his legs. The armour was also coloured khaki green and brown like his companion, which meant that those colours must have been somewhat of a uniform for whatever group the pair were involved in. Duro-plate is very durable against damage but it quite heavy and fairly bulky. It can, however provide much more protection than light Flak armour and also more protection over other types of Carapace armour built with less resilient material, such as Fibro material. This carbon-based life form appeared to be one who relied more on strength than speed to fight other carbon-based life forms. His weapon was a large multi-barrelled Laser Gattling gun, which was carried by a carry-strap from his shoulders. It was very unwieldy but it could spray a lot of Las-bolts over a wide or narrow area, depending on how fast the barrels were rotating. In addition to this bulky weapon was a backup Las machine-pistol. Shaped in a similar fashion to the very first primitive gunpowder pistols, the barrel of the weapon was a revolving multi-barrelled extravaganza that connected with a charging unit built into the trigger and handle. Like the Gattling Gun the barrels were capable of delivering a withering salvo of Laser Fire, provided that the barrels were rotating at a fast enough rate. As is normal whenever humans get together there is conversation. Humans typically rely on making noises to communicate, through use of their mouths. There are other types of communication that humans use, such as using technological devices to communicate over long distances to more subtle sign language. The pair here however are just using regular speech. “So, who’s our next target?” The blond human asked his companion. The pair of humans appeared to be walking toward the centre of the landing pad, where a cluster of vehicles were located. “Our target is a merchant, located in sector 79.” The red-eyed human replied, his voice displaying rather limited amounts of emotion. The blond human rolled his eyes at the lack of information his companion had given him. “Can’t you say anything more about the guy?” The blond human asked, evidently annoyed by this lack of information. “Give me some more details man!” His companion looked somewhat shrewd as he cast a sidelong glance at the blond human. “To my knowledge you have never failed to ask for more details, even if you never actually use them. Alright, the target is an independent merchant…” He appeared to be ready to deliver a broadside of facts when his companion interrupted him. “An independent? There are actually independents? I thought everyone belonged to a guild here. After all, there’s no real government rules regarding protection of independents…” The blond guy appeared to be about to continue, but was cut short by his companion when he finished his sentence somewhat snidely with… “… mainly because there is no government around here.” The red guy then continued. “The government only has about 30% control around here, mainly due to all the territory the gangs, factions and syndicates control. Not that we should be complaining, for if the government had more power then we wouldn’t even be allowed here.” “We wouldn’t?” His companion asked, shooting a question. “Are they really that strict on bounty hunters?” “They are…unless we work for them.” The red-eyed human replied somewhat shrewdly. “You see because our guild is an independent, we have influence on the politics around here. Governments don’t like that, as they want to be the be-all-end-all in politics. And it’s not just with bounty hunters like us, but all independents everywhere really. We take big chips out of their power, so they either try to quash us, bring us under their heel or else get rid of us.” “Well at least as part of a Bounty Hunter guild we get all those extra credits that we wouldn’t have if we worked for the government. In addition with the current level of anarchy due to lack of government influence we’ll never run out of criminals to dispatch of.” The blond haired human looked around at the field of vehicles that the pair had walked into the middle of. After a little searching he had spotted their destination, to which the pair turned toward. However as the red-eyed human started to walk toward the said destination, his partner stopped him with a little conversation. “Well Kail it looks like now, you’ll finally get enough experience points to level up to level 13.” Our pair approached their glorious chariot of destruction, which was their air-cruiser. Glorious and stolen chariot of destruction, that is. Buying an Air Cruiser, especially one for bounty hunter work, is really expensive, so this one here was stolen off the police. However carjacking a police vehicle has never been easy, especially in this day and age where it is impossible to get away with a stolen vehicle undetected unless it is taken off the stolen list as police headquarters. All vehicles on that list are liable to be chased at any time by police cruisers and shot at by police security. However being the overwhelmed and under funded law-keeping force they are, the police have come up with yet another revenue raiser. Buy paying a considerable bribe to the police (though only half the vehicle’s approximate value) the police will ‘loose interest in your case’ in which they’ll take your name off the carjacking wanted list. It had taken a good while for the Bounty Hunter group here to pay off this fee, but now that the police aren’t shooting them anymore they can travel through all the government districts without fear of being the target of a SAM sandwich. Our first Bounty Hunter here is a chap called Kail (pronounced K-Ale; Level 12, Light Assault Class-Gunslinger Subclass.). He’s the guy with the evil-looking red eyes, which he insists was the whole point of getting them done that way. His personality appears to be a lot more serious than his companions, yet at the same time there’s quite a fair bit of shrewdness behind that. His job in this little group here appears to be intelligence gathering, including gathering info on new jobs. His companion’s name is Urlwin (pronounced Earl-Win, Level 12, Heavy Assault Class-Cannoneer/Weapon Expert Subclass), evidently a heavy or muscle. He also appeared to be the one who did most of the shopping, if that hover-trolley following him was anything to go by. A lot more open and emotional, he was probably the ‘Safety Monkey’, or the ‘Funny Guy’ of the group. “Don’t get me started about that Urlwin.” Kail said with a voice that broadcasted depression and annoyance. “How long has this been going for? For the past 3 weeks you’ve been trying to work your way up to level 13, only that every time you get close you either get vaporised by an Ion Cannon or get mowed down by Police Cruiser.” Urlwin recalled with some satisfaction, as to seeing the look on Kail’s face. “The first time was so unfair, that guy was fucking camping with a bloody Ion Platform. And who’s the first guy he shoots?” Kail asked rhetorically, sighing for added effect. “Well the fact that you were the only guy that ran forward firing those twin pop-guns of your’s didn’t help much either…” Urlwin muttered under his breath, but Kail got the gist of it anyway. “Well the Police Cruiser was your fault.” Kail reminded. “You’re the one who decided that it’d be fun to try and take out a bounty on a precinct officer.” “Heh…sorry.” Urlwin replied sheepishly. Then he added a few more instances to the equation. “Oh and let’s not forget that guy who headshotted you with a Plasma Disintegrator, or those Nagako gangers who made a Pancake out of you.” “Well the Disintegrator couldn’t really be helped, it was a good shot after all.” Kail conceded, shortly before he renewed his offensive. “But who was the one who decided that they’d fly through Nagako territory just because it was 30 seconds shorter than going through the merchant district.” “Well it was!” Urlwin tried to defend himself. “It’s a variable carpark there, especially on market day. And you know that it’s always market day.” “Even though it was only 30 Seconds.” “Yeah, so what? It’s more fun through there anyway.” “Even though they hate us.” “Gives you something fun to do.” “Even though they’ve declared guild war on us.” “Yeah, so what? More kills and credits for me!” “Even though they have multiple SAM sites and Lance batteries scattered throughout their territories.” “Big deal, we’ve got countermeasures.” “Even though our Cruiser only has a Minigun turret, some Air-to-Air missiles and a pair of Plasma Projectors.” “Plenty of death dealing for everyone.” “Even though they pretty much shot us out of the sky and knocked me out of the Cruiser by means of a SAM.” “We were just unlucky, they must have had a good day.” “Stop making excuses dammit!” Kail snapped, getting fed up of the little game they were having. “I got blown out of my gunner position by a barrage of SAM’s, just managed to parachute down onto a ‘Scraper instead of falling into the depths and end up getting crushed by a Hover Tank for my efforts anyway. Then not only do I lose my recently purchased Rail Pistol, but I lost 50% of my experience points that I need to level up to level 13.” A large, deep and exaggerated sigh followed this recount, entirely appropriate. By this time our duo had approached their Air Cruiser. It was a medium sized thing, well suited for bounty hunter work. The LPX Special Issue Police Cruiser is a 5 Seater vehicle, consisting of room for the pilot, co-pilot, rear gunner, and 2 additional passengers, 3 if you don’t mind being squashed. The vehicle was about 6 metres long by a metre or so wide by one high. With only a small bonnet and engine section at the front, the underside of the vehicle contained the hover drives and anti-grav rotors for take-off and landing, whilst the rear section contained the thrusters and micro-fusion drive for power. Currently the vehicle had its landing gear out, which was normally kept retracted during flight so it didn’t get ripped off due to air resistance or by a Laser Lance or something equally unpleasant. The seating arrangement is much like an antique American automobile of old, with the pilot on the left side and the co-pilot on the right. Behind the second row of seats is a mounted gunner position with ample room for swinging the turret around without hitting anybody in the back of the head. However in an effort to prevent the gunner accidentally (or purposefully) killing the other occupants by subjecting them to close range fire, the Turret had a limit to its turning and elevation arc when facing forward, so that it wasn’t possible to ‘Backshoot’ the other occupants. The vehicle was opened topped, as it had a weather shield to keep out the weather as well as boarders or las-bolts. As stated before, the said LPX Special Issue Police Cruiser is equipped with 3 weapon systems. A pair of Plasma Projectors, built into the forward section of the craft, one on each side of the vehicle. In addition to this was a quad-barrelled mini turret for the launching heat seekers, operated by the co-pilot and bolted onto the side of the vehicle. The Missile Launcher was reloaded by means of a loading ‘tube’ (though it was more rectangular than round) that would automatically load in new missiles as they were shot off. And finally, there was the all-powerful main turret, which was where most of the firepower came from. What it was varied from vehicle to vehicle, in some cases a Lancer, in other cases a Plasma Destroyer or some other powerful implement of destruction. In this case, it was a pair of Miniguns. Now amidst all these Plasma and Laser weapons we seem to be mentioning so much of, a Minigun or any kind of mass-driver weapon doesn’t seem that powerful, but they are quite deadly, especially if they have explosive ammunition or some other nastiness, like this one has. Of course even with some added explosive goodness it’s still not anywhere near as powerful as a Gattling Blaster or a Plasma Burst Cannon, especially against other vehicles. However it fires a lot more rounds than either of the above, and can break down armour with concentrated bursts of fire. And for crowd problems it’s simply murder. However this Air Cruiser requires three people to man it. And since we only have two here, that means… “It’s about time you guys showed up.” Came a voice from the Air Cruiser. “Well that’s easy for you to say. After all, your job is the easiest!” Urlwin retorted at the unknown speaker. Unknown to us that is, for obviously these guys know of the speaker’s identity. “Actually he technically has the hardest job of all of us. Politics are dangerous after all.” Kail commented, reminded and contradicted Urlwin, possibly as minor payback for the whole ‘Nagako Incident’ or just for the hell of it. Then he turned his attentions to the unknown 3rd party. “But seriously though, why are you here so early? You’re usually the last to come here, usually you’re pursued by angry assassins or gangsters, and usually your first words to us are something along the lines of ‘Drive you coneheads! DRIVE!’, no?” “Well you see the political situation is relatively the same as it was last time I checked, so I didn’t bother going through all the boring, tedious and dangerous business of going through my entire list of contacts to see what was new and instead decided to come back here early.” The unknown person replied, perhaps a little sleazily. He seemed to have different speech patterns to the other 2. “That’s why your job is so easy. You’ve got a set list of contacts where as I have to always look for new buyers and sellers as the old ones either pack up and leave or end up in the gutter with a hole in their chest. It’s real annoying you know.” Urlwin said in a vain attempt to defend himself. “Well I’ve got to keep a constant look out for replacement contacts because politics is a dangerous game. A very dangerous game.” Stepping out from behind the Air Cruiser was another bounty hunter. His was a similar uniform to that of Kail and Urlwin, but he looked somewhat different. Where as Kail and Urlwin were relatively clearly of Caucasian decent, this 3rd bounty hunter was somewhat different. His skin was darker, his hair was lighter, going from a blackish grey at the centre to almost totally grey at the extreme tips as well as various other differences. These differences marked him out as from a different kind of world to Urlwin and Kail. Kail’s eyes locked onto him as if he were an intruder in a maximum security holding facility, almost as if he expected someone else to pop out from behind the Air Cruiser. But then his eyes visibly lost their intensity, and he said lightly “Greetings Lineus.” Lineus (pronounced Lin-ieu-s, Level 13, Medium Assault Class-Sharpshooter Subclass) returned the acknowledgement. “Greetings Kail, see you haven’t lost that sharp tongue of yours if the tongue lashing you gave Urlwin here was anything to go by.” He turned towards the Air Cruiser, indicating for everyone to get in. Urlwin shrugged, not really bothering to think up a retort at the indirect insult, and moved towards the Air Cruiser. Kail followed as well. Lineus was usually the designated driver, so he got in from the left hand side of the vehicle. There were no doors on it, so basically all you did was just jump straight in. Lineus proceeded to do that. He started the pre-flight checks to make sure that someone hadn’t clogged up the Anti-Grav rotors with chewing gum again. That flight had been very memorable indeed…so memorable that no one wanted a repeat incident of it. Urlwin was the co-pilot, and booted up the flight computer and defence systems. He also took special care to check that his missile Launcher’s loading tubes were clear, as everyone knew exactly what would happen if, during the reloading sequence, a missile were to jam up in the tube and detonate accidentally. For his part, Kail got into the gunner position and sat there, waiting for them to finish. One of the advantages of being the Air Cruiser Gunner was that in the event of a technical failure, you were entirely clear of any responsibility for the accident (forced ‘accident’ or otherwise). His gunner position consisted of a Three Hundred and Sixty Degree revolving gunnery seat (Synth leather at that, which made it more comfortable) with the twin Minigun turret and the various controls of it situated in front of him, revolving as he revolved with adjustable Y-Axis movement. A quick check through the ammo feeds and the cylinder coolant system was all he bothered doing, as one of the things about Mass-Driver weapons were they were a lot more reliable than Energy Weapons. “You would think that in a game such as this they’d try and make all these pre-flight checks more streamlined and not really a necessity.” Kail commented as he idly swung his chair from facing the rear of the Air-Cruiser to the left side, so he could lean out the left-hand side and face the other two occupants of the vehicle. “It’s more realistic this way.” Lineus replied briefly and absently, not sparing much attention from his task of making sure that the Air Cruiser wouldn’t suddenly explode halfway over the Nagako Group’s territory. “One of the reasons I spend time on games it that they help you get away from reality.” Kail pointed out. Lineus shrugged, not really interested, and turned back to his task. Kail wasn’t particularly in the mood for some kind of stupid debate on realism, so he turned back to his Minigun turret and gave a few experimental barrel spins to make sure the twin-cylinders were functional. Lets go over this in more detail. The M2-12 MMgT (or Maned Minigun Turret) consists of two Miniguns built into a co-axial mount. Each Minigun consisted of 6 revolving barrels fused together around a central revolving cylindrical tube. Both Miniguns were built into a central casing that housed the Rotation and Auto-Loading mechanisms, as well as the targeting computer, which calculated and compensated for various factors such as motion trajectory of target, air-resistance, minor user inaccuracies and minor Magnetic interference. Built into the barrels were Gyro-stabilisers to reduce the ferocious recoil of the weapon as well as coolant systems to keep the barrels from overheating during prolonged use. Ammunition was loaded directly into the Auto-Loader by means of two loading tubes built into the spine that the weapon was mounted upon, one for each Minigun. The weapon was fully rotatable, as the spine could rotate freely (bar the restriction noted previously, to prevent traitors from using the M2-12 to turn their ‘friends’ into a lead salad) whilst the gunnery chair would automatically manoeuvre to keep up with any rotations performed by the user. The weapon had two trigger grips, 1 built into the left-hand side of the main casing and the other on the right side. These grips were mounted in a horizontal position rather than the usual vertical manner of most Pistols and Rifles. There was one trigger built into each one, positioned so it could be triggered by the index finger. The weapon built into the right grip (the user’s right) started up the spin-cycle of the weapon. It wouldn’t actually fire off anything, but it ‘warmed up’ the barrels before firing, so to speak. Normally simply pressing the left trigger (fire) would cause the Minigun to fire slowly at first, as the barrels revolving would have to start from ‘Cold’ start-up. And as the rate of fire was directly proportional to how quickly the barrels rotated, the weapon would take a few seconds to reach full speed, seconds which were typically crucial in a firefight. The right trigger was something of a ‘test’ function as well, to check that the barrels were capable of rotation so that the user didn’t that someone had jammed the Rotation mechanisms when he was about to assault a fortified ‘scraper’. As it was the cylinders were functional as always: the last time someone had tried to jam the mechanisms they’d set off the ‘Car Alarm’. And since setting off the ‘Car Alarm’ resulted in an intense bombardment of Anti-Cruiser missiles programmed to destroy everything within a 20-metre radius, no one had ever tried it again. Leaning his head on his left hand whilst he absent-mindedly started the spin-cycle, Kail waited for the sudden throb of ignition from the Hover Drive. And with Lineus’ typical efficiency, he wasn’t kept waiting for long. First off the Micro-Fusion reactor kick-started, a throbbing bass sound like that of a Subwoofer. Then came a high pitched whining of the turbines of the Anti-Grav Rotors. That was followed with a deep-sounding blast of energy, the underside lift thrusters kicking in. As the vehicle started to hover above ground, a few metres off, Kail closed his eyes, lightly gripped the seat arm rests and calmly awaited the ignition of the main thrusters. Once they had cleared enough space from ground level they would engage the rear mounted main thrusters and accelerate at a very quick pace. The weather shields would take a while to engage and so this brief period of high-speed acceleration was accompanied by some very strong air-resistance. Urlwin and Lineus were protected by a forward Weather-Visor made of Armour-Glass that protected against low-grade projectiles and energy weapons, as well as the air resistance during take-off. However being in the Gunnery seat, which was somewhat elevated from the rest of the seats, meant that Kail didn’t have this luxury. To compensate he used the chair as cover, turning its back so that it faced the forward end of the Cruiser, whilst he was facing the rear. However the Gunnery chair wasn’t big enough to fully shield his body, so he calmly gripped the seat and prepared for it. And sure enough there was a roar of released energy as the main thrusters activated. By this time they were a good 30 or 40 metres over the rooftop vehicle depot. And with a quick blast of fusion energy they were away, blasting at speeds of nearly a hundred, two hundred, maybe even five hundred kilometres an hour. Kail knew a fair few daredevils who, upon sitting in the gunnery chair, faced the full force of this blast, sometimes not even in the chair but standing up instead. The speed alone was often enough to simply blow the person off the Air Cruiser. Even facing away from the main force of the formidable amount of air resistance acting upon him, Kail was still feeling the pressure of travelling at about 500Kph while rising through the air. His head was also unprotected by the chair: it wasn’t one of those huge corporate chairs that were big enough for Ogres and so his head and neck weren’t protected from the full force of the drag acting upon him. However Kail stoically kept his head and neck as still as he could, keeping his eyes closed and riding out the experience. It wasn’t very realistic, a cynical part of his brain commented. Truth be told they were probably going a lot faster than 500 Clicks per Hour, more like 4 times as much if this was a real Air Cruiser. But then again this wasn’t a real Air Cruiser…it’s not supposed to be. In total the acceleration phase lasted about 10 seconds. In reality that is. But the human brain has the tendency to distort the perception of time in extreme situations. To Kail it seemed to last forever. However when the sudden howling noise of the air was cut out and replaced by a faint crackling sound of energy, Kail opened his eyes. He swung his chair around to face Urlwin and Lineus, both of whom looked a lot better for wear than he probably did. “Kail, your hair is a mess.” Urlwin said as soon as he turned around, probably saying the first thing that came to his mind. Kail gave him a look he reserved for overwhelmingly stupid situations. “We’ve just been travelling unshielded through the air at Five Hundred Kilometres an Hour, probably more if we allow reality to factor in. I’d think that my hair would be the least of my worries, especially when compared to the possibility of being blown off a speeding Air Cruiser.” Kail commented in a neutral tone, half his voice full of cynicism whilst the other half was full of exasperation. Lineus and Urlwin both chuckled at this. “You’re so fun to tease Kail, you always get so worked up about this kind of stuff.” Urlwin said after he calmed down a little. “You can never take a joke, no matter how light it is.” Lineus added, looking at Kail with a smirk on his face. “You should stop being so serious for once. Then you might fit in more into society.” Kail returned the look with one of his own, a look that would have contaminated a Water Silo. His voice was dipped in succulent cynical solution. “And be like you guys? No thank you. Do you seriously think I care what you think about me? If I did I would have a nervous breakdown every time someone decided lay eyes on me” Followed this with a cough, as much because he needed to cough as the need to change the subject. If they continued trying to bag-out him, they would probably be here for a long, long, long time. As it was because Lineus was busy dissing out him, he wasn’t watching the aerospace. And because he wasn’t watching the surrounding aerospace they were not going the right way. And because they weren’t going the right way pretty soon they would crash into a building and then they’d need a new Air Cruiser. So he decided to cut an otherwise long session of prattle with a follow up. “You better find us a quiet spot to park so I can show you this next assignment we’ve got Lineus. It’s worth our time.” Lineus shrugged, quite interested in what Kail had to show, and headed for the nearest ‘Scraper, looking for places that were out of the way so that the 3 Bounty Hunters could have a conversation without risk of being rammed by some crazy driver. Whenever Kail said more than ‘I’ll show you our next assignment’, it usually meant something special. Typically he wouldn’t say anything about the assignments he’d picked up until someone asked him, and even then only a few mumbled words along the lines of ‘the usual’ or ‘the leftovers’ or ‘what they didn’t hand out to guys over level 13’ or something of the sort. To actively introduce a topic meant it was something big. For his part Kail climbed out of the Gunnery Chair and stood on the deck of the Air Cruiser. With the environmental control systems activated, systems like Artificial Gravity and Environmental Shielding, it wouldn’t matter if they were upside down and flying through a Hurricane. In essence, with those systems on, the Air Cruiser would become a separate world within a world. The crew were anchored down to the Air Cruiser’s alignment by the gravity whilst the weather outside was kept out by the Environmental Shield. There was a series of Oxygen intake valves on the ventral (underside) section of the craft. This section was not fully covered by the Environmental energy shield, and on those sections that weren’t there were intake ducts for oxygen, as well purification systems to make sure it was breathable instead of chewable as it usually was at this high altitude. This was necessary as the Environmental Shield filtered out pretty much everything, including the air. In essence whilst they had the Environmental Shields on, they were in a world of their own as far a climate was concerned. In addition to the Oxygen purification stuff was some reserve tanks of Oxygen in case the facilities were ‘malfunctioning’ (usually having something to do with explosions and plasma) or in the event that the Air Cruiser was operating in an airless environment. Usually this wouldn’t last too long, but generally long enough for the Cruiser to get back to base before the crew suffocated and lost huge amounts of Exp due to such an embarrassing defeat. However despite all this protection between himself and the outside world, Kail still felt like he was truly riding an open-decked Air Cruiser through the skies of this world. Or rather, this moon. He corrected himself looking out into a burning sunset, holding the barrel of the Minigun lightly to balance himself on the deck, which was still swaying even after they had installed those dampeners and fine-tuned the gravity system. Well that’s what you get when you steal something second hand, Kail shrugged. He resumed his train of thought. Tylron 5c, satellite world of the Gas Giant Tylron 5. The world sure doesn’t seem like a newbie zone to me. Well I suppose it technically isn’t, it’s more an intermediate with some Newbieness thrown it, but it’s still not much compared with Tylron 5. Apparently you need to be at least Level 30 to stand a chance out there, more if you want to be accepted and start earning a reputation there. I remember seeing a clip on ISWAN of a guild war there. It seems that everyone on Tylron belongs to one guild or another, and each controls a series of gas platforms hovering above the world. Some of the larger Clans within the guilds even operate their own platforms. The platforms are more like flying fortresses than anything really. When they decide that they don’t like someone else, they have huge platform wars as they manoeuvre their platforms into position and blow the crap out of each other. It’s really quite epic, and at that level of fighting you actually gain experience for dying. Well that would be great for me: at this rate I’m dying at a rate of once a week, no thanks to Urlwin. At this rate I’d probably be growing grey hair sooner than levelling up to level 20, let alone 30. “Yo! Kail! What’re you doing? We’ve already arrived here dumbass!” Urlwin yelled, gesturing somewhat frantically for him to get over to the forward seats. Kail shrugged neutrally, and walked over to the edge of the turret deck. The seats were on a lower level than the gun deck (it makes sense not to have other passengers blocking the way if you want to shoot forward through some seats, at least you shoot over them with this arrangement) and so Kail performed a little hop to get onto the lower level. “What were you staring at back then? You looked like you were in some kind of trance.” Lineus commented as Kail landed in the row behind him. “I wasn’t staring at anything.” Kail answered back neutrally. “I was just thinking.” “About what.” Was Lineus’ instant response. To this Kail gave him a ‘Do you really think I’m going to answer that one?’ look and ignored him. Urlwin gave a little chuckle at this behaviour. He was well used to Kail’s attitude and this sort of response wasn’t very surprising. “You’d soon get blood out of a stone than get Kail to tell you what he is thinking about.” He commented to Lineus. Lineus saw no reason to disagree. “So what the hell is this plan here?” Urlwin interrupted, looking at the holo-screen and cutting off any efforts Kail made to explain his plan.. He dragged the screen in front of his face, extended the window and zoomed in to try and make heads or tails of the insane series of squiggly lines that Kail called his ‘Mission Plan’. “As far as I can tell, it involves us launching 5 diversionary attacks on a static enemy installation in order for a main attack force of 6 Air Cruisers and a Heavy Transporter to assault an enemy 10 kilometres away on another building…” Urlwin evaluated, scratching his head as he tried to make some sense of it. “Urlwin…” Kail started, but never got the words out as Urlwin rolled a 6 for his ‘Conversation Priority’ roll and delivered an extra onslaught of words. “This attack plan here involves not 1 Air Cruiser like our current resources have at our disposal, but 11 Air Cruisers, and not only that but we’ve got a Heavy Transporter filled with Special Ops and High level bots. Dude, where the hell are we going to get all these materials?! We don’t even have access to Special Ops yet! I don’t know about you but all those failed missions and accidents (especially the ones I *ahem* caused) generally don’t earn us a lot of brownie points for us to requisition any backup, especially Special Ops!” “Urlwin…” “And lets not forget the fact that we’re assaulting the Nagako HQ here in this plan! You must have taken a few too many Headshots because you generally never usually pick the suicidal ones. And with our current resources, this mission counts as a Suicidal on the difficulty factor…” “Urlwin!” Kail said more firmly this time, causing Urlwin to slow down his torrent of words and actually listen to what Kail had to say. “If you’d look in the top right-hand corner of the Holo-window, you’d see that you’re on the wrong page…” In a very anime-esc way, Urlwin literally froze, a cunning retort frozen on his tongue coming out with a series of ‘gheh, gheh’ noises. His body was contorted like he had been hit by a stun gun whilst during a gymnastics session and had been turned into a statue. The microbes underneath all that skin on his face appeared to have lit a fire because his cheeks were as red as a volcano forge. “…Dumbass.” Kail finished with a voice that sounded like a sweeping wind, sighing with impatience as he buried his head into his hand in the classic ‘Frustrated Thinker’ pose. “I’ve got to admit that that was pretty stupid Urlwin, even by your low standards.” Lineus commented smugly, snickering a little. Urlwin’s Operating System inside his head unfroze due to this remark, causing him to snap out of his trance and gave Lineus the finger. This only served to make Lineus laugh harder. Kail waited for them to quiet down a little before he began to explain. Again. “As you can see from this map, our target is located within Sector 79, an offshoot of the main merchant district…” Kail began, shortly interrupted after though by Urlwin. The Heavy Assault Class Bounty Hunter had finally recovered enough nerve to launch a counter attack against Lineus. “It’s not my fault that this psycho here has plans for Every Single Possible and IMPOSSIBLE Contingency! Honestly with all these bloody plans, backup plans and backup backup plans it’s no wonder that I got lost onto the wrong page! Come on dude! We’re never going to assault Nagako’s main central HQ; we’re at such a low level that our Cruiser and ourselves would get wasted long before we even got anywhere near the damn thing!” “Well at least Kail here can draw up a battle plan, unlike you. You can’t either draw or think, so the creation of battle plans is something beyond you.” Lineus retorted smoothly, acting it cool. Urlwin was quickly thinking up a retort as Kail let out a sigh. They always did this, even in the middle of a job they would constantly bicker over all these silly things. This is going to take a while… Kail thought as Urlwin began to use some rather creative names to describe Lineus. Eventually Kail got their attention again, by means of firing his Las Pistol. The sudden crack of laser a laser bolt punching through the environmental shield and flaring off into the sky had been enough to get the minds of Urlwin and Lineus back on track. “Ok, now that I have your attention I’d like to go over this plan. Our target is an independent merchant, who operates out of Sector 79, an offshoot of the main Merchant District.” Kail started, noting that he really did have the full (almost full, Urlwin was probably checking up some porn in the background but that was the limit of his attention span) attention of his audience. He noted Lineus’ expression of surprise at the mention of independence, so he added a little extra to his planned speech. “Yes Lineus, it’s an independent. Obviously this said merchant has either gotten tired of the restrictions imposed by his guild or never joined the guild because of the freedom he has as an independent. Whatever the case, he’s got a bounty on his head.” “Who’s the bounty from? The merchant’s guild?” Lineus asked with a not-so-subtle hint of curiosity. “Actually that’s the thing. The bounty on this guy is phenomenal. It’s far more than any guild is usually willing to pay for our kind.” Kail explained. He was about to add more when Urlwin interrupted. “How much?” He asked. Money was always his thing really. But then again, what’s a bounty hunter without his bounty? “The reward for taking this guy out is Sixty Thousand…” “What?! That’s chicken feed…” “Per Bounty Hunter.” Kail finished. There was a shocked pause. No one ever paid that just for a single target at this level. That was the kind of bounty a level 20 or so Bounty Hunter would be paid for. It was usually a pool of 60000, to be divided up between them, rather than anything that crazy. “And that’s the thing.” He continued. “We all know how stingy the Guilds are, especially the Merchant Guild. They’d never pay this much for just a rogue trader. I was thinking that it could have come from another Independent, but they don’t carry around that kind of cash very often. And the thing was that this was offered at our level, which is quite low for such a priority target. Either our bounty head here has pissed off someone really high up, or the person wanting this guy taken out has just inherited a grand fortune. There an additional Fifteen Hundred for damage compensation funds if we succeed in taking this guy out. But we’ve got to hurry, because everyone will want a piece of the action soon enough, once it’s made public…” “You got this off a contact?” Lineus asked, excitement barely contained within him evident. But for now the curiosity of a Political Monitor took over. “Yep, my contact within the Guild. He got it out to me as payment for a favour I did for him a while ago.” Kail explained briefly. It was more a private matter, so he didn’t go in-depth with his explanation. He continued on. “But regardless though we’ll have to head over to there quickly. I’ll explain the plan along the way, because we don’t have a lot of time here. Once that bounty goes public, everyone is going to want a piece of the action. So lets move out.” This world seems a little confusing doesn’t it. At first glance it appears to be your typical science-fiction story with the usual abundance of Lasers, Plasma, Shield Generators and funky Hover Vehicles. Later on there’ll probably be the big giant Mecha, a space faring battleship or 2 with Lance Batteries and Plasma Torpedo Launchers and the usual Big Apocalyptic Weapon of Doom™. But there are also these conflicting references to ‘Classes’ and ‘Guilds’ and ‘Levels’ and other weird stuff. Plus it has a title that no one but the author can properly pronounce, and even then the author probably has troubles pronouncing it. Well it’s time to clear a few things up I suppose. And I, Urlwin, will be the one to do it! This world is not a real world. It’s a computer game. Well actually computer game is not a correct term, it’s a Holographic Immersion of Reality to be technical, ie a Holo Game. The term computer game is about 5 centuries too old right now. To be more in depth, this is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, or MMORPG. Yeah, that’s a bit of an old term as well. The game is bigger than ‘Massive’ really. But regardless though the term has stuck, and until someone comes up with a more catchy title, we’re using it. But the thing is that this game isn’t just any MMORPG, for there have hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of the games throughout history. It is currently the overall most popular MMORPG in the galaxy, assuming a bunch of undiscovered Alien empires have MMORPG’s of their own. And the name of this MMORPG is…err…Garathose? Garamus? Something like that. “Hey, Kail! What’s the name of this game dude?” “Look at that advertisement over there we’re about to pass.” Ah, yes. Garamatherus. It’s got some slogan but it’s too far away to see. Basically Gara…oh stuff it. Look, this game is basically, to put it simply, huge. There’s hundreds of thousands of millions of players online all the time. There are several ways the game is played, for instance as Bounty Hunters we’re playing a very action oriented shooter game, but for, say, merchants, they’re playing more like a builder game with lots of trading and backstabbing. Those who run the guilds play it more like a strategy game than anything, and on. Anyway Kail there, you know, the crazy guy who doesn’t understand the meaning of a joke and who periodically gets all depressed for no reason. Well he’s a Light Assault Class. Basically you choose your basic class at the start of the game, like Light, Medium and Heavy. That’s just for ‘assault’ using characters, like us. Merchants and others would have their own list of basic classes. Then after that you have all these subclasses that define who you really are. For instance, Lineus here, the strange looking guy who needs a reality check, well he’s a Sharpshooter, so he’s basically our team’s Sniper. He’s got only Fibro Carapace Armour with a trendy Flak jacket over that, which both are inferior to my Duro-Plate armour, which can take a beating. As Sharpshooter he gets all these bonuses to using Sniper Rifles, such as less recoil when shooting, more accuracy when moving, improved targeting abilities against moving targets and so on. If I were to use a Sniper Rifle, I would get none of these abilities and would have a hard time hitting anything with it. However as a duel-class Weapons’ Expert and Cannoneer, I’ve got bonuses for using a multitude of Heavy Weapons. As a Weapon’s Expert I am proficient in using anything big and Shooty, such as an Anti-Cruiser Torpedo Launcher, and don’t suffer much penalties from switching between them. As a Cannoneer I get bonuses to hitting and damaging targets, especially vehicles, so I can easily take down another Air Cruiser with just my Gattling Gun. However if Lineus tried to use the Gattling gun he’d get insane amounts of recoil and probably wouldn’t move very fast if he were to carry the damn thing. But this is all standard MMORPG flare really; nothing revolutionary if you think about it, but it’s the action in this game that really makes it interesting. Well that’s a brief overview of this world, but before I… “…Urlwin, did you listen to a word I just said?” “Nope, was it important Kail?” “…Never mind. It was just our battle plan, but since you’d have probably forgotten it anyway it doesn’t matter.” “Did Kail actually make a joke there? It doesn’t seem possible! Everyone knows he’s got no personality! It doesn’t make sense!” “Shut up Lineus.” “If this kind of craziness keeps up, next we’ll find Urlwin making up a battle plan that doesn’t involve the two steps ‘Go here’ and ‘Kill everybody’.” “If this keeps up, we might actually see Lineus donate to the poor rather than hoard away all his money like he usually does.” “Hey I donate to the poor, quite often actually. I’m insulted with your cynicism Urlwin.” “Yeah, you do it for a tax return don’t you?” “And if I get some benefit out of it, then what’s so bad about it?” “You’d never do it if it weren’t for that tax return now would you?” “Well…umm…no.” “See, I thought so.” “But it’d be a strange day in the galaxy if Urlwin had an epidemical outbreak of common sense and decided not to try and beat up those gangsters from that rival High School just so he can woe one of the girls there…” “This is going to take a while. Again. Honestly I’d have though that the amount of money on offer here would have been enough to shut them up until the mission was over, but I guess that day won’t come any sooner than the day that Urlwin gets that backup he’s always wanted to try and take out those guys from Hainesport…” “What are you mumbling about Kail?” “None of your concern, Lineus.” “A girl? That has to be it. This talk of girls has fired up Kail’s tostestorine levels!” “Isn’t is supposed to be Testosterone?” “Wow! He’s getting technical. That means he’s on the verge of an outbreak of emotion.” “(sigh). This isn’t going to end anytime soon. Look, next chapter we’ll probably take out this bounty if someone doesn’t beat us to it, which they will at this rate. There will probably be a few revelations and some stupid mistakes from Urlwin, but that’s pretty ordinary. Honestly, I hope that by the end of next chapter or two I actually get back to level 13…” |
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5th Jul 04, 8:15 PM
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# 824 |
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Member
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: the thick of it
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Hey i'm new around here i dont know how all this works yet so if this shows up as anything else besides an addition to the thread than sorry. anyhow, awesome looking story; has it reallly been going on for 2 years? if so, thats impressive. absolutely halarious. i dont know if you have started different stories or what, but i'm reffering to the first one. where did you pull this out of? just some random thought? anyhow i hope to check on this thread for a while!
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6th Jul 04, 4:48 PM
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# 827
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Stealthy Defender of Russia
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Sydney, Australia.
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Well welcome to the Relic Boards Ravenhart. Anyway that other story was something of a prototype, but I'd probably start a new thread if I'm going to expand on it.
And yes, one day, if I ever get around to typing it, we'll have some kind of flashy ending. I promise that I'll make it as screwed up as I can  |
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7th Jul 04, 6:55 AM
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# 830 |
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Member
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: the thick of it
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Yeah man, type it all out on word or whatever (misspellings and all, its funny) and print it or something. record it before you close the thread if you plan to do so, cus who knows if its going into the vault. btw, check out my thread under general discussions: death knell to the homeworld series. i want more feedback, and apparently a lot of ppl look at this thread.
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10th Jul 04, 12:01 AM
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# 836
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Stealthy Defender of Russia
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Sydney, Australia.
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Perhaps, but not of the Idiot's Guide. I don't think it would appeal to the general public, mainly because I can't exactly port out the Relic Forums with it. And without knowing who GAN is or who half the characters are or indeed what the Relic Forums are, most people won't get the story. I've also got to admit that my story is very unprofessional (lack of character personality, constant change in focus for seemingly little reason, excessive amounts of characters and subplots that branch off, etc. though I suppose at least the story is, for the later part, readable. At least you don't have to gouge your eyes out.) , and critics would probably tear it apart before long.
Anyway chapter's coming along slowly due to lazyness, but I'm working on that. |
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10th Jul 04, 11:01 AM
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# 838 |
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Member
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: the thick of it
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of course theres no plot focus, or character development. ITS A JOKE! :haha: but if you are going to write something down, make it the idiot's guide to destroy the universe (its just so randomly funny). and yes, i will be your sidekick if it comes to that. :sniper: RN, i cant wait til the next chapter, i'm still not done reading all the preceding ones lol. come to think of it, who is gan? besides the essense of noobiness of course!
P.S. by the way, today the 10th, if nobody noticed, i'm 15 :blow: Last edited by Ravenhart : 10th Jul 04 at 5:48 PM. |
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10th Jul 04, 5:49 PM
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# 839 |
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Guest
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HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 *picks up sniper rifle* heres ur brithaday present! *RavenHeart: ohh for me? a sniper gun :sniper: with laser designator and auto mode and burst mode?* no............. *pulls trigger* :jaw: thats ur birthday present a gyrojet rocket propelled laser guided bullet in ur brain! JK lolz :offtopic:
EDIT: srry RN for being off topic couldn help it and RH(RavenHeart) we cool it was a joke |
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10th Jul 04, 5:59 PM
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# 840 |
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Member
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: the thick of it
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:jaw: :boohoo: yu 'urt my feelingz :jk: anyway dont you DARE EVER, EVER stop writhing this RN, stop questioning if ppl still read this (if you are stil doing that, i dont know, i might be confused cus i'm still only reading page 10 and playing battlefeild vietnam lol)
hey new age of power, you got an msn messenger or aol messenger account? i see that you are viewing this thread as i type this edit and maybe we can chat just for the hell of it instead of spamming RN's thread all the time lol |
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11th Jul 04, 6:31 PM
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# 842 |
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Member
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: the thick of it
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i hate aol too. i dont even know why i have it for that matter. my friend cody uses it, but who cares about cody..... RN cant give away his email! if RN gave away his email, ppl might discover his secret identity! anyway, ppl might spam, he's such a popular guy lol
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11th Jul 04, 7:06 PM
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# 843
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Stealthy Defender of Russia
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Sydney, Australia.
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I don't think I'm that popular. But look, since this is mostly just a conversation between the pair of you, can you take it to the PM system. Otherwise Ionfish will come in here waving his ban-stick and you will never be seen again.
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13th Jul 04, 2:09 AM
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# 847 |
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Guest
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Whoah. This is the biggest thread I've ever seen. Cool story though.
 I got up to about part 7 and gave up. When I got to the end, I heard somthing about orks, So I'm going to start reading again (This could take a year or two, But I'll work on it) Anyway, I think I'll read this stuff from now on, I cause the first thread i read here was put in in about 2003, and its still going.. I think.. Anyway, Hi |
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. This is still the best thing I've read in quite a while.
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