GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Firefly Airsoft LARP

POSTED BY: DUELIST
UPDATED: Thursday, August 9, 2007 04:51
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Friday, January 19, 2007 11:10 AM

DUELIST


Last May or thereabouts, some of us were discussing the possibility of running a Firefly-theme airsoft game/LARP hybrid. I drew up a rules set called "Big Sky" and posted it for comment. Since then, I've hooked up with an online airsoft equipment retailer, www.airsoftbattlezone.com, and have run three airsoft scenario games with them as sponsors. "Big Sky" was overly rough and tumble, but this experience has given me a much better feel for what might work in creating an action-oriented Fireflyesque scenario event. (player reviews and summaries of these events, Operation Nostromo, Operation Nostromo II, and Another One Bites the Sawdust may be found on the Wisconsin Airsoft Association Discussion Forum at www.wiairsoft.com - I'm known as "Gryphon" there)

To get to the point, we're ready to schedule, organize and host an annual 'Verse Airsoft LARP in central Wisconsin. Weekend-long immersion event, 400fps limit, food & overnight camping onsite, probably late summer/early fall. I know we can draw 40 to 100 airsoft players to such an event without too much trouble, but I'd really like to pull a number of cosplay Firefly Larpers as well. Airsoft rental gear would be readily available (provided free to NPC roleplayers.)

So, I guess this is a preliminary casting call. Is anybody interested in a game involving mock violence, or is this the wrong crowd?


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Friday, January 19, 2007 12:53 PM

MIRAMEL


YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!! i even live in central wisconsin! that sounds like a really excellent idea, please please keep us posted!

~~~~
98% of teens have smoked pot, if you are one of the 2% that haven't, copy this into your signature
~~
Fear is the Mind Killer
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Tuesday, February 13, 2007 4:37 AM

DUELIST


OK, we are tentatively looking at the weekend of July 28 for our first annual Firefly Airsoft LARP. Location will be Airsoft Battle Zone's field north of Fairchild, WI. The setting is a Border World mining town having serious "local color" problems. Game would begin on 10am Saturday and run continuously until around 2pm Sunday. NPCs play free, the fee for unrestricted players will probably be $25 for Saturday only, $40 for the entire event. Food, water, camping and rental equipment will be available onsite. The field is a nice, half-wooded area with lots of trails and a good cluster of buildings, with other delightful features to be revealed (hehheh.)

What I reallyREALLY need are Browncoat NPCs who can "walk the walk and talk the talk", who have the garb, and who can stay IN CHARACTER for the entire event. The NPCs would be helping me create that "Firefly" flavor, and acting as referees in a pinch. These folk would be portraying key characters in the game, such as the town sheriff, town doctor, mine boss, trading post proprietor, fanatical preacher, Alliance Fed commander, etc. I can supply airsoft weaponry where necessary and appropriate. I would be open to incorporating a particular NPC into the game if there's a role you are dying to play (no characters directly from the series, please.)

The rules for the event will be posted on the Airsoft Battle Zone website as soon as we are ready to begin accepting preregistration.

I will be attending the Wisconsin Airsoft Expo in Madison, WI, on March 31, and would be delighted to discuss particulars with anyone. Find the Airsoft Battle Zone booth and ask for Todd (or Gryphon.)

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Wednesday, February 14, 2007 2:10 AM

BROWNCOAT1

May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.


Gorram it! I have never LARPed, but I would like to try a Firefly LARP, especially if there will be airsoft. Unfortunately Wisconsin is just too far away for me.

__________________________________________
Holding the line since December '02!

[img] [/img]

Richmond, VA & surrounding area Firefly Fans:

http://www.richmondbrowncoats.org

Color Sergeant

[img] [/img]

http://76thbattalion.homestead.com/index.html


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Thursday, February 15, 2007 4:13 AM

DUELIST


I'm sorry to hear that, Browncoat1, but I understand completely - skiff's in the shop, ship's crew like as to mutiny, that sorta thing. I'll post a report after the event.

The Firefly 'Verse is an almost ideal setting for LARP, especially airsoft LARP, I reckon. If you got the itch, maybe you Virginia Independents oughta look inta throwing your own LARP shootout & shindig. It would be immensely shiny to see this kind of event catch on around the country. There's a lot of airsofters out East. I'd be happy to help with contacts, if you're interested.

I've found a local bunch of Old West reenactors that I'm thinking of drafting for my miners, but I'm still in the market for NPCs. Do you know of any Midwestern Browncoat groups I should contact directly?

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Thursday, July 5, 2007 5:19 PM

KERRIK13


Hey everyone!

My name is Ryan and I am working alongside Duelist (aka Gryphon, the guy behind the Firefly airsoft game) with the pre-registration and the website for the event.

This event is on July 28th and 29th in Fairchild, WI (directions and address on the event website) and is panning out to be a lot of fun!

Check it out at www.freefallgame.com

My airsoft team, Wolf Recon ( www.wolf-recon.com) will be playing some of the Alliance Federal Task Group 7 Troopers. Really looking forward to playing in this event, interacting, and playing in a Firefly themed airsoft game.

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Tuesday, July 24, 2007 11:32 AM

DUELIST


OK, guys, Freefall is this coming weekend!

Go to www.freefallgame.com for details.

We will be accepting preregistrations until the end of the day Thursday, so save yourself a few bucks and get booked. This is probably going to be unlike any airsoft game you've ever played.

We're gonna have camping onsite, two armored vehicles, rules for body armor and degrees of wounding, rules for brawling, multiple mission arcs guided by experienced actor NPCs, scheming and skulduggery, game cash that can be used to purchase sponsor-donated items at the Trading Post, a Shindig pig roast with Sahaja (sahajadance.com) as the featured entertainment, prizes for the Best-Dressed Big Damn Heroes, and a nighttime Reaver attack!

Here are the rules:

Freefall Scenario Game Rules of Play
1. GOGGLES MUST BE WORN AT ALL TIMES ON THE FIELD AND TARGET RANGE. At no time during the game will a player be allowed to break the seal of the goggle from around their eyes.
Only goggles / eyewear that meet the following requirements will be allowed:
• the impact standard for goggles is ANSI z.87.1.
• they must fully encompass the eyes, with no gaps.
• they must be fitted with a head strap to keep them from falling off during a game.
• the lens frame must be sturdy enough to keep the lens in place during play.
• Mesh goggles will be allowed with safety glasses or eyeglasses worn underneath.

In addition, when entering the CQB area a player’s ears, nose and mouth must be covered / blocked with something preventing penetration of BBs, such as a paintball mask, balaclava, bandana (any color but red,) shemagh etc. All minors under the age of 18 years old will be required to wear full-face masks covering the mouth, ears, nose and other soft tissue. No exceptions.

2. BARREL BLOCKING DEVICES ARE REQUIRED OFF-FIELD. Barrel blocking devices such as the red barrel caps that come with most AEGs, paintball approved barrel socks/condoms, or holsters for sidearms are required to be secured over player’s gun barrels at all times. The only exception is at the target range or on a playing field after the game starts. Violators will be asked to leave the park with no refund issued.

3. ALL GUNS MUST BE MAGAZINE FREE OFF-FIELD. All handheld or slung guns must be loading magazine free (“Mag Free”) in the staging and parking lot areas. Sidearms are not required to be mag free as long as they are holstered. Before leaving the field and entering the Safe Zone around the Trading Post, a player must remove the magazine from his gun, fire 2-3 clearing shots in a safe direction, and cap his gun barrel with his barrel-blocking device.

4. ALL GUNS MUST BE SAFELY TRANSPORTED. All guests must transport their guns in a safe manner. Specifically, all guns must be carried in their original packing boxes, or a soft or hard shell case suitable for real firearms, until you are in the Safe Zone. All guns must have a factory-installed trigger guard.

5. FPS LIMITS WILL BE STRICTLY ENFORCED. All guns must be chronographed prior to game time. Players may also be chosen at random for handheld chronograph spot-checks.
FPS Limits are:
AEGs & GBBs: 400 FPS w/ .20 gram BBs.
Single-Shot or Bolt Action Sniper Rifles: 500 FPS with .20 gram BBs.
All guns will be chronographed prior to the beginning of the game using .20 gram BBs. You will be given 2 attempts, consisting of no more than 3 shots each, in which to chronograph at the appropriate FPS. If your gun is unable to chronograph legal after 2 attempts, you will not be able to use that weapon in the game.

Once your gun passes the chronograph test, it will have a colored zip tie attached to it classifying it as either a Standard or a Sniper class weapon. No weapons without zip ties will be allowed on the field of play.
All guns are subject to a chronograph test at any time deemed necessary by the event organizer or referees. Any modifications made to your gun after being chronographed found to increase your FPS will result in your immediate and permanent removal from the game. No refunds will be issued.
6. 6mm .20 BBs ONLY. metal BBs are not allowed. Once your gun has been chronographed, you may choose to fire .20 gram or .25 gram 6mm BBs during the game. Biodegradable .20 gram and .25 gram BBs will be available for purchase in the staging area before and during the game. BBs heavier than .25 grams are not allowed. Weapons firing 8mm BBs may not be used with out permission.
7. SHOOTING SAFETY. Players may only discharge their weapons at the target range or in the Free-fire Area of the playing field. No shooting within, into, or out of the Safe Area, the Parking Area, the Camping Area, or the Trading Post. NO BLIND SHOOTING - players must be able to see what they are shooting at. Players may never shoot at another player who is closer than the minimum engagement distance of 15 feet. If an opponent is closer than 15 feet away, a player should shout "BANG!" in order to notify the opponent he/she has been eliminated at extreme close range. You must have an open line of sight to perform a “bang” kill - a "bang" kill may not be performed through a barrier or through netting. While headshots count, players are asked not to intentionally target another player’s head.
8. AVOID FIELD HAZARDS. Players should avoid all field hazards such as fences, ruts, and vines. Guests should report any hazard to the field operator. Players may not construct anything that will hinder the movement or cause injury to other players. Players are not allowed to construct any sort of booby traps, roadblocks, barricades or bunkers. Players may not alter any natural or man-made features in the playing area. Players may never climb trees or tree stands, enter or exit a structure through a window, or climb onto or under any vehicle.

9. NO UNAUTHORIZED EQUIPMENT. Players are not allowed to bring onto the playing field any equipment deemed unsafe by the Event Organizer. Players on the field are not allowed to carry real knives or edged weapons of any kind, tools of any kind, explosive or other pyrotechnic devices, real firearms, or other non-Airsoft related items. No metal cleats on shoes or boots. No personal cameras or video recording equipment will be allowed on the field during play without permission.
Rubber knives or swords, Nerf-launching RPGs, BB landmines, cold smoke grenades, BB grenades, or any other specialty weapons must be individually approved by the Event Organizer before use in the game.
10. NO ALCOHOL OR ILLEGAL DRUGS ARE ALLOWED ANYWHERE ON SITE. No smoking on the playing field or target range. Smoking is allowed in the staging and parking areas.

11. NO VERBAL ABUSE OR PHYSICAL CONTACT. No profanity, name-calling, or slurs against anyone’s race, color, national origin, family members, teams or equipment will be tolerated. Guests wearing clothing with offensive wording on them will be asked to remove the garment. A player may not touch another player or their equipment at any time without their express permission, except to tap another player’s shoulder during a “knife kill from behind,” or to place a hand on the shoulder of a player to “capture” or “carry” that player.

12. REFEREES’ DECISIONS ARE FINAL. Any decision a referee makes is final and will not be discussed on the playing field. The referee will discuss any calls in a calm manner off-field after the game or scenario is over. Difficult rules questions should be brought to the Event Organizer for resolution.
Players who are found by a referee to have violated any of the rules listed here will be asked by the Event Organizer to leave the game with no refund issued.
13. AGE REQUIREMENT. All players must be fifteen years old or older to participate; players under fifteen must be personally pre-authorized by the field owners. Players under eighteen years old are required to have a Parental Waiver signed and dated by their parent or legal guardian. NO EXCEPTIONS.
14. HITS & DOWNING. A player is downed if a BB strikes any part of his/her body, from the top of the head to the tips of the fingers to the bottoms of the feet, including any of equipment or gear worn. A player is also downed by a “BANG!” call directed at him/her from within fifteen feet, or a tap on the shoulder from behind with a rubber knife.

When a player is downed by gunfire he will call out loudly “I’M HIT”. He will immediately engage his gun’s safety before collapsing where he stands and placing a RED BANDANA (his “dead rag”) on a visible area of his body. A downed player must remain still until another player revives him or her with a Medipak. No players are allowed to shoot at downed players.
A player who is downed from behind with a rubber knife MUST immediately collapse SILENTLY, without crying out or otherwise attempting to attract the attention of his or her teammates.
Downed players are considered unconscious and MUST NOT talk or communicate in any way with other players until they have been revived with a Medipak. Eliminated players are not allowed to give any equipment or supplies to any other player, but may quietly leave equipment lying where they were eliminated.
Hits to a player’s gun do not down a player; however, they do damage that weapon. The gun is unusable until it has been “repaired” at the Freefall Trading Post.
Airsoft is a game of HONOR and Sportsmanship. ALL players strive to exemplify fair play and call their hits, regardless of circumstance. In situations where a player isn’t sure, you should give your opponent the benefit of the doubt and simply call yourself down. You should not have to wait long to get back into the game if you are downed, so please call your hits!

Cheating will not be tolerated in any form by any player. If you are caught cheating you will be ejected from the event, asked to leave and you will NOT get a refund. Period.

15. MEDIPAKS & BODY ARMOR. Any player with an unopened Medipak may revive any other downed player, regardless of team affiliation. To revive a downed player, a live player must open a Medipak and place it in the downed player’s hand. The downed player revives, reads the Wound Number printed inside the Medipak, and immediately begins to roleplay the severity of his current wounds. The Wound Number value of each Medipak can vary from 1 to 5, 1 being the lightest wound and 5 being a near-fatal wound. Wound Numbers are cumulative. A player must carry every opened Medipak that has been used to revive him/her, adding up their Wound Number total and roleplaying the appropriate level of injury until treated by the Alliance Medic or the Town Doctor. A player who reaches a Wound Number value of 6 or more dies immediately, and their corpse must be “carried” to the Town Shepherd for a decent burial before he/she can revive and re-enter the game. The Medic can “heal” (remove) one opened Medipak at a time anywhere in the field by replacing it with a Medic’s Field Dressing Card. A player may only bear one opened field Dressing Card at a time - a player who is already using a field Dressing Card cannot be given another one by the Medic. Only the Doctor can “heal” (remove) all of a player’s opened Medipak wounds and Field Dressing at once by doing surgery on the wounded player at his MedCenter in the Trading Post.
One opened Medipak – Light Wound. You may only fire a weapon on semi-automatic, and must roleplay the appropriate injured location (fractured rib, bad shoulder, sore leg, etc.)
Two opened Medipaks – Moderate Wound. You may only shoot a pistol or similar light sidearm. You must roleplay the loss of function of the one most appropriate limb. You are downed automatically in a Brawl.
Three opened Medipaks – Serious Wound. You may not fire any weapon. You must roleplay the inability to stand up on your own, but may crawl unassisted.
Four opened Medipaks – Severe Wound. You may not fire any weapon. You must roleplay the inability to move under your own power.
Five opened Medipaks – Critical Wound. You may not fire any weapon. You must roleplay complete unconsciousness, with the occasional optional seizure for additional drama.
Six opened Medipaks – Corpse. You are dead, dead, dead. Hit the ground and stop twitching. Hope someone will carry your corpse to the Town Shepherd and Undertaker, Reverend Barium, before it starts stinkin’ up the place. Once your corpse has been given a proper funeral, you may revive and reenter the game as a new character.
Body armor subtracts from a player’s Medipak Wound Number total. A player may wear either light body armor or heavy body armor, but not both at the same time. A helmet may be worn with or without body armor. Body armor and helmets must be submitted for rating by the Event Organizer before they can be used in the game. The Event Organizer will give you Armor Cards totaling the value of the armor you wear. Light body armor subtracts 1, heavy body armor subtracts 2, and a helmet subtracts an additional 1 from a player’s Wound Number total.
A downed or Severely/Critically Wounded player who has been abandoned may radio or call for a Referee after ten minutes. If a Referee does not respond, the player has the choice of remaining where he or she is, or Leaving Play to seek the Event Organizer. (See: 20. LEAVING PLAY)
16. BRAWLING, CAPTURE, & CARRYING WOUNDED. Unlike shooting, which is only allowed in the Free-fire Area, Brawling is game-legal in both the Free-fire Area and the Safe Area (although the Sheriff takes a VERY dim view of brawling near the Trading Post!) A player may be temporarily Knocked Out by brawling. Being Knocked Out is exactly like being downed with a rubber knife, except that anyone can revive a Knocked Out player by telling them to “WAKE UP!’ A player does NOT display his or her red Kill Rag when Knocked Out. There are no Wound Numbers inflicted by Brawling, so a Medipak is not required to revive a Knocked Out player.
A brawl between players is simulated by a vigorous round of “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” The challenger approaches within striking distance of his or her chosen opponent brandishing a closed fist and shouting “Brawl!” If the defender cannot or does not immediately close his or her fist in response and begin the “Rock, Paper, Scissors” three-count, the defender is automatically Knocked Out by the challenger; if the defender “fights back,” the winner of the “Rock, Paper, Scissors” round is considered to have landed a good punch, and the loser must immediately collapse as if unconscious. In case of a tie, the brawlers have the choice to do another round, or to stop brawling.
Two or more challengers may “gang up” on a single defender in a brawl, as long as every challenger in that brawl does “Rock, Paper, Scissors” at the same time; this way, it is possible that the defender might be able to Knock Out one or more of the challengers before being Knocked Out him- or herself.
Armor does not prevent being Knocked Out. The Alliance Stunner weapon automatically Knocks Out any player its Nerf projectile strikes. Stunners do no damage to weapons or equipment.
A Knocked Out player who has been abandoned may revive on his or her own after ten minutes.
A player is considered captured and restrained (if conscious,) or carried (if unconscious,) when two other players stand on either side of that player and each places a hand on that player’s shoulders. A player who is revived while being carried is automatically restrained. A conscious player has the choice of surrendering and submitting to capture, or immediately challenging his or her would-be restrainers to a brawl, in hopes of knocking at least one of them out. CARRYING OR RESTRAINING ANOTHER PLAYER ALWAYS REQUIRES TWO OTHER PLAYERS.
17. GAME MONEY & LOOTING. A player who is downed, Knocked Out, severely wounded, restrained, or otherwise incapacitated may be looted by another player. A looting player holds out his or her open hand, palm up, and says, “Looting!” The looting victim MUST hand over any and all game cash, props or equipment in his or her possession to the looter. Only game money and game props/equipment supplied by the Event Organizer can be looted in this manner. Personal property and/or personal weapons may not be demanded or taken.
Game money can be used to hire mercenaries, pay debts, and purchase information and items of value within the game. The three types of currency in use on Ataraxia are: the Ataraxian Dollar (small bills usually only accepted by residents of Ataraxia,) the Alliance Credit (large, colored bills accepted anywhere there is a strong Alliance presence at a rate of 25 Ataraxian Dollars per Alliance Credit,) and the Platinum Coin (a Chinese-style coin worth 10 Ataraxian Dollars apiece and accepted anywhere in the Verse.)
18. SNIPERS. Sniper weapons must be single or bolt action rifles (gas or spring). NO SEMI-AUTOMATIC or FULL AUTO Sniper guns are allowed.
Minimum Engagement Distance of 100 feet from your position.

A Sniper rifle must fire between 400 FPS and 500 FPS with .20 BBs.

All snipers must have a spotter. If the spotter is eliminated, the sniper can only continue using his sidearm or AEG.

The sniper’s sidearm must be a standard-class pistol or AEG firing under 400 FPS. This weapon must be used whenever your opponent is less than 100 feet from your position.

The Event Organizer and Referees are the authorities in determining weapon eligibility. Their decisions are final.
19. MOTORIZED VEHICLES & RPGs. Automobile-based vehicles are confined to roads and parking areas. ATV-based vehicles may travel off-road. All vehicles are limited to speeds under 5mph while on the field of play. Players on foot must stay at least fifteen feet away from a moving vehicle, unless they are members of the vehicle’s crew. Players on foot may approach a stationary vehicle with the driver’s permission.
Gas-powered “RPGs” firing 2-inch diameter closed-cell foam (Nerf) rockets are used to simulate shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons. ONLY THOSE RPGs PERSONALLY APPROVED BY THE EVENT ORGANIZER MAY BE USED IN THE GAME. A hit by a rocket anywhere on a vehicle disables that vehicle and downs all that vehicle’s occupants. A disabled vehicle must stop immediately, turn off its engine, and display a red flag to indicate its damaged status.
RPGs may be used to disable landed spacecraft in the same manner, except that the occupants of the spacecraft are NOT downed by an RPG hit (the spacecraft’s containment shielding will protect anyone onboard from blast damage.)
A disabled vehicle or spacecraft may be repaired by an Engineer.
An RPG hit to the side of a building or tent downs all the occupants of that building or tent.
20. LEAVING PLAY. If a player chooses to quit the game for any reason, he or she should don a Kill Rag and clear his or her weapon before leaving the field. Players are requested to inform a Referee or the Event Organizer that they have left the game before departing from Airsoft Battle Zone. PLEASE NOTE: Leaving the field in this way will withdraw you from the game, and, depending on circumstances, you may or may not be allowed to rejoin the game later. If you Left Play as a result of being downed or Severely/Critically Wounded and abandoned, the Event Organizer will probably declare your character dead and allow you to re-enter play as a new character (a vengeful sibling of the dearly departed, perhaps….)
If the player merely needs a break from play in the Free-fire Area, he or she is encouraged to make their way to the Safe Area around the Trading Post, but remain in character and in the game. Oftentimes, valuable information can be gathered in the Safe Area.
21. NIGHT GAME RULES. All weapons rules apply, including the 15-foot “Bang!” rule and the “knife kill from behind.” There is no Brawling or Looting allowed during the Night Game. Sniper weapons and RPGs are not allowed. Only Reavers are allowed to Capture. Vehicles are not allowed.
There are no Wound or Medic Rules for the Night Game; a player who is hit anywhere on his or her gun or person is immediately eliminated and must return to the team reinsertion point before re-entering the game.
A player who is hit during the Night Game must display a BLINKING white or red light to indicate their elimination. LEDs or flashlights that can be made to blink are acceptable for this purpose.

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Tuesday, July 24, 2007 2:37 PM

GRIZWALD


Have a great time, everybody! It sounds like wonderful fun.

___________________________________________________
High Priestess of Pork and Ag-Related Activities of the MYTHICAL LAND OF IOWA



Click on my profile for my Annoyingly Long List of Firefly Links.

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Thursday, July 26, 2007 3:20 AM

DUELIST


Thanks, Grizwald! Wish you could join us. Miramel, you out there? Think you can make it? Kerrick should have event pics up in a week or so.

Anyway, preregistration for Freefall ends at midnight tonight, so save yourself a few bucks today if you are tempted to join us. You can also register at the gate the day of for just a little bit more. The weather looks like it's going to be perfect, light clouds with temps in the low 80s and low humidity during the day, and clear with a full moon at night - perfect Reaver weather.

Hope to see you this weekend!

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Monday, July 30, 2007 7:04 PM

DUELIST


For anyone who's interested, we have an after-action discussion of the game (with pics starting to trickle in) going at:

http://wiairsoft.com/forums/showthread.php?p=59236&posted=1#post59236

I've posted all the character sheets there as well.

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Monday, July 30, 2007 8:43 PM

LOSTEARTHMOTHER


Alas, the site appears to be inaccessable to me.

"IP address banned".

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Tuesday, July 31, 2007 1:50 AM

DUELIST


LostEarthMother, here you go - the character sheets. (It's kinda a long post, hope I'm not violating any rules by posting here instead in the Blue Sun Room....)

Anyway, the characters:

After Action Report Introduction: Freefall, 28-29 July, 2007

‘The captain of the Waxwing was nervous as his Angel Class C Light Transport settled into a berth next to the Freefall Trading Post on the Border Moon Ataraxiain the early morning hours of 28 July planetside. He had a holdful of guns to be smuggled past the Magistrate’s prods, and an Alliance dropship following him in on the glide-path down to the mining town of Freefall from high orbit, and not cargo nor passengers booked for the return trip to the Core Planets. To add to the uncomfortableness, he’d just received a wave from his contact on the ground tellin’ him that the miner’s revolt had spread to Freefall Mine as well, which meant that his quiet little gunrunning spot was bound to be crawlin’ with lawmen lookin’ for Browncoat Resisters, and mercenaries nosing around for easy pickin’s. “Captain,” said Crash, the pilot, over the pop and creak of the shutdown atmo turbofans cooling, “You might want to take a look out the window. I think we have company.” The Captain stepped up to the cockpit glass and looked down. Three heavily-armed thugs stood in the glare of the Waxwing’s landing lights. “Hope they brought their jimmies,” said the Captain, “’cause we ain’t open for business ‘til sunup. You don’t crack the seals for no one ‘til I give the word, you hear me?” Crash nodded, looking a little spooked; this was his first run to Freefall. The Captain said, “Good. I’ll be in my bunk.” “Oh, yeah,” he thought to himself as he made his way aft to the engine room to round up his wife, “Yeah, this is gonna be just Shiny….” ’

Ladies, Gentlemen, and Others, you all are gonna have to help me out here. So much went on at this game that there is no way I could report on it all by my lonesome. So here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m posting here all the character sheets I issued to various players and NPCs, and I’m gonna ask you all to write a reply in character summarizing your activities over the fateful weekend of July 28-29 in the town of Freefall on the Border Moon Ataraxia.

Kerrick, you already sent me your Alliance report, and I ask you to post it here. To the rest of you Freefallers, I’m as eager as everyone else to hear the stories, so get writing!


Next post: The character sheets!

Sheriff - Jason Doerr
Trading Post Proprietor - Judy Doerr
You are the Sheriff of the mining port town of Freefall, on the Border Moon Ataraxia. You came here as a colonist with your wife, the Trading Post Proprietor, from your homeworld of Bellerophon almost eleven years ago. After a heartbreaking go as a farmsteader, you sold your stake and moved into town to set up shop. It was a good move. Freefall is one of the few places on Ataraxia that the Magistrate doesn’t own outright, and you were soon elected Sheriff by the townspeople.
Most of your town’s residents either work in the mine or cater to the miners’ needs. You feel for these indentured drudges; the Magistrate treats them as little more than slaves. When the Magistrate’s wife, Lady Syra was alive, she would sometimes visit and help lighten the miners’ burdens. She’d see to it that the worse neglects were addressed, anyway. Since her death during a tour of Freefall Mine, however, things have slid downhill so badly that some of the miners have actually taken up arms in revolt. That one’s always been a dangerous mine, but the last straw for them was the big cave-in of the Freefall Minehead which killed almost an entire shift of miners.
You see your town as a haven from the depredations of the Magistrate and his kind, but you are also pragmatic enough to understand that you must at least appear to cooperate with the powers that be. You have an uneasy truce with the Local Crime Boss, a ruthless young gangleader from Ataraxia’s capital city who controls shipping for the Magistrate and shakes down locals for protection money. You would dearly love to put her away, but as long as the Magistrate sits on the bench on Ataraxia, you know you have no chance of convicting her of anything.
The recently-arrived Feds might be able to bring her down, although as a former Independence sympathizer the idea of taking orders from a Purplebelly sorta sticks in your craw. But facts are facts, and an Alliance dropship just touched down west of town, so they’ll be bossing everybody around soon enough.
Mostly, you just try to keep the peace in the Safe Area around Freefall Trading Post, keep supplies rolling into the Trading Post and the drums of titanium dioxide powder rolling onboard transport ships (when the mine’s running, that is,) and try to keep the local folks from coming to harm. You don’t much care what happens to the mercenaries and other thugs who drift in and out of port, as long as they don’t mess with the locals. A transport, the Waxwing, just docked last night. Hopefully, it's bringing supplies, not trouble....

Doctor NPC - Ryan Peterson
You are the only doctor within 600 miles of Freefall. You came to Ataraxia from your homeworld of Londinum on a government grant program – the Alliance Terraforming & Colonization Commission paid for your medical education in exchange for a six-year stint as a doctor on a colony moon. When you arrived, you spent the last of your travel money in the Alliance duty-free shop in the capital city on a tiny piece of ataraxite, the moon’s famous gemstone. You sent it to your mother with a note saying how it reminded you of how Ataraxia looked from space, a lovely little green and gold gem in the blackness of the ‘Verse.
You wish you had it to do over again. Ataraxia is a terrible place, run by a tyrannical Magistrate and subject to random Reaver attacks. The only hope for its future lies with the freeholders who seek to establish farms and ranches in the Back, since the miners are virtual slaves of the Magistrate. But there have been more deaths than births lately, since neither the Magistrate nor the Feds seem too interested in stopping the damned Reaver raids. To make matters worse, some of the more violent elements among the miners (ex-Independence agitators, most likely) have recently taken up arms against the Magistrates hired goons, as if the mining accidents haven’t been danger enough for them. You’ve been busy plugging up the holes they like to put in each other ever since.
The Sheriff does what he can inside his little Safe Area around the Trading Post (or, to tell the truth, what the Magistrate and Local Crime Boss will let him.) True, you’re making a little money for the first time since you landed here over three years ago; but you dream of a nice quiet residency in a clean modern Core hospital or Alliance MedStation, instead of stitching smelly thugs back together in the side room of a dusty colonial Trading Post. You’ve just heard that the Feds have landed west of town; you don’t know if this will mean more carnage or less, but you aren’t optimistic. You’ve noticed that everybody tends to be a little less civilized out this way, even the Alliance personnel. Oh, well, two years, eight months, one week, five days, and twelve hours to go and you can pack your MedKit and leave. Not that you’re counting….

Longshoreman NPC - Alex Tanner
You work out of the Freefall warehouse, loading and unloading transport ships, delivering goods to their purchasers, and collecting kickbacks for your boss. You work for the Local Crime Boss, who prides herself in getting a piece of every bit of traffic into or out of Freefall.
You grew up on a farmstead east of Freefall, and were among the first generation of colonists’ children born on Ataraxia. You are also a Browncoat sympathizer whose father and uncle died fighting the Purplebellies, and whose mother was lost to Reavers many years ago. You were too young to enlist before the War ended. Left without a family, and with a deep hatred of Alliance authority, you drifted into a life of petty crime in the port town of Freefall before being recruited into the Crime Boss’ gang.
The transport ship Waxwing docked last night with a cargo of supplies for the Trading Post. Hidden among those supplies is a shipment of arms and MediPaks for the miners’ revolt, which you will be expected to conceal in the warehouse until it’s time to sneak them past the Feds. The Boss will let you know when it’s time. In the meantime, keep your eyes and ears open….

Shepherd NPC - Angie Zabrowski
You are an ordained Evangelical Christian Missionary posted by your order to minister to the colonists of the Border Moon Ataraxia. You have lived on Ataraxia for three years now, and in that time have found justice and mercy and forgiveness to be in mighty short supply. To make ends meet, you have set up as undertaker in the little mining port town of Freefall - it’s about the only place on the moon where the Magistrate of Ataraxia doesn’t call all the shots. He is not a godly man. Most of the area’s residents are indentured miners, little better than slaves in the eyes of the Magistrate, but there are a few freeholders who are trying to make a go of it as farmers out in the Back. Problem is, an isolated colonist never knows when Reavers might just drop in uninvited. Reavers must be demons, no human soul could do unto others as they do.
When you first came here, you were full of the Spirit, so sure you had the answers folk needed to hear; now, you’re not even sure you were asking the right questions. You’ve buried a lot of good folk in the past three years, and it looks like more will be coming soon now that the miner’s strike has turned violent. Since the Freefall Mine collapsed and the surviving miners took up arms, mercenary thugs have poured into Freefall looking for easy pickings in the mayhem. The Sheriff seems a good man, but this uprising thing is bigger than any one man can manage to keep from spilling into town. Hopefully, the Alliance troopers who recently touched down west of Freefall will be able to settle things down. In your sideline profession, there’s such a thing as having business be TOO good. You’d much rather save souls than plant ‘em.

Local Crime Boss - Felicia Doerr
You are the ambitious young gangleader of the crime ring that controls shipping into and out of Freefall, a tiny mining port town on the Border Moon Ataraxia. Hey, it’s not much now, maybe, but it’s yours and you intend to make the most of it. The famous Adelei Niska started with even less, and look at him now, his own shiny space station and a private army of thugs. Some guys have it all. And you want every penny of it for yourself.
You were born to some comfort woman slave-girl in Ataraxia’s capital city and abandoned on the doctor’s table; no one even knows her name. An elderly preacherwoman, Shepherd Zill, took you in, but she died of heart failure when you were eight and you’ve been on your own ever since. You hitched a ride to Freefall with a mercenary you were sleeping with when you were sixteen. He had come out to the boonies because he’d heard the Magistrate was hiring prods to help keep the miners down. He lasted about six months, when he got paid his back wages and you saw your opportunity. You had noticed a power vacuum in the way shipping was handled, so you used Loverboy’s former money to hire a couple of thugs of your very own and moved into the warehouse. You’ve been running the show here in Freefall ever since. You and the Magistrate have an understanding: he leaves you alone and you don’t make any more trouble for him. Your hired thugs can watch over the town just as easy as his hired thugs can.
In fact, you and the Magistrate had a much bigger deal going before this whole “revolt” bull**** blew up. Seems the Old Boy’s miner-slaves hit a vein of the rare gemstone ataraxite in Freefall Mine about eighteen months back. Now, since ataraxite is a byproduct of Alliance terraforming, the Feds figure they own all the ataraxite on the planet and will immediately take over any mine that contains it. This strikes you as an unbusinesslike attitude on their part, but it does create an opportunity for an entrepreneur such as yourself. The Magistrate had a large quantity of an extremely valuable mineral in the ground that he needed to arrange to ship off-world real quiet-like; you have the connections to get it to where it will fetch the highest prices.
Hell, you even brought in a couple of smuggling specialists from off-world to get a network established, all set to go. As a security measure, the Magistrate had arranged for the miners who found the vein to have a tragic accident so he had an excuse to seal off that chamber temporarily, but then the Magistrate’s bleedin’ heart bitch of a wife started nosing around Freefall Mine. She was babbling about “mine safety,” but you can smell a snitch. Fancy nose-in-the-air posey like her, Lady Syra your pigu, that bitch had Fed Agent written all over her. So you had Ol’ Lotus Lady whacked right in the mine, all neat and quick and clean and quietlike, and not even the Magistrate to know it was a hit. He had a thing for the bitch, though you couldn’t really see it yourself. She looked high-maintenance, bad for business.
Anyway, Boo-Hoo the Witch is Dead, a lovely funeral and such, everything’s all lined up ready to go, when the gorram mine has to go and collapse on the rest of the gorram miners’ heads. Gos se mine-slaves, you just can’t get good help nowadays. Now it’s all calamity and uproar, what with the miners shooting at the Magistrate’s prods, and the Feds dumping down on top of us with their sticky-beak Inspector, and a fresh load of guns just in on the transport ship Waxwing that need to be smuggled out to the revolting miners. Even the Sheriff has been nosing lately, and he usually knows better. The boys may have to have a friendly chat with the local constabulary.
But, now here’s the really interesting thing: them revolting miners, they’ve been paying for their repeaters and MedPaks not with cash nor coin, but with GEMS. Gold ateraxite, and sometimes even the super-rare white ateraxite – one gemstone of that white ateraxite is worth two thousand Alliance Credits on the streets of Sihnon, while each gold one’s worth a good five hundred Credits to any fence anywhere in the Core.
So you’re thinking, maybe those mine-boys aren’t as dumb as they look, maybe; you’re thinking that maybe they know a back way into that mine, maybe even one that the Magistrate doesn’t know about. Now, good business is all about cutting out the middleman and passing the savings on to, well, you. And right now, it looks like the Magistrate is in the middle between the Feds and the miners. Bad place to be, for him anyway.
But hey, business is business. You don’t see anything wrong with making a tidy profit while he twists. In fact, a real genius, a Niska, would make it look like HE was the one what had his bitch whacked, and get him out of the way for good and all….

Crime Boss' Thugs – Names? Names?! We don't need no Stinkin' Names!!
You two are the Local Crime Boss’ hired muscle. You work as a team, usually. “Accidental” deaths are your specialty, but you also go in for arson and extortion, whatever pays the bills. You grew up together in the alleys of Eavestown on Persephone, doing odd wet jobs for even odder Bosses. You flew into the little port town of Freefall on the moon Ataraxia on the local freighter run about eighteen months ago. You heard the Crime Boss needed a really high-class “accident” and she was willing to pay. Turns out it was some hoity-toity Mansion-Hag needed to meet her destiny, the Magistrate’s wife lady Syra no less. It wasn’t nothing to get her, she kept going down into the unstable Freefall Mine. All it took was to hand her a mining hat with a Grizwald rigged inside on a light sensor – them rich bitches never think to look into something before they put it on. Soon as she’s in complete dark, Pop Goes the Grizzly and she’s the latest victim of that unsafe Freefall Mine, with a pile of fresh mine slag where her head used to be, just waitin’ for the lights to come up.
You two are right proud of that hit, actually, got the idea from an old Purplebelly trick during the War. But of course, mum’s the word. The Boss was so impressed, she put you both on salary. It’s nice to feel appreciated, like you belong….

Indentured Miner – Freefall Mine
You are an indentured miner on strike, assigned to a work crew in Freefall Mine on the Border Moon Ataraxia. . Like virtually all of your fellow miners, you were enticed to Ataraxia after your release from the Alliance Resocialization Center on Osiris. Like your fellows, you discovered that conditions on Ataraxia were far worse than you had been told when you signed the “Terms of Transport & Indenture.” Unfortunately, you are all indentured to the Magistrate of Ataraxia, who also happens to be the only judicial representative on the planet with the authority to hear your case. Direct appeals to Alliance officials off-world have fallen on deaf ears – the Magistrate is an extremely influential man. You personally have eight years left on a ten-year indenture, or you have the option of buying back your indenture for the sum of two thousand Alliance Credits – if the Magistrate agrees to accept the buy-back, that is. Under Alliance law, he cannot refuse, but on Ataraxia, the Magistrate IS the Law.
You were part of the work crew that gave a guided tour of Freefall Mine to Lady Syra, the Magistrate of Ataraxia’s wife, about three weeks ago. She died in the mine during the tour, and you fled to avoid being blamed. Folks later said it was just an accident. Now, that’s a dangerous mine, no two ways about it, but you kinda think something more sinister happened to her.
The day of the tour, there were a couple of workers you’d never seen before in the tour-guide crew. When one of them handed Lady Syra a hard-hat to wear, you coulda sworn you saw something taped inside at the back as she lifted it to put it on. You didn’t think nothin’ of it at the time, but later, down in the mine…. Anyway, you all are down in the third chamber entrance, that one’s new and it’s pretty rough, when the lights go out – no big deal, happens all the time in that old mine. As soon as it gets dark, there’s a POP! sound. We all switches our helmet lights on, and there’s Lady Syra on the floor, the back of her skull caved in, rubble everywhere, and her hard-hat lying about three meters away. We checked her pulse, she was dead. Well, we all panicked and got the Hell outta there, you know what would happen to us if the Magistrate got ahold of us. We ran away into the Back, and was found by some of them Bronwcoat Resisters comin’ to seize the Freefall Mineheads. Well, that sounded better than starvin’, so we all joined up for the fight. We’re good as dead anyway, if the Magistrate ever finds out we was there….

Strike Leader - Jordan Heckman
You are the elected leader of the Brotherhood of Indentured Mine Workers on the Border Moon Ataraxia. You have come to Freefall to act as spokesman for the striking miners of Freefall Mine; conduct negotiations with the Magistrate and Alliance representatives; and secretly direct the guerilla activities of the militant wing of the Brotherhood, the armed group nicknamed the “Browncoat Resistance.”
You are a former brevet captain of the 45th Independent Brigade. You were an intelligence officer during the War, captured as a POW during the final weeks before the surrender of the Independence. Like virtually all of your fellow miners, you were enticed to Ataraxia after your release from the Alliance Resocialization Center on Osiris. Like your fellows, you discovered that conditions on Ataraxia were far worse than you had been told when you signed the “Terms of Transport & Indenture.” Unfortunately, you are all indentured to the Magistrate of Ataraxia, who also happens to be the only judicial representative on the planet with the authority to hear your case. Direct appeals to Alliance officials off-world have fallen on deaf ears – the Magistrate is an extremely influential man. You personally have eight years left on a ten-year indenture, or you have the option of buying back your indenture for the sum of two thousand Alliance Credits – if the Magistrate agrees to accept the buy-back, that is. Under Alliance law, he cannot refuse, but on Ataraxia, the Magistrate IS the Law.
You used the collapse of Freefall Mine to whip up a frenzy of anger among members of the Brotherhood, in order to start the Browncoat Resistance and thereby gain some leverage. Your hopes were to seize or sabotage as many mineheads as possible – the Alliance is bound to sit up and take notice once the titanium ore stops flowing. With the Feds looking over his shoulder, the Magistrate would have no choice but to negotiate. So far, your plan has worked. Dropships filled with Federal troops have been landing by the contested mineheads all over the planet. You hope that they are here to talk, not fight, but you are prepared to resist if the Feds try to take the mineheads away from you by force. Your position is that the Resistance will not surrender a single minehead they hold until the Magistrate agrees to accept the buy-back of any indentured worker on Ataraxia, and further agrees to the re-negotiation of the Terms of Indenture for those remaining.
The Brotherhood has been secretly (and illegally) stockpiling ataraxite, a rare gemstone, in order to fund the resistance and eventually buy back the freedom of its members. Ataraxite’s only known source is the planet Ataraxia; since ataraxite is a byproduct of Alliance terraforming, the Feds figure they own all the ataraxite on the planet and will immediately confiscate undocumented stockpiles and take over any mine that contains it. For these reasons, gold ataraxite is worth around 500 Credits per gem on the black markets of the Core, while the ultra-rare white ataraxite is worth 2,000 Credits or more per gem. The trick, of course, is getting the gems to market. You have been dealing with the Local Crime Boss to obtain arms and MedPaks for the Resistance. She is a vicious and greedy snake, but she does have connections and has always been willing to deal. She has accepted gems as payment in the past. Perhaps she could help you convert your ataraxite stockpile to cash (if she doesn’t kill you for it first.)
This is your secret weapon against the Magistrate: you happen to know from survivors of the Freefall Mine collapse that Freefall Mine contains the richest vein of ataraxite even discovered. The Magistrate is bound to know about the vein, but you can bet your pigu that he has somehow “forgotten” to report this fact to the Alliance Terraforming Commission. The trick is how to let him know that YOU know, without getting bumped off by his hired assassins OR spilling the beans to the Feds. The entire game is up if the Feds find out what Freefall Mine really contains.
The other option is for the Brotherhood to neutralize the Magistrate somehow and assume control of Freefall Mine itself, again without the Feds discovering about the vein of ataraxite.

Browncoat Resister - Traveling Incognito
You are a fighter in the Browncoat Resistance, the militant guerilla wing of the United Brotherhood of Indentured Mineworkers on the Border Moon Ataraxia. You and your brethren have seized the two mineheads west of the port town of Freefall and intend to hold them to the last man. Your only hope for better treatment at the hands of the Magistrate of Ataraxia is to cut off supplies of titanium ore until he comes to the negotiation table.
You are a former infantryman of the 45th Independent Brigade. You, along with the rest of your unit, were captured as POWs during the final weeks before the surrender of the Independence. Like virtually all of your fellow miners, you were enticed to Ataraxia after your release from the Alliance Resocialization Center on Osiris. Like your fellows, you discovered that conditions on Ataraxia were far worse than you had been told when you signed the “Terms of Transport & Indenture.” Unfortunately, you are all indentured to the Magistrate of Ataraxia, who also happens to be the only judicial representative on the planet with the authority to hear your case. Direct appeals to Alliance officials off-world have fallen on deaf ears – the Magistrate is an extremely influential man. You personally have eight years left on a ten-year indenture, or you have the option of buying back your indenture for the sum of two thousand Alliance Credits – if the Magistrate agrees to accept the buy-back, that is. Under Alliance law, he cannot refuse, but on Ataraxia, the Magistrate IS the Law.
Your group crushed the prods the Magistrate sent to drive you off; you were better equipped than they expected. Now, your Strike Leader tells you that the Magistrate is coming personally with his armored skiff, and that Federal troops are landing all over the planet – is it Serenity Valley all over again?

Magistrate - Michael Hickey
You are the Magistrate of Ataraxia. You were born and raised on Londinum into a family of minor nobility, and have spent decades rising to your current position as the virtual ruler of a recently colonized Border Moon. You wooed and married the extraordinary Lotus Companion Lady Syra, and she greatly aided you in your rise to power until her life was snuffed out in an alleged accident in Freefall Mine. Her death has shaken you like no other event; you do not think you realized how profoundly you loved your wife until she was taken from you. She bore you a daughter, a headstrong and willful creature who is as unlike her subtle and discreet mother as it is possible to be and still qualify for Companion training. Her only grace in your eyes is that she looks much like her mother. Your daughter went off to school when she was twelve, and you have seen little of her until her return to Ataraxia two weeks ago to attend her mother’s funeral. She has proven as stubborn and intractable as you remember her to be. If only she had been a boy - you deserve a son who could rule with you, not a devious harpy in silk robes, as your heir.
You are simultaneously the chief executive, the largest landowner, and the supreme judge on Ataraxia. You hold exclusive mineral extraction rights to the entire moon - with the exception, of course, of the rare gemstone ataraxite, all veins of which belong to the Alliance since the gem is a byproduct of the Alliance’s terraforming efforts. All this basically means that, as far as Ataraxia’s colonists are concerned, you ARE The Law. This also means that you have made many enemies, and must be on your guard at all times. You have always been an ambitious, perhaps visionary man.
Now you find yourself at Freefall again, that canker of a town, that pimple on your pigu. Freefall is just that, a free port – you do not own the port or the part of the town that the locals call the Safe Area. It is the one place on Ataraxia where you might be subject to the jurisdiction of another official, the local Sheriff; fortunately for him, he is not a fool and has always remembered his place. For the town’s sake, it had better stay this way. Your official line is that you have come to Freefall to put down the a particularly vicious cell of the Browncoat Resistance and re-open the mineheads that have been seized by these outlaws, to restore law and order. You have, however, two other reasons for personally attending to this particular mine uprising.
First, your gut tells you that your wife’s death was no accident. The collapse of the Freefall Mine entrance means that any physical evidence has been destroyed, but you are still interested in blaming someone. You suspect that Browncoat bastard, the Strike Leader, arranged her “accident,” as just one more piece of his agitation and rabble-rousing. Lady Syra was always inexplicably kind-hearted towards the Browncoat scum that you generously offered to employ as indentured workers when no one else would have them. Whenever any of them were killed, due to their own shoddy workmanship usually, she would go to their aid. You imagine that her death might have been used by the Strike Leader to further stir the malcontents to take up arms. You wouldn’t mind an opportunity to interrogate a Browncoat captive or two.
Secondly, and more critically, you have just been told that a dropship loaded with Federal troops and, worse yet, a Terraforming Inspector has just touched down west of Freefall with orders to investigate the Freefall Mine collapse. Normally, you would welcome such help in suppressing the rabble. The problem is that, a few months before the collapse of the mine entrance, an incredibly rich vein of ataraxite was discovered in Freefall Mine. After you disposed of the work-crew of indentured scum who struck the vein and might be inclined to blab about it, and had that chamber temporarily sealed off, you contacted the Local Crime Boss whom you allow to control shipping into and out of Freefall. Your thought was to arrange for the discreet shipment of the ataraxite from Freefall Mine to the worlds of the Core, where you are told that it would bring a fantastic sum on their black market. The money from such a deal would allow you to finally and completely consolidate your hold on this moon, and perhaps reach out to another.
Just as the deal was about to go down two weeks ago, the Freefall Mine entrance collapsed, prompting the Alliance Terraforming Commission to take an interest in the stability of Ataraxia’s substrate. It is imperative that this flunkie Terraforming Inspector not be allowed to discover or report the existence of that vein of ataraxite in your mine, or the consequences for your future could be quite dire indeed.

Magistrate’s Bodyguard - Troy Buddenhagen, Jared Buddenhagen, Natasha

Magistrate’s Daughter NPC - Ricki Millevolte
You are a Companion-in-training in House Lotus, one of the Core’s most respected Registered Companion Houses and your mother’s former House. You have lived and studied in the Companion Training House on the Core world Osiris since you were twelve years old. While your mother, the beautiful Syra, visited you often, your father, the Magistrate of your birthplanet Ataraxia, has never set foot in the place. Suddenly, just two weeks ago, you found yourself weeping over your mother’s grave, standing next to a father you hardly know on a brutal little moon you have come to despise. You are not even sure you want to know the Magistrate better – in his affairs, he is as vicious and money-grubbing as rest of this moon he calls home, even as he is gentle towards you and your entourage. The very night of the funeral, he tried to give you your mother’s ataraxite necklace, an almost priceless possession, but you could not bear the thought and this upset him. What are the cold gemstones of this harsh rock compared to the warmth of your mother’s smile? Your mother seemed to love him, she gave up her glamorous career as a registered Lotus Companion to marry him, but you can’t for the life of you understand why. All he seems to care about is lording it over the poor desperate souls he has lured to Ataraxia to enslave. He rants whenever you ask questions about the details of your mother’s death, ridiculously blaming her demise on the rebellious indentured miners he has mistreated until they could stand it no longer, but you are certain that he is hiding something behind all the bluster. And you are going to find out what it is.
Your mentor, and your favorite House Bodyguard, both generously agreed to accompany you on this unpleasant journey. Your mentor was apprenticed to your mother at one time, just as you are to her now. If it had not been for this interruption in your training, you might have stood for full Guild Registration within the year, but now? Now, it seems more and more important to you to find out about this world your mother chose to call home, especially to find out why it killed her. Who could strike down a Lotus Flower as lovely and wise as Syra? What use is Companion training if one is still vulnerable to brutality? Above all, WHY did she have to die? Who stood to gain from her death, or lose if she lived?
Your mentor wants you to leave now and return to Osiris, but your friend the Bodyguard might be persuaded to help in your inquiries among the denizens of the port town Freefall. Syra visited Freefall often, to help care for indentured miners injured in the frequent mining accidents. Perhaps one of them has information you could use. As much as you loath Ataraxia, you do not want to leave it without some answers….

House Bodyguard - Matthew Kiskunas
You are a Bodyguard of House Lotus, authorized to accompany registered Companions when House duties require travel to dangerous environs. You are also often employed as a courier, and occasionally as an investigator for senior Guild members. You, and others like you, are part of the reason why House Lotus is such an influential political force behind the scenes on your homeworld Osiris and beyond. You have served House Lotus for ten years, primarily at the Companion Training House on Osiris, where you regularly shadow apprentices during training exercises outside the Training House. You were hired for primarily for your intelligence, discretion and tact; and only secondarily for your weapons skill. Your main job is to sense trouble before it happens and reshape the situation when possible; when not possible, your job is to guarantee the Companion you guard an escape route.
You have accompanied the daughter of the Magistrate of Ataraxia and her registered Lotus Companion mentor to the young woman’s homeworld, on the occasion of her mother’s funeral. Her mother, the almost legendary Lotus Companion Syra, was buried two weeks ago. The Magistrate’s daughter is convinced that her mother was murdered, and she has asked you to help her investigate the circumstances surrounding her death. While your primary duty is to get your Companion and her apprentice safely back to the Training House on Osiris, you are sympathetic to her plight and will help her – within reason, that is, and provided that these inquiries do not delay their return too long. Her mother’s death is not Guild business, since Syra had withdrawn from registered Companion status many years ago, and so you cannot really justify the allocation of House resources in its investigation past a certain point. That said, you are fond of the Magistrate’s daughter and will do what you can in the time before your entourage’s transport lifts off from this blighted moon, Ataraxia, and its squalid little port town Freefall.

Companion House Chaperon NPC - Rebecca Whitman
You are a registered Companion of House Lotus, based on the wealthy Core planet Osiris. You have traveled with your apprentice from the Companion Training House on Osiris to her original homeworld, the frontier moon Ataraxia. Knowing Ataraxia’s lawless reputation, you have persuaded a House Lotus bodyguard to accompany the two of you. Ataraxia has proven to be every bit as desolate and boorish a place as you feared it might be, its only saving grace being that it is the soul source of the coveted gemstone ataraxite. You have just come to the town of Freefall from the funeral of the Magistrate’s wife, Syra, who was your apprentice’s mother, your personal friend and one-time mentor, and also once a former Companion of your House.
Your apprentice, who has studied under your tutelage since she was 12 years old, has a difficult relationship with her father, the Magistrate. Your entourage has been staying at the Magistrate’s mansion for the past two weeks as his guests, so he is owed the courtesy due a man of his position. You must admit you consider him to be a ruthless and ambitious opportunist, intelligent but almost completely unscrupulous; however, you are also certain that his wife was one of the few people in the ‘Verse whom he truly loved and respected. Your apprentice suspects some sort of foul play in the death of her mother, and resents her father’s over-quick willingness to blame her demise on the abused and overworked miners he has virtually enslaved on this harsh moon – especially when it is well-known that Syra was outspoken in her advocacy of better treatment for Ataraxia’s indentured class.
Your apprentice is conducting an informal inquiry into her mother’s death. In your eyes, your apprentice’s zeal in personally discovering the circumstances of Syra’s death is beginning to border on obsession, and could distract her from completing her Companion training if she is not returned to Osiris as quickly as possible. After all, these sorts of things are far better handled by the sorts of rough men who are most easily managed by a skillful Companion. Has your apprentice learned nothing from you?
You have come to Freefall to find the captain and book passage on the Waxwing, because it is the transport ship scheduled to leave Ataraxia the soonest.

Smuggler Pilot - Cerys Jenks
Vendor NPC - Zach Franklin
You are two pissed-off bad guys. You and your partner, the Smuggler Pilot and the Gem Vendor, left your homeworld Sihnon almost a year ago to fly to this little turd-town Freefall on some Border Moon ball of gos se called Ataraxia, all because the Local Crime Boss said she had something big needed arranging. She even sent a couple of greenish gems along as earnest payment. Turned out they were ataraxite. Vendor almost wet his pants, the stuff’s that rare. You fenced just the two of them for almost twenty-four hundred credits - the gold’s good for about 400 to 500 per gem, while the white’ll bring 2,000 or more. Also turns out that Ataraxia is the only known source of ataraxite, but the catch is that the Feds have decreed that every last piece of it rightfully belongs to the Alliance. It’s a byproduct of terraforming, so they figure it’s theirs by rights. Well, that’s what you’re there for, isn’t it, to get around such anti-free market thinking?
So you get here, and there’s this revolt against the Magistrate going on, and the miners are all armed and belligerent-like. Who’s gonna dig these gems, you wonder?
You’ve been cooling your thrusters here, waiting for the hook-up and watching your downpayment get eaten up while the dumb-**** miners shoot holes in the dumb-**** prods and the prods return the favor, and every day it’s “Just hold on, almost in the bag,” from the Boss. She makes you two wait much longer, and it’s gonna be her HEAD in a bag when her thugs aren’t looking. You need to be shown the goods and negotiate the terms. Freefall isn’t exactly an ideal vacation spot.
Oh, and here’s the friggin’ icing. Because of the gorram miner’s revolt, an entire dropship full of Feds just dumped out west of town, damn near on top of where you hid your gorram ship. Your ship got flagged on the Fed database on your way in; turns out there’s a warrant on Persephone for the two of you. Again. You weren’t planning on going that way anyway. Problem is, with a Fed dropship that close, all antennas up and sniffin’ the wind, they’ll ID your pigu and blow it out of the sky before you fidget in your seat. Gorram Feds, what do they care if a bunch of Browncoat throwbacks decide to stage a reenactment anyway?
So, unless you can score soon and grab another ride, you’re stuck on this rock for the duration of hostilities. A transport, the Waxwing, landed last night that would do nicely if you wanted to leave in a hurry. Now all you need to do is get your hands on the Boss’ stash of gems….

Mercenary - Scott Becker
Mercenary - Robert Sautbine
Mercenary - Dave Zelm, and many more....
You are a professional soldier of fortune who drifted to the port town of Freefall on the Border Moon Ataraxia because you heard that some trouble had blown up between the Magistrate of this little dirtball and the local dinks. You don’t know that much more, and you don’t really care, you’re just looking for the next job. Whichever side pays best, that’s the side you’re on, and if something better comes along – well, like they say, in Crime and Politics, the situation is always fluid. Crime or Politics, as long as the money’s good, you’ll throw lead wherever they want it thrown. If the local action isn’t priced right, maybe there are some other jobs that could be pulled to compensate you for your time and trouble in dumping down on this heap of gos se….

Waxwing Pilot - Kenton Whitman
You are the pilot of the Class C Light Bulk Transport Waxwing. You have been with the ship for about a year and a half, hired after the demise of the previous pilot in a gambling dispute on Persephone, your homeworld. The Waxwing is your first interplanetary transport position, but you have many years’ experience as a pilot of “globehoppers,” the heavy supersonic atmospheric transport vessels used to move goods between major cities on larger planets. You were pleasantly surprised to discover how much easier interplanetary flight is, at least, that is, while you’re in the sky. You’ve discovered that there are many places in the ‘Verse that are far less friendly than Persephone, and Ataraxia is one of the nastiest. You guess what it lacks in charm, it makes up for in excitement. At least you’re getting the chance to learn how to handle a gun.
You get along well with your transport’s small crew. The engineer is clever and funny, and the First Mate has saved your pigu on more than one occasion. Your captain has proven himself to be a fair-minded and reliable man, although you sometimes wonder about his business sense. Why in the ‘Verse would anyone make regular runs out to such god-forsaken hellholes like Higgin’s Moon and Ataraxia, where the jobs often involve questionable dealings and shady characters, when there is safer, steadier, and more lucrative work to be had in the Core? Perhaps it has something to do with his time serving as a Independent’s MedShip pilot during the War. You don’t know, and he’s not inclined to discuss the matter much. So now, you’re all back on that dirtball Ataraxia again, just in time to get caught in the gos se hitting the ventilation unit. If anybody can figure out how to turn a buck on this blow-up, however, it’s your captain.
All in all, you’re happy with the Waxwing for the time being. You don’t really care what the jobs are, as long as none of them cost you your license and you get paid your percentage on time (which is 10% of the net take, BTW.) Someday soon, you’ll have enough interplanetary experience to hire onboard a heavy transport and make some REAL money….

Waxwing Captain - Dan Zabrowski
You are the captain and owner of the Angel Class C Light Bulk Interplanetary Transport Ship Waxwing. The Waxwing is a converted combat MedEvac ship once used by the Independents to lift severely wounded Browncoats off the battlefield to orbiting MedStations. You know, you were there, piloting her. The Alliance went easy on you after the surrender, mostly because of your crew’s reputation for picking up anyone who needed help regardless of the uniform they wore. You just happened to save the lives of a few influential Purplebellies, they pulled some strings once they made it back home, and you found yourself master of this former “angel of mercy.”
You and your engineer wife have both been with the ship through the War and ever since. While you two were born and grew up in the same hometown on Boros, your real home is Waxwing. The ship has been both mother and child to the two of you, a part of your family. You lost your crusty old pilot to a hit man on Persephone about 18 months back, and your First Mate suspiciously jumped ship without warning at your last port of call, but the new pilot is working out well and crew can be replaced. It doesn’t take a lot of hands to run an Angel Class C anyway.
You touched down at Freefall, a port town on the Border Moon Ataraxia, yesterday evening. You have been making regular supply runs to Ataraxia for some time now, backhauling drums of titanium dioxide to the smelters on Persephone, then finishing the run by hauling titanium parts to Osiris or Londinum. Sometimes you pick up a passenger or two, if there’s room.
You’ve been running more than titanium and tourists, however. Your wife sometimes teases you that you never really took off your angel’s wings, but just changed their color some. Your runs to places like Higgin’s Moon and Ataraxia have shown you how terrible the lives of many of the Browncoats you once struggled to save have become. Crooked Magistrates enticing and then virtually enslaving desperate, decent former Independent soldiers, it makes your blood boil – especially since the Feds seems to be turning a blind eye. What do they care in the Core as long as the ore keeps coming?
So, when a former officer of the 45th Independent Brigade approached you one hot night in Freefall and asked if you ever dealt in firearms and medical supplies, and offered to pay in the rare gem ataraxite, what choice did you have? None that you could see. Worlds should belong to them as work ‘em. People still have the right to try and live free, Alliance or no Alliance. The hardest part was when that goon caught up with you on Persephone and popped your pilot before you dropped the guy. The thug was trying for you all, lucky he was an amateur. You still don’t even know who sent him. Probably the Magistrate of Ataraxia – your hold then was full of the rifles and Medipaks that the miner’s revolt is using right now. But why not just call the Feds if he knew where you were and what you had?
The new pilot doesn’t know about your little sideline as an arms smuggler. That hit man tracking you down like that shook you – you’re not sure who you can trust anymore. Bottom line is, you need jobs to keep flyin’ so you don’t end up bankrupt and grubbin’ mud for some Magistrate like the rest of these poor Browncoat bastards. The revolt has disrupted titanium dioxide production on Ataraxia, and you are looking at the extremely unpleasant prospect of hauling all the way back to Persephone empty unless you can scrape up some paying passengers or some cargo bound offworld. What you’re gonna find in a hole like Freefall is anybody’s guess….

Engineer - Laura Oliver
You are the engineer for the Angel Class C Light Bulk Interplanetary Transport Ship Waxwing. As long as you have your toolbox and the right RepairPak, you can fix anything that’s made of metal - it’s your thing. You and your husband, the Captain, met in school on Boros and have been inseparable ever since. When he went off to help the Independents, you followed and did what you could to keep his ship safe and to staunch at least a little bit of the carnage in that stupid War. He has a noble streak that has come close to getting him killed on more than one occasion, but it’s also much of what you love about him.
You converted the Waxwing from an obsolete combat MedEvac ship to a bulk transport with your own hands. In the War, you and your then-pilot husband flew her down onto the battlefield to evacuate wounded Browncoats, and anyone else who needed help, to orbiting MedStations. Everybody who’s heard the story thinks it sounds romantic, but it was scary as hell and you hope never to go back to times like those again. You’ve patched Waxwing up more times than you can even count. You know every rivet in the ship, and have probably replaced every one as well – Waxwing has had a rough life. Waxwing is your world. She stayed with you after the War; your husband thinks it was a stroke of dumb luck that she’s still yours, but you think it was that the ship just couldn’t bear to be parted from you two – silly as that sounds, she’s your baby. She talks to you and tells you when something’s wrong, and you’ve been known to confide in her on occasion.
Angels are not as maneuverable as some ships, but they are tough and tolerant of abuse. Good thing, too, because, since the miner’s revolt on Ataraxia started, pickin’s have been slim and you’ve had to make due with worn-out parts. Your ship has been running guns and supplies for the miners right under the Magistrates nose, but the miners pay in the gem ataraxite. Since they’re probably mining the gems illegally, they have no papers, so the damn things have to be fenced on the black market before they’re worth anything to you and yours.
Things have gotten scary since the Ataraxia revolt. Some bastard killed your old pilot on Persephone; your husband thinks he was one of the Magistrate of Ataraxia’s thugs, but you think the whole attack had to do with the fact that you guys were trying to sell those damn gemstones to the kind of lowlifes who deal in such traffic. Then the First Mate took off, who knows why, not even a goodbye. The new pilot is good, though, and a sweet guy, but he’s a little wet behind the ears for the kind of rough-and-tumble you get on worlds like Higgin’s Moon and Ataraxia. You pray no one else in your little crew-family gets in the way of some other thug’s bullet.
You put down at Freefall, a ****ty little port town on Ataraxia, last night. Captain’s worried about having to haul back to Persephone empty; he doesn’t say anything, but you can see it, this whole “angel of vengeance” gunrunner thing is really starting to wear on him. You, too, for that matter. Yeah, the ex-Browncoats on Ataraxia are getting screwed and are right to fight it, but don’t you all have the right to live free, too?
You just want to find something to haul that pays and get the hell out of there, quick. Things are about to get ugly in Freefall….

Alliance Federal Task Group 7

Federal Inspector - Jennifer Hanson Meyer
You are a Federal Terraforming Inspector dispatched from your homeworld Greenleaf to investigate reported subterranean anomalies in the substrates around Freefall Mine on the Border Moon Ataraxia. There have been an unusually high number of mine collapses on this Border Moon, and you are tasked with erecting and maintaining a network of sensor stations to gather data for analysis. You will be contacted by your superiors via radio at regular intervals, and authorized to fine anyone caught tampering with these sensors or otherwise hindering you in your duties. A unit of Federal troops, Alliance Task Group 7, has been assigned to aid and protect you.
Ataraxia is a geologically unusual moon. The underlying instability of the moon’s substrate has been suspected by the Commission for some time. The commission is seriously considering the suspension of all mineral rights and mining licenses on Ataraxia. A number of unique and difficult-to-explain formations appeared during the planet’s terraforming process, the most notable being the crystallization of the mineral ataraxite. This mineral is greatly prized on Core worlds as a rare gemstone, since Ataraxia is its only known source. It is a green mineral that forms an iridescent oxidation layer when cut and polished; usually, the oxidation layer has a golden hue, but some especially rare deposits form a translucent milky white oxidation layer. The crystallization process and physical properties of this new mineral are not fully understood; and it is a standing order for all Alliance citizens that any naturally-occurring deposits (as well as pieces brought to the surface) are to be reported and/or surrendered to the nearest Alliance Terraforming Agent for Alliance Terraforming Commission study.

Commander – Ryan Jopp
Sergeant - Rick Walker
Trooper - Hans Nordstrom
Trooper - Damian Kruse
You are a member of the Alliance Federal Task Group 7, a dropship unit, dispatched from the Alliance Cruiser Vargo to the Border Moon Ataraxia. You have been assigned to the environs around the port town of Freefall and the associated Freefall Mine. You are accompanied by a Federal Terraforming Inspector, whom you are instructed to protect as she investigates allegations of subterranean terraforming flaws in the Freefall area. You touch down on Ataraxia at 1230 hours on 28 July, local time.
Your mission:
-Quell hostilities in the Freefall area by separating the violent striking miners called the Browncoat Resisters from the forces of the Magistrate of Ataraxia.
Control traffic into and out of the minehead area to prevent tampering with the investigation site.
-Cooperate with local authorities in re-establishing order in the community. Provide needed services to locals as the situation warrants. The Freefall Safe Area is the jurisdiction of the Sheriff, while the Free-fire Area is within the Magistrate of Ataraxia's jurisdiction. Your Commanding Officer is authorized to override these jurisdictions in the event of a breakdown in order.
-Monitor all air traffic in the environs, and call in intercepts of any unauthorized vessels entering or leaving the airspace of the Freefall investigation site.
-Enforce the judgment of the Federal Terraforming Investigator, should she require that any person or persons in the Freefall area be voluntarily interrogated, and/or Bound by Law.

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Tuesday, July 31, 2007 2:35 AM

GRIZWALD


*floor*

This is amazing. I want to see it on TV!! You've got story arc for at least a half a season right here!

___________________________________________________
High Priestess of Pork and Ag-Related Activities of the MYTHICAL LAND OF IOWA



Click on my profile for my Annoyingly Long List of Firefly Links.

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Tuesday, July 31, 2007 2:46 AM

DUELIST


You all ain't seen nothin' yet - just wait until the character replies start coming in. The crew of the Waxwing were particularly outstanding players, as were the Alliance squad. We should have video in a week or two (or three,) Kerrick is working on it.

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Thursday, August 2, 2007 6:08 AM

DUELIST


So far, two mercs, the Alliance Commander, and the smuggler pilot have reported in. Good stuff! To read their reports:

http://wiairsoft.com/forums/showthread.php?p=59236&posted=1#post59236

I can also post their reports here, if anyone's interested. If so, speak up....

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Thursday, August 2, 2007 6:30 AM

GRIZWALD


But of course.

Keep it all on this thread and that way those who are not interested don't have to see it.

___________________________________________________
High Priestess of Pork and Ag-Related Activities of the MYTHICAL LAND OF IOWA

Click on my profile for my Annoyingly Long List of Firefly Links.

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Friday, August 3, 2007 3:11 AM

DUELIST


You can see event pics at http://www.airsoftbattlezone.com/operationfreefallphotos.html

A HUGE THANKS needs to go out to our game hosts and primary sponsors, Jason & Judy Doerr of www.airsoftbattlezone.com. They worked their pigus off to get this event up and running, donated stacks of prizes and Trading Post items, recruited refs, provided the food, and just did everything within their power to make this a wonderful time for everyone. They are an event organizer's dream hosts, and I want to give them my personal thanks. Freefall is the game I've always wanted to run - thanks for taking the chance and letting me run it.

Thanks also to Ryan of Lupine Productions for website design, videography and Trading Post items; and Jonathan of Wisconsin Airsoft Wars for prizes.

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Wednesday, August 8, 2007 4:59 PM

DUELIST


One Merc's Confession

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My Associate and I were just minding our own business, which was nothing at the time, when a dusty, nervous miner approached us with a business proposal. He stated that the miner's revolt had begun on ataraxia and the "revolution" if you could call it that needed some help holding one of their mineheads. I volunteered our services for 4 gems, plus one per kill. We set up our ambush by the mine and waited. Before too long, that nervous miner sent some of his buddies after us to make sure we didn't take off on them. some people just don't know how to trust. I could tell these miners had never held a gun, except maybe for some squirrel hunting. Before too long we found out why they hired us and not the other wannabe shooters around town. They had an alliance patrol after them. They came in with their typical alliance fanfare, oh so predictable. Making so much noise you could shoot them in the dark. we popped the first one that came within 20 yards of us. While he was on the ground moaning and groaning, his team leader asked us to hold fire. clearly a master tactician. we "agreed" and let them come closer, and wouldn't you know it they were all practically holding hands when we lit them up again. There was one trooper left and he took some cover, he was obviously the one that should've been the team lead, but after some maneuvering, there he was laying on the ground, bolt open, bleeding. and with that, we walked over and had a laugh at their misfortune and went to collect payment. We brought one of the scared miners with us to verify our headcount of 5.. well after he was finished cleaning his shorts out. neither him or the other two miners with us fired a shot. I don't blame them, this kind of business should be handled by pros like us. Now the lead miner was a little reluctant to pay us as he was uncertain that his mine would stay secure.. not our problem, we did what we were paid to and that was that. on our way back to town to spend our loot, some of that alliance patrol had gotten patched up.. probably by one of the miners that hired us. well since they was looking for us and I had a pocketfull of gems, i took off into the woods.. my partner, pockets empty, stalled the troopers long enough for me to get around their flank. He hit one of them, and so did I. about that time i realised they wouldn't let me out of the woods if they thought it was me who shot them, so i let off a few rounds in the air and gave a pretty convincing death cry.. convincing enough for the alliance goofballs anyway. They even thanked me for taking out their harrasser.. hahaha..

So we went on our way to change some of those gems into folding money. We figured our best bet to be that starship that had just landed. I talked to the captain and he just couldn't afford it. oh well.. I headed into the store to try and find another job, and there sits the magistrate. I figured it would be a good time to buy some strawberries, but he wasn't hungry, so i ate them right in front of him.. I putzed around town to find a hiding spot for my loot until i could move it, and once it was hidden, i felt a little social, so i approached the magistrate again, and one of his goody goody guards hit me with a stunner. I didn't appreciate it much, but right at that moment, it wasn't the time to settle the score. I worked the crowd over a little.. managed to palm 30 ataraxs off the companions table and headed back into the store to spend it when i spotted the magistrate taking a nap. his other guard was off somewhere skirt chasing and he left his apprentice there to mind the boss. he wasn't minding him too well because the magistrate had a crisp alliance credit just hanging out of his pocket. I positioned myself behind him and snatched it, and while doing so, noticed a hefty lump of cash down in his pocket. my partner new what i was up to already and asked the guard to assist him with his gear. I snatched a handful of cash and walked over to my hiding spot.. after that, we both took a breather and downed a cold one.. not ten minutes later the magistrate and his guards came over and started questioning me. and here i thought no one had noticed. well, no one noticed very well because neither of the guards actually saw what happened and the magistrate had more cash than he could count. So they hooped and hollered and fussed around but I didn't have it on me and wasn't going to tell them where it was. since this is confession time, they were standing almost on top of it. It was hidden in the bushes. 'course they didn't check..

A little later we were approaced by the the local scumbag crime boss. She wanted to rip off the store in a big way, but didn't have the firepower to get away clean. we took the job for a 40% cut and waited outside the store. Their robbery went off ok and we skedaddled only to find 3 creeps just hanging out in their hideout. I dispatched them and caught a bullet in the leg for my trouble, but such is the life of a merc. As my partner was in arranging the split i went to get patched up by the doc. By the time i made it back to the hideout, they were still counting. Thats about the time the sheriff showed up and plugged the 3 robbers. My associate and I returned fire, but quickly noted we were the only ones doing so. We instantly had the same thought, if theres no one there to stop us, why not take all the cash?? I pocketed the loot and we took off, putting a couple rounds between us and the sheriff on the way out. Back to the loot hiding spot to deposit the cash and headed into the shopkeeper to try and bribe her into keeping her mouth shut. unfortunately the crime boss had gone to the doc and gotten patched up and wanted her cash. I gave her the 40 ataraxs i had in my pocket and told her it was one of her boys. Later on that night both of her stoolies who were apparently sharing an IQ questioned me and I again pointed them to their compadres. I thought that was enough action for one night, but apparently the ship captain was also being chased by the alliance and needed a hand blowing up their ship.. he paid good too 100 alliance creds up front and after. I felt kind of bad taking it from him, cuz in my opinion he paid too much. but nonetheless we got his shooter to her RPG and the alliance ship with hardly a shot fired. He paid us our back end and we called it a night.. Day two's report later... .
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I awoke the next day to pastries that the shopkeeper had "made" for the whole town. Don't know why, really didn't care. I was still trying to fence the gems I was paid with the day prior. I consulted the ship's captain again about this and he related to me that his courier hadn't arrived but had landed that morning. He was speculating that something happened to her. I took my team (had three more mercs arrive in the night) for a walk around to find out what happened to her.. No luck though, ship was empty and no sign of her. When I arrived back in town I spotted the magistrate and I hadn't forgotten how his guards snubbed the day before. I stopped looking for jobs as he became my priority. After a botched kidnapping attempt, my team decided to come at him from a more legitimate angle. His wife was killed in a mine collapse and word around town is the magistrate had something to do with it. We started kicking over some stones and got the names of the guys hired to do it. As I was passing this info on like a good citizen, one of the suspects walks right by. We grab him, question him, and grant him immunity. He confesses that the magistrate hired him and his associate to collapse the whole damn mine right on her head. now the sheriff wanted to keep his job and continue breathing, and apparently those wants are not conducive to arresting magistrate types. So he hired us to do it. it was not without incident. Lots of stunners going off and a lot of fistfights and stabbings and eventually.... he escaped in his armored car. for awhile. my team fired on that thing forever and the worst it probably did was give the magistrate a headache.. Hell i even got a pistol into one of the gun ports but the damn things shielded.. so we had to wait for him to come back to town. and he did. We overpowered the guards and Jim, my associate managed to drag the magistrate out of town, only to be mistaken as a magistrates guard on the way up the hill. Well instead of Jim carrying out the "human sacrifice", some other punk did it for us, and wounded Jim in the process.. instead of looting him like i should've, i dragged Jim's body to the doc and let the magistrate rot in the sun... luckily I got Jim though, because he'd gotten the magistrates cash before he was hit. There was hardly anything there and we knew he'd stashed it. We lounged around for almost the rest of the day when opportunity knocked again, there was a shootout at the mineheads and everyone went to get a piece, except for me and my crew of course.. we knocked over the store, stole a sword and stabbed everyone in town. including the magistrate, again. I also ran the sheriff and his deputy through and got a nice shiny star.. and as my rampage came to a close, i poked the alliance team leader and he fell into a sewage ditch. I kinda felt bad about that. almost. but as they say, those who live by the sword, die by the sword, and thats what happened, someone poked me with their pig sticker and there I layed until someone pulled me inside with the rest of my victims. fade to black, roll credits

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Wednesday, August 8, 2007 5:00 PM

DUELIST


For the money, for the glory, and for the fun, mostly for the money

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Here I find myself on backwater moon thats way to hot, my last credit spend on the trip here and not a familier face around. I've spend most of the morning in town trying to find work while watching the Magistrate hire the bigger groups of mercs. It's a little after noon when an alliance squad comes marching into town. The last thing I needed was for the alliance to show up and smooth things over befor I can get a peice of the action. Luckly while in the trading post I overheard they are here to set up some bank. The Alliance moves on while I cool off in the shade of the trading post were I find my frist job. A merc (I think) wants me to ask the Magistrate some questions about some murder. His money is good and whats the worst that could happen, one of the Magistrates goons could stun me. While waiting for the Mag to be alone
(Well just him and his two goons that are always close by) I hear it's the Mags Wife Who was murder in the Mines. With this new info my new Associate
informs me he has been offered a large reward if he can find out who killed her and if I help out it's worth half. We head down to the mines to ask some questions and stumble on a fire fight between the alliance squad and what must be the miners (hopefully they all aren't so trigger happy). We move around the fight(no sents getting wounded in fight with no pay in it) and have a talk with the miners but they seem to know nothing and it was the same way with the rest on the port. We spend most of the day walking and talkinng and no one knows nothing. A few small jobs picking up wounded and dilivering goods for the Doc, but no leads on the murder. Finally we get something some miners coming up to town say they heard something. It takes a some shiny green gem I got for the Doc to pray the info from them.
Two Ex crime boss thugs told them the ships crew was invalved. With the day growing short we took the info back to the Companion's bodygurad (my Associate's emplyer). We gave what info we had and he swiffly turned around and punch the Miner boss in the face(I gess he was spending alot of time with the ships crew). The ships Engineer jumped the bodyguard from behind and quickly brought him down(That girls go a mean right hook). Soon Everyone was up and after a talk with the Companion's, the bodygurad, the engineer and the Miner boss we came to the relization that we must have been misinformed. We decided to return to the mines with the miner boss to point out which Miner was respossable for his punch to the face(And get my gem back). When we got there we found the alliance had set some gizmo up over the mine. I don't think the miner boss like it much because when there were no troopers around he had one of his miners take out the alliance tech. The ships engineer started messing around with the gizmo when an alliance trooper stumbled back over. After a quick burst and one downed engineer followed by alot of quick talking by the miner boss they all picked up the wounded and headed back of the port leaving us to watch the gizmo(paying us of corse).
Soon the Commander of the alliance troop came over with anther merc and hired us to make sure no one got close the the gizmo(nothing like getting paid twice for the same job). We fanned out around the gizmo thing and prepard to defend it. Maybe it was the lack of action or may heat stroke starting in but I grab a few z's under the shade of some trees as we spent the rest of the day on gurad duty. Never did find out who Murdered the Mags wife though darn it. I could have use tht money.The next day my Associate informs me some of his pals came in over night and he was going to hook up with them and see what trouble he could get into. So once again I find myself alone looking for work in the port. It's not long till I see the Magistrate armored car start up and he's heading out with alot mercs in tow. Best I can figure is they were heading down to mines to take it back by force. With no work to be found here I quickly started moving to the mines to inform them and see if they wanted to hire another gun. After moving though an alliance potrol I found the Miners coming up to port. With news of the car rolling they hired me on and they moved for the Cargo ship. Seems the crew feels for the miners and were trying to get a better deal for them or get them off the this little rock if it comes to that. Most of the crew is warry of talking around me(I find out mercs have been trying to get on board all day so trust is hard to come by). After I help repell a couple of boarding attemps and after dragging the captian back in after he was wounded do they start easing up around me.
Most of the day is guard duty on the ship broken up with small fire fights. The crew let out a cheer with the return of there Pilot and the Companion close behind him (People said they went missing last night during the reaver attack but I can only gess what they were really doing). I was keeping an eye on the rear enterance of the ship when I overheard the Companion say "I wish someone would just shot that man"(the Magistrate). Well I had to inquire how much it would be worth to her to see that done. The pay was good, so took on the job. If I saw a opening to put one it the Magistrate I would take it. My moment wasn't long off. A large brawl started in port, stunners flying everywere and people brawling in the street. And after it all to my luck the Magistrate was being led out of town with only one merc. Here was my chance and I sprung at it.It all when perfect I don't think the Magistrate even saw me and I would have got away clean if it hadn't pilot sneaking around out back of the ship. I was already back inside the ship informing the Companion that the deed was done when I heard the pilot telling the captian, and the captian was not happy. After a failed attempt to sneak out I found myself cornerd in the back of the ship. After a quick look I saw the captian and the other merc who was guarding the ship moving in I decided it was time to talk. I quickly point out I was doing A job for the Companion, Luckly she was in ear shot and step into the hall between me and the captain to cofrim my story. Only after I agreed to keep a low profile and defend his ship till takeoff did he cool down. Once again it wasn't long to prove my word as somebody tryed to bust in through the back were I was catching my breath. They were quickly repled and I sealed off the back again. A while later I watch the crew move out and try to take down the armored car. I sat thier for what seemed to long. No one had come back, I was about to get up and take a look out side when someone came bursting though the back doors. A well place shot brought him right down, It was the pilot(I can't belive he just came running though when every one had an finger ready on the trigger)and i had just shot him. I moved over to get a medpak to him when shot bounced off a wall and got me. Great now i'm down and there are unfriendls out side and no one back here. I call for medic and here foot steps coming from out side. The commander of the alliance squad comes in though the opening at the same time I can see the captian is move up from the front of the ship. Both have guns drawn and look ready to use them. They inch towards the corner of the room neither one able to see the other. All I can think is another disaster is about to happen right in front of me and I can't do anything about it. When the captian comes around the corner he quickly lowered his weapon and the disaster was avioded. The pilot and I are up with minor wounds and I resume my guard duty as the Commander and Captian go up front to talk. It's pretty quite for a while till the rest of the crew gets back. The ship has permission to leave but they are keep waiting for the Miners to show so they can get them off world. When someone trys to break in throught the front door it's time to get off this little world(they were even plus one alliance trooper). The engines fire up the ship starts to lift off just as someone spots the miners moving in. The ship makes a U turn to pick the miners. We open the back doors and the minors come running in along with one of the Magistrate goons(I don't know how he ended up here Thats for someone else to tell). The ship finally takes off as the miner boss moves to the front of the ship to thank the captian. The alliance trooper sees the miner boss and opens fire dropping him. The alliance trooper soon has the back of his head blow out by the kind doctor and is quickly removed from the ship through the front airlock. Well I got off that little rock alive and I got a good bonus from the Captian to. If he pays this well often I may just stick around.

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Wednesday, August 8, 2007 5:01 PM

DUELIST


Local Gunsmith/Hired Gun

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I was approached by the local store owner, who was concerned for the safety of her store. Being a member of the Guild of War Harbingers, I was more than happy to provide weapons, support, and intelligence to all sides. I accepted the store owner's request to provide security for her store and assisted the Sheriff with in-town duties while he was away.

The local Crime boss attempted to bribe me with her worthless money, not knowing that my sheer love for destruction and mayhem would be all the payment she needed to secure my services. The concept of money, bribery, and greed sickens me. The embrace of destruction and death is my salvation.

I provided weapons to all sides right underneath the nose of the Federation. My one hope was to get off that greedy backwater world to spread wanton destruction across the galaxy. But I was viciously maimed by roving thugs and left to die in the hot sun while the sheriff crawled away.

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Wednesday, August 8, 2007 5:02 PM

DUELIST


Alliance Status Report

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Alliance Federal Task Group 7
Entry Log 7582

MISSION:
Quell hostilities in the Freefall area by separating the violent striking miners called the Browncoat Resisters from the forces of the Magistrate of Ataraxia.
STATUS:
MISSION SUCCESSFUL. Most of the browncoats are dead, left planet, or have been working with Federation troops on planet. The magistrate’s authority has crumbled and his jurisdiction replaced by Task Group 7. Both sides may cause more trouble in the future, but for now have been reduced in strength and fighting power.

MISSION:
Control traffic into and out of the mine head area to prevent tampering with the investigation site.
STATUS:
MISSION SUCCESSFUL. Although delayed due to forces trying to stop us, all three sensors were successfully completed and the automatic excavator was created and ran smoothly without interruption.

MISSION:
Cooperate with local authorities in re-establishing order in the community. Provide needed services to locals as the situation warrants. The Freefall Safe Area is the jurisdiction of the Sheriff, while the Free-fire Area is within the Magistrate of Ataraxia's jurisdiction. Your Commanding Officer is authorized to override these jurisdictions in the event of a breakdown in order.
STATUS:
MISSION IN PROGRESS. Worked with locals to provide bolster to economy, medical supplies to the doctor, and help when needed. Due to corruption and anti-Federation activities, the Magistrate's authority over the mines was removed during the second day. The magistrate was also going to be brought in for questioning but chaos ensued and people revolted against the magistrate. If the Magistrate is still on world, he will be apprehended and formally questioned. Proof of the magistrate's wife's murder was found and documented, pointing all information back to the local crime boss. Local Sheriff and Deputy aware of this information. Currently working with local law enforcement, the Sheriff, on restoring order to Freefall. Crime boss’s removal deemed critical in establishing order on planet; probably more-so than the Magistrate.

MISSION:
Monitor all air traffic in the environs, and call in intercepts of any unauthorized vessels entering or leaving the airspace of the Freefall investigation site.
MISSION IN PROGRESS. One unidentified vessel landed but no information available. Transport ship, Waxwing, was allowed to take off under my command. Some local trade goods, a few local passengers, an ambassador friendly to the indentured miners, a local doctor, and a Shepherd were all allowed to leave the planet of Ataraxia. Mercenaries attempting to take over the ship were delayed by Alliance troopers long enough for the Waxwing to take off.

MISSION:
Enforce the judgment of the Federal Terraforming Investigator, should she require that any person or persons in the Freefall area be voluntarily interrogated, and/or Bound by Law.
MISSION SUCCESSFUL. Any and all information requested by the investigator was obtained, analyzed, and properly reported. Inspector survived the battle, Ataraxite gems were collected in bulk quantities and stored for safekeeping, and topographical sensors mapping the mines were successful in revealing the un-safe nature of the mines. Proper documentation of the condition of the mines sent to command. Automatic excavation of the site was also successful.

MISSION:
After learning of the nature of the mines and the importance of the Ataraxite gem, Federal Task Group 7 is to no longer concern themselves with the populace of Ataraxia. You now have a high priority mission to secure mine head #2 and set up automatic excavating equipment that will mine the gem slowly over time. Do everything necessary to protect the operable excavator and maintain control over the mine. You have been cleared to use any means reasonably necessary to do so and funds have been wired to you on planet.
STATUS:
MISSION SUCCESSFUL:
Task Group 7 continued to maintain relations with locals after doing so deemed necessary for mission success. Mine head #2 was immediately secured and the automatic excavator established. Both the browncoats and mercenaries were paid to cooperate in defending the excavator. Even though ownership of the mine was now obviously in Federation control, no outside forces attempted to stop the mining operation and mission was a complete success. Mines are now in complete direct Federation control under the jurisdiction of Task Group 7.
CASUALTY REPORT:
Task Group 7 Troopers were well equipped and armored for this mission. Although wounded numerous times, MedPack, Field Dressing, and Surgery supplies were sufficient to keep everyone in satisfactory condition. One Trooper KIA reported during the battle during the takeoff of the transport ship, the Waxwing.
Mercenaries on planet damaged one federal dropship, which was repaired. Those responsible are unconfirmed.

ENTRY NOTE #1:
A formal request is being submitted to prematurely end and void the indenturement contract between the local miners and the Magistrate. Contract a considerable source of hostilities and it’s removal may help the situation on planet.

ENTRY NOTE # 2:
A full inquiry is being requested on the Magistrate and his actions on Ataraxia. Magistrate had shady dealings with numerous mercenaries, attempted to destroy the topographical sensors Task Group 7 was sent in to establish, actively opposed my authority, and enlisted forces to display open aggression and resistance to Federal Task Group 7. When told to stand down, the Magistrate disobeyed but did not continue hostilities. Mines were documented as un-safe. In the Magistrate’s defense, no sabotage of the mines was discovered; the Magistrate’s wife’s death was discovered to be the act of the local crime boss and not a scheme of the Magistrate. Alliance forces attempted to defend the Magistrate to ensure Federal Protocol was maintained and local “thug” law was not imposed on the Magistrate. A recruit trooper shot and wounded the Magistrate during the confusion of the browncoats trying to capture him. A formal apology can be submitted by myself and compensation for this can be arranged.

ENTRY NOTE #3:
Unlawful thugs and mercenaries are too numerous in Ataraxia’s port. I am submitting a formal request to issue an economic forfeiture to identified people who assaulted Task Group 7 personnel with intent to harm and steal. A citation is requested to positive identification of each assault documented. Documentation has been sent of trustworthy operators on planet along with those that have directly opposed Task Group 7 and assumed there to be no consequence

ENTRY NOTE #4:
I am submitting a formal request for a shipment of Alliance Stunners for future policing actions of the Freefall safe zone. Local Sheriff’s actions were commendable, but due to the influx of thugs and mercenaries, the situation quickly became more than he could handle.

ENTRY NOTE #5:
Due to internal corruption, a request to continue the elevated command authority of Task Group 7 is being submitted. Federation interests were best served and positive relationships with locals established when Task Group 7 could overrule operational jurisdiction of other authorities on planet. Maintaining this command authority deemed critically important in continued operations of Task Group 7 on planet.

ENTRY NOTE #6:
Reavers attacked in the middle of the night during day one. Alliance Troopers and local townsfolk put up a defense and repelled the attack. Task Group 7 was unable to pursue Reavers the next day due to high priority missions related to the mines and the port town of Freefall.

Alliance Federal Task Group 7 Commander Kerrik – END ENTRY LOG.
“Permission to speak freely, Commander?” asks the nearby trooper who assisted in the details of the Task Group 7 entry log.

“Permission granted, Trooper”, casually replies the commander.

““Sir, I’m confused on a few details of this report. I don’t understand why you didn’t just demand the gem be handed over or confiscate it when it was found? Also, why even bother with voiding the indenture contract? We could have used the workers with the reopening of the mine. “

“Trooper, you need to learn a little bit of how people work out here on the rim. Things are a whole lot different than the core worlds. Some of these people have given their lives trying to scrape together an existence based off of those gems. If we take them away, it would be like stealing to them. We didn’t bleed for those gems to get them out of the ground and if we demand to have them without compensation then they will probably vow to make us bleed for them later. Add to the mix that a lot of these miners are former Independents from the war; they already don’t like the Alliance. If we push them around again, it will be that much harder for them to cooperate. These people have also been slaves to the magistrate and have been willing to give their lives fighting against it. If the request is approved and we end the indenturement, we might just have some allies on our side… or at least people that won’t shoot at us. If the Alliance wants the gem on this world that bad, they will be willing to pay for honest work.” replies the commander.

“Why did you let the Waxwing take off? You were so sure the captain was dealing with so many shady people on planet and Alliance forces even saw the anti-vehicle weapon on their ship that was used to disable our dropship!”

“No, we saw a possible RPG weapon. We do not know if it was technically used against our ship. I’m also going to assume that the captain wouldn’t make such a mistake as to disable one of the only other ships on this moon capable of getting back into space. Doing so would allow and prompt us to commandeer his vessel and I don’t think the captain would have wanted that. Knowledge of this would have also allowed me to deny his take off, thus grounding him on the planet. There was also only one person skilled enough to sabotage one of our sensors; someone who had a real knack for machines and how they work. But I am going to assume the benefit of the doubt and trust that the Captain was doing justifiable business.”

“With all this supposed evidence against the Captain of the Waxwing and his crew, I still don’t understand why you let them go?” asked the Trooper.

“Trooper, you’ve only been in service of the Alliance for less than a year. I’ve been in it long enough. I was in the war. I was at the bottom of the pecking order and did what I was told, but I didn’t believe in that fight. But some of those Independents, those browncoats, did believe in it with all their heart and soul. When I lay there, bleeding out on the battlefield along with some browncoats and so sure of my own death, it was the Waxwing, the angel of mercy, which took me away from that hell. I’m alive today because of the people on that ship. Those browncoats who bled the same color as I, who believed in their cause so completely, came out of the war with reeducation and slavery. The crew of the Waxwing, who risked their lives and went out of their way to save anybody regardless of their side, came out of that war with nothing. And then there was me; an Alliance Trooper who didn’t believe in the fight who only did what he was told, that came out of that war with a promotion. To me, there is something wrong with that. Considering how logic abandoned both of them, the browns and the Waxwing, during that war then perhaps some logic can abandon them now; that is why, officially, the voiding of the indenturement contract and the permission for take off were critical to our missions success.”

A puzzled look follows the conversation as the Trooper is dismissed and returns to his post. The Commander returns to his small quarters in the Federal Dropship and changes the dressings on his numerous wounds gained from two days of fighting. The people here are money grubbing, dangerous, and most of them untrustworth. Some of them even shot or stabbed the only people on planet that would pay them for what they had; telltale signs that some of the people on planet don’t think too hard about the bigger picture. But they have been given a chance. If only they knew that this Alliance Commander was probably their best chance of being left alone. What happens next relies heavily on Alliance Command and on the populace of Ataraxia. As for the Waxwing, whatever items the captain managed to smuggle out and whatever money he scrounged up on planet will hopefully keep their ship flying a little bit longer. After sitting down and double-checking the details, he finishes the report and contemplates what will happen next on this small border moon.

”I refuse to be the one that clips the angel’s wings this time around…” says the Commander to himself as he presses SEND.

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Wednesday, August 8, 2007 5:04 PM

DUELIST


A Smuggler's Life For Me, part 1

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It’s never easy, is it? My business partner – a former geologist name of Christopher Dennett – and I take an excursion out to our trash heap of a ship, intending nothing more than to stash a certain piece of less-than-legal artillery onboard and come straight back. Easy, right?

Wrong. And the real galling thing about it? It weren’t even the Alliance that nabbed us on the way back. Apparently, that young gun longshoreman had made a bid for the position of Crime Lord and subsequently decided that holding his sometime-coworker at gunpoint would be a good idea. We end up getting frog-marched the rest of the way into Freefall by a trio of brainless thugs. They’re lucky they weren’t stupid enough to try and loot me (not that I had anything but medipacks, a year on this rock had used up every penny we had on our persons, but it’s a matter of principal) or I’d have taken a special care to shoot them on some later date.

Now that little encounter led me to believe that a change of employer was in order. Not that I hadn’t been thinking it before, but this time we managed to be overheard by a slightly strange fellow with no shoes. Apparently, he’s the pilot (named Crash – I do hope that isn’t any sort of indication of his flying skills) for the Waxwing and considers my fondness for irritating the Feds to be a job qualification worth hiring. Got us onto his ship faster than you could blink, I was almost a bit concerned that it was a trap. But optimism paid off this time – turns out he was just an exuberant sort.

Captain wasn’t quite so enthusiastic, though. Something about wanting to stay off the Alliance radar. His mind started to change a bit when I told him about that stash of ataraxite the crime boss owed me, and how I’d be willing to steal it to pay my way off this rock.

Jao dao mei, when we raid the former boss’ warehouse there ain’t nothing there but a couple of black market guns and the three brainless thugs sitting shot and bleeding just outside the door. Now there’s all manner of ways those gems could have left their theoretical home, but they don’t really matter as things were starting to heat up in a projectile-laden way right quick.

I manage to get through the back airlock just fine, but Dennett got himself shot (the boy’s got a bit of a talent for that, I’m afraid). Feel a bit guilty for just leaving him outside the ship, but there weren’t no way I could see if the coast was clear or not and I wasn’t too sure that the Captain would trust me to leave the ship again quite so soon.

Now, it does appear that I was underestimating him, as before too long me and Dennett (who’d gotten himself patched up by a good Samaritan of some sort) were practically crew.

We laid low for much of the rest of the day, but that did put us in a position of awareness for more shady deals than a bookie in a basement. The sunniest one of these deals involved a companion (might I say, a refreshing touch of civilization that I ain’t seen since I left Sihnon), her apprentice, and their bodyguard all seeking to go the same place I was headed – Anywhere But Here. I say all, but the apprentice (that’s the Magistrate’s daughter) was convinced that her momma’s death wasn’t an accident and intended to stick around long enough to eviscerate whomever was responsible.

The other, more dimly-lit deal was one we had on with the Browncoats. Some wanted to buy their way out of indenture, some wanted just to get off-planet, and all of them wanted to sell the ataraxite they’d broke their backs for down in the mines to do it. Trouble was, there wasn’t near enough cash on the Waxwing to pay for more than a handful of the gems, and the Captain had a powerful need to stay on planet instead of taking off to deal with his fence.

Never one to despair (grumble, curse, and shoot things for amusement, but not despair), he called the crew together and told us all that we needed to look for the pilot of the little two-man planet-hopper he’d heard was parked out in the woods somewhere. ‘Course that was one of the fastest pieces of recon ever, seeing as how I was standing right behind him.

Which still leaves the issue of my ship being in a prime position to be blown up as soon as it leaves the treeline, but it was soon realized that that piece of artillery I stashed onboard would do more than enough damage to keep them from noticing much that wasn’t Morris dancing on their heads.

Having procured a small army of mercenaries and Browncoats with itchy trigger fingers, we set out to get my baby and give the Purplebellies a very bad day. You’d think a troupe of heavily armed folks would attract at least a little bit of notice – the Feds didn’t even come running when they heard the blast made by a rocket-propelled grenade hitting their base of operations. The things a girl has to do for attention in these parts…

Things get a mite more interesting when we get back to the Waxwing to report on our success. Nothing directly to do with us making things go boom, just the side effects of having put both feet right in the middle of a what was turning out to be a new, smaller, and far more doomed Independence war.

After some adventures in hiding, we sent Decoy (the Waxwing’s resident muscle) out to live up to his namesake. After giving him a bit of lead time, Dennett and I headed for our ship, escorted by the Browncoat lieutenant Mirage, with five ataraxite in my knapsack – three green and two gold. Enough to fetch a pretty penny on the black market.

Of course, on the way we manage to run afoul of a pair of mercs we neglected to notice were working for the Feds. Mirage and I get away just fine, but Dennett… I swear he’s magnetic, and I do not mean his personality. I might have just left him, but it’s his expertise in the field of gems that’ll get me the price we want from the fence, so I end up hunkered down in the shrubbery until those wahg-ba dan duh biao-tze leave.

With my partner back in the land of the conscious, we leg it to our ship and hit sky as stealthily as we possibly can. I can’t tell you how tempted I was to just take the money and run, but I guess my dress code hasn’t changed as much as I thought it had. Besides, I can’t abide clichés, and there’s this one about honor and thieves…

--Margaret Blake

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Wednesday, August 8, 2007 5:05 PM

DUELIST


An exerpt from Christopher Dennett's private log, 7/30 Ataraxia
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We came to that out of way moon because of the promises of a large quantity of Ataraxite gems. By we, I should say my partner Margaret Blake and I. She is a good skiff pilot, and really enjoys blowing things up with her rpg launcher when she gets a chance. The gems are hugely valuable on our home world of Shinon; about 400 or 500 alliance credits for gold ataraxite, around 1200 for the green, and 2000 or more for the white. The crime lord who set up shop near the free port of Freefall promised us almost a chest full of the gems. However, that was almost a year ago already. She kept asking us to do odd jobs, and promising us that we'd earn the gems after the next one, and the one after that. Until it came to a few nights ago, when the Freighter Waxwing landed. It's appearance didn't really affect us until the next day, when the alliance dropship landed. The two-man ship we came to Ataraxia in, was tagged for some crime or another over by Persephone, and if we launched off the ground our ship would trip the dropship's sensors. Then, the alliance would, very politely, blow us out of the sky. So even if we got the gems, we would be stuck on that gorram moon.

After Margaret placed her one true love and some party favors in our ship, we came back to town, we got “pinched” by the crime boss thugs. Apparently the Crime Boss wasn't around at that moment. After explaining who we were, and why we were there at least three times, they finally escort us to town. Now, I don't know much about escorting, but they hardly looked away from us, and didn't check their surroundings. It was basically an open invitation to get shot in the back, and I'm glad there weren't any other mercs around dumb enough to try it.

Well we got back to town and a man wearing yellow goggles, and no shoes, came up to us and asked us if we were friends with the alliance. Margaret never really has been a supporter of the Alliance, and normally I'm apathetic towards them, but since they have an embargo on our profit line, I wouldn't mind causing some disruptions. As long as Margaret and I were able to get off world with the gems.

The man turned out to be called Crash, and he was the pilot of the Waxwing, and I am hoping his name is just a sad attempt at irony. However, his captain seemed to think that pestering the Alliance wouldn't bring his crew any good. I'd say I'd have to agree. It would be easier to get off world without the Alliance prods on our backs. Margaret, on the other hand, looked deflated at the thought. I'm sure she was hoping to be able to cause mayhem, and get paid for it.

We discuss payment for getting off world. The Captain said it was 400 or 500 credits depending on how many people were already on board, and if we help defend the ship, or do other work for the crew, the prices drop. About this time, Margaret and I realized we should tell the captain about the stash of gems that the Crime Lord has. Well, really Margaret realized, and I just stood back and watched, adding some details about how valuable the gems could be.

This peaked the Captain's interest, but about this time we hear yells coming form outside the ship. Turns out our brilliant thug friends are trying to scream down some mercs coming from the town. Eventually someone shoots, and a whole firefight erupts. To our luck, we see that all the thugs got themselves shot.

Around that time, we realized we no longer needed the crime boss, and decided to look around the, now deserted, warehouse for the gems. The gems were naturally not there, but after checking around, we found three illegal firearms just waiting to be taken.

On our way back to the Waxwing, Margaret gets inside the secondary entrance, but I'm still stuck outside when a few “shoot first, ask questions later” types come around the north side of the ship. I'm hiding next to the entrance, and one is creeping along the ship, while one is in the bushes nearby. I would have tried to rush into the ship, if it wasn't for the fact the captain wouldn't be to happy with me bringing down the heat on his ship. The one in the bushes sees me, but I jump out of cover and shoot the merc next to the ship. That merc must have had quick reactions, because as soon as I jump out he shoots back. Just goes to show that Margaret was always better than me with a gun.

So, there I was lying on the ground bleeding, and I could hear the merc I shot finally slump over dead. I even felt someone take my med-packs, but they must have been in a hurry, because they didn't search long enough to find the gems I had in my pocket, or the two smuggled guns in my bag. Eventually, more honorable mercs came along, and carried me to the doctor in town. He patched me up, and asked for payment. Since I didn't want to be indentured to him, I gave him the only things of value I had; the two gems. He discreetly covered them up on his surgery tray and told me I should probably rest a little bit, but I'd be fine.

Not to be one to hang out in the trade post surrounded by the Magistrate's men, and the Alliance, I quickly disregarded what the doctor said about rest, and made my way back to the Waxwing. After having a discussion with Margaret about why she didn't come back and get me, we heard about the sensors that the Alliance were setting up on the mine heads. Apparently if they succeeded, this place would be crawling with Alliance making sure that every molecule of Ataraxite was in their property. If that happened, it would be a lot harder to smuggle what Ataraxite we could get off world, especially in a large ship like the Waxwing. The miners wanted to have the ship's engineer disable the sensors. So a group of browncoats and mercs went off to defend her, while she tried to disable one of the sensors. Margaret and I stayed on the ship for a few hours waiting on news, and discussing options with the Captain, and the rest of the crew. We watched a companion open up her bodyguard's gun “because she was bored.” Eventually the Engineer came back after disabling a sensor, even though she and a few others ended up wounded.

Around this time the Captain got his hands on some Ataraxite of his own; five pretty shimmering gems, if I remember correctly. But he was looking for a way to get them off world without the Alliance noticing, and get the money back. His ship apparently was not cleared for take off, but his ship's sensors picked up two other ships. The Alliance dropship, and, of course, our little skiff. We had failed to tell him we had our own way off world. Since the alliance were not likely to just hand over the access codes and let us take their dropship for a spin, Margaret felt it was as good as time as any to reveal that we were the proud owners of a two-man skiff not far away from the Alliance dropship. Trouble was, the alliance dropship was still operational, and unless the entire crew was out getting Ng-Ka-Pei, it was doubtful we'd make it out of their range before their missiles came calling.

Our only option was to disable the monitoring systems on the ship, or the whole ship. Madison, the ship's engineer, seemed to feel that it would probably take too long to disable the ship, especially if the Alliance showed up and wanted to crash the party. So, with a gleam in her eye, Margaret described how easy it would be to blow up the dropship with her rpg launcher. Naturally, we decided upon the much more stealthy rpg launcher.

Seeing as the crew of the waxwing, and the browncoats all wanted to see us safely off to get more money for supplies, we assembled a small army of browncoats and mercs to escort Margaret. Whether archaic views of chivalry, or the fact that she was the only one who could wrap her head around that rpg of hers, or the fact I couldn't fly the skiff, I decided to watch her back. Pretty much my reasons for both days of fighting we were involved in, but I had heard rumors of mercs turning on the people who hired them, after they got paid. I just wanted to be there to make sure that nothing bad happened to Margaret.

The group split into two, one going to cut through the woods directly to our ship, and the other to stay on the path and meet them at the ship. It was tense getting to the ship, and even more tense after Margaret loaded the rpg, and the army moved off toward the drop ship. The group that went along the path worked a head to the dropship, while our group arrived second. We found that the first group received no resistance. Apparently my thoughts about the Ng-Ka-Pei, wasn't far off. The alliance was busy running around protecting their sensors, none of them thought to protect their ship. The army had been summoned almost for nothing. Margaret let off the round, disable the ship, and we left. All without a single enemy in sight.

After we made it back the the ship, the Alliance seemed to still be unawares their ship is disabled. They even asked the captain of the waxwing to keep an eye on a third sensor being set up slightly west of his ship. Trouble was, now the alliance were guarding this sensor with what seemed like all their men. Margaret and I needed to get past them to get to our ship, and they looked like they might be stopping anyone trying to get past.

The captain asked Mirage, a browncoat, to get us past on the south path, but the sensor was pretty much right between both paths, so alliance could still see us from where they were guarding. Mirage decided it wasn't safe, so we went back to the ship, and Mirage and a crew member, aptly named DeCoy, went to see if they could walk past the Alliance with no trouble. After waiting for a half hour, with the threat of night coming, Margaret and I decided to head out. A merc joined us, and we headed down the path for our ship. Oddly though, there must be something about the way Margaret and I smell or something, because again, no alliance waited for us near the sensor.

When we made it into the forest we passed two mercs, who we didn't know and didn't know who they worked for, but we were in a hurry so we just passed them with out making sure, after they seemed semi peaceful.

Turns out we were wrong. As we went down the path, with our ship in sight, they opened fire on our backs. Mercs never seem to have much for honor. Anyway, I was hit again. But Margaret and the merc with us got away. Actually I'm pretty sure the merc didn't stop running until he didn't hear any bullets anymore. The Alliance mercs didn't stick around, and Margaret was able to get a med pack to me, and we made it to our ship. And for a brief respite, we were off the war-torn moon, selling the gems. Too bad we had to come back. Margaret was either greedy for more credits, or she still has some vestiges of honor herself, because she was the first to suggest we make the return trip. Since she was flying, I didn't think I'd argue, even if I wanted to.

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Wednesday, August 8, 2007 5:06 PM

DUELIST


Crash's Private Log

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I can’t say I was pleased with the Captain’s decision to land us on Ataraxia. I mean, I’m all for doing work in the Core – things there are lawful, and there’s always someplace worthwhile to spend your credits when you earn ‘em. Work on the rim just makes me nervous – everyone out there is looking out for nobody but themselves. Not nice places to be.
I was pretty jumpy after we landed. To tell the truth, I didn’t want to leave the Waxwing, and felt like it was in our best interest to just land, dump or cargo, get our credits, and get flying again. But everything went downhill real fast.
In the first place, there wasn’t going to be a clean exchange of goods. With the local Magistrate and the crime boss both showing a keen interest in our business, we had little choice but to hire one of the local mercs to help us move goods. Since every one of them seemed less trustworthy than the last, it fell to me and my people skills to find one that would work. And I felt none too good about my choice.
We sent him off to do an exchange, and waited, tense, in the Waxwing. It was a long while before he returned, bearing a small gem and telling us some story about getting it exchanged for soft currency.
Surprisingly, he was good to his word, and he stayed with the ship for the next two days, serving exceptionally as a guard at the door and making occasional runs, as well as serving as escort when we had to trek out to the mines or go talk to the Alliance.
The Alliance folk sure surprised me. I was used to their slightly abusive practices in the Core, but here, among this untidy mess of desperate and ill-kept humanity, they proved themselves much like the old warriors of ancient times – honor before personal concerns. I was especially impressed by the commander, who more than once got us out of scrapes that would probably have landed us all in the grave. It’s my greatest regret that I betrayed that trust and if I’m ever found out, I’ll likely be running from the Alliance until I’m an old man.
It wasn’t the firefight. That was an accident. We were trying to reach the larger of the two mineheads, and when we got near, my companions sent me ahead to see if there were friendlies or mercs up there (like I said, I can usually talk my way out of bad situations). Well, I heard the people coming down out of the woods, so I put my hands above my head and waited. Out they came, far down the trail but with a clean line of sight. As soon as they saw me they got real aggressive, shouting at me to get my hands up (they already were!) I wasn’t too nervous, because I knew all my friends were hiding behind me – including Mirage, the sniper we had hired on. But these people were advancing rapidly, guns leveled, and I my calm started to leave me, because they were still yelling at me to get my hands up!
It was too much. They were still shouting at me, and I was just standing there, and I just knew they were going to shoot me. So I turned, ducked, and ran.
That’s when I noticed that they weren’t yelling at me. They were yelling at my companions, who weren’t hiding after all, but were just standing next to the small transport ship at the head of the trail. Great.
A moment later I was hunkered down, returning fire as that poor ship took all the damage for us.
We had little choice but to run. We made it about thirty yards into the woods before we found the relative shelter of a fallen tree and decided to make our stand.
Everything after that is a blur. Bullets whizzing everywhere. Mirage taking a hit and me taking over his sniper rifle. The sharp searing pain as a bullet grazed the edge of my ear, taking out a good chunk of flesh. And our relief as we discovered we had surrendered to the Alliance commander and his men.
There were much apologies for the misunderstanding, and he was good enough to escort us all back to the Waxwing where the doctor told me I could get a real nice piece of jewelry for my new piercing.
Yes, we got off Ataraxia. We’re back in the black now, and I couldn’t be happier. But it was in the leaving that things really got bad. That I took all that goodwill the commander of the Alliance granted us and threw it right in his face. I just hope he never knows.
It was pure chaos. Mercs were intent on taking the ship, and I was trying to fire everything up. We had finally gotten clearance to take off, and peace was just moments away.
I was in the airlock feeding off the cockpit, guarding our main entrance. I had an angle on the door, and there was a lot of banging out there – someone shouting to let them in. The captain was at the door, refusing entry, and the man outside was shouting that he was Alliance. He was wearing an Alliance uniform, but I didn’t believe him. After all, he was surrounded by mercs, and they easily could have killed one of the Alliance and taken his clothes. And we asked him to use the code knock that we had given the commander, but he didn’t know it.
There was no way he was getting through that door – the captain never would have opened it. But then we heard him say “there’s more than one way to get in to a place like this”, and one of the mercs handed him a gun. I thought there was a grenade launcher on it – not sure, but it didn’t look good, and the man seemed confident. I was sweating bad by then, yelling to the captain that they were going to force the door, shouting at the man in the Alliance uniform to get away from the door, and then the captain was telling me to fire upon the intruders, and . . .
It was an easy shot – they weren’t far away, and no one was shooting back. I could have just fired some warning shots. But I didn’t. I shot him, and I can’t say I’ve shot a lot of people before, and after that our launch was further delayed for a few minutes, and through all the chatter we discovered that an Alliance trooper had been killed trying to gain entrance to the Waxwing.
I don’t know why he was trying to force the door. I don’t know why all those mercs were with him. I can’t even be entirely sure he was really Alliance, and the captain didn’t just mishear on the radio. But it doesn’t really matter. I’m pretty sure he was one of the commander’s men, and I shot him dead.
Now? I can’t really say. I’m scared they’ll be on to me, ashamed at what I did, and yet, there’s a bug in me – being down on that world, with all the guns blazing and so much chaos – it was a little addicting.
We’re off to safer pastures for the time being, but I can’t help wondering when we’ll next find ourselves landing someplace with a little more excitement than you find in the core . . .
Of course, the best part about this whole thing was the two Companions we met there. Too bad the one got all chewed up by the Reavers, but the other one is now with us. Guess that makes everything all better, doesn't it?

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Wednesday, August 8, 2007 5:07 PM

DUELIST


Freedom, such a thing.

Ruled only by the law, and I'll probably incriminate myself right here.

Last thing I want to do is go back through that "Social re-insertion" program.. Didn't help.
Hell, after I got back I headed up a strike, shot four, slashed two necks, and helped smuggle heaps of contraband? What more proof to do you need? (Speaking of proof, you don't have any on the above!)


Irrelevant. Still, I'd rather commit another 100 crimes than go back to those mines. Rocks ain't my cup of tea. Even if those rocks are worth a small fortune. We never saw a penny of it, anyway. Until recently.

Let me tell you, that revolt wasn't a spur-of-the-moment deal. That had been planned out.. but plans almost never go over perfectly. Ours sure didn't.

The arrival of the Alliance was a mishap. Apparently we were not the only ones aware of the Magistrate's crooked deals. Truth be, those Alliance boys wern't too bad. Even helped us out in a pinch!

The words are the same, but we don't speak the same language. Total of four firefights over mis-communication.
I got another battle scar because of it. Add to the collection.

Anyway, The mine heads were given up almost as soon as we took them. We didn't need them.. it was a red-herring. We had already been taking a cut of what we mined, and reporting that the mines were getting dangerous. An excuse for our low-productivity.

You have to watch what you say, though. No sooner as that was enscribed on the mining-report, it became the scapegoat for an "Industrial accident". Meh.

I'll have to take a short break here.. Weapons don't clean themselves.

This next planet? Yeah, even I'm worried about it. (Infact, I'm going to start cleaning 'em right now.)

Finish later,
-Mirage

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Wednesday, August 8, 2007 5:08 PM

DUELIST


To: General Li Zhaolin, Ariel High Command, Union of Allied Planets
From: Victor Draken, Magistrate of Ataraxia
Re: Recent Discovery of Ataraxite

Dear General Li:
It is my pleasure to inform you of the recent discovery of a very rich vein of Ataraxite which will bring much income to the already wealthy and powerful Alliance . None could be more pleased than I when one of your scientists was able to overcome many adversities and locate this rich deposit on my humble and distant moon.
I regret that not all of my news is of such a cheerful mood. There are many small issues which have surfaced to cast a pall over the exuberance that this discovery would otherwise cause in me.
First of all, there is the location of this very rich deposit. It is, unfortunately, located near a remote region which is not legally within my jurisdiction. The town of Freefall is technically a free port of call and as such, I am legally limited in what I am allowed to do to ensure that the mining of the Ataraxite is conducted safely and without trouble. To be sure, the area of the mines is clearly within my jurisdiction but, with this free port operating outside of my guiding hand, certain rogue elements have taken the opportunity to try and interfere with the lawful operations of both myself and the Alliance .
Secondly, there is the issue of the mine itself, for which there have been concerns brought to light about their safety. I, myself, have a personal stake in this since it was the untimely death of my wife inside of one of these mines that alerted me to the seriousness of the concerns. (Thank you for the condolences that were sent over by your secretary, I had hoped to hear from you, but I am sure that you are very busy)
I attempted to investigate the concerns over the safety of the mines, but found that the local miners had become impossible to reason with, or even to safely approach. I sent out representatives to speak with them, but could not secure a peaceful meeting with their leader. I attempted to go to them myself at one point and found that the lawlessness of the Freefall port had spread out from that town to threaten my escorts, my shuttle and myself. All of which brings me to my third issue, which is that of the Alliance Commander with Task Group 7 in the area.
When I arrived in Freefall, I had concerns about what I could do with these lawless and backwards people, but upon seeing the arrival of an Alliance dropship, I felt my hopes rise. I felt sure that with the Alliance present and with my own considerable authority, all things would be straightened out quickly. I would be able to speak with the miners peacefully and perhaps show these folk how civilized people conduct themselves. At the very least, I felt confident that myself and my beloved daughter would be as safe here as on Ariel itself.
Alas, how wrong I was! The Commander refused to take my advice and heed my knowledge of the miners resorting to violence. I graciously offered the use of my own hired help to strengthen his numbers so that any wayward miscreants would quickly realize that a peaceful meeting was the only real solution. But, he refused me flatly. He marched off with his brave (but few) soldiers and foolishly (in my opinion) and succeeded in only encouraging the rebels elements to attack them. Had he listened to me, I think things would have gotten better, not worse. As I understand it, the Commander believes that he has done a good thing by defeating the ‘brown coats’, but what this young man fails to understand is that they were the workforce for the mines (which will now have to be replaced) and that I held contracts with all these miners who have now either been killed, driven off or are working for the Alliance directly (in violation of their lawful duties to me).
Furthermore, as things progressed, the Commander was forced to deploy forces outside of the port of Freefall which resulted in a rise of criminal activity and general confusion within the town. I refer to a daylight robbery in the town, I refer to myself being arrested by the local sheriff and brought to face ‘charges’ the were both ridiculous and insulting (which were of course dropped immediately), I refer to a general brawl involving the Commander, I refer to myself being kidnapped, robbed and shot, I refer to my personal shuttle being stolen and taken over by the ‘defeated’ brown coats, I refer to myself being kidnapped again (more on this later) and shot a second time, I refer to general mayhem in the town, where the sheriff and his deputy were stabbed and robbed, as was I.
All of these things could have been avoided if the Commander had listened to me and went out to negotiate with the ‘brown coats’ from a position of strength and calm.
To which I make the following suggestions:
First, in accordance with the policies of the Union of Allied Planets, place the town of Freefall clearly under my jurisdiction. This will allow the local population (through me) to govern themselves and enable peaceful cooperation with the Alliance .
Second, in accordance with the rule of law, all contracts with miners will be enforced and the Alliance will back up any action taken by the Magistrate of Ataraxia in this issue. As an act of compassion in this matter, I am willing to negotiate with the miners to allow them to ‘buy back’ their contracts at some future date. We were attempting to negotiate this very thing, when Alliance troopers opened fire on us and I was shot a second time.
Third, while the Alliance wields supreme authority within the known universe, it sets a bad precedent to have a Commander in the field overrule the decisions of a Magistrate without the situation being a present and direct threat to the security of the Union of Allied Planets. Since none of these issues come even close to such, any future activity on Ataraxia will have to meet with my approval. In return, I am willing to be lenient and interfere only in the most dire of circumstances. But the authority of my office (such as it is) must be respected by all who honor the rule of law.
I certainly exemplified this when spurious charges were made against me and I respected the authority of the sheriff of Freefall and submitted myself to his questions.
I close this letter with my best wishes for you and your family. Congratulations on the birth of your grandson. I wish you success on your run for a position on Parliament next spring and if I were able to vote, it would be for you.
You know that I have always supported your party and plan on increasing the size of my contribution as much as I am able.

Sincerely,
Victor Magnus Draken, Magistrate of Ataraxia

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Thursday, August 9, 2007 3:21 AM

KOILA




I so wish we had something like that here - Canada


Does anyone know how I can start one?


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Thursday, August 9, 2007 4:51 AM

DUELIST


Kerrick and I are working on that right now, a way that people can use the website to sanction, organize, and host their own Freefall-style games. Keep an eye on www.freefallgame.com over the next couple of months....

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