Oolite Bulletins

Lovin' this... brilliant! Quasi-reprocate avatarcide.

Great writing, El Viejo!

I knew those characters were real, explains why when I'm writing they go off and do their own thing. A real pain when you're trying to write a story!

We've got quite a Pantheon of distinctive characters in the Ooniverse now. Perhaps someone could work on a proper crossover story!

Cheers,

Drew.

Rebecca smiled grimly at Coyote, sprawled back in the leather recliner, quite dead, a bullet hole in his chest. There had been something vaguely disquieting about the way he had grinned at her as she’d pulled the trigger, but she had dismissed it, putting it down to the evil juice.
“Thought you could drink me under the table, did you ‘amigo’… bad mistake! Hesperus… clear this mess up… then you may do as you wish, I think I’ll operate solo from now on. Adios… pussycat!”
She turned on her heel and left the room, slamming the door behind her. Hesperus stared with dismay at the corpse in the chair… why me, he thought to himself. The corpse opened it’s eyes and smiled at him.
“Don’t look so forlorn, captain… no mess to clear up this time.”
The poor cat, his fur standing on end, was up the curtains and atop the bookcase before you could say 'GalCop'… he crouched there, quivering with fright.
“It’s okay Hesperus, I ain’t no ghost. You can come down from there… fancy a drink, el gato?”
Grinning fiendishly, Coyote sat up and poured two evil juices, then lit a colita. Ever so slowly, the feline crawled back down the curtains and approached Coyote… he took the proffered drink and nervously settled himself on the couch, took a gulp, and nearly choked, tears welling in his eyes. It took him a few seconds to recover.
“How… how come you’re not dead? Is it this damn paradox thingy?”
“Who knows, amigo… but you gotta take into account the fact that I belong to a very select category of manifested characters… those who’ve been killed off by their creators. You can’t be killed twice… that’s why I let Rebecca get the drop on me, to see what she’d do.”
“Yeah, I wondered about that, why you let her take you so easily… how come you allowed the old man to kill you off?”
“Ah well… the crafty old gringo slipped that in at the last minute, while I was a little preoccupied with my inevitable sequel. I’ve made him suffer for it since… but maybe he was right. Again, who knows? But you Hesperus… you’re a special case too. Who created you… the avatar that bears your name… or the Ooniverse itself? Or do you go back a lot further than that, amigo? Are you the stuff of legends?”
The feline seemed to stiffen slightly with pride at old memories… when he’d had his own ship, before the fall. He took another sip of the purple liquor… he had taken an instant liking to this drink. Ahh, the memories… the Dubious Profit, the crazy days along the spacelanes, conning gullible traders… he smiled broadly.
“I ain’t quite sure Coyote… I seem to have been around for a very long time. What do I do now? Any ideas?”
“Sure… as I told ‘la senorita’, this is fiction and the usual rules don’t apply. Go out and invent yourself a new ship, take to the spacelanes again… still plenty of damn fool tenderfoot traders out there, just waiting for you to part them from their hard-earned credits… comprende?”
“I can do that?… Yes, I can do that, and I will, dammit. I’ll show ’em! Hesperus will ride again!”
“Bravo captain, bravo. I’m a little concerned about Rebecca though… if she decides to try and take down that lizard Wyvern, she’ll be in for a nasty surprise. Captain Derik Roh’i will be a lot less sympathetic, I fancy… might be a good contest though.”
Captain Hesperus shuddered at the mention of that name… Coyote was right, Derik Roh’i was a ruthless son-of-a-reptiloid, and an ace marksman… no telling what he might do. But that was Rebecca’s problem… ‘The Cap’ had things to do.
“Rebecca can take care of herself, Coyote… and it’s time I wasn’t here. Thanks for the drink.”
“Anytime Hesperus, anytime… vaya con dios, mi amigo… and take care out there. Adios!”
Without further ado, the feline left, a renewed sense of purpose in his stride. After he’d gone, Coyote howled with delight… then disposed of the now empty bottle and glasses. Time to let the old man back in again… or then again, maybe not!

Deep space, Lave system:
The Cobra mk 3 cruised slowly through the asteroid field, it's scanner antennas sweeping the rocks as it slipped past. There was something about the metallic content of these rocks that reflected and scattered active scans, and the effect made the Cobra's lone wolf pilot believe that the field would make a good ambush area. Little did she know that her prey had the same idea, hours ago...

The scanner suddenly went live with two red blips behind the ship, and the vroop vroop of the attack warning klaxon went off. Rebecca gasped, "Giles damn it!", watching her aft shields drop. The two Excalibur fighters veered apart, then turned, strafing the Cobra from either side. Rebecca frantically sidefired at one of the fighters in return, only to watch the nippy craft veer off, escaping her fire, and again strafe her aft.
"I'll never beat these pirates off in this rock garden!"
She punched the injectors, burning around a large asteroid, with the Excals in hot pursuit. She fired her aft laser at the fighters, scoring hits, but the fighters dodged her fire and pressed the attack. She launched a pair of missiles, yet they were quickly ECM'd.

Then, just as quickly, just as it seemed they had the advantage, the pirates veered off and sped away into the asteroids. "That's strange," Rebecca muttered, checking her damage board. The shields were weak, two missiles were gone, her lasers were hot and she was low on fuel, but otherwise no damage.

Her commscreen flickered. The face peering at her was that of a predatory reptilian, and the gleaming ocular implant gave away who's face. The dracolid growled, "So ends lesson one. Lesson two begins...Now!" The screen filled with static, then went blank.
Rebecca checked her scanner, then her views. "Blast you Roh'i, where are you?!" Then she saw it, the deathly black, predatory form, closing fast to port. Green fire lanced out from the Cadeceus' nose, draining the remaining charge from her shields. Rebecca fired back, the Caddy's shields flaring. Then Roh'i's ship turned, flying overhead; blasts from the ventral heavy turret hammered her Cobra. Rebecca turned away, lining up her aft laser, and fired. Again the Caddy's shields flared, then the warship turned, firing bursts into her aft section.
Rebecca targeted and launched her last two missiles. One was ECM'd down, the second was blasted from the sky by the Caddy's side guns. The Caddy stayed with her, ignoring shots from her overheated laser, methodically firing into her aft.
Rebecca quickly checked her damage. System after system was failing with each hit. She tried the injector, but it didn't work. The Caddy kept firing in quick bursts. One of the Cobra's engine cores failed, then the other. Fuel spilled into the void. The energy banks sputtered and failed. The Caddy ceased fire at last, moved off a short distance, and idled it's drives. Rebecca realized that the only device still working was the escape pod.
The comm came alive. "I left you alive...this time. Quite frankly madam, you're not much of a challenge. I'll compensate you for the loss of your ship and cargo, it's only money to me. You get away with something far more valuable. I leave you to ponder that while you ride your pod home." The screen went blank, and the Caddy thrust away, and vanished into the void.

Ah. Thread evolution.

Sorry 'bout the absence and anything I missed. Processor failure meant I had to wait 'til payday to get the PC sorted. G/f was not impressed.

You dialled down the plasma load on the sun gun didn't you? Softie!

ClymAngus wrote:

You dialled down the plasma load on the sun gun didn't you? Softie!

I ordered the output lowered for this duel, yes. The plan was to disable, not to kill; to hold off the "spicy meatball of death" in favor of an Inerian boot to the arse. Dead gals don't learn the lesson.

Any other rogue would feel Perci's bite to the fullest.

drew wrote:

Lovin' this... brilliant! Quasi-reprocate avatarcide.

We've got quite a Pantheon of distinctive characters in the Ooniverse now. Perhaps someone could work on a proper crossover story!

Cheers,

Drew.

My dear sir! I have been nothing other than a cross over (in this world only admittedly) . Although you throw down an interesting gauntlet. Can a novel shaped by the the many literately minds of oolite convey a meaningful story without falling prey to the horrors of a multiple mary sue adventure?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

We would need an editor, both written (to check styles and story) but I see no reason why it could not be done as a grand experiment.

ClymAngus wrote:

We would need an editor

I'd nominate Disembodied, because he's good at finding typos. And he needs something to do besides float in a jar.

On that note, how would Blaze deal with a madwoman trying to splatter his gray matter?

Cmdr Wyvern wrote:

ClymAngus wrote:

We would need an editor

I'd nominate Disembodied, because he's good at finding typos. And he needs something to do besides float in a jar.

On that note, how would Blaze deal with a madwoman trying to splatter his gray matter?

As a side note

http://www.onlyfiction.net/marysue2.html

Udian Shulth scrapes by with a score of 32. Woot! Mainly due to his ruthlessness, tendency to mind rape people and that he's not a 12 year old manga character.

Cmdr Wyvern wrote:

I'd nominate Disembodied, because he's good at finding typos. And he needs something to do besides float in a jar.

On that note, how would Blaze deal with a madwoman trying to splatter his gray matter?

I should stress that there's a difference between editing and proofreading ... the principal one being, a proofreader says "this is spelled wrong", and an editor says "this character/chapter/plot device is irrelevant/wrong/unnecessary and should be dumped/moved elsewhere/altered beyond all recognition".

Something like this would have to be planned carefully from the beginning – probably using something like the extremely useful Lester Dent Master Plot Formula (as recommended by – among others – Michael Moorcock). After a structure and plot were mutually agreed, then we could try writing the various episodes and making sure it was internally consistent (e.g. we don't have characters being vapourised in part 1 and popping up healthy and well in part 3).

Well, things have been turning a bit weird in this plot.

Coyo got capped and returns from the dead, so now there's a cocky spanish zombie wandering around. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad one.

Becky gets an asskicking via ruse tactics that R. Weston would likely see coming from a light-year away, and has some time to cool her heels in an escape pod. Have we heard the last of her? Probably not. Mad as hell? I'd say count on it.

"Truth is, we don't know!"

ClymAngus wrote:

Udian Shulth scrapes by with a score of 32. Woot! Mainly due to his ruthlessness, tendency to mind rape people and that he's not a 12 year old manga character.

Derik gets only a 13. Due to being an ugly one-eyed despicable bastard with not enough sense of preservation to run from a fight? Charges right into brawls instead and damn the torpedoes, the nit.
And he's not Japanese.

Disembodied wrote:

Cmdr Wyvern wrote:

I'd nominate Disembodied, because he's good at finding typos. And he needs something to do besides float in a jar.

On that note, how would Blaze deal with a madwoman trying to splatter his gray matter?

I should stress that there's a difference between editing and proofreading ... the principal one being, a proofreader says "this is spelled wrong", and an editor says "this character/chapter/plot device is irrelevant/wrong/unnecessary and should be dumped/moved elsewhere/altered beyond all recognition".

Something like this would have to be planned carefully from the beginning – probably using something like the extremely useful Lester Dent Master Plot Formula (as recommended by – among others – Michael Moorcock). After a structure and plot were mutually agreed, then we could try writing the various episodes and making sure it was internally consistent (e.g. we don't have characters being vapourised in part 1 and popping up healthy and well in part 3).

I am missing the answer to the second question.

Cmdr Wyvern wrote:

Coyo got capped and returns from the dead, so now there's a cocky spanish zombie wandering around. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad one.

Could be a clone. OR it could be like star trek 3 : THE SEARCH FOR COYOTE!

Commander McLane wrote:

Cmdr Wyvern wrote:

I'd nominate Disembodied, because he's good at finding typos. And he needs something to do besides float in a jar.

On that note, how would Blaze deal with a madwoman trying to splatter his gray matter?

I am missing the answer to the second question.

Ah, well ... carefully.

Out of interest, has anyone ever read R L Stevenson's very short story The Persons of the Tale? It's a behind-the-scenes conversation between Long John Silver and Captain Smollett from Treasure Island, as they wait for the next chapter to start.