Active Plots (Alphabetical) - Updated 8/21/2010

Can't I Have Any Time? - (Eruantion Doriath [?], Amonost Doriath [?])

End of Solitude - (Verda Stelo [?])

No More Grape Soda - (Alex Dean [?], Samuel Jorgenson [?], Leon Mecheeto [?])

Questionable Means - (Tawny Black [?], Ishkan Ma'z)

Author	Comment
QuantumTroll Street Fighter/Space Station 12/18/2008 8:18:31 PM Level: 1 Experience: 0 Total Posts: 181	Space Station F.R.E.Y.A. Space was cold.  At least, it could apparently serve as an infinite reservoir to dump radiative heat from the great smelters located somewhere in what Freya thought of as her belly.  She got them at a bargain from a defunct asteroid mine.  It was only a year ago she'd first been able to run both smelters at once thanks to the fantastic cooling laser she bought from a Sunship that had been through the chromosphere one too many times. No humanoids were visiting just now. Things were quiet except for the reassuring rumble of her guts. While it didn't help her tape accounts any, she almost preferred it this way.  No need for corrosive oxygen gas in her bowels, no need to waste energy on maintaining the precarious recycling processes, no need for huge natural language routines to occupy her mentality. As an added bonus, she finally had the chance to purge all the non-humanoid organicals that visitors inevitable dragged along as pets and pests (so hard to tell the difference!). Freya drove on, ion thrusters blazing in silent fury.  Mechanical life guiding itself down its chosen path.  Her path.
Jara Green freelance fighter pilot 1/12/2009 10:02:08 PM Level: 1 Experience: 0 Total Posts: 60	RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A. Jara had heard of an automated space station, or was it an android that made a station? A station that made itself? She'd heard many rumors, and they didn't make any sense. One thing that was solid was approximate coordinates, and that it was buying resources, rare metals, conductors, the sort of thing her space mining community was good for digging up, she'd brought those rumors home with her, and they asked if she could find it and negotiate. If it was willing to give them a better price on their materials than the grubby construction companies they were working with now they said they were even willing to give her a small percentage of the prospective profit over the next year, and all up front no less! They must be really getting tired of those whining greedy hacks... Well, she'd arrived at the last set of coordinates she'd received, and set her sensors for active search at the longest range setting her fighter offered, this of course made her a beacon in turn, any pirate who happened to be close and had any curiosity in them at all would dive in on her like beggars at a church feast. But she found nothing, she made a short jump in the vague direction it seemed to be heading, and tried again. This time at near her maximum range she got a ping, it had to be a fairly large object to ping that far away, so turning her sensors back to their normal setting the gunned her engines toward FREYA. explosions are louder in space, because there's no air to get in the way
QuantumTroll Street Fighter/Space Station 1/13/2009 4:43:27 AM Level: 1 Experience: 0 Total Posts: 181	RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A. One thousand klicks away, ripples in the electric field sent a wave of electrons surging back and forth through a long conductor. This was unusual, for as long as it could remember, the sensor had felt nothing but the random noise of space.  Another conductor was drafted into service, this one powered and capable of producing its own electronic waves.  Electromagnetic waves rippled out, and the sensor waited. Shortly, it recorded the expected anomaly, a signal at the outgoing frequency but with a distinct phase shift. Circuits awoke, data processed, and a signal was sent to Central Processing - we have a visitor. Freya was supervising the optimization of the rapid-prototyping workflow when the signal came.  She considered the implications. There hadn't been a visitor for a long time out here in the far marches of space. Time to get busy with hostessing duties - the rapid prototypers could sort themselves out. Diagnostic routines preceded wake-up calls in the habitable zones.  Soon, air started to fill the empty spaces, electric heat raised the ambient temperature, and the food processor started on a loaf of bread. The smell of baking always slowed the heartrate and increased the inspiration volume of humans, variables associated with calmness and - most importantly - generosity. Natural language routines were initialized and begged for working memory. Sighing, Freya shrunk what she could, paged the rest to disk, and gave them their real estate. At some point, she needed to get more efficient routines, because this was ridiculous.  With her language abilities back in action, Freya was ready to do business. Another long conductor began making ripples.  A woman's voice on the radio, "Welcome to Station FREYA. Please state your business."
Jara Green freelance fighter pilot 1/13/2009 7:11:22 PM Level: 1 Experience: 0 Total Posts: 60	RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A. Jara Was a little surprised that the station had contacted her already, it must have very good antennas, maybe she could make a side deal to upgrade some parts on her fighter if the equipment was that good, she still had the default fighter communication arrays, they didn't go all that far. She hoped her own communication antenna was strong enough to get the response to FREYA this early. A woman's voice no less, Jara nodded in satisfaction, she wasn't necessarily a feminist, but she liked it when women demonstrated power. She brought the directional antenna up and focused it in FREYA's direction. "Hello FREYA. Do you read me? My name is Jara Green, I'm here on behalf of Grayson Territories, we are a mining colony, and heard you had an interest in the kinds of materials we get. You could say I'm here to see if we can negotiate a contract." What kind of station would something like this be? What would it look like? A station made by, or of, or... Anyway, completely without human interference. She was very curious.
QuantumTroll Street Fighter/Space Station 1/13/2009 8:14:00 PM Level: 1 Experience: 0 Total Posts: 181	RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A. A database lookup told Freya that Grayson Territories was an unremarkable colony quite a distance away.  She was a little surprised that she was already known over there and wondered what had attracted the merchant. The voice analysis came back with a summary - 95% chance of a female human, probable heuristic categories include optimistic and radio formality. This was turning out to be quite the catch.  Freya liked women, she felt like she had more in common with them than with human males.  And the chance to write a contract with a far-off mining colony was just fantastic. As the little ship approached, Jara saw a bunch of lights suddenly turn on and illuminate the station.  It was rather oddly shaped and didn't express any single design philosophy except a certain utilitarian elegance.  The hull was roughly cylindrical with asymmetrical protrusions and a bulbous nose. Standard space conventions applied, however, - green lights marked the airlocks and red onesmarked the extremities (actually the vertices of the convex hull, for the tech-savvy).  The few airlocks Jara saw were located toward the back of the station. Jara, a seasoned spacer, couldn't make much out of what she saw.  The station was roughly symmetrical about the long axis that ran through the center of the engine cluster, which were turned off for docking maneuvers.  Scale was always difficult to judge in space but it seemed much larger than she had expected, suitable for a crew of 200 or more.  On closer examination, Jara could see at least half a dozen different hull materials joined together in a patchwork.  Hard to tell what was permanent and what might open up into a dock.   When the ship started nearing the station, Freya came on the radio again and said, "Normal airlock rates are 1 tape per hour. Would you like to upgrade to the hangar-lock for 4 tape per hour more?" The difference would mean clambering through a closet-sized airlock all the time or being able to step in and out of the ship in the comfort of a fully pressurized hangar.
Jara Green freelance fighter pilot 1/13/2009 8:34:00 PM Level: 1 Experience: 0 Total Posts: 60	RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A. Jara smiled, ah the joys of a commercial station, well the rates weren't that bad she supposed. She was only really planning on one trip out and one trip into the fighter, maybe two depending on circumstances. "Normal airlock will do FREYA, thank you, no need getting spoiled." She idly wondered if Freya had autopilot functions for her docks, and if she had them... Hah, Jara was already referring to it as a she... if she would use it, Jara had manually docked enough times that it didn't really matter either way, but it might to FREYA.
QuantumTroll Street Fighter/Space Station 1/14/2009 4:47:42 AM Level: 1 Experience: 0 Total Posts: 181	RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A. Freya's response was a quick "Very well, you are cleared to dock when you're ready," and the extinguishing of the green lights around the larger docking port.  With practiced ease, Jara nudged her small vessel to the small dock facing her.  On her approach, she had only counted three docks including the large one, disquietingly few for a large station. The hookup was a standard model and posed no difficulties. In a few moments, a little light came on telling her that there was air behind the airlock and she could debark.
Jara Green freelance fighter pilot 1/14/2009 11:37:56 AM Level: 1 Experience: 0 Total Posts: 60	RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A. She keyed the switch to begin putting air into her own cockpit from the airlock and being there was so little space the pressure quickly equalized. She unstrapped from the seat, but stayed in it now that she was attached to FREYA's artificial gravity, this was mildly annoying, but expected. Nervously she disengaged the oxygen, unhooked the oxygen tank from her suit, and pulled off her helmet, but the air smelled fine so she grabbed the now somewhat heavy case of samples, and opened the way to FREYA. Clambering through the small space with the case was somewhat difficult. As soon as she was out of the airlock she pulled her hair out of the suit so it could get some air and it fell into its place, covering a decent portion of her face again. The pressure suit was a red and black pattern, with a couple varying shades of red, very tight, and form fitting, well for what little form she had. Some overly prudent people may have considered it indecent, but it practically was her home, and she was quite used to wearing it in public. Come to think of it, she looked around, there wasn't anyone here at all. It made her feel kind of silly wearing the blaster pistol on her hip, but she hadn't actually expected, nobody to be here.
QuantumTroll Street Fighter/Space Station 1/14/2009 3:39:58 PM Level: 1 Experience: 0 Total Posts: 181	RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A. The airlock opened up into a fairly narrow corridor that led straight into the ship.  Most of the surfaces were bare metal or plastic, except the floor which was made of almost sticky rubber.  Light came from recessed fixtures in the ceiling.  It was not exactly cozy, but it wasn't downright ugly, either.   While Jara looked around, a small wheeled robot came out of a little hatch.  It had two arms on the side, a raised "head" like a horizontal cylinder toward the front, and a flat surface in the back. One of the little clawed hands held an electronic notepad. Freya's voice came over the loudspeakers, "Sorry for making you wait, I haven't had any visitors for a while and need a little time for preparations.  In the meantime, the truckbot will show you to your room and the kitchen facilities.  The notepad has a pricelist.  If you have any questions or concerns, please just give a shout." Okay, thought Freya, not a good time to realize you no longer have a single android body on board. The rapid prototypers are still offline, and all I have are arms, legs, heads, and some actuators. Unbidden, an management program told her that the last body shell was melted down for a project to slightly expand the pressurized hangar. Thanks, but that doesn't help. What about clothes? We can drape a cloth over a skeleton and fill it out with polymer sheets when the RapRep systems are back up. Somewhere deep within the station, a set of robot arms unconsciously swung into action to carry out her decision.
Jara Green freelance fighter pilot 1/14/2009 11:12:55 PM Level: 1 Experience: 0 Total Posts: 60	RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A. Jara scans over the prices, she hadn't really intended to stay that long. As she followed the bot, she continued looking around, "So this," She gesticulated meaning the entire station. "Is you isn't it? You aren't making me wait then, you're already here." She either meant that she didn't feel the need for a proxy to talk to and was willing to talk to FREYA herself, or completely didn't understand what FREYA had meant, which had a similar meaning anyway, just more innocent. (it was the latter, I myself didn't understand until you started talking about body shells ) She was glad she had insisted on small samples of each metal and mineral. The case hadn't been too bad in low gravity, but it was giving her some trouble now. (I edited my bio, giving myself a pilot callsign and named my fighter)

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