Fund Molten Aether

I am never one to enjoy the act of asking others for money so I will keep this short and to the point. Running this server and its associated parts costs me time and in some cases money. The web server along costs the bulk of my out-of-pocket expenses but I do think it has become an essential part of what we do. A place to keep all of our content is very important to me.

I would like to ask that anyone who feels they can consider becoming a patron via our Patreon Page. Even a small regular donation would do wonders for us and my ability to keep everything running. As things pick up I hope to be able to invest more time and energy into making content here. I also would like to start making short videos on YouTube about writing and role playing. Some of these may become content only for patrons but that has yet to be decided.

In the end, I would like to clear about $40 a month or so which would cover my web server costs for the forum, wiki, and wordpress. We have specialized patron roles, which is not much of a thank you but it is a start. Should we get enough patrons I will look into what else those people would like me to do to add value to their generosity.

To everyone, thank you.

URL Update

In the long process that has been moving to the moltenaether.com domain name, the URL’s for all blazingumbra.com will now automatically redirect to the corresponding page on the new domain. All BU links will work exactly as are for a good long while. Eventually we will be moving entirely to the moltenaether.com domain but probably not until 2021 at the earliest. Users may need to log in again to the Wiki or WordPress as the cookies are no longer valid with the new domain.

If anyone gets any redirect errors (most common is likely to be too many redirects) I encourage users to wipe their cache and refresh. If the error still occurs, let me know what page was being accessed so I can do testing and resolve the issue.

Starlight No More & Sudden Storm

Late on Wednesday night the infamous Starlight Motel caught fire after a reportedly fake 911 call brought police there before the fire took place. Law enforcement officials believe that this is related to the series of killings taking place around Chicago for some time now. In a press conference the spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department had this to say:

We understand that in today’s world often times first responders are targeted and we must remain vigilant. Two police officers were killed in the fire that occurred late Wednesday, we mourn their loss not only as a department but as a community. Their killers will be brought to justice.

CPD Spokesperson

There are few eyewitnesses to the event, some time at around 8pm a 911 call came in requesting help. The recording of the call allows us to hear a wide variety of sounds which police say were faked, but sound very real to many. Our independent analysis shows the sounds were very real identifying several independent voices screaming, breaking of class, and other assorted noises. From that point a bulletin went out and the two deceased officers were the first on the scene, they went into the hotel first. Other officers showed up after but then reported that the call was a false alarm.

We attempted to reach the CDP officers who responded to the call but the police has not released their names. Over the next hour a fire broke out in two locations, the CFD arson unit responded and believes the blazes were intentional but have not released their report to the public. One Firefighter we spoke to on condition of anonymity told us the site was the strangest fire location he’d ever seen. He reported that there were dead snakes everywhere, as if every snake in the city had slithered there and just up and died. Blood stains on the remaining walls showed strange symbols that have stuck in his mind after the fact. With so the bodies of some 22 people found, it is no wonder the site has stuck to him.

Other than these scant details City Hall is quiet and no witnesses have come forward. We know from traffic cameras that others did show up, a woman, a rather large van style vehicle with the letters “P S Y C H O T R O N I C S” painted on the side. We have not been able to find a company with this logo or name as yet, leaving the serious question – are they responsible?

During the blaze a freak weather phenomena occur across the entirety of the Chicago area, a sudden storm perhaps saved nearby properties from burning. The storm pushed rain down upon the area that for a while resembled a monsoon. As the storm raged on the temperature dropped suddenly, but briefly, below freezing causing large hailstones. This storm front, which meteorologists say came out of nowhere, lasted for almost a full week of constant rain. Scattered reports say that some people actually found frozen snakes falling from the sky late on Wednesday night, even some filing insurance claims for damage to homes and cars. One homeowner had this to say about the freak weather:

I’m not going to tell the insurance company a snake dented the roof of my car, that is crazy. I wouldn’t believe me! It happened though, a snake about a foot long. Can you believe it? A frozen snake a foot long dented my car!

Chicago Resident Joseph

Joseph requested we not print his last name or address for fear the insurance company would deny his claim upon hearing he is blaming it on a snake. It is highly this night is going to leave our memory any time soon.

The remains of the Starlight Motel have been condemned and the insurance company has erect chain-link fencing to keep people out. The owner of the property has not responded to our requests for comment. It is very likely that without the freak weather phenomena which dumped several inches of rain on the city in such a short time span the fire would have spread to neighboring lots.

Discord Reunification

As many people know, we took a poll on what people think should be done to better revive our role play. Play has diminished significantly over the last few months and that is in the face of many people being stuck at home, which should increase participation. The pole revealed that while there is a certain amount of support for killing off the Angelic Sins and Embers of Soteria settings there was far more people who (thankfully) also think everything was fine. The top two things that people think should be done were to reset everything and start over and to consolidate the servers back into one.

My choice to split the settings up into their own servers was controversial and intended to increase role play. Unfortunately it appeared to do the opposite. From the server having right around 100 people (though most were inactive) the membership has been cut in half. Also role play in AS and EoS are both at an all-time low. Since I am not very keen on resetting everything back to scratch, though that might have some advantages, I decided to reunify all the settings into a single server.

As part of this I cleared out the server invites list and generated a new invite, cleared out the old servers, sent out invites to players who were not still a member of the Molten Aether server, and moved all of the channels back. All the channels are blank of course, but my hope is that under this new (old) configuration we can once again start getting all the settings moving again.

Since roles were changing, everyone should check and make sure they have the proper permissions on Discord.

Discord Sign In Added to Forum

For those people who may not wish to sign into the forum using yet another login, in addition to Facebook and Google we also now support login via Discord credentials. If Discord is linked to the same email you used with Discourse, you can use that as of now to sign in to your existing account.

Efforts in Renewals

This is a last-ditch effort to attempt to revive the settings and generate some stories. My biggest concern is that I cannot carry this place alone, I simply don’t have the ability to do so. I need people to participate in making plots that support the main overarching plot.

I have been trying to get things rolling to revive our role play settings. We have some excellent role players and really good minds here. My efforts have shown a greatly underwhelming response. It appears that my attempts are akin to shouting into the wind. So far a grand total of 4 people have responded to my attempts to revive old story lines. I am becoming convinced that the vast majority of our players have muted the servers and forgotten about them. This is not entirely unreasonable, my work schedule combined with school and a lot of other things has created a situation where for a very long time I just didn’t have it in me to keep things up. People are fickle and bore easily, so it should be no surprised that I entirely failed to maintain this group with any cohesion. I understand this is my fault, I have made people angry, I have promised to continue stories that get dropped, and frankly any game just has a low priority.

This is a last-ditch effort to attempt to revive the settings and generate some stories. My biggest concern is that I cannot carry this place alone, I simply don’t have the ability to do so. I need people to participate in making plots that support the main overarching plot. I have loosened nearly all the restrictions on what I allow people to run but after introducing characters it appears that people just wander off, no longer interested. I don’t have a solution for this.

To help with this, I’ve created a poll. In the past we would have gotten 10-20 responses to a poll, lately I’ve gotten maybe 3 or 4.

Bombing of Nimbus

Anyone tuning into the Serenity Concord news broadcasts would find the familiar, detached expression of news anchor John Boyega would be staring back at them. He cleared his throat, and began to speak.

“Several weeks ago, as many of you know, an Andorian male identified as Koss Th’sherheth entered a hospital on Nimbus station while Commander Mike-037 was visiting an injured Solus Tempus Marine, and bombed the building. Aside from causing massive amounts of structural damage to the hospital and nearby buildings with the blast itself, he took the lives of 100 civilians and hospital workers, as well as severely injuring 20- including the target of the bombing: Commander 037. 30 more civilians were left with minor injuries. Everyone else was unharmed.

“Protests have sprung up against the excessive use of force against the media by ST security forces during the crisis,” Boyega’s words were supported with video of Tobi Angelos straight up yoinking all the media equipment out of the reporter’s hands while the hospital burned in the backround. “However, as no damage was done to the equipment or reporters, none of the outlets involved have pressed charges. Our own Serenity Concord Broadcasting Company claiming that ‘Solus Tempus security was merely trying to keep everyone at a safe distance from ground zero’. The public disagrees.”

The footage changed to video of security forces being obstructed on patrol by a group of protesters. There was no audio, due to the amount of obscenities shouted at the two poor patrolmen. They looked afraid for their safety, hands tightly gripping their phasers as more security arrived to try and disperse the crowd.

“The bomber’s apartment was searched, and it was revealed he left a note behind for Solus Tempus and the Concord at large. For security reasons, we’ve not been permitted to release the exact words on the note, but long story short… Koss Th’sherheth claimed that ST has long discriminated against non-humans of all kinds. He didn’t provide any proof, only accusations. He also accused the organization of becoming a fascist state with the increasing size of the military and the seemingly total control of Fleet Admiral Lance Thomas and Fleet Admiral Sal D’Amico. He claimed to be part of an Onyx supported ring of anti-human terrorists aiming to help bring about the demise of Solus Tempus.

This has sparked more outrage, as it seems the recent attempts to guarantee the safety of civilians have only brought more danger, closer to home.”