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Commander of the Stellar Horizon Chosen

From the very beginning the crew of the Stellar Horizon was a difficult one to choose, such a historic mission for the young government – to reach out into the stars and not rely just on the efforts of Starfleet and other organizations to explore, but to set their sights themselves on what the organization needed and wanted to know. The crew is crafted carefully to be eclectic, with many skills and many backgrounds.

A former Borg engineer, a Spartan security chief, a tried and tested warrior as chief medical officer, and now the commander of the vessel has been selected to be Vladimir Zima. This selection has brought into focus something more than simply the idea that the Serenity Concord would like to reach out into the stars but a symbol of belonging and acceptance for the new arrivals to this reality. A concept that, not that many years ago, would have been the work of fiction has become a fact of life. There are other realities and every possible kind of being exists and every possible kind of history likewise exists. The Stellar Horizon has become more than just a ship or a project, but proof that the new arrivals to this universe are welcome and can not only contribute but excel here.

The rest of the command crew has also been selected.

Dwarven Horns

On a fateful morning, a young dwarf appeared in the hamlet of Whiterage blowing a horn, waking almost everyone in the town who was not already stirring. Shortly after, she fell into into unconsciousness from significant wounds on her body. The local healer in the town along with two newer arrivals to the town; Mauve and Eadan. While folks of Whiterage have grown quite familiar with Eadan, who is very open and honest. Some are more cautious of Sunn, wishing to know more about him and why he seems to want very little to do with them or anyone else. Even among those cautious souls, it is known that he befriended a lost young girl and has been steadily paying for her stay at the Inn, which has left many with a warm though that his past should remain the past. Commonly it is said that had he evil intent, the girl would have been left to die in the woods or even worse fates would have befallen her.

The young dwarves name is Gwynnyl and tells that she and her people were attacked in their fortress and formed them to flee – by demons. It is clear that trouble is spreading throughout the land and without intervention it may even envelop the small peaceful homes of Whiterage. It is said that the Grand Mistress of the Souls Templar will be coming to Whiterage to speak to this Gwynnyl in an attempt to get answers from her.

Public Service Serial Killer

Several murders throughout Los Angeles County have raised eyebrows as a pattern emerges of a vigilante taking care of low-level gang bangers. Slugs retrieved from the crime scenes all clearly link this to the same perpetrator through analysis of the bullets, which are unusually heavy and show trace evidence of motor oil and a number of other odd contaminants.

Police are theorizing that the perpetrator may have been caught doing some other crime and incarcerated, or perhaps left the area as several weeks have gone by without a new killing attributed to the killer. It is clear that the killer has a high amount of professional skill with the act of killing and evidence to date suggests a potential military background. This would certainly not be the first time Los Angeles had found military-trained killers in their midsts but the first time in a considerable time that such a killer was attacking these kinds of targets.

Many in the communities effected are praising the vigilante for doing what the police could not – keeping them safe.

Surprise Battle on Soteria

A dangerous storm was reported on Soteria yesterday, Solas Tempus forces moved in to investigate and got engaged on the ground by a race of being which seem to be a mix of machines and strange genetic abominations. These creatures appeared to be able to teleport at will and had stunning abilities to adapt to tactics. They successfully pinned down the recently-formed Solas Tempus Marines who were on sight as well as TACCOM forces on the ground. More troubling was the tole they took on vessels who attempted to help. The Dwend ship, Irvyn, moved in to assist but was crippled when a virus took over the main computer of the USS Protector. The Protector’s computer was compromised by a virus when gateways opened up on the ship slicing through its shields entirely. The ship opened fire on the Irvyn doing significant damage to it.

Weakness in Starship Design Revealed

The Protector was lost when it suffered significant damage from the boarding parties, her Captain, Megan Shepard, ordered a self destruct when the ship seemed unrecoverable. She and the survivors are being treated on Nimbus Station. Not long after the Protector was destroyed, taking the invaders on board with it, the STV Galatine and STV Zealot Star responded to the attack and enters orbit over the storm, suffering minor damage from arcs of plasma and electricity emitted from the storm, they too were immediately boarded on both bridge and engineering levels. While Fleet Admiral Thomas and Admiral D’Amico responded entirely differently to the attack, both failed to repel the intruders.

On the Galatine, they were forced to abandoned the bridge and engineering, eventually ejecting their warp core to avoid a full breech as well as jettisoning the bridge module to destroy it. On the Zealot Star D’Amico ordered the engineering deck to irradiate the area once the crew was evacuated, in hopes it would disable to slow down the assaulting forces – it did not. They too eventually had to do the same as the Galatine. Both vessels were effectively disabled within a short amount of time.

Tides are Turned – But how?

Reports from the ground are sketchy, and most detailed reports from eye witnesses with more details are classified by the organization. From what is pieced together by non-classified reports, forces from Nimbus responded when the STMC and other forces were in trouble, but fighters lacked the ability to withstand the plasma and lightening within the storm and were unable to engage. Ground forces did reinforce the STMC, however. The mix of forces on the ground were turned away, though the method is unclear.

A wide variety of reports tell of a single marine responsible for turning back the enemy forces though other reports say that some kind of a ghost-warrior or other supernatural figure stopped the onslaught and rallied remaining forces at his back. The wide array of reports definitely points to something having occurred but what might have occurred is anyones guess. It is known that Fleet Admiral Thomas did join the battle at some point after the Galatine was disabled, suffering 3rd degree burns and nerve damage from the assault, the method of this is unclear as well since it does not match any of the other injuries sustained. One supposed eye-witness report of the incident spoke on condition of anonymity and told of how a knight with flaming red hair appeared and a large bladed weapon. This figure supposedly moved at super-human speed and was able to soak up significant damage from incoming fire before it attacked the controlling entity and destroyed it, ending the battle. No other reports can confirm this account of events and it seems entirely too far fetched to be true.

The Aftermath

After the battle, STS and TACCOM forces moved in with engineers and medical teams to secure the area and recover the dead and wounded. Casualty counts have not been released but it is believed they were significant. The Dwend vessel is grounded while repairs are conducted and the Avali have been called in to assist in studying a series of strange artifacts that were left behind, in particular a gate that may hold the key to discovering how the aliens were able to so easily move onto the planet and on the ships in orbit. Some reports do say the storm moved to the Nabu Summit and was followed by a lone man, but those reports are inconsistent and their authenticity is in question.

As it stands, Solas Tempus have released a statement that they are studying the telemetry of the battle as well as the artifacts left behind and they are confident that a defense will be found soon against the aliens should they choose to return. All reports of some kind of lone warrior or knight have been flatly (and at times comically) denied by Solas Tempus and the Concord. Captain Shepard has been issued orders to take command of a new vessel which has under refit at the Ronin Shipyards right now to meet Solas Tempus specifications while the Galatine and the Zealot Star are under repairs.

Meanwhile, Fleet Admiral Thomas remains unconscious following the attack and is being treated at Nimbus as well, though he is expected to make a full recovery once his body regains enough strength to wake up. At that time, Solas Tempus has assured us that he will give an accurate account of events.

June’s Top Contributors

First of all, I would like to start off by thanking our staff members Liz, ks, and t0l for participating in the recent storyline done by Bucket, if even tangentially. I will be posting more about that in an in-character post from the news service.

In addition to the scores posted about previously, since our top spots are entirely staff members right now, we will be adding a new spot for each (forum and wiki) for the top non-staff contributor each, which will be worth 1000 points each.

For Running Plot

Buck Approves#3038 is awarded 1000 guild points to his score for running his plot involving the Vex on Soteria un Blazing Umbra. Thank you Buck, we appreciate it.

For the Wiki

As previously discussed, this is based on the Contribution Scores extension for MediaWiki over the last 30 days.

  1. Cyclops
  2. Red
  3. Darktrooper501

The user Ks0908 is a close 4th place.

The user Spartan889 is the top non-staff contributor to the wiki.

Those users produced a combined score based on number of revisions and new content added to the wiki. We thank them for expanding our collective universe and helping to create a more robust setting.

For the Forum

These are awarded based on replies to threads over the last 30 days and does not take into account new threads started.

  1. Titan Shadow
  2. Red the Heretic
  3. TheChubbyGamer

With a close 4th place of Spartan_889, who is also the recipient of the new non-Staff award for participation and contribution, being the top non-staff contributor on the forum by number of replies.

Thank you all for keeping things going on the forum.

Bonuses and New Leaderboard

  • Titan Shadow#1701 gets 2000 points (1000 for Wiki and 1000 for Forum 1st Place)
  • Red the 15th#2304 gets 1500 points (750 for Wiki and 750 for Forum 2nd Place)
  • Imperatoris Lacerta#8924 gets 1000 points (500 for Wiki and 500 for Forum 3rd Place)
  • Chaos Sorcerer Spartan889#7660 2000 points (1000 for Wiki and 1000 for Wiki Top non-staff Contributor)

New Leaderboard Direct from Tatsumaki

User Score
Imperatoris Lacerta 252032
Titan Shadow 233498
Red the 15th 192832
t0l 155285
ks 153304
The Chubby Gamer, Sloth Boi 144860
Dr. Winterdawn 99202
Thatotakugalaxy 88248
JumpingScript 83913
Buck Approves 79577

Some Notes about Contribution and Participation

While our overall forum participation has gone up as well as wiki contributions, it is still mostly staff doing the role playing. We do like this! However, we’d also like our non-staff members to participate more. Thus, I would like to encourage all Staff members to reach outside of the bubble of other Staff members to new players or even players that have not participated in a a while to see if they’d like to participate in role plays.

We have some superb role players here and everyone has something to contribute to the game. This is why we recently put out our participation survey. This survey is here to help us (me) determine how to better run the server. We’ve got some great responses so far, but there is a lot of talk in the comments about plot and people not feeling like they have anything to contribute or not sure what to do if they do participate.

This is entirely normal! Putting ones self in a position to participate in a plot without the defined structure of a dice-based or video-game-based system is difficult, there are a lot of options. Thus, I would like it if any player unsure what to do would ask, just simply ask for help. I realize that the group has gotten a bit… Well, a bit less-than-supportive as we’ve gotten a core group of role players but we’re working on changing that. I invite anyone who has been here a while but hasn’t played in a while to pop back in and if you’re not sure what you can do or contribute, just ask. If any issues crop up, don’t hesitate to bring them up!

The strength of our community relies on the simple idea that everyone can contribute something and have fun doing so. Not everyone has to get along perfectly, not everyone has to have the same political or religious views, not everyone even has to agree on what morning is. The goal here is to have fun writing stories where the world can turn out better than the one we live in. I personally think that is key to staying sane in the times we live in, where so much is up in the air.

Again, thank you all for your continued contributions and support.

Provisional Limits on Projectile Weapons

Provisionally, until I get more feedback on the subject, due to the outstanding question:

How fast should a projectile weapon be able to fire a slug?

I am implementing a hard-limit on how fast handheld or shoulder-mounted weapons can fire a projectile to 8,000 m/s (roughly Mach 23). This is a hard-limit for railguns and coilguns that use other means than those of conventional firearms (gunpowder or other explosives) which can be carried in the hand, shoulder-mounted, or otherwise used and carried by a single person. It was suggested by a player to have a railgun that can propel a round at just over 1% of the speed of light, which is clearly absurd. Since the escape velocity of Earth is a little over 11.1 km/s, I figure that if one fires their weapon and misses at STP (standard temperature and pressure), their bullet should not escape the confines of Earth’s gravity and go into orbit, or one should not be able to strike a vessel in orbit from the ground with a railgun one can carry.

Allowances are made for ship-mounted or ground facility weaponry that can have a higher power source, far more bulk, and potentially can propel a round faster.

Conventional Firearms

Conventional firearms of any design are limited by what is on hand, they are limited by a leeway of 25% increase from modern firearms for alternative explosive fuel sources and materials. Conventional firearms is defined here as being any firearm which propels a hunk of material using some force of explosive pressure or high pressure release. It is the opinion of the server admin that the human race has had a long time to perfect the production of handheld instruments of death using explosive charges to propel rounds, certain ballistic limitations of STP also exist that limit things.

At any rate, any conventional weapon is hard-limited to no faster than a 25% increase over the conventional weapon’s real-life firing speed. Such an increase also will have to be explained by some variation of describing why the fuel is different or shape of the round.

Round-Design

Rounds that approach the hard-limit will require explanation, what are they made of that they can withstand the force of air resistance at the velocity and should also have some note about their size and shape. One cannot just fire a blunt slug at those speeds, as it would become aerodynamically unstable very quickly, the round would also be subject to severe deformation due to heat from air resistance. Rounds traveling at speeds in excess of Mach 4.5 will also need to be aerodynamically designed in order to maintain flight stability. In terms of in-game explanations, it is not expected for players to have specific design specifications, but it is expected that a round is shaped with a small pointed nose and tapered back-end to allow for aerodynamic stability. Anything else would be aerodynamically unstable.

Grandfather Clause

While normally I extend a grandfather clause to new guidelines and rules, that is not the case here, and weapons currently in game which violate this rule will require special approval to keep.

Final Note

This is not a combat oriented game and it should be noted that the weapons used are used to further story – allow characters to have the opportunity for sufficiently “bad assed” moments but also sufficient risk during combat or other encounters. As such players should realize that while it is certainly canonical within a science fiction setting to have weapons that do massive amounts of damage, that actually makes play harder – the goal of play is to enjoy a situation which your character must fight to survive or overcome an obstacle, not insta-kill an enemy and celebrate a job well done.

This is the reason in canon Star Trek, during the Dominion War, they did not use the phasers to their full potential. Even though canon directly says that a single man with a hand phaser in the 23rd century (TOS) can annihilate thousands of infantry who are unprotected and during the course of TNG it is seen that phasers on a wide-beam setting can effectively incapacitate large numbers of people, it was because it worked well within the confines of those stories. The stories of the Dominion War would have lacked a level of personal risk among the characters to have things be that easy, rather than use that they told a different and far more relatable story of phasers used in the same line as conventional weapons with line-of sight restrictions. This was done to great emotional and dramatic impact, seeing the “horrors of war”, even though it is technically incorrect.

We strive to have challenges for characters to overcome that require effort and thought, situations that (without being horribly convoluted) force the characters to take risks, risks that make the end result more impactful to the players and audience of the gaming sessions.

Splices Outside Schatten System

We have some new arrivals to the station, though of particular interest are the new arrivals that appeared outside of the Schatten System, something that we had previously thought wasn’t possible.

At Starbase Tranquility

In the Markab Star System, orbiting Trocara, Tranquility serves as Solas Tempus headquarters, on the station a quartet of military personnel appeared in the station, something which was thought to be impossible. Splices turning up outside of the Schatten system is troubling indeed. It was previously thought that such things could only happen within the confines of such a unique star system. However, 4 people appeared in Tranquility all of which injured.

After significant medical care, the quartet were transferred to Nimbus Station, which has more experience dealing with new arrivals from other universes.

Quartet of Arrivals

The leader of the group is reported to be Jedidah, who has been kept in sickbay under isolation for now, with her companions similarly isolated. It is known thus far that they are stable but that some care is still required, the details have not yet been released. Rumors are circulating that Jedidah made quite the show of force on Tranquility which would explain the armed guards surrounding the isolation area of sickbay. So far it is unclear the details of what happened.

Radioactive Shuttle

A radioactive shuttle appeared in the star system with an artificial life form on board, though most of the details of the occupant are unclear it is known that both it and the shuttle itself required significant repairs. The occupant is currently recovering in an engineering workshop, the enigmatic Nine was called in to assist with the repairs.

Reporters followed up with Nine to get more information but all the android would say was, “It’s a girl.”

Engineering logs show that the android is labeled in the system as Unit 236C. Of course it is likely that she has a different name than that for interacting with others, at least if her origins follow the same customs as we do for such things.

Further Study

The head of Gold Team, the division of Solas Tempus that deals with scientific endeavors, Admiral Renton has ordered an intensive investigation to attempt to determine how a splice formed outside of the Schatten system. A statement released by the Concord has stated clearly that it is likely for this to be an isolated incident and for people to remain calm while they study the issue.

Successful Writing Prompts

So far my foray into writing prompts has been successful, so we’re going to keep doing it. As such, I’ve created a new category on the site blog, Motus Impulsores, which is Latin for “Sources of Inspiration” (at least according to Google Translate). Most everyone here has had substantial improvement in their writing and I’m so happy to see that taking place. Moving forward, this category is going to be used for when we’ve got news or other such information relating to writing and role playing as a method of collaboration.

I’m enjoying seeing what everyone comes up with and I look forward to seeing where the community goes moving forward.

Thank you all.

Council Convened for Ongoing Murders

The Vampire Council of the city has convened a session to discuss the ongoing threat to the city, with an increasing number of murders plaguing the city with clearly supernatural origins. The primary focus is on the set of unsolved serial murders going on with the city, as we previously reported no supernatural groups have been found responsible for the deaths nor as a cause been found. The general cause of the murders vary with every strike, but now a total of 22 murders have taken place, this number is more than doubled from the previously thought of 10 murders. Investigators have found a 2nd death corresponding to each murder, the death coming from severe brain damage. Autopsy has provided the cause of death but not how it happened, there are a number of victims in hospitals all over the city with similar brain damage, though less severe indicating a potentially greater threat. All the victims so far have been human with no link between them.

The Council has put forth a general call for investigators to descend upon the city with a substantial cash reward for those who can help solve the case and even resolve the problem entirely. While the Out of Aces Detective Agency has already thrown their hat in the ring, it is clear this could be a dangerous assignment – and they do not have exclusive rights to the case. Instead, the council has demanded that any investigators share information. The downside is failure may result in increasingly lavish punishments from the council, those who do not deliver on their word often end up dead.

Further, those with knowledge of the current investigation have told of a mysterious signal coming in over shortwave channels, someone who has been tracking the case up until this point. Details on that are sketchy but if that is indeed true it could point to a larger conspiracy on the horizon for the city. The Council itself has said nothing further other than the general call to investigate the case and seek a resolution.