Aileron

As I said earlier...the little infantry men are fighting on a sheet of ice and can't stop.

It won't be, I haven't made any complete tilesets used in a zone before. Also, I don't have photoshop. I'm somewhat skilled in maps, but don't have the time to replace someone else's.

1) To some extent the rotational paterns of the moon are relevent to this debate. The rest of your statement is true, in that the primary problem lies in the social and economic. My point was that we should stay focused on the primary cause and not get dragged down into the secondary stuff. 2) There is nothing wrong with the US system. It does a lot of secondary things. I will admit that without the electorial college system Bush would not have gotten elected. However, Gore would not have been elected either! The candidates were tailored to the system, and if you change the system who knows who would have gotten elected. This may be all the reason more to do this, but figure this - Strom Thurmond (a 90 some yr old Senetor too conservative for my tastes) could have won the last election had we not had the electoral college system. PLZ, get over 2000. 3) LOL, funny joke. Oh? You're serious? The media is all a bunch of half-truths and biased data. It isn't quite as far as propeganda, but its close. However, don't think for a second this problem is isolated to the US. I would say every country that has news in it has this semi-propeganda, Australia included. 4) Bush for one has vision and political will. That is ultimately his best quality and what liberals hate about him. What part of "we are going to invade Iraq and make it a democracy" doesn't imply this? It has vision, a democratic Iraq, and political will, the desire to push for a war. He is just going in the opposite direction that liberals like yourself want him to go. 5) Bush is exercising power. Last year he invested money into Hydrogen power and he is a firm supporter of nuclear power. These could be token actions to be political, or this could be a realization that oil's time is ending. Either way, despite Bush's past ties to the oil industry, recognize that has a current motive to solve this problem. But plz, lets all get back to topic. This is turning into one of those Anti-Bush/Anti-US rants that take us nowhere.

You went a little far on that last post. Not everyone in the world is a clone of yourself mind you.

Far away in the Obisidian shaft, the Second Edge began construction of the Arms of Justice using the underground section of an inactive volcano. Just outside the station, an Ithkul merchant vessel was making its way from Terran space. In its cargo hold was a supply of Hadropadoline. Normally, this drug would have been sold to the Exis Aristocracy for cosmetic pruposes. However, it was recently discoverered to cure most of the deadly symptoms of the virus in Ithkul space. Suddenly, a cruiser came out of nowhere and started firing. The captain of the vessel ordered to return one volley and run. However, seconds later a few well-aimed shots disabled the weapons and engines. The next few shots were at the communications center. The merchant ship was only a few lightyears from the safety of the Kanatis fleet, but they had no means to run or call for help. Minutes later, Second Edge soldiers boarded the ship. They raided the cargo and left just as quickly as they arrived. The SE Seriph egaged stealth and dissappeared into deep space.

PM me and I'll do it, and include a new tileset, but you need to give me a cushy staff position in ur zone. A warning though, I don't have photoshop, only a few other programs with various other tools. The tileset will look realistic, but it might be ugly.

Well, yes and no. It starts by what you define "big business" as. There are four parts to every company: workers, customers, investors, and administration. Due to the desire for a good economy, a good politician will be "pro" for the first three. Most of the time the term "big business" is used towards the last one. The problem here is that a capitalist or socialist government does not have the tools necessary to seperate the shaft from the wheat, and to give the government those tools is economically and politically disasterous. Thus, a politician must decide whether to support the business as a whole or dispose of it as a whole. Thus, everyone agrees that a CEO will make a disproportionate amount of money. However, the only way a government can do something about it involve hurting millions of investors, employees, and consumers. So yes, they are in favor of big business as a whole, but against the evils that goes along with big business. They just can't seperate them.

I think his point is that in an infantry zone, drag should be complete. When you are running, and then you stand still, you stop. On the ground, you only move if you apply a force of movement. Thus, in a ground based zone, you should be stopped unless you are applying a force. I think it really isn't worth it. Subspace is supposed to be a ship to ship based game, and ground warfare a distraction. I think ground warfare based zones should just say that they are fighting on a sheet of ice.

No, it wasn't about oil. There simply isn't enough of it in Iraq to make it worth it. (Besides even if it was, the arguement that we should have stayed out of Iraq because of motives doesn't follow logically.) The US is getting something much more valuable out of it. Prior to the action, we needed to actively contain him. Containment required constant bombardment. Also, there was a center of anti-US media in the country, and us having to bomb them every week wasn't helping Iraqi opinion. In general, Iraq was simply one big mess of contant problems, and it became easier and less costly in human lives just to take Hussein out directly and be done with it. It was a constant war being fought by the US and the Kurds, that was labeled as peace so that various world governments could act like they were giving Hussein a second chance.

[OOC-Oh, my bad. Those of you who don't lik long posts can ignore the blue section.] Aileron started making the perimeter of his base. The planet in question was a very young unstable small planet with almost constant lava flows on the surface. However, it had oxygen in the air, and that fact alone made it above par in terms of habitabiliy. The base was set up in a series of vast caverns that was made by flowing lava. These caverns were miles deep, almost going to the center of the planet but only had one large entrance. The base was name "Obsidian Shaft" for the materials that were burned onto the walls from frequent magma flow. Quickly some barracks, life support, and a powerplant was established. Ail was now working on the defense with Lt. Cage. "Well, I think for starters sir, we should set up a blast gate. Those things are always tough to get past." "Well, though for YOU to get past. The rest of us had no problems getting past the last one, although I will say that I was 'impressed' with your 'performance' Lt." This was the first time Ail told a joke in a long time. Still, the Lt. didn't think it was funny and returned a blank stare. They got serious and continued. "There is an active volcano a few hundred feet up the entrance. If we jury rig it down here, we can send a constant cascade of lava over the door." "Sir, what about anti-ship defense?" "Well, all ships will have to go through Exis to get here, so we should expect either a small sneaky force, or something impossibly huge. Set up two L8 batteries near the entrance, manned from remote." "Sir, that isn't very much." "The Arms of Justice will be our defense if we can get it constructed." Thus, a large blast gate was placed over the door. Then, the active volcano was altered underground, and pumps kept a constant flow of lava over the entrance, that was turned on and off when ships came in and out. Various shafts and canals were dug so that no matter what happened, the lava would not flow into the rest of the caves. Two L8 batteries were placed on the surface, and underground cables connected it to a command room where they were operated.

Well, maybe some of the most recent theories in modern physics are, but most of it is actually very calculated and definite.

[OOC-Also, one quick question for Mr. Ious...how exactly am I a threat to Terran space? All I've been doing is attacking Ithkul. My character was born Terran and has the opinion that the Terrans would be behind him if only they were "elightened" as to how "evil" the Ithkul are. Then again, he is just crazy, but still, the SE are not a direct threat to the Terrans at the moment.]

[OOC-I'd like to point out something in advance. I am currently working on a superweapon. I have been working on it for the past five posts, and will probably post five more times before using it on any of you. The point is, if and when this thing is completed, don't go around saying anything abour superpowers. First off, superweapons should be capable of superpowers, and secondly, you were warned. If my reasoning isn't good enough, plz say so now so I don't waste my time building up to something that won't work. Just in case you are wondering what it does, this weapon is basically an intergalactic sniping rifle. For Ricebowl-There is no way you have enough time to read all the posts and catch up. The woman taking her clothes off (watch word choice plz - various search engines and spyware look for key words - we could get some unwelcome guests in this topic or something like that.) is in my post with the bold italics. As a Kanatis character, the post most relevent to you is the first one as I went back to using normal font.] The SE forces on the Cruiser now-named "Vindication" traveled through The Kingdom of Exis. While the Exis did not officially support the SE, the SE had operated here before, and knew which officials could be bribed and the pattern of patrols. On top of that, Exis space was the one place they did not have to hide. Various Exis officials had conducted various illegal transactions with the SE. Thus, all events involving the SE were classified, even the bio-attack on the Ithkul. The cruiser travelled until it reached its destination - a small uninhabited system that was purchased by the SE with the minerals stolen from the Ithkul. The official name contained twenty syllables, but most people called in the Boondocks system for the fact that it is probably the most remote system in the galaxy. It was here that the SE set up base on the second planet, with the entire Kingdom of Exis between them and their enemies. Deep undergound, they started construction of the dreaded Arms of Justice. When a rudimentary parimeter was established, the Vindication left under command of Councilor Mithcal. They were to conduct piracy operations in the Ithkul sector, it order to sustain a source of funding for bribes and construction.

...but a time travel feature is already in CTM. Here's how to do it: First, you disconnect that DSL or Cable Modem, and fix the 56k up to a phone line. Then, take one of those AOL 900 free hours CDs. Then, install it on your computer. After, that you connect to AOL and run CTM. Congradulations, you will now be able to travel half a second back in time. Still, it would be more 1337 to implement relativity. WTF? I died when I was hit with only two L1 bombs?!? Those were L3s, when traveling at you near c, all things appear red. Ha, you can't hit me! I'm behind a wall! ... WTF? N00b, at speeds near c, line of sight can bend around objects.

Clinton was awfull, and set a very bad policy. Every problem Bush faced during his term could be viewed as something Clinton left over. Bush hasn't found Osama Bin Laden? Clinton didn't look. Bush went into Iraq against world opinion? Clinton convinced the world to give Hussein the second chance he frankly didn't deserve. Bad economy? It started in the Clinton years. Those who think Bush is a moron are wrong. We have no idea how intelligent he is, because the democrats are so stupid that Bush doesn't have to apply any effort to beat them. Bush could be anywhere from stupid to genius, but we won't know until he has some real compe!@#$%^&*ion. He looked really good in 2000, when the compe!@#$%^&*ion was fierce, but today, he really doesn't have to. If you think Bush is a moron, then you are looking at the bottom possibility of a very wide range of possibilities. The problem here is the democrats. They have no policy, are just now building a leadership, and do not know what the American people want. They claim to support the poor, but they really just want to attack the rich. They want to promote job opportunities and be anti-big business at the same time. The list goes on and on. Face it, Bush is going to own this election if things don't change. Kerry and Edwards do not have any policy but an anti-Bush one. When one of them is declared candidate, all Bush has to do is go on the offensive. While Kerry looks good when he attacking Bush, I'll wager he will look pathetic when Bush starts attacking Kerry.

That is a problem in the American political system in that nobody cares who gets elected into Congress, despite how much power they have. I wouldn't go as far to say that the SoH has as much power as the President, although I will agree will your statement as is because it gets the point acrossed better.

[OOC- So you scrolled past the section decribing the woman taking her clothes off...this isn't like you, Rice. For those who lost track or weren't paying attention, here is a table of the factions, including the ones that developed as the RPG went along. Who you are Who you hate Terrans Conspiracy, Second Edge??, Kanatis?? Ithkul Second Edge and anyone !@#$%^&*ociated Exis Nobody Kanatis Terrans?? Second Edge Ithkul, Conspiracy, Terrans?? Conspiracy Second Edge, Anyone Investigating them Misc do-gooder Second Edge ] A newsbrief suddenly came up in the corner of the bar. This just in...Ithkul scientists have analyzed the recent virus attack and have identified the strain. The strain is practically identical to those in the Terren bio-weapons program. This, coupled with rumors that Terran ships may have rescued the captured SE have raised tensions between the two nations....(fill in whatever you want)

Well, whatever you do, don't choose Jav. A Jav pilot who can't aim is a sitting duck, because all they got is the guns. I wouldn't recomend it for those that can aim either, because one cannot build strategies with just one weapon. I'd recomend the Warbird over the Terr. Unless you are l337, it will be difficult to aim the single fire guns with slow rotation. More importantly, the Warbird is the most well-rounded ship. You would learn gunning, bombing, and use of most of the specials.

I dunno, maybe we should add an engine for modern physics as well. Put relativity and Quantum physics in. No...that wasn't lag, you forgot to account for the difference in your time frame and my time frame because my ship is taveling near c and yours is at zero. Now I must own you by exploiting the curved space around that nearby wormhole. <_<

What YOU don't realise is that EVERY world leader in the past, present, and likely the future, only gave, gives, or will give a shiyt about their country, if even that. International acts of charity simply don't exist. The US went into Iraq because we would benefit from a new democracy in the region. France and Germany opposed it because they want terrorists to be as strong as possible without actually helping them. Every action taken by every country in history was selfishly motivated; exceptions are few and far between. Back to the topic, I'd have to say that it is currently hard to decide which of these two is more powerfull. Republicans have a majority in the house, and would have had so in the Senate if some Senators didn't change parties. What we have is close to a Republican Congress with a Republican President. Currently, there is no way to tell. One House supports the President, the other opposes him. It is clear that the Presidency, when supported by the House, is stronger than the Senate.

[OOC-If one is looking for leads, one could look up the conspiracy with Mr. Blake, the Terran weapon leader. You could start with the SE's apparently limitless source of funding and work from there. Go to Terran space, and find some secret do-*BAD WORD*-ent leading to some SE installation and work from there. Also, note that the Terrans are not officially behind Mr. Blake, so uncovering these do-*BAD WORD*-ents should be easy.] Deep space, on the SE station Bravo Twelve... Captain Mithcal was just being given a new !@#$%^&*ignment after his rescue. It was strange to him that even though he lost the battle and the station, that the council thought so highly of him. He was going over the modifciations being done to the recently captured Seriph. "Sir, the problem is that the fighter bays are too small. We simply cannot fit a Wyvern in a slot the was occupied by a Shark." "The Wyvern, the densest formation two ships could fly." was the Captains response. It was a running SE joke about how the Wyverns require as much resources as two standard fighters, although perform twice as well. "We could tear down some walls, or we could just use only Nightwasps." "Unfortunately, the ship has to be ready in a day. We'll have to stick with the Nightwasps." Then, Captain Mithcal ran into Ailius, who was staring out the window. He was watching the Terran emblem being removed from the ship, and an SE one being placed overtop. Ail looked sad, and one can tell with the recent Terran betrayal that Ail felt very similar to that ship. Ail pushed these thoughts aside, and the two of them went into a meeting of the SE council. Inside, the other three living councilors were waiting. Soon the meeting started. "This is a very grave situation. Mr. Blake has stopped giving us all the secret aid we were recieving. A few hours ago, our Main headquarters on the Sixth Planet of the Sol system was attacked by the Terrans." "Mr. Blake must have given up the coordinates of our base." "Fortunatly, we managed to destroy all equipment and data concerning the Arms of Justice. Unfortuneatly, this event leaves us without a main headquarters and missing one seat on the council." "We need a new plan. Ailius, how did your capture of the Ithkul project fare?" "We got all the equipment we could, and destroyed all of their scientific data." responded Aileron. "Well, then, gentlemen, we are now the power in the galaxy closest to completing this ultimate weapons design." "Hardly, we need a new planet to build it on, and we need to fill the lost Council seat." "I have an answer to that problem," responded Aileron, "I would like you to meet Captain Mithcal, the man who almost destroyed the Ithkul fleet with just a single battlestation. He lost, but he did the best he could with little resources." The council agreed, and soon the Captain was promoted to Junior Counciler. Then, the debate as to where to next started. "I say, we find some asteroid in deep space, and build headquarters there." "Any such colony would be easy to attack. We need to be placed inside one of the powers in the universe." responded Ailius. "Who? The Ithkul are our enemies, the Terrans have betrayed us, and the Kanatis are too small to hide in even if they supported us." "We shall go to the Kingdom of Exis, then." [OOC- PLZ don't say that they have a "no-genocide" policy.] "They could do well. Most of our recruits come from there, and they haven't even released the news of our attack to the general public." "I, along with most of the true SE, have a problem with Exis' methods." "We all hate the Exis' methods, but what choice do we have?" The arguement continued for a few hours. It turned out that two of the council preferred to go to deep space, whereas Ailius and one other wanted to go to Exis. Soon, it came down to Captain Mithcal's vote. "We will go to Exis," voted the captain. Soon the Seriph was properly refitted and left the station, under command under the Junior Councilor with Ailius onboard. They headed towards the Kingdom of Exis, where they were to attempt to build an alliance. Other SE left to continue their duties elseware.

[OOC-Manus is saying I can't have the Terrans backing me. I hope this makes him happy. Also, I'm giving up on the font, after some experimentation, I found it wasn't helping.] Suddenly, the SE celebrations on the Terran Seriph 57 (covert ops ships are never named) was cut short. A group of Terran troops, guns at the ready came in. All, the SE soldiers were shocked. A voice, that of the Terran Head of Weapons Developmet Al Blake, came over the loudspeaker. "Well, done Ailius, thank you for bringing the Arms of Justice to me. Now, you Second Edge Terrorists are under arrest for crimes against humanity." "You back-stabbing s-*BAD WORD*-! Mr. Blake, we had a deal!" "I don't deal with terrorists." "Bull! I got the recording right here. You provided us with the biological agent, which we used to whipe out the colony. Then, we recover the Arms of Justice for you, and you provide us asylum." "Yes, but now I have the Arms of Justice. I don't need to keep my end of the agreement." "If so, we did you rescue my men from the Ithkul?" "Too clean up the pieces. I can't have the Ithkul learning of our business together, can I. Besides, I didn't have the weapon then. Now, I do." It was no use. Mr. Blake had played Ail like a harp, and this particular batch of Terran troops recieved enough money from above to ignore Mr. Blake's treachery. Soon the SE found themselves in new cells. Ail found himself in a special isolation cell, which dampened his cybernetics. [OOC-This is where having an NPC sidekick comes in handy] A few minutes earlier on the Kanatis Transport docked inside the Seriph, Lt. Case was a little behind. She had just finished final shutdown, and was putting her uniform back on when all of this happened. She looked outside to see SE being led to the cells by the Terrans. Quickly, she took back off the few fragments of clothing she had put on, and put all of her equipment away in the storage area. Then, she locked herself in the stasis chamber next ot the Ithkul secret agent. A few minutes later, Terran soldiers were searching the ship. It was quickly secured, because no SE troops were on the vessel. In the cargo hold they found 5 Nightwasps, various SE weapons, lots of rare minerals, and crucial parts to the Arms of Justice. Further inspection revealed two prisoners. One was an Ithkul secret agent, drunk and dressed like a grandmother. He was obviously captured for interrogation by the SE. The other was nude woman. She claimed to be an Ithkul civilian captured by the SE and exploited in many a vile fashion before being crammed into stasis. However, this being a covert ops mission, they could not release either of them, and decided to take them back to Earth for the time being. The Ithkul intelligence agent was put into a cell, near the SE, but not with them. The woman had been through enough, and was to be treated well for the rest of the trip in the guest quarters. After recieving some food, clean clothes, and a little rest, Lt. Cage waited for her opportunity. Suddenly, it came in the form of red alert being called. Apparently, the Seriphs ran into a fleet of Kanatis ships that wern't supposed to be there. Both fleets, not in a position to explain themselves, attacked the other. A fleet to fleet battle was raging outside the ship. She quickly headed towards the prisoner's barracks. There, only a skeleton guard was standing by the prisoners. She snuck behind one, grabbed his plasma rifle, and made short work of the guards. Seconds later, the SE forces were free. They quickly went from room to room of the ship. For every man they killed, an SE replacement stayed behind. The replacement recieved and followed orders given on the overhead by the captain. The captain himself was far too distracted by what was going on the outside of the ship to notice what was going on inside the ship, especially since all the departments were resonding. Soon, the SE took the bridge, and Ail took command of the ship. "See, THIS is why I tolerate the Luetenant. All hands break engagement, and make for deep space." Seriph 57 broke engagement, and fled from the battle. It made for the deep space. Being designed for covert ops, this ship was well suited for hiding. It was the only cruiser model in the universe capable of stealth, and one of the fastest as well. Not only did it make it to deep space, but it did so leaving no sign of their presence and no trail to follow.

Hydrogen does not occur naturally in gaseous form. You need to make it. You can do this from fossil fuels or electrolysis which uses electricity generated by nuclear powered power stations. problem solved.

My advice: Use your specials. You can get one or two easy kills with every ship if you use them properly. Ingore comments about "lame, lagger, etc." the people who take the time to type them are just high on themselves and everyone knows it. If you want to work on you aim, use my old training method. Go to an SVS zone such as Chaos for 15-30 minutes. When you get adjusted to the weapons there, go back to 17th Parallel. You will find your aim much better.

[OOC-Actually, they are related somewhat. Recoil spent the last four or so posts specifically hunting me down. I was defending a base that he was attacking. Also, if you paid CLOSE attention (given the length, I don't blame you for not noticing), you will notice that Mr. Ious is implicated in the plot somewhat. I don't know what the heck the Kanatis fleet moving has to do with this, but I'll find a way to relate that later. I'll grant that what I am doing at the moment doesn't seem to affect anybody. Nobody is close enough to do anything about it, and won't be affected by the results. Its funny you should mention that now, because the cards are going to fall down this post, and how this affects everyone will be made clear.] Ail and his commandoes entered the base. Immeadiately inside, they began with their plan. "Bubba, take these WPCs. (Warp Portation Charges) Go to the Ithkul treasury and used them to warp as much gold as you can to the transport above." "Yes, sir" "The rest of you, come with me we need to rescue the Lt." The SE commandoes cut through the base like a hot knife through butter. The Ithkul's best troops were hunting SE throughout deep space, leaving only reserves and rent-a-cops in the facility. Hundred of guards could not stop the onslaught of the 4 best fighters in the SE ranks. The three soon arrived at the medical barracks, where the Lt. was lying on a bed, recovering from her 'drunken' state. "Well, I see I should have followed your advice. How did you get in?" "That's not important, I'll tell you when we have time." "Do you have my clothes and equipment?" "I gave them to Bubba, he is raiding the treasury." The Lt. wraped a blanket around herself, and grabed Vince's and Cougar's sidearms. The four of them then continued to the core of the Arms of justice. An Ithkul technician was waiting for them, his finger perched over a large red button. "You are too late, SE s-*BAD WORD*-! The Arms of Justice will be operational when I push this button!" A wire shot out of Ail's arm, wrapped around the tech's finger, and ripped it off of his hand. Cougar then shot him in the head. Ail started handing WPCs to everyone. "Sir, there must be some mistake. These are WPCs, not explosives!" "There is no mistake. We are here to STEAL the Arms of Justice, not destroy it. Our techs are building their own version of this weapon as we speak, but cannot duplicate these three things" Ail pointed to several pieces of equipment around the room. "Other than that, take anything that looks complicated and hard to duplicate." The SE commandoes attached the WPCs to the equipment. Moments later, Mr. Jones locked on to their signal and warped them into the transport above. The commandoes then left, having a few problems on the way out, but nothing they couldn't solve. An hour later, they were back in the Kanatis transport. In the cargo hold was several billion credits worth of rare minerals, as well as vital equipment to make the Arms of Justice in their main headquarters. Suddenly, a large fleet appeared on their radar. "Its the prison ships. They got the prisoners from our base in there." "Act cool, we can't fight them, and for all they know we are Kanatis merchants." Suddenly, several other cruisers warped next to the fleet. A small group of Seraphs, the covert ops cruisers used by the Terrans, had set up an ambush to rescue the SE prisoners. "Deploy our Nightwasps. They probably don't need our help, but we could use a ride back to Terran space." The battle was long and exciting, but the details unimportant. The Terrans rescued the SE prisoners from the Ithkul prison ships, and left no survivers to tell who attacked them. Ail's transport docked inside one of them, and the cruisers returned to Terran space with the SE inside, not as prisoners, but as comrades. The Second Edge troops celebrated. The plan was successfull as much as could be hoped. They had the Arms of Justice in their possesstion, had delt a crippling blow to the Ithkul, and the galaxy still had no knowledge of their secret alliance with the Terrans.