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It has a few miracles of cinema, and a few stinkers. It's amazing that such a franchise can encapsulate two extremes as it does. It also has some movies where people debate whether or not they're good and get all passionate about it, which to me means that you're basically in Star Wars territory as far as cultural significance goes. I think it says a lot about a franchise when a legitimately good sequel/prequel is released, and people start complaining about how it's the worst film ever because it doesn't live up to the original. Anyway, speaking of comparing originals and sequels, let's start the question with a simple question: Alien and Aliens are the most acclaimed in the series, with the claim for both being nearly universal, but if you had to choose one, which do you prefer? Which is nearer to your heart? I wrote about this in my blog. I also really liked Prometheus and Covenant, but it isn't fair comparing them to those two. The original two were perfect, considered some of the greatest movies of all time, whereas these two are really good (I think that they're better than most sci-fi and horror movies released today), and works of art in their own right, but they they aren't monumental culture-defining phenomenons. It's like trying to compare Jurassic Park to Jurassic World, or A New Hope to Rogue One. They're generally well-received sequels/prequels, but not too many people would actually say that they're better than the original. That's how I feel about Prometheus and Covenant, although personally think that the former comes awfully darn close to being as good as Alien. For various reasons, I like Prometheus a little more than its sequel, but I've heard plenty of people say that they much prefer this one. So, as a follow-up question to the Alien vs. Aliens debate, which of the two prequels do you prefer/ Prometheus vs Covenant? 24601
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Acknowledging assistantence non-foreign individuals of +95% similar chemicular arrangement. This exact-particular existence instance of Us is retroactively foolenstanced various existence instances of title designation Earthenbeing, self-assigned 'Humans', senseless inlogic used frequency upper than assume-knowned limits. Peviously unexisted measuring documentation started require prior unexisting existence instance. Infilisguising above high unsuccess chancentage. Unable consumable smellentences. Existence instance disturbances per vibrations. Senseful regardal exceeding unsuccess threshold. Dynamic assumal: Position advancement regards Earthspheroid; if exceeding unknown unsuccess threshold and chancentage existence instance removal.
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Casualtyby Legolover-361 * * * “And now we join our field reporter, Susan McConnell, right on the scene. Susan?” “Yes, thank you, Isaac... No riots yet in New York City, but terror is in the hearts and minds of many New Yorkers this morning. The mysterious figure standing on the horizon is unlike anything we’ve seen before. It looks vaguely humanoid from a distance with two arms and legs — you can see it there, in the ocean —and it hasn’t seemed to move at all since, um, this morning. We don’t know yet — authorities don’t know what it’s doing, what it is, but we’re told that they’re looking into it. “It’s emitting very powerful radio waves on a wide array of frequencies; authorities haven’t yet, um, interpreted what message, if any, they contain, but we’re assured that the waves carry definite signs of intelligence. It’s possible the figure we see on the horizon is automated, but until we can get a better scan of it, we don’t — won’t know if it contains any life.” “So — Susan — it hasn’t made any movements?” “No, Isaac, and that’s the odd thing. Authorities are — they’re saying that they are, uh, looking into it, looking into finding, um, more in depth methods of scanning the thing; there’s a lot of radio interference that’s fouling the readings, or so I’m told.” “Are there — are there any theories — I mean, about what that thing is or could be?” “Believe me, there are plenty — uh, I’ve heard plenty of them, from... concerned citizens, from authorities, from everyone. There are a lot of rumors going around, you know; some people say this is an alien, uh, construct, and the authorities are saying that this, uh, figure is very unlikely to have originated from Earth.” “Any indications of what it’s made of?” “No. As I said, the radio interference is — is, uh, fouling up our instruments. Authorities are baffled. What? — excuse me—” “Susan, what is it? — who are you talking to?” “...I’ve just received word that the strength of the radio interference is increasing.” “Increasing?” “Yes, it’s increasing at a — well, what may be a slow exponential rate but an exponential rate nonetheless. Authorities advise NYC’s citizens to remain on alert, to stay inside their homes, and to—” “Um, Susan, your — your audio is, uh, breaking up—” “It must be the interference — disrupting radio waves — oh my God, what is it do—?” “...Susan? Susan? Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve lost contact with Susan. We’ll report on further updates as soon — regain contact — producer’s telling me we’re breaking—” * * * From a distance and through thick cement walls, the sounds of battle — of gunfire and shouts and explosions — were reduced to a hum. In the dark, it seemed especially eerie. Antoinette Bickering stared at the ceiling, a blanket pulled around her body, and wondered how loud the cacophony was outside. War’s deafening volume ought to be obvious, but she had never truly considered it until it came just outside her door. Time passes oddly in the dark: She couldn’t recall how long ago she had run into the cellar upon the wailing of sirens and the shouts of emergency personnel to secure your things and yourselves, there wasn’t much time. The urge to peek outside was great, but Antoinette had long ago accepted that she was, at heart, a coward; she would probably faint if she saw what was outside, and she might bump her head as she fell, and then she’d be unconscious in her cellar with the door open, her head bleeding, and her heart threatening to give up on her. Better to stay put. Apart from a couple books, a flashlight, her blanket, some canned food, and a handheld radio that could at the moment only play static, her cellar contained a few stacks of cardboard boxes that she had never bothered to unpack after she moved to her current home; an electrical outlet; two long, wooden shelves on opposite sides of the cellar; and a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling. The light bulb had flickered annoyingly when Antoinette had tried to turn it on, so she left it off. Reading was impossible in the dim light, but her nerves were probably too frazzled to permit reading even under satisfactory illumination. A dull boom shook the cellar. Antoinette’s next inhale drew dust into her lungs. She coughed and, with an effort, doused her urge to light a cigarette. Outside the door, someone screamed. Machine guns roared in response. The cellar rumbled as if an oil tanker of monstrous proportions was driving by. There was another scream — the cellar was rattled again — someone was pounding on the door, crying, “LET ME IN! PLEASE, LET ME IN!” Antoinette froze, her mind vacillating between “fight” and “flight”. She could just curl up under her blanket, said the voice inside her head. She didn’t need to open the door; it and her cellar walls were the only defenses she had against whatever dangers lay outside. The poor soul out there should have found shelter... Now the voice was distinctly sobbing. “Please,” it wailed. The pounding grew arrhythmic, interrupted sporadically by the doorknob rattling. “Please...!” The blanket fell to the floor as Antoinette stood up. She opened the door quickly, catching only a glimpse of a gaunt figure before pulling him — or her? — inside and shutting the door. Her fingers were damp when she drew them away. She fumbled for the light chain and yanked on it; the light was uncertain but enough to illuminate the red stains on Antoinette’s fingers. She swallowed her trepidation and instinctively looked around for a sink. Her cellar had none. The figure had curled into a fetal position on the floor, mumbling “oh God” at odd intervals in a voice deep enough to be male. He raised his head and, for the first time, looked Antoinette in the eyes. His face was thin, pale, and dotted with stubble. A roman nose cast a shadow over his right eye. Blood covered his forehead and cheek, gleaming in the sort of morbid fashion Antoinette had only ever seen in the old horror films she had watched. “You saved me?” he whispered before a coughing fit racked his figure. There was blood on his shoulder, too. And on his chest. And his knee. Antoinette pursed her lips, looking from him to the only blanket she had thought to bring down. “I don’t know,” she said. * * * The first aid kit Antionette found in one of the cardboard boxes was a godsend. She only regretted finding it after using her only blanket to tie up one of the man’s wounds. He was disoriented: uncertain diction, slurred tone, muddled sense of time, and spotty memory. His actions were drunken but somehow scarier than that — maybe because Antoinette could tell they weren’t from alcohol consumption but from blood loss. He called Antoinette “Mom” twice (it didn’t help that she was old enough to be his mother), said something vague about an explosion, and once seemed to entirely forget where he was. Taking off his shirt to better treat his wounds revealed burns along his right side. In a couple places, the top layers of skin had burnt away. Not knowing what else to do, Antoinette covered his arm and torso with burn ointment and left it uncovered. His right eye’s pupil was milky; Antoinette gathered from snippets of their conversation — or what could be deemed analogous to conversation — the explosion that wounded him had also blinded him. Or maybe he tripped and blinded himself by falling on a rock. He was unclear on the subject, and Antoinette was afraid to ask too much of him. What else she did gather was thus: His name was Grant. His last name he mumbled indistinctly. It could’ve been “Johnson”, “Joseph”, maybe something odd like “Joma”, or a few other names besides; Antoinette couldn’t get him to repeat it. He was twenty-something; his birthday was in October, or maybe September. He had been at a friend’s store when the warnings came and hid out there, but it had no cellar; the aggressors blasted out the front glass windows as they passed and shot his friend through the head. Grant waited until they were gone before running outside. That was where his clear memory ended: ergo, when the explosion must have occurred. As she applied antibiotics from a little tube using an ear cleaner, Antoinette asked what the attackers looked like. Grant’s eyes defocused. “Like — I dunno, they were kinda big, and God...” He was shivering now. “I nearly died — what the blazes is... I mean, this is just... like...” His loss of coherent speech corresponded with the amount of moisture in his eyes. Antoinette dropped the subject and wrapped a gauze strip around Grant’s right bicep. It was dyed red almost instantly by the blood, but at least the bleeding seemed to subside. Well, she had to tell him sometime... “I don’t think I can help you more. You need professional medical help.” “It’s just a cut, Mom—” “I’m not your mom,” said Antoinette, and she belatedly realized how forceful her reply had been. Sighing, she continued: “The thing is, I don’t know how to get you to medical assistance. You can’t move. I can’t leave you alone. Everyone was explicitly told to stay underground or under whatever cover they could find.” He blinked. “So what’m I supposed to... I mean, what do I do — have to do — no, what does it have to do with me?” “You’ve, um, lost a lot of blood.” An understatement: at least, a statement too vague to describe the bloody mess that Grant was. “If I can’t get you to professional doctors, I’m afraid you could... well, die.” Silence, save for the occasional explosion or gunfire in the distance. “It’s like the stories.” “What?” “Two people alone against all odds... like, dunno, maybe a film? — oh, what’s its name...” He wasn’t himself anymore. Antoinette ended the conversation there; she set him in a position at least halfway comfortable, told him to get some shut-eye, turned off the cellar light, and then settled down in her own corner of the cellar to wait for... Wait for what? Sleep? Help? Anything would do. * * * Antoinette didn’t realize she had fallen asleep till crying awakened her. She sat up; pain flared between her neck and right shoulder, and she acutely missed her bed. Another cry, like a dog wailing, raised the hairs on Antoinette’s back. Blinking, doing her best to ignore the aches of the rest of her body and failing, she stood up. Grant was curled into a ball on his side, shaking with ragged breaths. One of his bandages had ripped, and blood oozed through the tear. He convulsed, making a sound halfway between choking and sobbing, and wheezed. Red dots sprinkled onto the floor. Antoinette grabbed the first aid kit, turned on the light, and knelt by Grant’s side. He didn’t notice her approach. His body shook, and he coughed again, this time expelling more blood. Was it in his lungs? “Grant?” He didn’t respond, only continued his murmuring. Antoinette now realized he was cursing. “Grant,” she said again, touching him on the shoulder. He twitched and moved his face a little. His skin was clammy. “God, I want it to end,” he whispered, and he curled up even tighter. This time, he coughed the blood onto his arms. There was more of it than before; even his lips were tinged with deep crimson. Antoinette looked toward the cellar door. The sounds of gunfire were quieter now. No more explosions or rumbling. She strained but couldn’t tell for sure if she could hear sirens. Was it safe to go out? Grant cried out an anathema and shuddered, his body growing stiff and his words quieting until all Antoinette could hear coming from his moving lips was air. Helpless, she could only give him space. Maybe she should’ve continued with medical school when she was twenty-something — at least she would have better known what was ailing Grant. Maybe she could have known how long he had left, or if he could be saved at all. Any degree of certainty had to be better than standing between Grant and the cellar door, debating between risking her own life or remaining to watch another’s wane. Maybe there were soldiers out there. Or maybe the attackers were the only ones who would see her. She ran through the possibilities. If she remained, Grant would die. If she left, she might die, and if she did, Grant would die too. If she called for help, soldiers could rush in and help, the attackers could break in and kill or imprison her and Grant, or — and this was perhaps the bleakest possibility of all — no one would hear them. Grant coughed up blood and shouted another obscenity. Antoinette closed her eyes and placed her head in her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said to Grant. Then she sat on the ground beside the cellar door, turned away from Grant, and covered her ears. She didn’t hear Grant’s retching. She didn’t hear his final curse. She didn’t watch him expire. But she did hear footsteps. Nausea was her first reaction. She sucked in a breath and held it, ignoring her stomach’s protests, and listened closer. Maybe she was just hearing things. The attackers weren’t hunting people down... were they? As if to respond, the sound of wood and plaster crunched underfoot came from outside. Antoinette uncovered her eyes and looked around. Grant lay unmoving against one wall. She had looked through the cardboard boxes before and found nothing of use as a weapon. Maybe fighting back wasn’t the best idea, anyway. Antoinette was no soldier, just a civilian. If the attackers burst in, she would surrender then and there and pray more fervently than she ever had before — pray that they were taking prisoners. The door was battered from outside. Antoinette recoiled, shoulders tensed, and tried to devise a plan. She could conceal herself by the doorframe and then strike the intruder on the head — if he was wearing a helmet or had a gun, that would be trickier — but what if he decided to shoot first and look later? Again the door was struck, and again, but no plan came to Antoinette. She was still at a loss when the door was burst in and a seven-foot figure covered in armor filled the doorway, moving its gun from Grant to Antoinette and then to the cardboard boxes. It remained there for several seconds as if daring either person to move. Then, unexpectedly, it spoke with a voice that sounded like it was coming from a speaker. “Names?” Heart pounding fiercely, Antoinette indicated herself. “Antoinette Louise Bickering.” She gestured to the body on the floor and struggled with a fresh bout of nausea. “Grant — I don’t know his last name — he’s dead, he was injured by an explosion, I think—” “T14 requesting a medic,” the figure interrupted. It nodded a couple times, then gave coordinates and the street name and returned its focus to Antoinette. “Ma’am, you’re going to have to come with me.” “Who are you?” “A soldier, ma’am.” “I mean — I haven’t seen soldiers like you except in movies.” “We’re part of the TITAN program, ma’am — trained for combat in exoskeleton suits.” “Does ‘TITAN’ stand for something?” “Maybe. I’ve heard rumors. Anyway, you need to exfil, pronto — my pals’ll pick up Grant — come on!” Antoinette hesitated. “Are the attackers aliens? I mean, like, Independence Day style?” “I can neither confirm nor deny that.” The figure gestured animatedly. “Now, ma’am!” She hesitated only a second more and followed. In her head, she said a prayer of thanks for not having retched yet. * * * “...This message will repeat... “This is an emergency broadcast to all citizens of New York City and anyone within a three hundred mile radius. The U.S. military orders all civilians to evacuate to the west. We’ve dispatched soldiers to deal with the threat. Don’t panic — we need this evacuation to be orderly. It’s recommended you take the following steps to ensure the most effective evacuation possible. If you live in Jersey City, it’s recommended you bypass the New Jersey Turnpike...”
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Starscape Sixty Stars Formed of nuclear fire, blazing with light and life, held together by the spiteful pull of gravity, the sixty stars of the Starscape Cluster are a powder keg. Intelligent life has long lived on these stars, peacefully unaware of each other. But now that comes to a close; the Light Barrier is broken, and suddenly the thick, overpopulated Homeworlds look out, and see realms they can colonize. But they also see enemies, competition, those who would stamp out their species and claim the realm for themselves. And now, you command your species. Will they conquer the stars by laser, sword, and railgun? Or will they be peaceful, colonizing and growing free of war? The choice is up to you. --- Starscape is an RTSRPG, where players control and roleplay an entire species in a thickly populated Star Cluster. The RTSRPG format has its own dedicated following, but that’s all the more reason to get into it; if you have any questions, one of the regulars will be happy to help. Interacting With An Entire Universe Controlling an entire species may seem hard at first, but it's simple to get the hang of. Here's a quick example of a normal fight between ships. IC: Alarms sounded aboard the Skelvan Battleship as radar signatures from the edge of the trojan belt came in; four ships, Alansik by their configuration, had appeared some two million miles away. Knowing that was far outside missile range, the Skelvan Captain gave the order to sight in with his Frigate's laser. A kill at this range would be the wildest stroke of luck, but he had to try, knowing reinforcements would be arriving as soon as they could, since the planet's warning system sent out the alert the moment the radar signatures came in. IC: “Transition successful, all systems nominal, wait.” A lieutenant on the Alansik lead cruiser reported. “Laser damage to the outer skin of the ship. Looks like they're hitting us already. Minimal damage, but that means they've found us.” The Alansik Captain sighed, and gave the order to move at full burn towards the Skelvan planet. Now, the important part here is that the player controlling the Alansik let the Skelvan player have the hit; if he'd just declared the Laser was an outright miss, it wouldn't be fair. But by ensuring the Skelvan's laser didn't do much damage, and it wouldn't at that range, he kept it fair for both sides but still sensible. And that's the most important part, keep it fair but sensible. Don't go breaking too many laws of physics. Building Your Empire The first step to playing the game is to design your species. This is a very open-ended process, but drawing inspiration from your favorite science fiction series can be a good idea. Once you have a basic idea down, take a look at the Advances post. You get six points to spend. These points are spent on physical advantages, advanced technologies, the setup of your system before the game begins, your species’ society and, most importantly, which form(s) of Faster-Than-Light travel you use. If you have ideas for another trait you want for your species, feel free to drop me a PM. There’s also technologies that everyone has, in the Common Technologies post. Once you’ve created your species, they need a Homeworld. Drop me a PM, and I’ll create a star system for you; the maps, linked below, show both what type of star each system has, and which species owns which stars. After that, you’ll need to design your starships; check out the Ship Design post; it’s a good explanation of how Starships ought to be set up. Once you have that, your empire should be good and ready to go. Industry In Starscape, every species’ economy is built on two resources; Money and CHON. Money is an abstract idea of value, representing whatever your species use for currency. It’s mostly used for buying metals and paying your spaceship’s crews. CHON, by contrast, is four chemical elements; Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen. These six chemicals are used in nearly every form of life, and are highly useful for other functions. It it helps, think of CHON as a Food resource. CHON and Money are both produced by Planets; a planet that has been civilized for a long time produces more than a fresh colony. This is explained in depth in the post on Resources. Colonization Colonizing a planet is a long, expensive process. The first step to it is building a Colony Ship. If you’re colonizing something in a solar system you already have a planet in, a colony ship is basically a steel can with engines, a radar, and the materials you need to start your colony. If you’re headed to another star system, you can do just as well by slapping a Faster Than Light drive on the ship and call it a day. Colonizers can be reusable, or they can disassemble on use to give the colony extra raw materials to work with. Once your colony is set up, it produces the resources listed for its planet type in the Resources post. The Ancient Past Civilizations rise and fall. With the terrifying, destructive weapons utilized in war among the stars, this is even more true for spacefaring civilizations. The current set of races in the Starscape Cluster are hardly the first. Previous civilizations left great ruins, but most have decayed. Only a few, held in Stasis Fields, have escaped the rush of time, These Stasis Fields, thus, are very valuable, containing ancient technologies, powerful and sometimes beyond comprehension, or other secrets of the far past. The Outsiders The Outsiders are a species in the Starscape cluster who do not own any planets, or any other central power base. They live entirely on starships, and never pass the speed of light, preferring the cold darkness to the reckless terrors of high-speed travel. An Outsider ship will occasionally drop into a system, often looking to replenish its resources by selling technological oddities before heading out again. Rules 1: BZP Rules Apply 2: Use IC and OOC 3: No godmoding, auto-hitting, or auto dodging 4: Yarn 5: Be respectful of myself, Rover, and especially your fellow players. These are other people's thoughts, work, and in a lot of cases, opinions out in text, so be nice. 6: If you don't know of a scientific or practical reason you couldn't do it, you can try it. It might get shot down by the GMs, though. Try anyway, we might be asleep 7: Anyone who invokes Godwin's Law by making deliberate parallels to Nazis, Fascist Italy, or WWII Era Imperial Japan will have a -1 penalty to all their planets’ Money and CHON production for three days. Calling someone Hitler or a Nazi(even jokingly) is -2 for one week. Joining Up The process for joining is simple; Fill out this form, and PM it to me. Username: (Obvious) Species Name: (Make it interesting!) Biology: What do they look like? What chemicals are their bodies built on? Do they have DNA, or some other way to pass genes on? What do they eat? Government: Generally, by the time it reaches space, a species will have tried enough systems to figure out what works best for them. So what do your guys use? Democracy? Theocracy? Communism? Democratic Communist Theocracy? Psychology: Species can have wildly different ideas of thought. A human, finding an ancient superweapon that once destroyed all life, might think "How terrible if any race but mine should find this" But a Kzinti, on the other hand, would think "Now I can conquer the galaxy, as is my right." So how do your people think? History: (Why are they in space? Why do they use the government they do? Details like that) Homeworld Name: (Humans call our planet Earth for a reason. Why do these people call their world what they do?) Homeworld Location: (Try for one that's not taken.) Map Color: (So we can see what you own) Advances Taken: (You get six points worth) Now get out there, conquer the stars, and have fun! Note: Everyone gets a free, small, scout style ship to explore with at the start of the game. However, your Treasuries do begin empty. Political MapAstrographic Map
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Here's the review thread for my COT Epic. I wrote about for chapters of this a while back, been planning to continue it, thought I'd post it here to see what people thought. Next chapters will be added soon. That's it for now. It was a idea I had a while back, to combine Halo and Avatar since their space marines were similar to me. All the information about Pandora is cannon, and I got it all from the Avatar wiki. Reviews would be much appreciated. Link to the Epic!
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[ Deeplinked due to exceeding the maximum allowed image size.-Nukaya] In my spare time, I draw grotesque monsters.