Space Chat

Hergorn Val Hallen, Captain Extraordinaire!

I am brave, fearless Space Captain named Hergorn Val Hallen who always knows when to run and when to hide.

Now those closest to me know that’s because I started playing a MMO 

(Massive Multiplayer Online Game*) during the holidays and have not stopped so far. The how they know is because of my frequent attempt to relate numerous game stories during an (however slight) silence in a conversation. So they know.

The aforementioned MMO would be Eve Online sometimes described as

“Spreadsheets in Space”. It has its faults to be sure but so far I've fallen in love with it and the spaceships and the atmosphere.

See, almost everything is player driven so you can find a human under pretty much everything. And as we know humans can be a fun, unpredictable and sometimes a silly lot.

Take for example this small incident that happened to me two days ago.

I had to go to a Solar System that was 18 jumps away and if that doesn't mean anything to you let’s say I had to spend 20 minutes staring at my ship go from system to system. (There is an autopilot but it’s horrendously slow and someone could blow you up on the way).

So as I entered a new system I wrote a little greeting to all the players in it full aware that someone might take it wrongly and try to kill me.

So after a quite typical greeting this happened.

Hergorn Val Hallen > Salutations to the brave spacefearers in this unique region of Bagodan! (Famous for its amazing edible crabs!)

NOTIFICATION FROM SYSTEM

A bounty of 100.000k has been placed on your head by Jenny Smith*.

(After a few seconds of thought I responded)

NOTIFICATION FROM SYSTEM

You have placed a bounty of 100.001 on Jenny Smith.

Jenny Smith > You want to start a bounty war?

Hergorn Val Hallen > Congratulations on our mutual bountyful status!

Jenny Smith > Congratulations on being the first to place a bounty on me.

Hergorn Val Hallen > It would have been inconsiderably rude of me not to offer the same...nay to defeat the amount that you have honoured me with.

Hergorn Val Hallen > I wish you well against the surely hundreds that will try to claim our bounties!

Jenny Smith > I seriously doubt that for 100k

Hergorn Val Hallen > Yes, I doubt it too..... Just trying to add some drama in an otherwise weary life :(

Jenny Smith > O.o

Jenny Smith > should spice it up >_>

 My trusty Arbitrator.

Jenny Smith > I did come to Amarr to sell my ore.

Hergorn Val Hallen > Ore selling...You are in definite need of spicing then.

Jenny Smith > .-.

Jenny Smith > Ready for a "bounty bidding war"?

Jenny Smith > i have duplicates of my implants at ships at my cloned station

Jenny Smith > so I can’t lose.

Hergorn Val Hallen > If that would entail us trying to outbid each other then I would surely lose... I am penniless.

Jenny Smith > Can’t be too penniless placing 100k on me

Hergorn Val Hallen > 100.001 to be correct.

Hergorn Val Hallen > I am prone to impulse, I have but a half million left in the world

Jenny Smith > 100k plus 1

Hergorn Val Hallen > Yes! My wealth in the world

Jenny Smith > half a million...like only 500 000 isk?

Jenny Smith > Thats ridiculously low

Hergorn Val Hallen > But I’m ridiculously new and lazy

Hergorn Val Hallen > So it suits like a card to a deck

Jenny Smith > a week old

Jenny Smith > but still 500k is pretty bad for a week

Hergorn Val Hallen > Oh yes I spend what I earn

Jenny Smith >You should spend 50% of what you earn

Hergorn Val Hallen > Truly a more accurate simulation of a real life predicament there never was :(

Jenny Smith > but 500k?

Jenny Smith > So all I would need to do was put a few hundred thousand more on your head and i win?

Hergorn Val Hallen > You are indeed, correct.

Jenny Smith > So, How much isk do you have exactly?

Hergorn Val Hallen > 417.321

Hergorn Val Hallen > Now 401.212, I bought a drone.

Jenny Smith > 401.212

Jenny Smith > give me a minute

Hergorn Val Hallen > Shall I time you?

…….

Jenny Smith > That was maybe more than a minute I was doing calculations

Hergorn Val Hallen > 3 seconds to spare.

NOTIFICATION FROM SYSTEM

You have received a Player Donation for 3.893.000 IsK.

Jenny Smith > I gave you isk instead of bountying you

Hergorn Val Hallen > Madam?

Jenny Smith > I'll just kill myself with one of my alts

Jenny Smith > but still 100k bounty when i have 1k times that worth in implants >.>

Hergorn Val Hallen > I apologise for the inconvenience :(

Jenny Smith > no inconvenience

(A few minutes of pleasant conversation ensue)

Hergorn Val Hallen > I must flee now!

Jenny Smith > Why you fleeing?

Hergorn Val Hallen > Must watch the Hobbit 3d in approximately 25 minutes

Hergorn Val Hallen > and its 20 minute walk

Jenny Smith > Oh shit that’s out now?

Jenny Smith > jog there

Jenny Smith > previews are an additional 15 minutes >.>

Hergorn Val Hallen > Will do

Hergorn Val Hallen > Nice to meet you Ms Smith.

Hergorn Val Hallen > Farewell!

Jenny Smith > Later

NOTIFICATION

Jenny Smith has added you as a contact with Very Good Standing.

You have logged off. 

Now there are many guides on Eve,guidance for making money, tricks in tactics and tips for everything else.

So now I will tell you a tip that hasn't been said yet.

Being ridiculous...ly nice sometimes pays and is always worth it.

*[I've replaced all names (Except my own) to avoid annoying stuff]

Hergorn Val Hallen



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Years Pass, Minds Change...

...but my ass still looks fabulous.

On one fine Scottish morning (no rain just an endless sea of grey instead of a sky) I stopped by the library on my way to work.

This is a usual ritual of mine [going to the library I mean not working (although working is a ritual I suppose just an unpleasant one... ah well)]

as I do most of my reading while walking to work (and sometimes back but it being night raises reading and walking to a new, more challenging level but anything is worth doing for that last chapter...

Now, I following the ritual with the exact steps, turned right to  the FICTION section then closed my eyes (just peeking a bit to avoid teenage romances and vampire stuff) and select a few books on random.

I usually ruin this by putting books I don't like straight back but ah heck, we need a bit of mustary (that's right auto-correct, it's mustary) in life.

This time I was lucky. I had a book about Norse Gods in 2000AD, a comic about a journalist figthing corruption and a small anthology of Science Fiction from the 50's.

Not bad at all.

Several hours later, having exhausted the first two (and subsequently booking the rest in the comic series) I got to the anthology.

Science fiction as we know it really started going at the late 50's and the 60's after it. Before that it simply wasn't popular condemning SF books in obscure corners or in small articles in the (very) few magazines that published that sort of stories.

So these stories weren't much to write home about, the hero's we're perfect, the dames were beautiful and the Science Fiction was magic. No explaining just here is this SCIENCE vial which will make you fly *Wacky story ensues*.

So while not my favorite kind they still had this way and style which appealed to me (and I guess to anyone who likes retro.)

It being a month ago I do not remember most of the stories (something about horse tranquilizer?) but one did stick with me.

It was a story about a poor unlucky sod who had the woman of his dreams but unbelievably she rejected him. Luckily the news quickly passed thought the circle of men, in particular a famous SCIENTIST heard about it and wished to help this truly unlucky fellow.

So he went into his lab and conducted science  ending up with a small vial, purple green in color (that color that 9 month cabbage gets I assume). Tracking the stubborn woman he waited until she was distracted and poured the vial into her food which, when she returned she finished.

A few days pass and the guy who told the scientist about the unlucky sob meets the now lucky sod looking extremely happy. Apparently the girl recanted, told him she loved him and would marry him as soon as possible.

Puzzled as to the how the guy visits the SCIENTIST to find out what exactly he did.

Our man of science quickly explained that his vial PERMANENTLY changed her bodies ability to sense heat. The world turned extremely cold for her and the only source of heat she could feel was from the embrace of the sod with his amazing maleothermic energies.

(I dread to think how that happened..  Panicked by the now freezing world she runs into the sod who tries to declare his love and when that fails tackle-hugs her perhaps?).

The guy expresses admiration and they share a chuckle about the situation.

The story ends in a happy note explaining that the Groom and the Bride looked radiantly happy.

The End.

But is it? O.O

Fifty years ago that would be that but not I cannot help but think.

What happens next?

Maybe the marriage stays in one piece for a few years.

She might detest or like him but she needs him nonetheless.

He, sensing that he holds some sort of power over her, abuses this

(nothing major, just a classic 50's husband)

But then he get's bored.

Our unlucky sod falls out of "love" as fast as he fell in and he abandons her.

BAM!

The world has turned into a freezing hellhole for her.

Maybe she tries to go with another man, then another and another.

None of them being able to warm her completely (as the vial was attuned to the heat of the sod) she despairs and sinks to dejection, desperation and eventually suicide....perhaps by immolation which would be suitable for our now ironic outlooks.

Now it could be my sick brain just making up stories (partly, my friends, partly)

but what was supposed to be a light hearted Sci-FY romp in the fifties turns to an outright horror in our present mindset. This would probably work with many old stories but that's not what gets me.

What I wonder is, perhaps in fifty or a hundred years, our stories will be interpreted differently.

Everything we see in a way will be seen in a (slightly) different way.

Misunderstandings and amusing antics will ensure most assuredly.

SO WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY IS:

I could be writing the next generations cooking recipes!

Just think about it.

Charalampos Koundourakis



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Fort Of The Turtles

Crab was completely still. 
He looked, really looked, at the Sea for the first time in a while.
Next to him was a gaping hole surrounded by a broken ring of pebbles.
Where the stones had fallen away myriads of tracks came out and made a straight line south until they faded away into the Sea....





DUTY

For countless days Crab had guarded the Turtle's nest, only leaving every two brights to restock the water in his can and find something to eat. 

There was a nearby rock with a large pool of water in it's middle. There we're many small sea dwellers trapped here, left over since the vaguely remembered time when 
the Sea God had attacked the Land God when even the crags which the crabs made home we're flooded.

The Crabs believed that the Land God must be keeping secret food from The Sea God for only for such an important reason would merit such a ferocious response.
Many we're lost to the constant battering of water, currents making sure they we're never to be seen again. When the attack suddenly stopped the area had changed so completely that crabs were always turning wrongly to fall into the Sea and made fun of by the other, more careful crabs.

It was not far from the dune sea so Crab could easily return to the nest with his new supplies.
At first it was hard for him to find the specific patch of sand amid the dune sea
(He only found it because of the distinctive mark his can left)
so after much searching and thinking he had dragged a rock on it. 
But that looked too like any other patch of sand so he brought a second rock. 
And then a third.

Eventually he had formed a large ring of rocks around it which not only made it easy to find but had the added added advantage of keeping out some of the pesky sand bugs that tried to dig at the nest.

Many creatures assaulted his fort.
Most came because they thought it would be easy food.
Some of them wanted to leave parasitic spawn to feed off the hatchlings.
Then again some just wanted to dig holes.

Crab let nothing pass. 
He poured water on the sand to collapse the tunnels of the tiny sand burrowers.
He patrolled on his pebble Fort, his shining form scaring away all but the most daring foes.
He even managed to scare away a giant Land creature which had made awful loud noises but had become nervous and fled when Crab's claws had come close to his snout.

After that encounter, Crab sat to watch the Dry-Bright fall into the Sea, far deeper than he had ever gone.
As he wandered where the dry-bright was going, quite exhausted and deafened by his close encounter with the creature the nest erupted and one of his stones flew away.
Fearing a new type of threat Crab sidled closer but no sooner than he had gone halfway that the Turtle poked it's head out.

The Turtle that Crab had briefly met was enormous, it's head quite larger than Crab .
This one was rather smaller only half his size.
Nonetheless, with energy surprising for a newborn the turtle launched itself out of the hole and was quickly joined by several more of it's brothers and sisters.
They all looked around with their still-myopic eyes, spotting the brightest light they could find and starting running towards it.

(Since the dry bright was gone this would be the now sparkling sea reflecting the  small bright in the sky. However one little turtle spotted the Lights of the object makes and headed that way but Crab did not see it and it did not see Crab so that will have to be a totally unrelated story.)

Sometimes you have to:
STRUGGLE

He had tried to stop them.
He klaked at them about the danger of the Sea, about the dangerous Sea Dwellers that lay in wait or about the Great White Flying killers that lay above but they did not, could not perhaps, listen as they charged towards their destiny.
Their powerful little flippers moved in a frenzy picking up speed, already the first one had reached the Sea.

Without hesitation it plunged into the dark waters and vanished. 
Crab sidled as fast as he could but he could not keep up.
In desperation he pushed one back and overturned it but it was so scared and helpless that he put it right side up. It quickly ran to catch up with the others.

And then, as suddenly as they had appeared the last of them vanished into a coming wave and when it drew back there was no sign they were ever there, even the tracks fading away...





And sometimes you have to:
MOVE ON

Crab turned and looked at his little fort. He regretted leaving it but it served no purpose now. He only hoped that the little ones would be okay and that maybe one of them would remember the Crab that had looked out for them.








He turned and headed deeper into the Dry...



The land around him had turned strange, filled with odd green pillars coming out of the sand. They looked slightly like the trees of the Seaweed Forest but they were not...underwater.

Crab had not seen any water around but he did not think of turning back.
Already he had done and seen so much. He would not regret a thing if he was petrified right there and now. How many crabs had build something or guarded turtles? 
No, he was not thinking of turning back. 

But what he was thinking of was knocked out of his head when he saw the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Crab sidled as he had never sidled before.





To Be Continued...





Charalampos Koundourakis



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