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Officer's Log Updated

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  • Babylon6Babylon6 Earthforce Officer
    UPDATE

    The fourth instalment of The Officer's Journal is now online. Get it or be


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    Babylon6 in orbit @ [url="http://www.nomad-jedi.com"]http://www.nomad-jedi.com/[/url]

    [b]Check out the writing skills of this person: [url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/[/url][/b]
  • It gets better with each update!

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    "And there is nothing more dangerous then a man with nothing to lose. Nothing to live for and nothing to prove."
    [i]Brendan Perry, Dead Can Dance[/i]
  • RandyRandy Master Storyteller
    [quote]Originally posted by Bekenn:
    [b]Interesting bit of trivia here:

    The author has been getting the Narn ambassador's name slightly wrong; it's Ta'Lon.

    [/b][/quote]

    Reporters are notorious for misspelling names.
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    My congratulations to the author for managing to pump these out so fast. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]

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    [b]Required reading: [url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/[/url][/b]
    Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
    The Balance provides. The Balance protects.

    "Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
  • X-OmegaX-Omega Elite Ranger
    I think I know what the Drazi blood feud in the latest update is about... [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img]

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    [b]Never start a fight. But always finish it.[/b]
    Finnish techno-geek, friend of all aardvarks
    Moderator at Babylon 5: Into the Fire Finland message boards
    #b5itf-finland (IRCnet) channel operator
  • A story a day -- takes my sorrows away.
    OK, it's a story per week. That's enough for me... I wouldn't have the time to read longer texts now, anyway. And: This way the story "lasts" longer [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img].

    I like the interweaving of the different story parts. Makes me hungry for more -- next week.

    A big THANK YOU to the unknown author!!

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    We are one. No matter the blood, no matter the skin, no matter the world, no matter the star. .. We are one.
    No matter the pain, no matter the darkness, no matter the loss, no matter the fear. .. We are one.
    - Alliance Preamble to the Declaration of Principles, The Paragon of Animals
    Webmaster [url="http://www.Sprungtor.de"]www.Sprungtor.de[/url]

    [This message has been edited by Language of Hope (edited 07-25-2001).]
  • A2597A2597 Fanboy
    Waturpleoolervark!!!!

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    [b]whitestar90: [/b]"it would give the computer a heartattack just looking at it" -
    [b]Sanfam: [/b]"And Drazi didn't like it one bit.-
    [b]Mr.Bungle: [/b][i]"So that's where the forum went..."[/i]-
    ---
    [b][i]ahhh, the good old days of HTML.[/i][/b]
  • BekennBekenn Sinclair's Duck
    Enjoying the story!

    Another interesting bit of trivia: according to Agents of Gaming's B5Wars "Ships of the Fleet" book, the Deltas were Earth-built; I've never seen an official source stating that they were a Narn design.

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    We are here to place President Grenewetzki under arrest!
  • RandyRandy Master Storyteller
    From a footnote in John Trauger's database specification documents:

    John Copeland, 1/12/98 in communication with Christy Marx: Christy’s notes read “the Raider Fighter is composed of Narn and Centauri tech”. I choose to emphasize the Narn partly because the Raider looks more Narnish than Centauri. – JT.

    We also had this:

    The ZPH 45e20, a delta winged atmospheric/orbital fighter, is a popular and inexpensive mainstay of raider fleets. It has a Garodney ion engine, 1 pilot, 2 Bolters. It was formerly used by the Belt Alliance.

    It occurs to me now that the Belt Alliance material may be AOG, and not necessarily a part of broadcast canon. And I think that the above came from the "Earthforce Sourcebook"(?) Was that AOG? I'm not sure. We had to send all of our Sierra-owned reference materials back to the company when the game was canceled, and now it's been a long time and the memories are dusty.

    We found that a lot of the info we came across was inconsistent with what we were being told by JMS and John Copeland and what we found in the episode scripts, of which we had all but a few – I think that out of five seasons we were missing maybe three scripts. So we went with what they told us in meetings, over the phone, and via email and by what we found by reading every word of every script. But since a lot was left unsaid we created our own backgrounds to support the various groups in the game, and then made sure that JMS approved.

    Since we had deadlines, we usually had to take our best guess in a sea of inconsistencies and go with it.






    [This message has been edited by Randy (edited 08-01-2001).]
  • BekennBekenn Sinclair's Duck
    You had all those scripts?? Yikes! And here I thought I was over my drooling problem....

    The Belt Alliance stuff is indeed from the AoG histories, or at least incorporated into them. It's a coalition of humans from pre-jumpgate days. The Deltas were developed by that generation's version of EarthForce, if I recall correctly; my copy of the rules compendium is a couple thousand miles away from me at the moment. The EarthForce Sourcebook is a supplement to the roleplaying game, which was not developed by AoG. I haven't looked too closely at that yet, and it's out of print, so I'm not sure I'll ever get the chance.

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    We are here to place President Grenewetzki under arrest!
  • JackNJackN <font color=#99FF99>Lightwave Alien</font>
    It makes me all warm and fuzzy on the inside to have JMS include Belt Alliance history in B5 canon.

    My first book(s) of science fiction were Larry Niven's Known Universe stories which included a lot of refernce to "Belters" who played a critical role in resource mining for the early days of the State, when first venturing out into space beyond the Earth and Moon.

    This one little piece of the Universe (in our backyard so to speak) has such a great potential for good stories!

    [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img]
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    I can't remember what my first piece of science fiction was. My first piece of fantasy (my other great love) was The Lord of the Rings, appropriately enough. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
    I suspect my first sci-fi book was Jules Verne.

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    [b]Required reading: [url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/[/url][/b]
    Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
    The Balance provides. The Balance protects.

    "Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
  • RandyRandy Master Storyteller
    According to the stats that have been shared with me, it looks like there aren't enough hits to make it worth the author's trouble, since it's time consuming to try and reconstruct a sense of story from the kind of elements found in ITF. The trend is downward. It could be that it just doesn't work to try and subtract story elements from the environment of the game.

    Any comments welcome.
  • David of MacDavid of Mac Elite Ranger Ca
    Whats the number for that site, so I can put it in my hosts file? 3/4 of the time, it can't find the server!
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    Not enough hits? Come on people!!

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    [b]Required reading: [url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/[/url][/b]
    Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
    The Balance provides. The Balance protects.

    "Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
  • RandyRandy Master Storyteller
    That's okay, loyal Biggles, the author is willing to accept that maybe putting the story elements out there like this just isn't that interesting. It's all an experiment.

    The site was getting okay stats at first, but the trend has been downward. And since story-wise OJ is less than half way through the first 1/5 of the game (there are 5 "acts" tied to 5 "levels"), this isn't a good sign. Maybe things will pick up when the first of many significant events happen. Right now the author is just laying groundwork.
  • Babylon6Babylon6 Earthforce Officer
    Several points to make here Randy.

    1). The site has ben suffering some minor technical hitches over the last month that have resulted in more than normal the amount of downtime. This was due mostly to an idiot user who did something he shouldn't have and caused a lot of damage.

    The good news is the errant user has been flagellated into enlightenment. The server is also getting a major upgrade to both hardware and software. So, the hits will improve there...

    2). It is usual for hits to drop in the summer. Something to do with the smell of flowers and the call of the wild [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]

    3). The site has almost zero promotion. Perhaps a link could find its way onto a few key sites?
    A few other ideas spring to mind that will raise the hit count and I will convey those later.



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    Babylon6 in orbit @ [url="http://www.nomad-jedi.com"]http://www.nomad-jedi.com/[/url]

    [b]Check out the writing skills of this person: [url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/[/url][/b]
  • if nothing else, i can say ive been enjoying it. i check it probably twice a week just to see if there is anything new

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    Q'Daan, Lord of the Porcupines
    Council Chairman of the Grand Coalition of Porcupines
    Oracle of the Mystical Trout of Malfador
    We'll murder them all, in laughter and merryment. Except for the few we take home to experiment.
  • [quote]Originally posted by Lord QDaan:
    [b]if nothing else, i can say ive been enjoying it. i check it probably twice a week just to see if there is anything new
    [/b][/quote]

    Same here.

    I'd also favour the idea of promoting this young author instead of shutting down his page. What about an update in the Fan Fiction section of FirstOnes every time the author has finished an update? Of course, other means of promotion would have to follow.

    If I only knew how I could tell people that --even if this is 'just' fan fiction-- it is something quite original to the game, then I could easily find some spots in the German fandom to promote the site. In the current situation, I feel somewhat bound. Hm.

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    We are one. No matter the blood, no matter the skin, no matter the world, no matter the star. .. We are one.
    No matter the pain, no matter the darkness, no matter the loss, no matter the fear. .. We are one.
    - Alliance Preamble to the Declaration of Principles, The Paragon of Animals
    Webmaster [url="http://www.Sprungtor.de"]www.Sprungtor.de[/url]
  • Falcon1Falcon1 Elite Ranger
    I agree with the technical hitches problem. I just tried to link in and it was down again. So that needs to be fixed in order to keep people flowing in.

    Personally I like the current format. I love checking the log to see if there's been an update and I get all excited when I find it has. I love reading it. Some how just reading the words suddenly pulls me aboard the B5 universe. I love it. The only thing is this, I'd like to print the log updates after reading them, but in the current display form, I'd have to cut and past into Word to get the new pieces, to prevent printing out the whole thing again and again. Would it be possible to have the log updates on seperate pages, so one could kind of print each one out seperately, and build a kind of book out of it?

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    'The future is all around us' G'kar
    'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen

    Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://www.nialb5.com"]B5 site[/url].
  • RandyRandy Master Storyteller
    The author says, "Well damn - I guess I'd better start working on the next installment."

    Shame on the idiot user. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/rolleyes.gif[/img]
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    Give my congratulations to the author on an excellent decision. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
    I check the site once a week, because I figure the author isn't working on this as a full time job. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]

    PS Tell the author the latest one is the best one yet!

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    [b]Required reading: [url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/[/url][/b]
    Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
    The Balance provides. The Balance protects.

    "Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
  • Falcon1Falcon1 Elite Ranger
    That last installment was just superb! Remember everybody, for enhanced reading, put on your favourite B5 soundtrack and crank up the volume! I haven't worked out yet how to turn my bedroom into a space station with artificial gravity and rotating hull though.... [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img]

    now that would be even better...

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    'The future is all around us' G'kar
    'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen

    Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://www.nialb5.com"]B5 site[/url].

    [This message has been edited by Falcon1 (edited 08-16-2001).]
  • ZosoliasZosolias Earthforce Officer
    I, for one, have really been enjoying the journal entries. PLEASE DO NOT STOP!!!!!!
    I was under the mistaken impression that you were trying to keep this thing quiet!
    Has anyone posted the site on the rec.arts.scifi.tv.babylon5 newsgroups?
    I'm sure lots of folks there would love to read this.
    How about the Scifi.com forums?
    Let's send an email to Aint-it-cool-news.
    There must be lots of ways to increase visibility. There are a lot of fans out there hungry for anything B5 related.

    Z
  • RandyRandy Master Storyteller
    [quote]Originally posted by Freeze:
    [b] It just popped to my head, that maybe some of the hits are diverted into [url="http://www.b5itf-finland.org/b5itf/arc/journal.shtml"]here[/url], which contains a CSS -Enhanced™ and Finnished™ version of the story. I've heard from reliable sources, that the readers have enjoyed the story-telling very much, an d are eagerly waiting for updates. One of them has infact been such moved by it, that he's made a very [i]relevant[/i][url="http://koti.mbnet.fi/~piit/kuvat/TB_Shadow_orava2.JPG"]rendering[/url] out of the story. Cool, huh? [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]

    SETI rank: 411,058th out of 3,200,196 users, outranking 87.096 % of the younger races.[/b][/quote]

    I just took a look at what you've done with the story - it's very cool.

    And I hear that the author was very moved by the rendering.
  • RandyRandy Master Storyteller
    [quote]Originally posted by Zosolias:
    [b]I, for one, have really been enjoying the journal entries. PLEASE DO NOT STOP!!!!!!
    I was under the mistaken impression that you were trying to keep this thing quiet!
    Has anyone posted the site on the rec.arts.scifi.tv.babylon5 newsgroups?
    I'm sure lots of folks there would love to read this.
    How about the Scifi.com forums?
    Let's send an email to Aint-it-cool-news.
    There must be lots of ways to increase visibility. There are a lot of fans out there hungry for anything B5 related.

    Z[/b][/quote]

    I've heard that the author would prefer not to advertise, but instead let this be a thing for the loyal ITF fans who come to FirstOnes.com. He was only concerned that there weren't many people from FO's coming to the site. But that concern is history.
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    To the author: "Scuttlebutt"?

    ------------------
    [b]Required reading: [url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/[/url][/b]
    Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
    The Balance provides. The Balance protects.

    "Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
  • RandyRandy Master Storyteller
    Hee, hee. I don't even have to ask the author for that one. It's Navy slang. It refers to whatever rumor is going around amongst the crew, which may or may not be true. "Scuttlebutt" means "rumor mill".
  • [quote]Originally posted by Randy:
    [b]Hee, hee. I don't even have to ask the author for that one. It's Navy slang. It refers to whatever rumor is going around amongst the crew, which may or may not be true. "Scuttlebutt" means "rumor mill". [/b][/quote]

    Funny if you don't know that it's not a "proper" english word and still understand it because of the context [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img].

    "Finnished"...LOL!!

    "rotating bedroom"... ah well [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img]

    With this project growing .. wouldn't it be a good idea to melt story, music and fanart (great picture! of that Shanderbolt [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/biggrin.gif[/img])... even if the author doesn't want this project to be promoted? I can't help it -- this loudly calls for a multimedia CD. (Wait, what about a huge multiplayer space combat game? Ah well [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img]). In honest, what do you think of a multimedia-enhanced CD version of the story?

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    We are one. No matter the blood, no matter the skin, no matter the world, no matter the star. .. We are one.
    No matter the pain, no matter the darkness, no matter the loss, no matter the fear. .. We are one.
    - Alliance Preamble to the Declaration of Principles, The Paragon of Animals
    Webmaster [url="http://www.Sprungtor.de"]www.Sprungtor.de[/url]

    [This message has been edited by Language of Hope (edited 08-17-2001).]
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    The author could potentially get in a lot of trouble with something like that.

    ------------------
    [b]Required reading: [url="http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/"]http://www.minbari.co.uk/log12.2263/[/url][/b]
    Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
    The Balance provides. The Balance protects.

    "Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
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