Foster

Rise of the Dragon Princess

Name : Peter Terrance Hobbes | Age : 26 | Race: Human, Ex-brigand, mercenary.

Will they thank you?

History: As a former foot-solder of an opposing army fighting on the frontiers, his unit had become detached from the main force as the war drew to a close that winter, and refused to accept the end of hostilities. His commanding officer then decided to renew the offensive, hoping that by raiding, sapping, and literally bleeding the enemy's frontiers dry with his elite troop of cavaliers and footmen could renew a summer-offensive and bring about a resolution to the conflict more befitting of their home-kingdom.

However, roughly two years ago their luck had run-out. While pillaging one of the villages, a small girl had slipped past his post because of his refusal to use lethal force, within a fortmight the kingdom's army had descended upon their forced and besieged them, leaving little hope for escape. A small band managed to break out from the encirclement, and made their way back to their homeland only to be turned away in exile.

Now, an exile from their homeland, and a fugitive of the kingdom, he must make peace with himself and make a living... the only way he remembers how.

Personality : A strong and outgoing facade is used to hide his deep guilt and shame, not of his conduct during the war, but for letting himself so blindly follow the orders of a madman... and then to let his comrades down, just because he wanted to spare a little girl.

Looking for a few good... amoeba moosen. (g'on, ignore post count, eh?)

ClosetMonster said In fact, it is this truth which binds and directs much of our behaviors, and just because we can symbolize things (put them into words) doesn't necessarily make reality any more complex than our reaction to our root biology. In other words, I think we've as much chance making it through Nature's gauntlets as does an amoeba or a cockroach, provided we have the needed dna for survival.

Provided any misconcieved notions doesn't blind us like lemmings off a cliff, we'll do fine.
^Pretty much the entire moral of "To Light a Fire" aside from the value of the buddy-system... provided you're both knowledgeable... otherwise you die like Specialist Wade.
(subverted, in that he's shot in the liver, pretty much as garaunteed bleed-out as a heart-shot or a stab in the kidney, just slower)

Our desire to symbolize things also extends to the need to personify things, a lesson we could do well to forget. Life of Pi.

So who gets the tree-house?

Blue-orange is a scale of altuism vs selfishness. As it is possable to be altuisticly evil on an ideological level, or to be selfishly good on the applied level.
-Is it more important to eat, or to die dignified and 'right'?

TvTropes summary of it in RL
Natural selection itself could be said to promote Blue And Orange Morality of a sort, as it promotes behaviors that maximize an individual's genetic contribution to future generations. Period. Whether that maximization occurs through intrafamilial altruism that safeguards one's close kin at one's own expense, or through rape, infanticide, and brutally killing off one's competitors doesn't make a lick of difference, so long as it works.

-Take two people completely opposed on some issue- say an avid hunter and a member of an animal rights group. Chances are, they will find themselves literally unable to comprehend the other's point of view. The core element of many animal rights arguments is that animals have the same rights as people (or should), thus, shooting them is morally equivalent (or at least similar) to murder. Meanwhile, the core elements of the hunter's viewpoint is that this argument is patently false, and that humans who hunt are as much a part of the natural environment as any other apex predator. These two views simply cannot be resolved in any meaningful way, and both sides believe they are "good" while the other side is "evil" (or, at least, willfully ignorant), making the essential conflict a blue-and-orange morality issue.
◦ And yet, both see nature conservation and treating wildlife with respect as very high virtues (albeit with different takes on the concepts), and will freak the hell out if a species is in danger of disappearing or a natural habitat is threatened with destruction.

Oh, and the thing about horsies...

Post Your Pikcha

Catt said
I have consumed more than my fair share of MREs and they're much better than most food that comes off a MKT. I learned that one the hard way during AT at Knox last July. But I do have to admit, that was pretty smart thinking using thermal sights to find an ember.. I'll have to put that in my back pocket for future reference.

Our mobile mess-kit was the old 1970's era BSA-issue Aluminum one and a single-burner propane stove. Add to that an old E-tool, a galvanized steel bucket, and a pair of leather gloves
-An MKT-90 isn't really needed for operations of less than a week with a force below the strength of 30 personel

Otherwise, keep the lights out or put the fire in the shade and blow.
-Ten years of experiance banking and re-lighting 'out' fires without matches tends to make it simply a matter of putting a pair of warm logs together next to a pair of charred logs that will readily burn, and then inserting a scrap of tinder (paper/dried MRE-cardboard) to get it to re-light. then it's just a matter of re-stacking the firelay.
-Use of thermals is more important when banking and concealing the fire in such a way that it looks like it wasn't there. (not that we'll be up against such a foe anytime soon, but still...)

Post Your Pikcha

Catt said
@Foster: Ugh, MREs... Ugh, Ft. McCoy.. Awful things and and awful place.

Eh, using an emptied soda-can and unused heat-packet to prep a cup of coffee the next morning was still pretty impressive (well, that, and re-lighting a properly 'banked' and concealed fire-pit via thermal sights to find a pair of buried embers).

MREs created quite a mess, it was found to be more reasonable to retain the mobile field-kitchen approach for the one-week mission to traverse 76 miles by canoe unobserved.
-Which included a half-mile stuggle upsteam the Clam-dam river. Although possable, the resault was found impractical enough that current security at the dam is sufficient to prevent any meaningful attack.

Post Your Pikcha

Hank said
That was in Budapest at the Sziget Music Festival. We were allowed to litter.

I still like the idea of proclaiming that land in the name of Sparta and Doc McCoy as I kick you off a cliff of rock composed of sand.

"He's dead Jim."
-Aside from being THE largest Japanese-American Concentration camp during WW2.... an otherwise pleasant place.

Post Your Pikcha

Hank said

Hank, you better pick up ALL that trash before I bluntly tip-off the park-warden about your shenanigans.

Or I can solve things the easy way

Sparta is about 75 miles from there.

Although I think we left an MRE's satchet of creamer about five paces to the east by northeast of that sign, underneath a fell'd log.
(to right of sign, and taking about twelve or more steps away) I do know that's EXACTLY where I dug my fighting-position from last summer...

We came by sea. A small patrol didn't even know our 20-person unit was there until they started tripping over our bivvy-kit around midnight.

Hello there!

Welcome to the guild, the wallpaper is still a bit wet and 'tacky', but I'm sure all the furniture we left out on the curb is still there.

BTW, I've got a bone to pick with Trooper and my tank-hunter party.
-And no, this is not Paladin.

"Hello Boys; I'm Back"

Dark Rumiko, I presume?

Looking for a few good... amoeba moosen. (g'on, ignore post count, eh?)

I think Heinlein summed it up most concisely, but the short form was from Krane:
A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me, A sense of obligation."
-In short, nature is Cthulhu. Just be glad it isn't trying to kill us; it still does, in very horriffic ways.

Heinlein's thesis regarding the clash of intellegent animals to create a post-scarcity population-inversion:

But it was interesting. I caught one of those master's thesis assignments he chucked around so casually; I had suggested that the Crusades were different from most wars. I got sawed off and handed this: Required: to prove that war and moral perfection derive from the same genetic inheritance.

Briefly, thus: All wars arise from population pressure. (Yes, even the Crusades, though you have to dig into trade routes and birth rate and several other things to prove it.) Morals - all correct moral rules derive from the instinct to survive; moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level - as in a father who dies to save his children. But since population pressure results from the process of surviving through others, then war, because it results from population pressure, derives from the same inherited instinct which produces all moral rules suitable for human beings.
. . .
Nevertheless, let's assume that the human race manages to balance birth and death, just right to fit its own planets, and thereby becomes peaceful. What happens?

Soon (about next Wednesday) the Bugs move in, kill off this breed which "ain'ta gonna study war no more" and the universe forgets us. Which still may happen. Either we spread and wipe out the Bugs, or they spread and wipe us out - because both races are tough and smart and want the same real estate.

Do you know how fast population pressure could cause us to fill the entire universe shoulder to shoulder? The answer will astound you, just the flicker of an eye in terms of the age of our race.

Try it - it's a compound-interest expansion.

But does Man have any "right" to spread through the universe?

Man is what he is, a wild animal with the will to survive, and (so far) the ability, against all competition. Unless one accepts that, anything one says about morals, war, politics - you name it - is nonsense. Correct morals arise from knowing what Man is - not what do gooders and well-meaning old Aunt Nellies would like him to be.

The universe will let us know - later - whether or not Man has any "right" to expand through it.

I'm not quite to the point of murding all horses and ponies, just to get rid of horse-flies, but I'm pretty close to it.

Rise of the Dragon Princess

Dlayeth said
Whoa... A wild foster appeared. What are you doing here?

Well, me 'an the princess had a bit of a crazy idea for an RP on the temporary-forum.

But in short, dragon-dragon-rider-rider-dragon love/hate-pentagon was the underlying theme.
-Will probably do a dragon-hunter out looking for some revenge, (and an apprentice-mercenary, not gonna be picky).