Terminal

The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

Dawn of the Final Day

24 Hours Remain

Stellvia [Always Accepting] (Hey, these things in parentheses are hip, right?)

@Inkwell: I've reviewed your nation sheet and I see no areas of major concern. You might want to compartmentalize each section and give them their own hiders in order to make the whole thing neater, but otherwise I enjoyed reading through it. If you post that in the characters section, you can consider yourself accepted and cleared to post.

Looking forward to reading more of your work.

Stellvia [Always Accepting] (Hey, these things in parentheses are hip, right?)

@Klomster: No.

This is a nation roleplay. If you want to join, submit a nation sheet. Also read the OP, and reread the rule concerning keeping ridiculousness levels below desk worshipers.

-Keep ridiculousness levels below "Desk Worshippers". You know, unless you happen to have a realistic explanation. Which you don't.

@Keyguyperson

Stellvia [Always Accepting] (Hey, these things in parentheses are hip, right?)

And posted.

@ClockTowerEchos, @duck55223, @Kimiyosis, you're all up when you have the time.

Stellvia [Always Accepting] (Hey, these things in parentheses are hip, right?)

Enned System
Letona's Gaze

The captain sighed a breath of relief as The Watchman's Eye vanished in a bright flash of light. A cursory examination and a report from the sensors officer confirmed that the ship was in no immediate danger, even with the FTL Drive having overloaded and with the weapons fire that had been going off nearby. Reports from engineering confirmed that the alert had come early enough that they had been able to prevent any injuries. The only real problem was the lack of a functional FTL drive.

"Professor Shiru, please have your team compile translated transcripts of the messages from The Watchman's Eye and have them sent to the E.R.C. Let them know just how close this entire expedition came to going belly-up. That should encourage them to secure the system in a more efficient manner."

"Very well. Just make sure you set a sublight vector for the starbase again." The Professor said as she turned to leave the bridge. "We left a few technicians adrift and their life support will not last forever."

Minutes later, the Letona's Gaze began to maneuver in order to begin the long journey back to the starbase, and a message was transmitted to the G.N.T. ground forces and assault carrier, the Federation's drone carrier, and the Empire's destroyer.

Letona's Gaze Transmission

The unrecognized vessel which just appeared over Enned belonged to the Azu, a reclusive and xenophobic species of mammal. SI has made prior contact with them, although they were not invited to join the E.R.C. Transcripts of the messages which were relayed between the Azu vessel and the Letona's Gaze have been appended to this message for your convenience. The entire expedition came within moments of ending in disaster, if SI had not been able to convince the Azu to stand down. In case they should return, translation indices for all three of their native lexicons have been appended to this message, along with an index for the Baceran lexicon which they also have knowledge of.

The Letona's Gaze overloaded its FTL drive in order to perform the emergency jump to interdict between the Azu vessel and the planet - it may take us several days to resituate before the breaching operation for the starbase may resume. Replacement components to repair the drive would be appreciated if anybody can spare them.

It may also be prudent to identify and facilitate communications with the second unrecognized capital ship which just entered the system. It is not an Azu vessel as far as SI is aware. The E.R.C. has no legal jurisdiction beyond the five million kilometer boundary of the planet, so please establish a defense perimeter immediately. We cannot allow anybody with an FTL Drive to simply appear over the ruins and threaten to bomb it like the Azu just did. If this situation happens again, all available forces MUST be prepared to intercept!

Moments later, the East Wing Nostromo bluespaced into existence in high orbit.

"Just shoot me now." The helmsman muttered as the sensors and communications officers both started shouting into their headsets simultaneously while the Captain furiously hammered on the shipwide alert command a second time. The communications officer was busy sending out copies of the message from the Nostromo while reading it back out loud, and had already transmitted a warning similar to the one that had been sent to The Watchman's Eye.

Letona's Gaze Transmission

Unrecognized vessel, you are trespassing in a secure planetary zone! Planet Enned is under the provisionary authority of the E.R.C. as described by the Beta-Aquila Convention. If you attempt to make planetfall, your personnel will be apprehended. If you initiate hostilities, you will be destroyed. Withdraw from Planet Enned's orbit to a minimum distance of five million kilometers immediately, or E.R.C. enforcement will board and seize your vessel.

A more frantic and much less formal message was transmitted back to the F.S.S. Mars, the IRN Faithful, and the GNT Sovereign.

Letona's Gaze Transmission

The new vessel in orbit above Enned is another vessel of unrecognized configuration and affiliation! Our FTL Drive is down and we are at short range! Please send IMMEDIATE strike craft screening! Do whatever you need to get that ship away from the planet!

The arrival of East Wing's delegate had been ill-timed and ill placed. Still panicked from their recent brush with The Watchman's Eye, the bridge officers of the Letona's Gaze had sent their messages before confirming the affiliation of the Nostromo. Even though Captain Rollin's message had been received and noted, it would be several minutes before any of the SI researchers familiar with them realized who the newcomers were thanks to the renewed shipwide emergency alert.

With the Federation's drones and carrier both within effective weapons' range, the situation had potential to turn ugly...

Stellvia [Always Accepting] (Hey, these things in parentheses are hip, right?)

@Willy Vereb, I've reviewed your nation sheet and for the most part I do not see any problems of note, but there is one issue I have some ambivalence for. Specifically the description of your ship sizes. I realize you were describing city-ship like structures meant to house enormous populations, but they still seem somewhat larger than the average for the setting.

In tends to be a case in most space NRPs that nobody can ever agree on any sort of standardized ship sizes/classifications. One person will want their largest ship to be no more than five hundred meters long. Others want two kilometers. Some want ten. Some want one hundred. It leads to continuous arguments and never tends to be resolved satisfactorily. I personally tend to avoid defining the exact dimensions of all my vessels for exactly this reason.

The easy workaround here would just be to remove the actual numbers for your ship sizes and simply describe them as being colossal in size. If you're really attached to those particular figures though, I suppose you could ask for both @Queen Raidne and @Keyguyperson to chime in with their opinions on the matter. If I had to make a hard ruling, I would be inclined to let you keep your ship sizes. I'm only bringing it up because of the problem described above.

TTL: The Second Labour

Submission date corrected.

You are all reminded that there is an official TTL General Discussion Thread. Please keep the Challenge Thread itself clear.

TTL: The Second Labour

As the contest sidebar is currently nonfunctional, this thread (and its duplicate in the News Subforum) shall serve as the official forum announcement for the start of the second contest in The Twelve Labours, which can be found here in the Writing Contest subforum way at the bottom of the site's main page. The contest submission period ends on June 12th at Midnight.

TTL: The Second Labour

As the contest sidebar is currently nonfunctional, this thread (and its duplicate in the Roleplaying Discussion Subforum) shall serve as the official forum announcement for the start of the second contest in The Twelve Labours, which can be found here in the Writing Contest subforum way at the bottom of the site's main page. The contest submission period ends on June 12th at Midnight.

TTL: The Second Labour

The Twelve Labours

Welcome to round two. I'll try and keep this introduction brief. For those of you who are just dropping in and have no idea what this is, take a peek at The Twelve Labours Introduction Thread (it's a quick read, I promise).

A note on recent updates. In the first labour, entries could win additional prizes by fulfilling secret bonus challenges. While I had more than a little fun coming up with those, ultimately their obscure nature did not really serve as a form of encouragement. Coupled with certain difficulties that arose during the judging period, I have decided to do away entirely with bonus challenges. Instead, submissions which go above and beyond the parameters of the challenge presented can potentially be awarded Challenge Accolades as a reward for the extra effort.

Also, while both points were stated clearly both in The First Labour, and the Introduction Thread, I did receive some feedback indicating that two rules in particular had not been clearly emphasized. These rules have been extra special appended to the official entry rules, and will now be described here as well.

Firstly, you must only make use of your own characters when writing entries for the Twelve Labours. Do not use characters that are not yours. More specifically, you must utilize characters whom are of your own devising. You cannot, for example, use Harry Potter™ in your entry. Or any other character from the related series of books. You are welcome to use the general SETTING of that series, but you cannot use any of the preexisting characters except inferentially.

Secondly, on top of the challenge conditions, all submissions must adhere to a certain standard of quality expected of good storytelling. What those precise standards are will inevitably vary between judges. As a general rule of thumb, make sure your entire submission is grammatically correct, sensible in structure and format, and contains appropriate narrative. Let it also be emphasized that while I will accept entries of any length, and while it is possible for exceedingly short entries to win, if your entry is too short it will likely lack the amount of narrative content necessary to constitute as a story. The shortest entry I received that won back in the oldguild was three paragraphs long, to help put things in perspective.

Without further ado, let the Second Labour Begin. Submission ends at Objective Midnight, June Twelfth.

Entry Rules:

1. Jaffar's (left) thumb.
2. Follow the standard guild rules.
3. Obey the Dark Lord Sauron's rules as well (just to cover all the bases).
4. Follow MY rules too. Let it never be said we did not warn you.
5. Send your entry to @Terminal by June 12th.
6. Be sure to include whether or not you want your story to remain anonymous! I will add your name only if I am given your permission!
7. Any explicit/mature material must be kept off-site. I will only post links to them with NSFW notices.
8. I reserve the right to simply toss out any story if it doesn't possess a basic modicum of good sense and taste. Don't make me.
9. All stories must adhere to a certain standard of quality expected of good storytelling.
10. You must use your own characters. Preexisting characters from franchise settings may only be alluded to.
11. If your setting is borrowed from a franchise, make sure to include a disclaimer and credit the original inventor of the setting used.

Prizes:

Pending further developments by @mahz, the guild moderators, and the numerous contributors who are constantly attending to the site's functionality, every participant who submits an entry that clears the basic parameters of the challenge can win a cool forum title, as well as a trophy. Further, submissions which have gone above and beyond the parameters of the Labour will be able to receive Challenge Accolades in the form of additional forum trophies.

In addition, all winning entries will be saved to a public archive, a link to which will be permanently available in my signature! Winners will also be mentioned in the News section of the Guild. As a reminder, unless you specifically give me permission to include authorship of an entry, every posted story will remain anonymous.

The Second Labour

"What is and is not poisonous is determined by dosage."

Common Proverb

The Second Labour

The Second Labour

You may use any character of your own devising for this labour. Reflect upon their lot in life and all that which they hold dear. Think about what things and ideals they value. What parts of the world have resonated with their being? By what manner have they been molded and shaped by their habiliments?

The Challenge

Write about your character experiencing 'too much of a good thing' in as literal a fashion as possible. The burden must be of a sobering nature, being neither frivolous or of little regard - it must be seemingly indispensable. If your character is unable to let go or dispense of their burden, punish them for their indiscretion. The punishment need not be fatal, but must be telling.

Clarification of the Challenge Parameters

This section exists specifically to ensure there is no ambiguity or ambivalence in what, precisely, the challenge requires of each participant. If you have any specific questions which are not addressed here, please send them to @Terminal for resolution.

For The Second Labour, I have asked you to write about any character of your making experiencing 'too much of a good thing.'

Q. What do you mean by Too Much of a Good Thing?
A. Use your imagination and answer your own question.

Q. What do you mean by 'In as literal a fashion as possible?'
A. The burden must become a detriment in a direct fashion. Being incidentally inconvenient due to coincidence is not sufficient. The burden itself must, through its presence or manifestation, directly cause the woes and troubles of your character or characters of choice.

Q. Can my character still profit or come out on top after getting rid of the burden?
A. Yes. However, getting rid of it should be neither easy nor trivial. Any rewards they reap for doing so should be well-earned.

Q. The punishment must be telling?
A. Appropriately tailored and poetic in nature. Not a slap on the wrist, but being dragged into a dark alley and violently mugged. Or killed, if you feel such a punishment is fitting.

Q. What if my character keeps their burden, but finds another way to mitigate or prevent the offset without having to give it up?
A. I said that if they are unable to let it go, that they must be punished for their indiscretion. I also said the punishment must be telling. Determine a suitable punishment for them involving their workaround.

Q. Are ALL of these Labours going to involve miserable things happening to our characters?
A. Not all of them.

Q. How long can my story be?
A. As long as you feel is necessary. I will read any and everything submitted, irregardless of length, and write a review on it. Do not let the short three-day judging period dissuade you. If you have a 800,000 word brick for me, I will take it. Similarly, extremely short stories are also welcome. It is entirely possible for segues as short as three paragraphs long to clear the challenge.

Credits

Thanks again to @mdk, and the entire RPGC crew for helping with scheduling for The Twelve Labours!

A special Kudos to the site moderators and staff, since this would not even have been possible without their hard work.

The scathing image of the Lernaean Hydra up above was made by nJoo on DeviantArt, whose profile can be viewed here.