Question Odds and Ends

I start with a simple question. Did Speakeasy have to book a time to visit that closet? I'm surprised any actual cleaning supplies fit in the closet.

I am glad to see that you aren't using the lazy cut and paste method of reshowing combat finals. (I didn't expect you to)

Now that we are seeing some more finals, will we see an grades handed out.

Jade with flash and bang, while the J-Team does all the work. Poor Mule, perhaps he should change his name to Carpet. I wanted to see Ito, and Bardue's reaction to what she did.

Poor TK is on the bus.

Chaka vs. The Tigers or perhaps Team Thunderbird (the girls pining after T-Bird).

Hive really needs someone she trusts just doing statistical analysis for her.

What are the odds that Risk figures out he just burned a bridge he shouldn't have.

Kristin good work on the combat final, it was really nice.

I can see Sam trying Ayla for the analysis. Not sure if he's up to it though.

Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
Comments typed up while reading story.

Interesting song choice to start off with. I wonder what it heralds for the story. Okay, I want to know how the pub got the name of "The Flying Blue Squirrel". Another new detail to learn about Whateley, or be reminded off since I don't remember the residence area being called "The Village" in any past stories.

Hartford with her hair down and without her librarian-style glasses, guess she does know how to relax. And I share in her disgust at the news of the new MCO agents in Boston. With their history and past luck, it will take a miracle to keep some more corrupt agents from taking over where the old ones left off. Wonder if Brown might be one of the seemingly rare agents who will turn in corrupt fellow agents who go to far, here's hoping.

Controlling the on-campus bookies, with the likes of Risk in their ranks that is like hearding cats. Difficult but possible with effort. That is a lot of work to prevent betting on the fights or the info getting out; I wonder how well it will work with the number of different powers at play on campus trying to obtain said data. And we thought until now that the students were the only ones having a hard times due to the combat finals, talk about a lot of hard work by the teachers. I would hate to have their job.

Nice to see them working together, see how everything came together for the combat finals. Okay, that definately complicates a lot of things on campus, how do you search for a student who has lost their I.D. card but has their cell phone on them and active? Handy for not being tracked, not for when someone is in trouble. It's a wonder with all the staff has to deal with that some of them aren't more high strung or stressed out than they already are.

Now most of the martial arts department is together. Those poor students, they need to learn and have experience but with Lillian Dennon, Billy Two Knives, Amanda Tolman, Sensei Ito, Harry Junzo [is this a new guy, because I don't remember him being mentioned in any other stories], Ryan Wilson, and Gunny Bardue all planning what the kids are up against that seems a bit cruel.

36 settings to work with, darn you Wilson and Bardue! Even if you saw 36 matches, the odds of seeing all 36 variations before your own match comes up aren't good. And with Ito's further explaination, that means no scenario will be exactly like any other one. Forcing the students to adapt and work together, instead of knowing what is coming and plan ahead. And setting it up so the students with photographic memory go in first so they can't benefit from watching earlier matches, devious.

"Wondercute," Bardue continued, although he cringed visibly at that one.
"Put them last," Wilson said, scowling. "We'll need time to rebuild the Arena when they get done."
"That and we'll need to crank up the difficulty to eleven!" Smythe added sarcastically.

Bwahahahaha! They have proven themselves to be that destructive and creative in team tactics, wonder who still underestimates them.

Star League Junior and a crash against one or possibly more of their parents. Oh, that is going to be good. Wonder if it is Wallflower's mom who asked. And that Bomb scenario sounds sadistic, perfect to test a group of future superheros with. Wilson is getting joy out of coming up with that scenario for the Grunts, how will they handle themselves against such a scenario with hidden enemies.

That Venus Inc. deal is going to be missing at least 1 person. Ito thinks he is being fair by treating Fey like everyone else, if like Lillian says it breaks her and unleashes all her pent-up frustration and anger the school will be lucky to be left standing in the aftermath. A classic scenario, splitting the forces and seeing who goes where. Bardue and Ito are scary when they work together, sending Star League Junior up against Wondercute. As Wilson said that isn't fair to them, that is just cruel. Although it teachs not to underestimate your opponents based on their name or appearance.

Thank you Bardue, for standing up for Kayda; with her unplanned crash with Tansy and Lanie that might have put her in Doyle for a week or more recovering. I knew they had multiple reasons for setting up students for certain matches, yet another reason not to piss off the teachers.

Heh, guess they didn't hear about Ayla helping out Tisiphony with that date that got her two friends boyfriends as well. Otherwise they might change his opponent. All this argueing over She-Beast, everyone has good points but trying to teach her a lesson in any way that isn't too subtle but also not too obvious will only backfire and make her plot and plan even more.

Nice callouts to past stories and events throughout this one so far. I remember the Wicked events, but forgot that Mega-Girl was involved with the Bad Seeds adventure in New York and got She-Beast locked up. And I'm hoping that She-Beast sees through their ruse and ends up working with Mega-Girl, just to shock Ito.

Guessing this boy has various hidden spy cams throughout the campus, either taping into security feed or of his own, which the removeable hard drive records. The source of the leak for school betting is my guess. Then again with what he did with it and connecting it to Widget, I have to wonder what his real plans are now. Frame job, convient hiding place, or what?

Little Bee, we can only hope she gets away from her sister's influence and soon. Tweak, making a video encoder/decoder; sounds like trying to figure out new ways to bypass some of security's safety measures. Nice info about gadgeteers and devisors trading favors; wonder who has gotten themselves blocked from asking for favors currently. And a simple drop-off and pick-up, unless people are watching no one even knows it happens but those involved.

D'oh! Two patents on electronics being used by Whateley Security, easier to know how to bypass or disable them. And they didn't have anyone on staff check for hidden features, are they just allowing it to see how far she will go or simply miss them. That kind of tech from Farsight in the hands of Tweak or any other Mastermind wannabe, very bad. I'd be surprised if Farsight hadn't already sold the rights or licensed out that tech to one or more governments or organizations.

Spying on all those locations, when Tweak gets caught she is in huge trouble, to understate how bad it will be. Trying to make sense of what Hartford is doing without having heard anything they said, she is going to drive herself up a wall after a while. And she just keeps digging that future hole deeper. I wonder how she will get caught and by whom.

The unsung heroes of the campus, the techs that have to scan for monitoring devices, how often do they have to scan when it isn't combat finals time. Daily or more spread out. With the amount of students trying to spy on other students and staff, along with bugs planted by government agents trying to get a leg up, they must get a real workout. D'oh! And Tweak might just get away with it unless she slips up, those high-resolution fiberscopes are near perfect.

"How? Did you name them all and do a roll call?" Ito chuckled.

With the way Ito and Bardue interact, sometimes it is like they are an old married couple. And if one of the kids gets hurt because the Las Vegas betters, there will be hell to pay. Grilled bison, you make it sounds so delicious. Ito needs to get out and relax more, maybe then he wouldn't enjoy torturing the students so much. Oh, who am I kidding, he would do it anyways.

Loving all the behind-the-scenes looks at Whateley and the staff when the students aren't around. Even the sim guys have me chuckling at their banter. Oooo, new hard-light hologram system, guess that is why Kayda had such a hard time telling the difference between the sim and reality up until it ended, along with the regular holograms. And I can see why the simulation technicians love their work, it is like setting up a personalized Holodeck scenario each time.

"Ten bucks on Wondercute!" Larry offered a wager quickly.
"That's a sucker bet," Goldie scoffed. "No-one is going to take you up on that."

A genius or insane, Generator is a little bit of both. Gah! Why did you have to put that image in my head, the thought of Jade's mind with Stormwolf's powers...*shudder* That is nightmare fuel, Elrod. Way to go, Chuck! Glad to see someone asked Goldie out.

I love seeing someone who betrays their fellow students and school for money getting frustrated. And is perfect for Mrs. Carson and security, as frustration and fatigue leads to slip-ups and mistakes. D'oh! Helping Mindy with her computer programming problem gave Tweak the answer she was looking for. This is so not good. And she slips up, someone had to have noticed her frantic activity. And in trying to get an off-campus bookie, she wll make a call to Vegas and reveal herself to security.

Booker is making a big mistake, he knows off-campus betting is illegal and yet he helping Tweak. Carruthers, of course he is in the Third Platoon. What kind of parents name their kids like that, I would go by initials or codename as well. Nice to see the hollowed out book still in use despite more high tech means available. Buxton is going down as well, anyone connected to the leak is in serious trouble.

There are a lot more foolish students that I thought, the staff finds out you had information on your match beforehand and you get an F, most likely. She obviously doesn't know the one important details of the matches, that you need to work together, it isn't a competition. Wonder which one of her customers will betray her to the staff for her not telling them that.

When all else fails, when even the tech and magic can't find the leaks, go to Ayla and his information sources. Almost sounds like the A-Team slogan. Uncle Herb or the MCO with info about a student, they would probably wait until they graduate to act on it, unless they are idiots. That is one thing you have to respect about Thuban, he protects Faction 3 like a father.

Tweak, you have idea what the point of the combat finals really are. And due to this missing piece of information, you are going to get caught. Although if I were Mrs. Carson I would have questioned that match-up myself, especially after how it went down and how Tansy ingraciated herself to Lanie and became her friend.

For Ayla's information sources not to know anything, nor the bookies to give up any details; even the other students are going to start realizing how serious the combat finals are this time and everything revolving around them. Ah, the large displays at the top of the force field to project the entire simulation, was wondering how everyone could see everything going on from their different seats. Nice betting set-up for Booker, although it kind makes it more obvious he has insider information.

Booker may be smug but he is right, most of the students won't wish to work with their rivals. If both Gunny and Ito smiled at someone with those sadistic smiles for an extended period, I think they would confess to anything just to make them stop.

Several students craned their necks, looking down the bleachers to a particular tall redhead who was sitting nonchalantly next to the hulking senior Wyatt Cody. Elaine Nalley's 'solution' in the fall finals was well-known, and now explicitly forbidden in the combat finals.

At least she won't be forgotten at Whateley, not with a legacy like that. It will become known as the Loophole Rule, or it should. I don't care what kind of powers you have or levels they are at, Gunny would intimidate a freaking grizzly to back down just by glaring at it, imo. D'oh! No notes or other records to help catch Tweak or Booker.

Tweak and the others covered their trails too well online, if even Blue, Sam and Cyberkitty can't find a trace of anything.

Belphegor has the right idea, with Hippy's mindset she might have maimed or killed him. That is a level of brutality that is only matched by Lanie in the crash, both in extremely bad moods and venting their anger, frustation, etc. out on it. Unless you have no emotions at all, you are going to react to seeing a fellow human impaled like that.

I hope before it is all over that McGraw notices Booker's odds seem a lot better than they should be. All that work and they are going to take their frustration out on the perps somehow.

The look of shock on Ayla's face and his eyes when Adalie's father says something to indicate he knows they are dating, priceless. And Adalie, every parent knows very special friend is code for boyfriend/girlfriend. Studying, who is she trying to convince, Ayla or herself. Finally, we get to see how Ayla's combat final goes down with Tissy as her opponent/potential teammate.

I hope Lanie talks to McGraw or Sam about Booker's odds, a second set of eyes to notice can only help. And Tissy off her meds today, d'oh! And she is at her worst, this is very bad. Doesn't help that he has so many enemies on campus, from those who feel wronged by him, those who are homophobes, those who hate him for being on of those Goodkinds, etc. Ayla never complains, so knowing that it still hurts and he just keeps it hidden, I hope he is still seeing Dr. Bellows.

Ayla by training and by circumstance has been forced to be highly observant to any detail which seems off. With all the times he has been attack in story and probably many more not shown, he has had personal intensive training in environmental and situational awareness and alertness forced upon him. And this is why someone like Tissy should be required to go to Doyle daily to made sure she takes her meds.

Getting attacked by a mental illusion generator and brick, Tissy is going to learn to take her meds every day after this is over. Ayla is honorable, his worst enemy and he goes to protect her from harm. Brains and brawn, a brutal combo to deal with, always take out the one who can confuse you or mess with your mind or senses. Gah! I'm starting to feel sorry for Tissy with the way she is getting bashed around. 3 hits, each equal to the impact of a tank round, was what it took to put the brick down. Dang, that is tough.

Ayla, better to lose the sim than a life be lost. I would take a failing grade any day over failing my conscious. Quick search and the hostage and hostage taker are gone, wonder how far they could have gotten. He lost because he cared more for his rival's life than his grade, I would respect that and Ito and Gunny had better not give him an F or they have failed him, imo.

Ayla serious needs to learn not everything is his fault, that others have to take resposibility for their own actions and consquences. Even if he is involved, he isn't to blame for her being harmed. Nitro thanking him, when I first started reading the Whateley stories I never expected that to happen. Darn it, got me crying with Ayla. I knew he was still carrying that guilt over this, just not how badly it was affecting him. At least now they have an understanding and Ayla won't have to watch his back around Tissy anymore.

Hehehe, I would have asked for a pass on the combat final as well if I was doing as much work for the school as Blue. They gave long odds on Generator, they don't know her very well, do they. Jade is cutting loose! Hank is right, we know how tough Mule is but I'm not sure even he can survive the mayhem that Jade can unleash.

Bwahahaha! How did I know that Jade and Wondercute would come up with something like that, just too funny seen in real life. And Mule is immune to Jade's +10 Cute Puppy Dog Eyes! I didn't think anyone except for some of the staff would be immune to that. Clouds of glitter with copies of herself inside for intel, now she proves how dangerous she can be. Silly string-based capture goo, *giggles* Mule sliding down the street like that, all because he wouldn't carry Jade on his shoulder. Priceless.

Using the MD disks to make one of the goons dance the macarena, the wackiness continues. Turning guards into marionettes, dancing their way into the building. And even the "glitter" isn't what it seems, a theme overall with Generator. Would hate to be caught in a cloud of the stuff. With her intel skills and deceptive abilities, once Jade graduates a lot of covert organizations will be begging her to join. So big bad has powers but either not a mutant or somehow undetectable as one.

Hello Kitty Compact, forget how dangerous it is until its blades pop out. And the least dangerous looking devise is lethal, like I said,, I would hate to be caught in a cloud of the stuff. Just...guh. Kirstin, that combat final for Jade was epic! It was everything I hoped for and more.

Figure Team Kimba and Wondercute are the only ones who bet on Jade winning it on her own. Underestimate the cute ones at your own peril. Dang, Booker is playing it smart and not betting outside the school. Less chance of being caught, unless the temptation becomes too much for Tweak to resist.

And the other side of Kayda and Chou's combat final, figures some were booing and catcalling, they want to see action, not stealth. Just wait until they are in their own scenario, bet they will want to use stealth after seeing all the other matches. Evvie and Naomi are observant, although she underestimates her friend if she thinks she is giving up. Or do they think working together isn't allowed.

Getting overly excited and yelling despite those you're yelling at not being able to hear you, reminds me of some people when they watch movies or TV. Adrian, cliche doesn't count in real life, only when refering to TV, movies and other forms of entertainment. I loved seeing the fight from a new perspective, puts it into a whole new light.

I'm guessing that little problem of Buxton was set-up by the cyberpaths and Hartford, a delay in the arena security footage on campus to the security office. Either that or they really messed up big time. Boxcars must not know about their training together, or think Kayda's frustation with losing to Chou so much while training would have hindered their working together. And Booker's thoughts about the campus rumors prove how unreliable they are as a form of intel.

An unexpected scenario and everyone thought they would lose, how wrong they are. Buxton has no idea all the phone calls are being monitored, little weasel is outing himself with each new call, incoming or outgoing.

Been wondering since the first time I read the crash with Lanie, Kayda and Tansy how Kayda's friends reacted. Hehe, back in school I was shy but I would have gone in to help my friend too. Peeper, you are being a grade-A idiot right now. Talk of trying to gain access to what is classified as underage porn, being a pervert towards Lannie and Kayda when any number of people wish to harm for you saying such things, and talking about Tansy like that when he doesn't fully know what she is capable of. Good thing Evvie isn't a brick or Naomi and Adrian would have had trouble.

Poor Greasy, to go from terrified to what Tansy does to him later to smooth things over. And every female who heard what he said is added to the list of possible suspects if he shows up beated to a pulp. By the end of this crash, everyone is going to be warry of how Tansy is far more capable than anyone thought. A beacon on those who can become invisible, awww. That isn't fair. And fewer people will try to bully Kayda in the future by the end of this, especially males.

High-level regenerator, shoot, the way he is described healing it seems faster than Wolverine. Any male who doesn't wince at seeing Kayda do that has no sense of self preservation. Upon seeing such a display of brutality, I would be trying to hold my lunch in as well. One thing from TV and movies, another thing to see it in person. Laurie has a good point, after dealing with a snake demon those don't seem like as serious a threat. The way it is described from an observer's point of view makes the final parts of this crash seem even more epic. And I love that Wyatt was cheering and celebrating alongside Kayda's friends.

Darn, she is questioning Risk, who probably has learned how to calculate the odds of things just to try and learn how to control his power better. Risk, this might come back to bite you in the butt later when you need help. Bardue took a statistics class, color me surprised. Although it kind of makes senses, probably even uses it in his evaluations and we just never noticed it before. Statistics are going to be a major thing which helps end the leak. It has to be with all the talk of it going on.

I do wonder how Ayla's decision to rescue Tissy effected his grade, on one hand he failed the main objective, on the other he made sure his "partner" would live to fight another day, from a strictly tactical standpoint, it can be considered the right call, after all if you get so caught up in the mission you let your friends die, you wont have any friends left to rescue you when you need it, also serves to reinforce the trust factor, no man left behind is practiced for a reason, even when it costs more lives than it saves, if you can't trust your people to have your back, why should you have theirs? Still the objective was to rescue the hostage, which they didn't do.

Valentine wrote: I start with a simple question. Did Speakeasy have to book a time to visit that closet? I'm surprised any actual cleaning supplies fit in the closet.

I am glad to see that you aren't using the lazy cut and paste method of reshowing combat finals. (I didn't expect you to)

Poor TK is on the bus.

Hive really needs someone she trusts just doing statistical analysis for her.

This is a janitor's closet on the 2nd floor of Kane. Speakeasy's closet is in the tunnels. Different closets.

I always hated cut-and-paste; when EE and I showed the hot tub from different POVs, I tried to minimize duplication, and I've been doing it ever since. Glad you like seeing finals from multiple POVs.

TK's "low profile" is different from being on the bus. I guarandamntee you that you'll see more Ayla associated with Charge, and more Fey in several Kayda stories. On the bus, indeed!

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
Interesting song choice to start off with. I wonder what it heralds for the story. Okay, I want to know how the pub got the name of "The Flying Blue Squirrel". Another new detail to learn about Whateley, or be reminded off since I don't remember the residence area being called "The Village" in any past stories.

See how many people get the Village reference . As to the pub, it was a random pub name from the game Tropico II (I kid you not) and I thought it was fun, so I re-used it.

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
Hartford with her hair down and without her librarian-style glasses, guess she does know how to relax. And I share in her disgust at the news of the new MCO agents in Boston. ... Wonder if Brown might be one of the seemingly rare agents who will turn in corrupt fellow agents who go to far, here's hoping.

We'll see if anyone gets the setup on the MCO office. As to Hartford, EE and I have some things we're doing with her. She IS a beauty, but she hides it

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
And we thought until now that the students were the only ones having a hard times due to the combat finals, talk about a lot of hard work by the teachers.
Harry Junzo [is this a new guy, because I don't remember him being mentioned in any other stories]

Yes, it's a huge amount of work for the faculty. Part of the job.
No, he's listed in the Wiki as a faculty member in PE.

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
That Venus Inc. deal is going to be missing at least 1 person.
Thank you Bardue, for standing up for Kayda...

We'll see about the Venus Inc team.
Somebody has to stand up for Kayda - and in CBHD, Carson did, too

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
Tweak, making a video encoder/decoder; sounds like trying to figure out new ways to bypass some of security's safety measures. Nice info about gadgeteers and devisors trading favors; wonder who has gotten themselves blocked from asking for favors currently. And a simple drop-off and pick-up, unless people are watching no one even knows it happens but those involved.

I LIKE gadgeteers, so I can guarantee you'll see more of the 'behind the curtain' bits of the labs as Kayda spends more and more time there. With Lanie. )

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
The unsung heroes of the campus, the techs that have to scan for monitoring devices, how often do they have to scan when it isn't combat finals time. Daily or more spread out. With the amount of students trying to spy on other students and staff, along with bugs planted by government agents trying to get a leg up, they must get a real workout. D'oh! And Tweak might just get away with it unless she slips up, those high-resolution fiberscopes are near perfect.

She might. And she might not. And the ending might be surprising - or not.

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments

"How? Did you name them all and do a roll call?" Ito chuckled.

With the way Ito and Bardue interact, sometimes it is like they are an old married couple. And if one of the kids gets hurt because the Las Vegas betters, there will be hell to pay. Grilled bison, you make it sounds so delicious.

And here I thought there'd be a comment about my little Gunny/Ito joke on the jelly beans being named...
And yes, it is. Bison is very, very tasty.

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
A genius or insane, Generator is a little bit of both. Gah! Why did you have to put that image in my head, the thought of Jade's mind with Stormwolf's powers...*shudder* That is nightmare fuel, Elrod.

Quick - where's that line paraphrased from? "With her head on his shoulders, they'd wreck civilization!"

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
D'oh! Helping Mindy with her computer programming problem gave Tweak the answer she was looking for. This is so not good. And she slips up, someone had to have noticed her frantic activity.

Or will they? Mindy DOES note that she's seen gadgeteers and devisors do stranger things.

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
When all else fails, when even the tech and magic can't find the leaks, go to Ayla and his information sources.
Ah, the large displays at the top of the force field to project the entire simulation, was wondering how everyone could see everything going on from their different seats.

Darn it, got me crying with Ayla. I knew he was still carrying that guilt over this, just not how badly it was affecting him.

I felt that this side of Ayla - the hidden, secret, emotional and guilt-ridden side of Ayla - needed to be exposed - if only for a few seconds where he loses control of his emotions before he can bottle them back up.

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
Kirstin, that combat final for Jade was epic! It was everything I hoped for and more.

We TOLD her, and told her, and told her - and still she doubted. Thank you for saying what the cabal knew - it's a "Top 10" Whateley moment IMHO.

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
An unexpected scenario and everyone thought they would lose, how wrong they are. Buxton has no idea all the phone calls are being monitored, little weasel is outing himself with each new call, incoming or outgoing.

The land-lines down by the arena - yes. All other land-lines? not being monitored - yet!

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
A beacon on those who can become invisible, awww. That isn't fair.

It's a magic tracking beacon that can be seen by the cameras, and no-one else. It enables the cameras to track someone invisible.

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
Bardue took a statistics class, color me surprised. Although it kind of makes senses, probably even uses it in his evaluations and we just never noticed it before. Statistics are going to be a major thing which helps end the leak. It has to be with all the talk of it going on.

Yup. Statistics will be very important - as will be finding someone who understands the math well. I wonder who Sam will turn to that is trustworthy and competent with math? Hmmm......

I think it's obvious whom the math wiz Sam will bring in is, someone good at math and business, who has more legitament means of making more money, and has an intimate understanding of the severity of risk that an information leak presents.

Like i said in the Jade thread, cool combat final.

I'd like to read the story written from Jade's perspective, including all of the internal arguments...

I'd also like to see what the situation looked like from the inside of Mule's head....

Mules thoughts:

-WTF!
-I'm not going to live this down.
-Bardue is going to have me on range duty all next term over this.
-please just kill me now.

elrodw wrote: See how many people get the Village reference . As to the pub, it was a random pub name from the game Tropico II (I kid you not) and I thought it was fun, so I re-used it.

Nice, never even heard of that game until now, might have to look it up. The Village reference isn't to the movie of the same name, is it?

I LIKE gadgeteers, so I can guarantee you'll see more of the 'behind the curtain' bits of the labs as Kayda spends more and more time there. With Lanie. )

I like gadgeteers as well, love seeing what new things they will come up with. And Lanie is my favorite character alongside Kayda.

Quick - where's that line paraphrased from? "With her head on his shoulders, they'd wreck civilization!"

Google, the bane of trivia. It is from Yellowbeard, a movie made in 1983. Although now that I looked it up, I want to watch it.

I felt that this side of Ayla - the hidden, secret, emotional and guilt-ridden side of Ayla - needed to be exposed - if only for a few seconds where he loses control of his emotions before he can bottle them back up.

And I thank you for doing that, I love seeing the human side of people in stories. And you and E.E. both do it so well, especially together.

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
Kirstin, that combat final for Jade was epic! It was everything I hoped for and more.

We TOLD her, and told her, and told her - and still she doubted. Thank you for saying what the cabal knew - it's a "Top 10" Whateley moment IMHO.

I would say it is "Top 5" Whateley moment at least, it is that memorable.

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
Bardue took a statistics class, color me surprised. Although it kind of makes senses, probably even uses it in his evaluations and we just never noticed it before. Statistics are going to be a major thing which helps end the leak. It has to be with all the talk of it going on.

Yup. Statistics will be very important - as will be finding someone who understands the math well. I wonder who Sam will turn to that is trustworthy and competent with math? Hmmm......

Phase is good with business and statistics, but he is being tutored in math by Kayda. So I say it is probably Kayda. She has the best math skills of anyone around, shoot she was fought over for an advanced project with math that would go right over most people's heads and being the TA of math class.

Domoviye wrote: Mules thoughts:

-WTF!
-I'm not going to live this down.
-Bardue is going to have me on range duty all next term over this.
-please just kill me now.

An addition to that. -I just know that Bardue is going to give me additional homework on unorthodox tactics and strategies, along with a long lecture about underestimating a potential threat. Please just don't let him get the idea to have Jade give me lessons!

Dreamer wrote:

elrodw wrote: See how many people get the Village reference . As to the pub, it was a random pub name from the game Tropico II (I kid you not) and I thought it was fun, so I re-used it.

Nice, never even heard of that game until now, might have to look it up. The Village reference isn't to the movie of the same name, is it?

I LIKE gadgeteers, so I can guarantee you'll see more of the 'behind the curtain' bits of the labs as Kayda spends more and more time there. With Lanie. )

I like gadgeteers as well, love seeing what new things they will come up with. And Lanie is my favorite character alongside Kayda.

Quick - where's that line paraphrased from? "With her head on his shoulders, they'd wreck civilization!"

Google, the bane of trivia. It is from Yellowbeard, a movie made in 1983. Although now that I looked it up, I want to watch it.

I felt that this side of Ayla - the hidden, secret, emotional and guilt-ridden side of Ayla - needed to be exposed - if only for a few seconds where he loses control of his emotions before he can bottle them back up.

And I thank you for doing that, I love seeing the human side of people in stories. And you and E.E. both do it so well, especially together.

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
Kirstin, that combat final for Jade was epic! It was everything I hoped for and more.

We TOLD her, and told her, and told her - and still she doubted. Thank you for saying what the cabal knew - it's a "Top 10" Whateley moment IMHO.

I would say it is "Top 5" Whateley moment at least, it is that memorable.

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 1 comments
Bardue took a statistics class, color me surprised. Although it kind of makes senses, probably even uses it in his evaluations and we just never noticed it before. Statistics are going to be a major thing which helps end the leak. It has to be with all the talk of it going on.

Yup. Statistics will be very important - as will be finding someone who understands the math well. I wonder who Sam will turn to that is trustworthy and competent with math? Hmmm......

Phase is good with business and statistics, but he is being tutored in math by Kayda. So I say it is probably Kayda. She has the best math skills of anyone around, shoot she was fought over for an advanced project with math that would go right over most people's heads and being the TA of math class.

Ahh but there's the trust factor and the fact that Kayda doesn't deal with money as much, also Ayla is more than familiar with the intelligence game, Kayda isn't.

Nice! Jade's final is uniquely awesome!

... Mule. Ugh. He really should have asked Jade 'Why' she wants to be carried instead of ranting... But then, that is ComicallyMissingThePoint...

"Mockery and derision have their place. Usually, it's on the far side of the airlock."

But then again, we don't know how much Mule knows about Jade's tactics, and Jade should have informed him of her plans, I think, and not doing so will lower her mark.

Is it actually possible for any power to hide from Jade-Sight? If it isn't, I'd argue that it was totally cheating to stick a hidden Regen.

Like, citing that the Testers have 'proven', like with 100 papers, that no power can hide from Jade-Sight.

Yeah, I wanna see the AfterActionReports!

And if getting the battle pairings pre-announcement is an Auto-'F' or not. 'Cause it just seems like clever planning.

"If you're fighting fair, then you're not fighting hard enough."

Malady wrote: Nice! Jade's final is uniquely awesome!

... Mule. Ugh. He really should have asked Jade 'Why' she wants to be carried instead of ranting... But then, that is ComicallyMissingThePoint...

"Mockery and derision have their place. Usually, it's on the far side of the airlock."

But then again, we don't know how much Mule knows about Jade's tactics, and Jade should have informed him of her plans, I think, and not doing so will lower her mark.

Is it actually possible for any power to hide from Jade-Sight? If it isn't, I'd argue that it was totally cheating to stick a hidden Regen.

Like, citing that the Testers have 'proven', like with 100 papers, that no power can hide from Jade-Sight.

Yeah, I wanna see the AfterActionReports!

And if getting the battle pairings pre-announcement is an Auto-'F' or not. 'Cause it just seems like clever planning.

"If you're fighting fair, then you're not fighting hard enough."

No intelligence gathering is a key part of the preparation stage of combat, so long as the information doesn’t leave Whateley it's fine.

A couple random points:

- "The Village" might be a reference to the classic Brit spy-fi series "The Prisoner."

- The J-team can see that someone has a power, but it's not very good at differentiating between different types of power. Mostly, it can tell magic from mutant energies, and I think that's it. Other "colors" they say are related to emotional state.

Malady wrote: Is it actually possible for any power to hide from Jade-Sight? If it isn't, I'd argue that it was totally cheating to stick a hidden Regen.

Just because it hasn't been done yet doesn't mean it's impossible. I could easily imagine a mutant power that hides from other mutant powers, and proving that such a power doesn't exist is impossible, so I'd say it's a valid (if sneaky) tactic. And it's not like it slowed her down any.

I also liked how Jade pretended that her Kitty Compact was only for lighting at first. Enough devisors stick to "one devise, one purpose" that throwing two disparate abilities in one devise will probably throw off a lot of opponents.

In the long term, I think that the faculty should set up a sting kind of like the one shown here and here , where they provide information which tricks the snoop into taking some action which the faculty can track. I have no idea how they could set that up, though. It'd be very tricky. In the short term, they should do another last minute match swap, only this time create a match which looks normal (unlike Loophole's, which was a Crash and clearly unusual) and see which bookies are caught flat-footed, and which don't seem to notice.

As far as looking through statistics, I'd put Kayda and Ayla on it together. Kayda's better at math, but Ayla has more familiarity with applying it to real world business. They're both trustworthy and used to working together on math, so I think that they'd make a good team. And two heads are better than one.

yes Ayla and Kayda are both trustworthy- but it would come to whom Sam knows more for the trust factor, also for math Kayda is more specialized in theoretical math, Ayla in buisness math, they both fight on non-physical fronts, the difference is Ayla fights on the intelligence and psychological front (which would make her familiar with information brokers) and Kayda on the spiritual front, which unless the information travels by the astral plane or dream space, is absolutely useless here. Also remember, around this time Kayda is preforming her 'sibling duties' for her brother, and/or is tired from helping at Doyle. Also towards the beginning Sam already briefed Ayla on the situation, and asked for assistance. Ayla also knows what to look for when it comes to the information game, he has his own intelligence network, Kayda doesn't, and due to the nature of her enemies it wouldn't do her nearly as much good as it does Ayla. Kayda may be better at math, but this isn't just math, its intelligence warfare, and who do you go for for that- the one that works on pattern theory, or the one who thinks on how much more practical information one could get off of financial information than a MID as a thought tangent?

mhalpern wrote: ...who do you go for for that- the one that works on pattern theory, or the one who thinks on how much more practical information one could get off of financial information than a MID as a thought tangent?

Both of them! I agree that Ayla is probably the better choice of the two, but Sam doesn't have to choose between them.

well there Is a 1-2 day time span in Charging Buffalo Hidden Dragon part 3 where Kayda's activities are unaccounted for, so it IS possible, however during that time span, she has the concerns of her brother manifesting and the conundrum of if she should heal Magic-Mike. also as security matters go- fewer people involved less chance of a leak, even an accidental leak can be catastrophic. Also Ayla's already being used as an auxiliary on this matter, which means less paperwork (even though Hive would do the paperwork for her it's still a good idea to reduce the risk of spooking the mole by bringing in ANOTHER auxiliary to search for the leak) if Ayla brings Kayda in to help with his "assignment" that's one thing- as that isn't likely to look suspicious to the mole seeing how Kayda IS Ayla's math tutor, however if Sam officially brings her in, that would raise the alarms.

Oh! As the Spring 2007 Term is ending, I guess this story'll be where we see the Three Little Witches Light their Wells!

And "At some point before the start of the 2007-2008 school year, something will happen that causes Phobos to no longer be attending Whateley."

Perhaps that will happen here? And involve Maggie somehow, for some reason? (Just guessing on the latter, I guess 'cause it's magical?)

That can mean any number of things, and it could happen at any time from "now" through the summer. It's rather vague, could even be something that's already happened but hasn't taken effect yet, could be H1 assholes, or something that the MCO 'doesn't' know anything about, or it could be something that's positive. We need more information before that tidbit can be considered remotely useful.

The payoff to Jade's final has to be her low 2-digit ranking in the campus wide power ranking list, she cracks the Top 50 at a minimum. Intell gathering glitter/confetti. Just golden (and blue and pink and purple and orange...).

Oh, and I enjoy Hippy's appearance. That's what's been needed on the (we don't talk about) Sara front.

Anyone who has enough sense to be worth their salt would know that power ranking list only applies for blunt force idiot tactics, favoring bricks

mhalpern wrote: Anyone who has enough sense to be worth their salt would know that power ranking list only applies for blunt force idiot tactics, favoring bricks

No actually it doesn't. It will rate good shapeshifters and those known for creative revenge above people they really shouldn't. The reason is simple, get in a fight with them and they get back at you in such a way that you can't return the favour.

Your idea does work to an extent as the ones who write it are the nerds and don't want to get bullied. Needless to say the bullies are the ones who generally don't favour intelligent tactics.

Ps. Everyone who wants to see Jades grade, I agree. I want a full mission debrief from Gunny and Ito on what happened. Okay maybe not Gunny as he'll be dealing with stress related health issues but it would atleast be interesting.

being at the bottom also makes it easy to brand the ones that target you as cowards. which will anger them, and those that fight angry (and aren't ragers that is) make mistakes that they wouldn't make if they fought with a level head, any martial artist can tell you that the fighter with the cooler head is the more dangerous foe.

That would work, except for the fact that the people making these lists are most likely in survival not martial arts. Or if they are in martial arts they are near the bottom wrung. Thus even if their bullies are enraged they aren't likely to make it out cleanly.

That's what holdouts are for, good old bag of marbles of a sufficiently strong material can do wonders on the unsuspecting berserk combatant.

Speaking as someone who was bullied for a long time, [iyou don't give the bullies something to remind them that they hate you[/i]! Something like that will remind them for weeks, and escaping only works so many times.

I should clarify. Team Kimba is on the bus. No Boston Brawl 42, no Breakfast Brawl II this time with Fruit Loops.

The individual members are NOT on the bus, they will be seen and used as needed.

I was there to- maybe not physically, not enough people in my school district for ANYONE to get away with it, there are two options, evasion, and offense, offense involves doing everything possible to make them loose credibility as being intimidating, that means whatever you do, there MUST be many witnesses, they only have power as long as they can intimidate people, so humiliate them, and do so repeatedly in different ways, publicly and then they go from scary bully to pathetic wannabe.

EDIT in the process of humiliating the bully you attract the "neutrals" and kindred spirits to your side

Valentine wrote: What are the odds that Risk figures out he just burned a bridge he shouldn't have.

depends on the time span, if its before the end of the school year, than none

A few quick, disjointed thoughts:

It was interesting having a PoV glimpse of the staff during their Combat Final planning sessions - with the possibility of PoV Imp stories for next academic year, we may start seeing more glimpses into the staff's experiences of Whateley (and what they get up to when not planning / teaching / assessing / evaluating lessons or doing pastoral work [the 'duty of care' stuff such as tutorials, counselling, advising, house parenting etc.]).

Even if Security manage to confirm the existence of the leak, that's the easy bit. The harder bit will be tracking down its source within Whateley, and the exceptionally difficult bit will be tracking down how the information was leaked.

Buxton's phone call may offer insight, as while the contents of the call aren't likely to be recorded, all landlines on campus are likely to go through a central switchboard which would record the metadata (time started, time finished, source phone number, destination phone number).

Jade's combat final was pretty much what we'd expect of her - lulling everyone into a false sense of security while actually being very calculating. Kitty Compact as backup / bodyguard was a novel touch. Mule will likely get a low grade given he was rather tied up for most of the final. Jinn's final should be a little more sane (while we know her obvious choice of opponent would be Bloodwolf, I don't think the staff officially know of her involvement in that incident). Of course, the big Combat Final question is whether Kristin's sanity levels are sufficiently low to write the Wondercute final...

Sidethought: given they were planning a team final for TK, Jade will technically have participated in no fewer than five finals this time: three as herself, two as Jinn. Nikki could potentially do three: solo, TK and Venus Inc.

Finally, one mathematical expert who's on campus and (as far as we know) active, although OOC on the proverbial bus, so probably won't feature anywhere without the express permission of her author: Josie Gillman.

Wait. Are the Combat Finals Pairings protected against Scrying and Precog?

Or are those too flaky/rare to be guarded against?

mittfh wrote: Of course, the big Combat Final question is whether Kristin's sanity levels are sufficiently low to write the Wondercute final...
.

Actually...Kristin isn't the one writing the Wondercute final...

I really want to read the Wondercute fight. It and Jade were the only ones I didn't get a preview of. And frankly they're the two I want to read the most.

Domoviye wrote: I really want to read the Wondercute fight. It and Jade were the only ones I didn't get a preview of. And frankly they're the two I want to read the most.

So ... are you saying that I wasted my time with all the background info, side-stories, and OTHER assorted finals because ALL you wanted to see was Jade and Wondercute?


(and only because there's not one crying!)

NeoMagus wrote:

mittfh wrote: Of course, the big Combat Final question is whether Kristin's sanity levels are sufficiently low to write the Wondercute final...
.

Actually...Kristin isn't the one writing the Wondercute final...

In which case, it'll probably be Elrod / EE putting pen to paper (well, fingers to keyboard), helped along by numerous (drunken?) suggestions from the other G1 and G2 authors...

elrodw wrote: So ... are you saying that I wasted my time with all the background info, side-stories, and OTHER assorted finals because ALL you wanted to see was Jade and Wondercute?

Some of us at least are interested in what else is happening on campus in the run up to the finals, plus reading a selection of the less insane finals - but for sheer insanity, it's hard to beat Jade and Wondercute...

Of course not.
I really want to see mine as well. Alas that has to wait.



Seriously, the building up, the ways to stop gambling, the concern shown towards it. Tweaks set up and how she got it were great and tied everything up so that it wasn't simply a bunch of fights, which keeps it from being repetitive.
Simply because I want the laugh out loud a LITTLE more than the rest is perfectly acceptable.
So

Neo is writing the Wondercute final - with serious surprises.

Dom - let's see, which one did Dom contribute? Oh, yeah - Miasma's and a dialog about one of a Team Kimba member. I think I got that right.

You're going to get a chuckle (I hope) out of one I wrote, too. Some of these are quite interesting. Some are just ... brutal - but what can we say? They're crashes. And I wrote one for Charge which has a few surprises. So yeah, you've got a bunch of combat finals to go.

I wanted to make them guess.

Can't wait to read the crashes. And Charge was really nicely done, I'm sure it will be popular.

New agents for the MCO Office huh.
gee, isn't Agent Wells known also as Dad, by Absinthe?

ohh, Star league Junior gets to fight the Kimbas, in a to the death battle for their group final.
That would wake everyone up

only problem is this causes a complete rewrite of Absinthe 2 Absence of Malice.

oddly, this entry to close out the school year just seems to set the stage perfectly for Absinthe, Sphere, Ribbon, Whisper ect to be in next year.

Dawnfyre wrote: New agents for the MCO Office huh.
gee, isn't Agent Wells known also as Dad, by Absinthe?

ohh, Star league Junior gets to fight the Kimbas, in a to the death battle for their group final.
That would wake everyone up

only problem is this causes a complete rewrite of Absinthe 2 Absence of Malice.

oddly, this entry to close out the school year just seems to set the stage perfectly for Absinthe, Sphere, Ribbon, Whisper ect to be in next year.

Absinthe's dad is Wylann

Agent Whells was the guy that tried to kill her.

ahh I knew there was a connection there somewhere.

A connection? Would I do something like that

elrodw wrote: A connection? Would I do something like that

No Never, it must just be some sort of vast cosmic coincidence.

elrodw wrote: A connection? Would I do something like that

I would put money on it.


and I never bet.

The second time or so that I read through the MCO agent list, the names registered for me. It's nice that TINCC is announcing that Absynth (and Sphere) are on their way in a suitably subtle way.

As satisfying as it would be for the combat final leak to be plugged, I have a cupcake on the hole remaining open. That said, let us suppose that the whole scheme comes tumbling down around the participant's ears. I see the following punishments:

• Booker: Not expelled, but forced to operate as a legal gambling operation. This means obtaining a permit from the Medawihla tribe, obtaining a business license, giving Whateley their 1% and paying taxes on the profits. Obtaining information about the outcome of a match for the purpose of setting odds for a gaming operation is part and parcel for the business.
• Tweak: Probably also not expelled. While illegal, espionage is a standard job for the villain half of the academy's backers. May be given a new (red border) MID. May be forced to incorporate and relinquish patent rights to Whateley. If monitoring hardware is uncovered/recovered, it may be installed into her lab with the monitoring going to Whateley security. This would either force her to find a new lab, accept the monitoring, or build a detector. If she goes the third route, the detector would then be appropriated by Whateley security.Academy security may also review her hardware contributions for backdoors - if they haven't backdoored the backdoors already.
• Carruthers and Buxton: Still no immediate action (middleman services protected by the accords) and plausible deniability on source. However, may be vulnerable to retaliation upon departure from Whateley security services.

Who will get tortured to most Agent Whells or the students?

cprime wrote: The second time or so that I read through the MCO agent list, the names registered for me. It's nice that TINCC is announcing that Absynth (and Sphere) are on their way in a suitably subtle way.

I make efforts to do 'placement' bits to help foster incorporating other stories. And getting on to that is one reason that I'm trying to get spring 2007 done - so we CAN get new characters to Whateley in fall, 2007.

cprime wrote: As satisfying as it would be for the combat final leak to be plugged, I have a cupcake on the hole remaining open. That said, let us suppose that the whole scheme comes tumbling down around the participant's ears. I see the following punishments:

• Booker: Not expelled, but forced to operate as a legal gambling operation. This means obtaining a permit from the Medawihla tribe, obtaining a business license, giving Whateley their 1% and paying taxes on the profits. Obtaining information about the outcome of a match for the purpose of setting odds for a gaming operation is part and parcel for the business.
• Tweak: Probably also not expelled. While illegal, espionage is a standard job for the villain half of the academy's backers. May be given a new (red border) MID. May be forced to incorporate and relinquish patent rights to Whateley. If monitoring hardware is uncovered/recovered, it may be installed into her lab with the monitoring going to Whateley security. This would either force her to find a new lab, accept the monitoring, or build a detector. If she goes the third route, the detector would then be appropriated by Whateley security.Academy security may also review her hardware contributions for backdoors - if they haven't backdoored the backdoors already.
• Carruthers and Buxton: Still no immediate action (middleman services protected by the accords) and plausible deniability on source. However, may be vulnerable to retaliation upon departure from Whateley security services.

Interesting. I like the idea of Booker being forced to set up a LEGAL gambling establishment. The downside is that word of the Medawihla Gaming Establishement (or whatever it's called) might get out and then you'd get gambling tourists in the area, which could compromise Whateley's secret...
I haven't finalized O&E part 2 yet, so I COULD incorporate some of these ideas. Or not ...,
Time will tell how close you are.

cprime wrote: The second time or so that I read through the MCO agent list, the names registered for me. It's nice that TINCC is announcing that Absynth (and Sphere) are on their way in a suitably subtle way.

As satisfying as it would be for the combat final leak to be plugged, I have a cupcake on the hole remaining open. That said, let us suppose that the whole scheme comes tumbling down around the participant's ears. I see the following punishments:

• Booker: Not expelled, but forced to operate as a legal gambling operation. This means obtaining a permit from the Medawihla tribe, obtaining a business license, giving Whateley their 1% and paying taxes on the profits. Obtaining information about the outcome of a match for the purpose of setting odds for a gaming operation is part and parcel for the business.
• Tweak: Probably also not expelled. While illegal, espionage is a standard job for the villain half of the academy's backers. May be given a new (red border) MID. May be forced to incorporate and relinquish patent rights to Whateley. If monitoring hardware is uncovered/recovered, it may be installed into her lab with the monitoring going to Whateley security. This would either force her to find a new lab, accept the monitoring, or build a detector. If she goes the third route, the detector would then be appropriated by Whateley security.Academy security may also review her hardware contributions for backdoors - if they haven't backdoored the backdoors already.
• Carruthers and Buxton: Still no immediate action (middleman services protected by the accords) and plausible deniability on source. However, may be vulnerable to retaliation upon departure from Whateley security services.

Well the stance that the school seems to take on the combat finals leaks is that their main concern is sensitive information leaving the school and making a student a target, the gambling that stays in the school they know that they can't shut down, if they did someone else will replace the last booky, also as Loophole would probably point out, on account of the academy being on reservation land, it technically isn't illegal (federal laws and regulations do apply to reservation territory, however gambling is handled by the state or county and as such doesn't reach,) so long as all transactions are carried out on said reservation land.

However the elements responsible for the information LEAVING the campus will likely be discharged with prejudice, or experience occupational hazards, it's not something that can be taken to court, not without revealing the nature of the information leaked and by extension the nature of the academy.

I would put it that Buxton & co. might face some punishment, not for the leak per se, but for dereliction of their basic duty -- which is ensuring the safety of the students.

The school admin is concerned that the leak represents a danger to the students, therefore, by selling the info, Buxton endangered the students. I think that's grounds for justifiable job termination.

elrodw wrote:

cprime wrote: The second time or so that I read through the MCO agent list, the names registered for me. It's nice that TINCC is announcing that Absynth (and Sphere) are on their way in a suitably subtle way.

I make efforts to do 'placement' bits to help foster incorporating other stories. And getting on to that is one reason that I'm trying to get spring 2007 done - so we CAN get new characters to Whateley in fall, 2007.

cprime wrote: As satisfying as it would be for the combat final leak to be plugged, I have a cupcake on the hole remaining open. That said, let us suppose that the whole scheme comes tumbling down around the participant's ears. I see the following punishments:

• Booker: Not expelled, but forced to operate as a legal gambling operation. This means obtaining a permit from the Medawihla tribe, obtaining a business license, giving Whateley their 1% and paying taxes on the profits. Obtaining information about the outcome of a match for the purpose of setting odds for a gaming operation is part and parcel for the business.
• Tweak: Probably also not expelled. While illegal, espionage is a standard job for the villain half of the academy's backers. May be given a new (red border) MID. May be forced to incorporate and relinquish patent rights to Whateley. If monitoring hardware is uncovered/recovered, it may be installed into her lab with the monitoring going to Whateley security. This would either force her to find a new lab, accept the monitoring, or build a detector. If she goes the third route, the detector would then be appropriated by Whateley security.Academy security may also review her hardware contributions for backdoors - if they haven't backdoored the backdoors already.
• Carruthers and Buxton: Still no immediate action (middleman services protected by the accords) and plausible deniability on source. However, may be vulnerable to retaliation upon departure from Whateley security services.

Interesting. I like the idea of Booker being forced to set up a LEGAL gambling establishment. The downside is that word of the Medawihla Gaming Establishement (or whatever it's called) might get out and then you'd get gambling tourists in the area, which could compromise Whateley's secret...
I haven't finalized O&E part 2 yet, so I COULD incorporate some of these ideas. Or not ...,
Time will tell how close you are.

Now why would they do something that stupid, calling it the Medawihla Gaming Establishment? I'd call it something like Medawihla Nursery Inc. and sell a few trees, while collecting 20% from the legal Whateley bookies, of course it's still illegal, because most everyone is underage.

Sir Lee wrote: I would put it that Buxton & co. might face some punishment, not for the leak per se, but for dereliction of their basic duty -- which is ensuring the safety of the students.

The school admin is concerned that the leak represents a danger to the students, therefore, by selling the info, Buxton endangered the students. I think that's grounds for justifiable job termination.

You beat me to this... it's pretty much my take on it as well... with the school now approaching the videos and Finals information leaking as being tantamount to endangering the students they'll be going after the sources of these leaks much harsher than they may have in the past. Added to this is that the school may also be taking into consideration that these leaks also have access to the real identities and addresses of the students

Here's hoping Gunny comes up with a suitable trap and punishment for those thieving techies. It ain't right to mess with a man's jelly-beans.

Odds and Ends wrote: they were going to go into stealth mode as a team for a while to take attention off themselves

Love the meta.

Valentine wrote: What are the odds that Risk figures out he just burned a bridge he shouldn't have.

All he did was politely refuse to let an authority figure bully him into behaving dishonorably. He didn't earn himself any favors, but he didn't burn any bridges either.

Kettlekorn wrote: Here's hoping Gunny comes up with a suitable trap and punishment for those thieving techies. It ain't right to mess with a man's jelly-beans.

Odds and Ends wrote: they were going to go into stealth mode as a team for a while to take attention off themselves

Love the meta.

Valentine wrote: What are the odds that Risk figures out he just burned a bridge he shouldn't have.

All he did was politely refuse to let an authority figure bully him into behaving dishonorably. He didn't earn himself any favors, but he didn't burn any bridges either.

He'd should know better than to give up on a favor, unless earning said favor is detrimental to his health, in a universe like Whateley, a favor is definitely more valuable than money.

It's more complicated than that. Is a favor from Sam worth losing the trust of his clients? Politely refusing didn't burn any bridges, but agreeing to help very well could have.

It's also entirely possible that Risk has morals, and that he would not like himself if he violated them.

Kettlekorn wrote: It's more complicated than that. Is a favor from Sam worth losing the trust of his clients? Politely refusing didn't burn any bridges, but agreeing to help very well could have.

It's also entirely possible that Risk has morals, and that he would not like himself if he violated them.

It is more than a favor from Sam. Sam could end all of his gambling operations. There are lots of things Sam can do to make his life harder.

Kristin Darken wrote: Can she? Really? She might be capable of it. But could she do it legally? Could she justify it to the rest of admin and the board?

I suspect one doesn't get to the rank of admiral without being able to come up with such a justification.

annachie wrote:

Kristin Darken wrote: Can she? Really? She might be capable of it. But could she do it legally? Could she justify it to the rest of admin and the board?

I suspect one doesn't get to the rank of admiral without being able to come up with such a justification.

Please note that in Gunny's pre-final briefing, it was noted very explicitly that betting is strongly discouraged. He did NOT say 'prohibited'. So Sam stopping Risk under some pretense would kill info sources, any good-will she has with a large number of Risk's patrons, etc. Is it worth taking a chance and pressing? Probably not.

Also, since Ayla uses the bookies as an info source in exchange for bankrolling them, and Sam talks to Ayla (who displays very mature judgement and concern about compromising student's info), one can pre-suppose that if there WAS anything to be discovered, Ayla would have let security or Sam know.

Kristin Darken wrote: Can she? Really? She might be capable of it. But could she do it legally? Could she justify it to the rest of admin and the board?

She could just stand outside his gambling booth scowling at whomever walks up to place a bet, cutting down on the number of customers he has.

And while she could never please all of the board, that is nearly impossible with any size board, there are many legal things that she could do and justify them to Carson and Delarose.

Since she has access to the complete New Hampshire and Federal Statutes, finding legal ways isn't the problem.

Well he is operating in the grey area, so Sam can certainly rein down on the darker shades of his work

Edit:

Its simple really, whenever you operate in the grey area, your continued operations are at the mercy of "law enforcement's" interpretation of the rules and you need their interpretation to remain favorable to you.

But why would she? His reticence frustrated her, but he was polite about it and had a good reason. This is Sam we're talking about, not Hartford. She's got much better things to do with her time than being petty. Getting a reputation for that kind of thing would also be detrimental to doing her job -- currently she's one of the most approachable members of security, and that's very valuable in a school where the students have even more reason to distrust authority figures than normal.

Kettlekorn wrote: But why would she? His reticence frustrated her, but he was polite about it and had a good reason. This is Sam we're talking about, not Hartford. She's got much better things to do with her time than being petty. Getting a reputation for that kind of thing would also be detrimental to doing her job -- currently she's one of the most approachable members of security, and that's very valuable in a school where the students have even more reason to distrust authority figures than normal.

His "good reason" is that it would hurt his illegal gambling operations, as opposed to help stopping Aquerna show in Vegas as Anna Raquel Parsons, of Zanesville Ohio.

Sam didn't particularly care who was betting, except to track down the leak, which if Risk had a brain he would want shut down too. That leak is likely to cost him money. It makes me hope that Render uses a strawman to place a big bet with Risk.

Valentine wrote:

Kettlekorn wrote: But why would she? His reticence frustrated her, but he was polite about it and had a good reason. This is Sam we're talking about, not Hartford. She's got much better things to do with her time than being petty. Getting a reputation for that kind of thing would also be detrimental to doing her job -- currently she's one of the most approachable members of security, and that's very valuable in a school where the students have even more reason to distrust authority figures than normal.

His "good reason" is that it would hurt his illegal gambling operations, as opposed to help stopping Aquerna show in Vegas as Anna Raquel Parsons, of Zanesville Ohio.

Sam didn't particularly care who was betting, except to track down the leak, which if Risk had a brain he would want shut down too. That leak is likely to cost him money. It makes me hope that Render uses a strawman to place a big bet with Risk.

There is a point about being discrete - and if Risk doesn't bite on a subtle inquiry, Sam has other avenues, and without pushing Risk and creating ill-will, Sam could gently probe for info. Sam - and many others - know that Ayla is banking the bookies in exchange for info, so there is a follow-up avenue for Sam to try. calculated gamble to see if she could catch a little info.

elrodw wrote:

Valentine wrote:

Kettlekorn wrote: But why would she? His reticence frustrated her, but he was polite about it and had a good reason. This is Sam we're talking about, not Hartford. She's got much better things to do with her time than being petty. Getting a reputation for that kind of thing would also be detrimental to doing her job -- currently she's one of the most approachable members of security, and that's very valuable in a school where the students have even more reason to distrust authority figures than normal.

His "good reason" is that it would hurt his illegal gambling operations, as opposed to help stopping Aquerna show in Vegas as Anna Raquel Parsons, of Zanesville Ohio.

Sam didn't particularly care who was betting, except to track down the leak, which if Risk had a brain he would want shut down too. That leak is likely to cost him money. It makes me hope that Render uses a strawman to place a big bet with Risk.

There is a point about being discrete - and if Risk doesn't bite on a subtle inquiry, Sam has other avenues, and without pushing Risk and creating ill-will, Sam could gently probe for info. Sam - and many others - know that Ayla is banking the bookies in exchange for info, so there is a follow-up avenue for Sam to try. calculated gamble to see if she could catch a little info.

I'm certain that Sam has other avenues for information. My point was that some time in the future Risk may need something from Sam, and find that Sam isn't going to oblige, because it isn't her problem.

Valentine wrote: His "good reason" is that it would hurt his illegal gambling operations

His gambling operations at Whateley are not illegal. They aren't even unethical. The only legitimate reason to complain about it is the potential for people to throw their fights and mess up the grading.

Valentine wrote: My point was that some time in the future Risk may need something from Sam, and find that Sam isn't going to oblige, because it isn't her problem.

Sure, but maybe sometime in the future he'll need a favor from one of the many people who place bets with him. It's not just about preserving his income.

Kettlekorn wrote:

Valentine wrote: His "good reason" is that it would hurt his illegal gambling operations

His gambling operations at Whateley are not illegal. They aren't even unethical. The only legitimate reason to complain about it is the potential for people to throw their fights and mess up the grading.

Valentine wrote: My point was that some time in the future Risk may need something from Sam, and find that Sam isn't going to oblige, because it isn't her problem.

Sure, but maybe sometime in the future he'll need a favor from one of the many people who place bets with him. It's not just about preserving his income.

So Risk has a Gambling License issued by the State of New Hampshire, or the Medawihla Tribe? That would be interesting because there is very little gambling in New Hampshire, no Casinos, no video gambling. It may not be against school rules, but since gambling is illegal, even those Super Bowl pools everyone gets into, his gambling operations are illegal. Not to mention that nearly all of his clients are underage anyway.

been over this, they are on a reserve, technically federal land, and while within the state of New Hampshire technically not part of it from a legal standpoint, and the only time where New Hampshire can do much involving Whateley is if there's a federal offense or major crime, a student run betting pool would be a misdemeanor at best, after all its not like they'd spend the resources on shutting down every office pool in the state, this from a legal standpoint isn't any different from an office pool, save for the people involved.

mhalpern wrote: been over this, they are on a reserve, technically federal land, and while within the state of New Hampshire technically not part of it from a legal standpoint, and the only time where New Hampshire can do much involving Whateley is if there's a federal offense or major crime, a student run betting pool would be a misdemeanor at best, after all its not like they'd spend the resources on shutting down every office pool in the state, this from a legal standpoint isn't any different from an office pool, save for the people involved.

Doesn't anyone ever use Google?

I-a. (a) A person is guilty of a misdemeanor if such person conducts, finances, manages, supervises, directs, or owns all or part of a business and such person knowingly and unlawfully permits gambling on the premises of the business.
(b) A person is guilty of a class B felony if such person conducts, finances, manages, supervises, directs, or owns all or part of a business and such person knowingly and unlawfully conducts, finances, manages, supervises, or directs any gambling activity on the business premises which does any of the following:
(1) Has had gross revenue of $2,000 in any single day.
(2) Has been or remains in substantially continuous operation for a period in excess of 10 days.
(3) Accepts wagers exceeding $5,000 during any 30 day period on future contingent events.

Now if the extremely embarrassed State's Attorney knew of the gambling operations, don't you think he would go after Mrs. Carson, and anyone else he could?

While specifics are rarely mentioned, if the Bookies went to Phase for financing, I think at some point 1 or 3 would be violated, and 2 is likely violated during final.

there's also Whateley's special neutrality that seems to go as far as them being untouchable unless someone dies, and the fact that it would be far more embarassing if there was a blood bath because word of a school that caters to a racial minority gets out to people with a violent disposition towards said racial minority. It's a choice between bloody civil war and letting kids get away with illegal gambling, what do you think the State's Attorney is going to choose?

Valentine wrote: Now if the extremely embarrassed State's Attorney knew of the gambling operations, don't you think he would go after Mrs. Carson, and anyone else he could?

Sure, if this was the real world and those real-world laws were actually relevant. But this is the WU. Since Gunny stated outright that it's allowed behavior and the bookies are and have always been quite blatant in their operations, it should be abundantly clear that for whatever reason, what they're doing is actually legal despite conflicting with real-word laws.

Kettlekorn wrote:

Valentine wrote: Now if the extremely embarrassed State's Attorney knew of the gambling operations, don't you think he would go after Mrs. Carson, and anyone else he could?

Sure, if this was the real world and those real-world laws were actually relevant. But this is the WU. Since Gunny stated outright that it's allowed behavior and the bookies are and have always been quite blatant in their operations, it should be abundantly clear that for whatever reason, what they're doing is actually legal despite conflicting with real-word laws.

No, it simply means that the Whateley Staff allows it to go on. As Kristin and the others have said, WU is the same as the Real World except where specific changes are said. So the WU laws are the same as the Real World laws until the Authors say different.

Sick of the gambling discussion.

This doesn't bug me at all. But there is a significant difference between running an office pool and running a betting operation. The office pool has no house to take a cut (usually). LEOs generally ignore such gambling. But once the "house" starts taking a cut, the law becomes much more interested because they tend to suspect such operations as being overseen by organized crime. Risk (and the other bookies on campus) is taking a cut of the action and thus falls in the second category.

And I would not be surprised if the on campus action exceeds $5000 per betting pool.

But, again, it doesn't affect my ability to enjoy the story at all. I'd actually like to see Whateley security trying to crack down on the Vegas end of the action, with the help of the FBI and/or DPA. (But that's probably far outside of our normal POV. It could already be happening.)

Arent the gambling laws different on reservation land?

And once again Jadis skews the odds. At least some of the kids appear to be acting like kids, and not little adults, although some of them are showing the maturity they have developed in other stories, which is also really nice.

Some of the matchups are spot on, or at least entertaining, some of them do look a bit more random. I find it refreshing to see the background references (even though we have seem mostly teams that managed to cooperate) that most of the students still don't get what the real goal is, or at least don't consider that they are lowering their own grade by trying to get the other guy to fail.

Tweak and Booker are trying a bit too hard on this, pushing things like that is more likely to get them caught.

Nice to hear that Aquerna no longer thinks that Phase is a big meany.

I really hope Buxton ends up getting caught on this. I realize that he will almost certainly just be penalized (better the evil you know and all that), but I still hope that they throw the book at him even if that means they have to break in a new dark side security man.

Odds and Ends Part 2 comments
Booker really doesn't realize the kind of things which can cause sudden changes in combat finals. Taking it out on Tweak with his frustration is going to make either or both of them slip up.

Switching out another student's meds to make them unstable, if the staff knows then Jayne would be having a visit with Mrs. Carson soon. Jadis, part of being a friend is warning them of potential danger and not using the knowledge to benefit yourself. Glad to hear that Ayla and Aquerna have patched things up. And taking out Aquerna like that, Jayne is a thug, smart, but still a thug.

Figures Ayla and Jadis have both figured out the truth of the combat finals. Golden Girl hurt badly and gloated over by the villain, only to be saved by Anna with an as yet unknown skill with firearms thanks to her dad's training. Nice. I love she surprised Gunny and Ito with it especially, wonder if they will get her into more advanced courses on firearms in the future due to her showing in the combat final.

Ayla and Jadis are unusually observant for teens, even for mutant Exemplars with the mental package. If the adults at Whateley knew even 1/3rd of what the readers know about the characters, they would be almost constantly on guard around certain characters. That much potential profit from just minor changes in the percentage chances, yet hard to prove without a lot of data.

Definately surprised by Jadis giving up all this 'hypothetical' information without asking for a cent, either she realizes the danger the leak possesses to her fellow students or as her own reason for doing so. An end to future leaks would be a good thing, the longer they go on the greater chance of a student's real name get out. At least Sam has confirmation there is a leak now.

Miasma has gotten scary dangerous since we last saw him, holdouts and new tricks, even trapping his own gas in grenades for later release. I pity his opponent. Pristine knows that Ito would go through with teaming her up with Peeper, too bad Miasma still has trouble with controlling his gas when excited.

Ouch, strike one against Pristine, standing out is only a good idea when you intend to draw attention from your allies. Guess that was her plan all along, plus she has a point about Miasma needing to work alone. Would you want to be near an ally whose power was like an area burst skunk on steroids? And Pristine goes through a combat situtation which would have police nervous like she is walking on a catwalk, nice.

And that grenade didn't have his most potent gas in it!?! I can see why they had to decontaminate Range 5 when he unleashed his worst fart. In an enclosed area he could be lethal.

Good idea having a gas mask with a strong filter, if the military tried to weaponize Miasma's gas there would people calling it a war crime. Ouch, figures Gunny and Ito would have someone with a weapon that can bypass Pristine's force field in there. Miasma needs to be taught not to panic when under fire, it never helps and almost always makes things worse, like here with the explosion. And Pristine pulls their fat out of the fire, literally, though not without the gas messing her up. She is right, even being ogled by Peeper's would have been better than that.

At least Miasma's mess-up worked to Sam's favor, clearing out the tunnel entrances of all the gamblers and bookies. How this helps keep a better eye on them is to be seen. And Tweak's app with only Booker using it to get customers will get them caught if Hartford is monitoring on-campus calls. We can only hope.

This crash for the Grunts sounds brutal, high-level gadgeteer specializing in explosives and pyrotechnics, don't want to image the kind of things he could build. They are such a well-oiled machine, working well together with detailed plains come up that quickly, it is no wonder Mule tried to take over command in the sim with Generator.

Everything going like clockwork, until it all starts to go to hell. There was a taller building in the area than where Deadeye was set-up on, how did they miss that as a potential threat. Plus dealing with a guy who specializes in explosives, they only looked at the obvious threats and data they had, not at the potential threats this guy could have had prepared.

Deadeye possibly out, Bomber pinned down, Mule trying to figure out how his teammates are doing, while the enemy forces are probably closing the trap around them. Another one down, while Mule underestimated his foes once again. And Lancer down after freeing himself from a TK's grip, ouch.

I like Slapdash, saying something like that in a dangerous situation. And even the hostages were part of the trap! They were given a no-win situation, that sucks. Risk optimistic about the Grunts lasting longer, probably because of fellow Poesie Lancer being on the team. Booker is being careful to not be obvious with his odds, no one bookie stands out so far, Sam has a tough job.

Addy vs. Armadillo, this may have rivals set up for the combat finals, but with an ultra-violent like him it just a bad idea. Okay, didn't expect Addy to have improved that much nor carry a tomahawk. Can see why Armadillo is afraid, after what he is done he is expecting Addy to do what he would. And Addy gets through his thick skull, it is a miracle. Even convinced him to work with her, the boy can be taught.

Armadillo has a plan, color me shocked. Faked accident to lure in the thugs, then finish them off. A classic but effective. Armadillo's manifested claws are scary sharp, wonder what it is rated at. And Addy has become a skilled fighter in a relatively short amount of time. Hopefully for the other students Armadillo will let out enough of his violent nature to ease off on his fellow students for a few days.

Speedsters with combat training are scary. Addy certainly is as she subdues the thug in mere moments. And taken over by rage and doesn't even remember everything he did, no wonder Armadillo is an ultra-violent. Even if he didn't take pleasure in it, that alone would make him dangerous. At least thanks to him and Addy's quick thinking they won, though Addy might need therapy after seeing Armadillo do that, even to an ANT.

Addy, watch the video of your fight later and see it from the outside, it was bad and many are shocked how you handled yourself. Anything less than an A for all that would have been an insult. Armadillo did surprise me with his show of skills, even if he lost himself in a rage at one point. I can understand Addy's reluctance to fight, she has no desire to harm others or put herself in danger. But the skills she is learning will help her save her little sister this summer.

Heh, Ms. Hartford doesn't mind losing a bet, might lead her to more potential recruits. Nice plan, take out the cellphone communication and it will definately flush out Booker and Tweak, they will probably be the most panicked with the change up and no way to communicate with each other, unless they have seperate comms. Good to know that Mrs. Carson trust Sam that much with finding and ending the leak.

Buxton is frustrated and afraid of what the Las Vegas guys will do to him, making sloppy mistakes by rushing to find answers for why his cell-phone doesn't work. Using campus wifi and what he thinks is a secure code, big mistake. Too bad he is smarter than I suspected, otherwise he might not suspect anything about the cell phone outage.

With Jadis on their side, it figures the Bad Seeds have come closest to the whole truth of how the combat finals are being done. With Cheese being described as fingers flickering over the keyboard, is he just a fast typist, speedster or something else? And another group forced to use the wifi to transfer data online. Vamp is part of the Bad Seeds now because of the trip to New York! As if he/she wasn't obnoxious enough as it is.

And they are working for Hazard and helping a second leak to the Las Vegas guys, great. And Hazard's contact already bought info from Booker through Buxton. Knowing that it is cutting into their cut from Hazard now, wonder how long until Jadis decides to turn in Tweak and Booker, if she does so. No way to predict what that girl may or may not do.

Cheese is fast with that camera to catch the exact moment when Jadis loses her cool over who she is paired with. Stronghold, she may be your girlfriend but you have no idea what she did, taking Jadis moment of glory in New York from her like that. And rather than believe the facts, he thinks Jadis should still be in a jail cell. For someone who wants to be a "champion of justice", he doesn't get the innocent until proven guilty thing.

They think she saved Lady LIberty, good grief. Just how many facts got twisted since the actual events. And Nightlord's lie is believed by the gullible. At least Marty realizes the truth about Jadis and how dangerous she really is. Okay, so it is the others who aren't listening to the truth of what Mega-Girl was saying, they just want to believe what they want to and ignore the rest. Glaring daggers through a visor, that isn't something you are taught, you have to bring it out in yourself. Poor Marty trying to tell Jadis how everyone else won't listen when she tells them the truth, Jadis too upset to care. Unless Jadis calms down this won't end well.

Peeper is an idiot still, while Greasy is the voice of reason. Oh god, I just realized they are like a teenage version of the Odd Couple. Why hasn't someone gagged Peeper already, after the Power Girl comment about Marty's costume he is going to be jumping at shadows for weeks, wondering which girls are going to beat him up this time.

Jadis, thrashing Marty at the cost of your grade isn't worth it. Though with how she did it, and sending her towards the house and then blasting the door off its hinges, it is almost like she has a plan and just maneuvering Marty to where she wants her to go. Nope, she is just attacking her now, using methods which would make it difficult even for a PK-supergirl to break free. Marty has no idea if Jadis is just thrashing her or has a bigger plan, right now neither do I.

A BFG and the Mantis has energy carbines, they knew big hitters were needed to deal with Jadis and Marty. Never think that Gunny or Ito will give you cool toys to use, it always is a trap. That should be a maxim for any students who have been in any of their classes. After the BFG, you think she would be suspicious of the big red "Emergency Power Shutoff" button.

Nice entrance by Jadis and Marty really needs to take Sensei Ito's martial arts class, she would learn in a fight that dirty tricks are just another tool to use to win. This isn't the comics, heroes aren't put into easily escapable deathtraps or left unconscious by foes, villains can and will kill heroes. Jadis tries to warn her, but Marty pushes the stupid, obvious giant red "I'm a trap" button" anyways. Jadis zipping around the battlefield proves how skilled she is, avoiding traps while taking out opponents like they are nothing. While Marty is trapped in a tube of some super alloy.

Confuse the AI system long enough to talk to Marty and get what she wants, now that is the Jadis we know and love. Getting Marty to admit all that and keeping her part of the bargain, shows to Marty at least she Jadis isn't the villain she thinks she is. One hostage and 2 fakes, 3 minute timer and Jadis wishes to talk. Hope she has a very good reason. Trapping the Mantis like that and setting the hostage free, while leaving Marty confused as to what is going on. I should have know she had a plan all along, even when it seemed she was just trying to thrash Marty it was part of her plan.

And Jadis actually explains everything which she observed and planned from the start. She is scary, her observation and planning skills alone make her a threat. "What? You mean I missed two? Nertz!" I just love that expression, nertz. Nice details on orthodox Thaumaturgy, should have known sending the cards out like that was part of a bigger plan. If Jadis and Jade ever team up, I fear for the world. A good rule of any fight is to never let the other side set the terms.

Jadis is right, even in the real world those who do the 'Riddle Me This' gag tend to be psychos when crime is involved. Their grades hang on the balance of Marty getting the answer to a riddle right, Kasai is going to be upset. Hehehe, should have know she would get it right, I remember her dad being a NYPD officer, saved by a Kevra vest, thus why he agreed to help Lanie with the incident in New York. Just didn't know that many idiots would try to copy the Riddler, talk about desperate. And Jadis blackmailed to help end the leak, darn. Never underestimate the staff of Whateley either.

Jadis being generous, she must not be as upset about the blackmail as I thought she would be. She did all that to game the bookies, so they couldn't predict how the final would go and she could bet the long odds and make them happen. And with how she made out, Jadis punished the illegal outside gambling creeps. Oh, Buxton is going to get an earful over this. Dang, Marty making a bet on her own on the Drow crash, she is learning the world isn't so black and white afterall.

It says something about how fast the others are in cyberspace if Hartford seems to be moving in slow-motion in comparison. Paige flirting with Blue might be the only thing keeping her stable with Sara still missing. So, not all the outside bookies are using Tweak's stolen info, it seems. And with the data gathered and Amelia's sharp eye, solid proof of an inside source is found. Proof of a leak and only circumstantial evidence which won't stand up in a court to use against the two gambling houses, I feel Sam's frustation at all this. The longer it goes on, the more I wish to see Tweak, Booker, Buxton, and the other squad 3 guy [forgot his name] all in serious trouble by the time it all ends.

I'd like a photo of Gunny's face when he realizes that Jadis only gave up information she was going to give them anyway.
By the time of her final she would have already worked out who her opponent was going to be.

No Whisper in the grunt crash?

Well there are a couple things to consider about Jadis
1 she's used to people treating her as though she'll follow in her father's footsteps
2 that's exactly what she doesn't want to do.

As for her being generous to Mega-Girl, well a video of a forced confession wont earn her any favors with the Cape Squad, however it may have been enough in combination with everything else to get Marty to realize she should fess up, Jadis is someone who knows to have multiple plays active at once, She-Beast and Phase are two sides of the same coin, they both inherit negative views from their families, they both work to overcome that, only difference is, Jadis was slammed into the worst group for that job and Ayla (to the outside observer) appears to have "bought" her group, which doesn't help his case of being different than the other New York Goodkinds, especially because as Trevor, he wasn't much different till he took a few shotgun shells of irony to the face.

no, Whisper joined in very late, and as such wont have a combat final till fall.

Whisper came to campus BEFORE Kayda. She had a combat final, two even.

Maybe they had Whisper running the sim, kind of like when the grunts went up against Sara.

The Grunts are a very high functioning team, and they wouldn't allow someone to join an important mission like this one unless they were fully trained and had a lot of practice as part of their team. That would be my guess for why Whisper was left out.

The one thing that did bother me, though, was that in previous stories, we've seen that the Grunts liked to use once-off code names in their sims, so I was surprised when they were using their actual code names here.

Well not team combat finals, besides, there are reasons why they don't want to draw any attention to Whisper, and why she should NOT be put in a Crash scenario, in the Crash, she would resort to her Stims, and this is bad for 4 reasons 1 it contaminates her abilities 2 that particularly needs to be kept under wraps, 3 when on STIMS she has trouble determining when the mission is complete, 4 it isn't good for her health and she needs to learn to go without it. Until she can do the same sort of things she can with the Stims active as when they are inactive, saving them for last resort, throwing her in the Crash is a BAD idea.

Dreamer wrote: Odds and Ends Part 2 comments
Miasma has gotten scary dangerous since we last saw him, holdouts and new tricks, even trapping his own gas in grenades for later release. I pity his opponent. Pristine knows that Ito would go through with teaming her up with Peeper, too bad Miasma still has trouble with controlling his gas when excited.

Ouch, strike one against Pristine, standing out is only a good idea when you intend to draw attention from your allies. Guess that was her plan all along, plus she has a point about Miasma needing to work alone. Would you want to be near an ally whose power was like an area burst skunk on steroids? And Pristine goes through a combat situtation which would have police nervous like she is walking on a catwalk, nice.

And that grenade didn't have his most potent gas in it!?! I can see why they had to decontaminate Range 5 when he unleashed his worst fart. In an enclosed area he could be lethal.

Good idea having a gas mask with a strong filter, if the military tried to weaponize Miasma's gas there would people calling it a war crime. Ouch, figures Gunny and Ito would have someone with a weapon that can bypass Pristine's force field in there. Miasma needs to be taught not to panic when under fire, it never helps and almost always makes things worse, like here with the explosion. And Pristine pulls their fat out of the fire, literally, though not without the gas messing her up. She is right, even being ogled by Peeper's would have been better than that.

Oh, I finally got some of my work getting a detailed review by Dreamer.

The gas grenades are actually more potent than Miasma would normally be able to put out. They're 'concentrated' gas, take all of his flatulance from a single day of eating nothing but chili, and cram it together for one big dose, so it's already been weaponized. From how he talked about getting holdouts in his first combat final, it seemed the logical thing for him to do. (Note: the test batch had a whole weeks worth of flatulance. You don't want to see the contraption that captured it.)

Pristine's costume was based off of a Huron Indian style of dress, right down to the beaded shoulders. I figured with her powers, whenever she worked with a group she'd be on point taking the hits and acting as a mobile wall. So making her big and noticable while not exactly good for stealth would be her gimmick. And the gas mask is directly from the Halloween story where Death List pointed out the weaknesses concerning forcefields, that's also why she has pretty strong inner layer of armour and impact gel on her costume instead of relying purely on her forcefield.

There was a bit more fighting between the start and the end. But Elrod asked me for a summary, which I suck at, so I wrote a short story instead with an emphasis on short. If it was expanded we'd see the henchmen using sonic weapons, a few light laser weapons, and other things, which was where Miasma's second gas grenade was used.

The last line about Peeper was what I think sold the story. Who would ever think a beautiful girl who had to have been harrassed by Peeper before, would say that line? I won't say the story was written around that line, but it was definitely a factor.

Since I only got to read a few of the fights beforehand to help me get an idea of what was needed, pretty much all of this chapter was new to me. Like everyone else, seeing the betting plotline going how it is, is great. Instead of just being a bunch of fights, which are entertaining, having them serving more as a backdrop and being altered to try to catch the leak is very well done. Congrats to Elrod and everyone else who is working that.

Domoviye wrote: The gas grenades are actually more potent than Miasma would normally be able to put out. They're 'concentrated' gas, take all of his flatulance from a single day of eating nothing but chili, and cram it together for one big dose, so it's already been weaponized. From how he talked about getting holdouts in his first combat final, it seemed the logical thing for him to do. (Note: the test batch had a whole weeks worth of flatulance. You don't want to see the contraption that captured it.)

No, I don't really want to see it, but I bet a big incentive for Bluescreen and Fixx to help him was that Miasma would allow them to strap something to his behind that would not let his farts escape.

Well it wasn't too noticable, he just had to keep a shoulder bag on all day with a pair of special pants. The main problem was when the bag sprung a leak at the the end of the day during English class. They had to evacuate the building.

Domoviye wrote: Well it wasn't too noticable, he just had to keep a shoulder bag on all day with a pair of special pants. The main problem was when the bag sprung a leak at the the end of the day during English class. They had to evacuate the building.

this is why oil tankers have at least a double hull, always layer containment for fluids (counting gasses as fluids) you don't want to leak!

It's likely Paige and Bree aren't the first cyberpaths who've passed through the gates of Whateley, so it's likely Administration have lined up an alternative means of testing their combat prowess. If Paige hasn't been given an exemption, she'll likely be scheduled separately from the main body of finals as she'll likely be working until near the end on attempting to find the leak.

Of course, there's also another, OOC reason why we're unlikely to see Bree's combat final: namely that Sleethr's still working on tweaking her journey to Whateley - we haven't seen her arrive on campus yet, so it would be strange suddenly seeing her popping up in a combat final when we don't yet know anything about her life on campus. However, by the time Canon reaches the December 2007 finals...

With a bit of luck, Dr. Bender may have gained the inspiration and motivation to rescue Sara by then, so she can have her first combat final (having likely been granted an exemption from the December 2006 series and of course being unavailable for the May 2007 series).

-oOo-

Meanwhile, the range crew really like giving The Grunts the occasionally no-win scenarios - it's likely they've had others besides The OP (Sara's "Alien" inspired one) plus TK's revenge (Capture The Flag - with the aid of Pixie Power). Then again, it's likely something they do with high powered teams who are seemingly invincible - TK have also faced a couple (one versus The Grunts and one scenario-based one [limited time to get past phenominal firepower, get into a castle and stop a button being pressed - which IIRC 'killed' most of the team - including Billie - before they got anywhere near the castle itself, with only a couple of 'survivors' by time-out]).

The encrypted network traffic will make finding the leak among network communications very difficult, but I wonder if it would be possible to piggyback ICMP requests on packets leaving the network, or 'tag' traffic leaving Whateley so it could be identified by monitors Paige or others put on the gateways to the Vegas sites?

As for the other links in the chain, identifying Tweak as a possible source of the information could theoretically be possible, given the role she played in Kayda's trial; while taking a particular interest in the communications activity of known leaks (e.g. Buxton) may potentially turn up clues. Not likely enough to stand up in a criminal trial (beyond all reasonable doubt), but all evidence combined may point to the lower burden of proof of more likely than not (civil law).

Kristin Darken wrote:

Arcanist Lupus wrote: The Grunts are a very high functioning team, and they wouldn't allow someone to join an important mission like this one unless they were fully trained and had a lot of practice as part of their team. That would be my guess for why Whisper was left out.

The one thing that did bother me, though, was that in previous stories, we've seen that the Grunts liked to use once-off code names in their sims, so I was surprised when they were using their actual code names here.

90% of the student body was left out. They ALL had finals. Lots of teams bench people for specific scenarios... some teams bench people so they can perform better on their solo finals. Some don't do solo finals because they are evaluated during a team event. And ya, expecting the Grunts to do a high level crash with someone on the team who hasn't been in Team Tactics, hasn't trained to use the Sims, and may be a danger to the Sim technology in general... would be foolish.

Would you really use a computer technology driven Sim system for ANY combat final evaluation of a cyberpath?

Hmm they are going to need to use golems for the fall finals arn't they? hmm explaining them without saying that cyberpaths exist is going to be interesting let alone the fact that they have 2 enrolled as well as a deviser who can mimic the ability for himself. Both the cyberpaths are already lethal in their own rights, even without STIMS and Bloodrage.

While they are both Energizers, only Cyberkitty is a high enough level Energizer to constitute more than a second look with a different sim system. And Whisper is Sidhe, though she may hide it and have a low "official " Wiz rating, other students will know better.

mittfh wrote: It's likely Paige and Bree aren't the first cyberpaths who've passed through the gates of Whateley, so it's likely Administration have lined up an alternative means of testing their combat prowess. If Paige hasn't been given an exemption, she'll likely be scheduled separately from the main body of finals as she'll likely be working until near the end on attempting to find the leak.

Of course, there's also another, OOC reason why we're unlikely to see Bree's combat final: namely that Sleethr's still working on tweaking her journey to Whateley - we haven't seen her arrive on campus yet, so it would be strange suddenly seeing her popping up in a combat final when we don't yet know anything about her life on campus. However, by the time Canon reaches the December 2007 finals...

With a bit of luck, Dr. Bender may have gained the inspiration and motivation to rescue Sara by then, so she can have her first combat final (having likely been granted an exemption from the December 2006 series and of course being unavailable for the May 2007 series).

-oOo-

Meanwhile, the range crew really like giving The Grunts the occasionally no-win scenarios - it's likely they've had others besides The OP (Sara's "Alien" inspired one) plus TK's revenge (Capture The Flag - with the aid of Pixie Power). Then again, it's likely something they do with high powered teams who are seemingly invincible - TK have also faced a couple (one versus The Grunts and one scenario-based one [limited time to get past phenominal firepower, get into a castle and stop a button being pressed - which IIRC 'killed' most of the team - including Billie - before they got anywhere near the castle itself, with only a couple of 'survivors' by time-out]).

The encrypted network traffic will make finding the leak among network communications very difficult, but I wonder if it would be possible to piggyback ICMP requests on packets leaving the network, or 'tag' traffic leaving Whateley so it could be identified by monitors Paige or others put on the gateways to the Vegas sites?

As for the other links in the chain, identifying Tweak as a possible source of the information could theoretically be possible, given the role she played in Kayda's trial; while taking a particular interest in the communications activity of known leaks (e.g. Buxton) may potentially turn up clues. Not likely enough to stand up in a criminal trial (beyond all reasonable doubt), but all evidence combined may point to the lower burden of proof of more likely than not (civil law).

I thought that Merry was supposed to be the first Cyberpath, or at least the first that didn't pass as a software deviser...

mhalpern wrote: I thought that Merry was supposed to be the first Cyberpath, or at least the first that didn't pass as a software deviser...

Merry became both Paige (Cyberkitty) and Petra, but only Cyberkitty is at Whateley.

And from the latest stories "Blue" is also a CyberPath, and Sam's Hive is getting her close enough to count as well (from the "Hartford is slow" comment in the latest story). That would make Whisper no more then about third or fourth good at this (depending on how good Sam's Hive stacks up to Whisper's nanites + her technopath skill). I think its implied that with training Whisper will probably be as good as Blue is.

I believe it's been stated in the forums that Blue isn't a cyberpath, and iirc Whisper's ability (with the help of Paige and Sara no doubt) will be hidden from Whateley.

Blue is a Deviser with a devise that allows him to do similar to what the Cyberpaths do, but without it, he lacks that ability.

Hidden from records but her use of the ability in the Sims may clue the staff in.

mhalpern wrote: Hidden from records but her use of the ability in the Sims may clue the staff in.

Or when she interacts with Hive.

IIRC from the part 2 fan fiction, at least Hive, Mrs. Carson, Ms. Hartford and Gunny find out or know about it. Although they may not know the full extent, likely Whisper doesn't know the full extent yet.

I believe the intent is to hide Whisper from others (specifically the MCO, CIA, criminal organisations, foreign powers, etc.) and not necessarily Whateley. I think it's been said multiple times that she will get tested at Whateley.

Her MID is probably going to be one of those "it's all classified" MMID ones to help hide her true powers.

Um, question - how did this go from O&E to Whisper? Shouldn't a lot of the past Whisper conversation go to a Whisper character topic?

There are topics?

Of course there are...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_(chocolate_bar)

Its the nature of having an interconnected web of stories that are all canon, plus an active forum, the end result is the more active threads look like the thought-process of someone with ADHD, off of their stimulants, (or at least me when I forget to take my meds, or they wear off and I am trying to do something that isn't semiautomatic, such as pay attention in class)

Astrodragon wrote: Of course there are...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_(chocolate_bar)

And never mind Whisper, we also have Wispa .

(Hehehe - that would really confuse Elrod - diverting the thread onto a discussion of British confectionary... )

mittfh wrote:

Astrodragon wrote: Of course there are...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_(chocolate_bar)

And never mind Whisper, we also have Wispa .

(Hehehe - that would really confuse Elrod - diverting the thread onto a discussion of British confectionary... )

More likely to aggravate than confuse him, honestly. Elrod's put a LOT of work into Odds and Ends, and I perfectly understand why he might get a bit frustrated with its discussion thread being hijacked to talk about other things. That said, it's probably a good idea for us to at least try to keep the discussion on topic with talk about Odds and Ends rather than about Whisper or chocolate or any other random thing.

Agreed. You've had your fun. Part two and three have come out to about 100 pages, which Elrod wrote a large part of, and is editing all of it.
So what are the guesses for the next combat finals? One's already been said on this thread, but there's at least one more.

I don't mind the distractions at all; I'm not upset. In fact, I haven't been this happy about work in years - the new position could not possibly be better! It's going to be an exciting time with people who recognize and appreciate and want to use my knowledge and skill to do good stuff.

So distract away if you want. I'm too busy grinning about my work day.

Awesome! Glad to hear it brother!

elrodw wrote: I don't mind the distractions at all; I'm not upset. In fact, I haven't been this happy about work in years - the new position could not possibly be better! It's going to be an exciting time with people who recognize and appreciate and want to use my knowledge and skill to do good stuff.

So distract away if you want. I'm too busy grinning about my work day.

Cool!

But, is it just me, or does it come off as being overly cheerful ?

Not that I'm doubting your happiness, it just sounds that way... Or is that the point... Now I'm confused...

elrodw wrote: I don't mind the distractions at all; I'm not upset. In fact, I haven't been this happy about work in years - the new position could not possibly be better! It's going to be an exciting time with people who recognize and appreciate and want to use my knowledge and skill to do good stuff.

So distract away if you want. I'm too busy grinning about my work day.

NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You can't be happy!
Who will do the angry, soul rending writing, that is Kayda's existence?
If you're happy I'm going to have to become twice as sDistic to my own characters to make up the slack!
NNNNNNOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

<whoa, give me a minute that last no left me a little light headed.>

Domoviye wrote: NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NNNNNNOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Domo, be careful man, you're going full Lucas. You never go full Lucas!
Cookie for whoever gets the reference

E. E. Nalley wrote:

Domoviye wrote: NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NNNNNNOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Domo, be careful man, you're going full Lucas. You never go full Lucas!
Cookie for whoever gets the reference

Must... Avoid... Writing... Poorly... Done... Romance...
.
.
"You're beautiful. Because you're not like sand. Sand sucks"
"Yes. Sand sucks. Your eyes are pretty."


Nnnnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooooo!!!!!

Me'sa funny.

Look at it this way - life is balanced. If I'm ecstatic at work, I have to balance that, any my emotional outlet is Kayda. So she might run into some really, really nasty stuff to compensate for me beign happy at work!

Poor, poor Kayda.
So shall we see who can be angstier? I've got a seven new characters to torment.

Domoviye wrote: Poor, poor Kayda.
So shall we see who can be angstier? I've got a seven new characters to torment.

No, bad Domo! No trying to get Elrod into angst contest with you using your characters. Now back to work on your fanfics.

Dreamer wrote:

Domoviye wrote: Poor, poor Kayda.
So shall we see who can be angstier? I've got a seven new characters to torment.

No, bad Domo! No trying to get Elrod into angst contest with you using your characters. Now back to work on your fanfics.

I'm actually in such a good mood that I ought to write another combat final - and pound someone into the dirt! I have at least 4 days until Kristin needs a final to publish, and I suspect others are in the queue as well, so I have time. And energy. And I need to compensate for happiness!

Kristin Darken wrote: Would you really use a computer technology driven Sim system for ANY combat final evaluation of a cyberpath?

Why not? Modifying the computer system is grounds for expulsion since Loophole's winter final, isn't it?

First of all, I have to give serious kudos for Adalie's combat final. The comparison between this one and her Fall final shows how much she's grown as a person over the last 5 months. Alicia and Kayda really have done wonders for her attitude.

Also, I would assume that students would get their grades from their individual combat finals, right? So what purpose do the team exercises have? . Is it just to show off, or prove something? Are the grades averaged? What's the advantage here?

I think I missed something along the way in Odds and Ends (on topic, garsh). Risk has access to the pairings and the scenario data. The other bookies do not. So rather than analyzing results, I would think the breadth of his betting domain would potentially give him away. Most bookies would just have only 4 standard bets you can place: "A wins", "B wins", "both win", "both lose" and maybe a separate one based on the scenario. Risk's betting domain might include more available bets to be placed because he's thought about the pairings and the scenario to cook is odds better since he has more time to think about it than the others.

Now granted, he's said as much that he's throwing the odds a little here and there to prevent being caught. But I would think if Sam sat down and spent time with the pairings and the scenario and attempted to predict the likely outcomes, she would end up with odds more close to Risks than to the other bookies. Perhaps the issue is she has taken the time to think about how one would use the pre-knowledge of the pairings and scenarios to their advantage. But I feel like Risk should stick out like a sore thumb with a bit of analysis.

Blue Moose wrote: First of all, I have to give serious kudos for Adalie's combat final. The comparison between this one and her Fall final shows how much she's grown as a person over the last 5 months. Alicia and Kayda really have done wonders for her attitude.

Also, I would assume that students would get their grades from their individual combat finals, right? So what purpose do the team exercises have? . Is it just to show off, or prove something? Are the grades averaged? What's the advantage here?

Going by Kayda's team up with Loophole and Tansy, I'd say they get bonuses for doing well. And probably no demerits unless they REALLY screw up.
And a few students like the Grunts probably only have a team combat final, and are marked accordingly.
This is pure guesswork on my part.

Blue Moose wrote: So what purpose do the team exercises have?

"Do you remember the line of the report cards that said "Plays well with others?"

Domoviye wrote: Agreed. You've had your fun. Part two and three have come out to about 100 pages, which Elrod wrote a large part of, and is editing all of it.
So what are the guesses for the next combat finals? One's already been said on this thread, but there's at least one more.

No idea for the rest of the spring 07 combat finals, but I do have to wander how Phase and Ribbon would go against each other, I mean Ribbon could probably toss Phase when he/she's heavy, being an exemplar 6, but Phase can't be tied up easily and can probably make up for the strength difference in holdouts.... It would be an interesting fight...

mhalpern wrote:

Domoviye wrote: Agreed. You've had your fun. Part two and three have come out to about 100 pages, which Elrod wrote a large part of, and is editing all of it.
So what are the guesses for the next combat finals? One's already been said on this thread, but there's at least one more.

No idea for the rest of the spring 07 combat finals, but I do have to wander how Phase and Ribbon would go against each other, I mean Ribbon could probably toss Phase when he/she's heavy, being an exemplar 6, but Phase can't be tied up easily and can probably make up for the strength difference in holdouts.... It would be an interesting fight...

Ribbon would have a serious disadvantage in that currently her entire arsenal is physical, and she has no way of interacting with Phase while he's light, which means that Phase gets to set the flow of the battle. But it's not really fair to compare Ribbon upon entering Whateley with Phase after a year of training and holdout acquisition.

E. E. Nalley wrote:

Blue Moose wrote: So what purpose do the team exercises have?

"Do you remember the line of the report cards that said "Plays well with others?"

Okay, that makes some sense..... publicized teamwork exercise works.

I always hated meaningless platitudes like that line.

Mule is having a bad week. He was totally pwned by Jade, and then the Grunts were crushed in the group Crash. He's not getting out of this with good grades. Poor guy.

Sir Lee wrote: Mule is having a bad week. He was totally pwned by Jade, and then the Grunts were crushed in the group Crash. He's not getting out of this with good grades. Poor guy.

Likewise, I doubt Deadeye and Breaker are very happy about graduating on such a low note. I fully expect them to go all out for their individual final.

E. E. Nalley wrote: "Do you remember the line of the report cards that said "Plays well with others?"

Well in Jadis' case, it's 'PLOYS well with others.'

Sir Lee wrote: Mule is having a bad week. He was totally pwned by Jade, and then the Grunts were crushed in the group Crash. He's not getting out of this with good grades. Poor guy.

The crush is a "meant to fail". It's not success at the objectives they are graded on, but how well they learnt their lessons and applied the theory to the practice.

Loosing a "no win" scenario could still give them As if they applied the theory completely and correctly, Ito and Bardue could just be teaching them another lesson, basically no matter how good your skills, how well trained and equipped you are, how much better then your opponent you are, eventually quantity wins anyway.

elrodw wrote:

Dreamer wrote:

Domoviye wrote: Poor, poor Kayda.
So shall we see who can be angstier? I've got a seven new characters to torment.

No, bad Domo! No trying to get Elrod into angst contest with you using your characters. Now back to work on your fanfics.

I'm actually in such a good mood that I ought to write another combat final - and pound someone into the dirt! I have at least 4 days until Kristin needs a final to publish, and I suspect others are in the queue as well, so I have time. And energy. And I need to compensate for happiness!

Perhaps Mule demanding/begging for a do over, and no doubt being taught whe he shouldn't have.
perhaps Lady A comes out to play.

Such a twisty might spring valuables links to the information leaks.

Remember, Phase can't touch Ribbon when light, heck the only ways he might get a good hit are, heavy tactical baton, fastball special, games darts (if they're allowed) and the Cobra 320 for webshot, and Ribbon has 50 years of experience and has been in a few fights, also would probably take BMA for self control reasons

The point is to free the hostage, not to beat the other student.

I was speculating for the fall finals which will be different...

First you would have to get Phase willing to strike Ribbon. He's still a bit of a gentleman.

All of the bookies have many more options than the four listed earlier. Duration, injuries, is the combatant taken out by their "opponent" or the Ants, and many more that a professional gambler could come up with.

Valentine wrote: First you would have to get Phase willing to strike Ribbon. He's still a bit of a gentleman.

All of the bookies have many more options than the four listed earlier. Duration, injuries, is the combatant taken out by their "opponent" or the Ants, and many more that a professional gambler could come up with.

True, but then there's the element of 30% of his grade and (depending on the nature of the scenario) the risk of Gunny and Ito ripping him a new one for letting the appearance of his opponent stop him from fighting, after all what if it was a blood thirsty shapeshifter disguised as a little girl, or a destructive entity that decided to use the body of a little girl as transport? Besides, while Phase may not be willing to take the first strike, it may be a different story with Ribbon, considering all the reports of "a brutal gang that likes to tie up thugs in pink ribbons" Phase may definitely try to avoid the conflict, but Ribbon may be a different story, and if the objective and/or elements needed to accomplish it are something he can't afford to be disruption light to interact with, or forces him to be anything but full light frequently, there goes his biggest advantage against physical attacks, especially cause his opponent has a BIT. In the right scenario, they are pretty evenly matched, Phase may have a utility belt that would make Bruce Wayne jealous, but Ribbon's ribbons and cloth objects plus the weights, and the exemplar 6 strength (as opposed to Phases Ex 3 which may allow her to deal similar blows when fully heavy) and her (albiet limited) telekinetic control over her ribbons, could counter most of his arsenal, glue grenades and tangle webs could be stopped by a wall of fabric, gascloud probably wouldn't effect such a high level regen, taser would probably tickle Ex 6 skin, the maser might do something, but that's a single shot, fast ball special might sting- IF Ribbon doesn't dodge them, same sort of deal with the darts, and reaction time with strength could be trouble if they were close enough for Phase to use the baton.. Not that Phase doesn't have his own tricks that would be problematic for Ribbon, but I can honestly say I don't have a clue as to whom would win such a fight.

Not to mention if Ribbon's weights are made of what I think they are (the super dense black metal known as Ebidium) it wouldn't matter if Phase was fully light as it is insulated against certain warper effects AND magic.

jmhyp wrote: I think I missed something along the way in Odds and Ends (on topic, garsh). Risk has access to the pairings and the scenario data. The other bookies do not. So rather than analyzing results, I would think the breadth of his betting domain would potentially give him away. Most bookies would just have only 4 standard bets you can place: "A wins", "B wins", "both win", "both lose" and maybe a separate one based on the scenario. Risk's betting domain might include more available bets to be placed because he's thought about the pairings and the scenario to cook is odds better since he has more time to think about it than the others.

Now granted, he's said as much that he's throwing the odds a little here and there to prevent being caught. But I would think if Sam sat down and spent time with the pairings and the scenario and attempted to predict the likely outcomes, she would end up with odds more close to Risks than to the other bookies. Perhaps the issue is she has taken the time to think about how one would use the pre-knowledge of the pairings and scenarios to their advantage. But I feel like Risk should stick out like a sore thumb with a bit of analysis.

Back on topic... (maybe Ribbon discussions could be moved to another topic?)

Jmhyp... I think you mean Booker in this post and not Risk.

Hmm I suppose the Ribbon discussions could, I do tend to cause tangents though. as it is right now the none of the fall 2007 freshmen individually don't have enough information on them to really sustain a strong topic though, maybe a Gen1 07-08 speculation topic? will have to research all the introduced students for the Whateley class of 2011, perhaps including Whisper as in the canon version, Whisper isn't at Whateley yet as of Feb 27th 2007, and probably wont be making a significant presence until Gen 1 Fall 07, do to logistical reasons. so even if she is officially there now, and part of the class of 2010, I would still count her as class of 2011 for thread purposes.... the trick will be finding all the characters introduced for that class, not counting the Junior high program.

mhalpern wrote: Hmm I suppose the Ribbon discussions could, I do tend to cause tangents though. as it is right now the none of the fall 2007 freshmen individually don't have enough information on them to really sustain a strong topic though, maybe a Gen1 07-08 speculation topic? will have to research all the introduced students for the Whateley class of 2011, perhaps including Whisper as in the canon version, Whisper isn't at Whateley yet as of Feb 27th 2007, and probably wont be making a significant presence until Gen 1 Fall 07, do to logistical reasons. so even if she is officially there now, and part of the class of 2010, I would still count her as class of 2011 for thread purposes.... the trick will be finding all the characters introduced for that class, not counting the Junior high program.

There's a Class of 2011 Category in the wiki. Beyond that you may have new people that will be coming in as higher (or lower) grades that have only been hinted and rumored about.

I'm counting the all the new people whom have been hinted about but I'll use that to add to the list.

Chewy, entertaining, and well worth the wait.

Still waiting for the rest of Vamp's Diamond's... Grrrrr!

If the rest is up to the current standard, then it'll be worth waiting for.

DanZilla wrote: Jmhyp... I think you mean Booker in this post and not Risk.

Oh, yeah, I do. I wrote the message above from memory not while looking at the story. And thanks for joining me in trying to get us back on topic.

I wonder if something messed up the hologram projector prior to Jadis and Marty's turn, or if whether the ANTS are naked is just another one of the variables they change up from match to match.

K-Korn, while sheer variety IS a factor, one of the major determining factors was that both She-Beast and Mega-Girl were PK sheath projectors, which would have complicated the hard-light equation for the computer. So, the ANTs were used.

"The girls chattered quickly among themselves as the two opponents took the field at different points in the map. The hostage rescue scenarios were all relatively similar and they knew Mule's capabilities as well as he knew theirs, from Team Tactics. Of course, what Mule didn't know is that the team had given Jade permission to cut loose. Their pint sized lunatic had been more upset by her low combat ranking than people outside the group knew, and if they were going to go into stealth mode as a team for a while to take attention off themselves, this was Jade's last chance to fix that minor misunderstanding..

I would love to learn what Generator's new rating is,

Odds and Ends Part 3 comments
Greasy is suffering hatred due to long-term association with Peeper, otherwise Kaiju might like him. Greasy really needs to get out of his abusive relationship with Peeper already, then he might develop some confidence in his abilities. Kaiju as a cute TMNT-masked girl, we must have a drawing of this!

Adam needs to think about the situation in a different way, with him being a mutant the odds are greater for him to be drawn into a dangerous situation against his will. Dang, either Adam has bad hearing or Kaiju has great stealth skills. And Adam definitely needs to hear praise for his work more often.

A plan begins to form and Adam is his own worst enemy, needs to learn not to yell no matter how much it hurts if you don't want to get caught. Kaiju has no combat training but does a good showing, if only Adam would realize by taking off his skin mask and used his natural grease he could trip up this guys instead of being a hostage. At least he figured it out after being caught, wonder how much the enemy is going to regret ignoring Adam.

Yikes, that was too close, Adam would have been going to Doyle if the energy blast hit him. Mini-Godzilla! I would have been cheering her on, but then I'm weird. At least with her manifested shell she can take a hit, though knowing she suffers from MATD each time I can see why she hesitated to use it. An EMP grenade, definitely something any good gadgeteer or devisor should have handy.

Okay, I can see why they got Cs. Adam needs to learn how to be more brave instead of his first instinct being to run, though he through his own thoughts did better than last time, so he is improving. Dang, Kaiju shocked me and Adam with that kiss. Though I'm surprised she doesn't have a boyfriend yet. And Adam is learning not everything in his life has to be told to or involve Peeper, a good first step.

Okay, I can understand the gadgeteers being among those who want cell phone service back but this disrupts security and the staff's plans at least a little. Tweak is arrogant if she thinks that Hartford can't snoop on an email just because it is encrypted. Booker proves to the smarter or at least having more common sense of the pair, if he hadn't called her off she would have gone after Hazard, who is probably protected by tech and software from the Masterminds own gadgeteer/devisor.

G-Force is thinking about his rivalry and beating the scenario, not that everyone else who tried it on their own after taking out their rival failed. The Cape Squad needs to have some of their members humbled and learn not everything is black and white or that they are always right just because they are on the side of 'justice'.

And Haywire is the more reasonable and long picture looking guy, caring what people who aren't your friend say about you will get you nowhere in life. Haywire knows how to play a fellow teenage boy, G-Force has no idea what he is up against.

A Cape Squad member pulling a bank robbery as part of a plan, priceless. And G-Force flirting with an ANT because it looks and acts like a pretty girl, he is never going to live that down. They raised the requested ransom, bet that is something Gunny and Ito never expected.

First using their robbing a bank and saying they are supposed to be the good guys, then when they defend it turn it around and critique them on how they did the bank robbery. Gunny and Ito never cut the students a break if they can help it.

"Aw, come on, Sensei!" LeShawn pleaded to the diminutive martial arts instructor. "You were young once! You can't tell me that you wouldn't have tried to pick up a hottie like her if our places were changed!"

Can't believe that worked and got G-Force from a C- to a C. And G-Force realizes he isn't going to live down hitting on an ANT, hindsight is 20/20.

Poor Sam running around in circles and Hartford along with Blue and Cyberkitty not finding anything definitive. Though I wonder what Hartford found that she kept from Sam. Based on the displays and data, I'm guessing she picked up on Tweak's encrypted emails and use of a proxy.

Venus Inc. team crash, I have this feeling that although she was 'persuaded' that Lifeline won't give up a chance to attack Lanie if she is left alone or caught off-guard. Plus Fey either gets snapped out of her somber and detached state or hinders the rest of the team. Yikes! Poor Pristine, knew the aftermath of her combat final would have her in a bad mood. And Solange said Kayda wasn't coming, even though she won't leave Lanie and Solange alone together given the chance.

Hehe, I wouldn't have been able to resist the crack about Bruce Goodkind or at least laughing at it myself. Diversionary attacks and causing civilian casualties, this group sounds like monsters.

Gunny, making Bruce Goodkind the target they have to protect, you might have gone too far this time. Attacking civilians just to keep more forces occupied instead of at the main target, makes me sick to think there are people out there who actually do this kind of crap. Poise and Heartbreaker at a trap, Kayda and Poise dealing with another diversionary attack, Gunny and Ito know this is their first time working together and are putting them through the ringer.

Out of a team of 13, only 4 got through it. That is just mean. Lanie and Solange were baited away from the other attacks, great. Lanie needs to think aerial recon and mobile support instead of purely fighting. And I wonder what condition her suit is in, with her not being able to tap into her Gadgeteer power at full strength again just yet. Cluster all around for every group, but at least Kayda and Pristine kept their area from being a total slaughter. B- is being generous for them, guess they feel sorry for the girls. And Ito saying Kayda gets a cookie, sorry to say but I had to stop typing from laughing so hard.

Figures it would be Kayda they come to for statistic help. Testing data from security files but not necessarily what's on the MIDs, darn, Kayda is going to get to read those while the audience gets to keep wondering. And my guess about needing both Kayda and Ayla was right. Always better to have multiple individuals with different areas of expertise involved in something like this. But how many hours of work will this take.

Gah, the description for that costume of Long John is up there with some of Jericho's most painful to the human eyes outfits. How Alicia can look at it and can get at least a little sick is beyond me. Ooo, an outfit to compliment her power, very nice. Plus the added benefit of making any pervert who stares at her chest trouble. After everything with Long John the past, splitting up is a good idea or Alicia wouldn't be able to restrain herself from hurting him.

If Long John isn't color blind, I wonder how he can withstand his own costume's color scheme. Alicia needs to think before she talks sometimes, Long John is going to bring that up later, I just know it. Borrow a delivery truck and use it to shield their activities, smart. LJ definitely has been learning in MA classes.

A tiny touch of claustrophobia and she went inside the barrel, I would freak out if I couldn't get out of it within a few seconds. Another disguise change, surprised these work so well for improvised costumes. Alicia has gotten a lot more dangerous with her new gear. D'oh! One guard still active if disoriented and one unaffected, not good. Still they have been owning this scenario up until now.
The boss was tougher than he looks, though it is their numbers that is the real threat. And taken down by a combined effort, too bad he got that shot off. Sloppy maintenance on that gun for it to jam, I would complain to the gun range guys. Okay, serious situation but I couldn't help laughing when the chocolate cream pie hit the goon in the face. And another goon hit by friendly pie fire, only for the bakers to get involved and it turns into a full-blown pie fight. I love it!

Both takes pies to the face, should have seen that coming before they escape. And she hits him with a pie in the face for harassing Kayda in MA class, I love Alicia and her sense of justice. Lowered her grade for a pie in the face, even after stating her reasons why. Gunny and Ito can be too harsh at times. At least Alicia is benefiting from it.

Ayla, what were you thinking! He knows how Jade feels about gifts like that, yet thought he could sneak it in. For someone so smart, Ayla lacks common sense at times. Taking Generator to France might be considered an act of war, if they knew about her like her friends do they would ban her from entering the country. And Ayla is right, I would rather face the entire armed forces of France than have Jade angry at me, that girl can be vicious and creative. And someone outside of Team Kimba has heard one of them say it, Jade is the most crazy of them by far.

Reach and Razorback, what are Gunny and Ito thinking! Plus Spark and Glitch paired up, no wonder it ended in a massive explosion, surprised neither of them are in Doyle. Ace really needs to learn not to put his foot in his mouth when talking about GSD students.

Last we read on Jenny's body suit, wasn't it Mark II, guess she has upgraded it a couple times since. Oh boy, Peeper is going to be obnoxious about her costume. Wonder if Ayla is trying to get Jenny to market them yet. Gah! Not once but twice in the same story to be subjected to bad color combinations, sometimes I hate having strong visualization skills. Good to see Jack's friends thinking ahead, would have hated to see what Reach's sonic disrupter would have triggered.

Guess Razorback got a new vocorder to replace his old one. And I doubt Reach will find a species close to what RB is in any book. Only Ito could get a 6 foot tall T-Rex to be chagrined about not responding properly. FBI badges, if they are being given such nice toys this doesn't bode well.

Even Greasy is getting tired of Peeper and his obnoxious commentary and behavior. Oh boy, Reynolds venting his frustrations on the Spy Kidz, will it be zany or will he go too far. *gets out popcorn to watch and find out, replacing bucket already emptied*

Wiseass gave her butt a squeeze, waggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx, then slipped out.

Bwahahaha, I can't believe Razorback did that. The eyebrow waggle like Groucho Marx put it over the top. Reach's response to the bigoted father in the sim was perfect. Ratface, Glop, and Squeaks, guess Shrikes or something similar was already taken for a bat-themed GSD case. Escaping through the sewers, how cliché, yet fitting. 30 minutes until KoP show up, just what they don't need. Those 3 mutants see them coming and the hostage is as good as dead.

Fiber-optic camera on her pinky to stretch out for scouting, perfect. And glad to see Greasy talking back to Peeper, once Peeper realizes he can't bully Greasy anymore he might just straighten up. And it figures the bat GSD guy has a sonic scream, but how powerful is it, since only the windows were shattered.

Okay, Ayla needs to custom order some suits for each of Team Kimba from Spark. Ah, got to love seeing a screamer about to unleash clocked hard. Yikes! I keep forgetting how fast Razorback is, hard to hit, hard to hurt, hits hard, and heals fast. Glop, betting it would take something like burning it to damage it. Poor Razorback, having to deal with a dino-obsessed kid. And the tech whose kid did all the talking for it wants him to come to her next birthday party, doubt Carson will allow it though.

Reach vs. Glop, that suit is going to get damaged at this rate. The freaking thing digested a tree, it like a gelatinous cube with a larger slime body! KoP rescues her but now is after Razorback thinking he is one of the kidnappers, arrggh!. They didn't even get any Intel on them and just assume. And Razorback proves what a great big brother and human he is, focusing on protecting the little girl with him, ignoring the fact she is an ANT.

And just like the real KoP, they don't care if the FBI or any other agency is involved if they can use the opportunity to put down a mutant. If Reach wasn't so clearheaded and focused, along with having Jericho's sonic disrupter, things could have turned out a whole lot differently. Jenny needs to learn not to put her foot in her mouth, at Whateley you can never tell who can speak which languages. Though Razorback's response is perfect. And they are actually going to do the birthday party, that will be one the little girl and her friends will never forget. And why do I have a feeling that Reach and his Aunt Connie will get draw into the adventures of Addy, Ayle, Jade, Alicia, Kayda and the rest in Paris.

Finally, even a minor anomalous statistic at this point could help Sam get on the right track. And Blue and Cyberkitty, working hard and finally hit paydirt. And Hartford has tracked Booker and Tweak's activities on the network. Foolish to think she wouldn't notice something like that.

The power testing wonks working with Mr. Paulson came up with crystals that can absorb Tennyo's unique energy!?! This isn't a good thing, someone will weaponize them for use against her, sooner or later. Tennyo isn't going to be a good mood after all that, reduced to her metal bikini with every male and Peeper watching. Force field was reinforced by Carson, Circe, and Grimms and it still almost shorted out; those crystals may absorb her energy but have an obvious limit and explode violently when it is exceeded.

Hartford already in Tweak's lab when she gets their, oh she is good. She better not be trying to recruit Tweak instead of handing her over to Carson, or Hartford will be in deep trouble when it is found out. And she is doing just that, after what she has gotten Solange to do I have a hard time trusting anything Hartford says. Hartford is the advisor to the Masterminds, I know the school is neutral but after they murdered a former superhero and made it look like suicide, I have a hard time not wanting to lock up the little supervillains in training.

Well, at least with Tweak reporting to Hartford no student info will be accidently leaked, so that risk is gone. Still will be betting in Vegas, etc. but no more threat to the students. Okay, now I want to know what percentage of the wagering and pay-per-view ends up in the scholarship fund; even 5% would be huge. Wonder which members of the staff still think they live in a black-and-white world, not Carson after some of things we've seen her do. So Tweak gets away with it but is on a leash to Hartford now, best outcome we could expect, especially knowing about the scholarship fund getting money from all the wagering and pay-per-view stuff now.

Hartford gives them something which is plausible, to something without as much knowledge and expertise in computers as her, and they buy it. Though with the way Sam studied everyone in the room, I'm not sure she bought the story and might be keeping an eye on Hartford's activities in the future.

Caruthers thinking about ripping off Booker to take a bigger payoff for himself, only to be shot down. Might be annoyed about Tweak and Booker getting off scott free, but have to respect him not being taken in by a weasel like Caruthers. Wonder what other potential fallout of this whole thing might show up in future stories.

A fun read from start to finish, each combat final had unexpected moments and even a lot of laughs in most of them. And despite the culprits getting off scott free, we still got closure with revelations about how the school helps fund all its scholarship cases and the threat to the students neutralized, in an unexpected way.

Dreamer, it was CORE who murdered the superhero not the Masterminds. CORE and is independent, not working for the Syndicate as mercenaries.

I've been waiting a while for this, Elrod kept going on about how funny the pie scene and the bank robbery was, without letting me see them. They were two of e best fights in my opinion, along with Razor and Reach.
Having Razor being a bit of an actual funny perv, and Reach being so effective was fantastic.
Hartford keeps on surprising me. She's gotten a lot of development since the days of her being a GSD hating, administrative bitch with a bad attitude.
Great story, a pleasure to read and write.

Domoviye wrote: Dreamer, it was CORE who murdered the superhero not the Masterminds. CORE and is independent, not working for the Syndicate as mercenaries.

D'oh! Been so long since I read that story I forgot it was CORE, got them mixed up with the Masterminds in my head. Thanks for the info, Domo.

Dreamer wrote:

Domoviye wrote: Dreamer, it was CORE who murdered the superhero not the Masterminds. CORE and is independent, not working for the Syndicate as mercenaries.

D'oh! Been so long since I read that story I forgot it was CORE, got them mixed up with the Masterminds in my head. Thanks for the info, Domo.

Oh! Crime and Chaos! I was wondering what you're talking about.

Just which Whateley students, other than Puppet, are NOT going to France in the Summer of 2007?

Valentine wrote: Just which Whateley students, other than Puppet, are NOT going to France in the Summer of 2007?

I wonder what the odds manglers have been up to... no doubt while over in France they'll continue the Great Whateley Tradition of mixing it up with supervillains (then getting chewed out by Carson upon their return)...

Heck, it wouldn't surprise me if Tweak ends up being flown to France on Amelia's mission too.

Some really interesting combat finals there, plus a continuation of the WARS commentary theme from the first set, whereby Greasy's attempting to give useful commentary, only to be hindered by Peeper. It's probably a very slim hope, but it would be nice if by the time he's a Senior, he's ditched Peeper and instead supplies his tech to the Intelligence Cadet Corps. Meanwhile, although Odds & Ends is over, we may not have seen the end of the Combat Finals - IIRC in an earlier thread it was revealed someone had temporarily lost sanity and volunteered to write the Wondercute final...

With Kayda participating in the Venus Inc combat final, it's just as well the Ghost Walkers and Nations didn't have group finals, or she would likely have volunteered for them as well.

Harley and Jack made a good team - and Jack's now acquired a new nickname to boot

As for Amelia's cock-and-bull excuse, although everyone made a show of 'buying' it, I wouldn't be surprised if most (if not all) deduced (especially after her follow-on comment) that and why.

Valentine wrote: Just which Whateley students, other than Puppet, are NOT going to France in the Summer of 2007?

Well, Bladedancer is not going to France. If she were going anywhere (meaning: if Heather felt up to writing it), it would be Mainland China, as suggested in "Summoning Sweeties."

Sir Lee wrote:

Valentine wrote: Just which Whateley students, other than Puppet, are NOT going to France in the Summer of 2007?

Well, Bladedancer is not going to France. If she were going anywhere (meaning: if Heather felt up to writing it), it would be Mainland China, as suggested in "Summoning Sweeties."

I thought "Salmoning Sweeties" was about when Cody took Lanie home to Alaska for the summer...

Valentine wrote: Just which Whateley students, other than Puppet, are NOT going to France in the Summer of 2007?

Peeper, Greasy. Solanage (unless going separate), Don, Jobe (unless going separate), I would say Tennyo, but you never know, Eldritch, Static Girl....

I like the way you tied a bunch of short combat finals into a single coherent story.

Would you believe that I hadn't actually read any of the other sections of Odds & Ends prior to writing my bit for this one, so at least one of those France-bound characters happens to be pure coincidence? I mean, of course Spark goes home for the holidays, and it just followed naturally...