Home sweet home...

Choosing sides...

After reading some pretty heated arguments on the DRC forums about Douglas Sharper's actions, I realized something: we're not all that different from the Bahro.

Consider this:

Suppose someone does something really horribly atrocious to you or to your group of friends. When it's all over, you have two options; you can seek revenge, or you can pick up the pieces of your life and try to carry on. By seeking revenge, you could, perhaps, go to the person's home who did this to you and beat them up. Or, if that person isn't there, you can find someone who looks alot like them and beat them up.

Now; the question is, is this story the Bahro's? Or ours?

We had something truly horrible happen to one of our explorers; she was killed by a Bahro. Sharper, of course, decided to take the path of revenge and went to Nobolen and attempted to kill the one that killed her... or one that looked just like him.

However, this story is also the Bahro's. They were imprisoned against their will for countless centuries. When they were finally freed, they also had the choice between revenge and forgiveness. Those that chose revenge went to their enemy's home (D'ni) and attacked... and we don't know that they realize that we're a separate race (after all, some of have some D'ni characteristics: pale eyes and skin). Perhaps, to them, we look like the D'ni as much as the "good" Bahro look like the "bad" Bahro.

The death of one explorer has us sniping in the forums, and some of the worst flaming that I've seen since the Liaison elections. What would the emotional toil of centuries of slavery be for us? Would it split us into chaotic civil war?

I don't think the Bahro really chose between "good" and "evil"; I think they had to choose between retaliation and forgiveness.

And so do we.

Random thought...

I'm pretty sure that we'll be getting the spyroom within the next few episodes. I know that we're heading for a series finale, but since that's not until the END of October, I think we've got at least three episodes before the break... which gives Cyan/DRC plenty of time to give us the spyroom.
I just had a humerous thought about it... the last couple of "cavern" areas that were opened up (the Watcher's pub and Kirel, at least) were globally instanced... what if the Spyroom were the same? Just imagine a hundred explorers trying to crowd in a space the size of my closet.
"Someone's standing on my foot!"
"Someone's standing on my HEAD!"
"If I find out which one of yeh scunners just pinched my bum, there'll be SUCH a kickin'!"
"Oh dear gods, who farted?!?!?"

Hmmm... reminds me of my old college days..

Covered in dust...

Posting from Minkata, (22° 579).
I'm not really sure what I'm doing here. I've been wandering this desert for hours, looking for.. I don't know what. Something, anything new or different, something to take my mind off of the rest of my life. But it's no use, even the barren wasteland of Minkata brings back too many fond memories, even if it perfectly mirrors my present frame of mind. It's vast, heavily scarred with craters, and oddly beautiful, especially at night... and it almost radiates loneliness, even when a big group is in it. I'm seriously considering another sabbatical, both from the cavern, and from my other virtual activities; what's the point of finding (or building) something new and cool if no one is there to share it with you?

Something big seems to be brewing within the restoration; after Wheely's death a few weeks ago, her father, Michael Engberg vanished in the Great Shaft, and we still haven't heard from or seen him. the balance of power is tipping, but I haven't the slightest idea in what direction. All I know is that the Bahro civil war going on around us is probably only going to escalate matters even worse.

Hmm.. I think I'm going to link back to the surface and wash the dust out of my hair, then curl up with a good book. I'm tired of waiting for something that's not going to happen.

Scars

Wow.. just wow. I haven't posted in this blog since October, due to some other things that were taking up a lot of my time.

So very much has happened since then; Uru Live has opened, complete with SIX (I think, I may have lost count of them) brand new ages, another area that had been previously inaccessible is now available, and the introduction of some very interesting other tidbits, relto pages, and Bahro stones.

However, the biggest change happened only last night. Unfortunately, I was busy in another world at the time of the actual incident, but did manage to get most of the information about the situation. For starters, a rather large (new) crack appeared in the Kahlo pub entranceway, and because of worries about the stability of the area, barriers were put up and we were warned to steer clear of the crack. Of course, this meant that the explorers (myself included) just HAD to go look. Some of the explorers have had, let's say, a premonition that someone close to the DRC was going to die, despite their strenuous safety measures. Many of us thought that Whillow "Wheely" Engberg, daughter of Michael Engberg of the DRC, would fall victim to this fate. When she came into the city on a marker quest, many explorers tried their hardest to keep her away from the unstable area of the pub, and succeeded.

However...

Later on she and her friend Rosette were exploring the lower floors of the library, and (apparently) found another new crack. Fearing the worst, the explorers, as well as some of the DRC rushed to the library to investigate, only to find a Bahro standing on the roof, screeching. Several loud cracking noises were heard, and then a low rumbling, like an earthquake. I'm not exactly sure what happened, or the exact timeline of it, but apparently during all of this excitement, Wheely and her friend not only went missing, but had turned off their KIs.

Upon checking the forums today, it seems that Wheely IS alive, and IS in touch with her father, but Rosette is still not responding and is presumed dead. By all accounts, she's telling a pretty amazing story, too; she's in a place with Bahro glyphs on the wall that respond to her touch, and a Bahro touched her linking book and disabled it. Although the Bahro have been much more active recently, I've never heard of one actively disabling an explorer's Relto book, nor of one whisking an explorer off to a strange cave like the one Wheely describes.

Something tells me that this is only the beginning of the adventure, and that the events of last night and this morning will change the Cavern as we know it.


More later, my fingers hurt.

Vacation...

I haven't posted anything in a while, even though I've been in the cavern in one way or another, and I'm only posting now to say:
I will be taking a short sabbatical from Uru. I'm getting a bit burnt out, and I need time to stop and enjoy other things. I will be back, however.

Mysterium '06!

I just recently got back from Mysterium (ok, two days ago, I've been lazy), and it was awesome. We went to the Cyan headquarters, and met some really awesome Cyantists, including Rand Miller, GreyDragon, Josh Staub, and the wily and elusive RAWA. I got pictures of most of them, as well as a ton of concept art that was lying on a table.
I really haven't got very much to say about the visit to Cyan that vid hasn't already covered (see the link to the Age Linkers Guide on the right), other than a half formed theory of why Rand dislikes playing Atrus: Rand is a awesome, goofy guy with a great sense of humor. Atrus is a scientist who I've never seen crack a joke. As cool as they both are, they're a lot different.
Another awesome point: we got into the legendary elevator! There are, indeed, buttons with D'ni numbers next to them, but when pressed, a little panel lights up with "Restricted Floor". Evidently, you need a key (or a KI?) to access those floors. Looking down through the crack in the elevator door, you can see that it goes down some way, so it's not just some sort of cute gadget. I so wish I had brought my lockpicks!
For the pictures that vid and I took, see this link: http://www.vidkid7.org/mysterium06/