Fatal Alliance, a Review

Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Beware: possible MINOR SPOILERS.

I enjoyed reading Fatal Alliance. As has been said, it is a bit of a showcase for the world and classes of the upcoming BioWare MMO, Star Wars: the Old Republic. However, given what I know about the behavior and personalities of the in-game characters, I felt that FA was a good departure from that template. Ula Vii, the Imperial "Agent" in particular, was not the cool James-Bondish Agent we've seen in videos of the game. I saw someone else's review, critical of the smuggler's name, "Jet Nebula." That it was unrealistic. The person obviously did not pay attention, as it was clearly not his real name from the first mention of it. The book is what it is, a StarWars-based game tie-in. Anyone looking for more will be sorely disappointed.

I am generally fond of game tie-in novels, though I wouldn't consider any to be among my favorite books. This one satisfied my itch for a TOR era book and I look forward to reading Deceived and Revan.

I feel I should mention this is my first Kindle e-book, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it through the Kindle app on my new Android phone.

So It Begins . . .

Just a quick post because I don't know when I'll be posting again. I'm participating in the lunacy that is NaNoWriMo2011. If you don't know what that is I suggest you head on over to the site. If you are participating, feel free to add me as a writing buddy. I'm there as Rowanblaze, same as Twitter.

Good luck, and God help us.

Starblanket: In the Belly of the Beast

I rediscovered this passage while digging through NaNoWriMo stuff from last year. I never posted it, so here it is. This is a continuation of the STO story "Do the Borg Believe in God?" and "Do the Borg have an Afterlife?" Catchy titles, but not exactly what the stories were actually about. In any event, read those first. Enjoy:


Rowan became aware of an insistent chirping. Trying to stir, she felt a tremendous pain in her side and realized that some of her ribs were broken. Groaning, she pushed herself up into a sitting position. Scanning the chamber. She made out the still forms of the other three members of the away team. The chirping continued, it was her communicator pin. Tapping the badge sent a fresh twinge along her ribs.

“Starblanket here,” she grunted.

Tarah’s voice sounded tinny in the thinning air. “Captain, the Borg wreckage you occupy is on the verge of collapse. We anticipate a hull breech at any moment.”

“Can you lock on to our signals?”

“Negative, Captain. The interference from radiation is too strong at your present location.”

“We’ll move to the other chamber. Keep this channel open.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Corporal Graavel, the Tellarite MACO, was closest to her. She crawled closer to him to assess his condition. Realizing her tricorder had flown out of her hand in the tumble, she gently shook his shoulder. He stirred, groaning.

“Corporal, are you hurt?” Rowan asked, visually examining the MACO.

“I’m alright, Ma’am,” Graavel said with a grunt. He sat up.

“Check on Commander Brasseux. While I check the Major.”

They moved off towards their separate charges. Major Gasira’s left lower leg was bent an unnatural angle, her foot caught under some debris. Rowan cast about for something to split the Major’s leg. Finding a short piece of wreckage, she began ripping the bottom of her own uniform top into strips. Gasira moaned and her eyes fluttered open. Rowan paused to put a hand on her shoulder.

“Shh, hold still, Major. Your leg is broken. I need to set on splint it.”

Gasira just groaned her acknowledgement. The chamber shuddered again as the remaining gravity generator began to fail. The stressed metal structure groaned louder than the Major. Thierry and Graavel made their way over to Rowan and Gasira. Having hit the bulkhead face first, Thierry’s ocular scanner was broken and he was bleeding from his temple where the device had cut him. He had abrasions across his cheek on that side and his nose had swollen, perhaps broken.

“Corporal, help me move this,” Rowan indicated the twisted metal trapping Gasira’s foot. The two tossed the debris aside, freeing the MACO commander’s leg, and Rowan spoke to her.

“Major, I need to set this, then I will split it. Without my medkit I cannot give you a painkiller.”

“I understand, Captain,” Gasira gasped and gritted her teeth. Rowan grasped the broken limb pulled as gently as she could, straightening it and trying to set the bones by feel. The Major cried out in pain.

“There. Corporal, position these strips under her leg above and below the break, here and here, while I lift it.” The MACO did as she asked. Rowan placed the splint along the Major’s leg and tied it in place.

“OK, we need to move out of this chamber or La Gitana cannot beam us out. Thierry, how are you doing?”

“I’ll be alright, sheh.”

“Alright, let’s move. Come on, Major.” Rowan hooked Gasira’s left arm around her own shoulders and lifted the other woman off the deck. The Major stood on her good leg, leaning into the Captain.

“Ready, Captain” she grunted.

“Tarah, monitor our signal. Beam us out as soon as you can.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Thierry leaned on the Tellarite as the chamber lurched again. The deck was now apparently at a steep angle, the exit to the corridor above the debris pile by about a meter and a half. Rowan stepped gingerly over the pile, careful of her footing and her charge. Gasira helped as best she could on her good leg. Thierry and Graavel followed behind. Coming to the bulkhead the passageway was on, Rowan propped up the Major.

“Corporal, can you get up into the corridor?” she asked turning to the Tellarite.

“Heh, of course, Ma’am.” The MACO scrambled up the bulkhead and deck into the opening, poking his head back out.

“OK. Thierry, help me get the major up there.” Rowan said. Gasira leaned on the engineer, as Rowan interlaced her fingers into a stirrup. Lifting her foot into The Captain’s hands, Gasira, heaved herself up and reached for the Corporal’s outstretched hands. Together they lifted her in to the corridor.

“OK, you’re next, Thierry.” Rowan put her hands back down to the engineer’s foot to boost him up, grunting in pain as she hoisted him into the corridor. Following the other away team members into the corridor, Rowan reassessed the situation. The tilted bulkheads and deck would make progress hazardous. The groans of the wreckage had not died down.

“OK, move carefully, but quickly. Corporal, you take the lead. Thierry, you follow. I’ll bring up the rear with the Major.” Rowan clutched her side where her broken ribs ground against each other.

“Sheh, are you alright? Can you support her?” the engineer asked.

“Yes, just get moving.”

The Tellarite moved up the corridor, tremors in the craft making him stumble. Thierry stumbled after, holding onto the bulkheads. Rowan realized that the gravity generator was causing the corridor to tilt uphill, slowing their progress.

“Tarah, are we out of the interference yet?”

“Negative, Captain.” Came the voice of her First Officer. “Another 15 meters, maybe.”

They came upon the animated but brain-dead drone, blocking their path. Corporal Graavel turned back to Rowan. “Orders, Ma’am?”

Rowan sighed, “Shoot it.” The MACO pulled out a hand phaser. Adjusting the settings, he took aim and fired on the drone, disintegrating it. Alarms went off echoing down the passageway.

“Damnit!” Rowan cursed. “Get going!”

Thierry and Graavel scrambled up the corridor with Rowan following as best she could with Gasira in tow. Between the groaning structure and the screaming alarms, Rowan barely heard Tarah’s voice.

“Captain, the structure is beginning to break-up, with multiple stress fractures in the hull.”

“We’re moving as fast as we can. Can you reposition to get us out of here?”

“We are already in the prime position relative to the interference, Captain.”

The deck heaved and they were all lifted off their feet. The horrible sound of metal ripping came up the passageway from the cargo bay. Closely followed by the boom of an explosion. Hot gases rushed past the away team, then suddenly reversed themselves.

“Hull breech! Get going!”

They all crawled the last few meters, Thierry dropping back to help Rowan with Gasira. The rushing wind was deafening, but they still had air for now.

“Tarah, beam out Corporal Graavel as soon as you have a lock on him!” Rowan shouted over the wind.

Tarah’s response was lost to the roar. The plasma fire behind was consuming the air. Soon enough, Rowan saw the telltale glow of the transporter rescuing the MACO about three meters ahead of them.

“Thierry! Go!”

“Not without you and the Major, sheh!”

They made it the last small distance when the wreckage rocked again from the force of another explosion. But the transporter effect had already embraced the three last members of the away team, pulling them to safety as the passageway collapsed around them.

Consumers and Producers

So Tobold ordered a Kindle. His remarks about about tablets vs. PCs struck a chord for me:

Most people on the internet are mainly consumers of content. They contribute very little beyond the occasional link or comment, but they read and listen and watch a lot. I attribute it to the genius of the late Steve Jobs that he realized that existing personal computer were built by content creators for content creators, enabling him to start a revolution of devices built for content consumption instead, which was closer to what the public wanted. This included the iPad, which instead of earlier, failed, attempts at making tablet computers did away with content creation features like handwriting recognition, concentrated on features to consume content.

Unfortunately I am more of a content creator than a content consumer. I don't listen to music much, nor do I spend a lot of time watching videos on the internet. Instead I spend a lot of time writing, mostly in the form of this blog. As a result I don't own a tablet computer (nor a smart phone), as these devices simply aren't all that suitable for content creation. You *can* send an e-mail from an iPhone, or write a blog entry on an iPad, but given the choice you'd rather do it on a regular PC.

While not as prolific as Tobold, I also consider myself a content creator. I use my PC for two things, generally; Blogging (Tweeting, etc.); and Gaming. Tobold helped me put a finger on why I don't see a need for a tablet for me. The basic interface of a tablet computer does not lend itself to the types of games I play, much less the stuff "under the hood." Right this minute, I am producing content. Much of it is crap, and I suspect very few consume it. Thank you, Dear Reader, for consuming it; though my guess is you probably produce some of your own.

I want to interact with the web, not just consume it. A few years ago a work-mate was teasing me and another colleague over our gaming. How much time we wasted. My response to this guy--a Red Sox fan-- was, "How much time do you spend watching baseball or football on TV? The only difference between that and my gaming is that I have an effect on the outcome of the game I am watching." He was a consumer of product, I at least interact with product in a constructive way.

Another thing is that the social (i.e. chat) aspects of the game are hampered by the interface. Unless you are using a VOIP system like Ventrilo, you have to find a way to interact with your fellow players. You could add a keyboard and mouse, but then you are looking at something resembling my laptop anyway. I am not being critical of tablets or people use them. But I don't think I need one at this point in my life.

I know people have tethered their tablets to their PCs and finagled their way through a remote desktop to play MMOs, but really? It's a proof of concept, not a way I want to play the game. Maybe someday soon, MMORPGs will be designed around a touchscreen interface. But until they do, I'll stick with my laptop.

Help Wanted. Must Supply Own Armor, Weapons

Wow, this week just flew by! I didn't realize 'til just now that my last post was last Sunday.

So MMOGC commented on a post Hunters Insight made regarding guild applications. Much of the following is from my comment on GeeCee's post. Hunter flat out doesn't like applications. GeeCee gives them a reserved thumbs-up.

I'm of two minds on this, as are many who commented on Hunter's post. I recently filled out a guild application for the first time in a long time--if ever. And some of the questions there were a little personal, in the way that Hunter objects to. GeeCee's ultimate question, "Why us?" can usually be answered by me with "a friend is in the guild and says you guys are fun to play with." I would neither apply to nor join a guild of total strangers. So I guess it depends on how serious a guild is about some aspect of the game whether they really need an application or not. The application I filled out recently was for a "casual" roleplaying guild. I'd been invited to join by a friend, and actually questioned her about the formality of the process. Ultimately, I shrugged off my misgivings and filled it out. The guild seems nice, though I haven't had the opportunity to play with any of them in-game.

The two guilds in WoW that I have been a part of that were/are arguably progression-oriented raiding guilds did not have an application process other than friends recruiting friends. None of them ever knew my real name, until we became Facebook friends. And that was long after I'd joined. I normally have little use for external guild websites, either, spending much of my non-game leisure time on Twitter, G+, and blogs. The time I have to be on the guild website is usually the same time I have to be actually playing the game itself. The MMO I have been in that required coordination for raids I was interested in joining had a built-in calendar, with raid sign-ups.

On the other hand, I was once in a supposedly casual guild that was insisting that people already in the guild sign up/participate in the external website. They had grown too large too fast to know everyone in the guild. But the way they went about it, threatening to kick people who had not registered on the site in guild-chat--and through /tells--was a huge turn-off. My lovely bride and I almost rage-quit on the spot. The guild itself later imploded and folded into another guild, for various reasons. We did not follow our former guildmates and are still guildless on those toons.

Identifying players and alts in-game is not usually too hard if the leadership uses the in-game guild interface, in my humble opinion. There are usually public notes and officer notes that can be used to identify people, if it is necessary. Plus, any guild doing "srs bsns" probably has a Vent server where people will become known by voice and name, even if that name is an alias. I am almost always Rowan in voice chat, and I knew a guy whom everyone called Joan, because his paladin was Joanofarc and all his alts were variants thereof.

So I guess I'd say guild applications have a place, but too often ask the wrong things or get too personal for something that--from my perspective, at least--is far too casual an activity.