[The following is an attempt of getting others on the board to create an interactive fable in the spirt of a Sciforums convention in 2021, well the run up.. this is like the Prologue from my viewpoint, it's up to you and other happy posters to come up with your prologues to a sciforums convention. Be as imaginative as you like, and if this takes off, I'll get Porfiry to send the best entry a mug Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! (at my expense Dave).] Many years ago I found this bulletin board after someone calling himself "Reign of Error" pointed it out. It was back in the days when you had to type, because the speech recognition software wasn't in full use and the compression systems weren't high enough to place video or audio messages. I found the board of use to debating some of the most radical points of view at the time... that was before the information curve of 2015 through the use of quantum brains and Kmguru becoming a multimillionare through his antigravity cars. I never was really a mechanic... I still wonder how those things stay up there as they fly past.... Not to mention the fact that the artificial intelligence systems spawned to make them as safe as possible... Last thing anyone would want is a car dropping in while they are in their virtual suite. That reminds me, just a few hours ago I was busy walking through some projections of my cooperate accounts (which I've managed to stay clear of arrears.) I stumbled across a memo drafted on the virtual board.... A "sciforums convention" where all the old board posters and the new ones would be hanging out. Yeah Sciforums had grown many years back after Dave got this brainwave from some post that when someones intellectual property had been delivered to the board that taking the information and editing it together, allowed the board posters to have not just thoughts and ideas published but also certain new principles of understanding. It was known that allowed a few of the posters to obtain Nobel and Pulitzer prizes. there was also a number of art prizes, but Bebelina managed to gain all of them. I think what did it was her exhibit called "In the pink!" Well the convention is in an hour... so I'm going to go get ready... but I'm sure there are others that are quite happy to stick in their logs about the run up to the convention and what they remember of the past of sciforums... until later... take care.
Okay it seems that no ones spotted that There is a prize up for grabs Of course I know that not placing a closing date on this is also a fault, so I'm going to place one. Rules: Entrants must have placed their fabricated version on the topic of either "A prologue to a Sciforums convention in 2021" (this means you thoughts running up to it) or The convention itself. Be as imaginative as possible.. You never know you might have found out who Backslash is by then Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The Story should be about a page in size (fill the screen). A paragraph won't be deemed acceptable. You can post as many versions of the story as you like, but they should try to follow the subject. (I had to give such a subject just as a bit of challenge) The Closing Date for entrants will be 01 December 2001 12:01AM GMT (Yes when you've just seen the true timeline new year in) Judging will commmence On and after this date. I will post a thread on or around that closing date to vote on the stories I've picked, Then for one week only, it will be up to the residents of Sciforums to pick their favourite and who ever gets the most votes will win the mugPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! (No Cheating.) (Then I shall detail the winner to Porfiry, With my hardlost cash to buy a Sciforums<SUP>TM</SUP> Mug and hopefully he will then contact them to ask them for somewhere to send it. That way I'm not getting your address as I think The sciforums agreement covers privacy. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!) The Winner will have the right to decide if they want to be mentioned or not. (After all no-one in this world would turn down the chance to own a Sciforums<SUP>TM</SUP> Mug Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! If this all works out... you might find me forking out another mug at a later date Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! [::This post will be subject to Editing if any details change::]
Well I just got back from the Family Values tour 2021 I think I might be drunk! or something. So the big day is tomorrow, I get to meet all you wingnuts finally in person. I just hope you read this post before you go. I'm more than likely to be quite hung over. Please let there be an open bar ooppps, did I say that out loud. I sure hope tony1 is there(I wonder if he'll bring his bible or maybe just Sir Loone ) anyhow this should be interesting because I'm still driving my gas powered 1973 AMC Javelin, Oh boy am I going to hear it. why are you still driving that ozone killer . Oh well can't win them all. It's bad enough that I have to buy gas on the blackmarket. Maybe I should just take a hovercab there. But then again this car ROCKS. Should I finally bend to the inevitable and stop driving. But how could I do that, be true to ones self is what they taught me. I never really needed to be liked just heard. Maybe I should stay in my cubical tomorrow and not bother them. I can always make a virtual appearance, S**t I still don't know if they like me. Even after that Uranus worm hole joke, Come on cut me a little slack it was a joke. It might be important to travel but it's still URANUS. Oh well, I'm probably just digging the hole deeper. But I'm good at that! Ya know what I'm going and I'm driving my car so, You'll know who I AM. I'M THE ONE STILL USING OIL BASED FUEL, why because that's what my baby runs on! IT"S from 1973 what did you expect! BTW There is NO WAY I'm using that teleport thingomajiger I saw the fly and I'm not STUPID(i think)?! SEE YA THERE!
Don't have much time, took a long while to find this place. Had to use a portable...never mind. Aah, those indonesians are shooting again hang on. Okay, back. It's been awhile hasn't it? Stopped going here after I was drafted and the whole world went to hell. I doubt I'll be able to make it, christ the muels (muslim coalitioners) know where to hit us! I can't tell you too much-hang on they're shooting again. Damn I'm glad they installed these computers into our d-suits. Be bored out of my mind if I couldn't talk with my friends and relatives. Just remembered this site, too bad it's been years since anyones posted here except for, well, this thread. Think I got hit in the foot just a second ago...goddamnit I did. Ah well its a small ricochet, that kevlar's a savior! You should see things down here guys, everything's just like in the movies. Bullets are the size of a fist and as long as an arm shooting through the air like horizontal rain. Lucky for me I haven't lost my buddies yet. Right now we're holed up in an apartment complex, its been totally destroyed and nothing but a pile of concrete now. Can here one of those F-35's coming, god those things are AWSOME. Hang on, hear a bomb streakin in. Ah that whole installation that was shooting at us just went up in flames. Christ, it's pretty amazing. Oh yeah, about me, well I'm an officer now and quickly advancing through the ranks. They say the war'll be over in a few months, I hope to be home by christmas so I can get back to my book. It's the second in the series, and all my fans have been waiting for years and years...oh well, catcha later. I'm looking over the side right now, appears to be a few of the mules left, I'm gonna go round em up and ship em back to the Enterprise.
Life has been so bleak during the time it's taken to reach this final destination. I remember walking through some of the rubble the other day, reflecting on the torn shreds of my past life, realizing what it truly means to take something for granted. In the midst of that particular reverie (for they are not uncommon as of late), I was accosted by several Christians. Naturally, I gave the signs, the handshakes, and repeated the dogma necessary to convince them of my status in society. The world, after submitting to the totalitarian oppression of the religious, has changed very little. It used to be that people were lynched for spouting religious idiocy, nowadays the poles have been reversed. It has become fairly common for other to perish for want of a few passages from the New Testament. It's a good idea to always be able to quote from the book or you slit your own throat for good. All the lives lost, all the time wasted, all the resources spent. Spending endless amounts of time absorbed in virtual reality machines, walking down more-than-real streets, fighting Viking warriors for no reason other than to stave off the enduring boredom, not to mention the constant panoramic vej of the sensory-enhanced newsroom. Everything has become so Gibson--it could be a form of psychohistory proposed by Asimov. It used to be that the Net was considered impersonal. But it was a far cry from the likes of today. You meet someone nowadays and they glare at you from hooded lids, waiting for you to pass, then leap on you and beat you within an inch of your life--allowing you to live long enough to regret that they did. Hasn't hapened to me, yet. I've learned from the past. Mainly, everyone wears a certain mask at each time in their life. Like with the marauding brown coats (Christians), I wear the face of a cheerfully gloomy Christian, anxiously awaiting the day of the Savior's return to earth. With the hoods on the street, I throw the signs, or keep my head absolutely straight and down so as not to anger anyone I pass. With my friends, it's a familiar mask that doesn't show them the pain I feel from the roads they intentionally pick to travel on. With my loved ones, it's the mask of what I would truly like to become. With myself, ultimately, there is no mask. With the Net, though, back in the heady days of Sciforums, well, what can I say about that time. So long ago, yet not long enough. So much pain. I used to think, back then, that when others would converse over the Net, that it could have been one person in reality, with just an exceptionally large amount of time on their hands. Now, I know it doesn't matter. With machine-driven gophers and spiders prowling the Net, opportunities that the likes of \777 afforded are so commonplace as to be annoying. Meeting the actual people from Sciforums, I must admit, will most likely be disappointing. It's like in the past, when I'd call someone up for my job and then I'd need to go to their workplace and meet with them. They always turned out to be nothing like I imagined. And I'm sure I was a disappointment to them as well. It's just that the people at Sciforums were nothing more than ethereal--just emotions and passions that had brimmed to the surface, found a way to interface between the present and the dead. I go to the conference mainly out of duty. Not to satisfy some hungry need to prove that some in the past were actually forlorn midgets or prima donnas, but to re-connect with the past. And to understand that it's better to know the past than to guess about it. Because it's truly the final destination for anyone that meets there. That's when we all find out what we really are, behind our several masks. Behind our smug images we portrayed. Behind the curtains we erected to shield ourselves. By and large, we will be disappointed. We will discuss many things and reflect on the past (always on the past), taking the time to visit those that most affected us. Some of those that have died will be respectfully euligized, while others will be figuratively disemboweled. It has been the way of the world since, and it will probably continue to be so. But this conference at Sciforums doesn't have to be like that. Perhaps, this motley crew of integers and opinion-minders will finally have a last stand at that meeting. Perhaps we will overcome and find the path to virtue and solidarity. Perhaps. Most likely, we will go our separate ways and try as much as possible to forget. Because it is always easier to wear the mask, than to tear it away and live life freely. But those that can do so, so much the better. Those that cannot, well, you'll end up in one of the two camps.
You can submit more than one Shrike Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Afterall this is going to go to vote at the end of the time period so all of sciforums will be able to decide which story deserves the mug. I'm also going to ask Dave about something else, which I will post here through an "Edit". In fact, I'm going to change the Timescape for judging as well, I put January, But I think it would be better to start Judging December 01 2001 12:01am GMT, I've changed it because I think that January is too far away, and some of you might lose your connections by then Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Stardate 29/0789/2015 TACHYON GATE CLOSED END TRANSMISSION ACQUIRING INTERNET HOST HOST ACQUIRED TRANSMIT MESSAGE MESSAGE TRANSMITTED INFORM SENDER I'm speaking to you all from halfway across the galaxy, god I hope this message makes it's way through all the tachyon gates, you know how unreliable those things can be. It's been awhile since I've posted here, I've noticed a whole new generation of sciforumers exist now and I tend to watch and listen rather than voice my opinion. I'm serving onboard a mercenary craft fighting off nomadic invaders, it's a small transport that we usually use to ferry rare ore and metals between outer worlds but now since the tribes that were exiled after the great exodus have regrouped and begun attacking the ISO's (intergalactic space organization) outlying starposts. I get to be the pilot and most of the time I hook up my controls to the weapons so I can fire too. I have so many heroic tales to tell. Once we were caught in an asteroid field lightyears across with rocks moving at mach fifteen. We had been caught by a group of pirates near one of the newer colony worlds. I flew through those things for three hours while under fire a full squad of heavy assault fighters, I was blinded by so many laser shots I had to wear a blindfold for another week for my eyes to heal. We made it out eventually after flying around one of the larger planetoids. A group of asteroids flew into the leader and the explosion fried the sensors of his friends, and as you can understand their fate wasn't too much different than his. I'm getting a signal from the ISO right now, looks like they want me to be part of some sort of raid right now. I'm trying to convince the captain (she can be a real hardass) to let me go back to Earth to attend the convention, I have my doubts though since it'd take me a few weeks plus a half a years salary to get there. Maybe if this raid works out I might get a bonus, I dunno. I'll be back later, my coffee break's over and we're coming up on a mining platform. Those things are amazing, I'm glad I'm not one of those poor Europians they enslave there. My ideals are shared be everyone else here. Catch ya later! THANK YOU FOR ACCESSING TACHNET
It's now time for the judging, which I can't do alone so I'm asking the Sciforums populous to vote for their favourite. The voting is to be done on the following post: http://www.sciforums.com/t4745/s/thread.html Please no vote rigging. Once the vote is complete (When the poll closes) the person with the most votes wins the MUG... Then I'm going to have to speak to them about sending them the mug. Hope thats all clear Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Great story Shrike... a real pleasure to read it.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Merlijn, wonderful advertisement, nice work.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Well, great stories are told here, but I will not do so. I am here just to read your stories. But they are all a pleasure to read. So there is some more sight at some members at Sciforums and how and what they feel/think. Good work Stryder, I am curious to know who is coming out of your poll. I try to vote any way, though I know you are judging the stories already. I saw this Topic just now and started to read immediately. Wonderful idea to help Porfiry with his good work to keep Sciforums running. Keep on the good work Stryder. I'll be around the next time you do something like this, for I love Sciforums. Great place to hang out, every day again.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
