Nomadic Gallery (Fan Fiction and Art)

[bigstep70]

Personal Journal Entry: Corporal J. Picard (callsign: bigstep)
Date: Y.2087/D.322/M.unknown (maybe late March or early April)

"Finding that I have a lot of 'free' time on my hands, as of late, I decided to start painting."

"The local plant life is abundant and several varieties can be crushed and rendered to release various pigments, which I then mix with water, a bit of clay and some wood-ashes to create a runny paste. Voila! Paint... or as close to it as possible."
"Some of the colors that I've created are breathtaking to say the least. Nothing even comes close to this back home on Earth."

"The wonder of this worlds flora and geological structure is truly amazing to behold. At every turn, over every hill, is a scene worth capturing."
"I've painted a few landscapes here and there, and also some abstract work, but the abstracts are not really my thing. I guess I'm what they called a "Realist" painter."
"I've also tried to get close enough to sketch one of those tall horse creatures, but He would have none of that (I think it was the Alpha-male of the bunch). There must have been some young nearby because even though I was completly still and quiet, he quickly chased me out of the area. Tenacious beast!"

"And so, I try my hand at 'self- portrait'... this was the result."

'Hiding, for my life'
"I must say, I am getting better at this whole "starving artist" thing. Like, literally, if I keep crushing up plants for paint instead of eating them... I am truly gonna starve."

Short-fiction and art by bigstep70 (Jody)
I'm a brand new player... and loving every minute of it so far.

[bigstep70]

3 different pics + 3 seperate edit sequences (saturation, levels, overlays, blah, blah... all with paint.net+plugins)
then a quick 'blend them together', with tweaks in Pdotnet
took about 9-10 minutes, all said and done

I am truly enjoying being inside this world generator. This is random/algorithmic terrain generation at it's finest.
I tip my hat to all persons involved in the creation of this gem of a game.
Beautiful and captivating, yet uneasily dangerous if you let it get the better of you. I love it

[bigstep70]

Personal Journal Entry: Corporal J. Picard (callsign: bigstep)
Date: Y.2087/D.339/M.??? (still unknown. feels like spring)

"17 days! 17 days to fix that wretched AirBlade. What a disaster it was when I found it. From the way it was crashed, to all the dried blood inside the cockpit, this didn't end well for the passenger. I could find no body. Presumably dragged off by one of the planets scavenger type denizens. An easy meal I suppose. I'll hold a service in their honor, they deserve at least that."

"Making efficiant use of my time on this planet is a must as I'm constantly fighting the weather, of all things. Its like an angry, evil, bi-polar crocodile. Lying in wait untill I step outside the shelter to fix a leak, gather wood or forage some fruit... then, BLAM SPLOOSH downpour, and this is no regular earth rain. Bitter bone-numbing cold."
"Even the officers issue 'Mark 4 EXoSuit' has trouble maintaining static-sheild and environmental filters. Everything starts to shut down as the suits systems succumb to the blistering cold and the alkalyne nature of the planets atmosphere doesn't help matters. Every drop of rain that falls to the ground is full of alkides amd phosphates, it's a wonder anything grows or lives here, but hey... It is the other side of the galaxy, right!?"

"Three engines had to be completely rebuilt from the circut-boards right on up to the turbine rotors. 5 of the 6 armatures where bent to hell so I hacked them off and jury-rigged a system together that gives me a bit more blade clearance. The reactor had a crack near its core so I'm not taking any chances with that. I've strapped several batteries into a harness system instead, and wired them into a remote power coupler for easy on/off and recharchabilty."

"Now that I've had this thing in the air for a bit I'm feeling rather confident about my decision to head South. I do need to check out that smoke that I saw the other day coming from one of the large islands. I'm still not sure if this massive body of water below me is an ocean or a really, really, really large lake. Damn thats a lot of water. I hope it's just a lake."

"And it keeps on going ... the water that is. And going... and going..."

"And so, As the sun wanes above and the lands fade behind
With water all below and ahead no land in sight."
"I say to myself, Self, was this a foolish errand?
To throw aside all caution, to be so downright daring."
"I hope to make it through this one, come out unscathed, alive
But if not, Guess I'll see all you guys on the other side."

'first flight'
Short-fiction and art by bigstep70 (Jody)

[Helstur]

Bleddy amazing effort!

[bigstep70]

Bleddy amazing effort!

I just do it 'cause each time I play I get "game-world situations" stuck in my head, so I thought... what the hay, may as while have fun with it.
I get right into Roll-Playing my avatar within the world... most decent games "suck me in", and so, what would normally be an hour long game-session, I turn into a 'week long expedition' (5 to 7 game days). I guess thats about 5-7 hours of my real life. I got my planet days on 60 minutes.
Plus, I'm into the whole 'art thing' and this game is an artpeice in itself. Its so breathtaking, I can't help but take screencaptures.
I wish I could play on Ultra but my old GFX card just can't do it. I get really good frames at my lowered settings and the game world is still beautiful, so, no complaints here.

Thanx, more to come.

[Helstur]

Good. Keep em coming. My PC is low end by todays standards and I have to agree with what you say about the beauty of the game, I love the ingame music too. So chilled.

[bigstep70]

Personal Journal Entry: J. Picard (callsign: not sure about this anymore... is there a need?)
Date: Y.2087/D.345/M.lets call it May

"Woo-Hoo... I made it. And, I made it back. After 5 days of 'hopping' islands and getting bounced around by storms I had finally found my way back to the compound. Thank God. Not that "He" has anything to do with this backwater part of the universe... but it was either Him or Lady Luck that got me back, and luck has not been on my side as of late, so..."

"Nessy!... That's her name. The ship. My AirBlade. The old girls got some guff, that's for sure... and for her maiden flight, being as perilous as it turned out to be, she held strong. In spite of my whimpering decay and self defeatist attitude, she was the one that never faltered. She was the one that got me through it all. So now that 'We' are home and I've had a decent meal and washed the grime off myself it's time to power wash and "freshen the paint" on her. Gotta thank her somehow... fer' savin' my life."

"My Mk2 EXosuit was 'shot' upon return. I'm lucky it even lasted as long as it did. I've taken the liberty to salvage whatever I can from the suit and regain some "functional" devices that may be put to later, better use. I did manage to retrieve the nano-camera and IR receiver mechanism undamaged, so I've fabricated a 'makeshift' 20th century digital camera from old schematics I found in the Earth1 Database Archive. It was called an "aye-apple" or an "applephone"... or something like that, I'm not sure. Old earth was strange indeed."

"I took this photo the other day... with the... "Aye-Phone", thats it!. The planets radiation that bounces around the inner photosphere always, 'always' interferes with the digital interface. As you can see the results are bizarre and captivating."

'the new journey'

"One thing I've never noticed, that I did in the Aye-Phone photo, is that large monolith, off in the distance. That is a structure that I've never seen before and very much worth investigating."

Short-fiction and art by bigstep70 (Jody)

[bigstep70]

Personal Journal Entry: J. Picard
Date: Y.2087/D.355/M. its early summer... it's gotta be...

"It all started well. I was amply supplied and 'Nessy' was running in tip-top shape so off we went in search of the monolith I'd seen in the aye-phone photo. It wasn't long before I had the thing in my sights and so we made for a quick landing beside the monstrous structure... and that's when the S#!^ hit the fan."

"At 200 meters distance 'Nessy' started to handle a little sloppy but I thought nothing of it, wind shear or updraft at worst. Then at 100 meters she lost at lateral pitch control and we started to go down. I tried to direct us to a somewhat level area beside the monolith and that was my final mistake."

"Nessy went silent... all power failed, all control was lost and like a rock we crashed into the ground. The impact caused two rotors to break free of thier armatures and one of them almost decapitated me as it smashed through my cockpits Plexsheild (I thought this stuff was virtually indestructible... but it's not). Thank the stars the roll-cage deflected the blade or my brain-matter would have painted the side of that monolith."

"Once the dust had cleared and I had painfully cut myself from the 5-point harness (my wrist was broken and I'm sure I had a concussion) I proceeded to assess the damage to 'Nessy'."

"Only then did I actually notice my RadBadge 'shrilling' away... the geiger bar was completely in the red, no waver, no fluctuation... just RED.
"Radiation!!" S#!^, S#!^, S#!^ I thought as I grabbed up my Multi-Tool and Rifle and made a run for it as quickly as I could in the opposite direction as the monolith."

"I knew there was a chance of some radiation but this was off the charts and did not bode well for me, especially now. 2 days from the compound, by air, all my supplies (food and water) were obviously contaminated from the radiation. 'Nessy' would never fly, not without rotors and some major repairs at least. Besides, how was I to repair her now?, as she was basically nestled right beside the monolith in a smouldering heap of twisted radioactive metal."

"The radiation poisoning made the journey "home" excruciating to say the least. Walk 20 minutes, rest for an hour, walk, rest, walk, rest..."

"When I did finally make it back to the compound (5 days later) I felt like death had slipped into my body and was having a house-wrecker party.
And so after spending 3 days in Stasis and the medi-gel injections doing their work I'm able to get around the compound a little bit. The broken wrist will heal and the radiation scars make me look tough, I guess, even though they are still tender to the touch. My Mk4 ExoSuit is almost unbearable to wear at the moment but what other choice do I have."

"There was an 'old earth' phrase that comes to mind... "We went to Disneyland (???) and all I got was this stupid shirt"
I'm not sure what Dis-nee-land is, I'll have to check the E1 Archive, but it sounds fitting, so...."

'the journey ends'

"... I went to the Monolith and all I got was a wrecked ship, broken wrist, concussion, radiation poisoning and a long walk home with no food or water... Oh yeah, and this picture."

Short fiction and art by bigstep70