Mr. Paul-Usul Atreides

bilakaifa @ 2008-12-03T04:24:00

2008-12-03T09:28:06Z

This we know: The ancients destroyed themselves in the 60 Minutes War. Their superweapons left the American Empire and Greater China uninhabitable wastelands. The earth rumbled and bled for eons afterwards. Yet from this destruction the Traction Cities merged.
London was the first city to be made mobile. Soon the rest would follow suit until almost all the world's cities moved on tracks and wheels, floated on rafts and gasbags or skated across the ice on giant skis.
Yet fuel was not infinite. To survive, the cities turned to cannibalism. Big cities ate smaller cities, smaller cities ate towns, towns ate villages and everyone ate barbaric 'static' settlements. The eaten would be stripped down for fuel and raw materials, sifted through for valuables, their population enslaved or assimilated.
It is the year 13,000 After Quirke. The age of Municipal Darwinism is at its height. Great Urbivores devour each other across the hunting grounds of Europe, oblivious to the threats of the Green Storm and Anti-Traction League. Who will you be in this Steampunk Dystopia? Mayor of a hunting city? A worker shoveling coal in its engines? A Green Storm fanatic? A Lost Boy thief? An Airship Trader plying the Skylanes?
Whatever role you choose, welcome to Metrophage. Welcome to the future of survival.

Types of Cities:

Traction Cities

Traction Cities are the setting of much of the Mortal Engines quartet. They are cities that are made mobile through the addition of giant treads, wheels, flotation devices, hydrogen bags, skis, even sails on some small villages. They can range from tiny mobile villages of two hundred people to huge, multi million person metropolises like London.

Most traction cities follow the philosophy of Municipal Darwinism: Big cities eat smaller cities, smaller cities eat towns and towns eat little villages. Everybody eats unprotected static settlements. The devotion to Municipal Darwinism is almost universal. The residents of large cities consider the Earth unclean to walk on and living on it to be almost a heresy.

Some traction cities aren't Urbivores (city eaters) at all though. There are peaceful trading cities like Anchorage that rely on fast engines to avoid predators; scavenger towns that eat the wastes from larger cities; pleasure cities like Brighton; mobile fishing and mining towns; any possible thing a city could do to survive, some traction city does it.

The governments of the traction cities vary as much as their economies. Some have elected heads, some rule with Oligarchies, some with tyrants and some with hereditary nobles. As a general rule, the upper class lives at the top, on down the class ladder to the lowest classes who live at the bottom, next to the engines.

Static Settlements

Locations:

Traction Cities:

-London

The second largest english speaking traction city and one of the largest in the world, London is also the oldest, having first been animated by the engineer Quirke 13,000 years ago. London is cultured, bustling, and home to a sophisticated but highly stratified society. London's society is divided into four major and a number of minor Guilds. The Engineers are responsible for maintaining the machines necessary for the survival of London. The Historians are in charge of collecting and preserving highly prized, often dangerous, but often decorative and sometimes even useful ancient artifacts which are sought after and traded. The Navigators are responsible for steering and plotting the course of London. The Merchants are in charge of running London's economy. London is officially ruled by an elected Mayor. The Lord Mayor is Magnus Crome, who is also the head of the Guild of Engineers.

Like most Traction Cities, London is shaped like a wedding cake, built on a series of tiers. This encourages the system of social classes, with the wealthier nobles living at the top of the city and the lower classes living further down, closer to the noise and pollution of the city's massive engines. Atop the whole of London, however, sits St Paul's Cathedral, the only building in London - and indeed all traction cities - known to have survived from pre-traction times. The top level also contains a number of parks, the headuarters of the Guild of Engineers and London's parliament.

-Panzerstadts

The German "Tank Cities", these are grim places to live even if you're part of the upper class. Formerly the most ruthless urbivores in history, the Panzerstadts were united by Panzerstadt Weimar as an opposition to the emerging Green Storm.

The Panzerstadts are heavily armored cities with little light due to the massive armor plates protecting the city. When the plates close in preparation for battle or feeding, sunlight is completely blocked off and the streetlights switch on.

The Panzerstadts as a rule tend to have large militaries and aristocratic rulers drawn from the ranks of the generals.

-Harrowbarrow

An experimental suburb of Panzerstadt Weimar, Harrowbarrow is the world's first burrowing city. Capable of burrowing for days at a time with the massive jaws mounted on its front, it measures in at three levels and about two thirds of a mile long. It is under the command of Wolf Kobold, son of the Weimar Kaiser, who believes the era of great Traction Cities is at its end and the future will be dominated by small, swift predator towns.

-Brighton

Brighton is a raft city entirely dedicated to leisure. Every conceivable form of entertainment can be found here, from high class balls to peep shows, museums to opium dens. Brighton's social structure resembles other cities, except that the stratification is based on how high or low brow the entertainment is considered. Prostitution is on the lowest tier, and the social functions of the city's elite are at the top. In between there are tourist trap museums, subcultures of bohemian artists, live music, anything money and an afternoon can buy. Most of the entrances are on walkways that overlook the ocean.
The interior of the city houses the slaves and temporary workers that do most of the labor in Brighton and serve the city's upper classes.
The current mayor of Brighton is Nimrod Pennyroyal, the blustery, exxagerating writer of mostly made up "adventures". His wife is dimwitted cow named Boo-boo who is a patron of the romantic opera.

Airhaven-

Airhaven escaped Municipal Darwinism by taking to the air. Great bags of hydrogen ring the city and suspend it in the air. Airhaven is a trading center. Anything can be bought here, from Oldtech artifacts to slaves. Airship traders are constantly coming and going, unloading their cargoes.

City Application:

Name of City:

Number of tiers:

Approximate Length/Width:

Population:

Armanent/Military:

Propulsion: [wheels, treads, lifting gas, raft, skis, burrowing equipment, sails, etc. Also specify what type of fuel it uses. Cities can have more than one type of propulsion. Note that if you apply for a city with advanced propulsion such as MagLev or Jets you should have a very good reason for it and know that other cities and pirates will try to steal it/eat you.]

Description: [note that you cannot app a city with a population more than around 300,000.]

Application-

Player:
Name:
Email:
AIM/MSN: [optional]
Journal: [optional]

Character:

Fandom/Series:
Name:
Age:
Birthplace:
Physical Description: [you may link to a picture here]

Personality:

Canon History: [you may link to a wiki or similar articles if you want]

Metrophage History: [remember, this is an AU RP. Your character must fit into this universe. If you need help/suggestions, feel free to contact a mod.]

First Person Sample: [this can be anything written in the first person: a diary entry, network post, etc.]

Third Person Sample: [at least two paragraphs]

Airship/Large Vehicle Application-

This is the application form for airships and other such large vehicles. Note that you are only required to fill this out for vehicles your character owns or is the exclusive pilot of. You don't have to fill this out for any vehicle smaller than a tank, although a brief description in your character's app would be nice.]

Airship/Vehicle Name: [if unnamed, "Airship/Vehicle belonging to ___"]

Length/Width/Height:

Max Speed:

Propulsion: [Note that if you apply for a vehicle with advanced propulsion such as MagLev or Jets you should have a very good reason for it and know that cities and pirates will try to steal it]

Lifting Agent: [Airships only, hydrogen, helium or maglev, with or without supplementary wings]

Armanent: [if unarmed put "None"]

Minimum Crew:

Seating and Sleeping Capacity:

Specs: [Optional. This is for fluff text such as "2x Renault Turbine Engines, 2x Rocket Pods loaded with incendiary rounds" etc.]

Description:

Literary Meme

2008-10-29T10:42:56Z

One of my more insane ideas. Pick a literary passage or quote of preferably at least paragraph length that encompasses, summarizes or reminds you of a character. Can not be from their canon. Feel free to browse wikiquote.

Lelouch:
* Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us.
o Hamlet, scene i

There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong
Mazer Rackham in Ender's Game

Lelouch and Kula:
"Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter: only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you—that would be the real betrayal."
She thought it over. "They can't do that," she said finally. "It's the one thing they can't do. They can make you believe it. They can't get inside you."
"No," he said a little more hopefully, "no; that's quite true. They can't get inside you. If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them."
-1984

Kallen:
Analysis of rebellion leads at least to the suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contemporary thought, a human nature does exist, as the Greeks believed. Why rebel if there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving? ... Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended.

* Albert Camus, The Rebel

"Then I want you to take a complex statement with you that is further in need of multiplex evaluation: The only important elements in any society are the artistic and the criminal, because they alone, by questioning the society's values, can force it to change."
Samuel R Delany, Empire Star

Paul Atreides:
Have you watched your thinking? I watched that car go by, it was a blue car. Can I watch my thought in the same way, as it moves from one thing to another? And if it does, find out if it can end; instead of it being a long thread, break it, see what happens. Can you break a thought and say, "Well, that's enough, enough is enough" and just end that thought and see what happens before the next thought is waiting. Before it springs on you, watch it. In that space, in that interval, what happens?...

Labels seem to give satisfaction. We accept the category to which we are supposed to belong as a satisfying explanation of life. We are worshippers of words and labels; we never seem to go beyond the symbol, to comprehend the worth of the symbol. By calling ourselves this or that, we ensure ourselves against further disturbance, and settle back. One of the curses of ideologies and organized beliefs is the comfort, the deadly gratification they offer. They put us to sleep, and in the sleep we dream, and the dream becomes action...

That is the first thing to learn—not to seek. When you seek you are really only window-shopping.
The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality, or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosophers or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself and that is why you must know yourself. Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self. To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.

-Krishnamurti

Paul and Rally

Through the hush of air a voice sang to them, low, not rain, not leaves in murmur, like no voice of strings or reeds or whatdoyoucallthem dulcimers touching their still ears with words, still hearts of their each his remembered lives. Good, good to hear: sorrow from them each seemed to from both depart when first they heard.-James Joyce, Ulysses

Ukitake (sorry Geoff!)
"They couldn't dominate Death inside the hospital, but they certainly made her behave. They had taught her manners. They couldn't keep death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady. People gave up the ghost with delicacy and taste inside the hospital. There was none of that crude, ugly ostentation about dying that was so common outside the hospital. They did not blow up in mid-air like Kraft or the dead man in Yossarian's tent, or freeze to death in the blazing summertime the way Snowden had frozen to death after spilling his secret to Yossarian in the back of the plane." Chapter 17, pg.176

[[Filtered to Staff]]

2008-10-21T22:20:05Z

To everyone who I snapped at or was rude to during the shortage: I'm sorry.

[to students]

2008-10-06T21:14:13Z

We'll be collaborating with the auto shop class this week, learning the principles of hybrids and solar cars. Bring clothes you don't mind getting dirty.

bilakaifa @ 2008-08-28T04:29:00

2008-08-28T08:30:07Z

taoofcrime (3:49:40 AM): I have died a thousand deaths
Greyscale00 (3:49:47 AM): oh dear...
Greyscale00 (3:50:22 AM): Lulu, just what happened?
taoofcrime (3:51:05 AM): she was fine. she kicked my ass.
Greyscale00 (3:51:35 AM): ...
Greyscale00 (3:51:39 AM): w-why?
taoofcrime (3:51:48 AM): *shrug*
Greyscale00 (3:51:53 AM): wait...
taoofcrime (3:52:07 AM): it's the price I pay. If the King's not willing to risk anything, how can the rest of the pieces move?
Greyscale00 (3:52:18 AM): pieces?
taoofcrime (3:52:30 AM): ...chess?
RSO717 (3:52:34 AM): Your comparison leaves a glaring error.
taoofcrime (3:52:46 AM): [lulu's theme song is one night in bangkok]
RSO717 (3:52:55 AM): Considering the king makes the fewest moves, and has the least ability to do so.
Greyscale00 (3:53:02 AM): people aren't chess pieces Lulu
taoofcrime (3:53:15 AM): hmmph.
taoofcrime (3:53:50 AM): then why do they act like them? why are they so predictable?
taoofcrime (3:54:43 AM): [he's getting philosiphical]
Greyscale00 (3:54:46 AM): ...so you feel the need to manipulate them
RSO717 (3:55:22 AM): They're only predictable if you watch the predictable ones.
RSO717 (3:55:50 AM): That said, instinct leads all human beings that path. You are also predictable.
taoofcrime (3:56:04 AM): oh really, Yuy? how?
RSO717 (3:56:26 AM): You panic under pressure too easily.
taoofcrime (3:56:49 AM): I do not. I've faced far worse and lived to tell.
RSO717 (3:56:53 AM): Particularly when your strong pieces are threatened. The points at which you need to be the strongest player.
RSO717 (3:57:16 AM): From what I have just observed, you act too rashly. It will be your downfall.
RSO717 (3:57:36 AM): Following your emotions is key. But doing so blindly is foolish.
Greyscale00 (3:57:45 AM): ....
taoofcrime (3:58:13 AM): No, it isn't. I should be more resolved. More willing to look rationally. Usually I am though. What's different about tonight?
taoofcrime (3:58:34 AM): And yes, Euphemia. If they act like pawns, they will be treated as such.
RSO717 (3:58:36 AM): Rationality isn't as important as emotion.
RSO717 (3:58:45 AM): Remember that.
taoofcrime (3:58:49 AM): that's odd, coming from the boy who never shows his
Greyscale00 (3:58:54 AM): ....
RSO717 (3:59:00 AM): Otherwise, you're an easily defeated doll.
RSO717 (3:59:25 AM): Don't confuse me with Trowa.
taoofcrime (3:59:37 AM): you two are a lot alike
taoofcrime (3:59:48 AM): although Trowa doesn't claim to have emotions
Greyscale00 (3:59:52 AM): So are you saying that if I were a pawn, I would be treated as such?
taoofcrime (4:00:24 AM): no. you are a queen and deserve to be at my side
RSO717 (4:01:18 AM): That's the key difference. He claims to have none. However, my personal belief is to act on one's emotions.
RSO717 (4:01:27 AM): That's the most important difference of all.
RSO717 (4:02:15 AM): Goodnight.
RSO717 (4:02:24 AM): *Heero signs off lololol*
Greyscale00 (4:03:00 AM): ...perhaps he's right lulu
taoofcrime (4:05:24 AM): maybe.
taoofcrime (4:05:42 AM): can my emotions protect you, Nunally and Kula though?
taoofcrime (4:05:58 AM): can it fulfill Nunally's wish?
RSO717 (4:06:16 AM): (GOIN TO SLEEP NAO o/)
Greyscale00 (4:06:50 AM): [*wave*]
RSO717 (4:07:12 AM) has left the room.
Greyscale00 (4:08:01 AM): I believe so, you've come this far on your own after all
Greyscale00 (4:09:43 AM): But don't think we're all in need of constatn protection, we're much stronger than that you know
HowMuchINeedYou (4:10:21 AM) has left the room.
taoofcrime (4:10:23 AM): I...ok. But what use am I if you don't need me?
Greyscale00 (4:11:23 AM): Silly, of course we need you!
taoofcrime (4:11:43 AM): for what?
taoofcrime (4:12:02 AM): [fluff explosion in 3...2..1...]
Greyscale00 (4:12:36 AM): [gets scope ready for cavities]
Greyscale00 (4:13:18 AM): for being you
Greyscale00 (4:13:55 AM): nunnaly want's her brother there just for who he is right?
Greyscale00 (4:14:35 AM): He doesn't need to be a masked super hero or anything
taoofcrime (4:20:05 AM): [rimshot]
taoofcrime (4:20:25 AM): maybe. but Lelouch the ordinary high school student can't fulfill her dream
Greyscale00 (4:24:32 AM): oh Lulu...maybe you'll understand some day...
taoofcrime (4:25:09 AM): maybe after i've won this little war I will. in the meantime, I love you sister, and goodnight
Greyscale00 (4:25:16 AM): but...oh my it's late! I think I shal turn in for the morning
Greyscale00 (4:25:24 AM): goodnight!
Greyscale00 (4:25:35 AM): *crash