Just caught this topic on LR and replied.

I still have XFire installed and still open it to keep it updated, like any other app I have but, I hardly ever use it anymore or, visit. It’s all changed and I really don’t like the way it is now. Besides, I only used it for Freelancer and many of the servers that were listed on it, are gone now.

you might be off topic, but you’re definitely on something…
(just kidding, but that degree of sci-fi really set up that joke)

Who knows what will happen in 2045… we first have to get “the machines” past 2038… As for the land speed record, that thing is almost changing all the time… I think the Thrust SSC now holds that record and it’s actually above mach 1. O.o

There was once a time man thought traveling faster than mach 1 was impossible, Chuck Yeager proved them wrong. There was once a time man thought you could not break the sound barrier on the ground (where molecules are more dense and compact more, making it tougher to break that barrier), 50 years and 1 day after Yeager; Andy Green proved man wrong again…

What’s another 50 years hold for us? I doubt it’ll be machines enslaving mankind, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s FTL technology or space bending/worm holes… unless we all get retarded like the movie “Idiocracy”…

**I am sorry for my nine month absence. Its been very hard to think of anything and feel particularly inspired, and eventually the fic kind of drifted into the mists.

But no more.

Thanks to everyone whose read this. I will try and come up with ideas and chapters more quickly in the future, although I think I said that last time.

In any case, sorry again for the wait and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Story the Fourth: The Lord, The Lackey, and a Daffodil or Two.**

As you may remember from chapter two, King was carried off by a passing Rhino after his fall from the LSF building. As it turns out, this started him down a road that would take him far from his homeland and the life that he knew.

About the same time, Lord Hakkera had returned to Honshu, where all was not well. As it transpired, a gang of fifty odd genetically engineered mountain weasels had descended upon the capitol city and ransacked the planet’s only bank. Lord Edo refused to reimburse the planet, stating that he needed all available credits to fund the construction of Sirius’ largest rubix cube. This would be placed in orbit of New Tokyo in an attempt to both counter the threat of meteor impacts, (and foolish Freelancers who kept buggering into the atmosphere), and also increase tourism.

The cube was later destroyed by the Hogosha who feared the contamination of foreign devils; also, they detested rubix cubes. There is not one Hogosha alive who can solve one. Before this incident, Hogosha operatives had been known to carry out armed raids on toy shops in which all rubix cubes were seized and shot. It is rumoured that they tried to pass some off as Dom Kovash artifacts, but that’s another story.

Anyhoo, in an attempt to repair his planet’s economy, Lord Hakkera constructed a quaint florists shop in the capital city. He encouraged others to create similar shops around the planet. No one was overly confident that this would accomplish anything, but they had little else to do so they did their lords bidding.

Two days after his shop opened, King fell through the roof after the Rhino’s pilot, (who had been delivering a shipment of Colman’s mustard promotional hats to the planet), discovered the hitchhiker on his roof and did a barrel role.

King, who was somehow none the worse for ware after his short trip through the vacuum or his long fall through the roof, picked himself off of the floor and inquired as to where he was.

Lord Hakkera was not pleased with this new development, his shop had not had many customers and he was certain that the few people who had come in were snickering at his bright pink apron which he had been told by his tailor was ‘a required garment for florists’.

However, Hakkera realized that he could make use of the Libertonian half wit, and promising him a free ride home on board a luxury liner in exchange for thirty four years of service, he put King to work, watering the cacti and feeding live voles to the Kyushu fang vines.

King did these tasks gladly, encouraged by the promise of three servings of lettuce, (a rare commodity), on board the luxury liner which would take him home to his trial and execution, long after he’d have been declared a deserter from the service.

A few weeks in, a customer entered the shop and requested a dozen suitably pretty flowers to give to his wife for their anniversary. Lord Hakkera was at this time attending a conference about mountain weasel traps. (They didn’t want to be caught out again once they’d sorted the economy out).

As a result, King was left in charge of the shop. Whilst the customer was gawking at the King shaped hole in the roof, he went to the back and examined the assorted plants.

The prettiest looking ones he could find were Kurile swamp weeds, which despite the unpleasant sounding name looked quite nice. King removed a dozen of these from the aquarium in which they were kept, let them rinse for a few moments, and then wrapped them and handed them to the customer.

The thing with swamp weeds however, is that if you don’t keep them in water they shrivel up and release a poisonous gas into the air that can cause eyes to shrink.

And shrink they did. No sooner had the customer, who shall forever remain nameless, grasped the flowers then his eyes seemed to vanish. In a moment of panic he flailed about the shop, causing havoc and mayhem and inadvertently stepped on one of the three Ripper mines that were clustered in the far corner of the room near the door. (Hakkera had bought these cheap on eBay and planned to drop them on the heads of any who sought refunds.)

Long story short, BANG! SMASH! WHOOSH! ARGH! shriek Clink, clink, clinkety clnk, sudden halt to all sound effects in the aftermath.

On second thought let me try that again.

Long story short, a violent explosion reduced ‘Hakkera’s floral distribution hut’ and sent King flying once more, this time onto the roof of a passing Drone. And thus he sailed off to his next adventure.

Hakkera, upon his return, was a little upset about his shop being reduced to ashes. Since King was nowhere to be found in the wreckage, he instead ordered a swarm of his loyal servants to take flight and hunt King down. The tale of their hunt shall be told in another um, tale.

Thus endeth this story.

The above posts are a way to explain the features of Freelancer.

FTL Travel: Character warping(switching ships) , Joining the server(sudden
appearances in space).

FTL Communication: Private, Group and System chat.

Trade Lanes: :roll: The obvious reasons.

Enjoy!

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Answer(s) to FAQ:

When we first started that bit of creative reasoning, I tossed the idea around on a sites dedicated to the ideas of space travel, parallel universes, etc.
Afterwards Robert and I developed masive migrains pouring over the following.

String Theory Site
Nonlinear Dynamics And Chaos
Relativity The Special and General Theory
The Uncertainty Principle
Maglev 2000
WAVE GRAVITY AND QUANTUM RESONANCES
INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL BY MEANS OF WORMHOLE INDUCTION PROPULSION (WHIP)
The EPR Paradox and Bell’s Inequality Principle
The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Argument in Quantum Theory
Stephen Hawking’s page - See also my link on (WHIP)
Ping Koy Lam - A major milestone toward that impossible dream was achieved last summer by Ping Koy Lam at the Australian National University. He successfully teleported a beam of light. “We cannot teleport matter as yet,” he says. No one claims building a teleportation machine will be easy. What is more important is that no one is saying it will be impossible.(associated links below)
ANU Quantum Optics
ScienceWise at ANU - National Institute for Environment - ANU

The Latin phrase “In-Vitro” means “in an artificial environment outside the living organism.” Thus, “In-Vitro” refers to the group of humans who were not only fertilized outside the womb, but had also gestated in a tank, to be “born” as young adults.

During the Alliance/Coalition War, the cost in human life was devastatingly high in the civilian population as well as in the military. Terror attacks claimed far too many. Combat and battle claimed even more. Everyday, the losses mounted. Humankind made the decision to increase its numbers artificially, not with the electronic intelligences that were now the enemy but with artificially gestated humans who could become highly skilled soldiers. Government and industry worked together to build a multitude of In-Vitro facilities around the country, facilities where these soldiers could be grown and trained.
After artificial fertilization, In-Vitros gestate in tanks, with umbilical cords at the base of their necks delivering the nutrients and basics they need as they remain suspended in a sleep state and under accelerated development. After about six years, their physical development is equivalent to a natural-born human at eighteen years of age. When they are “harvested” from the tank and awakened, they have the physical qualities of a fully grown human, but none of the intellectual or emotional attributes. They don’t understand love of self, love of family, love of friends, or love of country. They don’t understand the human world or anything about its society and how it evolved over the millennia. And nothing is done to remedy that deficiency. Instead of receiving any social education, they are indoctrinated into the art of killing.
Watched daily and trained by Monitors, they are never allowed to question anything. If they do, they are considered “defective” and promptly “erased.” They are never released outside the facility until it is time for them to enter combat. Unfortunately, the production of In-Vitro soldiers was, “too little too late” as the saying goes. The Alliance was defeated and forced to flee into the uncharted reaches of space.

With the colonization of the Sirius sector, humankind found itself with a population of In-Vitros lacking purpose and reason. A social movement arose to incorporate In-Vitros into human society, to educate and develop them, to cultivate them for labor or possibly even other ventures. In response, there is a palpable backlash against it, as many feel that the In-Vitros (commonly referred to as “NippleNecks” or “Tanks”), were to dangerous to the fledgling governments and were to be placed in cryo-stasis at an undisclosed facility. The last record of In-Vitro use was 80 years ago during the Sigma 13 battle of the failed Imperial Expansion War, after which they simply abandoned their ships and for all intents and purposes …. ceased to exist.

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This was written as a sort of back story to my character.
As well as a counter point to the CAF.

Sol System: Post Exodus

Humans call them “Nomads.” No human truly knows what they call themselves, but it served the war effort well to demonize the aliens. When they first appear in the Sol System after the Exodus, the Nomads are humanoid in form and encased entirely in polymorphic armor, a faceless, evil presence we can neither see nor understand. Our reaction to them is simple: they are evil and must be destroyed.
The first encounter with them was catastrophic. They attacked the Fringe colonies in the night, without provocation, without warning. The colonists had no chance. The attack sparked the Nomad Wars, and before humankind was fully prepared, the Nomads were bearing down on the Solar System. They had routed Earth’s finest combat squadron and were preparing to attack humanity’s home world.
The enemy seems to know much about humans. It appears that the Nomads have been watching humankind for a long time, perhaps from the television and radio signals beamed into space for over the years. Scientists suggests that the Nomads may already know an early Native American language that is being used as code, perhaps because they gave the Navajo the language. They also know something about English.
Their technology is superior to human technology in some ways, comparable or even less advanced in others. They are disciplined and even predictable in their combat tactics. It is from the C.A.F. that we hear that the Nomads have been watching Earth for an incredibly long time. These rebel C.A.F.s who have been in league with the Nomads, helping to educate them about Earth cultures and beliefs. All that the humans know is that Nomads fear we may discover something …… something they want hidden.