That makes sense. Russell certainly seems to recognize the guy. But maybe just as a billionaire, not a fugitive billionaire? He might not keep up with the news the way Bizhi does.
Also sorry for spacing out (pun!) and not having Kylah respond to the doc. I'll rectify that.
Just waking up from my near-comatose state to remark that Nia would certainly be touched that Graham's thinking of her so much that he forgot his wife's name. In such dark times, that might lighten her spirits a bit.
Okay that's all I had to... (conks out) Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
There are many different reasons why someone would want to make themselves scarce. Bizhi is more than a little curious. But the passenger is not in a dissociative fugue state, so unless he wants to talk about it privately, it is not his professional business. As for being a fugitive, it seems (business)people and perhaps mobsters are out looking for the guy, who may or may not be a little shady himself? But that is not Starfleet's concern, and there is nothing preventing people from travelling.Originally posted by choie
A fair analysis of the situation, I'd say.
See, now that's the difference between an objective doctor and someone who's spent her life spying in one form or another, sometimes unwillingly. Kylah's been taught--groomed, really--to seek information, and has her own natural curiosity as well. The stranger (she doesn't know his name yet) is still the weirdo who was getting special treatment from the Uwat and wouldn't even open his door or speak to her. That's puzzling.
And, speaking in a meta way, I always assume things told in the narrative are meaningful, so I'm piqued when things appear to have been told to us for a reason. So I'm hella curious about this dude with the provocative backstory!
But I generally try not to meta-game by giving Kylah knowledge or actions she shouldn't have/perform, just because I think some NPC's backstory is intriguingly specific. No one else seems concerned by this weirdo, so she just has to shrug her shoulders unless something else confronts them. Which seems unlikely.
Kylah could certainly make her own inquiries, if she wished.
You don't have to write a full After-Mission Report, obviously, but if you want to write a key paragraph or two, making what you believe is the most important point(s) for the Captain to know, please do so in the game thread. Your characters will not see each other's AMRs, as Starfleet policy prohibits working on them together or sharing drafts before submission, to encourage candid individual outlooks and to avoid groupthink.
Last edited by Elendil's Heir; 21 Sep 2025 at 10:01 PM.
A landing party from the USS Tupelo runs into trouble: https://condenaststore.com/featured/...0k9TsMVwjN1fcL
wrt AMRs one of the funny disconnects about Classic Trek's vision of the future and the actual future / present is that by the time of Classic Trek pinned-on TNG style communicators aren't recording absolutely everything all the time...
Top of mind because I saw a video about F1 (racing) and AI and apparently each car generates 1 terrabyte per second of data that's captured.
Wow! That's, what, almost 20 iPhones' worth every second?
Yes, Roddenberry and most other sf visionaries of the Sixties didn't foresee the remarkable expansion of computing power and data collection capabilities that were to come.
choie, your most recent link in the game thread didn't work.
Ah thanks, Chief. One letter off in the URL.
I always enjoy the opportunities to pick a Kylah outfit, bearing in mind the absurdity of Elasian styles as seen in Elaan of Troyius and reflecting what I hope is our girl's better taste and more modest personality. Here I was pleased to find something that works in being both humorously unlikely for a Yorktown officer while also containing more material than typical in Elasian fashion.
It's even less eye-rollingly revealing than the micro-dresses TOS gave its female officers. For Kylah this is practically a nun's habit.
Thanks for fixing the link, choie. Nice dress!
I'd like to move ahead to the mission debriefing (tomorrow, in ship's time). Let's say, three more posts apiece, and we'll fast-forward to that. Thanks.
I had assumed we were fast-forwarding, but now I am not sure(?) I do not mind if the story gets a little non-linear
Yes, we're beyond the already-generous three-post deadline. Nia has fallen asleep, so Graham & his wifey can just forget her & enjoy their dinner.
Forward we go, then.
Are the Mellophant pages loading particularly slowly for anyone else tonight?
choie told me there were some problems with the site, but now all seems to be well. My thanks to her.
Sorry for my delay in posting. Crazy busy here this week.
`Happy Thanksgiving, all (who are in the U.S.--I don't know where stolz is from, sorry)! You're very welcome, EH, but all I did was open a ticket. Our hosts did the rest--the problem was that we were swarmed with bots to the extent we were essentially getting DDOSed. We blocked the country IPs of the biggest offenders and that slowed them for now. It's the same ongoing battle, tale as old as time.
Got it, thanks, choie. For all you do to keep Mello up and running, we're grateful!
general, you'd asked about italics. Some months ago, Mellophant stopped doing italics when I clicked on the "I" icon under the Quick Reply bar; likewise bolding with the "B" icon. So I just do them manually. If you Reply with Quote to this line (you need not then actually post it), you'll see how to get bolded or italicized text.
Please post whatever you wish in the game thread by noon EST on Friday, and then I'll bring this mission to a close. Thanks!
Oh geeze, general_urko and EH, I'm sorry I never noticed that format/post button issue! I'm too lazy to interrupt my typing to use my mouse on the style buttons, so I always just type the underline, italics, bold, color, etc. codes on the fly. Now I see the smilie buttons aren't working either. I haven't changed anything in the code, though we did have to change hosts/servers earlier in the year, so maybe there's some conflict blocking that part of the script?
That'll be on the list of Things to Do in the New Year, one of which will hopefully be upgrading the forum itself either to a more current version of the software or--gulp--getting something new altogether. Whatever's more technically and financially viable.
Anyhoo, sorry for the inconvenience and negligence on my part. And more happily, here's to nearing the end of this epic mission, which lasted longer than TOS did! Pretty impressive!
No worries, and many thanks, as ever, for all you do for us, choie! I hope you're still saving the posts in this and the game thread on a regular basis, so we can reconstruct it elsewhere, if necessary.
So ends Mission #7! Hope you liked it. Questions, comments and observations welcomed.
As in past missions, I sprinkled references to a particular sf author's work, via character names, throughout. Did anyone catch 'em?
We'll start Mission #8 in one week, on or about Dec. 19. If you have a friend who might like to join the game then, please have them get in touch with me. We could do with at least two more players, I think; an engineer and a scientist would be particularly useful. Thanks!
Last edited by Elendil's Heir; 12 Dec 2025 at 11:50 PM.
Awesome! Five-year missions, indeed.
I seem to have screwed the pooch with the posting deadline, but, @choie, I had written that Doctor Mäkeläinen was going to spend his free time catching up on the latest medical literature, paranoid about having missed something during their absence. I do not know if he heads to Sickbay straight after the briefing or his next watch comes up later, but, whenever it is, you can take it that he tells Kylah she is welcome to come with him and visit Velir (who is in stable condition and may have visitors). Whatever psi stuff happens will come up in the next mission, perhaps.
At the moment I do not know any potential additional players; one person I already asked was not interested.
Hrothgar, Beowulf... I got that bit, but I do not think the author's name is known!
Thanks!
I am not sure how qualified I am to comment on this one - our company was acquired this year, which is generally a good thing, but the whole process had me super distracted, for which I apologize if it made me tardy and less thoughtful in posting.
With that context in mind, I found it a little complex - I'm not sure if we (as players) coulda shoulda pursued more threads which seemed to be there, or managed to get through in fine enough fashion.
At least the Captain didn't think we screwed up too badly...
I have a few tech colleagues I'll ask about participating.
In the meantime, happy holidays of whatever sort apply to this crew (and our GM).
Christmas for me, and thanks, general!
Woohoo!
Clarification of Bizhi's intentions noted, stolz, thanks! I figured he'd end up in Sickbay eventually.
Congrats to us all for surviving the cheekily named "War-Brotherhood of Irkhuit" mission! Especially EH, for keeping his sanity as we flapped around cluelessly and, in one case, went from PC to NPC adding yet more burden on our GM's shoulders.
- I loved the sheer variety of the plots and subplots, and in particular the unusual number of situations and settiings we encountered. From the Sarafina commandeering to a wedding and murder trial on the Yorktown to shore leave on a planet idyll, to the ominous prison, to the initially sleek but then flailing Tesla (RIP) and a frozen lake with vampire-like creatures, to a hospital and Port Authority and spaceport, the Doregg's nooks and crannies... and of course the seedy, violent, intimidating, loud, mysterious Black Sun. We may have spent years IRL in some places, lol, but there was always so much colorful detail to see and characters to meet.
- OMG all the juicy clues and plot nuggets...that our hapless PCs completely messed up in figuring out, lol! I loves me a good mystery/puzzle, and there seemed to be plenty of trailheads and byways that we could've taken to uncover them. I always had the suspicion there were a one or two mini-missions just beyond our reach or at least beyond our ability to trigger the right set of circumstances. EH, you must've been bashing your head waiting for us to say the magic words or ask the right questions.
I mean there was apparently a whole-ass spy ring going on with the dead guy and the secret message, but I'll be damned if we were able to follow that up. Kylah tried, but damn it, Bizhi and Rawlings refused to examine that bloody paper no matter how often she implied "HELLO IT'S LIKE LEMON JUICE PUT THE MESSAGE OVER SOMETHING WARM, IT'S SPY101 GUYS!" Sadly she also lacked the chops to figure out his communicator, and in the end all the goodies were just left with the local authorities. Poor dead Section 31 guy (not really, but he was something secretive!), left as frozen as the captives down in the Doregg hold.
- Stealth Romulans--and Tal Shiar ones, yet! Now that was a helluva plot twist, as was the reveal of the aforementioned captives. Everything was so deliciously ominous! And I loved the red herring of using the Chalnoth's rococo gang name in the title. Clever clogs!
- I also super appreciate the time and care we were allowed for character interaction and development, which (at least for me) are the meat & potatoes of roleplaying, though our clever, high-stakes adventures and day-in-the-life-of-a-Starfleet-officer elements are vital as well. I suppose the character stuff was responsible for a lot of the mission extended duration, as they always are--along with our slowed-down writing frequency, which is inherent to play-by-post games. Real life's gonna intervene. Regardless, I had fun, especially since Kylah got away w/o disaster for the first time in five missions. Can't say the same for Nia, which was a real switcheroo!
- Speaking of real life and characters: Of course Graham's...Grahamness was missed, general_urko, especially by Nia (if I may speak for SidonialGal*) but no wonder you were distracted!! Huge congrats on your company's success! Well deserved. And even if you were a bit less "present" than usual, I still greatly appreciated the Graham/Kylah moments. His protectiveness and pride are always so lovely to read. I'm looking forward to whatever we see in the future of Graham as a husband to Marala, an increasingly respected ACoS/leader, and a worried...friend...to Nia.
And well done to you, stolz, making Bizhi an integral and valuable member of the crew in your first, albeit lengthy, mission. He's a highly intriguing guy with intelligence, pragmatism and a touch of quirkiness. Truly a lifeline for Nia in particular (if I may speak for SG again**), but almost everyone was helped by the good doctor. I'm so glad you joined! Especially since frickin' Rangin/CIAS (his former SN) went AWOL, which put a damper on things considerably.
That was probably one of the biggest losses for me, playingwise; robbed of my primary scene partner. Not to mention his absence forced Kylah to get to second base with a mere understudy! (No offence to NPC!Rangin. He wasn't half bad.
* Yep, go for it - SG
** I said yes! Jeez. - SG
- I think the only real matter of some frustration, other than the aforementioned loss of Rangin/CIAS which couldn't be helped, was a certain lack of...what, agency, I guess I'd call it?...on the part of PCs. There was so much stuff going on and fantastic twists and terrifically realized original characters, all of which were highly entertaining to watch/meet! Yet while playing I felt something was missing, and reading through the thread, it struck me: Once we dropped Hutchinson off, the ensuing events would've happened even if the Tesla crew weren't there! Well, except for the deaths NPC!Rangin caused. (Still not sure about those three Chalnoth he zapped!) But the PCs were far less impactful.
I mean when an episode ends with the Romulans successfully duping us, discovering the location of the slaves, subduing the Uwat and saving the day, the Tesla Six ain't looking too heroic, lol. As players we must've messed up bigtime if we needed the baddies (and various Ollos hospital and port crew) to fix all of the problems and solve the puzzles! I loooove the surprises and shocks, don't get me wrong! I just hope we can be the ones to discover them a little more often sometimes. They'd still be as awesome, while letting us feel clever/industrious too.
...Er, assuming we were capable of discovering them in the first place. It's entirely possible that we were supposed to make these deductions but were taking too dang long to clock 'em!
* * *
Anyway, that was the only hitch in a wild ride that was a masterpiece of diverse races, locations, dramatic elements, speculative science/medicine, and calamities both personal and existential. EH, thank you so much for your focus, intense hard work, flexibility and downright plotting deviltry.
Now, some lingering questions, most of which I already asked EH privately when trying to guess what was in the hold ages back--and I was kinda sorta right! At least about the frozen folks. But I thought they were intended for an entirely different purpose, a la Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pies:
1) Was I right that the organic material on those blank pages carried by the frozen dead guy was lemon/citrus juice or the sci-fi equivalent, and that we could have seen whatever the message was if someone, anyone, had listened to Kylah's multiple attempts to get them to warm the damn pages up? Did any of this matter? Did we miss a sidequest by not following up on this? Will this come back to haunt us?
2) What is up with Rangin?! Did he really kill the guy in self-defense? Why does he keep passing out? (My meta reason is that he was too powerful and needed to be taken out of the picture.) Or is this To Be Revealed Later?
3) WTF was with the Uwat kids and their laughing at Nia? A minor question--pun!--but it's nagged at me!
4) Assuming it's not answered in the plot, who is that mystery human passenger?! Okay, we know Quinn now. Were we supposed to figure him out or was he just set dressing? What about the Klingon singer? The stabbed-by-Rangin dude?
5) Okay this is really tiny but: what was up with the game or device the Chalnoth were playing with?
That's it for now, but I reserve the right to bring up more questions when my Swiss-cheese-like mind recalls the ones I had while rereading the thread.
Happy holiday season, everyone. Ave Atque Vale, WARBHOI (as CIAS and I used to call it) -- and the same to the poor Tesla, which was the big shock death of the mission. Bring on whatever comes next!
Many thanks, choie! The mission went on far longer than I ever thought it would (why do I keep saying that!?!?), but I had fun, and I'm glad you did, too.
My responses are at the >> marks below.
1) Was I right that the organic material on those blank pages carried by the frozen dead guy was lemon/citrus juice or the sci-fi equivalent,
>> Yes.
and that we could have seen whatever the message was if someone, anyone, had listened to Kylah's multiple attempts to get them to warm the damn pages up?
>> Yes, although it probably would have been a dead end as to your mission - an aspect of some murderous local feud that had nothing to do with you.
Did any of this matter? Did we miss a sidequest by not following up on this? Will this come back to haunt us?
>> Not really, probably not, and certainly not.
2) What is up with Rangin?! Did he really kill the guy in self-defense?
>> Lots, and yes.
Why does he keep passing out?
>> He is still dealing physiologically with the aftermath of the Sakathian adventure, and its changes to his brain function.
(My meta reason is that he was too powerful and needed to be taken out of the picture.)
>> Hmm. I can see how it might seem that way to you, but no, not really.
Or is this To Be Revealed Later?
>> Yes, in a way. There is certainly more to it than you now know.
3) WTF was with the Uwat kids and their laughing at Nia? A minor question--pun!--but it's nagged at me!
>> Just some local color. I also wanted you all to be thinking subconsciously, "Hey, c'mon, how bad can the Uwat be if they brought their cute kids along?"
4) Assuming it's not answered in the plot, who is that mystery human passenger?! Okay, we know Quinn now. Were we supposed to figure him out or was he just set dressing?
>> Mostly set dressing, and (I hope) an interesting late-mission side story.
What about the Klingon singer? The stabbed-by-Rangin dude?
>> Both local color.
5) Okay this is really tiny but: what was up with the game or device the Chalnoth were playing with?
>> Just a distinctive bit of Chalnoth culture, to give them something to do, and you something to encounter/think about/discuss with them.
Thanks again!
And we're off for Mission #8!
No guesses?
stolz up there mentioned Beowulf and Hrothgar, but I don't know enough about it to know if that's right; I can't recall any other names of that style. (Also, I blush to admit, I DNFed Beowulf in high school when I could get away with it.) If that's not it, can you give us a hint? Like, what scene/setting/incident includes a character/ship/locale with a pertinent name?
The mention of Roble's studying an asteroid belt has me lifting one of Nia's arched eyebrows at the mission title. Of course, we've learned not to trust titles anymore!
Hey EH, a question: Will we have any off-duty time before the mission proper starts?
Beowulf is too on-the-nose to be the correct answer; there was literally a ship named that. Maybe something Beowulf-inspired?
The names all have an author in common, but not much beyond that. There's no Beowulf connection to 'em.
A hint: the names are from the works of a living American sf author.
And yes, you'll definitely get some off-duty time once the ship takes up orbit.
Oh dear, science fiction? That's me tapping out, then. I'm abysmally ignorant of SciFi novels. I don't think Hitchhikers really counts. Wait, wasn't there some reference to a ship called the Watney? I don't remember if that was the most recent mission or a previous one, and the $%@# board won't let me search. It feels unlikely that you'd quote such a recent author with relatively few books, but I'll pick Andy Weir, of The Martian and Project Hail Mary.
(Hail Mary indeed! A guess made because I vaguely remember a "Watney" reference that a) might've been from a earlier mission and b) might not even mean Weir's Mark Watney. Ah well. Maybe this is all promo for the new Hail Mary film coming out soon, in which case well done to you sir for getting a sponsorship.)
Yay for the off-duty time. Oh wait, I wasn't the one who asked about it. I mean: How nice. (Eyes shift shiftily in a very shifty way.)
Hutchinson is the name of a science-fiction writer (whom I am not that familiar with), so we can rule [i]that[/] out... I do know the Black Sun, though: that is from Stephenson's Snow Crash, and I happen to like that novel. There are other Black Suns, though. I can think of other poor guesses like that. We have to go by more than one single name.
Nah I'm a one-namer then I'm out. Like I said, I'm a dimbulb as far as literary sci-fi is concerned. The only other modern SF writer I know is John Scalzi, and both he and Weir seem too light for the likes of EH.
Wait, Stephenson? Neal Stephenson?
https://imgur.com/a/JrLbnZg
Good guesses, all, but no. I did refer to a USS Watney awhile back, and that was indeed a reference to Andy Weir's excellent The Martian, but this mission I was actually thinking of Joe Haldeman.
Capt. Enoch Potter of the USS Viraat is a reference to the hero of Haldeman's classic military sf novel, The Forever War.
Emily Martin, civilian defense counsel in the court-martial scene, is a name from Haldeman's terrific short story "Summer's Lease" in his collection Infinite Dreams.
The name of Cmdr. Kiichi Norita of the USS Rodgers is taken from another great Haldeman short story, "For White Hill," in A Separate War and Other Stories.
The name of Cmdr. Emmett Baird of the Starfleet JAG Corps is drawn from his weird literary-hoax novel The Hemingway Hoax.
And finally, Lt. Sarah Foley, likewise a JAG Corps officer, is from my favorite sf espionage novel, Haldeman's Tool of the Trade.
A reminder of the authors thus honored in previous missions:
M1 Heinlein
M2 Lovecraft
M3 Asimov
M4 Clarke
M5 Bradbury
M6 Scalzi
Who knows who I'll pick for Mission 8...?
I was not familiar with Haldeman...I learned something today.
New reads for a new year.
Wishing you all the best.
Likewise, general!
I have read only a couple of those books. So Haldeman was on my "list" of American sf authors I had actually heard of, but I guess the names did not ring enough of a bell (or I just failed to recall all of the names from Episode #7...)
Oy, SF authors only, huh? Makes sense for a Trek-based game. But looks like until you swap to a mystery theme, I'm SOL.
Meanwhile, since Nia asked her question over two weeks ago with no luck, I think she should move on and take her lead from her friend Luisa's remark!
So let it be written, so shall it be done.
Right you are, and thanks.
I highly recommend Haldeman. Any of the novels or short stories I mention above would be a good place to start, if you'd like to check out his work.
OK, sorry folks, I totally missed the start of the new thread! Sorry for being awol and to EH for clearing up my confusion!
No worries, and good to have you back!
How does Ens. Delaney start back in?
WHAT? OMG, I can't speak for EH or the rest, but for me, he could start however the heck he wants! What an incredibly welcome return you (and Jim) would be, holy cow!
Yes, I'm pleased to confirm that What Exit? has decided to rejoin us! He will pick up where he left off with his character Ens. Jim Delaney (you can see his character description in post 3 in the Character Profiles thread here: https://www.mellophant.com/forums/sh...acter-profiles).
Please look over the current Mission #8 game thread, WE, and then have Delaney come to the Bridge to relieve Lt. JG Demei Xiang at the Engineering station.
And a warm welcome back aboard!
In the Editor, none of the tools seems to be working. Bold, Font Size, etc.
Do I have to tweak a setting in my control panel because of the upgrade a few years back?
Manual Testing.
Test
Size 1 test
Not even smilies.
I was using the Mello Green, but have switched to the vB4 Default style.
This is in Chrome.
I just switched from Enhanced Interface - Full WYSIWYG Editing to Standard editor - extra formatting controls, giving it a try.
testing
This doesn't seem to help.
************************************************** ******
I explicitly allow Mellophant to use javascript now. Small chance this helps.
It did not.
************************************************** ******
Now trying it in Chrome
Bold
Oh well. Troubleshooting has failed.
Last edited by What Exit?; 20 Jan 2026 at 10:09 AM.
Yes, unfortunately we've had to change servers a few times because the version of PHP allowed by vb4 is no longer supported even on some of the oldest legacy machines. The forum as a whole kept getting borked. I found a host that would let us use a fairly old version of PHP, then hired a vBulletin/php guy to mod the software so it could run on this later version--basically, splitting the difference between what vBulletin wants and what our (3rd now) host can provide. It worked, amazingly, but something in the process does seem to have screwed up the javascript functions somewhere. My goal, when I come into some $$$ one glorious day, is to either port the forum to a different app or at least upgrade vB to something within the last 5 years.
Long story short: We gotta use manual code for formatting and smilies are only kosher if you remember/know the bbcode for them.Sorry about that! It's been a rough decade or so.
In-Game Stuff: Speaking of... wow, I just realized that you've returned to find Delaney got demoted as an NPC. See what trouble these guys get into when we're not around to control them?!
I don't know how much of the 3854392-page mission threads you've read, but starting in, uh, possibly Mission #4/Codex Aelyrr, Delaney's been helping out with a mystery subplot involving what appears to have been a malfunctioning communicator belonging to Ens. Kylah. Rangin was doing the investigating, as it does involve xenobiology as well as technology in a way, but Delaney has consulted on this and is a likely source for snooping. Since Rangin's in a coma and an NPC himself, sigh, maybe that's something you'd want to run with?
If so, and if EH hasn't caught you up on it--it's very ancillary and on the back-burner, so possibly it hasn't--I can hunt up the relevant posts for you, if you like? Just thought I'd mention it!
Huh, for that matter, Nia was nothing but a rando alien name on the character/crew list during Delaney's original appearance as a PC. I think she made her one NPC cameo at the end of the OCIII mission for Graham to admire, after which EH breathed life into her and gave her full PC status. The Yorktown's version of Pygmalion and Galatea!
Anyway, cool! Nice to serve with you.
Last edited by SidonianGal; 21 Jan 2026 at 01:48 AM.
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