Fun! I love that there are so many to choose from.

Please come join us for 3 events this weekend

The PVE Department will be running 2 Leveling Clinics this Sat the 23 first one for our US members will be at 9pm EST and the second will be 2pm GMT bring a toon that needs so levels and on Sunday a Special Task Force 101 we will be running basics on how to run each of the 4 STFs

the PVP department will be starting its Hazard Team join us for bi weekly PvP Sat 23 at 9pm BST, 4pm EST and 1pm PST

and the Operatons Department will be running Defera Invasion Power Plant Sat 23 at 11am EST and Sun 24 at 6pm EST u MUST be VA *50* to take part

Come join us

One thing I would blame is the system that when you're not representing a guild, you are also cut off from the guild channel. This basically stops your interaction with that guild completely. And people would tend to stick to bigger guilds, probably for the guild bonus or population. Eventually smaller half dead guilds become more and more dead... :(
The upcoming guild missions seems nice. But I'm skeptical to how effective it will be to bring guildies together (well since launch the updates don't seem to be going to a good direction). So I really hope there is an option for you to choose which guild channels to turn on, whether you're representing or not. :unsure:

Put together a little spreadsheet for keeping track of my bank inventory and character information. Should be useful for anyone playing GW2. I'm open to feedback or suggestions. At the moment I'm trying to come up with a way to pull current sell values from GW2spidy and input them into an equation for each item in my inventory to get an idea of current values/worth. That may be wishful thinking, but I'll look more into it.

I made it in Google documents so I'm not sure if it will load correctly in excel or not.

.xls
[attachment=1230]GuildWars2BankInventoryBlank.zip[/attachment]

.ods
[attachment=1231]GuildWars2BankInventoryBlankods1.zip[/attachment]

ooohh Science, you fancy!

Original:

Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi,
qui me ex versiculis meis putastis,
quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum.
nam castum esse decet pium poetam
ipsum, versiculos nihil necesse est,
qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem,
si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici
et quod pruriat incitare possunt,
non dico pueris, sed his pilosis,
qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos.
vos quod milia multa basiorum
legistis, male me marem putatis?
pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.

Three forms of physical sexual acts are renderable in Latin

1. Pedicator- Literally, "lover (fucker) of boys."
2. Futator - Literally, "lover (fucker) of women."
3. Irrumator- No literal translation. Oral sex either involving taking a penis in one's mouth, or licking a vagina. The only way to know if the act is being performed on a man or a woman is the gender attached to the stem of the verb. This was considered filthy by the Greeks and Romans, although it certainly did not stop oral sex from being performed frequently.

e.g. pedicabo is masculine single, pedicabi is masculine plural.

In Greek there were two types of love:

Aphrodite Pandemos- Common love. Love for pure physical need. Oral sex was always "pandemos," fucking a woman was common, and certain acts between male partners was common or pandemic.

Aphrodite Urania - Heavenly love. Love that transcended the mere physical act. Anal sex was mostly pandemic, except with your young man, but the physical expression that was always "heavenly" was diamerion, where the aggressor inserted his penis between his lover's thighs from either front or behind.

Now prepared with a short course on Greek and Roman practices, we launch into Catullus's poem.

Poems were used to woo, comment, or respond to daily life. Catullus 16 is a response to Aurelius (Marcus) and Furious, who asserted that Catullus was soft (molle) or womanly (mulierius).

I will make you my boys and fuck you (in the mouth),
passive# Aurelius and sissy* Furius,
you think, because my verses are delicate,
that I am a sissy. It is right that a poet be chaste himself;
it is not at all necessary for his verses to be.
My verses may have taste and charm,
if they are delicate and sexy enough,
and because they are sexy and can arouse.
I do not say boys—but this hairy pair
who can't shake their stiff penises.
Because you have read of my many thousand kisses,
you deny my masculinity?
I will make you my boys and fuck you (in the mouth)!

#pathice (pat-ee-kay)- literally means "passive" which is an insult to an adult Greek or Roman. In all affairs, an adult man was supposed to be aggressive or the top. Boys who had yet become adult were not considered having a male gender, they could bottom without repurcussions. There was no role switching or "versatiles" in Greece or Rome.

*cinaede - This word has no direct translation into modern English. We have many words to describe things that the Greeks did not think about or have the linguistic tools to create. It could mean "sissy boy" or "gay man," but scholars have argued about this word as much as the Greek "arsenokotai."

~J

Stickied the compendium for future reference. :)

Great find, ed! :)

Thanks for clarifying that about HK's gear, Odioshi. I was wondering what the problem was with that but I've just used him as is. I didn't want to have to go to the expense of re-gearing him but perhaps that's why he seemed to die on every pull for my lowest level toon. I just went back to using my healer companion but I'll check out what it will cost to re-gear him. It was my understanding he was supposed to adapt but I guess from what you're saying is the bug prevents that. The usual don't make sure it works before releasing it syndrome.... :angry: Oh well, thanks again for posting the reason, at least now we know. :dry:

I wouldn't even consider an electric car until this is the norm. I may not travel frequently, but when I do, I don't want to add 2 or so days to my trip to accommodate for charging time. I also don't want to have to pay ridiculous amounts to replace the batteries when they go bad after a few years, because they do go bad, and they are ridiculously expensive.

Really awesome. This will be incredibly useful when electric cars are the norm.

Polling will close on March 15th so please vote on one of the 3 options :)

Today I will post a poem of Catullus in the vernacular, without translation. This poem was translated by two seperate scholars in 1894. Sir Richard Francis Burton, who was offended by Catullus' frequent references to male on male sexual situations. The other translation from the same year was made by Leonard C. Smithers, who was less inclined to be judgmental. I will post my personal translation of it tomorrow.

NB: Burton's translations are considered altered by the translator. His translations are thus considered problematic by most reasonable modern Classicists.

Catullus 16

Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi,
qui me ex versiculis meis putastis,
quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum.
nam castum esse decet pium poetam
ipsum, versiculos nihil necesse est,
qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem,
si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici
et quod pruriat incitare possunt,
non dico pueris, sed his pilosis,
qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos.
vos quod milia multa basiorum
legistis, male me marem putatis?
pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.

This poem is strictly not a love poem, but it is interesting. Catullus greatly influenced Martial, who wrote some of the finest verses of "gay" love in Latin.

Chapter II: Being and Becoming

The green skin of Doctor Asiliaa glowed orange from the wall of monitors as she hurried along with her progress report. "...and as you can see, he's rapidly regaining complex problem solving, integrated motor skills, language code-switching..."

Colonel K'vot stepped towards the grid to inspect them more closely, his already ridged brow furrowed to focus on each of the recordings being replayed simultaneously. On one, the Vorta was sleeping in his bunk. Semil sitting, seemingly alone in a darkened interrogation room. Semil stretching. Semil dining. Semil at work on a Tarkelian 5D holopuzzle. Semil lying unconscious on an operating table, masked figures carefully inserting probes deep inside his temple.

"All very impressive, Doctor. But you know why I'm here."

"Of course, Colonel." Asiliaa was not used to having to be apologetic to Klingons, to anybody, really. But she, of all people at the facility, knew what was at stake. "The Lethean telepaths have been reporting their 'sessions' proceeding well." She gestured at one of the numerous monitors.

K'vot's attention turned to the screen. On it, Semil appeared to sleep on his bunk. As he squinted into the recording of the darkened room, only then he noticed the faint outline of the figure seated just off the head of the bunk, in the shadows.

"Now, I have little experience with their techniques," she continued. "However, I have every assurance from them that excellent progress is being made." She gestured towards the operating room video. "And the implants seem to have engrafted suitably, and are stablized. The input and output contacts are responding, and ready for programming input."

K'vot grunted his reply. Asiliaa had been working with Klingons long enough to recognize the tone as begrudging affirmation. She used the opportunity to press him, "Beyond that, I cannot say how the conditioning regimen is working. If you would only let us..."

K'vot turned sharply to face the Orion. His brow relaxed in a way she was not used to from Klingons when confronted. Though unable to admit it or even recognize it was happening, she flinched ever so imperceptibly, as the Colonel's towering frame came to loom over her. "Then you are asking me to inform the General that you are again questioning his methods? Deviating from his explicit orders?"

A passive aggressive Klingon, she thought. That must be new. Still, invoking the General was more than sufficient threat.

"Or perhaps you have forgotten your last several failures?" Okay, that one stung, she thought. "The General was understandably most displeased you were forced to destroy those copies. We will proceed with compliance testing in Phase II, as ordered."

Having sufficiently dressed down the Orion, K'vot's eyes returned to surveying the multitude of footage on display. Semil showering. Semil jogging on a treadmill. Semil reading. Semil -- wielding a bat'leth? The Colonel's brow furrowed again as he drew closer to the monitor. "Explain this."

On screen, the Vorta drew the blade back and to his right, winding up a lightning hook thrust at his opponent, a Nausicaan with at least a two foot height advantage.

Asiliaa's composure returned immediately. She was accustomed to brusque attitudes from Klingons. "The holodeck memory core suffered a complete fragmentation failure last month. We recovered only a few programs. The combat training simulations were the only adequate platforms that we could use for the motor skills assessments. As you can see --"

The Colonel held up his hand to silence her. A politeness by Klingon etiquette standards, she told herself. K'vot's face drew even closer to the screen, watching the figure spin and twirl the bladed weapon, now against multiple opponents. She could tell he was studying the movements, with an interest he had not paid to anything she had said.

"This can't... How many of these simulations have you been running?"

"This is level 6B. We only switched to these simulations last month, after the holodeck breakdown."

K'vot's ears noticeably pricked. The training simulations were designed for Klingon schoolchildren -- to supplement their live combat training, not teach it. It took most Klingons their entire childhood to reach 6B proficiency, and this -- pale, weakling petaQ had achieved it in a month.

He scoffed. "Impossible. The Vorta are known to be physically deficient. I would've been surprised if he could hold a bat'leth with both hands, much less swing it at a rock."

"As you can see, Colonel. He's doing much more than swinging it." She motioned to the screen. On it, Semil was dislodging one endpoint of the bat'leth from the rib cage of one fallen Nausicaan, using the momentum to swing it overhead and deliver a brutal slashing blow, straight down through the holographic collarbone of another. As a scientist, the doctor quietly gloated in the data speaking for itself.

"We had discussed the likelihood that the Augment gene vectors would have some effects on physical ability. The previous clones we made from this line had showed improved strength, reflex, stamina, coordination --"

"Which are good building blocks, but hardly the same as skill and talent, Doctor."

"That may be, but we've been seeing extensive synaptic activity arising in his orbitofrontal precortex and amygdala. Local dopaminergic levels and vasopressin have been escalating."

"Meaning...?" K'vot hated having to remind these scientist types to translate, necessary as it was.

"Aggression." K'vot blinked in reply, not fully comprehending. "These parts of the humanoid brain are associated with aggression and impulse control. We theorize that it's from the Augment vectors we recovered from deep storage. The human reports of their early experiments..."

"Do not match our experience with these selfsame constructs, Doctor."

"Yes, but that may represent a species difference. Using these constructs in humans may result in one outcome, in Klingons another, in Gorn, or Nausicaan..." Asiliaa trailed off, clearly excited.

"Doctor, you told us that the Vorta would make ideal subjects for these experiments. Unlike our Gorn enterprise."

"Only because Vorta were already an engineered species, and top of that, were perfectly suited to the Dominion cloning technology recovered during the war. But don't you see? We're adding human gene sequences. Our results clearly show some element of unpredictability..."

"So this is your excuse for the previous clones behaving so erratically as to doom themselves to termination?"

Again with the jabs. This time, Asiliaa stood her ground. "I'm saying that this is why we need to move up the compliance assessments. The General is never going to get his servile little soldiers if we waste time on clones that we're not certain from the beginning..."

"Enough." This time, K'vot's tone was certainly not polite. "I will make my report to the General. Your progress has been noted, and will be communicated accordingly."

"And what will be your recommendation?" Asiliaa had been reporting to K'vot long enough to know that he was relatively resistant to her innately Orion coercivity.

"We have wasted enough time. I will advise him that there is little reason to hold off on Phase II." Asiliaa grinned smugly at her small victory. "BUT," K'vot continued, this time with a raised finger of warning, "you will not proceed until my return. I will personally be on-hand to oversee the assessments." The Doctor opened her mouth to begin to protest, but caught herself, knowing that she would have to take the victory she'd been granted in stride. The Colonel excused himself from the office, only after her begrudging acquiescence.

She could deal with K'vot later, when he returned. Dealing with predictable Klingon values was easy. It was after all, this new player on the gameboard she was truly interested in.

Thanks for the kind comments.

I'm at a point right now where I'm filled with ideas. Now structure, there's the challenge. I'm also giving some thought to playing around with form in some coming chapters. We'll see how that goes.

It'll probably be coming in installments; work, as always, limits the time I have available for leisure pursuits. That having been said...

Hmmmm... 10 months to save up my stipend :3

Nicely done! Now, when do we get the rest of the story? It sounds like it will be a VERY interesting read and I think many will want to read the entire story. I know I do. ;)

WOW!!!!! This is truly astounding! Thanks for sharing, SaintPlasma. There are so many possibilities with this and many that haven't even been discovered yet I am sure. Just WOW! :)

Quote by Angelsilhouette

In case I missed something, is this going to be a C-store ship or a lottery ship?

Seeing as how it's a three-pack with variants - the precedents for that are the Odyssey and Vesta lines.

So it's a Zen ship.

2500 each, 5000 for the 3-pack.

In case I missed something, is this going to be a C-store ship or a lottery ship?