Starstruck

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  • Temple of Beauty

    A school of beauty and modelng, originally owned and operated by Verloona Ti (born Maggie Medea), with branches scattered across the galaxy. Their motto: Be a Krabian or Only Look Like One!

    Temptation Cloister

    Temptation Cloister Flyer & Sister Bot in Lee and Kaluta's Starstruck.

    Temptation Cloister Flyer & Sister Bot

    Located on the infamous Rec Station 97, Temptation Cloister is, arguably, the most tempting of all the Cosmic Veil’s cloisters, due to the various gluttony, lust & greed-inducing businesses in close proximity. It is also prey to the excess noise and distraction that the Sisterhood so abhors. According to recent studies, upwards of 82% of would-be nunz are led astray (into temptation) on the very short walk between the ships’ nursery and the Down-see-Daisy to the Cloister. Luckily, or perhaps due to good planning, Temptation Cloister is a smallish cloister, so that the loss of any prospective sisters is less of a problem than it might be. The Sisterhood’s recruiting program, carried out by sisterbots manned with flyers, is more than able to supply the nunz to make up for any shortfall. Many a female spacer, left penniless, drunk, ashamed, or bereft of hope outside some bar, casino, or peeny palace, has made an impulse decision to become a sister, after having a bot thrust a flyer into her face.

    Teomen

    A humanoid (barely) race that hails from Teo Parda, Barok, in the Xychromo Zone, known for the ease with which its members suicide. Even the slightest embarrassment will cause a Teoman to do itself in, usually slitting the several arteries inside the left thigh with its Ragh, a ceremonial dagger. Gifted with a highly developed sense of smell, Teomen are much valued as bounty hunters, though failure to capture its prey may result in a hunter’s untimely (and self-inflicted) death. And as a Teoman’s sense of justice very nearly rivals its sense of shame, they often go into the field of law, becoming first-rate barristers and judges. It is not, in fact, possible for a Teoman to become anything other than a first-rate barrister or judge, as achieving any rate other than first would result in immediate self-termination. Though culturally male, a Teoman reproduces asexually, with the offspring (or bud) growing from the parent’s shoulder and only freeing itself when its sense of shame has developed sufficiently. Should the parent be killed (or, more likely, kill itself) before the bud has detached, the conscienceless bud will attack, viciously, the being that either killed the parent, or shamed the parent into killing itself.  The bud will keep attacking, anything and everything, until it is itself killed. In 113 AE, the Rocket Rangers, an organization for young, humanoid males, stretched their rules to allow young Teomen to join the organization, though Teomen, while arguably humanoid, are not precisely male. The pride that the Teoman race took in being admitted to the Rangers resulted in a dramatic drop in suicides throughout the remaining cycles of the decade.

    Teoman and Bud

    Teoman and Bud

    Those Crazy Stars

    A song that received a lot of play (some would say too much play) during the early cycles of Anarchera, written by Celedon Rabe and sung by a customized model of the multi-myd, adjustable personality, male pleasure droid, Joe Andy Nova. Joe Andy (one of them, anyway) made a goldmine touring the settled Multiverse, after his (their?) song became a hit, though it has been speculated that any singer one might have seen, during any one of those shows, may have been any one of a very large line of Joe Andys. In the song’s lyrics, Rabe is lamenting the fact that he has been jilted by his android love and that, in all probability, she had never reciprocated his feeling in the first place. (One might posit that the composer had unrealistic expectations, as regards the outcome of such a union.) It is somewhat ironic that the song’s most famous singer was himself (or itself) a droid.  As with any wildly popular song, there have been many covers recorded, some of them substituting the word “girl” for “droid,” as well as other nouns (or noun-like words) that describe potential mating partners in various alien tongues.

    Just cherish what we had and then,
    Don’t dwell on what we coulda been.
    An’ if you’re left with scars,
    Just blame it on those crazy stars!

    There’s a big, black hole where your heart oughta be,
    Your own very singular singularity.
    It’s that age old problem, call it gravity!
    You sucked me in, little droid,
    So don’t pretend, little droid,
    ‘Cause those crazy stars, don’t give a boot for me!

    There’s that crazy laser show, where your eyes oughta be!
    Hey, they knocked me on my ass – I mean that literally!
    You know, I feel like I’m in Freefall,
    Tell me why don’t I feel free!
    My circuits all have been blown!
    Say, Hey, have you got a clone?
    Who’ll make those crazy stars shine just for me!

    From the moment that we met, I was light as a nutrino!
    I never woulda bet, that you could be so mean-oh-wo-wo-wo!

    There’s a crazy dimmer switch, where my love used to twitch!
    We went from hyper-WOW to sub-so-long and all without a hitch!
    Take a long walk off a transport tube, you trans-galactic Bi-
    (last word drowned out by horns)

    When space has lost all its charms,
    You’ll blast back into my arms!
    Till then those crazy stars won’t shine….
    No they won’t.
    Cause I aint getting mine…
    So they don’t.
    Because those crazy stars don’t give a boot for me!

    Thrace-Smythe, Sambo

     

    Emotional Colors #3: Angst and Agony

    Emotional Colors #3: Angst and Agony

    Well-known director and playwright, famous for producing very big works, with very big names, and of a quasi-religious nature. Little is known of his early life. He left the Boones Dock Academy of Speech and Drama in AE 23 after having lost his scholarship to an unknown performance artist. With the aid of an obsolete Miz Fix It droid (see: Handy Andi) and a Thialine Drone, he captured a Rootersnoos Beacon in the Noh Zone and began broadcasting the cult classic audio series, WHY? “WHY,” the voice echoed electronically down the back streets of the galaxy, “…or Blown from the Ass of God! The continuing adventures of Perplexus Eqs Youth! (dramatic music) Journey with me to the thrilling daze of yestercycle, when magic was real and every new beginning had a new name. (more dramatic music) My name? (ditto) Just call me…(echo effect) A CRY IN THE NOTHINGNESS!” By the time Rootersnoos discovered what was going on and sent someone to check it out, the voidspace surrounding the beacon was packed out to 58 sparlons with the ships and stellercopters of loyal fans that looked, from a distance, like a school of Aguatunesian tuna. WHY? was syndicated, Thrace-Smythe an overunit success. Between AE 29 and 92, he would write, produce, and direct more than 50 plays including Paraplegia, Metamorphica, Metaphorica and the enormously successful Aeriopagitica. Between Cycles 93 and 120 he became disillusioned and depressed and did his famous “blue period” work, the eternally running soap opera, Cycles Infinitum and the silly but financially rewarding musical, Let Go and Let God! In Cycle 128, Thrace-Smythe staged what was, by all accounts, the worst play ever produced: ArcheOrganaApocolypsia. Due to the public humiliation and the outcry at the ritual deaths of the Troikani actors Personus/Ex/Mahkina, Thrace-Smythe went underground for 9 cycles and emerged in AE 137 as a director of lasarounds. He directed 13 lasarounds and then disappeared mysteriously at the opening of his 14th, Phoenixflowerotica (based on Lotti Bo Sugar’s best-selling autobiography, How I Inadvertently Stumbled Into a Scientific Breakthrough and Was Blinded. He was never seen again. One explanation of his disappearance can be found in Kettle Black’s controversial play, The Persecution and Assassination of Sambo Thrace-Smythe, as Performed by the Members of the Guernican Art Squad, Under the Direction of Teronia Ta (or Thrace-Smythe/Ta). During the course of the play, Black (playing herself) recreates the scene in which she and two other members of the squad capture Thrace-Smythe. He is murdered horribly and his emotional essence, preserved at the last milirebec of his life, is bottled by Brush and Blaster ® (the Art Squad’s mercenary division) and sold as their famous “Emotional Colors #3, Angst and Agony.” Emotional Colors are mixed with any pigment and add to a finished painting a palpable aura of feeling.

    Ti, Geron

    A starhopping gadabout, primarily known as the second husband of Krystals ‘n’ Things magnate, Margaret Medea, and the father of Temple of Beauty magnate, Verloona Ti (born Maggie Medea). Upon his wife’s death, Geron inherited Margaret’s estate and, for a few cycles, lived as if there were no tounit. By all accounts a shallow, vain, but charming man, Geron vanished from the galactic scene shortly after the lavish and well-documented “Sweet Seventeen” party he threw for his daughter’s birthday on Recreation Station 97.

    Ti, Verloona

    Verloona Ti

    (AKA Maggie Medea) Star-Hopping celebutante and Temple of Beauty founder, third granddaughter of Hera of the Revolution, Molly Medea. The daughter of Molly’s sole offspring, Margaret Medea, by Margaret’s second husband, Geron Ti, Verloona changed her name, legally, from the matronymic Medea, upon reaching the age of majority, though she had begun using her father’s name some cycles before. Upon Geron’s death, Verloona inherited the balance of her mother’s estate, which included the mining, manufacturing and export concern, Krystals ‘n’ Things, and the family ranch on New Wyoming, with its much smaller riding and racing dog breeding business. Verloona’s main interest continued to be her own brainchild, Temple of Beauty, though it is said that pursuit of pleasure came in a close second. (See: Medea, Maggie)

    Tiger, Brigade

    One of the small, two-person ships that began as standard Brigade-issue system-ships, but evolved over time into state-of-the-art, multi-mission, thruspace fighters.

    Brigade Tiger

    Brigade Tiger

    Depending upon the nature and duration of its mission, an extensive range of life support, weapons and powerplant components may be fixed to the standard, Brigade-issue, two-person, fighter frame, wed to one of three progressively larger, mission-specific cargo hoppers. The hoppers may be fitted with any number of cargo packs, and are the delivery casement of choice for both Dumb-Chuck and Brainy-Boy minibombs. Once the mission augmentations have been mounted on the frame, the iconic Tiger hull is fitted over it and locked, the explosive bolts armed and the one-way permeable shield engaged. The shield can withstand Hyon beam attacks of up to 34,000 bamps, impact-point assaults to 18,000 and, in some cases, is enhanced with an array of pilot and/or gunner-manipulated Geisha Guard fan shields. As has been demonstrated under a variety of extreme circumstances, any of the Tiger’s cargo hoppers can double as an escape pod when crewmembers find they must eject into surroundings deemed something less than life-friendly. The powerplant combines a Proserpina K-Krystal Rack Matrix, common in thru-space vessels, with the articulated photon hoop surrounding a guidance stinger that gives the Brigade Tiger its oh-so-recognizable tail assembly. The powerplant is fed with the same sonic fuel that keeps the Brigade Chorus and Drum Corps swimming in royalty checks (See: Us Against the Void).

    Time, Father

    A personification of objective, or false-time, as opposed to subjective, or real-time. Ancient (pre-Expansion) humans pictured time as a straight road or “line” that mortals walked from birth to death (see: Time Lines), hence the expression, “You’ve come to the end of the line.” At the end of the line stood a tall and lanky, some might say skeletal old man, robed cowled, with a long grey beard and a long grey sickle. As the individual neared the end of his/her/their line, Father Time would raise his mighty sickle and cut her/him/them down. In the cycles before Running In Place and other means of life extension were readily available, this murder was seen as a mercy killing. A variation on this view of Father Time is found in the Brand New Testament of the March Baptists. Father Time is said to be a malicious, hunch-backed demon, brother to Lucifer. FT follows behind you from birth to death, rolling up your line as you go until you reach the end and, having no line behind you on which to retreat, fall into the Watery Abyss of the Anti-Zed.

    Tractor Beam

    Also, Tractor Ray. The opposite of a presser beam (or ray), the tractor beam is a device, consisting of a force field confined to a collimated beam, which is normally used by a voidfaring craft to retrieve or secure its cargo or passengers. In other words, the Tractor Ray attracts large objects to its source vessel over a distance. During the early cycles of AnarchEra, space-going pirates quickly learned that a ship’s tractor beam (or ray) could be used to waylay the ships of their victims, in much the same way as the pirates of ancient Terran legend purportedly used grappling hooks to trap and board enemy vessels.

    Triangle Mints

    Inarguably the most popular Galactic Girl Guide cookie of all time and the pinnacle, sweet-wise, Triangle Mints are known for their crisp mint-flavored centers, their dark chocolate-like coating and their advertising slogan, “Looks like a Mint, Tastes like a Dream!” It is rumored that the recipe for Triangle Mints was lifted from André Vaniteux, the famous Acadian chef at Stargazers, the hottest restaurant at Club Nebb, on the planet Hydrangea, though Guides maintain it was won from the chef in an honest game of chance. However it was obtained, the recipe has been a krystal-mine for the Galactic Girl Guides. In the interest of full disclosure, this writer, having spent some time as a Jaybird Class Guide from Moulting Wing, is in the position to know that some boxes of Triangle Mints may not contain the promised number of Triangle Mint Cookies. It is not, in fact, unusual for a purchaser to find that five or even ten of the cookies have been eaten and replaced with a wad of paper, or even an old sock. Nevertheless, thanks to the satisfying experience of chowing down on (however many) of these tasty delights, the buying public remains the buying public.

    Triangle Mint Cookie Box

    Triangle Mint Cookie Box

    Trivia

    1) The very first High Priestess of the Omegazonian triple goddess known as the Star Mother (See: Star Mother). Legend has it that Trivia walked down to Omega 6 (See: Omega 6) on a tiny beam of starlight, bringing word of the Star Mother’s love to her women (See: Omegazons). 2) A title of the current High Priestess and, indeed, any High Priestess of the Omegazons. 3) Matters that are, by their nature, inessential or inconsequential; trifles.

    Troikani

     

    Troikani Actors

    Troikani Actors

    The people of Troika (both singular and plural). The answer to the well-worn joke, “How many Troikani does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” has at least a dozen recognizable answers, all of them containing the number three or multiple of three, the favorite being, “Three. One to screw in the light bulb, one to offer a critique, and one to call the union and complain about being forced to engage in labor meant to be done by a lighting technician.”  A Troikani has an extremely flexible persona, a very shallow id, and almost no sense of self. It takes the hearts, minds and souls of at least three Troikani to make even one respectable psyche. Even so, they can quickly adapt to the most extreme environment, melt quietly into the strangest of cultures and mimic ANYTHING, creature or concept, in the known universe. They make excellent actors. When left alone, without the company of others of its species, a Troikani will have one of three reactions: 1) It will pine away and die, 2) It will run through its entire repertoire of roles (these collected over a lifetime) at a speed incredible to behold until dead from exhaustion, 3) It will call the actors’ union every marbec on the marbec to complain about everything in the known universe until the union sends someone to put it out of its misery.

    Twelve Ochs

    Homestead of the prominent Medea family, in the territory of Seven Ochs, on New Wyoming, one of two inhabited planets in the Phoebus System (the other being Mitochondria), on the edge of the Last Frontier. Before the rebellion that ended the rule of PAHM Bajar and made the name Molly Medea a household word, the ranch at Twelve Ochs was primarily known for breeding the sturdy riding dogs known as Wyoming Walkers. After the destruction of krystal-rich neighboring planet Vaikuntha brought an abrupt end to the great war (and a new source of income to the Medea family), Twelve Ochs became the headquarters of Krystals ‘n’ Things, the manufacturing and import-export business that was supplied by the family krystal mining operation in the Mitochondrian Krystal Belt (formerly the planet Vaikuntha). Krystals ‘n’ Things continued to thrive, even after Mary Medea left a significant stake in the belt to hired asteroid miners in her last will and testament. Both the business and the ranch passed from Margaret Medea (Molly’s daughter, Mary’s mother and business partner) to her second husband, Geron Ti, then to Margaret and Geron’s daughter Maggie (AKA Verloona Ti), who sunk a good bit of the family fortune into her Temple of Beauty concern. The name Twelve Ochs seems to refer to a variety of tree found on a number of planets settled by Amercadians during The Expansion; a species of tree that could not possibly thrive on New Wyoming.