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The Prancing Pony (Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread)
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And yells: I GOT 500!!! 
*sigh*...I haven't done that for ages....
Who said this thread was dead?
          
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I'm not sure why the funeral dirges are playing over here...
Even in the (temporary?) absence of the legendary Ray, the triumvirate of ric, vince and Downie have a great amount of history, respect and standing in the Metaverse. They're in third place, a position never reached by most empires, and are still supported by the points of players that may yet return, even as Gerakken and Kit have returned to GROSS. They are allied with the Guardians, a strong, vital and growing new Empire. They maintain good relations with most in the Metaverse, even if bureaucratic snafus are keeping a few wars going unneccessarily.
Grieve not for the Fellowship. They have weathered many a storm, and will likely survive this setback as well.
Oh, that's right, it's a marketing gimmick! Sorry! Movin' OUT! 
  
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| still supported by the points of players that may yet return |
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It's true. I recently came back from a 5 month sabbatical. Someone said: They always come back.
  
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| I recently came back from a 5 month sabbatical. |
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Didn't stay in the alliance for long, did you?
   
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Hey, I finally made the top ten. I wonder how long that will last? I think I'll celebrate with another episode of my long-running epic.
Light Fingers
The last fingers of evening sunlight filtered through the leaves. Downie shivered; he sensed that something, somewhere, was wrong. He stepped up to the cottage, and knocked three times.
A peasant, clad in brown rags, opened the door a crack and peered out, nervously.
“What do you want?” he said.
“Ah. That is a long story. In essence, I am a humble travelling poet, charged with the task of restoring my elven kind to their dominion within this land. In this regard, I am seeking two ancient rings of power. I have traced one to the nearby dragon’s cave.”
“But... what do you want from me?”
Downie grinned. “Any chance you could spare me some boiling water? I want to make some tea, and I don’t have a kettle. Although, come to think of it, would you like to go adventuring with me?”
“Why me?”
“Oh, I don’t ask much from a travelling companion, except that they be less clever than I, and slower at running, in case I get attacked by hungry wolves and have to flee.”
“How could someone slow help you escape from wolves?”
“Yes, you’d be perfect on both counts.”
“Get lost!”
The next morning, he reached the mountain he sought. After a lengthy search, he found the secret dwarvish side-door, wedged open with an old shovel. Bending double, he crept inside, and walked into the gloom.
Downie moved lightly, with practised stealth, and ran his keen eyes over the treasure, and the monster lying in repose upon it.
“Oi! Wake up!” he shouted.
The huge shape stirred upon its hoard. An eye flicked open. “What manner of being would dare to disturb the sacred sleep of the wyrm?”
Downie bowed low. “I had heard that you were the wisest of all dragons.”
“I believe I am the last of all dragons,” said Glaug, daughter of Smaug, who was flattered despite herself.
“Exactly. And so, as the wisest of the elves who remain in this land, I come to challenge you to the sacred ancient riddle game. The winner shall be declared wisest in all Middle-Earth.”
The great she-beast ruminated upon this thought. “And if you lose, I shall eat you,” she said.
“All right. But if you lose, I can carry off a handful of your treasure, whatever I choose.”
“I sense that it was my treasure you wanted all along.”
“I can see there are no secrets from you.”
The dragon smiled, revealing teeth like daggers. “Very well, I accept. But I go first. What can I eat on a whim, can carry wealth from a father to a son, and can catch fish with its paws?”
“Nothing can do all that!”
“Is that your final answer?”
“Ah... An elf, a will, and a bear?”
“Indeed,” acknowledged Glaug.
“My turn. What can you see, that you can put in a barrel to make it lighter?” said Downie.
“A hole.”
“No, the answer I was thinking of was ‘light’.”
“My answer was just as good. Now, where is the only place you can run? And yet, a place you can never hope to reach?”
“Away,” said Downie.
“Correct again. Your turn.”
“What does a man have, that a dragon needs?”
“Flesh, delicious flesh.”
“The answer was ‘fingers’.”
“My answer was just as good. What is it that the poorest men have, which is more powerful than Illúvatar, Father of All? What do the richest men need, which is more evil than Morgoth, the Great Betrayer?”
“Stupid riddle game,” muttered Downie, who didn’t know that one.
“What did you say?” said the dragon.
“Nothing,” said Downie.
“Bah. Correct.”
“What? Oh, yeah, nothing, I knew that. What is made from dust and sand, yet is both lighter and harder than mithril?”
The dragon paused a long while. “I... know of nothing that is harder than mithril. I cannot answer.”
“The answer was ‘tri-strontium alloy’, a material used in the manufacture of certain industrial components.”
“I never heard of that!”
“Yes, I didn’t think you would have done. It’s something I came across in my recent travels.”
“It wasn’t a fair question!”
“Of course not. Elementary game theorem dictates that the winning strategy in a riddle game is to ask a question that cannot be answered. Now, may I take my prize?”
“No prize for you, cheater!”
“So be it. I shall go and get a battle-axe and a suit of armour, and then I shall return to slay you and then I shall claim my prize!”
The cavern echoed with the dragon’s laughter. By the time she’d finished, Downie was gone.
She settled down to rest some more. Just one more century, and then she’d see about getting something done. If the elf returned, it would be a simple matter to end his life. She chuckled at her own cleverness. Of course, she would never have parted with so much as a speck of her precious gold. Those foolish two-legs could never understand its true value; they cared only for the glitter. And so she had woven a message into her riddles. The outcome was in the answers all along; elf, will, bear, away, nothing. And indeed, the elf had born nothing away.
And yet, some inkling bothered her. She wasn’t sure what; she just felt she was missing something. She twitched her nose, and curled her claws. And then she knew: a gap. Some little trinket, gone. How could this have happened? The elf was a thief! He had picked something up from beneath her when he bowed! Too late, she remembered the elf’s preferred answers to his first two riddles: light fingers.
The dragons’ code dictated a response: vengeance. Vengeance upon any and all two-legs she could find. She trod over to her pool, and lapped up some water. Then she picked up a gold coin in her forked tongue, and swallowed it. She heard the bubbling within herself. Her body swelled up with the gases that are hidden within water, the gases that can make fire. Buoyed, she began to rise off the ground. Steering herself with her wings and with gentle puffs of flame, she flew out of the great crack in the mountain wall.
Knock, knock, knock.
“You again?” said the peasant.
“I don’t suppose you know of anyone around here who owns a fast horse? Or an eagle? Or maybe a spaceship?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I may have just done something foolish, and would feel safer elsewhere.”
In the distance, a great shrieking could be heard. Glaug was back.
“What have you done?” cried the peasant. “You have unleashed destruction upon us all!”
“Well, you’re a peasant. You probably don’t have much to live for anyway.”
“Daddy? What’s the matter?” said a small, high pitched voice from within the cottage.
Downie rolled his eyes. “Oh, very well. I’ll take care of it,” he said.
He loosened the strings on his warharp, for maximum accuracy. He rarely did this, normally preferring to strike an even balance between deadliness and tunefulness, but it seemed like as good a time as any to adjust his principles. He strode out into the meadow, and let loose a great cry. “Glaug! You want this back?” he said, holding up the ring.
Somehow, the dragon caught the glint from up in the sky, and she wheeled towards him, breathing out flaming gases as she came, closer and closer.
He glanced around himself, checking the available cover, and saw the peasant, carrying some old spear, ready to defend all he held dear.
“Get away!” shouted Downie. “Save yourself!” But it was to no avail.
The dragon decided to go for the nearest, slowest target first. The peasant flung his spear, but the dragon batted it aside with her talons, and flamed him. He rolled on the ground, screaming.
Downie was next in her sight. She came towards him, very low. Downie leapt like a salmon, and...
“What’s happening?” said the peasant, dimly aware he was moving. “Why does it hurt so much?”
“Ah, you’re finally awake. You have serious burns across most of your body,” said Downie. “This would probably explain the pain. Can you walk?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“No, I suppose not. I’ll just have to carry you the whole way then.”
“Carry?”
“To the elves of Mirkwood. There are still a few left. They have some amazing herbal medicines. Might be able to save you.”
“My family! They’ll starve without me!”
“Actually, they’ll be stinking rich. I gave them first dibs on the dragon’s gold.”
“What happened to the dragon?”
“I shot her in the hydrogen bladder. She exploded.”
“You must be... a great warrior.”
“Yes. I used to go adventuring, you know, stumbling from one crisis to the next. But as the years went by, and I survived, I got the hang of it. After ten years, I was a great hero. After fifty, I had grown so skilful, there was hardly any challenge left to it at all. I had an enchanted sword, and could slay orcs by the dozen, or even trolls. After a hundred years of questing, on and off, I began to impose rules upon myself, to make it more of a challenge. I left my magic sword at home, and carried a blunt one. Then I cast that away, and relied solely upon my bow. But even that grew too easy after fifty years of practise, for I could fire three arrows at once, and have every shot strike its target. So I began to call myself a pacifist, and tried to win every battle without fighting. During the dwarf-elf war, I led an army, and ordered my men to retreat, time after time. After a while, the dwarves grew so weary of pursuit that they signed a truce. Then I took to winning battles by singing songs, with music so sweet it could mellow the hardest of hearts. And when this grew too easy, I turned my harp into a rather unwieldy bow, and began to sing with every fourth note just slightly out of key, and still found ways to survive. I retired from heroics; it began to seem futile. Every human whose life I’d saved had by now died of some other cause. I sold my magic sword and spent the money on beer. I tried to drink myself to death, but to no avail. It was at this time that the great exodus of the elves began, and I joined in; why not? Out in the Havens, I swore off alcohol and started to pull my life together. My memory of those times is unclear; I think they did something to me, to protect me from mind-readers. I know that years later, another elf, one of those who stayed in the lands of men, made the same journey, and brought news; the ring still existed. And so they sent me back, to prepare the way; they knew I looked innocent, and was unlikely to attract the attention of our enemies... whoever they are...”
“What’s happening?” said the peasant. “Why does it hurt so much?”
Later...
“Where am I?” said the peasant, as the elf laid him down on the grass.
“We made it to Mirkwood. Unfortunately, I can’t find any of my kindred here. They’re gone, I know not where. The eternal flame has been snuffed out.”
“How sad...”
“Yes, especially for you. There’s nothing I can do to save you now. I’ve carried you all this way for nothing. You will die here, far from your loved ones. After all I did to protect you, all I have done is destroy you utterly.”
The peasant winced, as a tear crept its way down the side of his red-raw face.
“Let me do you one last thing,” said Downie. “Let me sing you a song, the way I once sang.” He tightened the strings on his warharp, then began to sing and play, in the style of the elf minstrels of the olden days. And though the language meant nothing to the peasant, he found that the words wove a vision in the air. He saw ancient stories, and knew them to be true, utterly true. He saw mighty trees that gave light to the world, noble warriors earning glory in doomed defence of Gondolin, maidens of beauty beyond compare. He felt no more pain.
The song went on and, in time, the peasant’s breathing ceased. Downie laid down his warharp, and set off at once towards the Fellowship Halls, knowing in his bones that all was not well there; rubbing the stolen ring between his fingers, to soothe his troubled soul.
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Actually, he's an anarcho-syndicalist. He's just learned to take a detached, cynical attitude to humans, on the grounds that if you get all sentimental about them, you'll get upset when they die off in just fifty years time.
I've often wanted to apply game theorem to the metaverse. As I see it, the optimum strategy for a player is to simply join the biggest alliance. If, on the other hand, they want to achieve something more complicated, such as starting a successful alliance, the following techniques are indicated:
(1) Choose a popular theme to lure people in.
(2) Keep a constant flow of chatter on your forum.
(3) Destroy your rivals by the following methods:
(i) Try to get them to split up; eg, start a second Star-Wars-themed alliance.
(ii) Try to get them to stop playing so much. The best way to achieve this is to persuade them that they're wasting their lives playing the same game again and again. Or, if they don't have lives, try to talk them into suicide, which should be equally effective in quelling their metaverse contributions.
(4) Play more games. (This technique is of limited value, and probably not worth bothering with.)
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I've always been cynical. I just normally censor my more cynical thoughts. But today, I'm trying to keep up the constant flow of chatter. Anyway, it's not like I've actually talked any players into suicide.
Yet.
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I have a fairly set starting pattern, where I build colony ships for a while, then research to UT, Diplomacy and Nano-Metal Composition, build manufacturing capital, then diplo trans, then go for gravity accelerators. I trade fanatically with everyone, start wars between others, occasionally conquer a minor or two, and after a while I'm on decent relations, getting 90% of the galaxy's trade, and confident that I can win. At this point, I become indecisive as to how I'm going to finish it. With the higher cost of starbases, a mixture of conquest and culture/terror stars works quite well. If you do it all with conquest, it's hard to find the manpower. If you do it all with starbases, it costs too much.
Is anyone running the Fellowship website at the moment?
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I'd probably lose interest in it after a while. There's a limit to how much of my time I can spend on this game before I find myself remembering that the rest of my life is a total mess and that I really ought to be doing something more useful.
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Hello (insert empire name here)!
This is your friendly Metaverse activities coordinator stopping by to remind you about the upcoming tournament. If you haven’t already stopped by The First Clone War thread, please do so now (or I’ll take all your booze). Wild Wombat, Exar Kuun, kasualkid, and other GalCiv overlords are working hard to bring you a new level of imperial pleasure (no, not the kind that goes “ba-a-a-a-a-a”). Team up with other empires no later than February 25th and post your team within The First Clone War thread. Hurry! Only one week left! And remember, since it’s just a game (a game where the losers are the ones without a team), don’t get picky about who you team up with. 
KitWarrior, Assistant Undersecretary of Galactic Activities Promotion
  
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Yikes! Where is everybody? I would have thought to see something after Kit's spam message.  Hmmm.
[yells] HELLO!
Hmm.
Nobody home. I'll try down the hall.
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| Yikes! Where is everybody? |
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When it's 9pm for you guys, it's about 5am for me. Similarly, when America is asleep, I must keep a lonely watch over this thread, to hold the fort until reinforcements arrive.
I am willing to take part in this alliance tournament, providing I don't have to do anything different to what I was going to be doing anyway.
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