Comments on "Joe"

[Sovereign]

Bah!

Half a photo, eh? Cut in half horizontally or vertically?

I'd like an autographed photo! Just kidding!

[Main_Brain]

Ya have to remember shes called Alinestra 'Sexylegs' Covelia for a Reason
My part looks like an Escaped Panda havin' a good Time

hehehe

[Kassiopeia]

*Emerging from the cloud of testosterone...*

*cough*

Anyways. If there's something I've always sucked at, it's been criticism. Dunno why, probably because of some bad experiences at that field. So I think that instead of praising you from heaven to earth and repeating all the possible superlatives and adjectives listed in this thread already, I'll give you a thumbs up - > and assure you that the time spent writing Joe was time well spent.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Thanks, Kassiopeia! Sometimes it's just a little "thumbs up" that hits the spot!

And Sovereign is looking increasingly likely to get nothing unless he gives me his email address.

[Sovereign]

Oh, ye of little faith, Alinestra!

Sent my E-mail address in a PM.

[Alinestra Covelia]

A few more pieces of errata/author notes to clear up:

1. Technological notes - Originally the story featured Shard weapons. I then looked up the science tree and realized that Shard was farahead of Fusion Power. Thus, in this story the most powerful weapon systems are all Chaos based. The Hiverian Carrier Vehicle Jian Guo Men is named after an affluent suburb in Beijing. It is also a massive anachronism, as the deep carrier bay special ability for ships only becomes available long after Fusion is achieved. Unfortunately, I had already written the entirety of Operation Garrett into the story before I found this out, and it was too late to go back and correct it. Finally, the UNP fear that the Hive had perfected cloaking technology is premature - cloaking ability is also very distant. Holopode stands for "holographic podium", a device that projects in 3 dimensions.

Measurements in the game is metric. There are 18 hours on Planet, and each hour has 100 minutes. There are ten fifty-day months on Planet, plus a shorter eleventh month of only 32 days. The month system takes the stem word "Luna" and adds the greek numeric prefix, eg the eleventh month will be called UndecLuna. As the Chinese do today, the Hive always states the YYMMDD, not DDMMYY or even worse, MMDDYY.

2- Hive people. The Chairman's name as it is spoken "Sheng Ji Yang" is technically surnamed Sheng. However, it has been brought to my attention by a reader that maybe the Firaxis staff got the order mixed, and the name should be "Yang Sheng-Ji". This suggestion has its merits, as Yang is a very common family name in China, and Sheng is not. I have no idea what the characters for the name could be - any suggestions would be gratefully accepted. Ota Kyi is an unknown nationality name to me. I suspect it was just concocted on the spot by Firaxians who wanted a vaguely oriental name to fill a character gap. It might be Japanese, for all I know. Shimoda sounds like a distinctly Japanese name - Naoyuki is the name of a very talented Japanese friend of mine. Ijoi is a Cantonese name, Sun is Han Chinese, Hu is Han Chinese (possibly Mongolian), Berzhinev is Russian, and Ma is Han Chinese. Le Dhu is Vietnamese. Mao Zhun is Han Chinese, but her real life equivalent is a Thai girl who was my housemate Hu's girlfriend. Second Zhu's words as he reluctantly authorizes the termination of Agent Hu's life are drawn, of course, from Blade Runner. The "HK" part of the "HK Transmission" is short for Hara-kiri. Dritnam is an anagram of the big badguy from the sci-fi series Lexxx, but its inclusion here was because it was also the name of one of my online friends. Joe was just a name that fitted with my requirements - a name that transliterated well between Chinese (Zhou) and English (Joe). Anhalt Reinhardt is a German name but his codename Aurum-4 is loosely based on a word that means "eater of gold".

The internal struggle of the Hiverian Intelligence Bureau owes much inspiration to John Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Tobias (Toby) Ballantyne's name is similar to the head of the London Circus in that novel.

Joe misquotes Chairman Mao ZeDong, who once wrote that he who has never seen the Great Wall is no true man. Joe is a graduate from Qinghua University - the scientific and engineering thinktank of China. The Otkretia Pact is a clear parallel to the Warsaw Pact.

Note that the Hive's Immunity to SE settings that result in Inefficiency is frequently mentioned in this fiction.

3. DataTech - The snatch of song which RapCafe Blue proprietor is singing fits perfectly into the rhythm scheme of National Express by Divine Comedy. The term "rapcafe" was inspired by a word "tapcafe" from the Star Wars Thrawn trilogy. Fusili is a codename, as it is a certain type of Italian pasta. Morganghast comes from a title of a well known book, of which it is an anagram. The unfortunate spy Avise whom Hu tortures is the same spy who escapes in Hiveria With Love, albeit her tactic would not work here because the story is already being told from the third person. Wing Commander Karn is a thinly-veiled reference to my RAF Command, whose surname is very very similar. He was also a thoroughly unpleasant man in real life and it is not an accident that Karn dies in the story. Lady Prynne is a name taken from The Scarlet Letter. Li Min is a feasible Chinese name on its own, but this particular occurrence pays homage to David Wingrove's Chung Kuo - a sci-fi work of amazing depth and drama. Sentry-8 is based on a similar plan drawn up by Mao ZeDong to defend against a mooted American attack.

Li Min's Gaian herbal tea has evidently been taking lessons in fetidology from Aziraphael's hot chocolate, in Good Omens.

4. Aliens - Anybody familiar with the mind flayers from Dungeons and Dragons will know why the Speaker I'Liphf'd, Caretaker technician/diplomatic attache is so named. Justin Bailey, aka sumaS, is a cunning reference to a certain Nintendo character from the superb game Metroid.

5. Gaian folk. Prentice is the name of a character from Iain Banks' The Crow Road, set in Scotland. Joely Richardson is a British actress who famously acted in the dramatization of the banned book, Lady Chatterley's Lover. The 'silken' reference comes from Star Trek. Prentice and Joely come from near Newcastle-Gateshead in Britain. Anybody as familiar with the area as I was during my college years will know that for two such citizens to become diplomats is something of a small miracle. Kumar Chakrabarti is a dedication to an Indian scientist who did, indeed, discover a strain of bacteria that could digest oil from oil spills and save wildlife, though some people raised concerns over whether the bacteria could accidentally destroy the oil industry if not controlled. Alex Lindley is a character taken from in-game, a Gaian doctor. ARBANT (the arborial antenna that serves as the Gaians' Empath Guild) is loosely based on a similar tree in James Blish's A Case of Conscience.

6. Peacekeepers, Aquascante. Aquascante is another nod to Star Wars - the Imperial capital is called "Coruscant" - Aqua here just means water. The Aquascante Treaty Organization (ATO) is a global treaty that is loosely based on another obvious real world organization. Segments of the nearly-incoherent rants of Captain Mooney of the UNPS Dauntless originally come from the song "Socks" by King Missile. The Spartan character Hommel is mentioned insofar as a base is named Hommel's Citadel. Navaede Sidhu is an Indian name. Lend Lease 2 is a not very subtle allusion to the Lend-Lease agreement, wherein American equipment and personnel aided the European theater of WW2. Much of the restrictions and boundaries of the DataTech-UNP cooperation are inspired by present day regional conflicts, especially those resisting reunification with some mainland country or another.

7. The similarity between the start of the whole story and the end of it is intentional. Further parallels exist between the train attacks on Hu and Joe and Dritnam's final mission. McClelland unwittingly imitates Li Min's posture at the end of the magtrain attack.

8. The Council Vote totals are only ever shown twice during the story. Unfortunately, a typographical error occurred which would have invalidated much of the rest of the story if left unchanged. Therefore, I decided it was more important to go back and change the error so the story would make sense. Those of you out there who sat down and calculated the votes involved will know exactly what I mean.

[Noel-Marcus]

Ota Kyi is an unknown nationality name to me.

I do think its Japanese. It could mean "cascade"

Li Min's Gaian herbal tea has evidently been taking lessons in fetidology from Aziraphael's hot chocolate, in Good Omens.

I see not even Neil Gaimen has managed to escape from the evil clutches of Alpha Centauri

Anybody familiar with the mind flayers from Dungeons and Dragons will know why the Speaker I'Liphf'd

Ahh, yes. But is he a vampire mind flayer?

[Alinestra Covelia]

Oh yes, almost forgot. The name of Operation Garrett harkens from the mind of a thief: the dark project being to steal two fusion drives.

[Raging Mouse]

Well done, Alinestra; You've finished the story! I hope that I too, some day, will achieve the same... but often I doubt it.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I'd wholeheartedly urge you to do so. Even though there's a slight feeling of loss now that the story's over, I still say it's best to put the whole thing out there and let it be finished.

Also, there are a group of people who are categorizing the finished fictions of this thread into the Apolyton Directory, so that when the thread drops off the bottom of the forum, others can still read it. Unfinished fictions aren't included, so any that fall off the bottom of the thread will be difficult to find.

I'd like to see The Wizard of Chiron finished!

[Alinestra Covelia]

Final update - the real life person on whom I based the character Mao Zhun passed away from liver failure caused by a malignant cancer.

Her real life name was Pat, and she was the beloved girlfriend of my housemate Bing. She died the day after her twenty-fifth birthday, on the evening of the 10th January 2003.

We will miss her - she was a good friend and an accomplished and talented individual. Her kindness and thoughtfulness brought joy to the Enixine household each time we saw her, and continue to do so each time we think of her.

Farewell to Pat

[Method]

well now, despite having finished the story a while ago, i havn't yet said

[Maniac]

I recently heard about the existence of the story "Joe", and plan to read it as soon as I find enough time. I already have read this thread though, and there are few mentions to "From Hiveria With Love". However, that story has been deleted. Therefore I was wondering: is there anything I need to know about "From Hiveria With Love" which will make me understand "Joe" better?

[Alinestra Covelia]

I can email you the whole story actually. I took it down because the story itself was largely written by a housemate, Bing, and he wanted to register on Poly and post it again to his name (because he deserves the credit, not me).

But after I deleted it, he never got round to registering and it:s been like that for a while.

PM me your email and I:ll send it. It:s quite short and really rather silly.

[Maniac]

Ok thanks. I'll send you a PM right away.