UFO: AM/AS Fanfiction contest and Fansite kit !

[Thorondor]

Cenega Publishing has just announced the contest "The Best Fiction from the World of UFO: Aftermath and Aftershock". The best stories will earn a spot on the Special Edition of UFO: Aftershock !!

 

So rouse your muse and spin a tale to ever remember !

 

Read the 'rules of engagement' and further details here, and make sure you check out Accounting troll's fan-fiction FAQ here.

 

::

 

Also, if you've thought to create a dedicated UFO: Aftershock web site, now is the right time: Cenega has made available a complete Fansite kit that you can download in our files section.

 

Let us now if you give it a go and we'll be sure to visit

[shagpuss]

Troll u have gotta go in for this!

[Slaughter]

So should you and anyone else interested in writing fiction

[Accounting Troll]

Shagpuss, I really think you should contribute something, or at least continue your current story. I want to know what's so malevolent about the Room.

 

If Cenega publish some fanfics, does that mean that they hold the copywrite as part of the Aftershock special edition? Can the entries be published on our site?

 

And the most important question: is there any money in it for the successful author?

[Slaughter]

I'll have to check about the rights. Should be a part of the contest description.

 

Regarding money, I think you'll have to do with fame

[shagpuss]

Slaughter can fame buy u pie?

[Slaughter]

Don't think so, but maybe pie is attracted to fame?

[Pete]

I'd probably write something but the fic out there already is so intimidatingly good

 

Besides, I'm much better at thinking up scenarios for X-COM in my head than Aftermath

 

Still, it's a great competition with a great prize!

[Slaughter]

Indeed! Maybe we'll have to break our promise about the newsletters one more time

[Accounting Troll]

You know where you are with pie and money, but fame is not necessarily a good thing. I don't want the laughably named News of the World taking an interest in my private life. It's pretty boring so they would have to fake photographs of me with some other 'celebrity' like a failed Big Brother contestant

[Skonar]

You guys (site management) need to set up something like a fanfic interest group. I nearly missed news of this contest entirely. XD

 

Furthermore, anyone got any setting bibles on the Aftermath/Aftershock universe? I know about Accounting Troll's FAQ, but this doens't tell me wether or not - for example - biomass smells like rotting eggs or, say, cinnamon.

 

Enquiring minds wish to know!

[Slaughter]

Yeah, a interest group could be nice. Troll could run it if he wants to, and he could send out a newsletter now and then. We'll discuss it this weekend amongst the staff.

 

As for bible, I don't think so. At least I don't know of any...

[Accounting Troll]

I don't know of any such 'bibles' either. When I compiled that FAQ, the only information I had was the in-game glossary and information messages and the publically available Aftershock interviews and screenshots.

 

Working out the answer to what, if anythign, the Biomass smells of requires looking at the known information in the in-game glossary and a lot of speculation, and this is what I think:

 

The Biomass uses psionics to regulate itself and control the transgenants in Biomass controlled territory. It does not use smells to communicate or to entice animals in the way that flowers and fruit do.

 

It is possible that the Biomass could locally emit a foul smelling substance as part of its defence mechanisms, like a skunk does. However, the local transgenants would probably prove to be a more effective defence.

 

The 'rotting eggs' smell is a byproduct of anerobic (ie without oxygen) respiration, such as in stagnat ponds and the digestive bacteria living in human intestines. It would be more efficient for the Biomass to aquire needed energy from the Sun through photosynthesis, just like the plants that it had smothered. As it destroys the local ecology, there is no other source of energy that it can utilise.

 

This does lead us to the problem of night time and local winters, especially in temperate and polar latitudes. The Biomass must have some means of either storing solar energy or transmitting it to where it is needed otherwise it would become dormant (and therefore vunerable) at local nightfall or the artic winter.

 

As the Biomass looks like a fungal blight, I can imagine it having a faint smell of mushrooms in some damp woodland in autumn. THis smell would only be noticed by people who have newly arrived from the space settlements, and even then they would become acclimatised to it in the matter of a few hours.