I think Rats & Cats gives the Iouo as overdue for return from the next spiral arm. Could be a nice thing to drop into the mix in Banners, or perhaps some state in the area decides to send out ships to try and find the vessel.
Of course, if the ship gets hit by a hobbyist virus, perhaps it goes on an 'ongoing mission of exploration'.
Eamon
>From: Antony Farrell <>
>Another thought occurred to me. When were the Solomani Rimward exploration vessels supposed to return? I picture
>them arriving years after the virus devastation. These ships would have been loaded with the then state of the art
>Solomani technology but still vulnerable to infection. The ship or ships become infected but the Sols are able to fight it off
>– they were also huge research vessels with again much redundancy and possibly some alien tech which helps fend off
>the virus. (Did they run into something similar in the far reaches, Cylons;))
Are you sure you're not reading too much into it, Dave? ;)
I always thought "Rats & Cats" was more an affectionate shorthand than a derogatory swipe. For one thing, it's quicker than writing "Solomani and Aslan". Second, it rhymes. Third, it's vaguely accurate - the Solomani are arguably "rats" because of their somewhat fascist government, and the Aslan are "cats" because they're kinda cat-like (and calling them cats annoys the purists, which is always fun ;) ).
Similarly, I think I've heard the Vilani & Vargr referred to as "Cogs & Dogs". All of the reasons I mentioned above apply here too - except that Vilani would be "Cogs" because given their bureaucratic society they can be considered as "cogs in the machine" , and Vargr are "Dogs" for obvious reasons.
I never thought any of that labelling was derogratory at all... (I defnitely don't think it's meant to be a swipe at the product either).
--- In , dcndcn13@... wrote:
>
> Eamon--
>
> I don't mean this as a swipe against you, but you raise an issue I've
> wondered about:
>
> > I think Rats & Cats...
>
> I often wonder from whence comes the hobby's habit to give derogatory > names to the game products out there.