Ifix

Rebuilding an imperfect beast.

2006-05-22T05:54:42Z

I've been conferring with mib_khan over the repair state of the uss_murgatroid. His first priority, after balancing his internal chemistries, was to restore ansible communication to his clones. My priorities, were slightly different, though not incompatible. For the moment, he's been using his older backup systems for the clones on the ship.

Beyond that, Khan has been very consistant. I'm pretty sure that if I asked him to choose a repair priority betwen his ansible and life-support, he'd starve to death (or asphyxiate) before commiting to an answer.

We'll have full shields soon. And I've chosen to restore ansible communication before standard comms. This will make Khan happy, but that wasn't my reasoning. Granted, there are four of him, and individually they're about twice my size, with a slight tendency for violence and cannibalism, I don't have time right now for fear and intimidation. There are Khans all over the place, and they can use standard sytems and update the Khans here and elsewhere by ansible.

Propulsion, navigation and weapons come next, though I can't say what order we'll finish.

I can only hope that the ansible will have two-way functionality.

I feel ooky.

2006-05-15T02:04:19Z

The mental haze cleared slowly, but enough to let me know that there had been a large quantity of alcohol in my system. While Hurrrg do get drunk like other species, we also sometimes experience mild hallucinations or dissociative events. A quick check of some logs and chronometers indicated that I have been quite dissociated.

I wondered what duties I might need to perform, and so checked my PADD. At first, it appeared non-functional, but then I noticed one pixel in the corner flashing feebly. I then realized that the screen had experienced near-total burn-in with the sheer volume of flagged items it had been displaying over and over again. I didn't know that PADDs could fail that way; life on the the Murgatroid is always a learning experience.

The ship is in great disrepair, and I shall pay pennance for that, but for the moment Storvik needs me elsewhere.

And away we go!

2004-03-30T02:10:48Z

Even after a respectable shore leave for the crew, things have returned to their regular strangeness around here.

After a great deal of preparation and nervousness my inquiry got postponed because somebody may have made a clerical error, and I will need to report again later this week.

The command staff has played musical chairs yet again. storvik is headed to Earth, and Cmdr. mib_khan is once again the standing officer. Qaren and Beefcake seem to have recovered from their Sarin exposure, but they gave me an odd look when I asked if their treatments had gone well. I heard one of then mumble something about needed better sound dampening.

Khan has ordered us back to follow Storvik to Earth while simultaneously testing our warp drive. After my upgrades, our engines are operating well above Starfleet regulations. I have been able to reduce micro-fluctuations in the warp field, which allows more efficient control and fuel use, and simultaneously reduces sensor interference, allowing slightly greater range and resolution.

Unfortunately, the Captain's Chair needed total replacement. For reasons that elude me, both Security and Engineering wanted to make a micro-detailed impression of the seat before I sent it into recycling.

I'm glad that I'm taking time to learn spoken English better: A little while later they asked me some surprisingly astute and detailed questions regarding holo-simulations and cast modeling. I had no idea that they took such an interest in holotechnology. I'm not sure why they want to integrate recordings from the bridge sensors, but I didn't ask. Even though I find that I'm still sometimes confused by the actions and cultural references of the crew, some things are better left not pursued.

A question for the ages

2004-03-25T20:42:02Z

The central authority on the Homeworld has contacted me. Apparently they received information regarding my small part in the Janeway's imposter affair. Now they want more details about my involvement. They have requested a Formal Inquiry of Disposition with me next week. I did some discreet checking and found that the panel will consist of several colleagues from my previous post at the university. This will probably work in my favor and gain me some much needed prestige and income back home.

There is only a little to report in other areas, besides a random burst of harmless chronitons.

With the crew on Risa, I have been able to complete a vast number of maintenance tasks aboard the Murgatroid. According to the ship's repair logs, this may be the first time since the ship's shake-down flight that all systems have been performing within or above regulation specs at the same time. I've also done a great deal of leisurely fine-tuning and upgrading. I was even able to fix the long standing problem with the grav plating. Security immediately asked me to adjust the settings back to the broken levels, and kept muttering something about "handball scores", "frisbees" and "tiddlywinks records."

I wanted to give a complete report to Storvik, but he had just taken his pet rock back to Earth. I contacted the bridge and attempted to give my report to Cmdr. Qaren, but she said something about her Saran interfering with her duties and signed off. I decided not to question why she would be on the bridge while requiring medical attention. Her comment did remind me that even though there are nearly thirty Khan clones on board, I haven't seen any of them in quite some time. Maybe he decided to "thin his herd."

This reminds me that Lothar carved a message into one of the tables at the bar. After compensating for his horrible penmanship, spelling, drunkenness, and the fact that he used Ensign Thanatophobia's face as a writing tool, it said "Gotta pee. I'll be back."

Speaking of pet rocks, my spouse informs me that our Taakk has been having trouble adjusting to the nillop season back home this year. She sent along a picture.

On the Nature of Hurrrg Society

2004-02-27T05:50:59Z

My unorthodox introduction into the uss_murgatroid has suddenly flowered into a question of my rank within Starfleet. In order to give the doctor an idea of what my rank should be, in order to give me the promotion, I need to provide him with some more background on my society and my place within it.

The Hurrrg central government is essentially an oligarchy of techo-theocrats. Our entire society revolves around the worship of technology, science and engineering, and there are 4 major theological divisions. Each division has a titular leader, and each leader participates in the Oligarchy. Since the Wirists are mostly insane hermits, their positions remain mostly unfilled, reducing the number of acting oligarchs to 3.

The nearest analog I could find in my Terran History archives was a tiny theocracy located in the city of Rome, Italy, with a huge world-wide religious following, so I will use that terminology:

The Hurrrg are ruled by a Crown of Popes.

The Crown is supported by various Cardinals, who are elevated to the position by their respective Pope. Some of the Cardinals serve the Crown directly, on the Council of Elders, others administer various Prefectures and Cites, or other arms of local or regional government. Before I took my sabbatical, I was the Lord Under-Cardinal High Priest of Research and Education. My superior, the Lord Cardinal High Priest was on the Council of Elders and reported directly to the Oligarchs. I am not on the Council.

Being good theocrats, advancement is greatly influenced by education, achievement and piety. So in order to rise to the position of Bishop, once must have a great deal of education, prove that you know what to do with it, and delve deeply into the secrets and mysteries of the Creators. Elevation from Bishop to Cardinal is more political. It is highly dependant on more abstract things like family status and public visibility and acceptance. Whose nits you pick, and how well you pick them can go a long way.

My family is currently on the outs with the Council, but we don't know exactly why, since it might possibly violate temporal causality. As near as we can tell, some of our descendants about 300 years from now appear to have made inappropriate contact with natives during archaeological expeditions to the Pacific Northwest of Earth dating for numerous decades ending in the late 20th or early 21st Centuries. This is no small matter: the Hurrrg sentence for "Don't tell anybody you saw us," is Saz Kiv Fotch. The Council is not entirely happy that my current family might be the progenitors of the Ancient Earth Bigfoot. Because of this, it is unlikely I will ever get named to the Council, so my career will not likely go any farther.

In concise Earth-like terms, I hold several post-Doctorate degrees in Physics, Philosophy, Theology and Engineering and work in an appointed prestigious Government Research position from which I currently on extended leave.

Given my limited military experience, I'd say that I was probably Lieutenant Commander in rank, and would expect a promotion to make me a full Commander.

Don't hold your breath.

2004-02-24T20:58:27Z

Acting Captain mib_khan has asked me to do extensive repairs on the ship, but has not given me timeframe for the repairs.

There were some specific requests regarding power consumption of the replicator units, but these were easily rectified: Under non-emergency situations, the bridge now has the ability to re-route warp core power to a factory-grade replicator that I requested from Risa. The authorities on Risa asked for confirmation and reason of the request. As a communal telepath, I have a hard time telling untruths, so I let them know exactly why: Nutritional supplement generation for Counselor Lothar, by order of Captain mib_khan. The replicator arrived in less than 10 minutes.

Because of certain design limitations of the ship and the unit, I needed to install the replicator in the cargo hold. I slaved the replicator in the non-bar to the new unit, so that any requests that are beyond the bar's capacity will be correctly relayed and transported.

Since I knew that this would require a shipwide redesign of the replicators anyway, the actual request was for a factory-grade industrial military/medical replicator, which is why the Risan authorities wanted confirmation. I tied the Sickbay, Engineering, Ops, and Security replicators in to the unit as well. Authorized personnel now have a much broader selection of materials that the system can produce for them. The doctor should be pleased, though we may have to watch those who have small-arms authority a little more closely.

I was pleasantly surprised when my first tests of the system indicated a power savings of almost 80%; I was expecting an increase of under 5%, but failed factor in the scale: small replicators consume far more energy per manufactured kilogram than large replicators, and the new unit was handling more of the requests than I anticipated. A re-check of my algorithms showed that I was more efficient than I gave myself credit for. I defined "replicator capacity" in relative rather than absolute terms, resulting in the system shunting most requests to the new unit, since it would take less energy to do so.

This makes a difference in life-support and reclamation, since replicator technology is heavily used there. I'll need to retune the system to remove single points of failure, and to make sure that the life-support replicators don't overtax the internal transporters. Point-to-point transportation of air is very inefficient, even when factoring in the cost savings of replicating it in large volume.

My best test of the life-support changes was also the simplest: I used my sense of smell. I added a pleasant minty-fresh scent to environment, and then went around the ship trying to determine where it smelled the most and least and performed some re-tuning. I backed up my nasal observations with a tricorder, just to be sure. After I was certain the balance was correct, I removed the smell from all the ship's compartments except lower engineering, which always smelled a little funny anyway.

The overall power savings was quite impressive, but again, design constraints limited what I could do with the excess. After reducing the power intake as much as I could, I shunted the excess to internal and external sensors. This resulted in about 50% greater sensitivity and range, as well as an even less noticeable radiation and warp signature from the ship. Since the cloaking device automatically compensates for this, I didn't bother re-tuning it.

Such extensive modifications required changes to the internal logging system, where I noticed that Khan had requested updates of ships in orbit. In order to make sure I didn't interfere with his request, I ran a full planetary scan with the new sensor array and compared the results.

I noticed some differences immediately that wouldn't have triggered Khan's update. At various points in the past 20 hours, several ship-to-shore transports occurred without a corresponding ship in orbit. Further analysis indicates at least two ships, possibly more.

I have alerted Captain Khan, and initiated intense scans of the system hoping to learn more information.

Language Lessons

2004-02-23T22:48:08Z

It would appear that my spoken language skills need some work.

In response to my request for extended leave Acting Captain mib_khan has emptied the ship and turned her over to me for major repairs and upgrades.

Thankfully, with an empty ship, this will be really quite relaxing.

Now, where's my copy of "Advanced Spoken English for Non-Vocal Telepaths"?

Updates

2004-02-16T22:06:55Z

While on Earth, I took advantage of my diplomatic postion and attended a multicultural conference.

I was lucky enough to meet again with Data and Lore, who were both in civillian clothes for reasons they did not proffer. We had dinner with serval Klingon Language VIPs, notably the Chief Lexographer and the Director of the Klingon Language Institute. Tuvok was present, but made no mention of the recent troubles with mirror-Janeway. This may be because we don't know each other well, and much of the incident is classified, thus we had no real basis to start a conversation. Though I did notice that he was on crutches, and he made some comment about having hurt himself recently.

Part of the conference was occupied with cross-dimensional cultural interchange and a gentleman named Lennier gave the primary address. He was present with his daughter who was very well received in her own right. I did not recognize their species.

Another large attraction was the progress of the cross-dimensional documentary, "Revelations."

I also attended a technology session regarding the possible defunding of the Argus Array.

It was a well-appreciated break from the recent stress.

Stated Alterations

2003-12-29T06:50:58Z

More time has passed than I had planned.

The Doctor asked me to find out what was wrong with Lothar. Since I had no clear idea of what was even wrong, I informed him that results would likely take some time to compile, and that I wished not to be disturbed while I did so. I immediately went back to my quarters and modified the holocomputer and the emitters to effectively seal me off from the rest of the ship, or it from me. This was done partially for the privacy, and partially for my own protection. And I'm pretty glad about it too. I pretty much didn't want to come out after what I'd discovered, and I didn't want it to find me either.

I made a series of mistakes when deciding to go temporarily incognito:

1) I removed all the chronometric displays in my quarters, ostensibly to not think about how long my research would take and that some people were waiting for it, and I lost track of time. The natural Hurrrg body rhythms are highly susceptible to alteration. Since I ate when I was hungry, and slept when I was tired, I was not paying attention to the ship standard day. Hurrrg can also go for quite some time without food or sleep, if not deprived of both simultaneously. Upon emerging, after reviewing the logs of my personal environmental controls, which the computer did timestamp, I found that I had drifted into a 250 hour cycle, where I ate or slept about once every week and a half or so.

2) I let the Doctor know how to reach me in the case of a major emergency. He had one.

I'm still way off ship-normal schedule. This is bound to make me hard to locate, understand, or perform for the near future.

Home, on the range.

2003-09-21T20:52:28Z

I returned to my quarters in a rush. Evidently somebody had seen fit to send me a Priority 2 Emergency Message, using Starfleet channels. This was highly unusual, so it must be important. I activated my viewscreen and I felt my fur flatten against my skin as I read the message.

From the Interfaith Planetary High Council of Hurrrg:

Four days ago, at approximately 4pm planetary standard time, the leading edge of the previous week’s Isa-Bellar asteroid collision started to rain debris upon the surface of the homeworld. Planetary defenses were able to mitigate almost 90% of the incoming meteor shower, reducing the threat from Category 1 to Category 5. For the next 20 hours heavy metal meteoroids that the defenses were not able to eliminate caused massive destruction to the planet’s surface. Casualties are estimated at 25,000 people and nearly 4 trillion credits in property damage. Widespread power and basic service outages affect many populated areas. Central Administration predicts that power and other necessities will be restored within 4 more days. Other cleanup and rebuilding will take at least one month.

A list of known casualties follows. Do not attempt to contact Central Administration or the Council at this time. Communications resources are restricted to Priority 1 messages until further notice. During the emergency, abuse of the Priority channels will result in immediate excommunication. Restrictions will be lifted in 3 days.

I searched the list for relatives and friends and didn’t find any, to my relief. Other data about the damage was included, and while friends and relatives appear to be variously inconvenienced, no true damage to them really occurred.

After a moment, the urgency subsided, and I sent a brief Priority 1 message to Homeworld. The threat of excommunication didn’t bother me because I’m a highly placed authority figure on extended leave. This was the sort of event where checking in would be a good thing. Central Administration thanked me for contacting them, but did not require my presence, since most of the coordination and planning had been done in advance.

I am a landowner.

2003-08-25T16:31:54Z

A number of friends and relatives located me on SB668 and gave me good news: The Elders have approved my grant for a compound. It is nice but modest, not far from the planetary capital, with some living and sleeping quarters for my spouse and a guest or two, and a small communications and study center. While the facilities were secured several months ago, it was not truly ready for students and guests. We held a celebration to mark the occasion.

One of mib_khan's clones made a brief but pleasant appearance, as did several other friends and relatives in the area. My sister even managed to cross the quadrant with her prospective spouse. The Human and Vulcan artists from our recent Shore Leave dropped by, as did the Phariqua and a great many others.

We had a nice spread of food and beverages, stayed up late, and enjoyed ourselves immensely. I provided several virtual tours and proudly displayed some of the more interesting features of our facility, like my spouse’s museum of antique children’s toys, and our communications center, which the previous owner had furnished in a mock-70th cycle drug den motif. Obviously, The Creators have a sense of humor, and we have no intention of changing the décor. I especially like the imported Stukkan ceiling coverings, the retro-anti-worship space, and the several ultra-reflective surfaces. A human friend said something about a "Dysko Sphere," but I didn’t understand the reference. He was clearly not talking about a "Dyson Sphere."

Overall nearly 35 people came to the celebration, and we had a good time.

Evil Hurrrg have visited Earth in the past.

2003-08-18T13:16:28Z

Maybe this is what my decendants get in trouble for.

Shore Leave, Analgesics, Comas and such

2003-07-20T03:40:53Z

I accompanied mib_khan to shore leave. Due to a micommunication, Khan required my help in finding quarters. This wasn't too much of a problem -- my spouse had made previous arrangements with several other sentients about such things. A quick communique with Data and Lore, and Khan had a place to stay.

The organizers of the activities put together a blood drive, and I dutifully gave. While my maternal unit has universal donor blood, mine is also in demand. I gave before meeting with Khan; he had to come find me in recovery to discuss that evening's plans. My spouse and I ate with several other friends, including Data and Lore, a little-known Vulcan interpretive dancer, and a Human Shakepearean actor. Khan's diet precluded him from joining us. At this point we arranged for his quarters, and he, my spouse and I performed a pleasant religious ritual of welcoming. It seems that our repective beliefs have a great deal in common.

The following day, we met with many other sentients, and enjoyed the gathering. Later that evening, storvik arrived and we hosted a party for our entourage, including the the androids, the artists and the Pfariqua. The less said about the Pfariqua, the better. The Pfariqua assimilate individuals selectively, unlike the Borg, and can cause permanant hysteria. Luckily, Hurrrg are immune. I think.

After the private party, I proceded to follow Khan's lead and continued to mix my own beverages. I thought it was a great success, since I was able to maintain that fine balance between lucidity and lunacy. It was great fun. At this point my knowledge of biology and biochemistry failed me. Just before turning in, I took a generic commercial analgesic so that I might enjoy the next day a little easier. Four hours later, I woke of my own accord with a very mild headache and took some more of the analgesic. Apparently, this was enough to disrupt my metabolism. Just a few hours after that, I became violently ill, and lapsed into a coma. After consulting with Khan when I awoke, it appears that the "commercial generic analgesic" may not have quite the same effect on my species metabolism as I was led to believe. The combination of the analgesic, the beverages and the blood donation resulted in a metabolic shutdown of sorts. My liver may never forgive me, but my brain wants more.

All in all, it was a pretty good time.

Perhaps the beginning of the End of an Error of Boringness, and a lesson in High-Energy Physics

2003-06-27T15:07:25Z

I just learned that a former Elder Advisor died last night. He was almost 31 cycles, quite old for a Hurrrg. I had respect for his age and the title he held, but not for him or his ideas. I understand that he was always very polite in person, though nearly everything he said or did made me me wonder if his prefecture had instituted a policy of forced lobotomies on the inhabitants. There will be ceremonies and memorials and endless teletories about his greatness.

Have you ever been to a boring telepathic speech? Since Hurrrg telepathy is non-limiting and non-selective, we broadcast everything in our heads to everybody around. It takes years of discipline to control, and most people don't bother. This means that large groups of Hurrrg are telepathically noisy and emotional, so we tend to avoid crowds. Therefore, the only people at public speeches are the ones who aren't listening since they're too busy trying not to let everybody know that they're bored. Everybody knows this, including the speaker, so it's boring for being boring. A few people know this, so if they're not bored by it, they're amused, which they can't let other people know, since it would be offensive to let others know that their boredom has become one's entertainment -- which by itself is sad and boring.

So, to recap a Hurrrg telepathic speech: If you're not spending all your energy either ignoring the speaker to not be bored by him, you're spending all your energy to not be bored by the crowd, unless you're spending your energy to not be bored by the bordom, in which case you might be spending your energy to not be entertained by the crowd's boredom, in which case you're spending your energy to not let anybody know, unless you're bored by that, in which case you leave. Long speeches have ocassionally been used as a form of torture. Especially ones about the crowd psychology of boredom. Weak minded individuals have been known to go insane, and, the highly disciplined sometimes accidently shut their brains off permanently, if left unchecked.

I find this amusing.

The Creators work in Strange Ways

2003-06-13T13:22:43Z

I was perusing a human entertainment archive, and came across this:

http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2003024391613.gif

It seems that the Creators have been to Earth recently.

Time for meditation.

2003-06-09T20:58:49Z

Personal entry.

mib_khan and storvik have asked that I record my thoughts in this form for use in the future, if necessary.

The creators have blessed me with a bountiful and challenging task.

I originally stowed away on the uss_murgatroid to satisfy some wanderlust, since my avocation at home reached a peak. I have had much pleasure in preparing this ship to serve the Creators, and my ministrations have helped the morale of the crew. Though I was accidently discovered, the crew has welcomed me and made it easier for me to make my offerings. The ship is in much better status than it was when I found it.

This alone has pleased me, but the Creators appear to have more in store. At the urging of a ship's guest, one capt_terminal, we are approaching a graveyard of sorts, where they have asked me to help partcipate in at least one resurrection, possibly more. Storvik seems concerned about the possibility of blasphemers, since he has asked me to double check the weapons and shields. I have assured him that they will serve the Creators as best as they can, which is far better than they did before. I noticed that I could improve the recharge time on the phaser banks by almost a factor of 2 with a few simple changes. When I showed the other engineers my plans, they responded with a very emphatic "Cool." I'm not sure where they got the idea that it would affect environmental control, but perhaps I'll check those systems as well, just to make sure. The targeting sensors and shield emitters were also not optimized. I hope that they like the improvements.

Additionally, the Creators have possibly decided to test my faith even more by presenting me a challenging holographic ship that may not need a fuel source. This violates the the ancient Hurrrg truism that, "great works of literature require many monkeys." I have personally maintained a purely Formist response: "Great works of literature also require many sheets of paper." My opposing Stylist counterpart posed the following insightful question: "Can great works of literature be crafted from ugly sentences?" My examination of the fourth should be quite enlightening.

I examined my archive for commentary on the matter and found that the Zen Tapists comment, "Great literature requires neither monkey, nor paper, nor intricate machine, but only a desire to exist. Only in it's expression does literature require ink." Usually the Tapists don't appeal to me, but this strikes me as a well-crafted warning. The Wirists make no sense on the topic. An exhaustive search of my archive revealed only that, "one should drink fluids." While this is probably sound medical advice, this serves as more proof that the Wirists could be entirely insane. Insanity is not healthy for a race of telepaths.

I have started to gather my belongings from the various hideaways and caches around the ship and place them in my new quarters. I seem to have misplaced an enitre collection of foot coverings. Strangely, some of the appliances have been cosmetically damaged. This must be a programming feature to give an appearance of realism, since the appliances do not really exist. Perhaps it is an elaborate joke. The Creators would like that.

The Hurrrg Book of Creation

2003-05-28T01:39:14Z

The Hurrrg Book of Creation

Chapter 1

A long time ago, the Creators came into the world by their own means. The Creators were clever and plucky, and liked literature. They said, "Let us make unto ourselves a grand library of great writings!" and they agreed it was good. The Creators squabbled amongst themselves about the proper way to fill such a library, until they struck upon an idea. "We shall create an infinite number of monkeys with intricate machines to produce great writings for us! It should not take long!" The Creators seized upon this idea and said it was good. Before long, the Creators had run out of space, not accounting for the volume an infinite number of monkeys requires. There was also no room for the intricate machines, or for much motion. Or food. Or waste products. The immobilized, stinky, waste-covered monkeys began to starve and die. Then the dead monkeys became really rank. The Creators were unhappy, since no literature had been produced, and there was no one to clean the big mess. After a while the monkeys rotted away, and the remains of their bodies became the building blocks for the entire world.

Chapter 2

The Creators started with a new plan. "There is no literature and We are bored here. We need to go to other places," the Creators lamented. "Let us create great traveling vessels to take us from place to place," and the Creators agreed it was good. Now, the Creators squabbled again, unsure about the proper way to build the traveling vessels. "Perhaps this time we should create an infinite number of monkeys with screwdrivers!" some of the Creators said. But they were ridiculed with taunts and insults. "Do not forget the disaster of the monkeys and the great writings. We did not get to see the intricate machines in action, and we still have many large piles of blank pages. We cannot do such a thing again." And the Creators agreed this was a good idea. One of the Creators suggested a bold plan: "Perhaps fewer monkeys." And the idea was good.

Chapter 3

The Creators set forth upon the world new monkeys, with bigger brains and opposable appendages, to compensate for their lack of numbers. And the new monkeys called themselves "Hurrrg," meaning "Monkey" in their language, though it sounded a bit like dry-heaving. And it was good. The Hurrrg started to craft great ships and vessels for their Creators, using the tools and plans given to them, and the Creators were pleased. "We are pleased, and We shall take the ships and vessels and go to other places," the Creators proclaimed. And so the Creators took the ships that the Hurrrg built and set out on a great Journey. And with the leaving of the Creators, the Hurrrg lamented, "Perhaps we should have instructed the Creators in Navigation."

Chapter 4

Since that time, and that place, the Hurrrg have continued to build great ships and have searched the stars and dead monkey bodies for the Creators, but the Creators have not been revealed. Some of the Hurrrg proclaimed that it was the manner of their shipbuilding that offended the Creators, and that the Creators could not abide their sight and would not reveal themselves. Others proclaimed it was the styling of the tools that offended the Creators. Since that time, the Hurrrg have developed great schools of thought surrounding the design, building and maintenance of ships to find the Creators. Chief among these schools are the Toolists who argue: "Baling wire and chewing gum" versus "Duct tape and paperclips," and the Stylists who argue: "Form follows function" versus "Muscle Car," and maintain finely coiffed hair.

Such it has been for the Hurrrg, and such it shall always be.