Star Trek: Thine Own Self S1 E07 Plato’s Cave, Part 2 *** Stardate: 57669.8 – Sep 02 2380 0338 UTC Starfleet Dramatis Personae Lt. Kodar Tamat, Cardassian engineering officer and mission commander Lt. Leahman Barclay, Human conn officer Lt. J.G. Simon Cañete, Human security officer (Temporary NPC) Lt. Cmdr. Jora Mungar, Trill conn officer (Temporary NPC) Ensign Sparik, Vulcan conn officer (NPC) Last time on Star Trek Adventures: Thine Own Self… While looking for the missing New Orleans-class USS Nairobi in the Melpomene Sector near the Typhon Expanse, the Saber-class USS Sienkiewicz (NCC-88034) dispatched an away team on the Danube-class runabout USS Moonstar. During their away mission on Delta Melpomene V, they encountered time crystals. They showed them a possible future where the Sienkiewicz was in flames, the captain appeared dead and an old Einstein-class starship was attacking them. Soon they rescued Lt. Cmdr. Mungar whose repair crew & runabout USS Segura […]
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Dune Adventures in the Imperium RPG
Mushtamal of Classic Science Fiction What nonsense is this? Both the science fiction books I read during my formative years during my teens are both being released as talkies this year? First of all, there’s Apple TV’s Foundation series – based on Isaac Asimov’s classic novels – which I might review after the end of the first season. Then, Denis Villeneuve’s film Dune Part One, adapted from the first half of Frank Herbert’s science fiction novel Dune. Additionally, Modiphius also published a brand new Dune: Adventures in the Imperium role-playing game (RPG) which I bought using some extra teaching earnings. Ming Fang would have a field day. Arrakis. Dune. Desert planet. Dune is a tabletop RPG where gamemasters (GM) and players roleplay within the universe Herbert made, creating their own epic saga as they play. Players could opt from a list of 20 Archetypes such as Analyst, Courtier, Duellist, Envoy, […]
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Back in Office Once Again
After many months of working from home, having to run classes from the desk in the spare room, it was time to return to our offices. I am happy to report that everything is where they are supposed to be. Additionally, my office seems to be is regularly cleaned while we were all away… except for my broom. The broom that I bought for my room seems to have disappeared.
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Sunset During Pandemic
These days, after the car occupancy restrictions was lifted, we travel the state a bit for a change of scenery. This is not a big state so there are not many places to visit, but those we could does not disappoint us with the quality of their beauty. One such place is the the golden hour on the shore facing Langkawi Island. Also, we still wear masks as I do not believe in risking our health with the COVID-19 pandemic still hovering over us ominously. Click on the photos for bigger images.
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Nineteen Years of Irfan
It’s that time of the year again! In the morning, Ain made telur bungkus for breakfast with French fries. Later that evening, we went to the cafe at a hotel in town for a birthday dinner. We ordered something nice. I liked the ice cream cheese cake that Ain got at a bakery earlier, plus I love peaches. The best part was that there were not many others with us. So our little celebration was undisturbed by Guavian Death Gang. Before we left we gifted half the cake to the staff of the hotel’s cafe. We think they stored it in the refrigerator and devoured it at the end of their shift. Because of the pandemic, Irfan still lives with us. I do not know how much longer we have together before we would be unable to celebrate like this in the future. In the meantime, I am grateful for […]
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The Expanse RPG: Zakiyah’s Cries One Page Jam
Recently, I submitted a one-page scenario to The Expanse RPG community’s One Page Adventure Jam event. Ian Lemke from Green Ronin and Richard Kirke went through all eight of the submitted scenarios in the YouTube video below. Check out what they have to say about all the adventures. The link below will take us to 00:51:52 where they began to discuss my one-page submission. BUT please watch the video to see what they discuss about all eight adventures. The PDF is entitled “One Page Adventure Collection Volume 1”. It can be downloaded with other free The Expanse RPG goodies from Audun’s link here. Who is Zakiyah? Who is Zabaniyah? What are they doing near the asteroid 9093 Nanyang? Spoiler alert: Needless to say, this is for game masters who wants to read the adventures. Players tread carefully in the sea of spoilers below, oyedeng.
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Doom Agents: A Beautiful Summer’s Day
There was an official event at work today where I ran a tabletop RPG session for some colleagues online. It was an opportunity to show them how could RPGs work in the field of education. I thought for some time about the campaign and setting to play, then decided on the setting I keep running for my students, Doom Agents. Also, instead of Mini Six or Freeform Universal, I opted for Year Zero Mini as the gaming system to use. Last time on Doom Agents, there were two recorded instances of a rescue mission in the Endau-Rompin rainforest where a team recovered one of two missing nuclear warheads. Another team in on the trail of the second warhead… Dramatis Personae In alphabetical order Alice Abdullah, Malaysian spy – Farah Anastasia, Russian medic – Arina Jason, American sniper – Hafiz Jessica Yoo, Korean driver – Najihah Koko, Thai soldier – Hafifa […]
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Cousins Play Remotely
I wish that when I was growing up I could play like this with other kids. Irfan has been creating, crafting and exploring in Minecraft with his cousins. Which cousins? All of them. The latest to join is Rania. With Irfan, she has crafted an entire homestead in their server. Because she’s still 6 years old, her playtime is limited, but they do get into a lot of adventures online. Rania’s even played with Rafiq all the way on the other side of the planet! Besides Minecraft, Irfan and Rania also explore Roblox environments. Wonderful how technology allows us to play games together even thousands of kilometres apart.
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Art: Love and Heroics in Space
Believe it or not, this is the first artwork I posted for 2021. I had been rejecting whatever meagre commission requests for a better part of the year. Because I am constantly swamped with work. Thankfully I love the job and my students are awesome, so the work is not unmanageable. The above artwork is a concept piece for Christopher Mennell’s Love and Heroics in Space game which is still under development. I used Krita to pencil and ink it, then GIMP to give it some effects. Sometimes I miss doing freelance artwork full time, even if I was not raking in the cash as I do now (Ha!). I think my mental health has taken a lot of beating this past 9 months. So I need to do more drawings, read more books, sleep earlier to recover. I really wish this was caused only by the pandemic.
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Second Pandemic Eid of 2021
Sure, we had Aidilfitri a couple of months ago. Before long Aidiladha was before us. As usual we stayed at home. I imamed the Aidiladha prayers for Ain & Irfan. Ain made laksa johor with the help of my colleague Azreen’s pre-packaged spice. Ultimately we stayed at home and watched TV. (I put on The Empire Strikes Back for the most part.) And that was how we spent our second Aidiladha during the pandemic.
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Doom Agents: The Endau Rompin Rescue (Instance B)
It’s the final week of the semester and I was able to run a game session each for two different classes. This was the second of the two. Click here for the first class. Freeform Universal: Doom Agents (PPIPT5) It is two years after the Brazilian mission. 10th June 2019: Another Doom Agent team is sent to the Endau-Rompin National Park for ANOTHER rescue mission. This time it is the kidnapped daughter of a diplomat. The team of five arrived in Malaysia and set out for their mission immediately. Dramatis Personae In alphabetical order (played by student group names in quotation marks): Captain Kelvin, Soldier – “5Avengers” Dr. Bob, Medic – “Rulebreakers” Jeffrey, Sharpshooter – “Team Alpha” Jet, Thief – “North Team” Sancorn, Enforcer – “Amigos” The Mission Begins It is raining heavily in the thick jungle. Sancorn drives the team in a Toyota Hilux towards the GPS coordinates where […]
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Doom Agents: The Endau Rompin Rescue (Instance A)
It’s the final week of the semester and I was able to run a game session each for two different classes. This was the first of the two. Click here for the second class. Freeform Universal: Doom Agents (IKOM3) What happened to the last Doom Agents team that left on the Brazilian mission. What happened to them, we might never know. However on 10th June 2019, another team was sent to the Endau-Rompin National Park to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a diplomat. The team of seven arrived in Malaysia and set out for their mission immediately. Dramatis Personae In alphabetical order (played byStudent group names in quotation marks): Bevis, Enforcer – “No Boundaries” Black Widow, Medic – “Titans” Captain Price, Soldier – “Team UVW201” Heister, Thief – “Cool Dudes” Jerung, Sharpshooter – “One Hit Wonder” Magnificent, Driver – “Queen Bees” Roye, Technician – “Magellanic Cloud” Watch the video belowto […]
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English Theatre Arts 2021 Final Week Video
I was given a mission to run the English Theatre Arts co-curricular course once again this semester. After seven weeks, we completed the entire run. Like last year, yesterday morning we carried out the seventh and final week performance under the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, this semester after preparing for a live online performance the students who are on campus informs me that there would be an internet outage until Tuesday, three days after our performance day. Within 12 hours, the four theatre troupes led by their directors, produced full videos of their plays. Each student acted at their respective locations recorded it and sent it to the editor. After the editing, they sent it to me in time for a livestream session. In a worse turn of events, unlike last year, I was unable to connect to YouTube live to livestream their video. This was after a […]
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The Cowardice of Civilization
“Most civilization is based on cowardice. It’s so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.”
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ETA: An Online Play Staging Exercise
Last Saturday, during my English Theatre Arts co-curricular class, I gave the four groups two scripts. They had an hour or so to prepare, then perform live during class. Unfortunately, we were still doing teaching and learning online thanks to the pandemic. Therefore, they all had to perform through Google Meet. Thankfully, they did well enough. There were a couple of hitches, but it was a learning process. I coached them on how to recover from flubbing their lines and such. As such, I was able to edit four videos of the performance, each between approximately 5 to 8 minutes long, I also had to become the understudy for one actor as the student was unable to make the second half of our session. The Performances Here are the videos in alphabetical order of the director’s name! As per any videos of my students at work, be kind: English is […]
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A Vaccine Nation, Part 2.
Previously on “A Vaccine Nation”… Yesterday afternoon, I went to my second vaccine injection session snuggled between two classes. As of now, I am fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine. I hope Ain and Irfan get their vaccination dates on MySejahtera quickly. We need a lot more for vaccinated people so herd immunity can be effective.
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