Report #5 - January 30, 2012 <-

Droplets of water fell into the basin below as he held his own gaze. His breathing was hurried, his chest heaving in exertion. Sweat kept his hair matted to the sides of his face, his hair in disarray. Managing to finally calm his body down he closed his emerald eyes for a second...

_"Going down with the ship?"

The Sith's eyes shot open, confusion marring his face before remembering where he was. The sound of escaping atmosphere whistled in his ear, the forcefields flickering in and out of operation. The Cotelin had managed to fight it's way through the initial barrage, but eventually had succumbed to the enemies might. Yet just as her namesake held back the force on the planet below, the powerful vessel fought to keep herself together.

"I'm surprised you came with the assault yourself, Admiral", the Sith Lord responded as he turned to face their ultimate aggressor.

"If this were to end, I think my father would very much appreciate if I saw it to the end personally".

"He wasn't your father".

"Semantics, Hal..."

"You do not get to call me that", he nearly spat, hate pounding behind the emerald eyes.

"My apologies, Darth Vires. Now, does the Brotherhood offer their unconditional surrender or must Antei finally be ground to dust?"_

Halcyon's eyes shot open and faced the haunted stare that looked back at him.

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It's been awhile since I've done a report, and like many others the insidious monster that is TOR has taken hold of much of my free time. My "free" time is fairly limited, and so I have been choosing to play The Old Republic rather than focusing on pushing the various projects on my plate. While I do apologise for not doing nearly as much as I should be, it has also been nice to focus on doing something truly for myself and having a blast. I'm slowing getting a hang of splitting my time, so I should be able to get some traction on these projects in the next week or two. As such, most of this report will be various other updates and general SW news. Yay? Yay!

As for that fiction up there...yeah, I've finally decided on a "Darth" name, while seeding some future ideas running in my head. I don't plan on changing my actual DB name to Darth Vires, but it's something that can be used in fiction and what not. I've been Sith Lord for awhile now, so I guess it's about time I chose a name as well. As for this "vision"? Who knows if it will come to pass :)

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First up...more talking about The Old Republic! (stop your moaning! :P).

Just want to briefly discuss the integration of our Guilds and the rest of the Brotherhood. What everyone must realize is that you cannot fully integrate a MMO into the rest of the DB as we can with other games like Jedi Academy or Battlefront. The focus of the Houses and the Clans is not to find ways to use TOR, but instead to offer an experience that is different from the game. It is to get members to want to participate in activities that does not involve The Old Republic, but instead focuses on the fictional aspects of the club as well as the other activities that we offer. It is more about finding a balance between the Guild and the Dark Brotherhood proper. We also have a number of people who are not in TOR and as such require us to continue offering them the level of focus that they require so that they too may have fun.

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Next up, a little update on the fiction side of the rest of the Star Wars universe.

I have just finished reading this novel, and I enjoyed it much more than the Revan novel. However, I also know that this probably isn't for a lot of people. There is not a ton of action, but instead much of the focus is on the history of both Plagueis and Palpatine. It really delves into their backgrounds and explains everything about them leading up to The Phantom Menace. There is a lot of subterfuge and politics being played, and it really did give me a better idea of just who Palpatine is. Also, there was a number of little details thrown in about past Sith Lords that hopefully are expanded on in future novels.

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These are a few books coming down the line in the next few months. The Millennium Falcon Manual will be interesting to anyone who is a fan of that famous vessel and wants to know basically everything there is to know about it. I own a copy of the Enterprise Manual by the same makers and I quite enjoyed it.

Apocalypse is the final book in the "Fate of the Jedi" series. This series has been pretty hit-and-miss. Some cool ideas, but they basically made it this maxi-series rather than just focusing on the key points and making it a trilogy. Going forward they have said they are moving away from these massive multi-part novels and instead doing more duologies and trilogies. As for this series, it will be interesting to see how things end and if they status quo does change in any way. I'm hoping for something unexpected.

Last, the Essential Guide to Warfare. I've generally been a sucker for these Essential Guides. They do offer a good deal of information in an attractive package. The Warfare topic is new for the Essential Guides. I suggest having a quick look over in an actual book store before making a purchase on these guides, just to see if the quality is there.

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Star Wars Live Action: Earlier this month Rick McCallum, Star Wars producer, was talking about the long-in-the-making Live action Star Wars show. Click on that link in the beginning to get a quick breakdown of what he was talking about, or you can just watch the actual interview where he talks about the show. For a hint of what th

Micro USB Readers

The Lando Effect: How to defeat a Force User

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Rant time! Yay! Had a few topics in mind, but thought I would go with one that I continuously hard about. I have been seeing a large number of competitions being run within Clans and Houses when the ideas and topics would work so much better for the rest of the DB. The idea of keeping everything contained within your own unit is outdated, and while there are a number of competitions that can be run within a House/Clan, many of those currently being run are not specific to the unit. For example, seeing competitions based around The Old Republic being contained to just one unit. Why? Why not run it for everyone? We have always offered a number of avenues to get those competitions out to the masses.

Once that competition is released to the entire DB, units seem obliged to forget they were ever released. I see so many updates and reports that focus only on unit-specific competitions. People seem to forget there is a world outside of their House or Clan? I'm not entirely sure. DB-wide competitions will generally offer better rewards as well as enabling members to really be noticed by the Dark Council. Seeing that talent for ourselves helps us tremendously. One of the qualities we look to in leaders is to think not just about their own area of the DB, but instead to think about the rest of the club as a whole. The very act of reaching out and running a competition for everyone speaks volumes about that leader, as does actually updating their members to competitions being run by others not in their House or Clan.

There is only a limited amount of time and energy each person in the club can dedicate. As such it is our responsibility to ensure we give everyone quality activities to participate in. By working together we can actually achieve that goal.

That's the end of the report. As always, please feel free to poke me or e-mail me if you have any questions or comments.

Report Lyrics:_ "The good guys dress in black, remember that"_

In Darkness,

Dark Prophet Halcyon Taldrya

Deputy Grand Master

Sith Lord