In reply to Hilda (msg # 945):

I like that!  Moonhenge.  Yup, I like it a lot.

I am not very well. Thought I had the flu, then developed a rash/pain in one leg. My husband rang the 'advice line' and they told me to go and see the out-of-hours primary care within 2 hours. So I trundled round and the doctor there said it was cellulitis, and gave me antibiotics and said to keep off it, and that it could take a week or more to clear up.

Posting may be patchy.

Oh, no! Get better! We'll carry on until you do!

In reply to Kyle McGuinness (msg # 947):

????

Cellulitis . . . . that sounds familiar.  I think . . . when I was a kid, somebody I knew had that.  I remember feet, the area around the ankles, an angry red rash.

Good Call on Hubby's part ^_^

In reply to Kaspar Radoslaw Gorski (msg # 949):

What?  What?!  What did Kaspar do?
He's a Professor of Anthropology...

"Anthropologists study human language, culture, societies, biological and material remains, the biology and behavior of primates, and even our own buying habits. It’s a broad discipline that constantly incorporates new technologies and ideas."

He's also a bit of a natural Linguist, though he has no Degrees in that subject.  He's focused mainly on European languages--though he's learned some basic Goa'uld and a smidge of Ancient.  He's gonna work on those.

So what'd he do?  Wait, is this a Polish Joke...?

I love the look of the X-304. Can we have one of our very own?

In reply to Naseem Ansari--Hecate (msg # 951):

Got one right here in my pocket...

It's so small and cute!

In reply to Naseem Ansari--Hecate (msg # 953):

[SGC FIRING RANGE, SOMEWHERE UNDER CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN]

     Kaspar Radoslaw Gorski, Major, Polish Land Forces, is led by a US Air Force Sergeant out to the end of the shooting range, handcuffed.  They are followed by Colonel Jack O'Neill.

     The Sergeant stops Kaspar, turns him around, and places him to stand before the center of the bullet-pocked concrete wall.  Then the Sergeant offers a black cloth hood, which Kaspar refuses with a quick shake of his head.  The Sergeant nods once, turns and walks away.

     Colonel O'Neill, in formal uniform, steps closer to Kaspar, looks back to the firing line, where much of the SGC is assembled to observe the discharge of Kaspar's Court martial, then he addresses Kaspar.

     "Major Kaspar Radoslaw Gorski, assigned to Stargate Command from Polish Land Forces through NATO, assigned Commander of Team SG-X1.  You stand here convicted of ... being a total ass-hat!  Man, you really Screwed the Pooch, Gorski!"

     "Colonel!" Carter's voice calls warningly from the crowd.

     "Oh, yes!" O'Neill acknowledged the shout with a lame wave, then offered Kaspar a thin smirk, "Must observe the proprieties."

     "Anyway, you've been convicted of losing control of your Team, pissing off people who shouldn't be pissed off, and endangering our alliances with some off-world power blocs.  Which, in order to make those power brokers happy has led to...you know..." O'Neill gestures back towards the line of seven SGC troopers holding P-90's at the ready.

     "Colonel O'Neill!" General Hammond snaps, "Would you refrain from the personal commentary and get on with this unpleasant business, please?"

     "Right!  Yes!  Getting on with it, Sir!  So.  Major Gorski.  Do you have any final words you want to get off your chest--before we ... put a bunch of little holes in it, that is?"

     "I do..."

---

Oh My Gawd! Oh My Gawd! Oh my Gawd!

I am so sorry, guys!  So very, very, very sorry!

I am the one who has had his head up his butt, here, lately!  Sorry.  I have been having reading comprehension difficulties all weekend--literally and for real--I not only misread that it was Sarah that made the comment implying Kaspar wasn't qualified to comment on the origin of the word Orak'tar, but I/Kaspar messed up that it was also Sarah who made the comment about dying of old age before the mission finishes.  And then I jumped on Hilda for those comments--more so when she tried to point out my error!  I am so sorry.

I get very annoyed/angry when people mis-comprehend things that I have written, and now that I, myself have done this, I feel so very stupid.  I don't even feel that joking about "my medications made me do it" would be appropriate--and I blame them for everything!

I did almost the same thing IRL--all weekend I kept looking at the print-out of my work schedule and "saw" that my name was not down for the Monday, April 29, overnight shift--I swear that I read a co-workers name there, all weekend--but on Monday, an hour after shift change, I get a phone call from the guy who'd been there all day asking "You gonna show up and relieve me, or what?".

OMG, I scrambled into uniform and raced out into the Everglades to get him out of there, let me tell you!  I was so embarrassed at having such a major brain-fart.

Well, again, I'm sorry, and all I can offer in hopes that y'all will forgive me is this...

HEY!  STARMASTER!  WILL YA MOVE US TO THE END OF THIS FUCKING BRIDGE ALREADY! SHEESH!

Maybe we’re still on the bridge because a trap has made us think we’re making progress when actually we’re not...   ;)

Bahahaha! I thought you were joking about Kaspar mixing up Sarah and Hilda, and then doubling-down on it. So, no hard feelings here. The gods know I take the piss with Hilda every chance I get. :D

In reply to Kaspar Radoslaw Gorski (msg # 954):

LOL!! I have issues with memory, concentration, comprehension, etc. courtesy of Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and take some powerful meds which tend to leave me quite blootered when they kick in so I find this post very funny. You captured the essence of Colonel O'Neill perfectly! :D

     Because things are moving forward again in our thread, I'm not gonna stop and deal with it, right now, but just a heads up, Sarah, IC, you're on really shaky grounds taking that action.  While Kaspar may, indeed, have been publicly bitching about having to enforce military discipline as Team Commander--that it is something he doesn't like to do, but is willing and capable of doing--that does not prove incapacity or inability to command.

     Because physical or mental incapacity or other inability preventing an officer from performing the duties of command, are the only legal reasons to relieve someone of said command.

     As a higher-Ranked Officer, there is a small "gray-area" here.  On one hand, Sarah was assigned by proper authority to join Team SG-X1--thus placing you under Kaspar's command (within the Team Chain of Command, despite your higher Rank.  And, for a person within a Chain of Command to relieve the Commanding Officer of his position, you have to have cause, otherwise it's called Mutiny.  The gray-area for Sarah is that, holding a higher Rank, she could offer the defense "in my opinion as a superior officer, he had lost control of his command".  The only problem with that is that you will have to prove that at a Courts Martial--yours.

     Once again, as I said, lack of understanding of Chain of Command is the issue.  Because Sarah was assigned to SG-X1, she's in Kaspar's Chain of Command.  If she was only just "Guest Starring"--here only for the exploration of this moonbase then going back to her old Team--then she would be outside his Chain of Command, and would actually have more freedom to "pull her Rank" like this.

     But that's as far as it goes.  Sarah might have the authority to relieve Kaspar of his Command of Team SG-X1.

     But her implication that she could arrange for the removal of Kaspar's Rank from the Polish Land Forces--the standing military of a Foreign Power!--well, that's just crazy talk.  The kind of talk that gets' military officers busted from their un-spoken Ranks.

     If Sarah has some kind of Political pull that might influence getting Kaspar tossed out of the Land Forces, that's one thing, but it has nothing to do with your Rank in the US Military.

     So far, Kaspar hasn't reacted to Sarah's proclamation--as you said, she doesn't often use her Rank--so Kaspar is unaware of it.

     Kaspar had no idea Sarah was being assigned to his Team--he'd made no requests for replacement personnel.  Therefore, he's never seen Sarah's records.  He probably is familiar with her work, professionally--we all publish what we can, when we can--and he's likely seen you around the base, but he is also fairly new at SGC, so this is probably the first time we've met 'socially'.

     SO Kaspar hasn't reacted, or objected, to Sarah's assumption of command.  He's just grinned, shook his head, and followed along.

A good summary of how the chain of command can operate.

I used to be involved with the local Army Cadet unit. I got appointed second-in-command by the detachment commander, despite having a couple of people senior to me on the staff. Then the commander took a leave of absence, recommending to HQ that I be left to run things rather than someone be put on a temporary basis.

Fortunately we didn't have any disagreements, but had there been a difference of opinion about how the unit was run, it was up to me to decide, and them to obey.

Rank is always an obstacle to roleplay, in my experience. So let's keep it on the character sheets. :)

What we have here is a failure to communicate...


Kaspar's player reads a lot of military fiction, and so he thinks that makes him an expert on all things military. What he sometimes has a hard time differentiating is Real Life military from fantasy role-playing military.

Because of that, he appears to have misread Sarah's post. At the very least, what he read isn't the way I read it.

Because of Kaspar's complaining about not being a military man but really being a professor at heart, AND because he got a bit confused there, Sarah was merely informing him that if he wished to resign--on the spot--from the military (either his commission or his current position), she was of sufficient military rank to not only accept his resignation but to assume command of the team at this point (as opposed to everybody going back to SGC to get it all straightened out).

Whether Kaspar believes her is another matter.


Anyway, that's the way I read her post.

And that is certainly the way I wrote and intended it, Starmaster.   It could also be taken from his words that he HAD resigned and that she WAS accepting his resignation and taking charge.

Regardless, the event is IC and I'll play events our there :-)

In reply to Hilda (msg # 960):

I'd say playing (and command structure) anything remotely like RL is an obstacle to fun role-play.

But you can have a sort of fantasy rank and chain of command (ignoring it, of course, when dramatically appropriate) and still have active, entertaining role-playing/story. I don't think SG-1's command structure (in the show) is very realistic... but it can be entertaining. Note that, in the show, O'Neil basically never pulls rank and extremely rarely even gives an order. Everyone has a say, most things are done off the cuff, and sometimes it is even sorta democratic. That can be fun. The rank just becomes sorta like another name and, occasionally, a dramatic foil.

And now everyone knows why Lucky re activated at his previous held rank.... i prefer being fodder

Any Marine with a clue knows to listen to what their Gunny says.

I finally broke down and decided to watch Universe and whilst I will admit it's a good drama I can see why it was cancelled so quickly. What an utterly joyless show. It's like they took everything that made SG-1 and Atlantic so enjoyable and threw it all out. Shame because I love Robert Carlyle as an actor, Ming-Na Wen is always a treat to watch and there's a good cast but there's no sense of fun present.

In reply to Naseem Ansari--Hecate (msg # 966):

YES!  THAT'S IT!!

When I was watching Universe, I always found myself asking "Why am I not enjoying this more?"

Like you point out, the Cast had some great actors, the writing wasn't half-bad, they were staying pretty consistent with the SG established material.

So why wasn't I enjoying it more?

It was staring me in the face so closely, I just didn't see it.  You're right, the show just didn't have any Joy.  It was like watching some white-washed BBC drama about The War--Keep Calm and Carry On...blah...blah...blah...

Man, I've pondered this for a long time--and here you just nail it. ^_^

I saw that from the start. It was like they tried to do the Battlestar Galactica reboot with Stargate, and lost everything that made SG-1 and Atlantis original and fun. It mellowed slightly later as the characters relaxed and settled in, but by that point it was too late.

Years later, it's probably the most forgettable show, as I can barely recall a thing about it unaided.

In reply to Hilda (msg # 968):

I wish you a very happy birthday indeed, StarMaster! Just...don't burn the house down with all of those candles on the cake. ;)