I had to share this -


This message was last edited by the player at 16:47, Mon 10 Mar 2014.

Dear River -

I'd like my gun back. If I don't get it, I shall shoot you with the other one.

kthx, The Traveller ;)

BTW - a pair of turbopistols and a vortex manipulator only makes you look like you're trying too hard, baby. Leave being bad ass to the professionals!

(Heaven forbid should Trav actually meet River. ;) )


This message was last edited by the player at 20:28, Tue 15 Apr 2014.

Ugh, River Song. I think Smoke will kick her in the shins.

.... alas, I cannot hold her down, because then it wouldn't be a fair fight.

Now I'm imaging all our PCs mugging poor River.

"SWEETY, HELP!" Whump whump whump thwack KICK KICK KICK

I love Alex Kingston, but River as a character? Yeesh.

This might be interesting:

Over on the Humble Bundle site there is a Doctor Who Comics Bundle. Pay-what-you-want for 60 issues from IDW publishing and the Doctor Who: Legacy android game.

Link: https://www.humblebundle.com/books
This message was last edited by the player at 22:04, Wed 14 May 2014.

Yay! More Trav... hey wait. These are all boobie comics.

Ah well. In my headcanon Big West and Harmony Gold are joint-producing the new Traveller/Robotech anime. The Trav franchise convinced all the parties to resolve their differences and we're getting awesome Trav adventures with giant robots!

Not only that, but as far as Trav knows, they're completely apocryphal.

A pity they don't have Assimilation². Then you can pay the $0 it's worth. :(

I already have all the ones I'd want.

I can't wait for the Smoke Alarm spin-off! :D

As opposed to the entirety of Robotech, which is absolutely Travcanon! ;)

That's OK. Trav loves her Bobobie, although she would mock him pretty mercilessly.

If she meets 9 -

"You look like you should be in a Ska band, baby! Look at that buzz cut hair!"

10 -

"OOH LOOK AT THAT HE MOUSES HIS HAIR HOW PRECIOUS."

11 -

"Boobie, bowties are so mid 20th century. Suspenders? Baby, barber shop quartets rock suspenders."

(later 11)

"Hm, that victorian look is much sexier."

12 -

"Yeah, new kidneys. Also, throwback to the Venusian Karate days much?"

I'd pay real world dollars to see Smoke Alarm guest star in Torchwood and Sarah Jane as well as in her own Smoke Alarm show. That's when her actress isn't appearing with other members of the cast along with Matt Smith and David Tennant on Graham Norton.

And at the the Doctor Who Proms, of course Sereth and Amanda appear in full make up and talk to the crowd along with Strax and Lady Vashtra.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:10, Fri 23 May 2014.

Well guest starring on Sarah Jane would be pretty hard now. I'm pretty sure the Smoke Alarm spin-off would be brought in to replace the forcibly defunct Sarah Jane adventures. Would appeal to a similar audience I suspect.

Sereth would clearly be ushered in as part of the proposed Patternoster Gang spin-off. He and Strax would clearly -not- get along though.

"What's the greatest weapon?"

"A grenade!"

-facepalms- "No, Strax. Words are the greatest weapon of all."

Although possibly not their parents.  A teen hero who vandalizes buildings and flings herself off them at high speed!  What could possibly go wrong?

By the way, I don't know if any of you listen to the Verity! podcast, but they're going to do a commentary on Paradise Towers at some point.  Should be epic ice hot.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:12, Fri 23 May 2014.

Oh, Sarah Jane Adventures. :( It's my favourite form of modern televised Who. It really could have kept going: the adventures of Clyde, Rani, Luke, and K-9 would have been perfect, like the K9 series done well. It's a pity SJA tied itself so heavily to Sarah: a show can rejig and survive by changing the main character (as Doctor Who did), but not if they're in the title.

A Smoke Alarm show would be the most anarchic thing around: vandalism; parkour; actively defying police, teachers, politicians; encouraging open rebellion against the ills of society; all in favour of community, grass-roots action, girl-power, and just being icehot to each other. :D So I suspect outside guest appearances, Smoke would find her home in a comic book. Where writers can really let rip on the madness. ;)

Okay, I'll play the game:

Fan lore has it that Smoke Alarm can first be glimpsed as an extra in the background of a crowd of Kangs in "Paradise Towers" (usually when the Blue Kangs invade the Red Kang brainquarters). Of course, they disagree on the exact character, with some fans insisting on a Red Kang, with a fan theory that Smoke Alarm switched colours at some point as a part of a Kang swap. In any case, the actresses in question are too old to fit Smoke Alarm's continuity, but this is in keeping with the general miscasting of the serial.

More to come!
This message was last edited by the player at 11:36, Fri 23 May 2014.

Smoke Alarm's first appearance was in Doctor Who itself, in a Season 7C Matt Smith adventure with the Cybermen (not "Nightmare in Silver", the other one). The character was designed for a guest appearance of an actress from US sci-fi/fantasy television: Alison Scagliotti (fresh from the end of Warehouse 13, where she played Claudia) was considered, as was Maisie Williams (Arya from Game of Thrones), though ultimately Ksenia Solo (Kenzi from Lost Girl, following her character's death) proved available and willing and best suited to the part. Giving her a strange Kang character, from a now-obscure late-80s serial of the classic series, was a controversial decision with fans prior to the episode airing.

Fortunately, she nailed the role: her acting range demonstrated by the street-kid thief character of Kenzi fitted Smoke Alarm perfectly, and her ballet dancing skills translated well to the action scenes in Lost Girl (such as in the Ruler of Forest Nymphs and Wood Sprites story) and thence to Smoke Alarm's "Kang fu". However, Ksenia's back injury and general safety concerns necessitated stunt-women and CGI for the parkour scenes, with wire-work for close-ups.

Smoke Alarm proved instantly and surprisingly popular with fans, who adored her madcap antics and unique voice and style. Kangs were also an easy and cheap option for cosplayers, with Smoke Alarms, Blue Kangs, and Red Kangs soon turning up at conventions, in all kind of styles, from traditional to punk to steampunk, all with dyed hair. (Ksenia actually opted to wear a wig for the part, having been used to them in Lost Girl.)

Naturally, Smoke Alarm and Ksenia were considered for a role in the Always Time To Travel spin-off.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:39, Fri 23 May 2014.

Blake Lively has often been criticized, after Gossip Girl, for running around doing mad cap antics in what was called by a competitor as a "stupid kid's show." She and Ksenia vocally defend the show on Twitter, as well as the larger Doctor Who franchise over all. "Oh, get over yourself. The show is all about heart and emotion and adventure and love and fun and what's best in people. When I first started on the Rifts I and Ryan marathoned the entire Doctor Who revival along with as much classic Traveller we could find. Now I'm a fan of japanese robot shows! All these other shows on TV are either about all this darkness, which is OK, while Rifts and now Always Time To Travel has none of that BS. There's lots of darkness in Doctor Who, but it never wins. I really owe all the prior Travellers and Doctors, I'm standing on giants shoulders. I can do this role for 10 years - I think I will." Indeed, Lively has been a rock of stability in the franchise, while Doctors leave their roles in an approximately 3 year cycle.

When questioned about who might succeed while interviewed on Graham Norton, lively joked with Ksenia and Kate Mulgrew that "it can be either one of these ladies, or maybe even my husband!" She then shouted to the crowd, "WHO WANTS TO SEE THE MARSHALL COME BACK AND KICK ASS, HUH?" The crowed roared, while Mulgrew covered her face in embarassment. Mulgrew: "I have to get busted out of lockdown first." (This was Mulgrew referring to her role as Red on Orange is the new black.)  Ksenia commented "we'll just say that she's an Orange Kang, no mousetrap can hold a Kang!" Ryan Reynolds replied, "Oh, Icehot."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 18:20, Sun 25 May 2014.

Trav's former companions seem to have done well for themselves -

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs7...rpwriter-d33u2nl.png

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs7...rpwriter-d5ftze6.jpg

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs7...rpwriter-d3a72w4.jpg
This message was last edited by the player at 05:00, Thu 29 May 2014.

I have to say, I'm amazed by all Traveller's backstory, in-universe and in a telly universe outside it. It's very impressive. I hope what I add to it all fits. :) Partly, I'm trying to finish up an aborted game for Smoke Alarm.

*

Smoke Alarm had had a number of scenes in her Doctor Who episode that cemented her reputation with fans. Her impressive run through the factory away from the partially Cyber-converted cultists, and defeating them with various bits of machinery, was the first time that parkour had been showcased in Doctor Who, surprising for a show that made such a big thing of running away from villains. The parkour scenes were devised by experts brought over from France. The adorable tea party scene in which Smoke Alarm and Puddy dined with the elderly characters aged backwards to childhood by the osmic projector was also much loved. These showed a great sense of adventure, fun, and innocence that appealed to many viewers tired of modern dark or angsty heroes (especially in the parent program of Doctor Who), and made her a perfect fit for Always Time to Travel, as a foil for the other characters and to get them in or out of trouble as the plot demanded.

Following her character Kenzi's apparent death in Lost Girl Season 4, Ksenia Solo chose to leave on a high note and accept the role in Always Time to Travel. This was a wise decision, as the once-novel and promising Lost Girl continued to meander aimlessly to a confusing and unsatisfying end. (Alas, poor Lost Girl.) They were later reunited when Anna Silk (Kenzi's friend Bo and star of Lost Girl) made a guest appearance as Doctor Sam, discoverer of the Kangs and a friend of Smoke Alarm, in several flashback scenes.

The character of Smoke Alarm was revised slightly for the series, with "Kang Fu" introduced to reduce her reliance on the crossbow, or "arrowgun", as well to showcase Ksenia's dance skills and gracefulness. A Kang dictionary was devised for a consistent Kang-speak, to which Ksenia added some Russian slang. Smoke Alarm was also written with, if anything, greater enthusiasm and liveliness, an expanded background and additional character traits.

Ksenia continued to wear a blue wig through her first season, but elected to dye her hair for the second. One odd request by costuming was that she grow underarm hair and dye it blue for the "nude" scene by the pool, notorious for its fan disservice in displaying the malnourished, scarred Smoke Alarm. Some commentators hoped it would reduce the fashion for shaving among young women; it did, at least, among cosplayers.

The switch introduced some continuity issues, however, with "Paradise Towers" apparently dated to the 22nd century, the Cyberman story set in the 26th, and Smoke Alarm's introductory episode in Always... set in the 195th. Some throwaway lines about the osmic projector and background info about Paradise Towers handled this. These also neatly explained away Smoke Alarm's apparent death in her first episode, with her escaping, naturally, through the osmic projector time machine. Not that it mattered, as Smoke Alarm fans continued to come up with all kinds of crazy theories, as crazy as Smoke Alarm's own ramblings and skewed view of the world.

At the time, Smoke Alarm was the only character to meet both the current Doctor and the current Traveller, though she remained unaware of the Doctor's true identity and was thus unable to tell the Traveller the Doctor was still alive. Though this plot point was sensibly ignored in Always..., fans continued to anticipate the revelation.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:39, Fri 06 June 2014.

Thank you! That's awfully sweet of you to say. To be honest, sometimes I worry that this goes into ego serving fan wank, but I love it when I see other players do it as well.

So, Gary, what are #travfans on Twitter saying? Who is the big couple being shipped? Tell us about the fandom!

For some reason, Imagine that the bulk of Ru Zheng fans in Trav Fandom don't like a TravRu ship because they want a non-romantic relationship between the two.

I bet the anime fans are all mad that Smoke Alarm cosplayers are flooding the anime cons with gangs of Kangs, overwhelming the Attack on Titan and Naruto cosplayers.

The only people who like the swelling Trav army seems to be other Doctor Who fans (who love that ATTT is airing during the regular Who hiatus) and Bronies (who have always had strong love and connections with Who fandom, and flood Deviantart with ATTT pony art. Sereth of course is a dragon, and Amanda is a cat creature, with the rest of the crew are Ponies.)

... err I'd doubt the majority of Ru Zheng fans dislike a TravRu ship. I say this as someone who has very few actual fandoms, but has watched ships attached to other shows a fair bit.

The group that is upset by the idea that this would compromise the ideals of a Buddhist monk are surely the loudest faction, regardless of its size.

Say -- is there any chance of you editing those big graphics out or half-sizing them?  The reason I ask is that they're fouling up the word wrap.

.. possibly true. Much like fandom in regards to the Doctor/anyone shipping eh?

(For what it's worth, I despise the Doctor pairing off with anyone; but I try not to impose my views too much.)

Or maybe just links to the pictures. Then we can see the source website.

I find the Doctor is just too weird, too unnatural to be considered a romantic figure. But more, he's always been a parental or family figure: a grandfather, a mad uncle, a father figure, a professor, an older brother, to the companions, to the audience, to the people he meets. So it never feels right or appropriate.


The canonical animal for Smoke Alarm is actually a rat, mouse, or possum, never, ever a pony. This was established in a famous arc in the Smoke Alarm Chronicles comic series, in which the crew were played by talking animals with no reason given. Smoke Alarm was a heroic possum in a blue bandanna, and the crew faced an army of actual goannas. The storyline incorporated Aboriginal Dreamtime themes and presented several major revelations and plot developments for the ongoing Army of Gehenna arc in AWTT, though some AWTT fans declared it non-canon as it was (a) about talking animals and (b) a licensed comic.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:12, Thu 29 May 2014.