 December 28, 2012 - 5:21am | A.K.A. what's the story behind choosing your handle? Mine dates back to Y2K when I got my first desktop with internet capabilities. Well, not my first desktop as that would have been my old 386 but rather my first foray onto the internet on a later model computer, if Windows ME can be considered "better" (rolling my eyes). Anyways it didn't take me long to find some motorcycle boards and after initially registering with my first name I caught on to the trend of catchy names being used so I drummed one up. The one I picked has stuck with me ever since. The first part stemmed from having three Honda Shadows in my garage. The second part hails from the garage itself, which at the time also had some carpet, sofa, DirecTV on a 27" tube with a dolby surround sound system, fridge, evaporative cooler and space heater...to say the least I used to spend a lot of time out there. I had referred to it as my "shack" (incidentally most of those comforts are gone now, having been replaced with yet more bikes and an accumulation of parts in one corner that I affectionately dubbed "the great heap" after a Star Wars: Droids cartoon). |
 December 28, 2012 - 7:13am | I'll repost this: my middle name is Gedion. It comes from my French Canadian Uncle who the family called Uncle Jed. He had been sleeping in a barracks at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked and he had participated in the events of that day. He died latter of cancer and I was named for him but had never met him (though my father just told me he's buried in Somerville Ma so thank you Shadow for starting this as I'm going to visit his grave.) Anyhow when I started to register email adresses in the '90s I was mildly aware that perhap I should not put too much personal info out on the web and used my middle name but changed the g to j in honor of the French pronounciation. Naturaly everyone assumes that its connected to star wars because I'm such a sci fi fan & geek but truth be told if that had been the motivation i would have used a Trek inspired handle. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 28, 2012 - 2:44pm | Rat is the name I usually go by. Traveller is one of my favorite games. When I first got on the internet I was part of many Traveller groups and just combined the two for a screen name. As time went on I started using it for everything. So if you see it in a group somewhere it is probably me. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 December 28, 2012 - 3:03pm | The summer before my sophomore year in high school my parents moved back to Las Vegas. I was starting a new school for the sixth time in seven years. I was used to the game of the new kid getting a nickname before everyone learns his real name. In PE class we were throwing baseballs and I did not show great form so the boys started calling me Igor. These same boys were in my geometry class and I totally outclassed them in the subject. I had naturally memorized all the postulates and theorems. I was like Horshac in Welcome Back Carter wanting to answer all the questions when no one else could. This reinforced the Igor name as these boys would call for Igor to answer the questions when they couldn't. Eventually even the teacher called me Igor in desperation after goading everyone to give an answer and no one could. The next year in school the same boys were in my chemistry and physics classes. Somehow I went from being Igor to iggy and the guy they were all seeking help from. I stayed iggy until graduation. When I was in college I needed a VAX account username and lab consultants got to choose their own. I have been using it ever since. -iggy |
December 28, 2012 - 5:59pm | @ iggy: thats a pretty good turn around on the nickname. My freshamn year of high school I tried to look tougher in gym so i cut the sleeves off a green sweat shirt and for some reason paired it with green shorts. The cut off sleeves looked a little ragged and that earned me the nickname Green Grub. I quickly lost the green gym attire and thankfully the gym teacher saved me by starting to call me Tomcat which was an inprovement. Latter after high school i fell in with a partying croud and there was two of us named Tom so people kept us straight with Cool Tom and Geek Tom. Only now in my 40's have I said what the hell and owned the title geek. However, geek is now the new sheik so.... I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 28, 2012 - 7:10pm | I used to go through handles like socks, but at some point, I found it easier to stick with one name. Malcadon is a class of "Spyre Hunter" form the wargame Necromunda. Spyre Hunters are board nobles from from the opulent Spyre of Hive Primus, who dress in bionic armor, and hunt people in the Underhive, much like the alien in Predator. The class known as "Malcadon" (they look like this) are highly agile, and armed with web-shooters and wrist-mounted razor-claws. Its like the Borgs "assimilated" Spiderman, and gave him Wolverine's (well, X-23) kick-ass claws! Beyond that, the name sounds really cool, and is obscure enough to not be taken by everyone in ten different ways. |
 December 28, 2012 - 7:13pm | Mine is just my name. Well, actually Langdon is my middle name. I had a great Traveller character named Langdon too, he lasted 20 years. These two yazarians and this vrusk walk into a bar... |
 December 28, 2012 - 7:32pm | The first time I registered for a discussion board, I was in a "Star Frontiers" phase (I seem to alternate between several games, one after another). I was playing Dramune Run, and decided on using the name of the character's freighter. It's always been one of my favorite ship names. I've been using it ever since. "Rome didn't build an empire by having meetings. They did it by killing those who stood in their way." |
 December 28, 2012 - 8:29pm | Mother is the ship's computer in Alien. "What's the story MOTHER ?" |
 December 28, 2012 - 9:59pm | Mine is a nickname friends and coworkers gave me in college and when I worked @ Intel. Elitist, Latin speaking, arrogant jerk, therefore "First Citizen" (it is another title for "Caesar"). :) |
 December 29, 2012 - 2:48am | My name come from my days of playing Tunnels and Trolls with my best friend. We played every weekend for 3 years and we had our favorite character. I made up Karxan and had actually forgotten about it for about 15 years. I was trying to find a good online handle that my ex-wife would not recognize if she ever came across it and from my deep past up popped my old T&T character name and I have been using it for 10 years. To my knowledge she has never contacted me on any site so I think I am safe. Not that I care anymore though. I just like the name. |
December 29, 2012 - 6:16am | My freshamn year of high school I tried to look tougher in gym...
This reminds me of something that happened during my freshman year. Forgive the tangent --- but I went a different route to accomplish the "tougher" look. I was in an airbase junior/senior high school from grades 7 to 9 and had a nasty habit of getting into trouble, it usually found me and I eagerly responded. I never started a quarrel, but I had no qualms in ending one. In other words, I usually found myself being the intended victim of a bully but never allowed said bully to actually BE a bully. I had a principal that eventually told me if it weren't for my straight A grades he would have expelled me long ago...so I figured as long as I kept up my grades I could do what I pleased --- by my freshman year it turns out one of the kids I reacted to was my Phys Ed coach's son, this kid broke his arm during an unscheduled trip down the stairs. And that earned me additional physical education, once the warm ups were done and we hit the track the coach always assigned me extra laps...if we had to run two I ran three, if we ran the mile I ran a mile and a half, if we did ten reps up and down the bleachers I did fifteen, etc... Anyways I went from the kid that ran (or more aptly, walked) the mile in 12 minutes to breaking six minutes in short order. By the end of the school year, we ran a timed mile for the "final exam" and I finished with what was probably my best time of the year. As I was catching my breath the coach called out to me, "Now don't you wish you hadn't treated my son like you did?" I stood up and got right in his face, at least as best a 5'6" kid could do with a six footer, and looked him dead in the eye and said "Gee coach, next time your kid wants to (expletive) with me in the future, do you think all of this conditioning made me a less effective opponent?" He went blank, I shot a sly smile at him, and took off saying "I'll go ahead and take my extra two laps now." I moved to Vegas after that, where our schools had cops on the grounds to react to things like stabbings, shootings, and pipe bombs that went off in the hallways. Yeah, these current events really are nothing new --- the media simply glorifies it today. During my three years there we had an accumulation of bullet holes in the various walls and windows from the numerous gang and whack-o activities that transpired, including a stray from where a teacher got shot & killed in the classroom. Suffice it to say I changed my tune...and quickly learned to get along with everyone after that. I was never quite popular, but I had friends (or was at least friendly with) in just about every imagineable circle with whom I was typically offering up help (sort of like Iggy mentioned, they would seek me out as well) to the point where if any of them might consider messing with me, their co-horts would say "Nah, he's cool." I suppose the point to all of this is, since we're doing a "what's behind the name" thread, is who knows how I might have turned out had I remained in the prior school...but I wouldn't give up either experience. |
December 29, 2012 - 6:45am | I made a pollish cannon once on an Air Force Base. When we ran out of tennis ball we shot rocks out of it. When the gasoline lit on fire all over it we stomped the soda cans flat and then noticed two people one in air force blue and the other in BDU green leading a German Shepherd headed toward us from the otherside of the massive basebal field. Suddenly we decided to make ourselves scarce. It would have worked except the SPs found the squashed flat cannon with rock "shrapnel" in it and thought we were making a bomb, on an Air Force base - a base that would never confirm or deny the presence of nuclear bombs. So they got really hot to catch us. I went in side and changed my shirt and was reading a book in my room but one of the other kids was sent outside by his mother to find his brothers for dinner and the cops were standing right there (and he didn't have the foesight to change his shirt). One saving grace was that a sgt in Security Police was a fishing buddy with my dad and they were tight so once my family name came up he simply called my dad and asked him to fetch me down to the station. In fact thats pretty much what happened to all of us and we got a round of "scared straight" and grounded for the summer and I believe that it was handled without official notice. My dad had all sort of people owning him favors all over the base but I'm guessing a few got used up that day. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 29, 2012 - 8:17am | Shadow, I'm guessing we are about the same age, I graduated in '87. Bonaza at the time was not a rough school. We did not have cops on duty. I do remember that there was trouble at Western, Rancho, and Basic if I remember correctly. -iggy |
December 29, 2012 - 10:12am | Valley for me, class of 86. 1983 was the year a teacher got shot, my senior year the school was evacuated for a pipe bomb detonation in the hallway and no school the next day. We had several outbreaks involving guns and knives outdoors, mostly during sporting events away from the actual game...stuff like bad pot deals going down in the smoking areas and stuff like that. Three CCSD cops on duty (including one in a patrol car) all three years I was there. I lived in Green Valley at the time, technically Chapparel was closer but for whatever reason we were zoned for Valley. And Rancho has always been the main trouble spot...that still hasn't changed. They had a major event not too long ago where some dumb white kid in a hoodie who listened to a lot of rap thought it would be really cool to flash gang signs at some black kiddie-gangstas driving by, who in turn flipped around and unloaded on him. Being cool earned him a trip to the morgue. Common sense dictates that if you're not one of them, don't try to be: you're white, they're black; they're in a gang, you obviously are not despite how cool you think it might be. This will never work out well in any reality, Clint Eastwood said it best in Gran Torino: "What the hell's wrong with you, calling them 'bro'? A blind man can tell you're not from their neighborhood and even if you were they wouldn't want an idiot like you for a 'bro'." |
December 29, 2012 - 11:26am | Go Eastwood. He's had some good movie quotes over the years. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 29, 2012 - 10:05pm | Deryn or Deryn Rys Norr (the full name) is the name of one of the NPC's I had when I ran my farewell Star Frontiers adventure when my gaming group disbanded years ago. The farewell adventure was a high action space fantasy and was my tribute to Star Wars using a heavilly modified version of the Star Frontiers rules. The character was the youngest of a pair of Mystic Knights who were part of a band of rebels who had discovered that an Admiral in the UPF spacefleet had over the years been replacing crewmen aboard his ships with clones and after 20 years the clones had risen into command positions in Spacefleet, and with a command they would all turn on the Frontier and force the council of worlds to turn over control of the Frontier to Admiral Ayres the future Emperor of the Frontier sector. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
 December 30, 2012 - 5:03pm | The handle you all know me by, Terl Obar, is the name of my major character from when I played Star Frontiers as a kid. I use that one pretty much anywhere related to Star Frontiers or science fiction. I have another handle, dagorym, that I use in non sci-fi related forums and anywhere else (including Twitter) on the internet that actually predates my Terl Obar handle. That one stems from my fantasy role playing days in high school were I played an advanced home-brewed version of RuneQuest. In that game world (which was created before RuneQuest or even D&D and is the world Tracy Hickman started role-playing in), dagoryms were the genetic class of humans capable of using magic, and the word literally meant wizard. If you search the internet for the term dagorym, all those hits are probably pointing at me  .Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
December 30, 2012 - 6:38pm | Oh yeah, the Devil-face I use is my icon from Deviant Art. I was in a rush to make an account here, so I throw any old Icon up, and I forgot to change it with something more appropriately sci-fi. The face is from one of my color-pencil-on-black-paper pics, called Male Devil (which is not viewable, unless you have a DA account, and even then it vary much NSFW). I have been meaning to change it. |
December 31, 2012 - 9:48am | Great stuff, keep it coming. My avatar is simple, I made an homage to Jesse James' West Coast Choppers logo. Just like my screen name, I incorporate that on every board too. |
December 31, 2012 - 11:29am | And my avatar is pretty obvious but I guess I'll have to change it tomorrow  . I typically use an assault scout from the cover of "The War Machine", even on my other screen name.Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
December 31, 2012 - 11:44am | My avatar is a painted miniature I photographed in digital macro mode within a terrain peice i made for a contest at terragenesis.co.uk back before I got fed up with the site owners nudgie bs. I was just rediscovering SF and had found the PbP yahoo game: Black Hand Gang and used this pic as my character portrait. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 1, 2013 - 8:44am | Update: My new avatar is a Cobra Viper from a G.I.Joe collectible card game. An alternative was to crop the face of a Metal-man from the french movie Gandahar (aka Light Years), but I noticed the Viper was the right size limit, and I was in a rush. Maybe I'll go with the latter, later... |
January 1, 2013 - 9:54am | Man, I should revive my rotating avatar. IIRC it was either Larry or Bill who really loved that one...with "love" being more of a euphemism. Then I'd have to pen an essay to explain it. |
 January 1, 2013 - 7:26pm | I was in the navy at the time and attempting to explain what an aircraft carrier did and why we need them. The person who I was talking to thought the navy was still full of battleships. So I said it's a big LZ in the ocean for fighters to land. Which then made me have to explain what an LZ was. After that her friends started calling me LZ. I have used the handle on several boards email accounts and MMO's. Ellzii |
January 1, 2013 - 8:57pm | I was in the navy at the time and attempting to explain what an aircraft carrier did and why we need them. The person who I was talking to thought the navy was still full of battleships. So I said it's a big LZ in the ocean for fighters to land. Which then made me have to explain what an LZ was. After that her friends started calling me LZ. I have used the handle on several boards email accounts and MMO's. Ellzii that's a cool story. One wonders at the hair color involved. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 1, 2013 - 10:07pm | Tekrat: A black rat with blue eyes that live on or around stages. Hates the limelight but does not mind being the lime. That is what is use when someone ask me what tekrat means. I've generaly get one of two responce, the blank look or a roar of laughter. Hint I'm describing my line of work. The handle was inspired by the name of one of the profession in the Cyber Space RPG. |
 February 5, 2017 - 8:33pm | Ah, an old discussion but one that's easy. JCab = Joe Cabadas 747 = the Boeing 747, which was one of my favorite aircraft when I was a child. Not that I've ever been on one, but from reading about them and making plastic models of them. Joe Cabadas |
February 5, 2017 - 8:34pm | Then my picture is a Star Destroyer from the Star Wars Empire at War PC game. Joe Cabadas |
February 6, 2017 - 6:31pm | My avatar is a painted miniature I photographed in digital macro mode within a terrain peice i made for a contest at terragenesis.co.uk back before I got fed up with the site owners nudgie bs. I was just rediscovering SF and had found the PbP yahoo game: Black Hand Gang and used this pic as my character portrait. So My avatar has changed, I took the kids to Disney Hollywood studios and we did the thing where they photograph you and insert your face on a starwars character. I kind of miss the dralasite avatar though. On the other hand I haven't been see with this much hair in 25 years so I may keep the Me Solo pic I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
