Stonewall Times - Winter 19/20

stonewall Issue 37 | Winter 2019/20 Official magazine of the stonewall gaming networktimes

Lunar new year Sto at 10 Cocky pallet jockeys Discord stats Sgn’s community survey results Your-o-vision Pride lands Plus more

Contents 04 10 14 16 18 26 30 32 34 48 58 60 62 70 78 90 92 104 106 112

Lunar new year events Star trek online’s 10th Sgn update Discord stats Community survey Breast cancer awareness 2020 event calendar YOUROVISION Dead by daylight Pride lands fortnite GOOGLE STADIA Stonewallwatch Secret santa Admiral’s desk crossword Wonderland Mental health awareness The Science bit Peter Parker

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Ten-Foreword

H Editorial Editor-in-chief Cal Layout Callex Contributors @TLara/tedhembach @hippiepunk @Voleron @GXV3 @IM_TRICK @KIERIX @halish @saintplazma @viethai @jimmyjoe1a @chipz416 @joogoo @balduranne @twospirited

Social Media @StonewallGN Websites stonewallgaming.net

Star Trek & related properties are trademarks and ©CBS Studios Inc. Star Trek Online (STO) & related properties are ©Cryptic Studios Inc. Star Wars & related properties are trademarks and ©Lucasfilm Ltd. Star Wars: The Old Republic & related properties are ©EA International (Studio and Publishing) Ltd. Guild Wars 2 (GW2) & related marks are ©ArenaNet Inc and NCSOFT Europe Ltd. Overwatch is a trademark of Blizzard Entertainment Inc. Pokémon go ©Niantic Inc. © Pokémon. ©Nintendo / Creatures Inc. / GAME FREAK inc.

Pokémon and Pokémon character names are trademarks of Nintendo.

No infringement of these rights is intended.

Stonewall Times is a voluntary, community-made, non-profit production.

appy new decade SGN! It’s a brand new calendar (as well as lunar!) year not to mention a whole new decade! I find myself stepping onto the bridge again of the Stonewall Times, much like another captain before

me...

Well, I hope you all don’t mind if I take the helm for a spin again. At least until the next generation of editors steps up from the Nexus :) It gives me great pleasure to announce that the Stonewall Times now has a team after all these years! We are joined by Gareth, the Teds, Joey and Trick! All of whom you already know from their respective roles in SGN but now with added creativity plugged in! We can’t wait to see what they will bring to future editions—so watch this space!

But first, in this rather packed edition, our cover feature is taking a look at Dead by Daylight, one of the new games that SGN has already started venturing into over the last year. Ding ding!

With a new year comes our new home at home on SGN, plus we’re also trialling out issuu.com as another channel for you to read at your convenience, so please let us have any feedback on these, or any other aspect of your Times!

Cheers,

Cal Recent previous editions of the Stonewall Times are available online at https://sites.google.com/site/stonewalltimes/home

Made from recycled photonics a TACTICAL INITIATIVE

MMXX

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Happy lunar new year!

Tet Nguyen Dan or Tet is the most important and popular holiday and festival in Vietnam.

It is the Vietnamese New Year marking the arrival of spring based on the Lunar calendar, a lunisolar calendar. The name Tet Nguyen Dan is Sino-Vietnamese for Feast of the very First Morning.

Tet takes place from the first day of the first month of the Lunar calendar (around late January or early February) until at least the third day. Many Vietnamese prepare for Tet by cooking special holiday foods and cleaning their house. There 4 stonewallgaming.net

are a lot of customs practiced during Tet such as visiting a person’s house on the first day of the new year (xông nhà), ancestral worship, wishing New Year’s greetings, giving lucky money to children and elderly people and opening a shop.

Tet is also an occasion for pilgrims and family reunions.

During Tet, Vietnamese visits their relatives and temples, forgetting the troubles of the past year and hoping for a better upcoming year. They consider Tet to be the first day of spring and the festival is often

called spring festival.

Like other Asian countries, Vietnamese believe that the colour of red and yellow will bring good fortune, which may explain why these colours can be seen everywhere in Lunar New Year.

People consider what they do on the dawn of Tet will determine their fate for the whole year, hence people always smile and behave as nice as they can in the hope for a better year.

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lunar new year In games The Lunar New Year or Spring Festival is celebrated in a number of games.

themed costumes for the players.

On the following pages, you can see Fortnite’s own skins as well as As shown on this page, Overwatch some from Guild Wars 2 and Neverwinter. runs special Lunar New Year loot boxes during their event where you What do you most like about the can get special themed skins, Lunar New Year event in your some of the past ones in the game? Feel free to share with us! image above.

Dead by Daylight has run a number of events over the last 3 years, the latest titled “Moonrise” with 6 stonewallgaming.net

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survey Results The voice of our community—by @chipz416 Before I begin talking about the results of the 2019 Stonewall Gaming Network (SGN) Community Survey, I would like to thank all of you for the enormous amount of response we received… FIFTY! Just… WOW! I am seriously impressed by all your collective efforts to reflect on how SGN is doing in your eyes and telling us what we are doing right and how we could improve to become even better.

bit.ly/2u8njAu [Note: To preserve

the anonymous nature of the responses, some @handles have been replaced by asterisks].

With this issue of the Stonewall Times, this report has become available to all of you, and simultaneously I will open a thread on our Forums where you can discuss the report, and actively continue to give us your feedback on our plans and how we have implemented them so far. The Thank you all so very much! implementation of the recommendations from the survey At the same time this places a is the second part of the task we serious amount of responsibility on have set out and we have already my and my fellow Officers’ started this in autumn 2019. shoulders. Since you have collectively given us so much In this Stonewall Times article I will insight and trust with all the energy give a summary of the report. To you put in answering us, we felt begin with, it is in part a proverbial that it would be our most solemn thermometer, measuring the responsibility to reciprocate your atmosphere in SGN and learning efforts with concrete about the backgrounds and needs improvements to SGN, and of our Membership base as a communicating openly about what whole, and the variation among this we will be doing to advance SGN base. It is also in parts a tool for us into the new decade! in leadership positions to get tangible feedback on how we can The first part of this is the public improve. Finally, I will discuss what publication of the full survey report we have done so far with all your which can be read or downloaded feedback and what more you can from this link: https:// 18 stonewallgaming.net

expect from us in the future to make SGN that open, friendly, and above all fun corner of the internet that we call our own.

Let’s begin with taking a look at how our Membership base can be described on the whole. There appear to be two most active sets of time-zones; UTC-8 to UTC-5 and UTC±0 to UTC+2, which respectively coincides with North America and Canada on the one hand, and the UK and continental Europe on the other hand.

Obviously, this is not necessarily the whole truth, because respondents from those time zones could be from the Southern hemisphere as well, as we did not collect data on the country of residence for obvious privacy reasons. In addition, we also know that we have several members outside these two groups of time zones in, for example, Australia.

Nonetheless, given the activity levels throughout the day on Discord, in-game chat, and our other online platforms, this geographical distribution seems representative on an order-ofmagnitude scale.

Participation rates on the in-game chat, Discord, and the website furthermore indicate that the Membership base can also be divided in two groups of different activity level; one more actively participating in chat and discussions, and one more passively keeping up. Nevertheless, the second group often indicates in the comments how much it is appreciated that they can be a part of the social atmosphere in SGN. Now that we know what our Membership base roughly looks like, we can dive into the next important question; how do we all feel about SGN and how does it perform with regard to your expectations? I promise not to bore you to death with spreadsheets, pie-charts, bar charts, or statistical theories… feel free to hit me up for a discussion on mathematics any other time you want. You can see all the graphs in the report but a few key ones I want to present here. Most importantly when speaking about the aforementioned proverbial thermometer, the general atmosphere in SGN was graded by you all with an 8.70/10 as you can see in the Figure below.

Similarly, other aspects of SGN get comparably high grades for atmosphere, the friendliness, approachability and helpfulness of its people. Respondents appreciate the sense of community there is, which is reflected in the comments that are given on events, and what people are looking for in SGN and its online platforms. What I particularly liked myself was the visual representation of the responses to the question “What are the three best features of SGN?”. Though it is by no means a quantitative statistical analysis, the full-page word-cloud does make this Chief of Morale feel warm and fuzzy inside and I’ve copied it in full below.

Be that as it may, this is not a reason to grow overly-complacent with these good grades and be done with it, because there’s a heart-felt drive to keep SGN strong and make it flourish even further in the future. To that end, I also would very much like to share with you the recommendations we read in all your answers. The report has them numbered from 1 to 9, and for consistency I will adhere to that numbering here as well.

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1. Expanding SGN into other games. If SGN is going to survive after STO, it should expand into other games more.

There’s a figure in the report (Fig, 5 on page 5 of the full report— download link at end), that shows all the other games that the respondents played apart from the ones we already have an established presence in. I have not repeated it here as the figure is quite large and the only two conclusions that can be drawn from it are that (1) we have no obvious blind spot in which we could immediately grow into, but (2) that our Members do play a large variety of different other games. For perspective, 27 different games were named that respondents have ever played, of which the most frequently mentioned (World of Warcraft) received 6 out of 50 mentions. For perspective, 98.0% of the respondents had ever played Star Trek Online, 32.0% said the same thing about Star Wars: The Old Republic, and 20.0% about Overwatch, which are the three top played games within SGN. Even though we don’t have an obvious blind spot, we do intend to enthuse our base to play other games together and so grow gradually in our presence there and eventually attract more people. The recent Discord change has also taken this to heart in the form of the three voice chat channels (alpha, beta, and gamma) combined with their associated text chat channels in which people can tune into live game streams while being able to chat both in voice and by text. Together with our recent pushes into new games (e.g. Dead by Daylight) we hope to have gone on a path that can properly address this recommendation.

2. There could be greater diversity in the member base than gay men only.

This is a particularly tricky issue, first of all given the initial demographics of any gaming community. Our open-minded and inclusive LGBTA-community stands out as very particular target audience already, and specifically targeting subsections of this community is a difficult task in itself which requires a good communication strategy that is both effective and strikes the right tone. Fortunately, Voleron is already very proficiently working on this issue through his recruiting efforts on social media.

If you have any good ideas to share with us on how to work on this recommendation, feel free to discuss this in the Forum thread about the survey report, or directly contact one of our Officers.

3. Have more regular smaller social events so that people can enjoy the sense of community more.

Currently we have several larger annual events; e.g. Pride, Reflection Day, Your-O-Vision, Fright Night, Spring Swing, Romulan Farmers Festival, White Winter Whirl, and many more. In addition, we currently have the monthly May’Qep event organised by our Department of Klingon Affairs in Star Trek Online. In the past, the Resources Department also organised small get-togethers to farm dilithium on our Fleet mine. This event was relaunched as a test on Sunday 17 November 2019, and we are evaluating whether we will do this more often in the same form, or perhaps somewhat differently.

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4. Respondents have indicated that they’d like to see more casual use of voice chat for social gatherings.

Our recent Discord revamp has left in place a more streamlined way to enter voice chat. Apart from places in which gaming teams could coordinate their endeavours, people can now easily stream their own gameplay for other Members to enjoy. In addition, to even further reduce the threshold of entering voice chat, we have added text chat to our traditional voice chat channels. At the time of this writing there have only been three days since the revamp has occurred, and all three of them were working days, so we can’t make a quantitative comparison yet. However, based on my personal gut feeling, there has been an increased popularity in the use of voice chat since than!

5. More general politeness in chat and on our shared media; no joke-dissing, or sarcastically answering newbiequestions.

With regard to how to behave in chat and our shared media there can be little discussion. Our Code of Conduct is crystal clear on this matter: Section 1: Be respectful.

Section 2: Do not harass, insult, or denigrate others Section 3: Do not spam Section 4: Respect privacy Section 5: Be a good gamer Any violation of these rules should and shall be dealt with when it is brough to the attention of a Senior Member or Officer. If ever you feel that this has not happened, please let us know.

That being said, we take considerable care to not zealously police the room that people should be allowed to have in order to express themselves freely. Behind the scenes this is an ongoing and living discussion to ensure we continuously strike the right balance, yet we will never allow violations of the Charter, Code of Conduct, and Community Guidelines.

6. There still seems to be a sense of chat being “PG13”.

SGN does not follow a set of rules that has colloquially and incorrectly become known as “PG13”. The only rules that anyone in SGN should comply with are: the Charter, Code of Conduct, and Community Guidelines. Reaffirming this to the membership and leadership could be considered, yet care must be taken that this does not invoke a spirit of moral depravity and lawlessness.

First of all, PG13 is a term used in the film industry in the United States and has little exact meaning or familiarity outside of the US. Although for some people it may feel as an exact guideline, it is very much open to individual interpretation. Again, our the Charter, Code of Conduct, and Community Guidelines are far more exact. It is our intention to slowly get the idea of a PG13-rule out of people’s mind without it becoming a free pass for behaviour that is inconsistent with the aforementioned three documents. As this is a somewhat sensitive issue, we have taken very careful steps here.

To this end the “PG-13” emoji has been removed from Discord. Sometimes when in a fun discussion filled with innuendo, in jest people would throw out this emoji. For those who were less familiar with the mostly relaxed stance we take on this, the emoji was occasionally taken as an official warning from someone in leadership while it was only made in jest. In order to step away from the misconception of a PG13-rule, we thus introduced the “LEWD” and “Absolute Filth” emojis that have one singular goal; expand your vocabulary of witty replies in the form of emojis!

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What are the three be

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est features of SGN?

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7. A more user-friendly website where information is easier to find, and image-uploading is easier. There is also demand for an event calendar.

An official event calendar has been added to the website here: https://www.stonewallgaming.net/events. Both past events and upcoming events can be found there. The moment the organising Department, Officer (e.g. Admiral), or Senior Member (e.g. Fleet Captain) has fixed a date for the event, it will be made visible there. The yearly outline of our major events in 2020 is published in this first issue of the Stonewall Times this year. This schedule is of course not definite and complete, if we have a fun idea to surprise you with a new event, we would obviously like to keep that option open too! Our year planning is thus always a little bit flexible and fluent in nature.

With regard to the image uploading to the website, Voleron has written a straightforward and simple guide on how to add images to your forum posts on our website. Check it out here: https://www.stonewallgaming.net/forums/threads/141140-voleron-s-guide-to-uploading-using-images-in-the-forums

8. The Stonewall Credit Store is well known.

It seems unlikely that community members don’t know how the SWC store works, often they are just saving for the high tier prizes. Keeping a steady stock of these high tier prizes, e.g. T6-ships, may be a financial challenge though.

To increase further ease of use of the Stonewall Credit Store, your personal balance is now directly visible in the store, without having to go to your personal balance site. You can now simply go to: http://credits.stonewallfleet.com/ You then click on “order from your swc wallet”, and you will immediately see your personal balance if you are logged into the website. Furthermore, you now no longer have to remember or bookmark the stonewall credit store address, as now you can easily find it by clicking on your profile icon and then clicking on “Wallet”.

9. There is a demand for quarterly issued Stonewall Times, or perhaps a blog format.

Writing the Stonewall Times requires lots of entertaining and informative articles that can be enjoyed by everyone in SGN. Personally, I can’t wait to read every new edition of this fantastic magazine and if you feel the same, and want to use your creative skills in writing for this magazine, check out this forum post and join our team of writers! https://www.stonewallgaming.net/forums/threads/151870-stonewall-times-is-recruiting [Editor’s note: The Stonewall Times has indeed moved to a quarterly format based on this very feedback. Keep them coming though!]

This brings me to the end of the summary of the survey results. I’d once more like to thank everyone for their responses. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the results, please do so in the Forum thread, or if you feel it more prudent to do so, you can also contact one of the Officers directly.

Full version of the report: https://bit.ly/2u8njAu Chipz416 Chief of Fleet Morale Stonewall Fleet Stonewall Gaming Network

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Breast Cancer Awareness Month By @balduranne attention, the event was a huge During this year’s Breast Cancer photoshoot. success and we’ve all had a lot Awareness Month in October, During go time, @Balduranne of fun.

STO partnered with Groupees to spent almost an hour getting present a charity bundle. people together and making sure everyone is positioned The limited time offer featured appropriately. An experience not T6 ships (a Pilot Escort and Battlecruiser for both FED and unlike herding cats.

KDF sides) ships and several It wasn’t easy, but with a turnout visual accessories, most of 23 members, we managed to prominently a pink vanity shield. form a beautiful, shapely ribbon.

Needless to say, the reasonably- Once our main task was complete, we met aboard the priced bundle was a huge U.S.S. Samsara and formed a success at Stonewall. ribbon out of captains, which @NikoLunus, one of our members, came up with the idea was a lot easier. of using our new vanity shields Followed by a dance part, of to form a ribbon made out of course. It wouldn’t be Stonewall ships in celebration of breast if there wasn’t a dance party at cancer awareness. With the end. @SaintPlazma’s enthusiasm at the idea, it wasn’t long until we started preparing for the actual While we failed to get Cryptic’s 26 stonewallgaming.net

Stonewall Fleet assemble! Precision flying into formation as the pink ribbon takes shape!

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2020 January

SGN

STO

Anniversary

February

March

April

May

Ju

Valentines

Spring Swing

Your.o.vision

Pri

Anniversary

First Contact

Lohl

Fest

Fortnite SWTOR

Relics of the Gree

DbD OW

Annive

Lunar New year

Films

30 stonewallgaming.net All events are subject to change and confirmation.

Archives

Anniversary

ne

ide

July Summer Fest

August Las Vegas meet up

September

October

Romulan Harvest

Halloween

Festival

November

December Winter Whirl Secret Santa

unat

Lohlunat

Hearts &

Q’s Winter

tival

Festival

Minds

Wonderland

World Cup

Winterfest

ersary

Summer

Halloween

Winter

Games

Terror

Wonderland

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Your-o-vision A stonewall spectacular Eurovision is truly an institution. Every year the nations of Europe ..and a few others (Oz!!) join in a festival of song that has now grown far beyond its early beginnings.

For me it’s almost like a minifederation, with all the nations participating in song, with added flair and charisma thrown into the mix.

As ever, we at SGn love a party and see keen members take up the mantle of hijacking #General in

discord to rally on our favourites.

We hope you come and join us too this year!

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Cover feature

Getting Cocky Intro by @Gxv3, article by @joogoo

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2017 saw the 4v1 survival horror game genre explode onto every gaming platform, Friday the 13th, Death Garden, Last Year, Resident Evil Project Resistance for example.

But they have all died out through a dwindling player base or contractual issues.

However, one of these 4v1 games has stood out and survived and is bigger than ever in 2020, beating off all competition with a simple old rusty hook, and that game is Dead by Daylight!

It is a pretty simple game once you start off, and that simplicity is its beauty.

You choose to play as survivor or a killer. As a

survivor you are placed on a map with 3 other players and you’ll have to fix 5 generators that are dotted around the map—you’ll have to find the generators first however! Whilst fixing these generators, you have to be constantly on the lookout for the killer, who wants nothing more than to beat you to the ground so that they can pick you up and place you on their hook. But fear not, if you are hooked by the killer, you won't die instantly, you will have to hope that your fellow survivors will come and unhook you, all without being spotted by the killer…

for you. Speaking of being hooked, some of our Stonewall members have taken quite an interest in Dead by Daylight, and have created a growing player base named the Cocky Pallet Jockeys that gets together some evenings to play as a group.. Anyone in Stonewall is welcome to come join in, or simply watch the gameplay on our discord stream.

Overleaf is just such a Dead

by Daylight player; Stonewall Times invited @joogoo to write about his passion for the game.

But if you get hooked three times, then it is insta death

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Who ever fantasized of a ‘hook’-up with a Trapper, a Hag or even Scary Movie’s Ghost Face? I’m sure the thought tickles some of your fancies. Let me tell you a little about SGN’s community in the game Dead by Daylight (DbD) - the “Cocky Pallet Jockeys”.

enjoyable for both new and veteran players. I first discovered DbD over 2 years ago when @GXV3 introduced my much better half (@Voleron) to the game and really started playing out of spite

This game isn’t for the faint of heart as it has its scary moments that could make you, um, need new underwear but with time, it gets a little less frightening.

I encourage all of you thrill seekers to join us!

I could bore you by rambling about the game’s lore and objectives, but I’d rather not. If you are unaware or curious about the game, here’s a link to explore: https:// deadbydaylight.com/en/game (note: you must be 18 or over to enter – don’t worry, no nudity here!).

Although DbD’s player base is known to be rather toxic and aggressive (Editor’s note—you should see Overwatch!), our own community that plays within SGN is quite welcoming and friendly – that is if @Milmar isn’t playing that day.

SGN’s Cocky Pallet Jockeys Community is growing as interest in the game increases despite DbD being over 3 years old now. The dev team is always hard at work creating more content to keep the players interested and on their toes. This makes game play

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… but it isn’t the case. As this community grows, it makes for more interesting matches as each new member brings along new strategies and tactics – such as Dwight’s “hide in a locker all match”. We’ll get him out in due time since we’ve all been there.

Here is a few ways to reach out to anyone currently playing DbD: because

@Voleron thought it would be too scary for me.

1.

Type/Follow in the Discord “DbD” Channel

2.

Log into your account at stonewallgaming.net -> Groups -> Cocky Pallet Jockeys

3.

Check for live streams happening in Discord Channels and join us!

Well, here I am with nearly 2,000 gameplay hours in my toolbox and still playing like some kind of Putrid Hoping to survive with you very Serum addict. soon.

One would think I’d be getting tired of always doing the same thing (repairing generators, evading the killer, opening exit gates, surviving)

Julien @Joogoo

h ps://imgur.com/gallery/5ylhKCs Â

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Group custom match team picture following a day full of Cocky Pallet Jockeys fun. Players that day: Me, Voleron, GXV3, Milmar, Ni

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imesulide, Oliee, That Individual

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Quentin desperately trying to find the key needed to unlock and remove the Pig’s (Saw Chapter Killer) Reverse Bear Trap before is s

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plits Quentin’s head in half.

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Voleron as the Clown (Unlicensed Killer). Bet you’d find this circus thrilling.

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Endgame Collapse: Milmar getting penetrated by The Entity deeper than what he originally signed up for.

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Custom commissioned artwork I received from @Voleron for Xmas of our fav. Survivors (my actual face on shirtless David King’s bo Spirit.

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d & @Voleron’s actual face on bloody Quentin Smith’s body) at our favourite DbD map (Ormond Resort) running from the eerie

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As part of SGN’s Pride 10 celebrations, Resources invited members to contribute their Pride story to form the Pride Lands. Here we share their submissions and hope you too can take pride in what they have achieved and inspired you to feel proud of who you are, or even who you are to be...

Jeffdabear1 One of the proudest I have ever been is when I walked into this years Coronation of my local Imperial Court, almost 20 years to the day of the first time I have attended the event. The first time I was a very ignorant, arrogant person who knew little of how his community or the world at large worked, a nobody. This time when I came in, I was annouced to the entire gathering, a little older, a little wiser, but almost everyone in the room knew who I was, which still blows my mind. i am primarily affiliated with my home's bear community but over the past two decades I have developed a reputation as someone who is not afraid of reaching across boundaries and working with other organizations. I never expected to receive a lifetime title, much less half of what I have earned over the years. I guess it does prove that one person can make a difference if they are willing to set their mind to it.

Kierix I always am, and always will be proud and in love with every member of stonewall gaming network, whether it be as a friend or pseudo family member. You are all amazing in my eyes and it wouldn't be the same without you.

MadHatch What does Pride mean for me?

It means not being afraid of who I am.

I grew up in the 70's/80's - not the most open time to be gay. Sh*t happened (as it often does in life) and by 90's I was coming to terms with all it (seriously, you don't need the details). In 1995 I was outed by a member of my family. And... Yes, they tried to make it shameful, they wanted me to hide - to change. But I didn't. I ended up having to leave home, leave my DNA family behind. 1995 was the first time I marched in London Pride. I had a boyfriend, I had friends - and for the first time in my life I felt truly alive. I felt like I was free.

No road is without it's bumps, and now in 2019 the world (and I) are different from what they used to be. I don't hide who I am anymore. I am proud to say "husband" to my partner of 17 years. I am proud of the family I now have who loves me for who I am. I am an awesome Gruncle. I am a big softie when it comes to my furbaby (the destructive little minx). And my husband - I love being able to use that word - my husband is just awesome.

For me, Pride mean being free. Free to love, free to live. Free to be.

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door, and literally helps nobody… I think it just comes down to finding a modus My absolute pride is the result of a weight loss operandi that worked for me; data journey. It feels that I’m exposing quite a bit of myself visualisation, spreadsheets, and making by writing this down, but it says a lot about my trust in small changes based on that. Eating a little bit less, this wonderful community that I feel safe and doing Zumba, taking a bike instead of a bus. comfortable enough to write it down here.

Chipz416

I weighed 91 kg back in June 2017, which was too much at my 1,72 m height. I never was overweight until I went to university and basically drank far too much beer every night which gained me a lot of extra kilos. I was never able to successfully get it of anymore, despite the many many times I tried or started a diet.

This time it was different. I downloaded and installed an app called Lifesum, no I don’t own shares… It helped me a lot in accurately assessing my caloric intake and expenditure and this made it a whole lot easier to make better choices. I didn’t tell anyone as I’ve been unsuccessful so often and I was fearing people’s scrutinising reactions to yet another attempt.

This time with the help of the app it worked, though!

This obviously did a lot of good for my motivation, especially when other people started noticing.

After about one year, I reached 66 kg, so that’s 25 kg less and I’m stable at that weight for about one year now already. I vividly remember two very emotional moments…

The first one was when we were going on a flight to Hungary and we could take along a 24 kg suitcase. I weighed myself without the suitcase and then with… and I was surprised to see my old weight back on the scale, but now with a super-heavy suitcase!

Another moment was when going for new clothes the first time after losing all that weight. Obviously your entire wardrobe can be thrown out and replaced for new clothes. I was a size XL, and when I first went to buy a new sweater I put on an M and was very proud that it fitted. The salesperson said that an S would suit me better though, and I tried that on and he was right! I bought the sweater and when me and my

Once the start was there, and I lost a few kilos, it

became very easy and even fun to keep it up! I am a big nerd, so I used spreadsheets with which I could analyse my data and make constantly updating forecasts and summaries of my progress. I even calculated that I needed to cut 6886,1 kcal to lose 1 kg of weight, which is close to the 7000 kcal/kg you find so often in a lot of articles. The entire thing just comes down to consuming less calories than you use over a longer period of time. This is quite an open 50 stonewallgaming.net

husband left the shop, I was crying so hard outside on the street.

So... here it is, I hope it doesn't feel like I'm oversharing stuff, but it truly is the one thing I am most proud of.

Gravity With some prodding it was suggested i take part in this post and it was going to be all about my first pride experience but having seen what this is about i think i have something better, here we go.

Growing up i had always been fairly quiet especially so at school (it was an all boys school in the 90s) where i was the classic nerd and not super popular but i had a good group of friends. Suffice to say puberty hit and it became apparent to me i was not the same as the other boys at school. This was something i tried to keep secret but at one point i trusted the wrong person and the news got out. What followed was two years of the most unpleasant bullying the details of which are fairly irrelevant to this post. I felt deeply ashamed of myself and just became something of a hermit never leaving my room and never talking to anyone. I didn't go to university though i had offers and it was only two years later when the schools careers officer rang me asking if i planned to ever go i decided to put an application in. I owe a lot to her because i likely would never have done so without prompting.

small provincial affair to a massive party to celebrate. As a volunteer for the city of culture i was sent to take part in the parade and it was a truly a life affirming experience. All these people coming out to support our community in a city in the north of England with a reputation for being a bit backwards, it genuinely warmed my heart. I slowly become more vocal about being gay both in and our of work and the real turning point happened later that year when the leader of our local BP Pride group left the company. There was nobody to take over this and he approached me and asked me to do it. I was horrified at the prospect of essentially being the local face for the LGBT+ community in the company. The alternative was that all activities in this area would stop entirely because these diversity and inclusion groups are run by volunteers and nobody else was stepping up. I took the decision that keeping the good work going was worth the discomfort on my part and i am so glad i did. This single action set in course a series of events that has massively increased my confidence and involves me standing in front of rooms filled with people giving educations sessions and even lobbying the leadership for change. I have arranged our continued sponsorship of the local pride parade and even get people from work to take part now. I have arranged multiple education sessions for people of all levels at the company. I have had meaningful discussions with alot of straight white middle aged men on topics such as trans rights and most recently i have been lobbying for some gender neutral toilets to be installed.

Going to university changed my life i became so much more comfortable and happy in myself but i was always still shy when it came to men and i was nervous in gay situations. During my years there i got used to the idea that i was gay but there was always part of me that held back and i was still very shy in public. During my entire time at university i never once kissed someone on a night out or even bought someone a drink. I was essentially hiding away from my gayness, whilst i had accepted it was part of who i I am so very proud that i had the courage to be willing was i was scared to show it in public. to overcome the difficulties i had in my early life and truly accept myself. The change i have been bring Going forward to where i work now (BP) and there about because of this may not be big but it has been was quite a profound change in my personality. While incredibly meaningful to me.

Stonewall people may have always known me as the loud and seemingly confident person online it was not so in person. Working at BP i was supported and i came out to the people at work but i still never really spoke about my own life and in many respects i still didn't engage with the gay part of myself at all. The support i got at work helped and i was slowly becoming more confident in myself and slowly tuning into the loudmouth you all know (and tolerate) today.

A turning point occurred when my local city was the UK city of culture and the pride event changed from a

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NicholasJohn16 lifetime membership by the members of Stonewall Fleet. When I posted my Guest Blog: Celebrating Diversity in Star Trek, the out pouring of support was overwhelming. I got Growing up, I had always been a shy kid; I was afraid messages from dozens of players thanking me for the to speak up in class or talk to strangers. I rarely gave post and our Pride Weekend celebration was one of my own opinion. Maybe it was because I was a the largest ever. When I received the letter below, I northerner around southerners or because I was more was so proud of the reputation that Stonewall Fleet quiet around more boisterous boys, but it wasn’t long had built. I’m proud each time someone tells me before I was pegged as the gay kid. At 16 and in high about the impact that our community has had on their school, I was tired of living a life in the closet and life, either by making friends, helping them become decided to come out. This put a target on my back like more comfortable with their sexuality, or even never before. Being called queer or faggot walking meeting the love of their life. I'm not just proud of my down the hall was common place. Death threats accomplishments, but that of the hundreds of passed to me as notes or whispered to me in class members who have volunteered their time, energy and were a weekly occurrence. One day, they described in skill to help build this community into what it is. detail how they’d skin me alive and set me on fire if Without the combined effort and collaboration of they ever got me alone. I quickly had to learn to stand countless people, Stonewall Fleet wouldn't be what it up for myself and defend myself and I did. I found my is today. own voice and learned to make sure other people heard it too. I stood up to the bullies and didn't back down. In the face of adversity, I persevered.

I suppose there are a few points in my life that I’m proud of.

When I went away to college, the first thing I did was find out about the lgbt club on campus. It didn’t meet till two weeks into the semester and I excitedly waited for it. When the night finally came and I remember sitting in the meeting room and looking around; there were 15 other gay people in the same place as me! I was so excited to no longer be alone. I was an active member in the group from the very beginning and was quickly elected to Webmaster. (This was at a time I knew nothing about web development.) After that short tenure, I was elected Vice President and then President. Under my direction, the rag tag group of 15 swelled to 75. We had to find a bigger meeting space!

When it came time to host the yearly student lgbt state-wide conference, my organization was selected to host it due to our leadership. When it came time to fund the conference, I raised $15,000 to fund it through a coalition of university departments, nonprofits and state-wide agencies.

Since starting Stonewall Fleet, there have been numerous instances that have filled me with pride.

Watching a small group that you started of a not even a dozen players grow into hundreds and more is an amazing experience. When Star Trek Online was just about to launch, I was so honored to be gifted a

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Hi Nick, My name’s XXX XXXXX, the Community Team Lead for ArenaNet’s upcoming MMO, Guild Wars 2. I’d like to talk with you today about a special testing opportunity for your guild.

Since we first publicly demonstrated Guild Wars 2 a few years ago, we’ve been fortunate enough to capture the imagination and enthusiasm of MMO players and press around the world. With Guild Wars 2, our goal is nothing less than redefining the limits of the massive online role playing genre, and we’d like your help in achieving that goal.

At this stage in our development, we’re looking for guilds to help us with testing Guild Wars 2, which is where you come in. The Stonewall Fleet came highly recommended to me by members of our studio, so we’d like to extend an invitation to you and 4 other members of your guild for a special closed beta test in the near future.

If you’re interested in advancing MMO gaming and helping us make Guild Wars 2 one of the premiere online role playing games , please reply back to me and I’ll follow up with further details. As you can imagine, this private beta testing opportunity will be covered by a Non-Disclosure Agreement, so I’d appreciate it if you could keep this email conversation confidential as well.

Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to talking to you soon. See you on the battlefield!

P.S. Take a look at our website to learn more about Guild Wars 2 and to check out some of the awards and accolades we’ve received so far.

Sincerely, XXX XXXXX

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dudette101 well which I'm proud of is in my puberty I took the wrong path with a disturbed mind I was seduced by drugs and with my disturbed mind I became my very own destruction. more disturbed than I was at early 14 years the hell broke loose when i was 15 years old and heard that my father is a female. from a simple joint around that age i was smoking too much and then I discovered the hard stuff and went from disturbed to completely mental.

Going waaaay too deep with this hard stuff and lost my mind around my 17th by a psychose and from a disturbed confused mind i turned into a paranoid anxious person and lived many years in terror of fear.

When i reached 18 I was legally free to have intercourse so I reached out with the next confused mode in my head --> Dad is a woman and how the heck does this gene affects me? (it’s smt personal not about genes)

Went to many females behind a red light and searching confirmation with this confused mind of me.

It made me all more confused and now I know I'm straight as it can be. I always liked female.

I paid the price to get a psychose when i was around 17 and till my 22nd year i still had many problems to solve.

But around 2012 I became homeless and that's which I'm very proud of.

Because from that moment I stood up and didn't let me affect the bad things that went in all my life that destructed my very own life and when I realized this I started to grow and reached a state of my mind which hold me stable to live a life where the past is past and the future is something to reach out to and achieve goals.

This is my short story and this what I am and who I Very confused I was seeking in what or who I am. am and how I reached it is what's making me proud in Trying bi curious met men and woman for sexual intercourse completely messed up in my head and not my life. understanding what's all going on.

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Michlo My greatest pride centres around my sister, Caryn Walker.

I'm the eldest of five. When we were kids, I often had to act like a parent. Apparently, I even used to run school classes for my siblings (register and all!). I don't remember that or most of my childhood as it is blocked due to what happened to us.

Girls UK. She has been inundated with positivity from people telling her how she has given them the courage to take steps for their own situations. Over and over she is thanked by people.

This is what it was all for. This is why she had to get it out there. This has given her the closure she needed. Turning a horrific negative into a helpful positive and growing that strength into a woman who Our parents were abusive. Particularly, my stepfather, will not be quiet or silenced (some of the family have Caryn's real father. For me, it was being hit with tried to) and will dedicate herself to helping others. cricket bats, soup ladles and later, fists. For Caryn, it was sexual abuse from the age of eight. She thinks Despite everything, Caryn has always been a warm, this happened to me too but, as I said, it is blocked. I friendly and helpful person who people adore. Until have a few hazy memories which may suggest it but her revelation, nobody (including me as I just don't early childhood is just a blank otherwise. Later on, I remember) had any idea of the struggles she had and do remember the constant beatings and the everwas still dealing with due to her start in life. She has present fear. I used to escape into books or, when I attended Pride events and has always been was old enough, to my Nan's house. supportive of me since I came out at 17 (when my mum asked me and then I was subsequently thrown Our other sister, Jenny, was taken into care at a young out). age. The reasons are murky. She ended up dying at 36 due to heroin abuse causing a brain embolism.

With her help and encouragement I am now getting my own treatment for what Caryn was diagnosed with Caryn took the brave step to first, tell the family about last year and now talks about - CPTSD, Complex Post what happened and then, unbelievably, to report him Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is not as widely known and take him to court. I went back to England in 2011 as CPTSD but originates with systematic and to be part of the court case as a witness. He was prolonged trauma. She is educating and reaching so found guilty on 23 counts and put away for 16 years. many people.

This was a huge turning point for Caryn. But, it wasn't enough. Though it took a few years she realised she hadn't had the closure she had thought she would obtain. She was starting to feel a burgeoning strength, a voice she had never had. She decided to go further and try to help others in similar situations and to give voice also to our sister, Jenny.

She might be younger but I have always been in awe of her strength, particularly with regard to the above. I doubt there is anybody I will ever feel prouder of.

As Caryn says, if you tell your own story, it could one day be a guide for others.

So, with the help of a wonderful ghostwriter, Caryn wrote a book, dedicated to Jenny. It was published last year and has been doing very well, now being translated into a few different European languages and as of a couple of months ago, finally available over here in the US. Caryn has been interviewed by newspapers and radio, given book signings and talks at little cafes and the like and now has been invited to speak at public events for organisations such as Shatter Boys/Shatter

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TLara [2:54] Kira@sellinodan: mhm seems here [2:45] T'Lara@TedHembach: Its late here, almost 3 is neither an exchange nor a tailor so i'll o'clock in the mornin, and I'm gettin kind of nostalgic. quickly go and buy a swimsuit so i might Cal ask what Pride means for us. Hm. I wanna tell you need a re invitation later! something: [2:45] Gareth@GXV3: ohh

[2:54] T'Lara@TedHembach: That was a great day today. Glad I could make it, glad you are all here.

[2:46] T'Lara@TedHembach: It teaches us things.

[2:55] Gareth@GXV3: here here!!!! another full fun day Valuable things. Lessons. About how to get old. When tomorrow to go too!

I joined my first SW Pride, I think it was 2014 or 15, I was very new and impressed. Then, a guy named [2:55] Tharil@thunderfoot1007: I had fun. Which is what his game is supposed to be about. I had more [2:46] D'na@DanaDark: Is ... Is... this where you fun because I got to play STO with friends and profess your love for me?

Fleeties. Which makes it more fun.

[2:48] T'Lara@TedHembach: Eurssk, donated me a [2:56] D'na@DanaDark: A good community goes a gift. It was my Sehlat Bok here, named after Sybok, long way indeed. and I was really baffled. It was a Lobi pet, and he gave it to me - just so.

[2:56] T'Lara@TedHembach: Yay! And you get all the optionals lol.

[2:49] Gareth@GXV3: aweeee [2:49] T'Lara@TedHembach: Today, there was a new fleetie, and he had no swimsuit. So I gave him the Favors needed to buy one. He was a little baffled too, asking 'really? are you sure?'. And i was sure, coz this is our way.

[2:50] D'na@DanaDark: Kiki bought my swimsuit for me. :) the fleet generousity knows no bounds!

[2:51] T'Lara@TedHembach: Now I am the fleetie who gives stuff away, just like Eurssk did it years ago. That how you notice what it means to get older. That one of the lessons, that Pride can teach you. I'm proud.

[2:51] Fanon@audiored: It's a nice and friendly fleet for sure [2:51] T'Lara@TedHembach: Oh, its the only fleet I wanna be in.

[2:52] Gareth@GXV3: Thats beautiful Tlara.... really is.... You’re passing the torch on, one day that new member will hopefully pass the memory of kindness on too and help someone else.

[2:52] Tharil@thunderfoot1007: Hear! Hear!

[2:53] T'Lara@TedHembach: He will for sure.

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[3:00] Meow Meow@Simon_Picard: Stonewall fleet has always given me a home ever since I started playing all those years ago. I drift here and there but you've remained a constant and I thank the hard work, dedication and passion of [3:00] Meow Meow@Simon_Picard: everyone in this fleet, past and present who have made it so.

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Here’s some of what our SGN members have been up to in Fortnite—a cross-platform game which includes PvE, Pvp battle royale and a creative building mode! Do you play fortnite? Tell us about it!

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Gaming news

article by @halish Recently Google released their online game streaming service, Stadia, and with it came some harsh reviews mainly based around the feedback delay which occurred between the gamer pressing an input device and the game server receiving the command and then pushing the resulting action back to the gamers screen.

This delay often leads to gameplay feeling clunky and slow and can quickly lead to a frustrating experience when playing games that require quick actions, such as competitive shooters and player vs player experiences. But even in single-player role playing games this delay can be an immersion breaking problem that gamestreaming platforms may never be able to overcome.

The cloud isn’t entirely dark however for game streaming as it 60 stonewallgaming.net

offers great benefits and opportunities.

Buying a console can set you back hundreds of pounds and for highend PC gaming you can easily find yourself into the thousands of pounds just to get started. For most adults, the cost of a console is something they will be able to take on the chin if they want to engage in the delights of video gaming goodness.

But not everyone will be in the situation to do so and with the pressure now being put on families with children living in a commercial world where they are forever pressured into wanting the best there is, the force to keep up with the Joneses is forever pushing against household budgets.

Game streaming allows you, not only to play the highest-quality triple-a gaming experiences but, to

do it on a wide range of devices from a simple smart-phone to a 4k TV. This opens up the possibility for entire families, communities or even hospitals to video game without a massive one-time down payment. The ability for say the NHS to allow those who are bedbound access to video games, I think, is a major positive. Especially as the current generation of people who have played games since they were little move into the latter years of their lives.

Truthfully, unless we have a massive spike in world-wide internet speeds, the input lag will always be an issue when it comes to game streaming. I think we need to accept that instead of fighting against it.

I think the solution lies in the type of games we create for Stadia and other game streaming services. In Stonewall Gaming Network we mainly play Star Trek Online which naturally has gameplay that takes place in space. Space is one of the more perfect settings for a gamestreaming experience as there would be a natural delay that has to occur in-universe and this is often added to games artificially to create a more realistic gameplay experience.

network lag between the player pushing the button and the game server reacting you could program in a one-second hardware lag and achieve the same effect.

This would only be possible on games designed for game streaming services and the current focus seems to be, for me incorrectly, on porting already popular games to the service.

This type of delay is also prevalent in Red Dead Redemption or Guild So imagine you are Captain Picard Wars 2 when the player pulls on the on the bridge and you say aloud to horses reins (Raptor reins in the “Make it so” and engage the warp case of GW2 :p) and it takes a engines. There is always going to moment for the animal to react to be a delay between your con officer the command. This is natural and (even if it’s Data) hearing the immersive and would help negate command, pushing the correct the input lag from a game buttons and the wrap engines streaming service. powering up and then engaging But for me the biggest positive to wrap. these innovations is the possibility So in a single-player experience for massive, and I mean truly where this is all done on the players massive, multiplayer online gaming at home hardware the developers experiences. With the necessity to may be tempted to add a 3 second render every object taken from the lag before you zoom off into the home device and put on the server abyss (this would normally be it is much more possible that you accompanied with sounds and could make a game with thousands flashy lights so you don’t get of players occupying the same bored). But if you know that there is space without the lag that would liking to be between a 1-2 second happen even with the most modern

of gaming set-ups (and you wouldn’t need to turn the settings down, hurray!).

Google Stadia and services like it have the potential to really reimagine how we think of video gaming and the type of games we play moving forward. It would allow everyone to be able to play together regardless of their budgets or set ups and give true freedom in where you wish to play your video games.

But I’m not sure if those at the highest-end are ready to set aside their elite PC master-race ideology or that those that seek to profit from continued hardware reliant gaming ready to let that income dry up.

But as I slowly enter middle-age and look ahead to the world in which we are likely to inhabit, i hope that innovations like game streaming can be embraced and we can all play together.

Game on.

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StonewallWatch the plans for 2020...

StonewallWatch continues to grow with new members popping into our Discord server.

As we gather strength and start to play more regularly—both to improve our skills and to also get to know each other’s playstyles, strengths and weaknesses...we can hope to start more regular and scheduled events. So please do invite your friends and contacts whom you now play Overwatch or may be interested to join in.

to play to get ranked and rise up challenge—to bring a team together, to start anticipating those ranks as well. each other’s moves and strike And there’s also the gems in the as one, to bring that sweet Workshop mode that many VICTORY screen at the end. It players have created—ever certainly has become addictive! fancy a bit of Dead by Daylight in OW? Or the floor is lava...or a We’d love to hear from you what you think of StonewallWatch, murder mystery night... and what you want out of the It’s also a bit about coaching group. Get in touch with any each other to work together, senior member of the team and because Overwatch is definitely put your ideas forward! a team game—you have to be The world could always use aware of how your team is more heroes! doing, how the enemy team is playing and adapt always.

We currently do play for the weekly Arcade loot boxes so everyone is welcome to team up In a way, I liken Overwatch to to help each other get those. It’s chess at times—with the different heroes as pieces on all about those boxes baby! the board. And to know what to For those interested in the do, when and how.

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Guess the starship captain

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Guess the starship captain

It’s Admiral @

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@Chipz416!Â

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For the third Christmas season running, the Stonewall community gets together to give each other gifts in a Secret Santa! Over the pages, check out what those who joined in received and see if you can guess who received it! Answers can be found at http://voleron.net/stonewall/ secretsanta2019/index.html

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From the admiral’s desk An interview with @imtrick Hi Trick! Welcome to the interrogation chamber...uh, I mean comfy interview room! Please would you take a seat and let your fans find out all about you. Mind melds optional :) Hi! Glad to be here. And honored. And a little nervous. “Afraid” is probably a better word. I’ve read your previous interviews.

Hope you had a great Christmas and New Year break - what did you do for the festive period and also, what did Santa bring you?

Mrs. Trick (I call her RaeAnn) and I flew to California in early December to spend Christmas with my family, then spent the actual holidays with just the two of us.

It’s the first time we’ve been able to do that since we got married, and I have to say I really enjoyed it.

Santa was great to me this year. My favorite gifts were definitely the pixel art of my STO characters Aethra and Hila, and their ships, that Anna (aka Balduranne) created for me, and the massive model of the TOS Enterprise I got from RaeAnn. It’s coming along pretty nicely, considering I haven’t build a real model since the stone ages.

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So how would you describe yourself?

That’s a hard one. Sometimes it’s hard to know if they way I’d describe myself comes anywhere near matching up with what other people think of me. With that disclaimer, I’d say that I’m introverted like a lot of us nerdy types tend to be, and I’d rather spend a day at home gaming than anything that involves, you know, people.

SGN people excluded, of course, because they’re awesome. I’m also sarcastic to a fault, and still have the same brain I had when I was 12. A good fart joke can leave me in serious pain.

What do you like doing for fun?

I love gaming, obviously. While STO has managed to keep my interest enough that I still log in daily, I also play quite a bit of Star Wars: The Old Republic, World of Warcraft on occasion, and I also tend to get obsessed over other games enough that I’ll play them for weeks at a time. The original Witcher was my latest one. I still haven’t finished, but I will, eventually, unless a new obsession grabs me.

What do you do for not-so-fun?

Like, work? I’m a Security Engineer for an internet photo sharing and printing site. My job is to make sure our customer’s personal information and credit card numbers are protected, and that our name doesn’t show up on the evening news. It’s something I’ve done in one way or another … damn, probably about 25 years now. I think I might be old.

Oh so how deep do you penetrate in your testing ?

Oh, super deep. The deepest. Nobody penetrates deeper than I. What’s your daily routine?

This is somewhat embarrassing, but I pretty much roll out of bed, put on something comfortable, and work my way downstairs to my computer desk -- stopping for coffee on the way, of course. That’s pretty much where I stay until I start cooking dinner when I know RaeAnn’s on her way home from work. We have dinner and settle in for for the evening. I do not lead an exciting life, and I like it that way.

Where do you live & what do you like about your place?

I live in Texas, in the suburbs of Austin. It was one of the requirements for marrying RaeAnn. She’s a Texas girl, and if I wanted to put a ring on her, part of the deal was that she’d get to stay near her family. It’s taken some adjustment, though. I was born and raised in California, so the heat, conservatives, and lack of a beach or mountains or good Chinese food has been disappointing. On the bright side, the huge house I live in now costs less than the tiny dump I lived in near San Francisco did.

Tell us how you got into STO and Star Trek I initially got into Star Trek because of my dad. He was a fan of TOS back then, since it was the only Trek that existed when I was a kid, because TOS and I both launched the same year. By the time I started watching it, Star Trek was in syndication and I must have watched every episode multiple times, both with my dad and on my own.

Part of it was all the space and exploration and the great characters, but to be honest I think the biggest draw for me was that I thought Kirk looked like my dad. Who wouldn’t want to watch a show where your dad travels across the galaxy kicking ass?

As far as STO goes, back in the day I played a lot of Champions Online. I was a member of an LGBTQ+ guild there that branched out into STO when it first launched. I’ll admit I was skeptical. The shows were always so cerebral and I had serious doubts that a Trek-based MMO would be any fun. Turns out I was wrong.

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And how did you find SGN? After playing STO for a while, I just started to feel like my fleet and I weren’t a very good fit. I mean, they were good people, but I always felt like a bit of an outsider. So, I started looking at my options. During one of the summer events on Risa I dropped by an event Stonewall was having and I immediately felt like I’d found my people. I’ve been a member ever since.

What do you most like about the Stonewall Fleet and family?

I’ve been in a lot of gaming groups over the years, but never anything like Stonewall. Sure, we’re a bunch of nerdy misfit freaks for the most part, but it feels very much like...well, at the risk of sounding like I’m overstating it, it feels like family. I look forward to hanging out with my Stonies more than I ever have any other group I’ve been involved with. Stonewall is a very welcoming and inclusive group of people, and I really, really appreciate that. I feel like I’ve made real friends in Stonewall, and I’m not sure I could say that about other groups I’ve joined in the past. Oh, and the events. Nobody throws an event like Stonewall. Now that I’m part of the leadership and see all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into running those things, I’m even more impressed with them.

And what do you think could be improved?

As much as I love STO and have for many years now, it seems a given that it won’t be around forever. Since it’s really the core of SGN, I really think we need to branch out to make sure this family we’ve build isn’t lost of STO some day goes away. That’s a real challenge, finding other things besides STO that can bring people together and keep them around. We’ve been involved in a lot of games over the years, but nothing that’s brought in even a fraction of the players STO has. I think that’s the biggest challenge we have today: We need to find a way to diversify outside STO to survive in the long term, and we need to do it in a way that doesn’t fracture the group into a bunch of unconnected cliques. I wish I knew how we’ll pull that off, but I’m sure we can.

Here’s a question from an “insane” fan: “What’s the most complicated build you’ve made work in STO?” I’m rather proud of my No-Win Scenario tank build. It really only gets trotted out during the event, but it’s essentially designed to grab aggro, hold it by doing a bunch of DPS, all while throwing big heals on the Kobayashi Maru. Tanking in STO is hard, especially when you get into a group with a few high-DPS players. It’s not usually enough to rely on increased threat abilities; you also need to do enough damage to keep the enemies pissed off at you. I also had to do a balancing act with engineering and science abilities to make sure I could keep both the Kobyashi Maru, and my own ship, in one piece when things get hairy. It’s still a work in progress but I’ve been really happy with it so far.

How did you meet Mrs Trick?

RaeAnn and I met online, modern couple that we are. We were both playing a game similar to Second Life that I’m not sure is around any more, and I thought her avatar was cute. And that she was, well, male. We struck up a chat conversation that went on until probably around 3:00 that morning. We just hit it off instantly. Before long we were going to sleep logged into Google Talk with headphones on, every single night.

You may be thinking I should figured out at that point that RaeAnn was a woman. I didn’t. She did this husky voice thing every night for years. You have to admire the dedication to her craft, even if that craft is catfishing.

About five years later (shortly after I learned her name wasn’t actually Gareth) we finally met in person when I flew to Houston for a visit. I proposed shortly after that. What can I say? I was in love. The anatomy issues seemed minor at that point.

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What’s life like in the Trick household?

We’re boring, domestic people. We live a quiet life with our three dogs (Pablo, Willy Lee and Pippin), and two parrots (Godzilla and Dino). Most of the time we’d rather just hang out together than go out among people.

RaeAnn may be even more introverted than I am, so it works for us. We get out every once in a while for a Renaissance Faire, or a trip to Las Vegas, or when Cirque du Soleil is in town, but most nights we’re just sitting around talking about whatever’s on our minds with some trashy TV in the background.

What’s the most wonderful memory you have of your relationship?

That’s a tough one. There have been a lot of them -- I’ve been a pretty happy guy over the 12 years we’ve been a couple. I just had to check with her to make sure my math was right on that. But the one that sticks out for me is when I got down on one knee in the living room of her family’s bay house, with Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” playing from my phone, and held out a ring mumbling something about how amazing she is. And instead of laughing at me, she said yes.

What's in your manbag?

That seems rather personal. Oh, you meant, like, a purse. I travel light. When I leave home, the things I always try to remember are just my wallet, my phone, and my glasses. Sometimes I actually manage to remember to grab more than one of those before I get out the door. Usually not.

What was it like working with the Backstreet Boys?

I’ve only ever been in any kind of contact with one of the Backstreet Boys. And that was just last night. Nick Cannon had announced on Twitter that he’d be running a Twitch stream, and RaeAnn had seen it because she’s a big Backstreet fan.

That turned into well over an hour of trying to help the youngest Backstreet Boy figure out why his audio was echoing. I had the problem figured out almost instantly, but it took over an hour to explain to him how to mute his own stream in his browser so he wouldn’t re-hear everything he did after a several-second delay. A very long, tortuous hour. All he needed to do was mute his browser, but that turned out to be far more difficult than it should have been.

What/who are your passions?

These days, it’s mostly my dogs. Our lives here tend to revolve around whether they’re happy, healthy and sufficiently spoiled.

I also love writing. I’ve been kicking an idea for a novel around in my head for years now, and occasionally get the motivation to write parts of it. Maybe I’ll finish it someday.

I’m also proud to say that after years, my life’s work is finally coming to fruition, and RaeAnn will be voting Democrat in the next presidential election for the first time ever. Who says you can’t change the world?

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Your pains?

Pains? I’m in my 50’s. My pains have pains. I vaguely remember there being a time I could roll over in bed without it sounding like firecrackers were going off.

Where have you travelled?

While I’ve lived in several places in the U.S. (Texas, California, and Wisconsin, and the year I spent every weekend in a Marriott in New Jersey), I’m not an extensively-traveled person. There were a lot of trips to Mexico in my younger days when I could drink there, and I’ve been to Canada a couple times. I also have a favorite Hawaiian island (Kauia, if you must know), but I’ve never had a passport. I know, how typically American of me. I would love, though, to visit Ireland one day, or maybe see the places the Portuguese part of my family comes from. I hear it’s beautiful.

Can you tell us about a memorable trip?

For my 13th birthday, I got to tag along with my father on a business trip with stops in Washington D.C. and Toronto. It was my first time on a plane, or outside a 50-mile radius of the house I grew up in. We visited all the usual places in D.C. and I remember being in awe at the Smithsonian. Then we visited Toronto and I just loved the place. Everyone was just as friendly as you’d expect from stereotypical ideas about Canadians. I remember they had a science museum where you could touch everything, and that I had the best chili burger of my life in a Sherlock Holmes-themed restaurant for my birthday. I wonder if that place is still there..

Who is your inspiration?

To be honest, I’m not the type of person to look outside myself for inspiration. Maybe that’s part of being an introvert and someone who’s felt like a bit of an outsider his whole life, or maybe it’s just how I am.

My inspirations tend to be more “whats” than “whos.” Sometimes I’ll overhear bits of a conversation, or ideas will just pop into my head out of nowhere. For my writing in particular, those things motivate me more than any identifiable person does.

What would you tell your younger self?

I’d tell the lazy, burned-out 17-year-old version of me that yes, it really would be worth it to do enough schoolwork to get good grades and not have to take classes over the summer to get enough credits to pick up my high school diploma. My SAT scores were amazing, and I could probably have a really impressive degree from a real university right now if I’d, you know, actually gone to school those last couple years.

What would you tell your older self?

I’m old enough as it is already, thanks. I’m not sure I want to face the reality that I’m actually going to get older than I am right now.

Shoe size?

10. Though I have small hands. So one of the theories about size is definitely wrong.

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Fave lounge wear For lounging around the house, my favorite thing is the Command-yellow Captain Kirk bathrobe RaeAnn got me for my birthday a couple years back.

When it’s warmer, it’d be my burnt orange University of Texas Longhorns shorts with the elastic waistband.

Yeah, glamour is my life.

Fave work wear I work from home. See “fave lounge wear.”

Fave gaming wear My God, I think I only ever wear two things.

Fave music My musical taste never really evolved after my teenage years. I still love 60’s and 70’s rock bands like Boston, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin. I also have a weakness for 90’s pop-punk. Bowling for Soup, who most people have probably never heard of, is one of my favorite bands ever.

Fave Trek series TOS is a sentimental favorite, since I grew up watching it, but I have been absolutely loving Discovery. But then I think Deep Space 9 was incredible. So it’s one of those, but I’m not sure which one.

Fave food I could live off lasagna and cheesecake for the rest of my life (which wouldn’t be all that long on that diet, but it’d be worth it).

Fave drink Cherry Coke if I’m staying sober, and Tanqueray and tonic if I’m not.

Though I’d never turn down a Guinness.

Apple or Android?

Android. I’m a compulsive tinkerer, so I appreciate being able to screw with my devices to the point that they become almost unusable. Or maybe I’m just cheap.

How many inches?

If cosmologists are correct and the universe is expanding at an exponential rate from a single origin point, and that expansion will continue indefinitely, then there are conceivably infinite inches. Or (infinity x 2.54) centimeters, if you use the metric system.

Most used app Probably the authenticator that I use to log into several games and a bunch of work-related stuff. I need random 6-digit numbers more times a day than I care to count.

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What’s it like being the Chief of Combat Ops? Chief of Combat Ops is a fun gig. You get to help people get their ships the way they want them, whether it’s to do more damage, or explode less. Or sometimes it just means talking to people and throwing out ideas, or running a TFO with fleeties. It’s rewarding to help people make things a bit more fun for themselves. And this seems like a good time to plug the Stonewright Shipwright form at http://bit.ly/sgnshipwright. If anyone would like a little input on how to improve their ship builds, we’re ready to help.

How did you get the position?

I saw a post on https://www.stonewallgaming.net/ that Stonewall was looking to fill the position that had passed through a few people in the year or so prior. After getting some really great messages of encouragement from people who apparently thought I wouldn’t completely suck at it, I decided to apply.

Zander Hawk in particular was super supportive and I’m still grateful to him for that.

I also had to perform a few, ummm, favors for a number of high-ranking officers, but the NDA I had to sign doesn’t allow me to elaborate on that.

What’s your dept’s upcoming events/plans for 2020?

The Combat Ops department tends to show up as part of all the major events, all year long. If there are combat-oriented events as part of anything from the Spring Fling to the Winter Whirl, we’re usually there running something that involves blowing stuff up. That said, we’re kicking around a few ideas for events where we’d be a bit more of the main event. Those are still being fleshed out, but they’d probably be more like recurring mini-events like the Klingon Affairs Department’s May’qep than major productions. Stay tuned for details.

And about *that* Aladdin gif?

You know how you have that one acquaintance who keeps popping up in your life who you wish you’d never have to talk to again? That one that insists on showing up despite all of your best attempts to avoid contact? That GIF is that acquaintance for me, except that even my worst enemy would have enough pity for me not to jump up in face every… single.. day.

If I could PVP Aladdin in STO I’d vaporize his ass and then spawn camp him so hard he left and never came back.

Hey, you asked.

Sure, um, yeah…*moves slowly away* So thanks for the insight into your life Trick, is there any final thing you’d like to say to our readers?

Well, I already mentioned the Shipwright Request Form. I’d love to see more people take advantage of that.

And I’d also like to take this chance to say that, if anyone has any ideas for combat-related stuff they’d like to see us do, whether it’s events, or tutorials, or something we’ve never even thought of, please feel free to let me know.

Cheers!

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Guess the starship captain

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Guess the starship captain

It’s Fleet Captain @

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@insanefuture79!Â

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(No subject) Kieran Bullivant Mon 13/01/2020 15:31 To: Kieran Bullivant; MTC - Personal The festive period brought its own share of highs and lows from many people. For some it was a time to relax and unwind, others it was a time of dread and difficulty, while that is over now there are new challenges to get over in the new decade, from getting back to work and the daily routine to starting a new job or school year.

A lot of the time we are automatically responding when people ask if we are okay, I always say to people you should Ask twice, to really understand how they are feeling and for the chance to open up to you and be honest with how they feel.

Even the simple act of taking someone aside for a drink is a little bit of me time for them, a little bit of time for them to Being aware of yourself and others around catch their breath and process how they feel. you can really improve your situation, if you are more aware it means you are able to cope better with whatever life throws at And you never have to face challenges alone, there are so many helplines, webyou. sites, apps out there that exist to help and Even now, I want you to check in on your- offer support. I feel no matter how much I self for me, are you breathing easily? Are say I have missed bits out but I want eveyou sitting comfortably in your chair? Area ryone reading this to know I’m proud of any of your muscles tensed unnecessari- them. ly ? If so, take a slow deep in breathe, adjust your position, clench and release those muscles and let out one large deep out breathe.

It is also important to check in on those you are around, whether it be work colleges, friends, family. Checking in on how they are doing, how they are coping, being an open ear, even if you don’t understand the situation just the act of listening can really help people in need.

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Image from: h ps://science.dodlive.mil/files/2013/12/742541main_Kepler‐62MorningStar‐1_full.jpg, labelled for non‐commercial re‐use

strange new worlds article by @chipz416 Golden Ages

outside our solar system, or exoplanet, around the star Gamma It was August of 1988, while Star Cephei roughly 44.9 ly from Earth.

Trek fans around the world were In the end, the team had to wait waiting in anticipation for the until 2002 for the existence of this second season of The Next planet called Tadmor to be Generation. At this very dawn of the officially confirmed, right around First Golden Age* of Star Trek, a the time the Enterprise episode group of three scientists in a Carbon Creek aired [2]. collaboration between the Universities of British Columbia and In between this discovery and confirmation, and in the middle of Victoria were on the brink of a major scientific breakthrough… the Star Trek: The Next Generation season 5, the definite existence of actual discovery of strange new worlds! Campbell, Walker, and Yang exoplanets finally came in January 1992 by astronomers Wolfram and published their successes in “A Frail using (among others) the search for substellar companions to solar-type stars” [1]. This was of largest telescope of the time; the course cautious science-speak for 305 m-diameter wide Arecibo the first reported claim of a planet Observatory in Puerto Rico [3]. They

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discovered the exoplanets now named Poltergeist and Phobetos in the constellation Virgo orbiting the ominously named radio pulsar Lich, not unlike that spooky planet the Hur’q originated from in Star Trek Online.

Fast forward another thirteen years to the roaring twenties of the 21st century, and the official counter of confirmed exoplanets as of 16 January 2020, is at a staggering 4,108 confirmed exoplanets [4].

The universe is not a barren and desolate place, it is teeming with strange new worlds, and who knows… even new civilisations! *Some in our editorial team think of TOS as the First Golden Age :)

In this article I want to give a few fun statistics about all the planets and highlight a few special ones that have been discovered in 2019 (All data came from this ni y website that catalogues all the current discovered and/or confirmed exoplanets). Because of the enormity of number of discovered planets up

to date, I will limit myself to those that have been both discovered and officially confirmed in 2019 as of the time of writing of this article, which is a lazy Saturday evening of 18 January 2019.

Five days before the official premiere of the highly-anticipated new series, Star Trek: Picard, and the dawn of the Second Golden Age of Star Trek!

Selected statistics about the planets of 2019

Planet name

Closest discovered planet

11.87

ly

ε Indi A b

Furthest discovered planet

21693

ly

KMT-2016-BLG-1107L b

Shortest orbital period Longest orbital period

11 hr 6 min yr

PDS 70 c

0.69

REarth

EPIC 201497682 b

Largest planet

21

REarth

HAT-P-70 b

Lightest planet

1.19

MEarth

OGLE-2018-BLG-0596L b

Heaviest planet

6516

MEarth

HIP 79098 AB b

-102

°C

-152

°F

2457 4454

°C °F

Smallest planet

Coldest planet Hottest planet

232.6

LHS 3844 b

Total number of planets discovered and confirmed in 2019

HR 5183 b HATS-70 b a.k.a. Zander’s planet 239

Earth Similarity Index Planets and moons can be ranked according to the so-called Earth Similarity Index, or ESI for short.

It is a measure designed to quantify the similarity to Earth for various astronomical bodies smaller than stars. The scale ranges from zero to one, where 0 is completely dissimilar to Earth and 1 means it’s an exact match with Earth! The ESI is calculated with the equation below… Don’t worry, there won’t be an unannounced test on it, but I thought it was beautiful enough to decorate these pages.

What this equation basically does, is take into account many different properties of both Earth and the planet under investigation such as the size and mass of the planet, the gravitational strength, surface temperature, and others. The equation compares how similar the values are and by smartly weighing all the differences it reaches its final value. Obviously Earth’s ESI is equal to exactly 1.

The second highest-ranking confirmed planets have a value of 0.95; TRAPPIST-1 e, and Teegarden b. The first was discovered in 2017, while the latter of these two was only discovered this year.

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Teegarden b

Planet type Discovered via Distance from Earth Orbital radius

Super Earth Radial Velocity Method 12.5 ly 0.0252 AU

Mass

1.05 MEarth

Radius

1.02 REarth

Orbital period

4.9 days

28 °C 82 °F This fascina ng planet that is rela vely close to Earth in the con‐ stella on Aries is orbi ng it’s parent Teegarden’s star. This plan‐ et is so similar to Earth that it has one of the highest confirmed Earth Similarity Index, ESI = 0.95. With an expected surface tem‐ perature of 28 °C or 82 °F, this planet could be the next Risa. An addi onal reason to party: every five days it’s New Year’s Eve! Temperature

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Image from: h ps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/Diagram_on_%22Gravita onal_Lensing%22.jpg/800px‐Diagram_on_% 22Gravita onal_Lensing%22.jpg labelled for non‐commercial re‐use, including adapta ons

Gravitational Microlensing The hunt for planets outside our solar system has tremendously accelerated in the past three decades. In fact, the modern astronomer nowadays has many ways to observe distant exoplanets. One of the most mindboggling methods is not very different from the futuristic propulsion systems of the U.S.S. Enterprise. That’s right… the warping of space-time is employed to observe far-away planets. And by far away I mean really really far away.

This method relies on the fact that a very massive astronomical object like an enormous star or black hole will bend light around it and thus acts like a lens. The very far away light from the planet is refocussed and magnified before it is again sent onwards to our telescopes. It is as if the universe herself is helping us finding remote worlds!

In 2019 the planet with the rather catchy name of KMT-2016-BLG-1107L b was discovered in this way at 21693 lightyears from Earth! It would have taken the U.S.S. Voyager over 23 years to travel home from that planet without the help of evil future Admirals.

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PDS 70 c

Planet type Discovered via

Protoplanet Direct imaging

Distance from Earth

370

ly

Orbital radius

34.5

AU

Mass

10.5

MJupiter

Radius

1.11

RJupiter

Orbital period Temperature

232.6

yr

Unknown

This is such an exciting find since together with PDS 70 b, which was discovered and confirmed in 2018, this protoplanet forming in an accretion disc 370 lightyears from Earth has been discovered by direct imaging. That’s right!

The picture above is not an artist impression of the planet, but an actual photograph [6].

Radial Velocity Method

Image from: h ps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/3/33/ESO_‐_The_Radial_Velocity_Method_%28by% 29.jpg labelled for non‐commercial re‐use

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Another common method to detect exoplanets is by using the Doppler effect. Think about that high pitched sound you hear when a siren is approaching you, only for the tone to get much lower when it speeds away again. That’s the Doppler effect and although the physics behind it are somewhat different, light does the same thing! When a light source moves towards you it gets a little bluer, while it gets redder when it moves away from you. As an exoplanet orbits its parent star there’s always a game of tug-of-war between the star and the planet. Obviously the star with its far larger mass will always win, but the smaller planetary mass will still be able to make it parent star wobble a bit around it’s centre. This wobble is sometimes large enough to detect on Earth as a small but very regular change in colour of the star from slightly redder to slightly bluer and back again to red during every orbital period of the planet.

HR 5183 b

Planet type

Eccentric Jupiter

Discovered via

Radial Velocity Method

Distance from Earth

103

ly

Extremely variable Orbital radius

Min.

5

AU

Max.

30

AU

Mass

3.23

MJupiter

Radius

1.17

RJupiter

Orbital period

75

yr

-102 °C -152 °F This gigantic gas planet is an eccentric one! In fact it’s the planet with the most bizarre orbit ever discovered.

Instead of circling its parent star in nice circles, it traces highly elliptical paths. If the planet were a part of our own solar system, then during each orbital period it would come closer to the Sun than Jupiter, only to retreat further away again than Neptune. That’s a 6 to 1 difference in distance… For perspective, a small banana is about 6 inch long and 1 inch in diameter, which is the same aspect ratio. That’s bananas!

Temperature

References [1] http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1988ApJ...331..902C [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0305110 [3] https://www.nature.com/articles/355145a0 [4] https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/ [5] https://exoplanets.nasa.gov [6] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/PDS_70.jpg [7] http://exoplanet.eu

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The Adventures of the

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Stonewall times Needs your contributions!

We hope you have enjoyed reading this edition of the Stonewall Times.

Our team are already hard at work on the next one. But we do need your contributions.

From the first issue, a simple HTML newsletter, to the current PDF e-magazine, it has sought to entertain, inform and share your stories and memories.

Stonewall Gaming Network has evolved from its beginnings as The Stonewall Times exists as a an STO fleet to one that has record of the adventures of encompassed a multitude of you—the membership. Of the games. With our platform on friendships that form from Discord, we’ve been on a flight PvE’ing across the galaxy to the on a 737-800, the islands of battle royale fights of the map Fortnite, the payload on King’s and beyond.

Row or just chilled listening to 124 stonewallgaming.net

the music and chatting with friends.

Whatever game you play, whatever meet up you’ve been to, feel free to contribute to us!

Kurland says so!

Keep the Times going from strength to strength in 2020 and beyond!

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