Questions for April

Question from JimmySpaz: Why do you love weapons so much? Becuz you're a Gorlock or what???

Answer:

APRIL: What do you mean? Doesn't everyone love weapons?

Question from andrea: What was the first thing you thought when you heard the story about Jimmy turning into Dictator Jimmy?

Answer:

APRIL: The first thing I thought was something like "uh-oh". I remembered how intelligent he was before, and intelligence turned evil is very, very dangerous.

Question from Kate: What's your favorite kind of weapon (now this, I have always wanted to know xD)?

Answer:

APRIL: I am so glad you asked! My favorite weapon at the moment (for my opinion is bound to change as new weapons are issued) is the Class-A X60 Particle Cannon...my newest acquisition. If you recall, I first used it to destroy Dictator Jimmy's scout vessel through the Desperado's broken viewing portal. The kick-back alone is enough to knock over a full grown warthog, and the blast radius is capable of destroying an entire city at close range. What a glorious weapon! **sigh**

Question from Bekboo: Do you have any siblings, and if you do, can you tell me about them?

Answer:

APRIL: I do not have any full siblings, but I do have a younger half-brother and half-sister. My mother died in battle when I was very young - so young in fact that I do not even remember her. My father remarried a more senior Gorlock woman when I was 9 - you may recall seeing her on "InterGalactic Showdown", where I first met Jimmy.

When I was about 13, my stepmother had my brother, and two years later she had my sister. Unfortunately I was not able to spend much time with them, since by that time Aurora and I had joined the resistance. I have always considered this a very unfortunate circumstance - Gorlocks learn about parenting by taking care of their younger siblings and younger peers, something which I missed out on entirely.

Sometimes I miss my childhood, when Lee and I played together and our familes moved from camp to camp as we hunted and searched for food. Those were the days... **sigh**

Perhaps someday I will be able to get to know my brother and sister a little better. I would like that.

Question from Pigquet: @April and Aurora--What did you two always do for fun as best friends during the entire 10 years before the kids came, when you weren't under attack, fighting in a battle for the war, or at resistance or something? Were you on Gorlock hanging with Lee? Go on trips? Ever just do fun girl stuff?

Answer:

**April and Aurora exchange glances**

APRIL:..."Girl stuff?" On Planet Gorlock females do not engage in any sort of exclusive social behavior. But I suppose you are referring to times when we were only in each other's company?

AURORA: It's more human slang, April. You better let me handle this one.

APRIL: T_T

AURORA: There wasn't much time for goofing off, but we did do some fun stuff in between missions. We went sight-seeing a couple of times, trying to see "the wonders of the universe", but most of them were just tourist traps. I swear, you can go halfway across the galaxy and people are still the same...always trying to get money.

We went to a lot of parties too...not the kind of cutesy, glitsy parties that celebrities go to. The kind of parties where you bring a minimum of 3 concealed weapons and don't drop your guard for even a second. ...The kind of parties where if you're a woman you better NOT get drunk or you'll wake up the next morning to find yourself with an alien slug monster who wants to sell you into slavery...if you're lucky.
In other words, totally hardcore, extremely dangerous cesspools of drunken rioting and criminal activity. April and I used to compete to see who could beat up the most guys before the night was out. It was fun ^_^ In retrospect, I think our conduct at those parties is partially responsible for our current reputation  :lol:

As you said, we spent a lot of time on Planet Gorlock, hanging out with Lee, hunting, or just lazing around. Sometimes I wrote notes and then jettisoned them in to space - kind of like a cosmic version of putting a note in a bottle and tossing it into the ocean. They weren't anything important, of course...just little drawings, poems, musings. Things that Gorlocks would have looked at and then tried to eat.

APRIL: (frowning) Certainly not!

AURORA: Are you forgetting about the time that General Nor ate Nav's cookbook?

APRIL: He thought the drawings of food were edible! It was entirely reasonable!

AURORA: See what I mean?

Question from Carrie: @April and Nav: Where did you first meet each other and fall in love (unless that's a spoiler)?

Answer:

**April and Nav look at each other**

NAV: Uhhh...

APRIL: Well...

NAV: We met when Aurora reported back to Planet Gorlock with her findings on the Dictator's latest activity. So that was what...6 years ago?

APRIL: Right.

NAV: We didn't just magically "fall in love" right then and there, of course. These things...

APRIL: ...take time.

NAV: Right. It took a couple of years before I stopped taking stupid pills and realized how much I loved being with her. Then everything just fell into place.

APRIL: Then he made me a marriage offer, but there was some...initial confusion.

NAV: (laughing) I'll say! On Numeria you're supposed to pay a "bride price" to the woman's family before you can get married. But on planet Gorlock, the female is supposed to pay the male's family. We both ended up trying to buy each other off...it was hilarious.

APRIL: But in the end everything worked out, and here we are.

Question from Pigquet: @April, Nav, and Lee (but, mostly April)--How did you feel when you saw Aurora appear alive all of a sudden after three weeks after she was captured by the dictator? You all thought she was dead after all. What was your reaction? What did you do? How did she look, anyway? You said she looked dead practically, so how? Did you try to ask her what happened and she refused to talk about it? You're best friends after all. Were you scared?
How'd you feel when she was first captured, too?
Where were you when you finally saw her alive?

Answer:

NAV: Oh boy. That's not something I like to reminisce about.

APRIL: Me neither. It was horrible.
I have seen many comrades die in battle over the years, but when Aurora was captured, it was different. I actually SAW him take her. I remember it so clearly. We were fighting against a group of mercenaries on Sambaal Hill...a huge mountain of grass built over a subterranean city on the planet Lilia'a Prime. The battle was particularly fierce and bloody that day, and Aurora and I got separated. I was on the bottom of the hill, fighting a losing battle with 3 slorpnoks, a species which can regenerate severed body parts at will. Aurora was at the very top of the hill, shouting orders to some of our subordinates as she fought with some robotic soldiers the Dictator had dispatched.
All of the sudden, the Half Life came down through the cloud cover - something which almost never happened, and when it did, it usually meant that everyone in the vicinity was about to die.

NAV: I wasn't actually at this battle, but from what I understand, everyone pretty much freaked. Right?

APRIL: Oh yes. Understandably, we were all baffled when the ship stopped a few feet above the ground, and the Dictator himself walked down the rampway and off the ship. He was wearing some sort of strange device on his hands, and when Aurora fired her weapon at him, he stopped the shot with a force field. She just kind of froze after that. He walked right up to her as the entire population of the battlefield looked on in stunned silence. It all seemed so surreal. They exchanged a few words which I could not hear from my position. Then a sort of...I don't know how to describe it...black cloud? gathered around his hands, and he...it was so hard to see from where I was standing...he sort of shoved the black mist into her. It must have been some sort of sedative, because she just slumped over. Then a few of his robot soldier picked her up and he simply walked back up the rampway and into the ship.

NAV: And then you went totally spare.

APRIL: I bolted toward the ship, cutting down anyone in my path. I do not think I have ever killed so many at once before. But she was just too far away, and there were too many enemies. It was terrible. It was like one of those dreams where you are running after something, but no matter how fast you go, the thing that you are pursuing just keeps getting farther and farther away.
By the time I got to the Half Life it was already taking off. It streaked off in to space, and I was left staring after it in numb shock.

NAV: Later, back on Planet Gorlock, when she tried to explain what had happened, people actually didn't believe her. It was just TOO WEIRD. The Dictator usually sends robots to capture people or uses a tractor beam to abduct them. Nobody thought he would leave the safety of his ship to actually come down and take someone.

APRIL:  That was what frightened me the most. I would rather have seen Aurora killed in battle than taken away like that. The way he did it...it was so personal. I knew that something horrible awaited her.

NAV: After about two weeks the Gorlock High Council officially declared her dead, and we held a ceremony of mourning. Then people started fighting over all her stuff. It wasn't pretty.

APRIL: I was distraught. I actually wished her to be dead, just to spare her from the suffering that would await if he kept her alive. Nav was the only one who held out hope that she would find a way to escape.

NAV: Ya but...I mean, come on. She's AURORA.

APRIL: Well, you were right.

NAV: A week later, something crash-landed in the jungle outside our encampment. April was out shooting things, as usual, so I was the first person on the scene. I came upon the crash site to find a twisted, steaming metal hull at the end of a half-mile long gash in the vegetation. Imagine my surprise when the hatch exploded right off the ship and Aurora stumbled out.
She was wearing a strange, alien-looking silver and blue suit, and was covered head to toe in what I initially thought was blood, but what actually turned out to be motor oil from the engines. He hair was free and floating in the heat from the fiery wreck, and although she didn't seem to be suffering from physical injuries, her face was drawn and pale.
I ran to greet her, but stopped short when I saw her eyes. She walked right past me, and I am confident that if I had reached out and touched her, she would have killed me on the spot.

LEE: At this point some of the other villagers and I saw the smoke from the fire, and we went to investigate. Aurora seemed very confused by our arrival, and Nav and I tried to calm her down by talking gently to her.

NAV: At last she seemed to recognize us, and then April showed up. April ran over to her, and Aurora just sort of slumped forward and fell unconscious. I carried her back to one of the huts, and the three of us stood guard outside to make sure nobody disturbed her.

APRIL: She did not awaken for 2 days. When she did, she was immensely tired and withdrawn. It took another two weeks until she was back to her old self.

LEE: When we tried to question her about it later, she told us nothing that we did not already know. We were all very worried, but eventually we ceased asking questions. We figured that it was best not to press her, since she was already clearly in a great deal of emotional pain.

NAV: And that was kind of...it. We didn't talk about it again after that.

APRIL: Occasionally she'd disclose little pieces of the story, but many of the details remained vague.

NAV: Man, talking about this sucks.

APRIL: I know.

Question from Pigquet: @April--Why is all the food you Gorlocks and other aliens eat so gross? Carl seems to be the only other one who enjoys it.
Aaaaaaaand, April...CAN I HAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH?!!?
Pleeeeeeeeeease? Gorlocks RULE, and you're like the best of the best!!

Answer:

APRIL: I do not know what you mean. Gorlock food is not gross. It is human food that is revolting!
How can you stand to eat those processed, chemically synthesized foods? To appreciate food you must consume the flesh of an animal that you and your comrades slaughtered only minutes before! Anything that does not come from nature should not be eaten. That is my opinion.

And I would be very happy to provide this "autograph". ...Aurora, what's an autograph?

AURORA: Sign your name on this sheet of paper and give it to her.

APRIL: Ah, very well! **scribble scribble** Here you are, written in both the ancient Gorlockan text and in the modern galactic English.

Question from Flank: What weapons are mainly used in this war? Some kind of energy weapons, lasers, nuclear and antimatter bombs?

Answer:

APRIL: Oh my...well, each alien race has its own favored weapons and battle techniques. Some prefer biological weaponry - The 6th Samarkandi, Hawk, is especially notorious for using bioligical weapons. Others prefer toxic chemicals.
Indeed, antimatter bombs are occasionally used, but these are very expensive. Disrupter blasts and particle beams are pretty popular as well. Nuclear and Gravity weapons are used to achieve the cruelest effects - the rebels try to stay away from these if possible.

In terms of personal weapons, lasers are standard issue. Automatic projectile weapons like the AK47, P90, and M16 from Earth are used by some. Knives, clubs, scimitars, daggers...really, blades of any sort are often carried concealed.
But of course, ANYTHING can be a weapon in the right hands. Part of being a weapons expert is being able to fashion a deadly implement out of whatever tools you have at hand.

Question from Sunny: Have you ever thought, like Lady Jaya did, even for a second, that Aurora was acting as DJ's spy after she was released?

Answer:

APRIL: Not even for a second. I've known Aurora much longer than Lady Jaya, and I'm also not prejudiced against humans. Aurora's a survivor, not a spy.

Question from Noemi: Why did u accept from the beginnin fightin against Jimmy when u knew how he was before? U know that if he wasn't under the effects of the megalomanium he wouldn't even dare to do anythin against u... Humm why didn't u (and the rest) think of alliances to try to get him back to normal. I think he's the only one that can undo stuff made in ur universe after all.

Answer:

APRIL: He started killing people en masse. It did not matter what kind of a person he had been before. He was a threat to everyone, and as such, I considered it my duty to neutralize him.
We tried negotiating to some extent, but he usually just killed our messengers. It was a futile effort, so I stuck to what we Gorlocks know best: war.

Question from Athena: Does the Gorlock High Council or some other organization supply your weapons, or do you get them somewhere else? If so, where or how? Or are some they of your own creation?

Answer:

APRIL: I am glad to see you are expressing an interest in my weaponry! ^_^ The Gorlock high council does provide me with many of my weapons, although it does not make many firearms itself. Prior to about a decade ago, Gorlocks used fairly primitive weapons - clubs, scimitars, spears, and the like.
Thanks to the power of the Matrix Generators, we have been able to...hmm, how would Nav put it?...persuade many suppliers to give us powerful guns for a greatly reduced cost. We buy most of our cutting-edge gear from the three most notorious crime planets. Some of it is donated, and still other supplies are produced by a handful of manufacturing plants on Gorlock itself. We are not an industrialized world, though in the past 10 years we have found ourselves thrown onto the intergalactic stage. It is very strange to think about how far we have come.
And yes, I do occasionally tinker with my weapons to make them better. I even built my own portable cannon, which I used to utterly destroy one of the Dictator's Scout Ships awhile back. -siiiigh-