As the British General Election approaches I was startled at Weyouns likeness to Tony Blair, and indeed most politicians. Kissing babies one minute bombing them the next. "Which is why, I must inform you, that moments ago, British troops reduced the city of Basra to ashes...." Anyway, i don't know if much has been said regarding the best recurring characters in Trek but Weyoun is undoubtedly my personal favourate, the double-handed treachery, the childlike love of the founder, he even manages to bicker with himself in "treachery..." Coombs is an outstanding actor who deserves Hollywood recognition, if he's so inclined!
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Not much of a field, though, is there? Might as well say he was the best recurring character on DS9. Which some might disagree with. But it's easy to make such sweeping statements when Weyoun is compared to. . . Well, pretty much anyone from the other shows, be they very-short-lived as recurring characters (Harry Mudd), one-dimensional (Seska), crappily-acted (Bareil), painful to watch (Lwaxana). . . The only non-DS9 recurrer of sufficient stature is Q, and the other DS9 candidates (various Cardassians, Ferengi, Bajorans, shapeshifters etc) present a formidable list.
So, no.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
And most other good recurrer are played by Combs anyway.
But don't forget Dukat and Garak.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Garak, Dukat & Winn were all good and complex. I even thought Brunt (F...C...A..) was a good recurring role for what he was and was also played by Coombs.
His Andorian character on Enterprise has managed to be Archer's Dukat except leaning a great deal more towards the, you know... non-demon-possessed side.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Of course, Weyoun edges out Dukat in the critical "not totally ruined by the end of the series" category.
I'd make a case for Damar, though, especially since he's really the only one to undergo meaningful personal change that isn't of the "surprise: this week you're crazy go nuts!" variety.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Indeed. DS9 actually had it's share of recurring characters that ranged from somewhat to very involved.
Nog. Rom. Leta. Morn. Female Changeling Who Narrates Caveman Movies Starring Daryl Hannah. Even Opaka made some memorable vision appearances and turned out to be a traitor.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Opaka a traitor, buh?
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Er, yeah, there was some sort of weird collaboration deal she was involved with during the occupation; it's the reason why Winn got to be Kai without any opposition from Bareil (who wanted to protect Opaka's memory, or was involved in the cover-up, or something). I think.
Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
Wasn't Wayoun technically a few recurring characters? Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Why, indeed he was. Er... they were.
Kai Opaka sold out her son's resistance cell in order to keep the Cardassians from wiping out a village looking for them. So I guess she technically wasn't a traitor... she just made a choice between two evils. Which adds to her complexity and makes her an even more intriguing character. I always wished they had brought her back.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
SHe' sback in the DS9 books: great stories there. The best Trek books I've ever read, actually.
Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
What order do those go in? I've always wanted to pick them up, but I don't want to end up half way in.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
The books strat off with Avatar pt 1 Avatar pt 2 (those introduce the new charcaters and explain whats happened in the three months since the final episode of DS9) Then there's a "section 31" book : Abyss After that, there's three books called Mission Gamma and one called Rising Son. Theres a couple of books that I cant recall the titles of and finally there's Unity that wraps the storylines up in one book.
The most recent books are the Worlds Of DS9 series that have two novellas in each (Andor/Cardassia, Ferenginar/The Dominion, Trill/Bajor) and the upcoming Hollow Men
Just start with the Avatar books and you'll get hooked: they read very much like how the episodes played out onscreen (commerical breaks are replaced with chapter breaks but the pacing is the same). A review of Avatar.
Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
I have read the Avatar books, but I wasn't sure where to go from there. Guess I'll have to see how reliable my chapters is for old books. They can't seem to handel ordering new ones...
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Amazon my son.
Used paperbacks rock (though I once got some bullshit book instead of what I ordered: it's used to complaining is useless, but I only paid a buck so it's no real loss).
I really wish Pocket would collect two or three of the Ds9 novels into hardcover anthologies: the book Unity was originally hardcover and it looks odd next to the dozen or so paperbacks that are before and after it on my bookshelf.
They did a good job of collecting the (excellent) trilogy DS9: Millenium into one biiig book so it's do-able..
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
After Rising Sun there's the Gateways books. I think that's it...
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
How did the books have Opaka come back?
I had it all planned out how it would work in an episode. The wormhole would open and an unknown ship would come through and dock. Security shows up but Sisko tells them to stand down as a shadowed figured steps into the airlock: Kai Opaka horribly disfigured and tattered from her time on the penal moon. Basically, the idea would have been that once hostilities with the Domnion got going, they had brought her off the moon (they having been the ones that established the penal colony in the first place) and sent her to the station to do something e-vil.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
There is a new threat called the Ascendents (zealots from pre-dominion days): one of their badly damaged single occupant craft crashed on the pena world and took the entire satelite network down with it.
I forget exactly how everyone got off the planet (it wasn't immeadeate) but the nanites seem to be dormant or gone.
Opaka goes off preaching peace and Prophets around the Dominion when Jake (and an alien called Wex) find her in the non-dominion part of the Gamma Quadrant and (eventually) retuen her home on the ship Jake is a crewman on (looong story- an entire book in fact).
quote:Originally posted by Topher: After Rising Sun there's the Gateways books. I think that's it...
The Gateways book -there's only one-thankfully!- that involves DS9 nad one chapter in the Gateways wrap-up book where Picard (yawn) saves the day/galaxy/universe...again. The Gateways tie-in is sort of during the events of Rising Son- as are the three Mission Gamma books. Jake is gone six months.
The Mission Gamma and Rising Son books tie directly together in their final chapters. Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: Amazon my son.
Used paperbacks rock (though I once got some bullshit book instead of what I ordered: it's used to complaining is useless, but I only paid a buck so it's no real loss).
I really wish Pocket would collect two or three of the Ds9 novels into hardcover anthologies: the book Unity was originally hardcover and it looks odd next to the dozen or so paperbacks that are before and after it on my bookshelf.
They did a good job of collecting the (excellent) trilogy DS9: Millenium into one biiig book so it's do-able..
I have a distinct lack of credit cards
In other news. I'd like to read the books instead of finding out what happens in them here Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Paypal?
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
Paypal won't work on Amazon. And he'll need a credit/debit card to buy used items from third-party sellers on Amazon.
Well, you can try ebay.
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
No simple money transfer option as on amazon.de ?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, if someone wanted to they could just write Amazon a check. I'm not sure what the big deal is.
Though I sure don't advocate spending money on Star Trek novels.
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
Again, what about money transfer? Why don't Americans use the most simple (and cheap) method of monetary transactions - apart from credit cards, which not everybody can obtain? You have an account, right? Just fill out the transfer form (online or in paper) click "Send" (or hand it to the bank clerk) and that's it.
Or even better, have it automated. At least at amazon.de you can allow them to draw the money from your account directly. Safe and sound. I have used this method for over five years and there was never any trouble. And for this you don't need checks, paypal, credit cards or whatever.
Why use something as outdated and dangerous as checks anyway? Everytime I see Al Bundy come home with his paycheck I keep wondering about the fascination of some people with checks. Then again, I work in a bank - in a country where checks are hardly used any longer... Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
Hoestly, if I gave myself the ability to spend money over the internet, I'd probably run out rather quickly.
As for the reason Americans don't use money transfer... you'd have to ask one Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
I thought with my previous post I just did... Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
I've learned that just because one form of transaction is available somewhere, doesn't mean its available elsewhere. Here in Canada we don't have "check cards". It would be that Amazon.com and .ca don't allow the direct transfer dealy.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Do you have debit cards?
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
Here in Germany, these are the five optional methodes of payment most commonly used:
1) money transfer (a) (buyer initiates the transaction after purchase)
2) money transfer (b) (buyer authorizes retailer to initiate a transaction automatically after each purchase)
3) credit card (retailer initiates the transaction after purchase)
4) debit card (retailer initiates the transaction after purchase)
5) paypal and other similar payment systems (buyer initiates the transaction after purchase)
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
What about cash?
In the U.S., alot of people use credit cards and debit cards. Debit cards are like writing a check and pull straight from your checking account. When your account runs out of money, you can't use the card anymore unless your bank spots you some cash. Using a debit card usually requires you to enter a secret code.
Checks aren't used as often anymore, excpet by the elderly woman who always ends up in front of me in the line at the grocery. Of course, half way through writing it, she begins looking over her receipt and discovers errors, then remembers she has coupons...
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
"Secret code". I love Americans and their flare (b'doom) for the dramatic.
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
quote:What about cash?
@Aban: we were talking about payment methods for online stores like amazon and the like. So cash is out of the question I would guess.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Ahhh... I thought we had segued into general payment options...
"Secret code" comes from a rerun of Seinfeld I saw last night. George calls it his secret code. It's actually called a "PIN" (personal identification number). Some people use words, some use numbers only. George's was "bosco".
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Yeah, we call it a PIN. I was just hoping that this was overly dramatic use of language, like that example I can't think of at the moment.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Oh *that* example.
Any society that can produce a book called Adventures in Cooking can safely be said to use overly dramatic language. Or at least book titles.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
We have debit cards in Canada. Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I do write one check a month, for my student loan payment. They push a direct electronic withdrawal program, but I want some physical proof of the transaction.
Although I guess banks don't actually send back the checks themselves anymore? It was in the news, anyway, but, I haven't opened a statement in a few months, because I am self-destructively lazy.
I pay for magazine subscriptions with checks as well, but that's, like, yearly.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"Here in Canada we don't have 'check cards'."
"We have debit cards in Canada."
What's the difference?
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
None, if it's a similar system like in Germany, which is very likely.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: I do write one check a month, for my student loan payment. They push a direct electronic withdrawal program, but I want some physical proof of the transaction.
What're you? 90?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
While it is heartening to learn that, across the sea, large financial institutions are filled with Christian love towards their customers and clients, here in the wilds we must be somewhat more mindful of our accounts and concerns.
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
Actually checks are the most unsafe (and expensive) form of monetary transaction imaginable.
quote:I want some physical proof of the transaction.
What about your statement of account. Isn't that physical proof?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Imaginable? I'm pretty sure Eastern Kaluba's Lit Dynamite currency is a little more unsafe.
And I am not really in the mood to start digging down to the roots of various paranoid fancies of mine.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Oh, go on.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I pay all my bills with checks (gas, phone, utilities, car payments, etc.) for much the same reasons as Sol. I like having something that I can hold in my hand that shows I paid the bill. And I like the organization of sitting down and doing it and recording it, so I know what's been paid and when. That's one reason I don't go to automatic bill pay on the internet, which most companies offer now.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
What are you? 90? Why don't you keep your money under your bed, away from the man? And then, I dunno, shoot some musketeers. Or something,
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
I know we've had problems in the past with various companies "losing" our payment and telling us we have to pay it again. It's nice to have that proof of a cancelled check that you can wave in their face.
B.J.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Indeed.
And muskateers are nothing but trouble anyway. I kill at least three a month.
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
quote:I like having something that I can hold in my hand that shows I paid the bill.
??? Again Aban, what about your statement of account? That's perfect physical proof of your transaction. What would you need the check for? And BTW, if you pay by check, you hand in the check to the one you owe money. They lose the check - where's your physical proof?
Well, perhaps whe "Old Europeans" are more modern than some would like to admit...
Like PsyLiam said, checks are for grannies who also keep their money under their pillow at night. And even they hardly use checks anymore. Actually, here most companys don't even accept checks anymore...
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I only write checks for the monthly rent. My apartment's owner is pretty bitchy and can scarcely speak english, so communication issues with her somehow debiting a card or my account would be best avoided.
Besides, it often gives me a grace period between the time I give her the check and when she actually goes to the back (sometimes a couple of weeks even!).
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I also have the carbon copy of the check that gets made when I write it.
I'm not arguing against online bill pay. I just haven't taken that step yet. More pressing concerns fill my life.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"I know we've had problems in the past with various companies 'losing' our payment and telling us we have to pay it again."
I can only imagine that being a problem if you paid with cash. In which case, that's your own fault.
If you paid with a debit/check card of some sort, the bank should have a record of the transaction. If they do, you've got your proof. If they don't, you haven't lost any money, because, as far as the bank is concerned, there was no transaction. Unless the bank just says "yeah, there's $50 missing from your account, but hell if we know where it went". In that case, get a new bank.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
It's not so much arguments against cheques as the fact that the "I don't trust banks" argument is exactly the same as those used by old people to explain why they don't use cash machines, or why they keep all their money in a pillow. It just seems a bit obselete. You have a statement. That's your proof.
Plus, I hate cheques for exactly the opposite reason Jason jsut said. You write someone a cheque, forget about it, look at your account 3 weeks later and think "coo, I've got �100 spare, maybe I'll go and import some Japanese Transformers." And then you check again a week later and suddenly your bank is ringing you up because the stupid idiot you gave the �250 cheque to has only just cashed it and now people want to break your thumbs.
Hypothetically.
Remember when we used to have arguments over school and exams and Charles and stuff?
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
Yeah, but we have evolved now to the point where we are actually discussing MEANINGFUL things... Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: Plus, I hate cheques for exactly the opposite reason Jason jsut said. You write someone a cheque, forget about it, look at your account 3 weeks later and think "coo, I've got �100 spare, maybe I'll go and import some Japanese Transformers." And then you check again a week later and suddenly your bank is ringing you up because the stupid idiot you gave the �250 cheque to has only just cashed it and now people want to break your thumbs.
I've run into that with my checkcard though: turns out that a vendor (at a store) can swipe your card through the reader while you're there, give you your reciept but not actually process the transaction for many days.
I use Bank of America and their policy is, any debits to an account have to be processed within a certain time period (48 hrs I think) or those funds return to your account.
So, you can still have some charge looming dispite having made your transaction days ago and dispite whatever it says on your onling statement.
After getting shafted this way, I was told by a rather haughty phone agent of BofA that the only way to verify my account's real balance was to use a tiny check registry and hand-write all my transactions in there for each purchase.
So much for high-tech. Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
The problem isn't when it happens over the past few days. It's when it's a month that I financially collapse.
Posted by Austin Powers (Member # 250) on :
quote:I was told by a rather haughty phone agent of BofA that the only way to verify my account's real balance was to use a tiny check registry and hand-write all my transactions in there for each purchase.
ROFL
If any bank showed such incompetence here, it would be out of business in no time.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Bank 1 has managed to stay in business in this country for awhile and I never had anything but problems with them while I had an account there in college. DO NOT USE BANK 1!!
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
"Bank of America"
"Bank 1"
Imagination was not running high the day the financial institutions got together and thought "gee, why don't we make some buildings to put things in", was it?
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
No.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
I sure miss the old days, when we just traded cows and clubbed each other to death if they didn't give milk. Things were simpler then, they were.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I remember hating you.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
And why was that?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
You made sarky comments about my Mario Kart skills. Plus, I dislike Canadians.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Did Tom perhaps destroy your Mario Kart high-scores and rub you in the face about it when he was in Britain the other, erh, year? Because I am as likeable as they come, so the source of your hatred certainly cannot be me.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Mabye it's because you refused to give him milk...even after he bashed you with a club?
Posted by Grand Admiral Thrawn (Member # 1490) on :
I was a grand master at the battle levels of Kart, so much so that a mild mannered friend of mine once through a sness pad at my face and literally nearly knocked me out. spent the next five years appologising. which was nice.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
Maybe because you said something mean while playing chess and then you pulled off your energy mask and was Cameron Diaz.....
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I actually won a tournament for the first time in ages, although a lot of that is due to increased Halo and Day of Reckoning playing. It still irks me that Nintendo couldn't have put an actual honest to god scoring system to that I don't have to manually count up my points.
We do have two gamecubes now though. And the moment I am not poorer than Jesus I'm linking them up and inviting the hookers around.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
"Poorer than Jesus"? That sums my current situation up as well- I got food, power, cable and internet, plus gas in the car, but zero spending green for the next week.
I may go insane without my daily tea.
What I need is a working Replicator (not the Stargate kind).
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
And what would Jesus have done without his internet connection and subscription to Cinemax?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Possibly had time to get a real job?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Or avioded the Romans.
That all-night softcore porn marathon after the last supper probably slowed down his reaction speed. Otherwise, he could have...er....made a lot of bread and fish and stuff and gotten away.
Y'know, Jesus really did not have very good powers at all. Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Levitation, although possibly only over water.. Spontanius generation of certain bakery and fish based products. Healing gifts. And an ability to come back from the dead, but then what comic book hero doesn't have that ability?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
And he could very effectively bleach his clothes in the blink of an eye.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Er... they were.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)