A Game of Thrones - An Alternative History

Everyone loves Game of Thrones, it's the new in thing. But the thing is it isn't new. Many old fans will be aware it has been around for ages, and one thing that was around before the first season is the Game of Thrones board game. Everyone loves board games. Its a risk style game for 3-6 players representing 6 key houses in the Song of Fire and ice universe. History is about to be re-written!

Warning: Contains Mild plot references and some spoiler related comments.

This is the alternate history played by:
Wilko as House Baratheon (Yellow)
Liz as House Stark (Grey)
Sophie as House Lannister (Red)
Warr (not the horseman) as House Greyjoy (Black)
Myself as House Tyrell (Green)
Bad Fresher as House Martell (Bronzey-Goldish)

The Iron Throne is up for grabs, and six houses prepare to make their move to claim it as theirs by being the first House to own 7 Strongholds to found their (probable) Iron hand over Westeros (until Daenerys Targaryen arrives...with Dragons).

In the early stages of war Baratheon heads South towards into Storms End, while a zealous Greyjoy launches the first sea skirmish against Lannister in The Golden Sound. Stark expands North, Tryell claims The Arbor and Dornish Marshes while Martell takes Yronwood and the Salt Shore. Lannister, after loosing their sea territory near Lannisport, take Riverrun and Blackwater.

The wildlings, seeing an opportunity attack Westeros, but are Repelled primarily thanks to Greyjoys efforts. Maybe they share Stannis' ethos (Saving the Realm to become King, rather than becoming King to save the realm).

Westeros after the Wilding attack

After the wildling attack a air of calm descends on Westeros, with only two assaults: Greyjoy turning on the Starks and capturing Flint Finger and Tyrell forcing a Martell retreat from Starfall but failing to capture ground.

The third arbitrary amount of time passes and another quiet expansion phase is entered with the Starks making launching a huge Southward drive by sea but failing to take Cracklaw point from Baratheon. Tyrell, gutted by the failure to capture Starfall moves into the unoccupied Castle.

Enter phase four and the gritty squalls begin. Lannister launches the first move against Greyjoy's Seaguard, but they fend off the Gold hoarders thanks to Theon Greyjoy. Stark also tries an attack on Greyjoy against the Twins with support from their fleet against Aeron Damphair, but the Greyjoy's also call support and defend on their second front with help from Euron Crow's eye. Baratheon turns their fleets attentions south towards Martell and takes the East Summer Sea. Martell immediately repel the Baratheon front and force a retreat back into Shipbreaker Bay. Tyrell Head North against an Isolated Lannister fleet and take the Sunset Sea. Baratheon pick on Lannister as well and take Blackwater, while Greyjoy takes a Broken Riverrun from Lannister. Finally Tyrell lays claim to the Searoad Marshes.

Westeros well into the Feud

Westeros is plagued with battles, the ground soaked with blood. Stark, Baratheon and Tyrell are quite well spread but have ownership over large areas, Greyjoy are keeping themselves to the Central West of Westeros, while Martell are Keeping themselves to themselves and Lannister are starting to suffer from attacks on all flanks.

Baratheon makes the first move and Sails into the Stark Owned narrow sea, cutting off troops North of the Eyrie and giving Baratheon potential access into Stark Homeland. Winterfell launch an attack through ships across the Bay of Ice into Great Water Watch but Grejoy repel the Northern invaders. Enhanced morale after defending their Castle spurs revenge against the Starks and Balon Greyjoy defeats Catelyn Stark at Moat Cailin. Tyrell attempts a Northward advance into the Bay of Ice but is repelled by the Stark defence. Failing the Northern advance they regroup their primary army into Starfall.

It looks like the epic war is coming to its climax and Baratheon plucks Stoney Sept from a decaying Lannister. Tyrell repeats its Northern advance and this time takes the Bay of Ice from Stark. Martell uses treachery to send Tyrell into disarray and reduce their ability to co-ordinate their troops effectively (they reduced the amount of special orders I could use, the bastard). An enraged Tyrell, with options to punish the devious Martell, launches a surprise assault and steals Greyjoys thunder by taking the Starks hometown of Winterfell headed by Ser Loras.

Northern Ownership takes a swing as Tyrell Captures Winterfell, but Greyjoy
and Baratheon also both look strong candidate for the Iron Throne.

With battlefronts across Westeros the wildlings make a second effort and rupturing the Monarchy but are repelled once again by Joint efforts from Stark and the little seen Martell. Lannister, sensing their opportunity is missed, resigns to holding out under siege and defends their little remaining territory. Baratheon tries a siege on Greyjoy at Harrenhal but looses their army in the process - Greyjoy defending consistently throughout. Tyrell, sensing a Baratheon plot on Highgarden, reinforces their home territory and reinforces the newly captured winterfell. Greyjoy turns on Tyrell who are blocking the sea route north, but Tyrell takes a leaf out of their book and defends the Sea. Martell moves West into unclaimed land, but then Greyjoy launches an attack on Baratheons Cracklaw Point and claim both the Castle, and Ownership over Westeros with Balon Greyjoy after securing their Seventh and final Castle.

Now Greyjoy own Westeros, they will have to defend it against the ever growing threat from Daenerys Targaryen. Alas this isn't featured in the game, so we'll have to imagine that part, but history has been re-written, and Greyjoy rule Westeros for now. Who would you have rule Westeros?

LAN Parties

I got home on Monday - Yay!
Since then I have been filling my days something like this: Minecraft for a stupid amount of time (more on this eventually) and then something else with people.

Tuesday the evening after 7 ish was filled with a LAN party held by good friend Wilko. Five (?) persons strong after failing to launch Age of Empires (it is very old) we settled for Battle for Middle Earth - which was epic madness. If you havn't played its a real time strategy based on Lord of the rings, with essentially gold like powers being able to summon monsters and storms or arrows and e.t.c. e.t.c. There were "The Watcher (in the water)"'s, Balrog's and Dragons and meteor storms and everything flung everywhere at once.
This continued late into the late, and then early into the morning, walking home at around 4 in the morning. Success!

And then Wednesday happened. Again a Minecraft morning, followed by another LAN party! Again LOTR was played but with 7 players this time. Teams were forged - Mordor to the South, and unlikely alliance between Golbins and men to the East and some other people to the West.

A relentless goblin force continuously skirmished with my forces early on but lead to the rising of the great Hero Garfield (Man of the Match award) who evaded the goblins efforts to kill him many many times until the final undoing of my empire. In the end the Goblins and Men took victory over Middle Earth. Share the spoils well.

What the fuck else is on the Internet?

Hullo,

Today at work, as well as the last few days I have had very little to do, mainly a load of QC work on my a 6100m log which is enough to drive anyone insane. Fortunately I am already insane (you have to be to work on rigs, its a rule. I'm pretty convinced they ask you in the interview "are you crazy?" Any answer other than "dinosaurarifically" is instant no hire), The reason it drives you to such psychological extremes is such stuff a making sure every qualifier (a property of a cutting) is in the interpreted lithology as a symbol. Most people, like I, do this on our way through and make it easy, but alas, sometimes there are like 5 or even 6 of these qualifiers, and the programme we use only allows 3. When people faced with this problem omit the ones that won't fit it poses problems as people like me, the last mud logger on the rig, have to go through and create beds in between beds to put qualifiers in. When doing this you see the word stone a lot. I'm not sure it even means anything now.

Anyway, after I had finished this issueous task, I was free, to roam the internet. Most rigs have internet these days in the unit, which is always nice, and this one is no exception. In fact its one of the best rigs for speed I've ever been on, but alas, most of the internet is blocked. Most of my staples are handily available, Facebook, XKCD, Explosm, for example, but achievement hunter/rooster teeth is blocked. This made me sad, until I discovered YouTube isn't blocked (I can't fathom why considering Minecraft wiki is).

But again, alas, I have had a few days of this now and seem to have exhausted my staples out of use, except for chatting to people on Facebook, but being on nightshifts because I can't be bothered to change means not many people are around, so now my problem is, what the fuck else is on the internet? (that isn't blocked).

Train of Thought - Burning Bridges to Forklift Forkups

Who wants to see a burning railway bridge fall down like dominoes? Everyone! Of course you do. When I checked the BBC news website this morning (morning is a subjective term, it was 19:30) I stumbled upon this fantastic video footage of said burning railway bridge - see below.

The video footage is accompanied by a very short article merely stating that the bridge caught fire and it will cost a lot to repair, but it reminded me of a story I heard while doing Health and Safety training for my job, as follows:

A train is driving along on a normal day, when a wheel bearing became overheated and melted, letting a support drop and grind on the rail. Luckily an alert member of the crew noticed the smoke and in compliance with Health and safety regulations stopped the train (how very safe). Alas the train stopped atop a wooden bridge, and the driver, playing by the rules, refused to move the train even when more sensible persons urged him on. Well naturally this happened:

Nice going

Got any rules for this?

This in turn reminded me of some hilarious pictures I had been shown during the same training of hilarious and totally safe working practices (may be a lie), many forklift related:

Innovative, I like it

Not sure how you even try explaining that to your boss

Ah, Health and safety bloopers, hilarious. I did consider an endless stream of bad working practice photos but these will suffice and allow for an alliterative post title (always a bonus). Oh, yeh, don't try those at home....
Actually, sorry  (I mean who has forklifts and bombs in their house?), don't try these at work.

Rhubarb and Custards

Since I once got really hungry on a rig, far away from designated and obligatory snack time I started bringing my own snacks to the rigs. Now, forgive me for being a repetitive boring person but each time it has been 1kg of Rhubarb and Custards. Yeh, a kilo.

For those of you who think I mean the boiled sweets, no, no I do not, I mean these:

A kilogram of these costs me £7 (which is pretty good value, typical well priced pick'n'mix is 79p/100g, and this works out at 70p/100g *thumbs up* ) and as you can see they come in a variety of colours. By variety I mean three. Green, Yellow and Pink. There is actually no difference in taste between the variants, just for aesthetic appeal. Funnily, much like skittles, or starburst, you always (or I always) seem to get a far greater quantity of one colour than the other. 

The last two time I had a very prominent pink deficiency , but this time I am swamped in them. And this disheartens me. I'm not asking for a perfectly balanced bunch of sweets, 1/3 being pink, of which 1/2 have yellow inners, and the other 1/2 have green inners, but for some reason I have come into playing an eating game with these sweets. 

Whenever I grab a handful (or two, or three) I often place them on the cleanest surface available (a rare commodity in the workplace - Oil Rig) then eat one. I note its inner colour, and then I must eat one with an outer colour the last one's inner colour was. And then I find myself planning a path through my sweets just so I can fulfil this inane obsession. And here is where an extreme lack or bountiful quantity of one (outer) colour makes this hard. Why I try to do this, I'm not sure. Often I fail, and eat the rest of the pile in a shovel full, rather than savouring them, almost like a punishment. How sad.

Anyway, I just finished my bag on this trip after a week, which is normal, and equates to about 140g a day, totally healthy....

Anyway, while writing this I played this RC game, and lost. How sad, so sad.

Hello World!

Despite the obvious fact that this, a blog, is not a code I felt it natural to start with a Hello World post. For those of you who have never learned any type of programming language / code typically the first thing you would write is a simple code that merely displays text along the lines of Hello World! As this is my first post  "Hello World!" seems appropriate.

Anyhow, I started a blog before this at New Year when I made the error of giving myself a resolution to start blogging. I kept this up for about, I dunno? A month, maybe two. Yeh, didn't last as long as I had hoped, and although I could have chosen to recover and redevelop my old blog I decided on creating a new fresh one.

In my old blog I had hoped to describe eventful happenings in my life and discuss interesting things or random things I worked out, and I suppose i intend to do much the same here, although more frequent and shorter posts (excluding this one).

Here is some background knowledgings that will make the following posts make much more sense:

• I currently work on Oil rigs in the North Sea, I am currently on an Oil Rig,
• I am 22
• I live in a rented "house" next door to a Chinese restaurant
• I studied Geology at uni

Now that this is out of the way I can get on with some real posts!

Geologywade, out for now