13 nodes were added to the 'gel on Sun 19-Feb-2012
Highest-rated w/u: It's quiet... too quiet (idea) by Tem42 at +24 Rep
A good day for fiction on E2! The Custodian posted a new chapter of Override: Stand and unfold yourself. Override is a sci-fi serial about a human agent of a machine-intelligence empire, and his partner-- a sentient AI pistol called “the Tzun”. It has kind of a Jason Bourne meets Traveller vibe, and is my fave ongoing thing on the site right now.
"'We have no record,' he said, 'of you passing through immigration control on High Port or at either shuttle facility onworld. How did you gain entry?'
I smiled apologetically at him. The woman was still watching me carefully. I decided she was the actual investigator; the man may have thought he was, but he was fairly obviously a Security agent who didn't know everything about the situation. He apparently had no idea that I might have arrived in-system on the Interrupt; if he'd known that, he wouldn't be going on with silly questions about immigration control. I'd made sure my drop pod had disassembled itself before entering Landfall the first time, so I was fairly confident he had no idea where I'd come from. The woman, however... ..."
If you haven't been following it, the jumping on point for the current arc is Losing friends and winning enemies.
There was also an original story by Zephronias about ordinary people desperately trying not to become stock characters while caught up in a storm of unoriginality: a Cliche Storm. It's metalicious! And hella charming.
"The TV was on now, and on the screen a reporter was going on about the storm.
'. . . And the NRD would like to assure everyone that they are doing their best to prevent any narrative casualties, and would like to remind everyone that the narrative dampeners have been placed in strategic locations around the city, including hospitals, orphanages, police stations, cemeteries and other possible contamination areas.'
Bernard grinned. 'Can't have any chosen ones or antichrists being born willy nilly, eh?' ..."
Afterward, Tem42 posted a short node on the stock phrase "It's quiet... too quiet" that included, as a literary reference, a quote from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze, justifiably earning it a teetering pile of upvotes and high-fives all around.
Rounding out the rest: lizardinlaw and Glowing Fish both posted personal essays under Entertain Evil Thoughts, there were more nodes about US politics from Glowing Fish and Pandeism Fish, a zombie story from BranRainey (that I think suffers from an overly cliche setup, coming as it does right after Zeph's story), a short personal node from moeyz, poems from Intentions and winston_farsoul, and a review of Gears of War 3 by dochollidae that I skipped due to some irritating stylistic choices by the writer.
I think that's everything.