Meet the Mod: Jupiter

Good sol, Explorers. We are here with another Moderator for the Meet the Mod series. He is the one of the most creative and active Mods, so chances are good that you’ve seen some of his awesome contributions under #pq-character-sheets and #weekly-character-stories. Yes, it’s our own Jupiter_ᶠᵈ Striped Tribune…

Prime your teleporters, and don’t forget to feed your Qyllit. We are going to KhyberPhase…

Doc: Can you introduce yourself to the community? Who is Jupiter?

Jupiter: There is the PFP, and then there is me, Robert Estlinbaum. Jupiter_Fulminator Democide is the handle I use in discord servers. In Unreal Tournament 2004, I’m Sumugan. Jupiter Fulminator is an epithet that, like the old Roman god, is akin to Odin, a lightning thrower. So, while I was doing D&D in 1986, I was looking through the thesaurus and come across whole mythologies. I really enjoyed this idea, and it stayed with me all these years later. I consider myself an artist at heart, with profound thoughts of existence. And like any artist, I feel like there’s plenty of creativity to share. I have engineered digital-physical instruments on a Korg Trinity, and created over 4,800 compositions. During my college years, I really immersed myself into computers. I had a student job in a computer-courtyard with 500 computers on two floors, excelled, and was put in charge of opening and closing. We went from DOS to Windows 3.1—the good old days of mIRC—to Win ’95 and so on. Then I delved into 3D. So essentially I, Jupiter, am a maestro of cross-disciplinary explorations, creating a symphony of curiosities for fulfilling the muse at the core of my being.

Doc: How did your journey in the PlanetQuest universe begin?

Jupiter: My first NFT mint experience was last October. Despite a well known, doxxed comedic personality the project stalled and has been put on hold. I was just as active in there as in here, but when it fell dormant, I went looking for other things. I heard of play-to-earn, so I googled around. I stumbled across PlanetQuest on the 23rd of December, and I’ve been here essentially ever since, coming in hot with ideas flowing.

Luffy: What motivates you? Why are you so passionate, and how do you have so many ideas for PQ?

Jupiter: What motivates me fundamentally is my children. I want to be there for them and have a legacy of sorts in having a variety of media for them to say, “My dad did this.” Everything from my dabbling in sound engineering, songs, paintings in acrylics, to poetry, to science fiction, to speculative musings, 3D files and their renderings in different scenes—essentially my artwork—is all for them, just as I want my PlanetQuest NFTs to be. Like heirlooms.

As to the question of why I’m so passionate, well, I think without passion life would essentially be dull. There’s a favorite quote I have, I found it in the internet. I think it is by Marco Vassi, “No Passion Without Paradigm.” That sums it up for me. Without the inner fire, vitality for life, there is no way to transpose the inner world to express to the outer, physical world. It is our duty as sentient beings to make our mark in the universe. Be it physical, or in the translated electronic world of the internet, and now the metaverse, I would like to leave my legacy.

Doc: I know you have done lots of things in the past. Can you tell us a bit more about them? Any advices for our younger members?

Jupiter: Actually, compared to others professionally, I don’t think so. I have held five jobs in my life with pay: delivering papers for Anchorage daily news, a bookkeeper for a CPA, a demolition worker clearing off properties with a sledge hammer and carrying a wheel barrow of debris, a computer-courtyard student assistant, and an IT network technician. I grew up with a father in the United States Air-Force. I was Born in Guam and have been to 38 of the 50 states, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, England, Scotland, and a lay-over in Amsterdam. My advice would be, “The grass is not necessarily greener on the other side. It is basically how you make life, a ‘half-full, half-empty’ glass perspective.”

Doc: What do you like the most about being a Moderator?

Jupiter: What I like the most about being a Moderator is the ability to give commendations to the community. I also like the way we tag-team in time-zones. As I go to sleep we have Mods on the opposite side of the world waking up. We truly are a world-wide team.

Doc: Who is your Favorite character in the Storyline?

Jupiter: Hmm, well, my favorite character of late is the resurrected Emperor, Solas Craine. I loved the description of his eyes, and the exact revenge he gave to Gloria.

Doc: What do you do in your free time, aside from being an awesome Mod in PQ?

Jupiter: My free time is seemingly a very fleeting thing. Between duties as a father and expectations from my wife, which would zero out any “free-time,” I manage to sneak a little time to create artwork, be it rendering, which seems to be the majority of late, to actually crafting ideas for equipment, planets, game-mechanics, and world-building.

Doc: Which books or movies inspired you? Would you recommend some to us?

Jupiter: Wow! What books inspired me? Hmm, the Foundation series, by Isaac Asimov, and now the last three books by Brin, Bear, and Benford. Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land, P.D. Ouspensky’s Tertium Organum, Greg Bear’s Eon, Eternity, Moving Mars, and Slant, A.A. Attanasio’s Radix tetrad series’ Last Legends of Earth, Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld, Joan D Vinge’s The Snow Queen, and lastly Piers Anthony’s Orn.

As for movies: Jupiter Ascending, Cloud Atlas, Life of Pi, Barton Fink, Millers Crossing, The Big Lebowski, and The Big Short.

Luffy: Do you have any fun facts about yourself that you want to share?

Jupiter: Fun facts? I am red-green colorblind, which has filled my life with fun trying to explain it in a way people could relate to. Also, I won 3rd place for the Maine “United Chess Federation Championships.” I believe I was 13 years old at the time, in 1984.

There you have it Explorers: The Great Jupiter_ᶠᵈ Stiped Tribune, one of the best, a prolific creator, and an awesome friend. You should definitely check out his contributions to PlanetQuest over in #PQ Equipment RP Thread. The Meet The Mod series will continue. Be vigilant Explorers…

Interviewers: Doc & Luffy
Illustrator: Luffy
Editor: Crüniac