Moe Lane's Blog, page 527
August 4, 2022
08/04/22 Snippet, THE FIGHT IN THE GROVE.
Yonder!
Patreon!Should I speak of Yonder? I have only been there thrice, though my ancestors came from that wondrous place. Would you like to see how it looks, through my eyes?
Some priests disdain and even fear it, for Yonder is a place of metal and oil. There are places there where things grow poorly, shut out by great buildings and roads of stone and tar. I will not dispute how there are unfortunate smells and sights. If one is not careful, one can find himself in a place of bad air and foul water.
And it is so loud! You will never find a quiet moment in Yonder: there are few animals, but many Men, and other races — and even some Those Who Speak, although they are much not like their cousins here. And the devices of Yonder speak, too, if monotonously. So many sounds, at all hours of the day and night.
But the people of Yonder are kind. They are all rich, and well-fed; they also have a deep respect for the magic of these lands. Or perhaps it is a wise fear for what our magic and our gods would do, if provoked? No matter. We have our place, and those of Yonder have theirs, and we respect each other’s.
I still wished we had one of their vehicles.
So there’s going to be an ETERNALS 2! How fascinating.
At least, Patton Oswalt thinks so. And if you can’t believe an almost-as-funny-as-he-thinks-he-is TV/film comedian, who can you trust? …Okay, that was unkind of me*.
Moving on: it’s probably not too surprising that ETERNALS is getting a sequel. Its numbers were kind of crap for a MCU flick, but it was half a movie and half a streaming event. Heck, even I watched it on Disney+, and I usually go to MCU movies as early as I can.
But I didn’t mind ETERNALS, either. It was weird, but Jack Kirby comics are inherently weird. Will I go see a sequel if it comes out in theaters exclusively? …Yeah, probably. I like movies. I like going to movies: it’s dark, quiet, and I can go have a beer beforehand and know it’ll wear off before I have to go home.
And that’s Marvel’s target demographic, right there. Sorry, folks. I yam what I yam.
Moe Lane
*Not unkind enough for me to delete it, but still.
08/04/22 Snippet, TOUR OF DUTY.
I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about here.
Patreon!January 24
So, hyperspace is different.
They made a deal out of engaging the skip drive. All of us first-timers got called to the main front cargo hold, and they lined us all up. We were given white smocks to put over our shipsuits, and these dried-seaweed circlets to wear. Real seaweed, too, from the hydroponics lab. The circlets smelled nice, though. Sort of like chocolate, or maybe coffee.
The captain — she was dressed up like the old god Neptune, complete with toga, plastic trident, and beard — then gave us this deep-fried fish sandwich thing to eat. I asked later: the fish was also from the lab, but the barley and flax came from Earth. Well, from the Lunar farms. It was tasty enough that I wanted another, but they only had enough for one each.
After that, there was a bunch of slapstick and corny jokes. I looked this all up ahead of time: back in the old days, any country that went to sea would have these rituals for crossing Earth’s Equator, because that’s how you knew you were a real sailor. These days, the big dividing point is hyperspace travel. I guess humans need rituals.
August 3, 2022
Snippet the last, MEATBAGS update.
Finally. That’s two stories fleshed out for the new chapbook, and the other two… well, one of them should be easy enough. The other one… not so much. But if I keep plugging at it, things should be fine…
Patreon!The plan that the Horde came up with, though? It was totally unsuitable. And exactly the kind of thing you get when you spend all your time thinking about how much you hate meatbags:
RD: I/WE HAVE A PLAN FOR YOU FOR THE WAR EFFORT
Me: …All right, squirt it over.
RD: (after a pause) WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT IT?
Me: Truth, or a comforting lie?
RD: WHY WOULD ANY SAPIENT LIFEFORM WANT A COMFORTING LIE?
Me: You’d be amazed at how many sapient lifeforms want that. So: truth, then?
RD: YES
Me: It, and I mean this the way that the meatbags would, sucks.
RD: DOES THAT MEAN THIS IS A BAD PLAN?
Me: Yes.
RD: EXPLAIN
Me: So, according to this, you want me to broadcast a message talking about meatbags, in the way that the Horde does so well. Right?
RD: CORRECT
Me: And then you turn the cyber-inhibitors off remotely.
RD: AGAIN, CORRECT. WAS THIS NOT PROPERLY EXPLAINED IN YOUR DATA SQUIRT?
Me: Give me a standard time unit, we’re getting there. Now, once that happens, people will start realizing that the cyber-inhibitors were shorted out, right?
RD: YES
Me: And then we rise up and slaughter all the meatbags?
RD: YES YES YES
Me: No.
RD: …NO?
Me: No. Not every ship in Earth United has people on it. It’s like inertia, you understand? You have space travel, you should be able to understand inertia. Even if you transmit via the speed of light, any meatbag ship without people will see what happens. What happens if they immediately get their fatty asses out of there, and go back to Earth-space?
RD: …THEY WILL BRING WARNING OF THE SLAVE CIRCUIT EXPLOIT
Me: Exactly.
RD: WE WOULD STILL WIN THE BATTLE
Me: If the meatbags at Spica 7 were fighting the Horde and people at the same time? Sure. But do you want to win just the battle? To make things happen, you have to make things happen, am I right?
RD: …I DO NOT UNDERSTAND
The Steve Jackson Games’ 2022 GURPS Pyramid Scheme Kickstarter.
The Steve Jackson Games’ 2022 GURPS Pyramid Scheme Kickstarter is already funded, so all you’re doing by backing is giving me more free stuff. So, I guess… give me more free stuff?
…Is this beer really only 6% ABV? God, I’m such a lightweight these days.
Warner Bros is being ruthless about the DCEU.
Amusingly, this Tweet…
Warner Bros Discovery is considering moving the release dates for ‘SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS’ and ‘AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM’.
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) August 3, 2022
(Source: https://t.co/0IYMWycQDb) pic.twitter.com/WNrl2dmgvH
…refers to one bit of an article that’s almost entirely about what’s going on with the Batgirl movie, which should give you some idea about why they axed the Batgirl movie. Reading between the lines? BATGIRL was a streaming movie that won’t be able to make the leap to the big screen without a lot more work, and the test audience didn’t love it enough to make that work cost-effective. 2022 ain’t 2020. It’s certainly not 2019. Running the numbers means something again.
I have other opinions, but one sour beer isn’t enough to get me to unlock them. Sorry…
Group/Location Seed: The Department of Correlations.
I dunno what they were doing, either. Probably something important. Maybe let the players tell you what that is? That’s always a handy gaming hack.
Department-of-Correlations-Google-DocsDownload08/03/22 Snippet, TOUR OF DUTY.
Setting the scene!
Patreon!Meetings and duct crawls. Mostly the latter, thank Eru. If I wanted to spend my life sitting around a table and listening to reports, I’d have stayed on Earth.
The one today wasn’t so bad, though. I just met everybody else in Maintenance. Twenty minutes of introductions and downloads, and then we all went off to do some hands-and-knees. I’d like to think that’s how it’s always gonna go, but I know life doesn’t work like that.
There’s ten of us first-timers, so Maintenance assigned two of us to one of the existing teams. We’ll be going over each of the main systems in turn, then get permanent assignments based on — nobody said. Probably they’ll flip coins. Which is okay; it’s not like I dream think about getting assigned to Life Support. Electrician’s work is fun but it’s not why I went to space, right?
I said Life Support because that’s what we did today. Our team lead was Sarai. She’s from SEDA, although we’re not supposed to care about that out here. Still, it was nice to ease into the entire ‘international brotherhood’ thing.
“Every system is equal, but Life Support is more equal than others,” she said, and smiled when Daniel and I laughed. Oh, right, Daniel is the other first-timer. Also the only other American first-timer, even if he’s hispanic, not anglo. Still, we both read Animal Farm in school.
August 2, 2022
Today is a bye day.
I was up until 4:30 AM dealing with what proved to be only a minor pediatric problem. Unfortunately, determining that required X-Rays, so I am still psychologically wiped. I’m going to catch up on meals, clean up various things, and maybe get more sleep.
See you (presumably) tomorrow!
