Moe Lane's Blog, page 56

The final SINNERS trailer.

Oh, SINNERS is gonna be fun. Out on the 18th!

Book of the Week: All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries.

I haven’t actually read Martha Wells’s All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries yet. Every body keeps telling me to read it, though, so this is to remind me. I do that, from time to time. I’m not sure if that stategy actually works, though.

#commissionearned

Looks like I’ll be getting the Fermi Resolution Worldbook file for review Monday!

At that point, I get to go through the Fermi Resolution Worldbook, find all the typos that have been patiently hiding from us for the last twelve iterations or so, correct them, fix whatever I messed up in the process, and then start the process of getting the book on DriveThruRPG. There’s going to be extra material in the book, everything has been generally cleaned up, and I think that we were able to squeeze some extra art-like objects into the book. We also made it a proper size (the original size was a mistake on my part), at the expense of a little page-count. I may be needing to lock orders, and start the process soon!

A June release is still on track, in other words. Time to hit the pre-order store!

The Consolidation Wars, Part 5.

Almost done with this one.

…

Empire Averted
The Consolidation Wars did not end in Africa. Instead, they simply petered out, after two decades’ worth of economic sabotage, proxy rebellions, mercenary campaigns, and terrorist actions. About the only thing that wasn’t tried by the other nascent Great Powers was the wholesale invasion of the African mainland, and the only reason why that did not happen was because of the African Development Community (ADC).

The ADC had come under the control of Botswana after the collapse of South Africa in 2079, and the conquest of the Seychelles and Mauritius by the new Kingdom of Madagascar (later incorporated into the New Empire) a year later. The country had a functioning economy and effective government, and it also had the one thing the rest of Southern Africa lacked: a working space program. It was barely capable of placing kinetic energy weapons platforms in orbit — but the ADC did manage to set up a KEW network that covered most of Africa.

This network was used to keep the other Great Powers at bay. Greater China had long meddled in the continent, and North Africa and Egypt were already under the direct control of West Europe and the New Empire, respectively. The latter were tacitly left alone, but the former had too many enclaves and special districts and — most importantly — control over strategic resources to be ignored. Unfortunately, Greater China was unwilling to simply give up those puppets.

The fighting that followed was some of the most vicious of the Consolidation Wars. The threat of KEW attacks was enough to prevent Chinese troops being sent to bolster its client states’ military forces, but at first Greater China sent everything else. Fortunately for the ADC, Greater China was also more engrossed in conquering eastern Asia than in propping up African despots, which meant that the Great Power never quite supplied its clients with what they’d need to hold off the ADC, and its clients. Theoretically, Greater China could have wiped out the ADC in a day — if it was ready to lose a certain number of its core cities in the process. Greater China never came even close to making that trade.

The conflict instead became a grinding series of conflicts, which always seemed to end with ADC-supported forces winning the local battle. The ADC did not directly conquer anyone, instead always creating a local political entity that was nominally independent (and ready to join the ADC). Still, any territory that came under The ADC’s administration had the infamous Okoa simba, kuua chawa (“Save the lion, kill the lice”) policy ruthlessly applied to it. Captured warlords, kleptocrats, bandits, and particularly agents of foreign Great Powers were rounded up, given a reasonably fair trial, then promptly shot. Guerrilla activity was promptly stamped out; it was widely rumored that the ADC’s KEW network needed to be live-fired every month, and that the government considered rebel strongholds perfect targets.

In Africa, the Consolidation Wars are generally considered to have ended in 2098 with the signing of the African Protective Trade Pact. This alliance of sovereign states shared a common currency, economy, military, and ever-increasing network of orbiting KEW platforms. Eventually, the other Great Powers even conceded that the APTP was one of their number.

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‘Call Me.’

Call Me, Blondie

#commissionearned

Check out my Patreon! (Free one-month memberships!)

Pretty much what it says on the tin. I have a Patreon, which gives you access to microfiction, short stories, gaming material, and a monthly serial. One buck will do it for you. I also have free one-month memberships available! Truly, this is a steal.

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The Consolidation Wars, Part 4. (Unfiltered).

Is this not horrible enough? It may need to be a little more horrible.

Empire Reborn
Harpreet Kaur (2056-2130) was a Kashmiri grad student at the University of Mumbai when the Pakistan-Iranian war went (briefly) nuclear in 2078. Like most college students of her generation, she was conscripted by the Indian government during the Monsoon Crisis; unlike most most of them, Harpreet proved to have a talent for war, leadership, and demagoguery. She was a pivotal figure in the army revolt in 2079, going all the way from spokeswoman for the rebellion to the public face of the new ruling junta. By 2080 she was the junta. At some point along the way Kaur began claiming descent from Timur and Babur, although she did not actually claim the title of Empress Nurjahan until 2082.

By then most of India’s neighbors had likewise adopted monarchical rule, of varying stripes of authenticity. The new Empress chose a successful diplomatic route with these new kingdoms, creating a mutual defense pact that ended up preventing the Middle East from being snapped up by West Europe, the Pakt, or Greater China. As the years went on, advantageous marriages and adoptions allowed the Empress to directly bind the other kingdoms to India, under her reasonably benevolent and certainly capable rule. She was typically deemed fair, and usually declared just — but rarely considered merciful.

The most significant conflict in that region was what contemporaries called the ‘Wedding War’ (2084-2093), sparked by the political marriage of Empress Nurjahan and King George VIII of the United Kingdom. Relations between India and the theoretically republican nation of Turkey had been difficult from the start, and the effective recreation of the British Raj (albeit a Hindu one) was apparently too much for Turkey’s more paranoid factions. In 2084, rogue elements of Turkish intelligence agencies allegedly detonated multiple EMPs and biobombs throughout the British Isles, in an apparent attempt to make it seem that West Europe was about to invade. Unfortunately for the Turks, the plot was uncovered (although not in time to stop the attacks), leading to a nine year war that ended with Turkey being conquered by what was by then the New Empire. The only thing that remained was Istanbul and a small stretch of territory around it, which was promptly conquered by the Pakt, and with tacit New Imperial permission.

The New Empire would go on to weather the rest of the Consolidation Wars without major issues, as the various nations that made it up worked out their own zones of control and influence. External enemies were kept at bay. Internal enemies (mostly defined as ‘stubborn cultural holdouts’) were heavily suppressed, until the new transportee system allowed for the much more humane method of simply exiling them en masse to the colony worlds. 

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Spring Break has started here!

A full week and more where I don’t have to be up at 6 AM! A week where we’re all gonna run around and have adventures and watch various movies and generally have a good time at home. And there’s wine! …About to be a third glass, in fact. My wife brought home the extra-large bottle of pinot. When I asked her why, she said, “Because I’m on vacation.”

Sounds good to me!

Nautilus to shipwreck itself on AMC.

Silly me: when the Nautilus show disappeared from the Amazon lineup, I was the impression that sanity had prevailed. Surely, I thought, somebody over there noticed what a galloping disaster this was going to be. And how bad was it, really? This bad:

Jules Verne's Nemo: An Eastern man of mystery and science, who vengefully fights the West's navies using a ship of his own design that's greater than anything it faces.

NAUTILUS's Nemo: lol no he's a slave-convict stereotype who stole the white man's latest creation.

— Ogiel (Moe Lane) (@Ogiel23) October 12, 2024

And Amazon did notice! …So they sold it to AMC, which nobody really watches anyway. Which is one way to minimize the damage.

Don’t watch this. Just be aware that it’s gonna drop, and if God is merciful it will then promptly start a popular entertainment version of the Iran-Iraq War.

04/11/2025 Snippet, IN THE HALLS OF THE LILY KING.

Should have put this up a few hours ago, but real life intervened.

…

“Yeah, I think so.” Greater Hershey commercial agents rated a better sort of tavern rooms than Kentuckian fighting-men, starting with ‘rooms.’ This one even had a fruit basket; Waylon looked at it hopefully, then snagged an apple after Serenity waved a hand. “Sorry. Missed breakfast. Apparently it’s your fault in this city when assassins come calling. At least, that’s what the landlord said when he threw me out this morning.”

“How provincial.“ Serenity’s tone was so smooth, Waylon wondered if she actually meant it. “Though the proprietor here was a good deal more understanding about my unwelcome visitor. Not to mention, useful for removing the body afterward. Perhaps a touch too useful,” she went on with a slight frown. “It is not a skill I would associate with his line of work.”

“The upper crust plays by different rules here,” Waylon told her around his apple. “That’s why the landlord gave me the heave-ho. I was messing with things above my station, and brought it back with me.”

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