Moe Lane's Blog, page 853
October 10, 2020
DoD/SpaceX talks for suborbital cargo delivery.
I have had it explained to me that my first attempt to call this a backdoor way to get to an ‘assault shuttle‘ was, at absolute best, horribly optimistic. So be it. Still cool:
The U.S. military command that oversees logistics operations has signed an agreement with SpaceX and XArc to study the use of space launch vehicles to transport supplies in an emergency.
Army Gen. Stephen Lyons, commander of U.S. Transportation Command, announced the agreement Oct. 7 at a National Defense Transportation Association virtual conference.
“Think about moving the equivalent of a C-17 payload anywhere on the globe in less than an hour,” Lyons said. The C-17 is a very large military cargo plane capable of transporting a 70-ton main battle tank.
Why, yes. Yes, I have thought about the potentialities. …Which are going to remain potentialities, at least until they figure out how to launch missions where it doesn’t take months to plan everything out. Damn you, objective reality. Damn you.
Via Instapundit.
Book of the Week: Vampire: The Masquerade: Fall of London.
I picked up Vampire: The Masquerade: Fall of London this week, and now I want to run it. The only question is: do I want to run it in VtM — or in Night’s Black Agents, and have the PCs play the vampire hunters of Operation Antigen? Because it’d port over beautifully to NBA.
10/10/20 Update, REVISIONARY: 30,600/32,000.
Finished up with ‘Wicked Why.’ It’s comfortable with being a seven thousand word short story, and I’m comfortable about letting it be that way. We are content.
Patreon!The beginning of ‘Wicked Why.’
Interviewer: Please state your name and profession, for the record.
L. Marcie: My name is Leann Marcie. I am an attache for the State Department’s Interdimensional Working Group.
I: Is this a position which provided for close contact with the interdimensional visitors commonly known as the Emissaries?
M: Yes, it was. I interacted regularly with various Emissaries, from the Consul on down.
I: For how long have you been acting in this capacity?
M: Since the Emissaries first appeared, about three years ago. I have been a direct liaison for six months.
I: Does that mean you had regular face-to-face contact with Emissaries?
M: Yes.
I: If asked, can you provide accurate details of incidents involving the Emissaries?
M: Yes, at least for the ones where I was personally involved.
I: Would it be fair to say that you have any particular insight as to Emissary motivations and drives?
M: …Most certainly not.
Busy Day Today.
SCA Baronial Court for my barony, and I gotta take notes. Which is what I am doing right now, in fact. Not onerous work, but it’s definitely time-consuming.
October 9, 2020
Secret World Legends Samhain event starts Tuesday!
Yay! The Halloween event is always fun.
10/09/2020 Snippet, PATCHWORK GOD.
…Dammit, this is actually the first chapter of a novel. I hate it when that happens.
Patreon!Our opposite number from the Other Side was one of the ones who don’t bother with a distinct gender: ‘Call me Pat,’ she had said, with nary a bobble in her happy smile when I treated her like a human woman and Jack treated Pat like a human man. “I assume that is the Hellspawn traitor responsible for all this?” she said, looking benignly on the quivering Blasphemous Tome.
“The one and the same,” I said, almost as genially. “I assume you’ll won’t want us to save you a slice?”
The smile didn’t flicker “Oh, no, Ms. Alap. I wouldn’t be able to take any nourishment from it. One mustn’t be Greedy!”
“Naturally, Ms. Pat.” I was half-tempted to flip my gender-assuming every other sentence, just to see what kind of rise I might get, but then I’m acting just like Pat surely was expecting me to, right? Best to be a straight professional, and annoy her that way. If I could.
Look, we’re not buddies with the Other Side; we just stopped fighting. It’s like a somewhat amiable divorce where we’re still stuck with having regular contact with each other. All the grievances have been aired, there are no ongoing disputes, and sometimes we still might need to do things together — but the divorce still happened for a reason, and both sides are convinced that they’re the aggrieved parties.
The new THE STAND trailer.
This new THE STAND trailer doesn’t look too bad? I can identify who is supposed to be who from the scenes, at least. So yeah, it looks pretty good. Not good enough to get CBS All Access, obviously, but I figure it’ll eventually it’ll end up on a real streaming service and I can watch it then.
Moe Lane
PS: It’d have to be something on the level of the Snyder Cut AND all that DC superhero stuff. Why do you ask?
10/09/20 Update, REVISIONARY: 29100/32000.
Okay, Polly Want should be done by the weekend and may be done by today. I kind of want to get it finished up so I can get the others squared away. I think it’s been improved significantly, too.
Patreon!From “Polly Want:”
Kuiz was still breathing, but there was nothing left behind his eyes anymore except pain and fear. Blid envied him. He was going to die knowing what was happening to him.
The two of them had come to the greenspace just at dusk, equipped to capture or kill the [parrot]: Blid had gotten the impression that Kuiz was half-hoping for an excuse to do the latter, and he had every intention of giving Kuiz that excuse. They were fairly-well equipped, too: plastic face shields and arm protection, bag-traps and goalball bats, and even goggles for night vision. That all seemed reasonable at the time, or even a bit overkill. But better to not need it and have it than need it and not have it.
It was just that the [parrot] moved so damnably fast. The [feathers] weren’t strong enough to break bones, but the first pass had sliced off Blid’s armguard, and the second had gutted Kuiz before he could react. Then the [parrot] had calmly perched on top of a tree, seemingly just to watch Kuiz die.
In the (e-)Mail: The Pulp Mindset: A NewPub Survival Guide.
I figure I need to get some technical reading in. Goodness knows, publishing companies don’t just fall out of the sk…
:pause:
Nope, just checked. They’re still not falling out of the sky.
