SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread VI

[Simon_Jester]

No, actually, the name was chosen quasi-randomly, though I did read Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors in college. You might posit some psychological commonality there, but I can't recall having ever had TF 77.4.3's exploits in mind while writing Battle of Bannerman.

Maybe this time the screwup in coalition forces' communication will be someone else's fault?

"The worlds wonder."

Depending on which system you're in, I may or may not be able to help, though. I'm trying to limit my involvement in the writing and strategic decision-making of the MEH campaign.

[White Haven]

You are, after all, still trying to finish up and then recover from writing a six-party battle solo, never mind an entire war.

[Simon_Jester]

You are, after all, still trying to finish up and then recover from writing a six-party battle solo, never mind an entire war.

Depending on how one counts parties...

Hmm. I count at least nine distinct factions, all of which have at least one viewpoint character involved. No, only eight now; I killed off my Tianguo viewpoint characters and they won't get better until after the battle, when I can ignore them.

Well, as far as creative writing goes, I think I can definitely qualify as a candidate for "baptism by total immersion."

To be fair, it was a campaign, not a battle. The ending I am now writing was envisioned quite shortly after I started writing Hawk's Nest.

[White Haven]

You almost have enough viewpoint characters to form two entire Voltrons.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Regarding that stuff on the Wiki, yeah, definitely my bad there. Try as I might, I just can't bring a sense of closure (or even progress) to my older storylines. I have everything (or at least most of it) plotted out in my head, but I have severe difficulty actually committing it to text.

I mean, one moment, Kanata and James are basically reenacting Resistance: Fall of Man, and the next, they're on some fringe world doing military exercises in preparation for a war against extradimensional fatties. The Gallian War has ground into a stalemate, and whatever happened to Nick Angle and his quest to clean up that one Wild Space shitworld, anyway? The rest of us are well into 3401, and I still have stuff from the first half of 3400 to clear up. I'm hopeless.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm still stuck on July 10, 3400.

Look, at this point the best thing to do, if you have no more inspiration, is to say "screw it" and write the things you do have inspiration for. No one's going to be upset if you don't wrap up some minor military campaign on your fringe; they just want you to write cool shit. If that involves a massive timeskip and your characters moving on to do something completely different, go for it.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

You actually gave me the inspiration to revive that old storyline. At least you now know what the Schismatics are and why they have that odd name.

[Simon_Jester]

Suggestion:

When you're revisiting an old story, write in a link to the most recent (months-ago) post on it. I did that for Zebes a few times when there were long lulls in my writing.

[RogueIce]

I'm still stuck on July 10, 3400.

Look, at this point the best thing to do, if you have no more inspiration, is to say "screw it" and write the things you do have inspiration for. No one's going to be upset if you don't wrap up some minor military campaign on your fringe; they just want you to write cool shit. If that involves a massive timeskip and your characters moving on to do something completely different, go for it.

Or just skip ahead to the end, and then if you ever feel that you can muster the inspiration, tell it via flashbacks.

Totally not speaking from personal experience here. Not at all.

[Simon_Jester]

The main reason I never did this with Zebes is because I always knew how it was going to end, and not writing that ending after all the other stuff I did would feel like a huge let-down.

[KhorneFlakes]

The main reason I never did this with Zebes is because I always knew how it was going to end, and not writing that ending after all the other stuff I did would feel like a huge let-down.

Just wondering, I was thinking of a story plot for the Taiidani involving Taiidan spies having a look at the MEH and facepalming. Oh, and finding Evil Space Spaghetti, because I want the MEH to have at least some form of consequence for what appears to be mindless harvesting (stripmining?) of planets for food without having run into yet another angry party.

Quite frankly, from the way it's being put, the MEH is causing mass genocide without even trying.

I'm not really sure how to put it in, though. Food processing malfunction or the aforementioned Evil Space Spaghetti?

Oh, and good news - after nearly a week of delay, I'm finally done writing the Taiidan story update. It'll be up soon.

[Simon_Jester]

Other people are already planning consequences- remember that there are large armed fleets in the neighborhood who will take exception to the MEH's feasting.

Why don't you make up something else for the Taiidan to be involved in, something totally unrelated to the MEH?

[KhorneFlakes]

Other people are already planning consequences- remember that there are large armed fleets in the neighborhood who will take exception to the MEH's feasting.

Why don't you make up something else for the Taiidan to be involved in, something totally unrelated to the MEH?

I was thinking of how the Taiidani are going to get rid of the Republican holdouts, actually. The Taiidan backstory has a few Republican holdouts surviving for quite a long time.

Maybe run into Turanic Raiders? And meet the Umerians or something? I've got a few things in my head right now.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, if you want Umerian involvement, feel free to PM me for details (unless contradicting my own stuff is made sufficiently hilarious, in which case it falls under the Shroom Exception).

[Simon_Jester]

KhorneFlakes, your post confuses me. The 3400 military expansion thread is for new construction begun in 3400; you can begin up to 10% of your GDP's worth of construction in a given year, barring unusual circumstances.

It is not for listing the size of your entire navy. 16000 points of warships is way too much for one year's construction (since national GDPs range from around 45-65000), but it's way too little for a national navy (since you're entitled to 100% of your GDP in starting military assets, including both ships and ground troops).

Is there some trouble with this? I don't remember off the top of my head what your GDP is (that should probably be listed on your wiki page, along with which of your sectors is at which level of economic development)... but I suspect you could easily support well over twice as many starting warships as you have now, possibly three times as many. My own Space Security Force totaled at 46000 points on January 1, 3400, and has grown stronger since.

(Note that you do need some ground armies, and this will take a bite out of your points, but there's no difficulty in having, say, an 80/20 split between ships and ground troops)

In addition:
1) I'd take it as a favor if you'd edit your "List of PCs" entry on the wiki to place you in alphabetical order by your screen name of "KhorneFlakes," and...
2) You misspelled "assault."

[KhorneFlakes]

Oh sorry, was trying to figure out where you're suppossed to place your beginning navy - because that list is my starting navy. And I misspell assault everytime....

As for troops, the Taiidan have ground forces of about 25000000 regular men with the 2x kit multiplier. This is 62000 per $1.

[Simon_Jester]

Oh sorry, was trying to figure out where you're suppossed to place your beginning navy - because that list is my starting navy. And I misspell assault everytime....

Your beginning navy goes in your wiki, and unless you're deliberately nerfing your military should be a lot bigger than 16000 points.

The military expansion thread is for new construction started in 3400. There is, I think, a separate thread for new construction started in 3401. For fairness' sake, I'd rule that you're entitled to your 3400 construction budget, the smaller ships of which will have already been completed and the capital ships of which will still be a-building (since they take more than one year to finish)

[KhorneFlakes]

Oh sorry, was trying to figure out where you're suppossed to place your beginning navy - because that list is my starting navy. And I misspell assault everytime....

Your beginning navy goes in your wiki, and unless you're deliberately nerfing your military should be a lot bigger than 16000 points.

The military expansion thread is for new construction started in 3400. There is, I think, a separate thread for new construction started in 3401. For fairness' sake, I'd rule that you're entitled to your 3400 construction budget, the smaller ships of which will have already been completed and the capital ships of which will still be a-building (since they take more than one year to finish)

Oh, and read my above post. I edited it to include the current ground forces of the Imperial Army.

I think I'll edit that post I made in the military budget thingo....

Oh forgot to mention...I have something like 10 of those landing craft. I think I'm going to comission some bigger transports eventually, though.

[Simon_Jester]

I'd like to talk to you on AIM about straightening out your order of battle, though. At the moment the Hiigarans could kick your butt with one hand tied behind their backs, simply because they have the starting fleet their GDP allows and you don't, so they outnumber you two or three to one.

[KhorneFlakes]

I'd like to talk to you on AIM about straightening out your order of battle, though. At the moment the Hiigarans could kick your butt with one hand tied behind their backs, simply because they have the starting fleet their GDP allows and you don't, so they outnumber you two or three to one.

Wasn't going to go to war this early anyway. I'll see you on AIM on friday - probably around the time you usually come onto SDN, although that depends if I'm awake enough at the time.

[Simon_Jester]

Er, I'm not logged onto AIM except between, roughly, 8 pm and 1 am Eastern Standard Time; that may not pan out for you if you're not available during the morning. Then again, your Saturday morning is my Friday night, so maybe.

Anyway, this is outlined in the rules: you need to calculate your GDP (one hell of a lot more than 16000 points), build a fleet sized accordingly, and then you can worry about new construction. I'll help when I can.

[Force Lord]

Never, ever use enema bots as disguises. Not everyone is as lucky as Kierger.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Is Hiigara the same Hiigara as Katr Kana? Has there been any consultation on this at all?

[Simon_Jester]

There has. The Taiidan are a Hiigaran offshoot culture that adopted the name in more or less the same spirit that "Yankee Doodle" became one of the unofficial anthems of the American Revolution.

KhorneFlakes is having trouble working out his order of battle and stuff, but he'll get it straightened out soon enough.

[Kartr_Kana]

KhorneFlakes you sent me your idea this morning. I haven't had computer access till now and have not been able to give you any feedback on our mutual back story. Yet you go ahead and post a back history that is not only at odds with what we discussed in AIM, but is wildly against it and against the very nature of how the Clan structure works.

The idea we talked about was the "Taiidani" were the group who favored a more autocratic and vertical rule. Right now each clan governs itself in the manner they deem best. The S'jet, science clan prefers a pseudo communist government modeled similar to Umeria's. The Sobani are governed by a psuedo military tribunal and every citizen has a "rank" and a place in the structure. Maanaani, well they're somewhere between pure capitalists and complete anarchists depending on which trading vessel or enclave you visit. Each clan has its own style of governance, but all accept the authority of the Diamiid to make policy concerning things that lie outside the borders of the Hiigaran Control Zone.

As such the Sobani are most likely to have been supportive of the Taiidani and their desire for a monolithic, authoritarian government. The split between the Taiidani and the Hiigarans as we discussed was going to be over governmental structure. This at a time when several different groups were vieing to have their vision be the government for the new worlds. The current system was established by Karan S'jet (not Huur S'jet who is a current High Councilor in the Diamiid) as a compromise allowing all parties to have their form of government and yet bring about unity and therefore strength to face threats like the Karlack.

The idea that we discussed, was that during this time the Taiidani were not willing to make the compromises Karan and the other Clans asked for. We had jokingly said that this was because they were the officers and people of importance on the colony ships who were butthurt about the prank. Now roughly a century after the prank and when this conflict was taking place that title would probably have been dusted off to be an insult to the most pro-authoritarian party.

All this being said, there was no "monopoly", there was no "incident" and no one - Sobani or otherwise - declared an embargo/blockade on any moons. This was a series of civil wars and demonstrations that polarized the populations of the new worlds into a series of camps based on ideology. Up until this point, the "Clans" were ships and their populations and the Taiidani were the "suits", the "po-po" and the humorless authority figures. After this point Clans became synonymous with governmental ideologies and this is when your Taiidani would have emerged, same as the rest of the Clans.

Now my suggestion would to have your Taiidani be "Sobani" that felt the compromise was too much and they couldn't stand to live with all the "hippies," "communists," "anarchists," and "weaklings". However, I don't really care if you use that particular scenario. You could have them believe that one of the original ship captains was Joseph of Nazereth re-incarnated and that your leader is the second coming of Christ and when they wanted everyone to worship him as part of a theology that's when the split happened.

Now I do not like limiting your creativity when you create your nation. However you want to use my nation and my nations history as part of your own. Graciously I agreed, however it is my nation's back story you are trying to fit yourself into and because of that I reserve the right to ensure that you do not trash the history I have, both written and un-written. Next time please wait till I have had a chance to look over and respond to your PMs before you post something that drastically affects my back story.