SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread II

[Shroom Man 777]

ALYXIA!

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Hmmm... I will post the next bit up and see what Shady has to say for this twist.

[PeZook]

I'm half tempted to throw a wrench in these works, too

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I'm half tempted to throw a wrench in these works, too

Don't force me to go all out to destroy a monolith.

[Shroom Man 777]

KOPRULU ZONE BLOCK PARTY! I bring vodka and acidic K-bolt space Kalashnikovs!

[Simon_Jester]

Just for laughs, a quick biographical piece about the infamous Boss Migwazza, and his heroic struggle to break the WAAAGH! barrier, is up.

[Shroom Man 777]

God damn, Jester, that was really great. MIGWAZZA!

So, does this mean that the ship he chased to the upper atmosphere and shot at until he lost breath was the Glowworm?

LOOTED SHEPISTANI GRAPHS

[Simon_Jester]

God damn, Jester, that was really great. MIGWAZZA!

So, does this mean that the ship he chased to the upper atmosphere and shot at until he lost breath was the Glowworm?

Nope. Different ship, different day. He won't be chasing Glowworm into the upper atmosphere, for reasons you'll soon understand all too well.

[Shroom Man 777]

Also, mang. Fingolfin and Shady, in the grim darkness of SDNW4, there is only war!

Man, eat your heart out, Tyrannids. Karlacks, man. Karlacks.

[Shroom Man 777]

The Duke of Death's book must've driven up the sales of vintage Colt M2411s.

[KlavoHunter]

Now, in sector F19: Shroomindanao!

And pesky Japanistani shoalspace-nomad bandits?

[Shroom Man 777]

Yes.

Also, the Duke of Death doesn't use cheap Feelipeeni knockoff Colts that everyone else seems to have nowadays.



EDIT:

Fun fact, the real life Colt M1911 was designed so American soldiers could better kill Filipino rebels in the Muslim south!

[PeZook]

Holy shit Simon's post was absolutely hilarious! That's how all writing about Orks should look!

[Shroom Man 777]

He should be working for Games Workshop.

[Steve]

Which sector are the Space Nazis in anyway?

[Simon_Jester]

The ones the Space Prussians are beating on? T-10.

Also, I was consciously trying to emulate the anecdotes used in Codex: Orks for that piece; the only thing that's distinctly mine about it is the narrative style and the awareness of just how completely insane orkish society is.

Basically, the premise is that while the orkish WAAAGH! can make many things work that should not work, the sound barrier is a bit of a challenge for it; the typical orkish aircraft is really unsuited for supersonic flight. To the point where even an ork mek actually had to sit down and think for a minute before he could build something to break the sound barrier.

Also, the warboss's name is quite meaningful; "Mig" is not a coincidence. When I went looking for ork fighta-bomba pictures, I discovered a thriving subculture that converts models of Soviet MiG-15, 17, and 19 fighters to make them look suitably orky; Migwazza was born out of a desire to capitalize on the pictures from that.

[MKSheppard]

You came looking for a man...but instead you found A GOD!

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, I'm not going home. I'm gonna get on my ship, and I'm going up river, and I'm going to kick that son of a bear Byzon's ass so hard that the next Byzon wannabe is gonna feel it! Now, who wants to go home... and who wants to go with me?

[Siege]

They will talk, or they will die! Preferably both!

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Well, I'm not going home. I'm gonna get on my ship, and I'm going up river, and I'm going to kick that son of a bear Byzon's ass so hard that the next Byzon wannabe is gonna feel it! Now, who wants to go home... and who wants to go with me?

You know something? Before I knew for sure that the Bragulans were going to be space bears, I was imagining Imperator Byzon to essentially be Raul Julia as M. Bison IN SPACE! Knowing you, you could have been able to make that work too.

And now we have Shep introducing the crime lord R. Julia, ruling from the asteroid 2312 Shadowshroom in the Feelipeens. Funny how things turn out, really.

In other news, following up on my previous idea for Ace Combat Belka IN SPACE, here's the writeup for the Belkan Empire and its neighbors in the Belka Sector:

Belka Sector Statelets

The Belka Sector, also known as Sector P-24 on most standard galactic maps, is home to several small nation-states. Though they have access to interstellar drive technology, they generally lack the financing to expand into nearby sectors. The Belka Sector does enjoy constant investment, however, for the same reason it is allowed to persist as an independent sector to this day: It lies between the Holy Empire of Haruhi Suzumiya, the Pfhor Empire, and the various Koprulu states.

Belka System

Belkan Empire

Capital: Dinsmark
Government type: Military dictatorship (nominally constitutional monarchy governed by European civil and common law)
Head of state: HRH Erich I, Emperor of Belka
Head of government: Grand Admiral Vladimir Rald, Imperial Belkan Star Force
Territories: Entire system of Belka, numerous extra-solar planetoids

Halkeginia System

Map of the planet of Halkeginia (dark green = Qumar, blue = Liberion, red = East Gallia, sea green = Azadistan, teal = West Gallia, lavender = Tristain)

Emirate of Qumar

Capital: Qumar City
Government type: Military dictatorship (nominally constitutional monarchy governed by British civil and common law)
Head of state: HM Yasir al-Assad, Emir of Qumar
Head of government: General Khaled al-Saachez, Royal Qumari Army
Off-world territories: 5% of Halkeginia's moon

Federal Republic of Liberion

Capital: New Coventry
Government type: Federal republic governed by American civil and common law
Head of state and government: President Nicholas Fitzhugh
Off-world territories: 20% of Halkeginia's moon, 50% of main asteroid belt, mining and resource colonies on one other planet in system

Gallian Imperial Alliance (East Gallia)

Capital: Amiens
Government type: Military dictatorship (nominally constitutional monarchy governed by European civil and common law)
Head of state: HRH Field Marshal Maximilian Gaius von Reginrave, Emperor of Gallia
Head of government: Field Marshal Berthold Gregor, Imperial Gallian Army
Off-world territories: 30% of Halkeginia's moon, 25% of main asteroid belt, mining and resource colonies on two other planets in system

Islamic Empire of Azadistan

Capital: Ghazvin
Government type: Constitutional monarchy governed by mixture of sharia and British civil and common law
Head of state: HM Hossein Khatami, Shah of Azadistan
Head of government: Prime Minister Marina Ismail
Off-world territories: 5% of Halkeginia's moon

Principality of Gallia (West Gallia)

Capital: Randgriz
Government type: Constitutional monarchy governed by European civil and common law
Head of state: HG Cordelia van Randgriz, Princess of Gallia
Head of government: Prime Minister Maurits van Borg
Off-world territories: 10% of Halkeginia's moon, 25% of main asteroid belt, mining and resource colonies on one other planet in system

Principality of Tristain

Capital: Tristania
Government type: Constitutional monarchy governed by European civil and common law
Head of state: HG Henrietta de Tristain, Princess of Tristain
Head of government: President Charles Cromwell
Off-world territories: 10% of Halkeginia's moon

The exact history and structure of Belka proper will be fleshed out at a later date. Needless to say, there will be plenty of starfighter pilots and psionic lolis.

As to why Halkeginia is basically Earth with a few bits hacked off, I'm an unimaginative bastard and I was getting tired of finding ways to verbally describe the territorial layout of the various powers there, so I decided to emulate the truly fucked-up map of Earth in Strike Witches (guaranteed to give Thanas a coronary or your money back ), using a map of Vichy France's territories on Wikipedia as a base.

I wonder if introducing a Striker Unit knock-off for Belka's psionic loli corps would be pushing things a little...

[Steve]

Eh, having a duplicate Earth, or near-duplicate, is a bit out there IMHO....

[Shroom Man 777]

Boo, you should've used Strangereal's map... buddy.

Man. Sapin! USTIO! YUKTOBANIA!

And, yeah, Imperator Darvyl Sagatantron Byzon IS based on Raul Julia too. As in, but in bear form. The Bragulans were in my head when I was in elementary school, when I teased my classmate with the moniker "booger bear". The K-bolts' origin was that the booger bears would sneeze out acidic snot and boogers, which is called "kugmu" in bisaya (hence K-bolts). I wrote stories where my booger bear classmate was a villainous tyrant. Modeled after M. Bison. Complete with hat and huge shoulder pads!

Apexai: My father defended our planet at the cost of his own life. You dropped a moon on my world as you ran away. A hero at a thousand parsecs!

Byzon: I'm sorry... I don't remember any of it.

Apexai: You don't remember?

Byzon: For you, the day Byzon graced your planet was the most important day of your life. But for me... it was Bragsday.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Eh, having a duplicate Earth, or near-duplicate, is a bit out there IMHO....

I know that, but I was at my wits' end trying to describe just how Halkeginia was divided up, using the same framework you used to describe the Fynn Sector Statelets. What constitutes a primary, secondary, or tertiary continent, anyway? Bleh. Just treat it as an abstraction to point out general territorial locations and such; I don't think I'd be able to come up with a better map from scratch, so... yeah.

Boo, you should've used Strangereal's map... buddy.

Man. Sapin! USTIO! YUKTOBANIA!

I was already planning on using Strangereal's map for space Belka. As implausible as Halkeginia currently being a cut-up version of Earth is, having Halkeginia and space Belka be identical topographically would be just plain ridiculous.

[Steve]

Hence why I never bothered with drawing a map (I suck at it anyway).

And the designations primarily refer to the primacy of the continents. Earth is a bit of an interesting thing since, technically, up until Suez and Panama were canalized you had two large continents: the Americas, as one (in terms of connected landmasses at least) and Eurasia-Africa as the other.

Even cutting Earth up in the modern continents, I figured it'd be this:

Asia: Primary Continent
Africa, North America, South America: Secondary Continents
Europe, Australia, Antarctica: Tertiary Continents

it's meant to be the continents in relation to each other more than land mass raw, though. You could have a planet where the primary continents are Africa sized, then a Secondary Continent 75% the size of Africa, then a couple Tertiary Continents the size of Australia. Or a planet where the Primary Continent is only the size of South America, a couple Secondary Continents are in the Antarctica-Europe size range, and there is no Tertiary Continent per se but a metric crapload of archipelagos.

Anyway, I don't really see the need to do maps for worlds in this setting.

[Shroom Man 777]

Langley can do the Ace Combat thing and just grab real-world locations, turn them upside down, and call them OSERUSEAPINESTOMMERBANIA or something.

Man, that was a great chapter Steve. I really liked that simple conversation thing. The mere appearance of Sir Bronson, James Bronson was pure awesome. He didn't even have to do anything but sit there and be awesome. And now we know calling Balthier a bastard is perfectly accurate.