SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread II

[Simon_Jester]

I agree on the bomb option. Having Enduvos remotely trigger a bomb in his subordinate's head serves roughly the same effect without implying the ability of psychics to act over interstellar ranges.

[Steve]

Viable alternative. Though if their remote detonation codes ever get compromised someone can do a number on their leadership....

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

You know, it's a shame that RogueIce has already appropriated the cast of Burn Notice for his own use, because the mental image of Bruce Campbell giving David Caruso a faceful of boomstick while Jeffrey Donovan and Gabrielle Anwar get into a battle royale with the rest of the CSI: Miami cast amuses me immensely. Yes, I am jumping onto Siege's "Wild Space vigilante" bandwagon, though I am going for something far more...modern. While what I have in mind is largely a callback to SDNW2, I'm also taking the opportunity to incorporate a storyline I was planning to use in SDNW2 but was unable to due to time constraints (after modifying it for SDNW4, of course).

In any case, I guess I'll have to settle for Simon Pegg and Nick Frost fighting David Caruso, Gary Sinise, Mark Harmon, and David Morse (and Christopher Meloni, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Emily Deschanel, too!)...IN SPACE!

[Lonestar]

You made that article?

I know what to call the zone where the Grand Dominion is at! THE LOIN STARS!

Just the Blurbs about the Amplitur and N'sss.

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh, those guys. Back in SDNW2 they were the ones who Shroomania sent to Zoria for that cop thing!

Man, Shinn! I'm so with HORATIO LAME.


"so H, what do you make of this?"

"looks like he ended up in... dead space."

then he put his sunglasses on. his space helmet

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhh

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Oh, those guys. Back in SDNW2 they were the ones who Shroomania sent to Zoria for that cop thing!

Man, Shinn! I'm so with HORATIO LAME.


"so H, what do you make of this?"

"looks like he ended up in... dead space."

then he put his sunglasses on. his space helmet

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhh

And now in SDNW4, they're the guys cleaning out Wild Space, one shithole at a time.

As for the SDNW2 storyline that I was unable to implement, it was essentially a continuation of the Zorian police conference thingy, where Nick Angle and Denver Butterbean must kill Elliott Unstabler, Horatio Lame, "Mac-10" Taylor, and Leeroy Jenkins Gibbs in self-defense after a simple marksmanship contest goes horribly wrong. Also, Mikhail Tripper ends up with a rectal thermometer permanently lodged in his ass, and Intolerance Brennan gets lobotomized with a shiv after she tries to kill Natsumi Tsujimoto. Some of those story elements may end up being implemented here in SDNW4.

And yes, The Who will be playing every time Horatio Lame makes an appearance. Any one-liners I may try to come up with will be more lame than clever, though.

[Simon_Jester]

Aaaand another Glowworm update. Now with 30% more divergence from the original, and the first appearance of Migwazza in a mainstream storyline!

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

I'll probably make a few additions to the Santo Domingo Rogues Gallery over the next few days. Names to look out for include Antonio Douchenozzle (you can clearly tell I hate DiNozzo's guts ), Erich the Belkan, Timmy Speed Racer, Alexxx "Triple-X" Woody, Klavostan Kruze, Danny Spork, and John Wilkes Seeley.

[Shroom Man 777]

You need a rogue Anglian MI6 Double-0 by the name of B.F. Skinner, who runs a black market convenience store on that planet of yours.

[Steve]

You dare to malign the names of TEAM GIBBS?!

*readies Black Hole Generator and targets Shinn's civilization*

....okay, I'm just joking. It's funny. Well, unless you malign Abby or Ducky. Then it shall be WAR.

And maybe Rogue will let you borrow the Burn Notice crew. To be truthful I think he snagged them like that to beat me to the punch.

[Shroom Man 777]

Nice, I love how Firefly just segued into Ace Combat territory. That's brilliant! Nicely done, Simon.

[PeZook]

Oh! Good! A story about criminals in Wild Space!

[Shroom Man 777]

Shit, your robots are going to eat them, aren't they?

[PeZook]

Shit, your robots are going to eat them, aren't they?

Do you really have to ask?

[Lord_Of_Change 9]

LoC9, is the Cabinet in the Prussian Star League appointed by the Reichstag (as in a British-style parliamentary democracy), by the monarch, or by some other unknown process?

If the Cabinet is required to obey the decision of the Reichstag, then unless some other political body (such as the monarch) overrides the Reichstag's decision, the Prussian government will be going back on its solemn word in your previous diplomatic note to me.

From the point of view of the Umerians (who don't have an elected legislature, are used to government policies that stay reasonably stable over time, and are used to getting their diplomatic assurances from ministers who are actually in a position to deliver on their promises), this is a Big Deal. I'm not sure if you fully appreciate that.

The Cabinet is appointed by and required to answer to to the Reichstag.

[Simon_Jester]

Very well. I presume that your next diplomatic note will clarify this matter.

[Simon_Jester]

Was just reviewing, and a minor detail:

The Centrality is hardly religious. Heck, only Umeria and the Commune are probably more atheistic than the Centrality.

Umeria's state policy on religion is to ignore it, much as it would ignore a ladies' knitting circle. Indeed, the regulations governing a prayer meeting, a knitting circle, a group of LARPers, or pretty much any other voluntary recreational activity that doesn't necessarily make sense to the bureaucrats in charge are the same. Do it on your own time, don't try to coerce people into joining the group, expect to be taxed if the organization makes a profit beyond some minimal level needed to expand to meet demand for facilities, and so on.

Now, the population of Umeria is not very religious, because the existence of that policy for something like a thousand years means that most of the people who on Earth today are vaguely religious because "it's the thing to do" are not at all religious in Umeria. MiniWell's child protective services work very hard to keep parents from coercing their children into joining the faith, especially one with exotic social tenets (like, say, "This that and the other things the state approves of are abominations before the Lord!")

But calling the state "atheistic" isn't really accurate, I'd say; it's more like "agnostic." The official government policy is that they neither know nor particularly care about whether gods in the supernatural sense exist. Weakly-godlike entities (certain extremely powerful psychics and CIs) and strongly-godlike entities (the ones that could do things like create populated planets full of suspiciously humanlike beings, or make large sectors of shoal space vanish and be replaced by an unknown alien empire) are another question... but Umeria has no policy of encouraging anyone to worship weakly or strongly godlike entities.

[Shroom Man 777]

In Bragule, if gods and religions are not ideologically correct, then they will be compelled to undergo de-education to distill their ideological purity.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

In Bragule, if gods and religions are not ideologically correct, then they will be compelled to undergo de-education to distill their ideological purity.

"For crimes against Bragulanity, and for failing your duty to the Glorious Imperator Byzon, may he rule forever, by the Imperial Edict as written by the Glorious Imperator Byzon, may he rule forever, you shall be forever confined to the De-Education center to be subjected to constant de-education, so that in time, or perhaps, in the infinity of time, you may see the light and be de-educated to serve the Glorious Imperator Byzon, may he rule forever, in the fullest of your competent faculties."

[Shroom Man 777]

MAY HE RULE FOREVER!

[Simon_Jester]

Hurrah for wacky paleohistory!

It would be an interesting exercise to try to go back over the wacky paleohistory and patch together some kind of semi-plausible model for how all this stuff got started, in the context of the game. Clearly, the Estella Real was established during some kind of multi-sector Dark Age, during which all the systems involved suffered major social and economic collapse, with the España system suffering less than most...

[Shroom Man 777]

I think what could work is that during the Diaspora, a lot of smaller colonies were founded by isolated stragglers and all sorts of weirdness happened due to their isolation.

Either that or, perhaps due to first-generation hyperdrive's slowness or the fact that many used sublight cryoships or generation ships, the current game time of 3400 isn't REALLY 3400. There may be a missing period of time, a few missing centuries (I call it the Age of Obscurity!) and the current calendar was only established when interstellar civilizations managed to re-establish and re-civilize themselves. If we use the Gregorian Calendar, it might actually be more like 3600/3800 A.D. But now we're using the Space (Anglian/Earthican/whatever) calendar, and it's still 3400.

I don't think people would be partial with this. Perhaps this isn't really the case, and the histories of countries like the Sovereignty and España are just full of shit.

EDIT:

The real OOC reason is that I'm reusing stuff I wrote years ago, for a ridiculous universe (a different universe from the Sovereignty/Bragulan guys, a different universe with the likes of HERACULES and science fantasy nonsense!).

[Simon_Jester]

I think what could work is that during the Diaspora, a lot of smaller colonies were founded by isolated stragglers and all sorts of weirdness happened due to their isolation.

This.

The histories in question are full of shit (we can prove this by checking against the history of powers that have complete records dating back to their founding and earlier). But, like many myths, we can reasonably infer that they were originally inspired by semi-real events.

Clearly there really was an Estella Real de España, and clearly they did carve out a solid little pocket empire on a number of systems some time in the latter half of the 3rd millenium AD, probably starting in the 2500s or 2600s; clearly this empire was gradually lost starting around 2900 to 3000 and proceeding to the present day. Men with names like Magelleon and Cortez may have been involved, they may well have been subduing planets with cultures vaguely like the bizarre crazy-awesome ones described, and so on.

Of course, the reality was probably much dirtier and less cool, but what can you do?

[Shroom Man 777]

Indeed, indeed. But like Aristoclates the Plagiaristic, or Herodototoles or Homaesop the Profound, I still firmly maintain that all these Paleohistologies really did happen!

Siege did write a piece explaining the ridiculous histories of the Sovereignty. I believe this applies to other star nations as well!

[Simon_Jester]

Hmph. My people have continuous records dating back to the first landings on Reisenburg and earlier; we remembered to take notes for posterity!

That said, perhaps some day I will write excerpts from the diary of Bernal Díaz del Bolivar's, explaining what really happened!

And yes, what "really" happened will be kinda awesome too, if I ever get round to this piece.

*This 26th century Umerian traveled widely in the Spinward Expanse, renting out his expertise as an electrical engineer and/or gunman as circumstances dictated. His extensively annotated diaries are a widely used primary source for the development of human societies in the Expanse. In particular, his accounts of serving at Cortez's side as an electrical-engineer-and-gunman-for-hire are among the few primary sources we now have of the great conqueror's campaigns. After retiring back to his homeworld of Bolivar he compiled them, along with other accounts, into the Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España.**

**True History of the Conquest of New Spain