So this is the thing that has been consuming a lot of my time lately:
Alespron is subsector G of Foreven sector. It's got a lot going on, and my stink is all over this (I wrote a third of it):
A fallen Monarchy in civil war.
An invasion by the Zhodani Consulate to "restore order".
Opportunities for ship captains to make money legitimately (bringing relief supplies in and transporting refugees out) or less so (gun running, conflict gems, double-dealing).
Plus a curious little Droyne world that isn't what you'd expect.
I'll post the link to this when it's available for publishing. It if sells well, maybe I'll get a larger writing gig -- I'd love to get my paws on Urnian (subsector P). Until then, haunt the Jon Brazer Enterprises blog for more information.
Erin Palette interviews Scott Bascom about the various prepping resources that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints makes available to non-Mormons.
You think Bernie Sanders' economic policies are bad? Wait until you hear what Nicki Kenyon has to say about his Foreign Policy!
Our Special Guest this week is Jenna Meek, an owner/instructor at Carry On Colorado. Jenna joins us to talk about her new book, a really great introduction to armed self defense "Calling the Shots: Self-protection and firearm choices that work for you."
Don't use Windows, they said. It's not secure, they said. Well Barron B tells us about a HUGE vulnerability just discovered. And this time it's in Linux!
And Laughing at Liberals brings us the strange, bizarre, and downright insane proclamations of the anti-gunners in a gun grabber "Town Hall" meeting in Oregon. You know what he's going to do with them. That's right! It's time for another patented Weer'd Audio Fisk™!
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I'm afraid I will have to phone it in this week. I had planned on offering up my thoughts on Deadpool, but halfway through the movie I started experiencing some unpleasant sensations in my gut which led to a week of fun.
See, my refrigerator is a little old and busted. It ices up probably more often than it should, and I hadn't noticed until it was too late this time. I'd probably eaten one or two meals of stuff out of it that was being stored at maybe 50 degrees F by the time I noticed. Then, while it was unplugged for a day and a half to melt all the backed up ice, I was eating a lot of junk and fast food. Follow that with the bright idea of starting Friday morning off the right way with a big bowl of healthy oatmeal.. and my entire digestive system just ground to a halt. I spent a couple of days curled up in my recliner because lying down hurt and moving around hurt, and I've spent the last couple of days fighting my way through work and thankful I do so from home so that I can occasionally stop what I'm doing return to a fetal position.
I'm feeling considerably better now, if still not 100%, but I will do you all the service of refreshing my mind on Deadpool by going to see it during my week off of work that starts tomorrow, so that I may bring you a proper verdict on the movie. I swear, the sacrifices I make for you all. I'm glad you're all so grateful.
Anyway, in the meantime I'd like to bring just a few things to your attention that caught my attention the last week or so and that I wish I had more prepared, coherent thought about:
British national treasure Stephen Fry was run off of Twitter after a minor, imagined offense this week, and fortunately unlike Joss Whedon, he has the good grace to claim he didn't just fall down some stairs. At an awards show, a friend of his was presenting an award dressed rather eccentrically, and he joked that she looked like a 'bag lady.' The comment was immediately seized upon as being misogynistic and one of Twitter's most valuable assets was relentlessly attacked for ribbing a pal. Personally, I think Fry has the right idea. Between their flailing stock prices and hemorrhaging executives and the institution of their Police of Vice and Virtue... what? Oh, sorry, their "Trust and Safety Council", Twitter is a sinking ship, and I'm glad. All it does is amplify misunderstandings and give bad actors an excuse to attack. As much as I harp on Tumblr, I'd rid the internet of Twitter if given the choice between the two.
Next, we have long-time Gay Rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell, being boycotted and branded transphobic and racist by an NUS LGBT Officer for supporting freedom of speech and standing against the practice of no-platforming. A man who fought for gay rights in a time when you'd still stand a not-insignificant chance of being lynched for being gay. A man who once tried to perform a citizen's arrest on Robert Freakin' Mugabe. I'm starting to see a real pattern here.
Finally, a positive note: Something I've been saying for at least 3 years has now appeared on Everyday Feminism dot com! I'm not even archiving this one. I want them to get attention for having a moment of self-awareness, and I'm hoping it grows. Social Justice is giving bad people an excuse to act badly, and a cudgel to beat people they don't like with.
All right, everybody. I'm out for now. I've got one more night of work before I'm on holiday, and I'll somehow drag myself back to see Deadpool one more time just for you lot. I just hope you all appreciate the sacrifices I make.
I've been busy working on a real-life project that I ought to be able to talk about soon, which is why posts have been rather thin lately. I have time for a quickie, though.
If you're familiar with this 90s series, keep in mind I'm not asking about any of the weapons. I just want to know what TL you think is needed to have the red car transform into the gray car while still being able to move.
I asked this question of my Secret Cabal of Evil GMs and the answer was "somewhere between TL 10 and 12." This suits me just fine for the purpose I have in mind.
2nd Edition High Guard (still in beta testing) has explicitly stated that TL 10 Reflec coatings and TL 10 Stealth coatings are mutually exclusive. Now while I can see a point to be made where you can't have both operational at once -- anything which reflects visible light is, by definition, not stealthy -- I don't see why you couldn't have both on the same ship and switch between them.
Sure, it's going to be expensive. But I think it's possible, and it's the kind of thing that militaries would put on craft like system defense boats and small craft.
2e also has the Holographic Hull option, which includes projectors embedded within the hull to change color, add graphics etc. I recall a previous edition of Traveller (MegaTraveller, I think, but it could have been New Era) mentioned that many warships had holographic hulls which allowed them to switch between "peace mode" that used bright colors for the name and unit logo loud and proud for easy identification, and a "war mode" that was camouflaged and made it difficult to determine what ship it was (and therefore not have its capabilities be obvious).
So I think it is quite reasonable to assume that ships past a certain TL ought to be able to switch between stealth and reflec. I chose TL 12 just to err on the side of caution.
Configurable Hull (TL 12)
This option allows a craft to switch between hull coatings. This is an outer-layer only change, and therefore it does not interfere with armor, the jump grid, or atmospheric integrity of the ship. It does not allow the addition of the same coating more than once. It costs MCr 0.1 per ton of hull, in addition to the coatings. It takes one turn, during the Ship Action phase, to switch hull configurations.
Now you can build fighters with advanced stealth systems that can "turn on" armor against laser point defense right as they begin their strafing run, and then "re-stealth" as they break away to avoid missile interception.
I have largely moved away from commenting about popular culture or current events on this site because as time passes, such things become less relevant. Perhaps I am committing folly by assuming that things like my Traveller posts will stand the test of time, but let's be honest for a moment: once an election or a television season is over, no one really cares what was said about it, but my "I am the very model of a modern Marvel mastermind" filk is still funny years after it was topical.
But today I am going to break that rule -- I do it every so often -- and talk about something in pop culture that is driving me bugnuts crazy. Specifically, the CW's new show Legends of Tomorrow.
I'm sorry, but this show is terrible.
I want to like it, because I am a big fan of Arrow and Flash. I enjoyed Ray Palmer's "too smart for his own good" run on Arrow (even if The Atom is more Iron Man than Ant-Man), and I enjoyed seeing Professor Martin Stein be a mentor to Barry on Flash.
Sadly, none of that is present in this show. Instead, we get stupid plots that break the rules of time travel that were set up in Flash, and the leader of the group is a character we don't know and who has all the charisma of a bureaucrat. Arthur Darvill's Rip Hunter doesn't act like a leader -- he doesn't act very well at all, in fact -- and he's so overshadowed by the personalities who CAN act that you're left wondering "Why do these awesome people continue to listen to this jackass who has not only lied to them but also can't even grasp the basics of causality?"
Allow me to explain.
Rip Hunter wants to go back in time to stop Vandal Savage from conquering the world and killing his family. We're going to set aside the whole paradoxical argument of "You went back in time to stop something from happening, and so it didn't happen, and because it didn't happen you didn't go back in time to stop it, so it did happen, so you go back in time..." because 1) that way lies madness and 2) that doesn't make an entertaining show. So we have to assume that time travelers can fix things without erasing their reason for the fix. I'm fine with this, as it's the central conceit of the show and I know it going in, so I accept it as I watch it for the same reason I choose to accept "the dead animate to feast upon the living" so I can watch The Walking Dead. However, accepting this premise leads to some questions
Question #1: Why doesn't Rip go back in time to the day BEFORE Savage kills his family, pile them onto the Waverider, and take them to a safe place in history?
Question #2: Rip hesitates and doesn't kill Savage in ancient Egypt. Why not go back again and finish the job? Hell, why not go back MULTIPLE TIMES and have multiple Rips there to kill Savage?
The answer to both of these questions seems to be a variation on the observer effect: if a time traveller is there for an event, they cannot change it, because it is part of their personal timestream. In other words, Rip can't gang up on Savage because he didn't see multiple versions of himself there. He can't save his family because he's already seen them dead.
Problem #1: This directly contradicts how time travel works in the Flash, where Barry has not only changed events he is part of (Weather Wizard's tidal wave in season 1, and Vandal Savage going boom in season 2), but has actually met and interacted with himself (the fight with Zoom in the past). Since Flash came out before Legends, and because the entire season 1 metaplot was built around time travel, I consider its rules on how time travel works to have precedent unless there's a good explanation why things ought to be different. So far, there hasn't been one. Despite Rip Hunter talking a good game about how he's a Time Master and he knows how to make subtle alterations to the time stream so that the changes stick, there's been no explanation as to how he knows or what the rules for making proper changes are.
Problem #2: Again, according to Flash, when you alter the past to change the present, the past "fights back" and tries to reassert itself in the new causality. In other words, if you mess around with time travel, you pay for it, which makes good sense from a narrative standpoint because otherwise every villain can be beaten with "The Flash goes back in time 24 hours and defeats the villain." Now compare this with how it works in Legends, where the team screws up a 1970s arms deal and suddenly Central City of 2016 is in flames. So the past is easy to change, I guess? And it doesn't fight to reassert itself... except when it does, like when Leonard Snart tries to keep his father out of prison by stealing the emerald his father would get caught stealing, and instead his father is put in jail for fencing the stolen gem. There's no consistency here.
Problem #3: If the Observer Effect is how changes to the time stream work in Legends, then this is all a fool's errand, because Rip has already observed that Vandal Savage conquers the world 2166. Tough noogies, Rip, you can't change the future because you've just observed it. So either you don't know how altering the time stream works, or you're delusional with grief... or the writers obviously have no clue and they're making you look like an idiot.
Conclusion: There is literally NO POINT to this show. Either Rip Hunter wins, immediately, because he's a time traveller, or he's already lost and cannot change that because observing the events has fixed them in the time stream. Saying there's some kind of middle ground, especially without any kind of explanation as to how or why the rules are different, is just masturbation. And that's what this show is: character-based fanwanking. Which would be fine if the characters were handled intelligently and sympathetically... but they aren't.
Hey Arrow fans, you remember how smart and confident and competent Ray Palmer was? He was this awesome uber-geek who could leave Felicity Smoak in the dust, and he didn't have any of her crippling social anxieties. Really cool, right? Well, he isn't any of those things in this show. Instead, he's just a nerdy fanboy who gets handed the idiot ball so that smooth criminal Leonard Snart can show him up. Instead of being the smartest man in the room, he's been reduced to "shrinking guy."
Hey Flash fans, you remember how Professor Stein was wise and mature and a fatherly mentor figure? He talked about time travel and alternate realities and was generally warm and kind and filled the role of leader when Reverse-Flash abandoned his Wells disguise. Guess what? He isn't any of those things in this show, either! Instead he's an angry, controlling, almost bullying old man who will do or say anything to get his way, including roofie-ing and kidnapping Jax so that Old Man Stein can have his Big Egotistical Adventure.
The only bright spot in this dismal affair is the triple "bromance" that Canary has with Heatwave and Captain Cold. If the show was just those three travelling through time and getting into trouble, I would enjoy the hell out of it. Sadly, it isn't, and Wentworth Miller's schmoozy charisma and Caity Lotz's psycho intensity only highlight how much I don't care about Rip Hunter and Hawkgirl.
In other words, it's not just fanwankery, it's BAD fanwankery that doesn't deliver. I was SO excited for this show, because the premise was amazing -- "Your favorite side characters, in their own show!" -- and it's just terrible in execution.
However, because I feel bad for savaging Legends, I'm going to give Greg Berlanti (in the exceedingly slim chance that he reads this) an idea for his next show.
Put John Constantine and Zatanna in a series called The Books of Magic and have them fight magic-based villains. (Alternate titles: Trenchcoat Brigade; Shadowpact)
Set it in England (but film it in Vancouver, to have maximum crossover potential with Flash and Arrow).
Tim Hunter can be their teenage sidekick. This allows that funky quasi-family dynamic that CW loves, and also gives Constantine the chance to take the piss out of Harry Potter. Win-win!
At some point, add the Huntress to the team. She can be the third leg to the love triangle that I know you'll set up with John and Zats. (Feel free to rip off the Question/Huntressdynamic from Justice League Unlimited.)
Have over-arching metaplots linking to DC's cosmic entities: Lords of Order and Chaos; the Endless from Gaiman's Sandman series; and of course the Spectre. As the stories progress, the team can receive missions from the Phantom Stranger and/or Doctor Fate.
Etrigan the Demon can be the first season nemesis, but can redeem and eventually join the team as a good guy.
Also good adds or guest stars: Swamp Thing and Hawkgirl (who would be a MUCH better fit here than on Legends).
Yes, people will say it's a ripoff of Supernatural (and maybe it is), but it's a DC-themed ripoff. Think of the crossover potential between shows, and the rich mystical history of the DC universe. We have a natural show (Arrow) a science show (Flash), and an alien show (Supergirl); we need a magic show, and the character of John Constantine is popular (and the actor is available).
Boom, there's your new series. I give it to Greg Berlanti for free. Just add my name somewhere in the credits and we're good.
Erin Palette gives you some good ideas on alternative methods of carrying your everyday preps.
Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, says that ISIS isn't a "Mortal Enemy" of the US. Nicki Kenyon tells us what she thinks.
Our Special Guest this week is Gabe Suarez of Suarez International. Gabe tells us why we should use Mini Red Dot Sights (MRDS) on pistols.
Barron B reminds all you software developers, and anyone who builds complex systems, that "Configuration Matters."
And Weer'd finally completes his 5 week breakdown of Obama's disastrous CNN Town Hall, ending with a pro-gun question from Taya Kyle, American Sniper, Chris Kyle's widow.
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