SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread VI

[Force Lord]

*waves white flag*

EDIT: I guess this is over for me in the Outlands. I'll just focus on the Crevecia storyline for now and not do any more Outlands posts unless someone asks me to.

[Simon_Jester]

*waves white flag*

EDIT: I guess this is over for me in the Outlands. I'll just focus on the Crevecia storyline for now and not do any more Outlands posts unless someone asks me to.

Well.

What's happened is that the organized, sector-wide movement of Centralists just took a major hit. A large part of their military, economic, and backwards-spelled-Sith power have been destroyed. On other worlds, this will be seen as a major reverse for Centralism, and one that calls into question Centralists' ability to protect the Outlands against enemies. I will write something on this myself.

On the other hand, the Karlack fleet that destroyed Aray could have equally well fallen on any other world in the Outlands. No one in the region has a big enough fleet to defeat Karlack forces that large, not since the fall of the Commissions themselves.

If I had to guess, what will happen is that some of the planetary governments in the region will remain Centralist-influenced, and may well apply to the distant Centrality for a bit of military and economic aid, being in the same relationship that places like Cuba were with the USSR. Others will repudiate Centralism and turn to other ideologies, or to non-ideological democratic/whatever governments.

What you won't see, and in all honesty should never have expected to see, was a rapid Centralist conquest of the entire sector. In that respect, yes, I would say that your ambitions have been thwarted by the hostility of the local powers to Centralism. Between the Byzantine religionists, the Byzonist-internationalists and communists, the local corporate-syndicalists, and of course the Karlack omnomnomists, your chances of securing dominance of a random sector clear across the map were never really very good.

[Gently takes white flag from Force Lord's hand, slathers it in barbeque sauce, and tosses it to a nearby Karlack as distracting bait. Leads FL to some degree of relative safety]
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While I think Zor could have found a classier, more imaginative, and better-presented way to go about getting back at the Byzantines for the recent issue over treatment of Tau, I don't think the specific response his nation took was fundamentally unreasonable compared to the scale of the provocation.

I agree with this; my beef is not with what the Atlanteans-the-nation did but with what Zor-the-writer did. There's a certain poetic justice in turning hateful people into the thing they hate (for certain values of 'justice', anyway) and it is possible for citizens to change their race in the Sovereignty as well (though I don't think painful nanite transmutation would be the commonly used method)... So from an in-game point of view I can certainly see this happening. But OOC it's not very chic.

EDIT: And the fact that in the aftermath of being forcibly converted from one race into another, an event which ought to be extremely traumatic physically and mentally, Zor has his transformees do the equivalent of shrug and say "oh well" and continue to not just stay sane, not just maintain a functioning society, but somehow impose order, unite the transformees -- communists, Byzantines, centralists, i.e. mortal enemies -- and purge all remaining orthodox zealots (a group of people who suffered no trauma by simple virtue of still being human and that MANY OF THE TRANSFORMEES THEMSELVES BELONGED TO ONLY A FEW DAYS AGO!) is not just completely insane and unbelievable, it smacks of all the worst kinds of wankery.

Seriously I'm having difficulty expressing just how utterly retarded this sequence of events is.

Yeah, the aftermath posts are what take this from "it was an appropriate idea in context, if a little clumsily implemented" over to "Jesus Christ can this guy blink without wanking about how everything he tries is super-effective?"

So I'd say Shroom's depiction of what's happening is way more representative than Zor's. There might be some bands of mutated pseudo-Tau who hang together and form some kind of collective identity along the lines of "we are the lost and the damned, but we're not going down without a fight!" But most of them would be crazy or desperate to be saved.*

Elsewhere, I think there'd be ongoing chaos- the little robots that deliver the plague are probably difficult to exterminate, which means a lot of people getting infected even after the initial surge of cases subsides. As a mutagenic plague that creates disruption and serious loss of life, these nanites are probably effective.

But as a way to turn entire communities into functioning communites of Tau... not so much. That is not plausible.
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*For crying out loud, Zor, do you know how strongly it affects someone psychologically to have their own body messed up on them? It's not something where you just shrug and go "oh well, I'm someone else now." Your sense of who you are, mentally and physically, has more to do with your mind than your DNA, and I flat out refuse to believe that your nanites can do whatever ludicrously precise manipulation it would take to make people think of themselves as members of the Tau species.

Tell me, Zor, why are these Tau-hating transformed Humans calling themselves Tau? If anything they'd insist upon their continued Humanity and be waiting impatiently for a more thorough cure. Even if they fought back against efforts by un-transformed Imperium-followers to slaughter them, they're not going to embrace the culture of people they hate and who's protectors have transformed them against their will. They're not going to call themselves "Fire Caste" and such!

All they're really going to do is (not so) patiently wait for a cure so they can be transformed back.

I also suspect we'd see a high suicide rate, or murder-suicide, with priests promising Christian burials and such and working around the suicide angle by saying that it's not suicide but preserving one's soul from being corrupted by the "foul xeno" or what have you.

As your "I still win" handwave posts go, this really takes the cake.

Agreed to all, except one caveat.

While I can't imagine them calling themselves X Caste*, the Tau castes are biologically distinct- there are differences in the phenotype that are quite visible.** So for the writer it would be sort of logical to talk about, say, an Earth Caste woman among the pseudo-Tau, because the Earth Caste doesn't look the same physically as the other castes.

Of course, I doubt Zor has actually thought this through, and may be assuming that the pseudo-Tau transformees would automatically fall into whatever role in a healthy Tau society their nanites arbitrarily chose for them by picking a caste.
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*(shit, how would they even know which castes are which, there aren't any Tau around to tell them)

**Come to think of it, that might explain why in place like the Atlantean Commonwealth the castes even still exist in recognizable form. Orthodox Tau belief dictates that the castes not interbreed, but the Ethereal-dominated Orthodox Tau would probably not be able to control the cultural shifts their species would experience from living somewhere else. But given how physically different Tau of different castes are, interbreeding between the castes would likely result in the usual problems of hybrids: reduced fertility, increased risk of birth defects, and the rest. That could be handled in societies with modern medical support and a solid understanding of Tau genetics, but it would still tend to discourage the production of half-caste Tau. So the castes would continue to survive in recognizable form, even among... Reform Tau?

[Siege]

That was a great post, folks. And one I expect will have consequences...

[Force Lord]

Can I write an Arpad post? Please? Just to show how the remaining Centralists there will react.

[Simon_Jester]

Seems fair to me.

I don't want to portray Centralism in the Outlands as being wiped out here. As implied by my new "op-ed" post, what I think needs to happen is that the Centralists' improbably rapid unification of the sector come to a stop. There will still be Centralists around, and alive, and in control of credible governments.

But any real expectation that they'd conquer the Outlands and form a new Centralist nation will be pretty much dead with Aray.

[fgalkin]

Oh man, Operation NOM. Those poor, poor Centraloid fools.

Great post, guys.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Force Lord]

Questions: Did the former Outlander Commissions ever had a Warp Gate? If so, is it still usable?

[Tanasinn]

They had at least one that Maya appropriated.

[Force Lord]

They had at least one that Maya appropriated.

So I guess Kabrak will be taking the loooong way.

[Shroom Man 777]

You know, "Aray" also means "ouch" in Feelipeeni.

[Force Lord]

More CENINTERN stuff.

[Simon_Jester]

For the record, guys, I think Force Lord's been hammered enough over the Outlands stuff. Mistakes made, lesson learned, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Dickery in the Outlands should (and will!) continue, of course, but I don't want to see the Outlands Centralists turned into the special designated whipping boys of the region any further than they already have with Aray and Shroom's new follow-up piece.

[Siege]

I'm not sure who entered the dates of the General History page in the wiki, but some of the dates on the 'early interstellar period' seem off to me. It gives 2118 as the date Nova Terra picks up signals from Earth, for example, but 'Zook's prologue post here gives the launch date of the Straylight date as "50 years later". Given that the game proper ended in the 2020s and it would've realistically taken time for the ship to be built, I would posit that those radio signals should've been picked up no later than 2065-2070. This is especially true given that several player characters from that game were still naturally alive by the time the Straylight left, which is just plain impossible in 2118.

[Simon_Jester]

Hmm. I think the General History page needs a discussion page, or possibly an SDN discussion thread. Don't know which. It also needs to be subdivided a little more; having the entire period from 2500-3400 under one heading is a bad idea.

[Steve]

if I remember right, I was initially presuming that Earth years and Nova Terra years would be slightly different, but it fell by the wayside.

[Simon_Jester]

if I remember right, I was initially presuming that Earth years and Nova Terra years would be slightly different, but it fell by the wayside.

You remember right; we talked about this last June/July I think.

Different-length years and differently-normalized calendars, between them, could easily explain the calendar gap. But if so, we need to specify that years are dated to the Earth Common Era, not the Nova Terran equivalent.

[Siege]

It's also something that when you're considering it you might want to drop a few lines somewhere we can all take notice of it. Probably all the more reason for a discussion page.

[PeZook]

The world has gone insane. Bragulans are calling for restraint in the use of WMDs and killing humans, Sidney Hank brings in humanitarian relief organizations while Atlanteans use indiscriminate bioweapons on civilians.

[Simon_Jester]

Interesting, Steve. Looks promising-ish.

Umerian SCIENCE! officers will no doubt weep in dismay at the thought that they were not there for such an opportunity.

[Steve]

And it's a nice change of pace from writing blatant Marty Stuism or Action Girl lesbians.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The world has gone insane. Bragulans are calling for restraint in the use of WMDs and killing humans, Sidney Hank brings in humanitarian relief organizations while Atlanteans use indiscriminate bioweapons on civilians.

I was just telling Shroom that Byzon's like wearing the Pope's vestments and beseeching peace while everyone, including his own people, are killing each other and ignoring him.

But that aside, perhaps the Imperium should use a counter-weapon in the form of a nanite agent. *whistles in thought* In all technicality, all these "agents" can be dealt with just by sheer numbers...

[Shroom Man 777]

Bragule is being deliberately hypocritical, you know. It's like America or something talking about freedom while torturing people or illegally invading countries.

BRAGULEMERICA.

Yes, they are so totally shameless and I wrote that post so every allegation Bragule raised to the mentioned nations were pretty much crimes Bragule itself is blatantly guilty of. That's not stopping them from chastising other nations when they feel like it. The double-thinking speech writers were probably fucking laughing as they wrote that.

[Master_Baerne]

And it's a nice change of pace from writing blatant Marty Stuism or Action Girl lesbians.

You can never have too much Action Girl lesbians.

[Force Lord]

The Crevecia storyline has been fairly self-contained for now. I have more ambitious plans with it, but I don't want to rush it yet. I can only say that it will create tensions.

[Simon_Jester]

And it's a nice change of pace from writing blatant Marty Stuism or Action Girl lesbians.

You can never have too much Action Girl lesbians.

Yes, you can.

In my experience, he gets fatigued with them when he produces over a certain rate, and that delays further Action Girl lesbians for some time.