Yeah happy I picked this one up. The villain in the third issue was especially intriguing and seeing any comic with Christian elements blended into the mythology is a rare sight and noteworthy in this dark age of [Current-est Year Ever]
Month: August 2018
Space Farming
Another episode of Isaac Arthur’s Upward Bound [30 mins]
Also will chickens be able to fly on Mars? We need to know.
A 2013 NASA article with a video
https://www.nasa.gov/content/benefits-for-humanity-farming-from-space
A recent article about lettuce grown in space.
https://www.space.com/25478-astronauts-space-lettuce-nasa-veggie-farm.html
A second article with a few good thoughts about farming on Mars
https://www.agriculture.com/technology/crop-management/farming-in-space
A very interesting and detailed think piece that goes into a lot of detail.
http://space.nss.org/colonies-in-space-chapter-9-up-on-the-farm/
Cheering Up Slightly
Well I’m feeling a bit better but I’m tempted to try writing some horrible knifeears story or worse a darkelf erotica novel so I may have been driven insane.
I’ll have to get back to you on that.
Here’s the latest properly dwarvey track from the Fiechter brothers.
Current Mood
Pretty rattled right now. So if you don’t hear from me for a couple days I’m just taking a break from the internet.
I’ll leave you with the latest X22 Report [30 mins]
One of the better Qanon sources.
First Attempt At A Rant Video
Not happy with one but the whole High Guardian Spice/Crunchyroll situation is very interesting from a Culturewar point of view. [4 mins]
And to support my point here’s an excellent video that covers a number of points and makes some excellent arguments [15 mins]
The alternate direct to studio funding model he proposes is very interesting all by itself.
They’re Going To Call You A Nazi Anyway
“But they’re going to call you a Nazi anyway!”
True but does that mean that you should wear a pair of swastika panties and prance around in a fursuit while screaming about Jews beaming microwaves into your head*?
No my friend that is not a good idea. Although you would breathe a little life into an otherwise boring business meeting.
Does being called a Nazi get you immediate license to act like an asshole. No it doesn’t. While you are no obligation to be the least bit polite to your accuser you still need to carry yourself with a certain measure of self-respect and professionalism.
What being called a Nazi in [current year] does do however is give you complete license to speak the truth and to say what you were going to say in the first place. As your adversary has already shot their rhetorical bolt and doesn’t have any thing else to hit you with.
Besides what are they going to do call you a double Nazi? Fuck them! Speak the truth!
*Save that sort of thing for Gab.
So Much Woke, Will Lead To Broke
I seem to be doing a lot of YouTube curation lately so I guess I’ll go ahead and continue along those lines for a bit. There sure does seem to be a lot of spectacular examples of super powered cringe going on in multiple geek hobbies. Sadly I never did find where SJW’s were talking about removing ‘race’ from tabletop RPGs (in the rant video from the previous post.)
Anyway a lot poz and pandering to SJWs going on.
And you’ll notice that it’s all coming from companies that are failing, or could be easily replaced by the fam community. I wonder if that’s a pattern.
Weaponized Nerd Rage goes over recent events in the tabletop scene.
Paizo gets WOKE!!! [15 mins]
I was always told that Pathfinder was becoming cancerous but I didn’t really believe that things could get any worse.
Scratchpoint on the upcoming extra pozzed Crunchyroll original series. [5 mins]
This is particularly ill-advised move on Crunchyroll’s part as their core audience is already on edge and is tech savvy enough to easily pirate any content. In fact piracy is the norm in the western anime industry and the only way a streamer company can make money is by legitly offering better service than the pirate sites and NOT PISSING OFF the hardcore fans who would like to support the creators but have very limited options when doing so.
Indy sci-fi author Brian Niemeier gives his take on this.
http://www.brianniemeier.com/2018/08/tumblr-anime.html
Yellow Flash reviews Injustice vs Masters of the Universe. [7 mins]
Remember fam, everything is about Trump!!! Everything!!! Also when you’re stuck for ideas just add Batman. Or if you’ll really stuck go ahead and add a second Batman.
Get Out of My Hobby
An epic rant from Warlord Ralts about the recent SJW push into the tabletop gaming scene. [8:30 mins] [SEVERE LANGUAGE WARNING]
They’re going after the concept of fantasy races??? That’s beyond fucktarded!
Update: A ha! We found it, It looks like the eliminating race concept is coming out of the Pathfinder 2.0 playtest. (Via The Mixed GM/ NotJonDaker)
https://themixedgm.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/pathfinder-2nd-edition-playtest-blog-series-part-ii/
Super Light Motorized Infantry
Found this video interesting; especially if I do go back and restart work on Brothers in The Dust.
Russia create Super Light Motorized Infantry [5 1/2 Mins]
Fast, mobile firepower for spread out low troop density conflicts.
Semi-Related: Fake News asks a real question. [2mins]
Thank you Obama!
2015 Antiwar.com article on this.
https://original.antiwar.com/dan_sanchez/2015/06/15/where-does-isis-get-those-wonderful-toys/
And sometimes these things get personal. [4 mins]
And this is always worth a post. The classic essay Why Arab Armies Lose Wars redone in a video format. [9 mins]
Older post on gun trucks and improvised fighting vehicles.
Breylandverse Ships: The Quick Version
Just a quick bit of worldbuilding. Doing this partially as a response to a recent Spacedock video (and Bradford Walker’s post on it) but also as a way to get my ideas actually written down and organized better.
Some of you might notice that ships sizes are very close to those in David Weber’s Honor Harrington Series. That wasn’t completely intentional but it is more or less how I’m thinking these days.
Third Generation Post-Newtonian Warship Classes
Conventional Classes as of 4010.
DN Dreadnaughts: Massing around 5 or 6 million tons dreadnaughts are the queens of battle and the main measure that determines a star nations power and prestige; even if light cruiser and destroyers do most of the actual fighting. Dreadnaughts however are quite expensive and require enormous repair yards in order to keep them maintained. Thus the constant temptation to build smaller battleships despite proper dreadnaughts being generally more efficient ton per ton. Major fleet battles are however quite rare so capital ships mostly sit around in orbit and look menacing.
BB Battleships: Averaging about 3.5 to 4M tons Battleships are defined as the minimum ship that can effectively stand in the ‘wall of battle’ as part of a major fleet engagement. Armed with long range missiles and heavy energy batteries and paired with strong enough shields and armor to resist such weapons; battleships command respect and project power. Even an obsolete battleship can still be a dangerous opponent as even the oldest ship can still to refitted to fire state of the art missiles.
BC Battlecruisers: Averaging around 2M tons and with newer ships approaching two and half million tons the emergence of the true capital missile carrying battlecruiser is the defining event of third generation post-Newtonian warships. Battlecruisers are used primarily for deep raiding and heavy strikes against targets of opportunity. This was done to absolutely devastating effect against Breylands scattered colonies and border worlds during what later be called The Brafen Raids. The VBN which had previously rejected building battlecruisers has since changed their mind and adopted a more aggressive forward deployment doctrine.
CA Heavy Cruisers: Averaging around 400k tons heavy cruisers are mostly used defensively as picket ships and escorts. Few pirate bands or rogue states can wield ships of this size so a lone CA is generally going to have a firepower advantage against such non-state enemies.
CL Light Cruisers: More or less standardised at around 100k tons light cruisers are the multirole workhorses of virtually all space navies. Able to act as scouts, raiders, escorts and system defence pickets no fleet ever truly has enough light cruisers. Light cruiser are usually captained by Lt. Commanders.
The Viceroyal Breylandic Navy has learned through hard fought experience to never place a woman in command of a light cruiser.*
DD Destroyers: The smallest truly useful warships destroyers have standardised at the 55k ton mark, partially in due to what is known as the Curtis Mass Limit. By being under the Curtis Limit destroyers do not create an ‘exit signature’ upon exiting jump space and can then go immediately into full stealth, making them even better raiders than light cruisers. Destroyers are also fast and agile enough to flee from an engagement that is going poorly. This comes mostly at the cost of having limited ability to carry consumables and supplies, greatly limiting operational range and deployment time. Destroyers are usually captained by fairly senior Lieutenants or recently promoted Lt. Commanders.
FF Frigates: The smallest possible jump capable warship frigates tend average 40k tons. While most navies do not even bother building ships of this size the Viceroyal Breyland continues to use frigates in large numbers as the VBN is badly overextended has to cover and patrol a large number of sparsely populated systems. The VBN also prefer to use frigates for messenger duty instead of building smaller and cheaper dispatch boats.
FAC Fast Attack Craft: FACs are small gunboats typically around 30k tons that lack warp drives and are used for planetary defence and customs patrols. FACs are an inexpensive way to put a lot of firepower in space very quickly but they have numerous drawbacks. While VBN doctrine considers FACs vital to curbing smuggling and maintaining government control of the orbitals, these ships inherent lack of hyperjump capability means that unlike destroyers FACs are unable to retreat from a superior force. They also require orbital stations to operate from and many Breylandic colonies are lacking in orbital infrastructure. Plus you have to actually ship to the system in question using fairly large freighters.
AMC Armed Merchant Cruisers: Due to the increasing focus on missile weapons armed merchant ships are increasingly proving to be a threat that needs to be respected. However once a true warship gets inside effective energy weapon range AMCs quickly become little more than targets as they lack agility and tend to have defensive EW systems. Large converted merchant ships are however quite useful utility ships, often used as troop transports or supply ships. The VBN has also been known to arm such ships with small numbers of capital ship missiles giving them a long range punch that most opponents don\t really expect. AMCs also can carry a lot of munitions and consumables allowing them to stay on station for extended periods of time.
Intermediate and Emerging Classes.
BBL Light Battleships: Generally 3-3.25M tons. While there are a lot of older obsolete ships generally referred to as light battleships. The modern light battleship was developed once the lessons of the Brafen Raids had sunk in and is a system defense ship specifically designed to defeat a battlecruiser in a one on one duel. These ships are still at a fairly big disadvantage in a major fleet engagement if they are forced into joining the wall of battle but allow for a larger number of systems to be covered.
CB Super Cruiser: The enormous and steadily growing gap between heavy cruisers and new built battlecruisers is increasingly leading to naval theorists to speculate about an intermediate ship between the two classes. These ‘super‘ cruisers would be about 800k tons and would likely be used offensively against weaker targets too unimportant to commit capital ships against. No major navy currently has ships of this class in service but the concept is widely discussed and quite trendy among armchair admirals.
CM Medium Cruiser: As a result of a budget crisis Breyland built a number of 200k ton Arbalest-class cruisers and the resulting ships turned out to be surprisingly useful as lone patrol ships even if they did not fit into existing fleet doctrine. Additional medium cruiser designs are being considered and the VBN may rethink its entire cruiser construction priorities in the near future.
DDH Heavy Destroyer: Several smaller navies are beginning to question the conventional wisdom about the usefulness of building ships under the Curtis Mass Limit, as the lack of a hyperspace exit signature is not that big of an operational advantage. The result of this is building heavy destroyers in the 65-70k tons range.
*Yes that’s a direct On Basilisk Station reference.
Related:
Brad’s post in question.
https://bradfordcwalker.blogspot.com/2018/08/my-life-in-fandom-and-writing-problem.html
Chapter One of Decisive Action (which will be need to rewritten.)
Of Wolves and Men 