Wings Over the Pyre - March 8th, 2004

12:13 am - [Supernals] Intro Fiction

Like all great gaming authors, I feel compelled to cram lousy fiction into the front of every RPG I work on. Yes, that means I've started putting together Supernals as a full-bore RPG text. I'm still vaguely torn as to whether to make it wholly stand-alone, or make it a plug-in supplement for Sorcerer, thus saving myself some typing. (On the other hand, I doubt Edwards would appreciate my particular approach to the system he's created -- since he's said as much in other contexts.)

In any case, I'm starting, and the outline is slowly coming together.

Now, the moment you've all been waiting for -- the fiction!

( Supernals -- Intro Fiction )

Don't ask me why all the supers are female, it just came out that way. And don't ask why there's an almost subtextual religious thing going on when I've already stated that Supernals aren't possessed or inhabited or whatnot by any comprehensible power. I don't know.

I just write this stuff.

Still, its pretty cool, eh?

Current Mood: pleased

12:19 pm - [Links] Magnatune Blog

Just a note, I've created an RSS feed to Magnatune's founder's blog; yay RSS. Interestingly recent news includes deals with Napster, iTunes and eMusic to further distribute the bands they carry.

Current Mood: accomplished

02:53 pm - [Images] Britan's Falling Standards of Biology

You know, its pretty bad when you can't even get your fauna right. I should know.

Thanks Guise.

Current Mood: amused

05:04 pm - [Images] Gotta Get Me One of Them

Dayum. Is there any chance that I can get my tentacles on one of these hardcore bad-boys? I've been privately drooling over the GMC mobile armoured support vehicles, but this is even better, if only for the sniper-detection gear. I'll have to tandem-mount a grenade launcher over the .50, but I think that's pretty easily doable.

Don't ask why I need a grenade launcher. I just do, and that's that. If you've ever driven on 285, you understand.

Current Mood: impressed

09:28 pm - [Music] Acquisitional

Recent musical acquisitions have been insanely good, truthfully. I can't deny making happy burbling noises a lot.

• Bud E Luv, Diary of a Loungeman.

  What if Ozzy Ozbourne had been a lounge singer instead of a metal'ista? Ever wondered? Wonder no more! Bud E Luv comes to help us imagine with a certain quirky grace and charm.



• Richard Cheese, Tuxicity.

  The master is back. Richard Cheese is the bee's knees when it comes to bad-ass lounge music, and his cover of Loser is a total work of art. I can't recommend this guy enough. Really.



• Various Artists, Pickin' on Led Zeppellin (Vols 1 & 2).

  I wasn't really expecting to like these much at all, truth be told. I picked them up purely for novelty value. This was a momentous mistake on my part -- I should have picked them up for their technical prowess and fantastic depth. Now, my friends know that, despite my growing attachment to my Southern heritage, I'm not really big on country music. Still, I own the O, Brother, Where Art Thou? and have enjoyed it immensely, so ... here we are. Buy both these albums and enjoy them as I have. You'll appreciate it.



• Jackalopes, Jacksploitation.

  One part psychobilly, one part punk, one part bar band, mix vigorously and serve over crushed ice. Serves six. You'll like it, though maybe not as much as a Doom Midori (one part midori, one part sour mix, three shots of Triple Sec, shaken with crushed ice and drained off).



• Utopia Banished, Night of the Black Wyvern.

  Kind of death rock-like, but with a lot of hybridization with melodic theme rock. Its a set of strange bedfellows, and I'm not sure it really sits perfectly together, but I honour the attempt enough to buy the album.

Current Mood: pleased

10:53 pm - [Buffy, Angel, TV] The Epiphany

I had a sudden realization today. To understand it, of course, you'll have to have been following the Angel plotline and paying a fair chunk of attention to the little things in the backgrounds.

But here 'tis: I believe I've discovered the reason Giles and Buffy are so insipidly stupid when it comes to Angel and the rest of the Wolfram & Hart crew.

They don't want to be brought face-to-face with the fact that, save for elder vampires, they're the greatest mass-murderers they know.

From the beginning, Giles has maintained that vampires are nothing but demons inhabiting a fleshly frame, merely mimicking the mannerisms and accessing the memories of those they infect to cause the most havoc. Thus, when they kill a vampire, its not destroying that person -- they were dead the moment the vampire sired them, destroyed their real Self and the thing in their skin is a hollow mockery.

But the characters at the top of Wolfram & Hart put the lie to that belief. Both Angel and Spike are souled creatures -- they are just as much the men they could have been before being infected with vampirism, if anything merely amplified by centuries of experience. Harmony, bless her little black heart, is even more an obvious counter-example. Yes, she has a hunger for blood, and a moral compass that steadfastly points South rather than North -- but she is clearly, entirely, and obviously still Harmony, still the Harmony Buffy went to school with and facilitated the vampiric siring of at graduation. She reacts the same as Harmony would, self-identifies as Harmony would given her experiences, and even in private, when you'd think any pretense would be lost, she acts and thinks as if she is Harmony. As such -- can we legitimately say she is not? Like Spike pre-soul and Angelus, the vampires we've met that we knew the personalities of before death are not so changed by the experience, merely given a new set of hungers and a reversed moral compass.

And it's not as if W&H haven't faced immensely evil mortal characters. Knox is just the latest of many, but Angel has taken down necromancers, priests, and just plain bad people of all kinds at W&H and before. Mortal, human people can be as evil and destructive and threatening as any vampire or demon, and given the power through some means, as challenging as any other threat. Angel's taken down those threats.

Buffy, steadfastly and repeatedly, has refused to.

So, now, to the epiphany. What if Giles is wrong?

Yes, the demon in a vampire displaces the character's "higher soul," the Hun, leaving the P'o behind -- but clearly its not a complete dismissal, and vampires still retain free will. They can choose not to murder and pillage at will, they can choose to be lesser or greater evils, they can pick their own path. Yes, they're "born" knowing how to be evil and with a propensity for it, but given time and opportunity, they can choose another path, just as the humans they were made from could choose another path given time and opportunity. Harmony's the poster child for this fact, but Spike was hanging with the Scooby and being a relatively solid anti-hero long before he had anything like a soul.

In light of this, is not Buffy a greater mass-murderer than almost anyone she's ever faced down?

She's removed the choice from newborn vampires as surely as if she'd killed babies in their cribs. She's left a trail of ash and dust in which she's played judge, jury, and executioner for those who might have transcended their nature but never had the chance. And in doing so, she's deliberately left mortal evils largely out of it, as not her concern or purview. Had the Trio not been so obsessed with fucking with her, they would have very likely been able to suborn Sunnydale without a peep from Buffy.

Angel, on the other hand, takes on any wrong that gets in his way. Demon, human, whatever -- if it's oppressing the weak, he tackles it. And if it's not oppressing the weak, or its not morally culpable, he doesn't solve the problem by killing it. It's become even more pronounced now that's he's at W&H, as he is surrounded daily by the business of evil, but recognizes he can't and shouldn't do anything about all of it, because -- in part -- everyone, human and demon, deserves a choice. W&H merely provides choices and opportunity.

So Angel has Spike and Harmony close to him. Wes has done some terrible things and fully acknowledges them, without trying to blame them on others. Gunn, likewise. Lorne is a "good demon" who's not a dead demon. And now Fred is a hugely hyperpowerful time-manipulating Ancient Demon Goddess-Warrior who has no ties to the Senior Partners (an interesting plot twist unto itself). Unlike the Scoobies, and most explicitly unlike both Giles and Buffy, they acknowledge the compromises necessary to achieve and succeed at the important things, and then proceed to do so.

Is it any wonder Giles and Buffy try to stay as far away from them as they can? Even when it'd be in their best interests to be supportive? (As in, when, say, Ancient Demon Goddess-Warriors are threatening to destroy the world with their ancient armies?)

Angel and company remind Giles and Buffy that they're as dirty and murderous as that which they oppose.

Current Mood: nerdy

11:22 pm - [Links, Gaming, Reference] The BLEEX Project

Now, does anyone want to tell me why I'm not at Berkley, working my ass off on making the Berkley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton a working concern? This thing is fully half of what I've always dreamed of working on and being a part of -- and apparently it works. This is a huge step forward.

At least for we geeks dreaming of infantry power suits.

Examining their whitepapers and such, I don't see why the same feedback technology for control can't be applied to the upper extremities for a secondary exoskeleton. They appear to have miniaturized the power supply considerably. A few more years of power storage research and a full-bore hardsuit (exoskeleton supporting an external shell of armour stronger than what infy carries now along with more ammo and heavier weapons) is not even remotely out of the question. Maybe not to the degree of Madox-01, but certainly an armoured, high-mobility hardsuit replacing the SAW gunner in a fireteam, perhaps. Perhaps entire heavy infantry squads deployed from specialized Stryker vehicles outfitted with maintainance bays and support for engagements; something less than a tank and more than a man. Maybe both.

Damn. Urban infantry tactics are about to get interesting.

Current Mood: impressed

11:47 pm - [Image, Technology] Kangaroo Stride

And while we're wishing, anyone want to buy me a SpringWalker? I promise I won't kangaroo-jump over traffic too often, nor will I mock others as I casually run on by. Much.

Often.

C'mon, I deserve one, don't I?

Current Mood: impressed