Tumblr: Constantly Be Aware Of Your Own Privilege. Constantly Be Aware Of Your Capacity Of Be Evil. Hey

too cringe to talk to my mutuals so i just like their posts

thing i noticed

so the ips-n blackbeard has that bulky torso and those evil shoulder vents

you know the ones.

so basically, what i noticed is that, despite being the mech with The Big Greatsword, as far as i can tell the blackbeard completely lacks the range of motion required to perform complex swordfighting maneuvers (especially ones with a heavy blade such as the nanocarbon sword (although i'm not John Swordfighting so don't quote me on that))

so it's probably less used like a sword and more like a sharp tire iron or perhaps a lawnmower blade that you gave a wildly-swinging maniac. which. i mean it, is the blackbeard.

How would you add depth and complexity to the culture of the Purview?

Right now, the KTB gets way more attention both because of the two supplements dedicated to it and because the competing noble houses each with its different gimmick and political alignment make it so easy to come up with drama and intrigue.

Meanwhile the Purview seems, both in and out of fiction, flat and uniform. I'm sure its leadership would want to see it and have it seen that way, but given how much it keeps expanding, and therefore adding new cultures to itself, it would have to have a lot of diversity under the hood, even if it would like to pretend otherwise.

I definitely think the Purview has a harder time of it than the KTB, but that's largely because we have a Field Guide to the KTB, whereas the Field Guide to Harrison Armory never got published because of Miguel's non-compete.

There's also the problem that the KTB has this... glamour to it, in both the modern and traditional senses of the word. I've noticed this in a lot of sci-fi properties - that applying the veneer of nobility and monarchy to something can make people forget or forgive its transgressions more easily.

When Harrison Armory, the nationalist corprostate, does imperialist expansion, we can point at it and immediately say "that's a fascism" (even when it's actually... not? Imperialist expansion is always bad but it's not always necessarily fascistic). But somehow, when the KTB do the same or sometimes worse things, like using nanite terror weapons on Free Sanjak, I've noticed people are quicker to make excuses? Like, oh, yeah that's obviously bad but their society works different the KTB are a big place and like of course they're shitty traditionalists and that's really only the Hagiographs and at least the Karrakin have Republican elements who want change and reform and yeah it's bad but aren't Knightly Chivalrous Mechs Just So Gosh Darned Cool?!

I think the nuance of the KTB is also helped by the fact that they're explicitly depicted as non-monolithic. There are ten named Major Houses with their own distinct cultures, politics and homeworlds, and great pains are taken to ensure us that there's multifarious cultures and religions even on an individual world. HA suffers because to some extent it would be more monolithic - it's a nationalist corprostate with only 400 years of history, compared to the KTB's hybrid elective-monarchy neofeudal federation with 10,000.

HA is distinctly American in the way that the nation has become a brand, and a good citizen has to remain on-brand, so things would be more homogenized. To add to that, omninet and blinkgate technology has existed for the whole of HA's lifespan. The unique and distinct cultures of the KTB worlds came about largely because they spent millennia separated from one another by light years. HA has never had this issue, and likely never will. They have the option - and, more importantly, are motivated - to keep a homogenous culture across all of the Purview.

Lancer is fundamentally a game about examining and fighting against unjust structures of power that oppress people but also being larger-than-life heroes that have fun doing it, and the KTB has an innate leg up by virtue of the fact that it has what I'd call a really strong "initial sell:" YOU'RE A SPACE KNIGHT! SPACE KNIGHTS ARE COOL! (PLEASE DON'T EXAMINE SPACEE FEUDALISM!)

To make Harrison Armory compelling, you'd need a similarly strong initial sell for them. And I think I know just the thing.

FOR HUMANITY! FOR LIBERTY! FOR HARRISON! (Please don't examine space nationalism!)

If I were to write the Harrison Armory Field Guide (Tom and Miguel HMU - just kidding. Unless...?), I'd make it BIG and LOUD and OVER THE TOP and OBVIOUS PROPAGANDA with insertions of the actual truth from a HORUS hacker on the side. I'd put Harrison Armory's positioning as "liberators of the galaxy" front and center - "we dive feet-first into hell to save people from tyrants and slavers. We do the work even the UDoJ/HR won't do. Please do not examine our imperialism or social credit system."

they made a second one?

is this an okay place to admit i've never seen Night At The Museum

Every once in a while I get this notification on my HUD Left 4 Dead style and then my notifications become unusable for several days

I fell asleep momentarily, and now there is a small predator on my chest. Its dentistry resembles that of Sally, and its claws are as sharp as mine. I must not move, for even a small motion towards its exposed underbelly causes a brief but severe rage.

WHAT IS THIS CREATURE AND HOW DO I SAFELY REMOVE IT?!

evil year

is this an okay place to admit i've never seen Night At The Museum

Requested by anon

DEAR GOD!

THE HUMANITY!

Idea: The main antagonist of your Lancer campaign, a dangerous criminal you’ve been chasing across the galaxy, has been convicted of thought crimes. They cannot be allowed to spread their dangerous philosophy, for you see… they pronounce “mech” as if it rhymes with “fetch”.