Reports are surfacing of Google censorship of text messages on Android phones. If you try to send a link to thedonald.win, it will get scrubbed, apparently. I use Android because I hate Apple (although naturally I hate Google just as much, although I use... blogger, youtube, Google sites and an Android phone. Sigh. Life enslaved to the oligarchy.) I haven't tried to confirm this indepedently yet.
https://voxday.blogspot.com/2020/12/mailvox-google-censoring-text-messages.html
Kathleen Kennedy is not gone. She just made a presentation to the investors at Walt Disney Investment Day, looking very much like she's not gone from Lucasfilm at all, and announces what looks to mostly be a slate of woke garbage, starring a bunch of POX and women, and written by white man hating bigots. There may be a handful of gems in this, but I'm not confident at all. Sigh. Why is Kathleen Kennedy not gone?!
The slate is so full that it also shows that they were straight up lying when Bob Iger announced that Disney had decided Star Wars fatigue was to blame for the failure of Solo. As opposed to the roaring trash fire that was The Last Jedi as well as the creeping woke garbage agenda, which was plenty evident in The Force Awakens too. Disney is one of the most evil corporations in the world. And that's saying something; I mean, it's got pretty stiff competition; there's Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter and worse out there in the corporate world. And of them, Disney's hatred of American culture and the American people probably rises to the top. Anyway, let's go through the list.
Rogue Squadron. By Patty Jenkins, the director behind the recent Wonder Woman film. This one may turn out ok. Yeah, yeah... Patty Jenkins and Wonder Woman; I'm sure there'll be some eye-rolling grrl power moments in it, but mostly, Wonder Woman was expected to be feminist garbage, and it wasn't really. And Patty Jenkins' father was a fighter pilot who died in the course of duty and rather than being bitter about that, she sees her father as a hero. She seems to have the right attitude to do this one justice, so of the announced series, this one may be among the better ones out there. Then again, if it's in the same era as the Mandalorian, I dunno. The X-wing pilots we've seen in that show seem to be like space state troopers running around in territory where they don't have any jurisdiction, yet trying to throw people in prison for traffic violations like not having a proper license plate. That makes no sense whatsoever in a frontier environment. I do think Disney Star Wars has laid a creaky foundation for this to be laid on, and I'm unsure how well it's going to fare.
Untitled Taika Waititi film. Taika doesn't really seem to have struck out yet in either Marvel or Star Wars, although he hasn't been up to bat all that often yet either. Hope this isn't Star Wars: Love and Thunder; the women are going to come and shriek at you about how entitled they feel to steal your stuff from you. Which maybe isn't fair. Thor: Love and Thunder hasn't even come out yet and we don't know much about it. But the very fact that it's being done at all is a ludicrous prospect.
Obi-wan Kenobi. I know that buzz about this has been around for a while, but honestly, I'm not quite sure why. It was very clear from the movies that Obi-wan "enjoyed" a quiet retirement on Tatooine keeping a hands-off eye on Luke Skywalker. Trying to squeeze out "adventures" from this time period, and bringing Hayden Christianson back to play Darth Vader some more just seems ridiculous. They're going to ruin the character in an attempt to milk nostalgia rather than just creating somebody new that we can root for. Mark my words. And having the Chinese lady who directed a few Mandalorian episodes be in charge of it may not be the worst thing ever; I'm not really familiar with her work other than that show and they've all been... OK, I guess. But the rather pointed avoidance of giving any decent work, either as stars or as directors, to any white men so far is duly noted (except in the notable case here, where the character is a legacy character and they could hardly turn Obiwan into a black woman or hispanic trans-gender abomination. Although no doubt somebody at Disney seriously suggested exactly that). Disney Star Wars still hates its fanbase. They may be taking a more conciliatory approach, given that they were smacked back just a bit by a mild revolt and a few flops, but SJWs are like the old saying about the Huns; they're either at your feet or at your throat. We didn't leave them as smoking dead corpses at our feet, so they'll take every opportunity to sneak around and come for our throats that they can until we do.
Ahsoka. Limited edition series written by Dave Filoni, the controversial guy who maybe he's on the fan's side and maybe he's a simpy beta yes-man, we're not quite sure because he seems to be both like some kind Jekyll and Hyde. I don't mind Ahsoka, although I think she's over-rated in some circles, especially the circle that makes up Dave Filoni's head. She's kind of like his Mary Sue fake girlfriend. Except she's from space instead of Canada. It probably won't be actively bad, but I doubt it will be excitingly good either. The Clone Wars was kinda her show, told (mostly) from her perspective as the kinda sorta protagonist character for the whole show. Everything else that she's done, she's felt shoe-horned in to because Dave Filoni has a crush on her. Starring Rosario Dawson and presumably in the same era as the Mandalorian again.
Rangers of the New Republic. Although we don't know much about this, except that it involves Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, I think most people expect that this is the Gina Carano spin-off. Because, let me remind you, even the Mandalorian, which fans have mostly enjoyed, has quietly avoided casting or working with a white male in either a director or star role. Women and POX all around. Dave Filoni excepted. No, Jon Favreau isn't white. He's Jewish. I dunno. I've been somewhat less impressed by the character of Cara Dune than a lot of fans, I suppose, so I don't expect much. She's fine. She's nothing special, though. And although casting Gina Carano was just about the only way making her a women was going to be credible, I still can't help thinking that wouldn't it just have been easier to cast a man in this role, so when he acts all manly all the time it kinda, y'know, makes sense?
Lando. A one off event, I think. Written by the guy who wrote the hate screed Dear White People for Netflix. Even if it isn't terrible, which I expect it to be, I may avoid it on principle because I'm ticked off that they think hiring someone infamous for writing that can possibly be a good fit for any role at all in our society, much less heading a Star Wars special about a black character. Starring Glover, so more or less in the same gray area that's between the prequels and the original trilogy time frame as Rebels and Solo, I presume.
Andor. A prequel show? Special? One-off? I'm not sure, but I suspect it's a one off. The announcement wasn't super clear. A prequel to Rogue One, featuring that Hispanic guy who can't even speak English without a super strong accent. I do like the idea of darker spy thrillers set in Star Wars (liking a lot of stuff about the Agent storyline in Old Republic, for instance) and George Lucas and Greg Kurtz and even Mark Hamill all remarked in the late 70s that Star Wars had a lot of things in common with James Bond, particularly how they envisioned going forwards with the franchise, so it's overdue that we actually get that kind of action. Rogue One was OK. Almost certainly the best offering of the Disney Star Wars era. Although, again, it conspicuously 1) avoided all white men in starring roles, and 2) cast a woman as the lead. Although to be fair, the woman was just along for the ride and wasn't saddled with the "I am stronk wamman!" nonsense. She actually showed some feminine strength as she was caught up in events over which she had little control, and used her feminine qualities to influence the progression of the plot rather than masculine qualities that were inexplicably grafted on to her, like most of Hollywood does with their stronk wammans. No doubt this was subconscious because they were making a film for a Chinese audience who isn't as delusional about biology as Americans have become. Still... if only we could have a Daniel Craig or Sean Connery like secret agent instead of a rinky-dink little Mexican dude with a funny accent.
The Acolyte. The only show that I'm aware of set in the so-called High Republic era, this is the long-rumored, infamously man-hating (yet ironically who looks more like a man than a woman) Leslye Headlund show. While the premise sounds good; pre-prequel era shadowy dark side Force-using thriller stuff, I obviously have absolutely no confidence in the person who's leading it.
The Bad Batch. For whatever reason, fan favorite clones the Bad Batch don't seem to have had the same problem that almost every other clone did; maybe the chips didn't take on them because of their flawed genetic matrix or something? Anyway, in the Rebels time frame, or maybe even a little earlier, yet after Revenge of the Sith, these guys go private, and become a kind of A-team of the Star Wars universe. Which isn't a bad concept, except the cultural background in the 80s that made the A-team work doesn't exist anymore, so... I dunno. I'm wary of everything, even if it sounds relatively good, which this does. Animated. No word yet if it's more Clone Wars or Rebels or even Resistance in its animation style.
Visions. Anime short films set in Star Wars. Ugh. That said, I'm sure that there's a super dedicated (albeit probably smaller and more niche than they realize) built in fanbase for this stuff. It'll probably do OK, but won't be up my alley.
A Droid Story. It's bad enough that Lucas himself started turning R2-D2 into a major Mary Sue. He was supposed to be a tubby little mechanic with the personality of a faithful dog, and he somehow became a more capable combatant than actual super battle droids? Gimme a break. Anyway, the description here is pretty vague; somewhere between animation and visual effects, a new character mentored by C-3PO and R2-D2, who really need to step back and let somebody else have a day in the sun fer cryin' out loud, and should have done it years ago already. I dunno what to think of this one.
Indiana Jones. They're bringing Harrison Ford out of the old folks home to be this character again. Why? Seriously, why? It was bad enough in the Crystal Skull that he was obviously too old for that kind of thing, and that was released 12 years ago already! That said, Hal Mangold, most recently famous for the excellent Ford v Ferrari film is going to lead it. As I noted to my son, who agreed with me completely, the underlying star of FvF and why it was so successful was because it showed a time when America was American and American men got to be awesome by being American men. (Granted, Christian Bale's character was British. But you know what I mean.) LA, where it's set, hadn't yet been invaded by hordes of demanding, entitled foreigners, so it was a successful and beautiful place. Ford showed us that even then corporate culture was toxic, but the mom-n-pop style business of Shelby was where the real magic happened, before "American" "elites" did everything possible to quash them and loot them. It was somewhat brave (an overused word in Hollywood, and yes, I am using it somewhat ironically, but not entirely) to make a movie that featured as the main star, even moreso than the actual stars, an era in which America was American and confident in itself. Mostly Hollywood creates propaganda pieces that justify to the elites (including themselves) why they've stolen that America from us, because we were the worst thing ever. The palpable sighs of relief during that movie that it wasn't a woke, anti-American, anti-white, anti-man screed, like almost everything else that's supposed to "entertain" us is almost for sure one of the key secrets of its success. The fact that it was also a compelling story with good performances and capably made was just the icing on the cake. It felt like the kind of movie that we used to get in the 80s, or even earlier, except with modern advances in special effects and pacing. Good stuff. Anyway, I'm not 100% sure how well that's going to translate to geriatric Indiana Jones, but maybe it'll work out.
Willow. I'm not sure that anyone asked for a sequel to Willow, especially one that won't even feature the only interesting character in that movie, Madmartigan (or if they do, he'll have to be as geriatric as Harrison Ford, but they mention Warwick Davis, not Val Kilmer, so I don't think so), but the Chinese guy Fake American who brought us Crazy Rich Asians is going to direct it, for some reason. This seems really out of the blue, and nobody asked for it. Don't know what to think of this one. Honestly, Willow wasn't all that great to begin with.
Children of Blood and Bone. The adaptation of a YA novel of anti-police pro-BLM propaganda. Sounds right up Disney's alley, but not that of any reasonable audience. The book is supposedly a NYT bestseller, but that category has been already exposed as a hoax in terms of how they determine it, and I doubt that the book really has enough popularity to justify adapting it. Like most of what Hollywood themselves produce, popularity in book publishing is largely Potemkin popularity; all smoke, mirrors, and illusion.
Curiously, on an instagram page I follow that's all about fans making Mandalorian costume armor, they asked what people were excited about from this announcement. At least half of all of the comments said that the only thing they would be excited for would be Kennedy getting the boot.
Also, most of the shows take place in either the same time frame as Rebels and Solo or the time frame of the Mandalorian. Conspicuously as absent as any masculine white males is anything at all set in the sequel trilogy time frame. I wonder why they're avoiding that era so hard, hmmm?
Update 6.2 is installing right now as we speak in the background while I'm working on another computer. I don't know really what it's going to be, although I'm sure everyone is expecting new story content of some kind; looks like a new Mandalorian themed flashpoint and some kind of new story mission or two. This led me to think about what planets I'd like to see added to the game and be able to explore a bit, which led me towards listing all of the planets that have appeared in a Disney Star Wars movie. I probably need to go do an even bigger project where I do all of the planets that have appeared in The Clone Wars, Rebels and the Mandalorian. Maybe the Resistance too? I dunno. I still haven't watched the Season 7 stuff, because I want to get to it by finishing my rewatch of the entire series, and because I was playing a lot of RDO and then SWTOR, I haven't been doing that very fast at all; I'm still in season 3, I think. It wouldn't be difficult to just finish though. I never finished the last season or two of Rebels either, and I never watched The Resistance at all, but one of these days I should, because hey, Star Wars visual content.
Anyway, I'm on record as suggesting that the locations (and visual design of such) is one of the few areas where the Disney Star Wars movies did a relatively good job. (Although I'm also on record as suggesting that while the sequel trilogy was pretty terrible, the two spinoff movies were better, bordering, on occasion, on being actually good. Rogue One was better than Solo in most respects, but Solo isn't that bad either.) And curiously, there's been a fair bit of overlap already between Disney Star Wars planets and Old Republic planets, what with Corellia making its first movie appearance in Solo, Tython now showing up in the Mandalorian. So, going through the planets from the Disney movies, let's have a look at what I think make good candidates to being added in Old Republic?
Exegol. As much as the return of the Emperor was kind of a stupid idea, the planet of Exegol and the Sith Cult were sadly underdeveloped and underutilized cool ideas. Given that the Empire is half of Old Republic, and we do explore other Sith planets like Korriban, Ziost, Oricon, and a few others, adding Exegol and maybe having it be a stronghold of Vitiate would work quite well, because after all, Vitiate and Palpatine seemed to have similar conceits in terms of trying to constantly trying to seek immortality. It makes perfect sense that Palpatine would hang out in Vitiate's old stomping grounds, in my opinion. Plus, it's just a cool environment, and some fun stuff could be done there.
Crait. While I don't know of any particular reason to make Crait be a place that gets attention other than the cool visual design, it does have really cool visual design, and a very unique look. Because of that, it actually rises up as a good candidate, although there's no story reason to make it important, so that would have to be invented from scratch.
Mustafar. While Mustafar isn't new to the sequel trilogy and other Disney movies, two new environments on the planet are added in these movies, including Darth Vader's castle in Rogue One and the strange ironwood smoky forest that we see briefly when Kylo Ren is chopping up some weird Darth Vader cultists. It's also a relatively unique environment, and while there's some lava in some planets in Old Republic already, Mustafar really is a different kettle of fish altogether.
Kessel. This is another one that I like, because it has ties all the way back to the first Star Wars movie, when C-3PO laments that he suspects being sent to the spice mines of Kessel and Han Solo references the Kessel Run. We actually see them in Solo when Han and Lando and Co. go on a heist of the Pyke's slave mines and steal a big batch of coaxium. It's ties to all kinds of lore in Star Wars makes it a great candidate.
Sinta Glacier Colony. Kind of like Mek-Sha; an asteroid station, except in this case it's an icy rather than rocky asteroid. It's actually kind of a cool idea, albeit one that's not unique. Asteroid versions of this are common, but an icy asteroid? Again, it gives a really interesting visual distinction. Maybe a little less so in this case, given that we already have two icy worlds in Old Republic, but I like it.
Anyway, as I said, I really should make a list of the other movies and the TV shows too, because it gives me all kinds of new options. Granted, some planets are just "cameos" like where we see Jedi getting gunned down at the end of Revenge of the Sith, for instance, but many of them have bigger appearances in Clone Wars or Rebels.
And adding this detail: without going through the list of planets in Clone Wars or Rebels or whatever, I do think I'd love to see Dathomir and and old-timey Old Republic era spin on the Nightsisters and Nightbrothers. Maybe with darksabers too, although the connection between Darth Maul and the darksaber, I realize, doesn't really have anything to do with the Dathomir culture.
First off, I'm mostly enjoying the second Mandalorian season. It's better than the first season. It's still not as good as I'd wish it to be, and feels like a safe and politically correct and small-scope outgrowth of the Original Trilogy, even moreso than the Clone Wars did to the Prequel Trilogy. Where the Clone Wars expanded the setting and the mythos and told bold stories—sometimes—the Mandalorian doesn't, really. It just treads water in a quiet little corner of the pool where it can't make big waves or get too noticed.
While of course there's nothing wrong with that per se, that's not really what I think most Star Wars fans want from Star Wars content. Or, at least I think so. Star Wars fans like the Mandalorian, but few of them love it, really. Now... I could be wrong. The nebbish EU nerd probably gobbles this show up for the same reason he gobbled up some bizarre novel about Porkins' adventures in an x-wing, or whatever. But I do get a sense from most of the people I talk to and the YouTube videos that I watch that fans like the Mandalorian, but hope for it to grow into something a bit bigger than what it is right now. Some of the latest episodes are getting them excited because it seems like that's what it's doing, but is it really? Callbacks and fan service and cameos (even extended "guest star" appearances) don't really expand anything; in fact, they have a tendency to almost shrink it sometimes. That's similar to how in almost every movie we end up back at Tatooine; even in the sequel trilogy, when we aren't on Tatooine, we're on separate planets that are completely indistinguishable from it—Jakku, Jedha, Pasaana; many of them literally filmed in the same place in Jordan. Now, granted, I like the concept of an arid planet, and I actually think it likely that there would be many desert planets across the galaxy if there were really inhabitable planets, but they really make no effort to make them feel different to each other, and you get no sense of place for any of the places that they go in the sequel trilogy. They're merely somebody's attempt to take a cool visual cue and implement it, but there's no connection to anything other than a visual that flashes in front of you briefly and then is gone as they rush off to the next superficial and shallow visual cue. It's kind of a shame; there are some really cool looking places in the sequel trilogy, and even a few good ideas here and there, but lack of development of any of them make them—ultimately—nothing more than something that's vaguely pretty but boring. Of course, they were saddled into horribly stupid plots with unlikable characters, and the fact that they flash so quickly before our eyes, and are often lookalikes of planets we already know without anything unique to make them more interesting, makes the whole seem smaller even as it tries to be bigger than ever.
That actually, now that I think about it, is a good reason for me to love my Traveller-inspired method of travel. It forces the characters to spend a bit more time in the systems that they visit. They can't be just flashes that go before your eyes with no impact; they have to actually have some substance. But it doesn't have to be that way to get that benefit, it just requires better writing. The Clone Wars introduces all kinds of planets, and most of them actually have some character, because they actually do something there where the environent actually plays some kind of role in most of them. Look at the exploration that we get of Mandalore, or Rodia, or Dathomir, etc. Even the expansions of planets we already knew like... yes, even Tatooine... expand the setting and make it feel bigger and better. The stuff that we've seen since then doesn't really seem to do that, and the places that they go all feel interchangeable and lacking in any character. Even when they may or may not have a cool visual cue, which admittedly some of them do.
Anyway, more to the point, I've been playing loads of Old Republic. I've got my Jedi Knight where he's ready to start the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion, although I think I'm going to keep doing Ziost dailies for a while first to get the greenish space armor set which you can buy with your Ziost currency. My Sith Warrior still needs to do the Black Hole, but then he's ready to start Makeb and the Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion. (He has done Section X already.) I also finished Chapter 1 with my Smuggler; I kind of rushed through the story missions to get Risha unlocked as a companion, and now I'm going back to finish some of the world stories, exploration missions and bonus series on Chapter 1 planets before I dive into Chapter 2. It's a little sad that I had to put up with so much story material with Risha before being able to change her appearance with the customization option that I bought for her (what can I say? I really like the platinum blonde version #9, and I had it unlocked before I even started the smuggler). I've spent a lot of time this last week doing the Dantooine pirate event too, although the Heroics aren't really solo-able, so it sucks and my progress has been slower and more grindy than I'd have liked. Only to find that, honestly, I don't know how much I really want any of those rewards anyway, other than the prohibitively expensive kath hound mount. (I'll pick up some pieces of the pirate armor/clothing set too. I really like that jacket combo, although it drops in various colors throughout the game, and my Jedi wears a reddish brown one, my smuggler wears a khaki colored one, and I'm sure that there are other color options out there too. If there aren't, though, I've previewed some dye modules, and it dyes quite well.
I'm finding that I'm getting a little too caught up in the grinding and collecting. The same thing happened to me in Red Dead Online, and while I enjoyed it for quite some time, it was also the last hurrah before my interest waned, no doubt. I feel a kind of need to do it so I can have the cool cosmetics that I want, and to grind for credits and XP even, for that matter, and I've even gotten pretty caught up in the crafting of a lot of stuff. But it's really the stories that I enjoy the most. Ideally for me, there wouldn't be any need to do anything non-solo; all of the flashpoints, heroics, and even operations would have to be done so they could be soloable. Granted, most of the Heroics and at least half of the flashpoints have been modified so that they can be played this way, but uprisings, operations, a handful of Heroic 4s, and half of the flashpoints are not. As a big fan of the older Knights of the Old Republic game, I simply don't find the MMO side of the shop compelling at all, and I admit that there's a little bit of resentment that I can't participate in that content solo. I also don't like the microtransaction aspect of the cartel market. While yeah, I've spent some real money on some stuff here and there, I prefer to use the GTN and credits wherever possible. Of course, the most desireable things to have are somewhat rare, and therefore extremely expensive when subjected to the forces of supply and demand. No doubt this was on purpose to encourage microtransactions. Keep in mind that BioWare is owned by EA. Not shocking, but certainly disappointing and frustrating. I like being able to find everything in game the way Knights of the Old Republic did.
Luckily for me, I've got lots of story content to turn to when I start to get frustrated with the grind. I have four character classes that I haven't even started, two that I'm still kind of in the very early stages of, and even for the two classes that I've finished, I've got plenty of expansion content to go through. I've reupped my subscription (I bought the 2-month one that doesn't auto-renew) a month or so ago, and I'll probably do it at least one more time before I'm done; a full six months in total of subscription is what it'll end up having been. Will I really play all my my alien girl versions of the characters after I'm done with my white guy versions of all of the characters? Maybe, although I doubt I'll feel the same sense of urgency. I do want to both unlock the alien races across the spectrum, and I also want to see the female voice actor performances of the dialogue. Plus, it gives me a different romance option suite, obviously, to be a woman rather than a man.
From Davidski's blog, here's some stuff that he's "in the know" about in the publishing pipeline. It's consistent with what he's been predicting for some time, but he expects the data that's the source of his confidence in those predictions to drop shortly. In fact, he expected most of it to drop in 2020, and blames the scamdemic for it's delay. Scamdemic being my label, not his. I don't know what he thinks about the Chinese coronavirus. Anyway, his specific predictions—paraphrased—with a little bit of commentary from me:
All of the Viomium Marches worlds share a similar context. Three systems in close proximity that are surrounded by many enemies; in particular numerous Reaver worlds, and the Phatoru Shdor Seraean colony. All of them are a little difficult to reach for any friendly system; from the Emerus Marches, the nearest Bernese worlds, most have to bulk jump through Oerken in order to reach it. Comaius, the only one reachable from Oerken is thus the gateway to the Viomium Marches; to get to any other world in the colony, yet another bulk jump from Comaius is necessary.
Another odd quirk of the Viomium Marches is that they were originally settled by Seraeans, but not Seraeans as in the much more recently arrived colonists of Phatoru Shdor or the rest of the Outremer colonies. These were refugees from the tyranny of the Empire, and came way back in the time of the Marian Empire and settled these mostly unused worlds. However, when the Bernese came here, they eagerly threw in their lot with them, appreciating not only their culture, but their relative strength in being capable of holding back the many enemies that surrounded them. These Bernese and Seraeans are now almost completely intermarried and interbred, and the majority population of the Viomium Marches is thus unique genetically showing equal amounts of traits of both. Mostly, they look like Bernese (i.e., like white Heritage Americans) with silver chrome eyes and silver-white hair; an inheritance of their former Seraean half. The Viomians also have a minority populaton on all three of their worlds of Reavers, although these have also been here for many generations now, and do not "reave" as those from the Reaver worlds do, which is the source of their name. In fact, they Reavers here are a bit prickly about being called Reavers, in large part because they want to disassociate themselves from the violent reputation of those who come from Reaver worlds, and often make a big deal about calling themselves Kvuustu, their own name for themselves. It's worth noting, however, that the reavers of the Viomium Marches have been here for generations, and most of them speak Galactic standard and know very little of their own ethnic heritage language, even the names that came from their heritage.
The third and final point of context is that they have no leader. Originally led by a margrave, he was killed in action defending an outlying convoy in the Typhoeus system five years ago. For whatever reason, the king of the Bernese Monarchy has not assigned a new margrave to the colony yet.
System: Comaius
Hex Location: 1738
Star Type: Single M9 V
Number of Worlds: 11
Gas Giants: 5
Planetoid Belt: Asteroid belts and comet belt
Starport Type: C standard star port, but see below
World Size: Larger than earth
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like (at the elevation where cities are)
Surface Water: 0%
Population: Small ~600,000
Political Affiliation: Bernese; Viomium Marches
Tags: Flying cities, warlock academy, secret cabal
Notes: In the case of Comaius, a criminal underground of warlocks pulls the strings, now that they are completely unfettered from the fear of being rooted out by an official government agent. For better or for worse, they do not believe that they can rule openly, however, without attracting the ire of the entire populace, so they keep their influence fairly secretive. They also are very concerned about threats to the colony, which would threaten their position, so they do cooperate, within reason, with the rulers of the other two worlds in the colony. Their puppet in the government offices is deputy governor Hogan Pompeius. They have an academy for the training of warlocks, but it is an insular affair, and they mostly only admit those whom they can depend on their loyalty. Even this is somewhat secret from the inhabitants; like the Ivy League schools now, most of the people within the colony believe that they are merely very selective and have high standards for meritocratic achievement. This isn't really true, just like with our own Ivy League schools; you have to know the right people, be part of the right secret societies, grease the right palms, etc. to get it. But if you do, you will have a cushy road to riches and ease in Viomium society. This same secret society operates across the colony, but only on Comaius do they actually run things, and that is their headquarters.
Comaius is also an unusual main world; it does not have a rocky surface at all, and is in fact a modest-sized gas giant. There is a layer of the atmosphere that is earth-like and habitable and comfortable for humans to live on, and that is where the floating cities are, although there are only three of them, and their populations are relatively modest; a couple hundred thousand people each. These cities are build on the remnants of flattish rocky asteroids that were tugged into the atmosphere and placed in permanent floating positions by ancient warlocks, and then the cities were built on them. Deep pipes plunge into the thick clouds below the cities, where gas is extracted. In spite of the fact that the cities here only have C class starports, they differ in one notable respect; refined fuel is readily available at a good price because the raw materials are right there and make up the bulk of the industry of the planet. Sytor gas, which is normally only found in pockets deep beneath glacial ice on some extremely cold planets, is also relatively plentiful in the thick lower atmosphere, so sytox fuel, the so-called nitrous oxide for spaceships, can be found here too. The Seraeans of Phatoru Shdor crave this stuff, as they are often adrenaline junkies by culture, but so far they have been content to trade for it legitimately. Perhaps the dreadnaught stationed in the system as one of the last official actions between the late lamented margrave and the home office in Bernese space has contributed to this peace, however.
Once you get too far down, the atmosphere rapidly becomes untenable for breathing, so the elevation band that allows for habitation is relatively narrow. There is also no liquid water, given that there is no surface, but water vapor is plentiful in this habitable belt, and often falls as rain. Most homes have rain collection equipment, but there are also city-wide water caches as well as lakes, ponds and other artificial bodies of water all across the cities' surfaces.
 |
| A selection of Reaver faces |
System: Enticum
Hex Location: 1739
Star Type: Double (distant) F9 V and G2 V
Number of Worlds: 16, 5
Gas Giants: 2, 5
Planetoid Belt: None, and rocky asteroid belt only
Starport Type: C
World Size: Moon-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 66%
Population: Large, ~3 billion
Political Affiliation: Bernese; Viomium Marches
Tags: Psionic knight academy, boomtown, local specialty
Notes: Enticum is usually considered the capital of the Viomium Marches, although lacking a margrave for the colony, each of the systems has reverted to de facto self rule under deputy governers, who meet semi regularly on Enticum to discuss issues that need a reaction from all of them. While Enticum is a fairly small world in terms of surface area, the ancient terraforming that was used here must have included a lot of thaumaturgy, because earth-like gravity and atmosphere pervade across the world, except in deep chasms and in high mountaineous areas. Dark volcanic spires, peaks and crags make up most of the surface, but it is not entirely bare, as grasslands and semi-isolated groves and stands of trees cover much of the surface as well. It is a bit Spartan in terms of scenery and habitability, but the grasslands support herds of both domesticated and wild reptomammalian creatures like thoats, platabirds, sandkine, mannoths, zitidars, and more. The plains are fed by many rivers, and crops grow sufficient to feed the fairly large population. There is a local burrowing animal that lives within the bedrock of the planet, and probably predates the terraforming. It's a miracle that this many-eyed wormlike, clawed creature survived, but it is the key to the economic dominance of the planet. Its secretions are known as spice. It isn't exactly like the sandworms spice on Arrakis, however, but this spice is not only a local delicacy which causes plant life that grows here to have unusual taste and texture which is highly valued by others, but the refined spice itself has remarkable medicinal qualities. Although there are synthetic alternatives elsewhere, Enticum spice is seen as preferred in the creation of healing and regenerative gels, as well as anti-aging supplements that seem to have the effect of lengthening the potential lifespan of those who take it regularly by up to almost 50%.
Because of this local specialty, which is in high demand, Enticum probably is the most militarized of the Viomium worlds, and its defensive capabilties are well known. The nearby Seraeans and Reavers have typically given the system a wide berth, although sometimes bold strikes by pirates on shipping convoys deeper in the system are not unheard of.
System: Typhoeus
Hex Location: 1839
Star Type: Single G3 giant (III)
Number of Worlds: 5
Gas Giants: 4
Planetoid Belt: Icy comet belt only
Starport Type: X
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 27%
Population: Medium ~15 million
Political Affiliation: Bernese; Viomium Marches
Tags: Feral world, primitive aliens, hostile solar system
Notes: Typhoeus, when looking at the world tags, may seem like a kind of primitive backwater; the equivalent to a Third World hellhole, but in reality, the people who live here, and the rest of the Viomium Marches peoples in general, consider it a Utopian paradise to be treasured and protected. (The primitive aliens can be re-read as primitive natives rather than aliens, as they are the Bernese/Seraean mix for the most part.)
When the Bernese came here, there were Reaver settlers, as across the rest of the system, and Seraeans, but they lived in an unusually peaceful small community agricultural holdings on a world that is largely forested. The Reavers themselves had adopted a largely pre-technology lifestyle, other than a few technological conveniences, and the Seraeans adopted much of their culture from them. As the Bernese arrived, they too adopted to much of this small village and farming community lifestyle, and refused to set up industrialization centers, large trade centers, or even any kind of significantly centralized government. Threats or challenges which require coordinated effort have temporarily assigned dictators appointed (in the old Roman Republic version of the word, not the more modern one) and militias and volunteers have proven, so far, sufficient to deal with any challenges, would-be tyrants, attacking pirates or Reavers, etc. The Typhoeans don't reject visitors exactly, but they are careful about settlers... although there are some visitors among them who have been there fore literally years and not worn out their welcome. It's almost as if the Typhoeans are like a space-faring Amish country planet, and it serves a similar role as the Amish do, attracting tourists and visitors who value their hand-crafted arts, crafts and tools, as well as those who are fascinated and maybe even sometimes envious of their low-stress, low-tech lifestyle. Of course, many of these visitors are traders who take their goods elsewhere for sale; because Typhoeus is kind of at the back-end of nowhere, difficult to reach, and surrounded by a number of hostile powers that only give a single reliable space-lane to reach it; and a long one at that, visitors are less frequent than in our own Pennsylvannia or Ohio Amish country.
(8 red worlds left to develop. 16 blue worlds. And 34 italic worlds.)
I've made a few minor changes. I'm pretty sure now that when I named the Carrick Grand Marches that I either deliberately made the choice (and then forgot about it) or subconsciously made the choice to use the name of the Republic space station in Old Republic, which is Carrick station. I actually don't love that, but on the other hand, Carrick has that kind of old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon feel to it that is perfect, so I doubt that I'll change it. However, I will point out that my focus has kind of migrated away from the Carrick Grand Marches, and I'm more interested now in the Emerus Marches, and the soon-to-be arriving Viomium Marches and Machesk Frontier sections; both also Bernese colonies. I'm also thinking in many ways of taking the focus of the action, for that matter, off of the Bernese strictly speaking. I still see them as kind of the "protagonist peoples" of the area, but I think actual protagonist characters may be those who wander a bit farther from home, and they may go to Bernese worlds, but just as likely peregrinate to other places. In fact, given the supposed relative peacefulness of most Bernese worlds, they probably spend more of their "story time" outside of the Bernese worlds entirely, for that matter. So, the Bernese worlds in the Colonial Main would be the places that maybe they're fighting to preserve and protect, to some degree, but not necessarily where any such stories would be as likely to be set. There's simply not enough derring-do required on a peaceful world, for the most part.
That also highlights some minor changes in nomenclature. Not that I actually mention it much, but I had at one point named this entire sector, on the big map, the New Alderamin sector. I don't know where I got that name; probably just picked it off a list given to me by a name generator. It means very little to me now, though, and I don't like it very much. If it actually matters, I'll call this sector the Rubicon sector, named for the river which Caesar famously crossed when Pompey and the corrupt Senate tried to trap him with procedure to remove him from power and probably murder him. Caesar, of course, percieved the trap, crossed the river anyway, the Roman people celebrated him for doing so, those who thought that they could entrap him fled and were eventually soundly and completely defeated, and Caesar ended up going from success to success after that until he was actually murdered. Crossing the Rubicon has now entered our vocabulary as an expression for making a risky gamble on which success or failure has big implications for your entire future; a kind of point of no return type of decision. Given the political situation of the Rubicon sector, especially the Colonial Main, I think I like that. Plus, it's timely to us Americans right now, as we hope that Donald Trump crosses the Rubicon and commits to draining the swamp rather than retreating from their attempts to illegally and tyrannically steal the election from us, because the result if he doesn't is that we become an oppressed people living under a neurotic communismistic tyranny for the foreseeable future. But with regards to my space opera, that's probably neither here nor there, of course, unless I get sent to a gulag for wrongthink and can't continue to work on it.
The Colonial Main is a new bit of nomenclature that I've started tossing around in some of my most recent planetary system data sheets. I see most of the bottom third of my sector map as belonging to this Colonial Main, so called because most of the spacefaring nations within it are colonies of bigger empires or polities elsewhere. The Bernese Colonies are contrasted with the Bernese Main, which is the space occupied by the Bernese Monarchy proper, the very smallest southern portion is shown at the very top of the map. There's also an Imperial or Seraean Main, a Revanchist or Republic Main, etc. Not everything has to be called a "Main" but it works quite well, plus it gives me that Colonial swashbuckling Spanish Main piratey feel that I like. The "protagonist space" of the Colonial Main is therefore the portion of the sector map that is south of the Cilindarean and Dhangetan... er... mains, and west of the Imperial fringe on the far east of the sector map. It specifically excludes, however, the Reaver Worlds (mostly just because I don't want to mess with them) and probably the Altairan Ascendency worlds, even though by stellar geography they should be part of it, I don't actually intend to develop those. It also specifically includes, even though I would otherwise exclude them, a few Dhangetan worlds which extend into the same space, and probably need to be detailed because they're more likely to be used in some fashion.This makes the Carrick Grand Marches and its most immediate neighbors to the galactic east and southeast and northeast the frontier of the Colonial Main space. In fact, I have no intention of doing much (if any) development east and south of what I've already done with the exception of a few systems that are specifically called out. And I haven't prioritized doing the westernmost edge of the Colonial Main very much either, because that would threaten to get me caught up in doing the Altairan Ascendency due to sheer proximity, if for no other reason. For that matter, although I've been threatening to do this for a long time, I've actually got some stuff in the works that would make it a reality, I'm about ready to be done tinkering with world-building at a macro scale altogether.
Check out the page listed in the link below, including the updated map attached. Every system that has some development done is a link to a subpage on the wiki. Those that aren't links haven't been done yet. I had earlier italicized a few systems of the Galaide Worlds that I hadn't done, but I've decided that they aren't a priority at the moment, as I doubt I'll be using the Galaide Worlds in the near term. Rather, the red-highlighted systems are those that are high priority to finish before I quit macro world-building. The blue highlighted systems are medium priority; to be done after the red ones are complete, but only whenever I get around to it, and I'll probably do them in parallel with some other stuff. I do actually have some main characters and situations ready to be developed into a plot outline, so I'm going to start telling actual stories in Ad Astra Ferociter. Much delayed and overdue, but still. And I've added some additional italic lower priority ones to do on the Western edge, including finally the Altairan worlds, but those are even lower priority than the blue ones, and I doubt I'll get to them anytime soon, if really even ever. Anything that isn't specifically so highlighted I have no plans to develop at all.
The image is one that I found simply by doing a Bing image search for vintage space opera, although it doesn't seem to be too old fashioned of a picture relative to the covers of old magazines from the 40s and 50s, etc.
https://sites.google.com/site/adastram20/home/setting
As an aside, that gives me, in terms of macro world-building:
YouTube may well pull this down, but I've seen it on other platforms by now too. This is entirely consistent with what I've heard from lots and lots of other points; that widespread fraud and cheating by the Democrats happened in the last Presidential election; so blatant that it can't be covered up anymore. Quite honestly, they've stolen who knows how many other elections over the years. Americans should be pissed.
Bo-Katan, who was voiced by Katie Sackhoff in the animated shows, is played in live action by her in her live action debut in this new episode, and... surprisingly, she looks about perfect in the role.
This was one of the better episodes that we've had, but in some ways, it's also one of the worst, because it highlights a few things that Dave Filoni is just plain getting wrong about Star Wars, where he's bought into the wokeness garbage and injecting it into the show. Even as he's making episodes that are actually pretty good; the wokeness is mostly buried deep in the assumptions rather than hitting you over the head like it did in stupid movies like Birds of Prey or the Charlie's Angels remake or Terminator: Dark Fate, or any number of big budget and high profile major flops of 2018-9 or so that flopped specifically because of their wokeness. But it is nonetheless very built into the assumptions, and it was a major difference between Clone Wars and Rebels; the level to which those assumptions dominated the way the show rolled out.
Rebels also suffered, of course, from having thoroughly unlikable principle characters, for the most part, who were defined by their whinyness, entitlement, and Mary Sue-edness, although this was not unrelated to the wokeness. Because what is wokeness other than resentment, envy, covetousness, bitterness and spite? That's basically the definition of wokeness entirely right there, except that they lie to themselves and to others to try desperately to make it seem justified and vindicated. Although they don't really deny in any meaningful way that they aren't exactly all of those adjectives, because it's so obvious that that's exactly what they are.
Anyway, what in the world happened to the Mandalore that they showed in the Clone Wars, where the population was homogenous, and it was clear that the Mandalorians had a very Nordic, specifically Finnish look to them (one of their world's is named Kalevala, which is why I specifically say Finnish as opposed to, say, Swedish.) Din Djaron, the titular character, doesn't ever show his face except for a very brief moment, but the actor is a Chilean communist who fled as a child when Allende was ousted, because his parents were embedded in his corrupt and evil administration. But he's supposed to be a Foundling, so him not being an ethnic Mandalorian is OK. Bo-Katan is played by Katie Sackhoff who isn't Finnish, but is at least an American of traditional American descent. Her two companion Mandolorians are played by a Hispanic woman and a Greek man respectively. In fact, the only people who look like they could be Mandalorians (other than Katie Sackhoff) are in fact the Imperials who don't wear stormtrooper helmets. That's OK, they look traditionally British, which the Imperials have always been, but again; in the first Star Wars, the Rebels were heritage Americans against the Imperial British. What woke Star Wars has evolved to is women and the Pox (peoples of color) fighting against white men. Why that bit of underlying woke messaging, especially in a show who's fanbase was traditionally heavily slanted towards white men goes unremarked on has always seemed very odd to me. It's a deliberate insult to the fans.
In a related bit of wokeness assumptions, I've once pointed out on a Youtube video's comments (a The Quartering video, actually) that although it's become quite mainstream, it's actually quite evil to present women as interchangeable with men in action movies, because it's contributed to the monstrous evil of thinking that women in actual, real combat roles in real life in the military is a good idea. It should be excised from our fiction because 1) it promotes the worst kind of dis-civilizational behavior imaginable among Americans, and 2) it's biologically and psychologically nonsensical, and most normal people find it a bit off-putting to see it all of the time. The Quartering, which positions itself in the market as an advocate of free speech and anti-wokeness who constantly like to bang the drum about cancel culture deleted my comment within minutes; in fact, I was editing it to add another clause and when I hit approve it was already gone. (Needless to say, I decided to unfollow the Quartering immediately. I'd already found that I'd gotten a bit tired of his repetitive schtick, and that was the final straw.)
In any case, all of these changes were already given to us in Rebels. Sabine Wren as an Asian teenage girl Mandalorian who is the most irritating Mary Sueish character ever written, who's only marginally less irritating than Ezra Bridger, and never has to work or strive or anything for any of her "accomplishments" and who is smug and unlikeable about them as well. Yes, because that's what the Mandalorians need for their warrior culture; a teenaged girl who's into grafitti because it's what's popular with the SoCal hipsters for a queen. Suuuure. I hope Moff Gideon cut off her head during the Purge. He won't have, because the creators think not only that Wren is all that but that it would be a betrayal of their insane equalitarian cult to have a women actually be treated as equal to a man in similar circumstances. She has to ride in on a white horse and become the queen again without any effort, because that's what happens to women in Star Wars now.
I couldn't have explained this bizarreness to you or to myself without understanding the reality of r-selected evo-psych behavior vs. K-selected behavior, but I see all of the hallmarks of r-selection; the entitlement, the sense that you shouldn't ever need to actually work or strive for anything, because resources (up to and including the position of soverign leader of an entire nation) should be free to whomever wants to show up and take it (explains Hillary's shock and reaction to the 2016 Presidential election too, for that matter), the low threshold of disgust, and the tolerance for "Diversity™", etc. I'll refer you to the Godfather of r/K-strategist theory as it relates to politico-social ideology so you can understand it yourself, of course.
https://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/the-theory/rk-selection-theory/
But I just have a hard time believing that the Mandalorian will ever be able to rise above mediocrity, other than a handful of brief moments here and there, because it's clear that it's saddled with wokeness assumptions. While it is wise for them to reject open wokeness preaching, like so many big flops have probably wished that they had done, and like the Star Wars sequel trilogy has been hampered with for that matter which has been disastrous for the brand, the reality is that it's still a Trojan horse and the wokeness is still there. You just can't see it as clearly from the outside because they're trying to sneak it past the gates.
With it clear that the Democrat party has attempted a massive coup via election fraud in multiple states involving millions of votes—and dubious confidance on my part that the known to be corrupted courts will do the right thing and address it satisfactorily, much less any other agency of the government, I've turned aside from following current events too closely and instead have doubled down on my playing of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Before Civil War 2.0 starts, if that indeed is what is going to happen, and I don't have leisure time, reliable internet, or anything else that would allow me to finish the game with all classes.
I've been tinkering around with post storyline stuff with my Jedi Knight; I'm almost finished with the Makeb storyline, and I've started a few other side quest stuff like the HK companion quest, the seeker droid quest, and I discovered that there was a Coruscant story quest (but not really; not sure why it was purple) related to Gree droids wanting to fix infrastructure in the lower city that I'd somehow missed and just did. I've also been doing the bounty hunter weekly event while I can, bumping up my reputation with that faction. Although I don't really love the symmetry, or lack thereof, of doing it this way, I'll probably continue to use Maark this way until I get to the place where I can sell my Heroic crates, at least. That means a fair bit of more stuff to work through; after I finish the Hutt Cartel stuff, I've got all of the Shadow of Revan stuff to do and then half of the next big story expansion. It does become a bit more scattershot, however, and there's not as much of a clear progression in this phase. While sure, there's plenty to do, the lack of a strong(ish) storyline to follow and the charismatic chemistry between characters makes it much less compelling in general; it feels much more like gameplay rather than a Star Warsian story. Although that will change once I hit the Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne stuff again, I believe.
My Sith Warrior I'm only playing right now to help with the bounty hunter reputation; I'm otherwise finished with his story, and I'm not sure how excited I'm going to be to repeat all of the story I just did with another character right away (although I believe that Hutt Cartel, at least, is significantly different on the Imperial faction as opposed to Republic.) What I'm really kind of emotionally ready to do is get going on the main stories for other characters already. To that end, I was messing around with getting my smuggler set up with some outfits and credits that I mailed from my Sith to him to get him started, and I went ahead and did all of the Ord Mantell stuff with him yesterday. Sure, the first planet of the prologue is only half (if that) the size of a regular planet, so it's relatively small, but the point is, that's really what I kind of want to do. But I also want to get someone to the place where I can have all my crates opened so my other classes can have access to cooler gear that I've already earned. If I wait too long to get to that point, nobody will really get to use it for anything, because I'll be done with them by the time I've opened them!
Anyway, it looks like I'll be on an assymetrical pattern for at least a little while. I'll probably leapfrog somewhat slowly between the Jedi Knight, my Sith Warrior and my Smuggler until I get to the end of Chapter 9 of Fallen Empire, at which point I'll probably add the agent in and get him caught up to the Smuggler. I'm not necessarily slow-walking the smuggler, because I have cool equipment for him right now and I'm not really waiting for anything in particular for him to get, but my Agent only has one decent outfit (and it's a cheap and easy fleet adaptive armor vendor set at that) and there are really cool agent outfits in the crates that I'm hoping to get at least some pieces of (the Remnant Resurrected Agent jacket and headgear are the two I want the most for my agent!)
Normally, I don't try to use or approve of salty language, but I'm also not going to head to the fainting couches and pretend like it's the worst thing ever. So I present, without any editing, Larry Correia's perspective on the election and what we know about it so far.
The fraud was so rampant and so blatant and so amateurish that everyone who isn't in a deep, deep state of denial knows that it happened. But being in a deep state of denial is a precursor for being a Leftist (even if it's a "moderate" kind of RINO leftist) so that shouldn't be a surprise. The party that can't even manage to understand how to tell a man from a woman and other super basic biological, reality-based facts is in denial? Say it isn't so!
https://monsterhunternation.com/2020/11/05/the-2020-election-fuckery-is-afoot/
As an aside, I have never felt better about my decision to abandon Facebook. Granted, I still tinker a bit on Instagram, but I hardly post anything, and hardly look at anything and will likely abandon it too before long.
Today is, of course, a frustrating day. Donald Trump clearly won the election, but the voter fraud operation is attempting to see how much cheating they can get away with today in a number of key counties, including, sadly, the one that I live in. This is a likely scenario for the actual election results, although it's still "conservative" in the sense that it doesn't involve investigating and overturning likely rampant voter fraud in Arizona and Virginia that would almost certainly flip the states. To say nothing of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The source is AC's page, one of those linked on the side there. But given that there's little that can be done right now about it, I'm going to attempt to not think about it too much. The reality is that although senile Biden is one of the clearest choices for evil that the American people have ever been faced with, the less clear choices have won by being more discrete and careful than Biden has been quite often, not by being less evil. A second Trump victory would likely only delay the coming collapse into chaos of the American nation by a small amount, not actually make it less likely to happen. It's almost certainly inevitable, and the cards were dealt decades ago that made that the case. It doesn't matter what I think about it, and it doesn't matter what you think about it; this is just the playing out of strategic moves that Satan took long ago that weren't blunted in time to make their conclusions and consequences avoidable.
There's simply no political will to do what would be necessary to save us anyway; massive repatriations of Fake Americans, massive clean-up of corrupt officials at all levels of government from the federal bureaucracy to your local public library board. Including tens of thousand if not hundreds of thousands of executions of literal traitors by a strict legal definition. The overturning of the "dual citizenship" and "birthright citizenship" frauds and most of the avenues for "legal" immigration that have been abused for decades. The abolishment of our treaties with the UN, NATO and just about every other entangling alliance that we foolishly persist in being in. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. It would almost be better in the long run for a massive economic and political collapse, which would at least encourage most of the Fake Americans to just pick up and look for greener pastures on their own, as well as the establishment of smaller, more manageable and accountable polities that aren't accountable to a massively over-reaching government body. Y'know, kind of like how the Founding Fathers envisioned and which we haven't had since the war of Lincoln's Proto-communist Revolution, otherwise known to the historically illiterate as the Civil War.
So again; what can be done about this? Not a whole lot other than praying, at least by folks like you and me. At least right now. We'll see as this continues to play out over the next few days and weeks what will happen. I still hold on to a glimmer of hope that some substantial swamp draining will yet take place. (As I've been typing this, thousands more "lost Biden votes" in Michigan were "discovered" making that state now "lean Democrat." Riiiiight. Funny how these mysteriously "found" ballots always end up flipping states from Republican to Democrat, and have done so every election for years. Not enough people in jail for serious felonies, I suppose. Al Franken got away with it, so they keep doing it. Maybe Civil War 2.0 is closer than a lot of people think. This kind of obvious and blatant cheating makes sure that nobody has any confidence in the integrity of the process or the legitimacy of the government, and disenfranchises tens of millions of voters. I think people really are sick and tired of this kind of crap by now.)
So, after saying that I didn't really want to talk about that, I typed more than I intended already. Let's turn to the real meat of my intended post; a manifesto on what Ad Astra is. First off, it's also occurred to me for quite a while now that Ad Astra is a bit too obvious and over-used of a title and it probably needs a bit more to truly be unique. Rather than attempt to be clever and add more Latin, I'll probably go for something a little more down to earth, or something. Ad Astra Privateers, or something like that, since I envision this as very much like a Rafael Sabatini book set in space; a kind of Sea Hawk or Captain Blood to the stars. But I don't love that either. Suggestions welcome, otherwise, I'll keep noodling around with it on my own. But, what exactly am I trying to do with this? I've talked a little bit about it before, but that was quite a while ago, and it's probably time for an updated manifesto. Especially as I'm seriously thinking (albeit again) with doing something with this other than tinkering on the world-building side. It's long overdue for some plot and character, not just worldbuilding! It's my intention to make this post be that manifesto of sorts.
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I was five years old when Star Wars came out. It's quite literally the first movie that I remember seeing in theaters. Nobody can deny that Star Wars was a breath of fresh air in the gloomy and cynical theatrical scene of the 70s; a kind of early harbinger of the 80s, in fact. The 80s were a decade which is defined in many ways in America by the fact that it was a prosperous and confident era in which the American people were confident and proud of their culture, and in many ways the last decade in which the American people were allowed to have their country and their culture without too much obvious meddling and interference from those who wanted to take it away from us and destroy it. The 80s were unashamedly American in America; the exact opposite of the siege mentality that grips Americans today. But in many ways the 80s, or at least these particular trends that we associate so strongly with the 80s, were really part of a 15 or so year period not just a decade, and it started in the late 70s and went a bit into the early 90s. Star Wars, as I said, was an early harbinger of it, even if George Lucas never meant it to be.
And I think some of the most interesting things about Star Wars are things that weren't necessarily intentional and which George Lucas would probably vehemently deny today (maybe with nervous looks over his shoulder, even) but which are obviously true nonetheless. Star Wars was made in a time when America was undeniably American in demographics. If you watch movies, documentaries, even news broadcasts from the 70s and 80s, you'll rarely see a minority, although if you do, it's generally unremarked on. We had them, and they were allowed the same grace that Americans were allowed, because they weren't here in enough numbers to show the ravenous ingratitude, entitlement and covetousness that they do now. We had good relationships with our minorities, because they were minorities, and weren't threatening to become majorities, nor was there any of the propaganda that is rampant today that white people and specifically white males are born with some kind of cult-like version of original sin. Star Wars was made in an era when Hollywood was an organization that made movies by white males, mostly (although often financed by Jewish interests) for an audience of white people, and starring mostly white people (with the obvious exception of the blaxploitation genre of b-movies.) On top of that, Star Wars was openly (and admittedly) imitating a number of genre elements that had fallen off the mainstream table during the 70s, but which earlier had been very mainstream; the Flash Gordon Republic Serials in particular, but the whole body of work that led up to them and followed in that same vein; Edgar Rice Burroughs and his John Carter stories, for instance, or Leigh Brackett and her Eric John Stark ones. E. E. "Doc" Smith, the so-called creator of space opera was obviously and heavily borrowed from in Star Wars, as was Frank Herbert's Dune and a host of other similar stuff like Edmond Hamilton, Larry Niven, Frederik Pohl and more.
One thing that you may notice, in spite of the shrieking harpies who shriek such things about diversity, inclusion and The Force is Female and stuff like that is that there certainly is a type of cultural homogeniety to the creators of space opera. About the closest thing to diversity is the fact that Leigh Brackett and C. L. Moore were female, although that seems to have had little impact on their writing compared to their male counterparts, and they certainly weren't inserting feminist identity politics into their stories. To be honest, this is one of the things I miss most about space opera. The entire genre, up to and including Star Wars, was written by Americans about Americans and for Americans—although the characters weren't as overtly American in the sense that they were called Americans, they obviously and clearly always were Americans in culture and genetics nonetheless. It's our genre, or at least one of our genres. Which is exactly why seeing entitled, screeching hordes of the creatively bankrupt militantly brownwashing, blackwashing, and pinkwashing our genre entries rather than simply making their own entries, or better yet their own genres, is so offensive. It's narcissistic and sociopathic. Seeing "the Force is Female" and movies stocked with minority Mary Sues while white males only relegated to being able to be the cartoonishly idiotic villains is a mockery of the genre, and a deliberate one. It's mean-spirited and petty, meant to humiliate the creators and the fans openly.
Star Wars used to be, and should be again but isn't likely to be, a story primarily about white, American heroes carrying on swashbuckling, chivalric romances with white, American love interests. If minorities are truly to be believed, and they can't relate to stories that don't have protagonists that "look like them" on the screen (in spite of the success of Star Wars across the world in the late 70s, which would obviously tend to make that claim untenable) then I claim the same privilege. I want stories that are about people like me, written for people like me, by people like me. The failure of Star Wars in recent years can be blamed, in large part, on its embrace of the biologically and psychologically ludicrous notion that people are all the same regardless of their genetics and biology. Women are not just men in a woman's body. Black people are different than white people who are different than Hispanic people who are different from Asian people who are different from MENAs, and so on and so forth.
And white, male American fans of space opera, which remains the largest group of fans of the genre, as near as I can tell, deserve the right to have stories for them. Especially now when the zeitgeist in America is to attack all things American by the resentful, the covetous, the envious, the nihilistic, the narcissistic.
Of course, the other major problem with Star Wars is one of execution. Regardless of whether or not the concepts behind more recent Star Wars entries are good ones or not (mostly they're not) even the good ideas are marred by poor execution. Poorly written stories with unlikeable and uncharismatic characters, with missed opportunities for tension, suspense, or anything else that makes a story good and entertaining to watch are par for the course for the franchise these days. Because of these problems, Star Wars fans are actually pretty starved for entertaining content, and often greedily gobble up even mediocre content because at least it doesn't too actively insult them. This is the secret to the Clone Wars series and The Mandalorian, both are which aren't really great, but because they aren't terrible, Star Wars fans love them. Truthfully, we deserve quite a bit better, but it seems unlikely that we'll get it.
But, when I was a kid in the very late 70s, I'd play my own games with my Star Wars action figures—supplemented by G.I Joe and Adventure People stuff from the same scale, and rubber dinosaurs and other stuff from different scales. I renamed my characters, and just used the elements that I had, like a Boba Fett action figure, a TIE fighter, a submarine, a T. rex-sized tiger, Clawtron, and who knows what else. Regardless of what Star Wars was doing with these elements, I did my own thing. As Nick Cole once said in a podcast, this was pretty much the genesis of the Galaxy's Edge series that he wrote with Jason Anspach. In a discussion the two of them were having after some kind of writer meetup or get-together or something like that, Nick asked Jason what he really wanted to write, and he said Star Wars stuff. What Nick said to him was that, look—the elements of Star Wars are all scenes-a-faire, and Lucas himself borrowed them from somewhere else in almost all cases anyway. How about just make a Fake Star Wars that has the same feel, but is made up of your own take on the elements rather than Star Wars' specific take? He also likened it to playing with your Star Wars action figures out in the lawn, doing your own thing with them, which is how they see Galaxy's Edge. It's kind of like, what if I had made Star Wars the way that I'd have wanted it to be? It's deliberately pastiche, but there's nothing wrong with good pastiche. Good pastiche can sometimes be better than the original. You can certainly make a case, for example, that Flash Gordon has had more of a mainstream impact on science fiction than John Carter, and yet Flash Gordon was deliberately created as a pastiche when King Syndicates wanted to compete directly and head to head with the popular Buck Rogers comic strip but couldn't get the rights to Barsoom.
So to me, this is what AD ASTRA is, or at least what I hope it will become. What Star Wars should have been. Or to be really nitpicky, what Star Wars briefly was but then mostly lost. Just like Alex Raymond created Flash Gordon when he couldn't write John Carter stories so he could write stories pretty much just like John Carter in his own setting, and George Lucas created Star Wars when he couldn't get the rights to Flash Gordon so he could write stories pretty much just like Flash Gordon in his own setting, and Jason Anspach and Nick Cole couldn't write Star Wars stories, so they created Galaxy's Edge to write stories pretty much just like Star Wars in their own setting, AD ASTRA is doing the same thing. Borrowing from the vast body of space opera work, probably even hearkening back to more old fashioned, red-blooded American takes on the genre even than original Star Wars did, keeping to the swashbuckling, space western vibe rather than the overtly military action story take that Anspach and Cole kind of ended up doing. My own take on it, naturally, and one that avoids the many pitfalls that I believe that Star Wars has fallen into. So specifically, what makes it different than Star Wars?
Obviously, based on my earlier paragraphs, you can infer that my setting and my characters will largely be heavily influenced by classical space opera American cultural tropes. I doubt anything culturally that post-dates the hippies will really have any influences on the stories I intend to tell, unless they are specifically one of the villains of the piece. (Note that this includes the fascination with Indian Buddhism and other exotic gurus that gripped the hippies in the late 60s and 70s and was a huge influence on the Force and the Jedi. To say nothing of Lucas' Japanophilia with regards to starting out the Jedi as space samurai. Was there something wrong with Western tradition knights in space?) I also intend to rigorously pursue story arcs that cater to biologically and psychologically normal people. I refuse to have women who act like fake men; women, to be desireable and attractive need to be feminine and men need to be masculine in classical, biologically relevent senses of both words. I expect the plots and characters of my stories to more closely resemble a hybrid of swashbuckling romances, classical noir stories, or old school westerns than anything else more modern. Expect more of a Edgar Rice Burroughs meets Rafael Sabatini and Sir Walter Scott meets Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler meets Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour with a heavy dash of James Bond too. In space, of course, with a cold war between galactic superpowers heavily featuring in the region that I'll set it. There'll be plenty of magic and fantasy, but none of the childish and absurd light side dark side fake morality that marred the execution of Star Wars over time.
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The following custom figurine sculpts for Star Wars reimagined are pretty close to the "vibe" I'm kinda looking for. Very old-school pulp, in most respects.
And here's an interesting video. Make of it what you will. I suspect that even if the rumor isn't factually correct in its numbers that it's generally correct in the gist of what it's saying.
I finishd Belsavis, the first of three planets that are part of the third and final chapter of all of the class storylines with my Sith Warrior character; second to play. Only two more planets to go, and the third one doesn't even have a Bonus Series (although there's the finale and a handful of other non-planet missions to work in there.) I was a little shocked at how quickly it went down; in only two or three days—days, I'll mention where I worked full time and had some busy personal commitments in the evening too—I did all of the Belsavis Heroic missions, all of the planetary story missions, all of the class missions, even the exploration missions, and then did the Bonus Series. I feel like I just did Belsavis with my Knight only a week or so ago (which is true; I'm playing a lot right now) and the first time through it felt like it took longer, even if the missions were different. Just about the only thing that I didn't do that I did with the knight, although this only took a few minutes really, was wander around the map to uncover the whole thing as far as it could be reached.
1. Jedi Knight. This is considered the most iconic story, and this is the character that is kinda sorta "in canon" assumed to be the one who actually goes through the expansion packs. Often considered, "KotOR 3" because of this, from a story perspective, it's probably the absolute best to go through first. However, it's not perfect; given that it's a melee rather than ranged combat class, it's a little bit harder to use than some of the other classes. In addition to this, the character is so bland, boring, and lacking in personality that he's really not a great choice to be the masthead for the entire game with the most iconic of the stories. That said, I still think it's the best choice for a story-first type gamer (as opposed to a more MMO style gamer) to play through. Kira as the default love interest is a classic love interest; and let's face it, Star Wars needs to be a swashbuckling romance; a kind of Sabatini novel set in space, in order to work (this is a big problem with Luke Skywalker's story arc in the original trilogy; when they made the change to pawn Leia off on Han and not let Luke have a love interest, that was a major blow to the credibility of the story as a classic story.)
2. Sith Warrior. As kind of the dark mirror of the Jedi Knight, the Sith Warrior is an obvious second choice, and his story is also very iconic and classic Star Wars. I actually prefer to play him a little less on-the-nose petty evil and more of a pragmatist working within a corrupt system (the Sith Empire) and mostly ignoring the light/dark implications of the choices you make. (Although most of them will end up being light even so if you're not some kind of weirdo psychopath yourself, thinking that the darker choices make sense.) One way that the story doesn't work, building a bit on my comments for the Jedi Knight above is that the "default" love interest, Vette, may well be kinda cute in personality, but I just don't really like making love to aliens, so I'm working on the Jaesa angle. The dark side Jaesa is kind of interesting in a twisted, disturbing kind of way, but the light side Jaesa, which doesn't pay out until literally the very end of the game, at the end of the Onslaught expansion, is among the best romances in the game.
3. Smuggler. This fairly classic swashbuckler/pirate/crime lord style story is one of the more attractive ones, and the witty banter and dialogue seems to often be some of the best in the game. Amusingly, the smuggler character has single-planet romance options; he can leave a trail of broken hearts all through the galaxy, which is kinda sorta unique to this character, although a handful of other characters have a handful of single-planet romance options. Risha is the main love interest, however, although I recommend getting a reskin if you can. I'm qualified to buy the blond reskin in the Cartel market, so as soon as I go through her very first cut scene, I'll pop into the fleet and pick that up so I can have her run around as a prettier version of herself first. I played most of the first two planets way back when that's all you could do with this game on free-to-play (and I did it as a girl character too, gack) and it really sold me on the idea that Star Wars can actually be better without the Force and lightsbers. Although I like the way the character was written, a combination of the writing and the limitations of the medium make the character come across as just a bit too passive and beta for all the action that he's capable of getting, though.
4. Agent. I'm actually on the fence if I want to do this one as part of my leapfrog options or the bounty hunter, which I've played quite a bit of as an alt. The agent is rumored to be the first story written for the game, and in most respects, it's the most ambitious; a kind of James Bond in space type character, with three different (although related) story arcs for each major chapter of the main plot. The first one has a 24-like foil the terrorists vibe, while chapter 2 is a psychogical thriller with mad-science tones, and chapter 3 is the big-old globalist (galaxy-wide, in this case) conspiracy kind of story. While the character himself isn't nearly as dashing as the smuggler, he's got this kind of much colder, scarier vibe to him that gives him some of the charm of the darker James Bonds that we've seen; it really is quite well done. That said; again, the romance options, which is an important part of any good Star Wars story (and any good James Bond story, for that matter.) Kaliyo is the default one, and she's a hot mess of drama and baggage. Not a pleasant or attractive girl at. all. Just a horrible choice. However, much later in the story you pick up Raina Temple. Slap a customization on her (#4 is available, luckily, right after you pick her up, and #9 is great too, if you can find it.) and you're good to go. She actually seems like a likable character too, which makes the inclusion of Kaliyo all the more baffling. The only explanation I can think of is that whomever was in charge of that aspect of the story is too irreconcilably beta to have any understanding of what an attractive woman is actually like.
5. Jedi Consular. While the Jedi Knight is sometimes considered the prototypical "heroic Jedi" this one is sometimes described as an "average Jedi." Some people seem to really like this story, but I've heard a lot of others say that it's a bit slow and underwhelming. I figure by the time I come back around to it I'll be in the mood for another Force character, but I'm not expecting to really love this story so much. But we'll see; maybe it'll surprise me. Scuttlebutt is that the default romance option, Nadia Grell, while a little bit funny looking may be one of the sweetest and most likable of the girl romance options.
6. Sith Inquisitor. I don't have a lot of info on this class story either, except that it comes across as perhaps a little too passive; doing too much of someone else's step and fetchit, and supposed to be a double-crossing genius but who can't see obvious plot twists that the players can. Again; I'll play it because I'm planning on playing them all, but I don't have really high expectations on this one really. Not sure what to do with the romance either. The default is the Togruta gal, but I don't really love romancing aliens too much. Maybe I'll hold out and romance Lana Beniko with this character?
7. Trooper. Another class that is often considered one of the poorer ones; a strong start and strong finish, but an awful lot of draggin in between. Plus, the concept just doesn't appeal to me too much. I'll almost certainly not change my mind about putting this one off until nearly the end.
8. Bounty Hunter. The only reason this one is so far back is because I know so much about the story and have played a considerable amount of it with a character who I flubbed up and locked out my companion storylines before finishing them. I actually quite like almost everything about this guy; a laconic alpha of occasionally dubious morality with a very cute sidekick/romance option played by none other than Party of Five and Mean Girls star Lacey Chabert. Also, I want to have the best ability to have loads of cosmetic options, so playing it late means that I will have everything collected by all of the other classes that they didn't or couldn't use available for this bad boy to take on.
