Shrapnel 10 is out today. What are your thoughts? I'm a bit biased, as I have a story in this issue, but I'd love to know what people think of it. :)
My second story is in this issue
A discord of our own would be the place to do it!
PS: which story is yours? I can't keep track of real names vs forum names! Mine is "trial most acceptable," I'm hoping people dig it. :-)
Updated my sig, haha. It's "Undefeated". Forum name is just my initials.
I'd be interested in setting a server up if there's interest. I have zero experience as a moderator though so it would not be a smooth ride... But yeah if nobody else is up for it, I volunteer as tribute!
So, any thoughts on Flying Kites?
For what it is worth, I will post my thoughts on Flying Kites. But first I want to do Moving Forward, as I never got around to doing it if my memory serves me.
So, any thoughts on Flying Kites?
I dont remember reading the previous story, but this one is pretty solid for a spy thriller. My only point would be that the MC sounds WAY more adult than he should be. English is not my main language, but i understoof that the MC was actually a 13 years old kid, and not an adult passing as a kid, right? I understand that the MC is a assassin raise from childhood to be one, but sometimes it was a bit confusing to have a kid having that inner mologue.
FORBIDDEN LORE - by Geoff "Doc" Swift
There is no previous story to this. Moving Forward mentioned earlier was a Scorpion Empire story :)
Kafka has so far only shown up in XTRO Most Wanted, Assassination Protocol: Kafka and was mentioned in passing in Silent Roar.
And yes, he is supposed to be 13. Hitting that spot isn't easy. The boy is 13, but he has also been trained as an assassin pretty much from birth and I wrote him assuming he is suffering from a form of PTSD and lack of emotional warmth. So he wouldn't exactly think or act like any other 13 year old boy.
Finally, the saga of the Dark One carry on....and i love it!
Well, it's only been a couple of weeks since the last one.
I'm curious to see if people pick up on some of the nuances in both of these new stories. I wrote them with a specific narrative in mind.
A scene at the beginning that discussed the raid would have been an exposition dump and likely gotten the story rejected. I went with something more in media res, as word count and story style count for short pieces like this.
I won't delve into some of your questions, because I think that it would be sort of like explaining a joke or a magic trick. I will say that the other troops in the library are from a faction that was not "active" in such operations at the time. The stylistic choices I made were those that I felt merged BT storytelling with cosmic horror elements from pulp sf days. If I failed, okay, but those were intentional stylistic choices, in which the story and horror take priority over characterization. It won't suit everyone any more than the old stories did, and I expected as much.
Yeah, the little guy is suffering from trauma, and it is reflected in the writting.
The Halsted raid always needed more expansion and I was happy to have it.
Wolf Pelts: somehow, i missed who'd written this story, so i was like, "OH CRAP IT'S THE BLACK MARAUDER!! Y'ALL ARE SOOOO DEAD!" honestly, lance should consider writing under a pen name from here forward when doing BM stuff, just so EVERYONE gets that AHHHH! jump I had. :-)
On a SIDE note, i am really happy that, without working together, we came pretty close on our descriptions of how EI works. I'm super proud of what i did with the Protos, and I'm glad that our work stands side by side, fleshing out EI for readers and making it narratively intresting and not just the "CGI from the cartoon."
Battle of Luthein Centennial: I love the fiction, so these "non-fiction" pieces are always 2nd best to me. That SAID, they are CONSISTANTLY good. Also, Shrapnel is the jumping on point for a LOT of new readers, so I'm happy pieces like this exist to flesh out the lore for new readers. Not everything is for everyone, and that's OK. :-) (again, that said, i DID like it and found it good)Glad you liked it, I enjoyed poking fun at how the Luthien scenario book wasn't always a clean source of information for folks. If you have the book, dig around, you'll see one or two references I used there.
Bullets never stop: I dig it. It feels like an authentic write up of a TV show.Excellent :thumbsup:
I have one more story idea that will pay it all off, but I won't be writing it for a while.
My intention was that no one would know that this was going to be a Marauder story until that moment. The EI thing must be serendipity. I haven't read your story, but I will check it out. What's the title and where is it? With my portrayal, I wanted to show what about EI was addictive, and why it drove people mad. My bout with the shingles informed the latter, and for the former I went with the more human than human approach. I also wanted to delve into the failings of such a system, and how it could be fooled in ways the eyes can't, and use that to drip feed the reader some information. There's a lot more in this story than I think people will catch on to. I have one more story idea that will pay it all off, but I won't be writing it for a while.
Glad you liked it, I enjoyed poking fun at how the Luthien scenario book wasn't always a clean source of information for folks. If you have the book, dig around, you'll see one or two references I used there.
Excellent :thumbsup:
LUTHIEN? my friend, have you SEEN the disaster that is "FASA 1693: Coventry"?? Makes Luth look like a doctrinal thesis! hahahaOh it was on my mental list of other topics to tackle.
Oh it was on my mental list of other topics to tackle.
After all that one can be blamed for the eventual rise of the Second League.
Maybe, one day, when I find a proper way to attack it. >:D
Chaos Campaign: what a weird, wild, wacky scenario! can't wait to try it.
ExoFauna: These game parts KILL IT. Every single issue, they add something fun to the table, and this one is no different. Personally, my fave are the bugs that light your mech up like New York on New Year's, but they are solid across the board. Well done.
Thanks! I haven't been able to sit down and do anything big but I love being able to offer a few ways to tweak games and make them different without totally changing them.
Forbidden Lore: I'm of two minds on this one. I -like- the fact Doc wove a brand-new story in and among a tale already told, and once I realized who the bad guys were, I was like smacking my head like an old V-8 commercial and saying, "weeeell, DUH!" I mean, it's a little scooby-dooish to wear your capes and whites on a secret mission, but I'll let it slide on the "shrapnel is a jumping on point for new readers" and "he didn't have enough words because some arrogant schmuck dropped in a whole novella and ate up all the buffer space." ;-) seriously, it 100% makes sense in lore, and my biggest gripe is I didn't think of it FIRST. ;) ;D that SAID, I have -never- been a fan of "unreliable narrator" stories, and the whole "he got hit with space magic and is spouting prophesies" just... didn't work for me. Again: that's ok. A lot of it hit right, and adding a little spooooooky into the issue is something I really dig. Holiday stuff next issue, and stories full of smooches next year! 8) ;D
My very first thought to this second Bainbridge chapter was Shadowrun's Parazoology/botany/geology. I gleefully await Bainbridge's Guide to Impactful Exominerals.
Still wondering why the Combine never developed mech-sized sandblasters...
Because the sandblasters would also disintegrate in minutes.
Working at that complex, though, you've got to wonder what happens on breezy days...
Last Flight of the Black Condor: This story remided me of OTHER stories, which at first, kinda annoyed me for a reason i couldn't put my finger on. But, as the story went on, it went away and instead, the story felt like putting on an old jacket. I can't really describe it better than that, so I'm sorry for the bad description. it just had the flow of fiction I've grown up with in the past- and I'm not saying it's PERFECT, a courgar painted up like a romulan bird of prey is cheesy in an old 1980s sci-fi way and YET, the writer made it WORK. The characters work, the playlist idea- look, we don't hear enough about music in the BattleTech universe, so anytime we get a glimpse that the arts are still going on, I dig it- i dunno. This story may not work for everyone, but by the end, I had nodding along with it. Well done. (PS: I have loved the tooth of ymir FOREVER because they have such a GREAT name. good to see them in a story!)
I'm literally buying this issue because of Kara's Scorchers getting a write-up. This unit has interested me ever since MWDA introduced it to the clicky game, and I'm excited to see it get fleshed out more. Does anyone here have any thoughts on this write-up?
I am glad you liked it! I have always had the image of this story in my head for years and years. Somewhere between the opening of MechWarrior 4 Vengeance and, I kid you not, the rescue scene in Shrek 2. The music was inspired by the music in that scene in shrek 2 combined with the much more recent Alphabet squadron trilogy of books inspired me on how to write the playlist. This story has been in my head since I was like 15, so maybe that sense hahaha.
Anyone have thoughts on Last Flight of the Black Condor? It was my first short story that wasn't a technical article. I'm curious to see what people thought (good and bad, but be nice :) ).
Forbidden Lore: What an interesting tone for a BTech story. Feels almost like a throwback to the mystic ki energy and phantom Mech plotlines of early Stackpole and Charette. Almost Lovecraftian! I know BT is primarily military SF but I'm happy to see writers push those boundaries!
My intention was that no one would know that this was going to be a Marauder story until that moment. The EI thing must be serendipity. I haven't read your story, but I will check it out. What's the title and where is it? With my portrayal, I wanted to show what about EI was addictive, and why it drove people mad. My bout with the shingles informed the latter, and for the former I went with the more human than human approach. I also wanted to delve into the failings of such a system, and how it could be fooled in ways the eyes can't, and use that to drip feed the reader some information. There's a lot more in this story than I think people will catch on to. I have one more story idea that will pay it all off, but I won't be writing it for a while.
Per the Edict of Severance, any Clanner in the Inner Sphere who could make either a matrilineal or patrilineal claim to a Bloodhouse was allowed to form a new Bloodhouse of that name in the Inner Sphere in the late 3090s, without regard to the claims of Kerensky Cluster-based Clans.
Battle of the Belt: I took a gander at this because, again, Hell's Horses... but I gotta say, this is one of the most unique and interesting scenarios I've ever seen, and I can't *wait* to give this one a whirl!
Okay, now that I finally got my hands on this issue, I'm gonna react to the content that especially interested me.
"A Trial Most Acceptable": This was hands-down not only my favorite story in the issue by a long shot, but it might be my favorite story I've read in BattleTech in years. I'm a sucker for the Hell's Horses, so I was immediately drawn in. I LOVED the dive into ProtoMechWarriors and how they work in practice, something we haven't seen since Randall's "Tears of Blood". As an LGBT player, I appreciated the brief touch on the Clan view of sexuality, and how casual they were not only about sexual relations in general but with *same-sex* relations, something we've all long theorized about but never had many concrete examples of. I really, really enjoyed this story a LOT.
Kudos to both of you on your respective stories. I like the deeper explorations into EI - the benefits and pitfalls. (Thank you to TPTB for publishing the Black Marauder story collection, btw.) Looking forward to that final story in the series. One question though - Lydia Spaatz (nice nod to the WWII USAAF General), the Bloodname list on Sarna says that this one is exclusive to the Cloud Cobras post Reaving? Am I reading this wrong or are we looking at a line that made it out beforehand?
Wait a second, does the patrilineal heritage change of the Edict of Severance also moot any potential issues with Alaric's Bloodname? Assuming there's actually Vlad Ward DNA in there to some extent.
Lydia Spaatz's Bloodname name has nothing at all to do with me needing an aerospace phenotype Bloodname for her, and flipping open FM Warden Clans to check the Snow Ravens' list, but I always habitually confuse the Snow Ravens and Cloud Cobras. Absolutely nothing at all to do with that.
It only applied to Bloodhouses from the non-Invading Clans, allowing them to be reborn as “new” bloodhouses in the Inner Sphere. So Ward wasn’t affected.
Not to derail this excessively, but where can I find this, and does it mean Scorpion bloodnames are fair game as well?
The Scorpions would probably be happy to be in the conversation at all, especially since they have created brand new Bloodhouses over the last few decades.
I know one bloodname the Scorpions should have.......
Craig
Schenker?
It's a shame that the Scorpions don't have any of Ethan Moreau's genetic legacy to be able to start up a Bloodhouse for his lineage. With them not having to answer to the other Clans anymore and taking such steps as straight-up adding Hansa and Nueva Castilian lineages to their programs, it would've been a great time to properly establish a Moreau Bloodhouse.
You don't think the Scorpions wouldn't have stashed his legacy somewhere, just in case? Not to use it, but I'm betting that they do have it.....