The Business: Toy Galaxy Shows How The Sausage Is Made

I'd mentioned this channel when they did their comprehensive video on Robotech, but today we're talking Voltron.

Put Toy Galaxy into your regular feed; they are very good not only on talking about toys of yesteryear but--and this is where it matters to indie creators now--how the sausage got made.

Why? Because, especially in Japan, it hasn't changed that much. Even today, entertainment aimed at children remains tied to the need to push related merchandise; what that merchandise is has changed, but the business model has not, because--especially outside of Japan, where manga sales matter significantly--this is where the real money is in the business.

For those of us looking to get out into the mainstream, this is something to account for and monitor; reference my recent posts about MoShow Toys and their moves into original Intellectual Property as one such development. This includes, for us, making film and TV productions happen.

Look at what happened to make Voltron. They tried to capitalize on an extant market in the United States for super robots. They grabbed three shows that failed in Japan, and then they unsuccessfully blended the three together--something that Harmony Gold would know to avoid--to make Voltron. It's not a surprise how they failed; there was no attempt to communicate with the audience that the Go Lion team would rotate off-stage in favor of Dairugger XV so it came as a shock. (Compare to HG, where Southern Cross got set up before they finished the Macross arc when making Robotech and then explicitly set off as a generation later.)

That's right, they screwed up basic production so bad that they sabotaged their own project. The audience, unaware of the shift, didn't cotton to it and Nielsen ratings proved it- followed by merch sales. (Which is sad; the DRXV toys--now under "Soul of Chogukin"--are all right; so is Go Lion.)

As for Albegas, the toys are all that got over; I had the blue robot as a kid, and by itself it was a solid toy made of metal with some plastic parts. The first two episodes, subtitled into English, are online legally if you want to see them. It's not hard to see why it did not do well in Japan; it was mediocre in a time of Super Robot saturation, so it has nothing going for it.

In all three cases, the Voltron adaptation was what made them actually popular worldwide. We wouldn't even be talking about Albegas today if not for its aborted inclusion in this adaptation, and we'd never see the original Go Lion or Dairuggar XV outside of aging fansubs. Much like how Super-Dimension Calvary Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA were saved by Robotech, so it is here.

Go ahead, watch the originals. Sure, the adaptation sanitized things for the target audience. Yes, there is some Flanderization. However, once you see what was originally aired in Japan and you account for the way the United States was in the early 1980s, you'll admit--however reluctantly--that the changes made were for the better and turned what were a trio of mediocre super robot shows into things that actually get remembered and enjoys premium toys sales. That I cannot say of other adaptations, such as what Gatchaman suffered.

And if you're not into anime/manga, Toy Galaxy has plenty of Western properties covered--original Battlestar Galactica, for example--given the same treatment. The Tron and Last Starfighter videos are just as worthwhile as this one on Voltron.

My Life In Fandom: "The Last Church", A Full 40K Fan Film

This is a Warhammer 40K fan film. It focuses on an incident in the last year or so before the Emperor completed his conquest of Earth and began unifying Terran Man under his rule. Remember that, officially, the Emperor is a militant atheist. He is also a super-powered godlike being. If one were to regard this story and its perspective, it would be as Imperial propaganda that had long ago fallen out of favor due to the rise of the worship of the Emperor.

I do not know anything about the creator.

I do know a subtlety when I see it. This? This is a very subtle commentary on the need for Man to worship. If they do not worship God, then they will worship some idol in God's place- including ideas.

There is another observation here, and since I have sweet fuck-all to lose I'll state it plainly: The Emperor is the Anti-Christ.

Here is a god-like being. He wields power far surpassing what Man can achieve on his own. He is apparently immortal--remember, this is before Horus struck him down and forced his confinement to the Golden Throne--and apparently has no known mortal father. Yet he denies that God even exists, and actively crushes all religions when encountered. He takes those men that pledge themselves to him, and he reshapes their fleshy forms into unstable giants wielding armor and weapons that are massive destructive.

Those that do not submit willingly to him, he exterminates. Those he conquers find their myths, their cultures, ground into dust and with it their identities as a people. They are, instead, subsumed into the Imperial Way and made Imperial subjects. Once the Thunder Warriors are purged and replaced with the Astartes Legions, the women of these conquered peoples willingly yield their sons to him so they may gain favor- a practice encouraged to the present time of the 42nd Millenium.

The state he creates has only the appearance of glory and prosperity, gilding a cage of slavery by various guises to the galactic empire he created to sustain his vision of Man Without God- Man under his eternal rule. Complete with occassional outbreaks of violence to justify continued repression and oppression, and a totally fixed Big War to ensure that such justifications keep happening.

Games Workshop didn't intend this. Not in the 1980s. Not now. Not ever. Nonetheless, they creates a terrific and compelling vision of the future under the Anti-Christ. Yet they sanctioned this story, if not this specific film adaptation, so this is in the game's canon of lore. You love to see it when the enemy scores an own-goal.

If I were sufficiently skilled AND ambitious, I'd write the story of a successful authentic overthrow. How? By telling the story of the Second Coming, completing what GW unwittingly began.

My Life As A Gamer: BattleTech's ComStar, A More Realistic Spacing Guild

Today's BattleTech shitpost comes courtesy of those mad lads at the Black Pants Legion.

Yes, ComStar really is that big into the fuckery. Yes, that is because ComStar is the sole Inner Sphere power that actually has a legitimate claim to be the successor to the former Star League. Yes, ComStar has the intelligence--they're worse than all IRL Big Tech in spying on you, first via SIGINT and then HUMINT--and the might (they preserved Star League tech and how to make it) to back up that claim, which is why they--and only they--were able to stop the Clans at Tukkayid.

And yes, they damn well know where old Star League relics lie dormant.

ComStar is the Inner Sphere's Deep State, which is why when they factionalized everything immediately went three miles deep into the shitter. They are the Spacing Guild of BattleTech, holders of a mission-critical infrastructure monopoly (FTL communications), with all the power that such a position brings. Once they go down, everyone and everything goes with them.

It's no accident that ComStar is routinely presented as a psuedo-religion. They occupy the role of the Church in the game's Middle Ages-inspired world-building model, just as Dune's Spacing Guild does.

My Life In Fandom: The Goofus & Gallent Of 40K Lore

You watched and loved Astartes and you want more. Warhammer 40K has plenty of folks on YouTube talking about it. For lore, however, two consistently deliver for me.

Luetin09 sets the gold standard for 40K lore. If you love the work Black Pants Legion does with BattleTech, you'll appreciate Luetin's work on 40K. Fantastic stuff, damn near AMSR level of radio voice, and he commands a library of 40K art to go with it that just plain owns. You'll not go wrong just binging his 40K lore videos, which you can do here.

And then there's the Aussie, Majorkill.

Majorkill is when you want solid lore stripped of pretension and deliver with irreverence sufficient to get the Inquisition on your ass. He does Warhammer Fantasy too. He is, as one might expect, the Goofus here and he's damned good at it. Solid laugh factor, and if it's enough to get on Ego Queen Alexis' shitlist that's an endorsement. Majorkill's got a video on 40K lore channels, which is worth a watch in own right; funny and useful.

And yes, there are others- not just Arch doing 40K when he's not shitting on Games Workshop, being smeared as a racist (LOL), or doing streams/videos on other stuff (incl. Fantasy). But, if you're just getting into the lore side of 40K these two will do for getting started.

My Life As A Writer: While The Hounds of Nimrod Run Loose

Today's Star Knight lore post is something that covers what's going on before and during "Hounds of Nimrod", but it doesn't get much attention due to it being irrelevant to the story told. Instead, what's present in the book is there purely to ensure that readers have some idea of what went into the events of the following book, "Siege of Second Salisbury".

Those events involve the rebuilding of Red Eyes' fleet.

New Edinburgh, in terms of numbers, was a pasting for the pirates. However, it succeeded in its primary objective: to prove that a non-state actor could effectively contest a targeted state on its terms. All Red Eyes would need to seal the deal to bring more rivals under his banner was something unique and valuable, something only he could provide and thus something he could sell dearly- and that price was fealty.

Mentioned elsewhere, and debuting in "Hounds", is one of those things: the Endiku class of Limited Production Ace Custom mecha. Specifically, we're seeing Dashing Jack's unit as it's the first off the line. However, the other thing that's going to be mentioned is that Red Eyes is--for now--keeping the Hobgoblin variant mecha to himself and his chief subordinates (i.e. Dashing Jack) while freely sharing the Goblin with his new allies.

And by "freely sharing", that includes full production specifications. The result is that this mecha is soon to become ubiquitous across Galactic Christendom as every last workshop, guerrilla fabricator, and shady factory will churn them out. This also means that variations are going to proliferate, as much due to build constraints on materials as due to operator and operational preferences: missile boats, maritime variants, perma-hardwired pilots (ala 40K Dreadnoughts), and so much more.

The only catch? They are to share their modifications with Red Eyes and the rest of the Armada. The reason is said to be to ensure that good modifications spread swiftly and standardize. The real reason is that the Architect wants the data so he can adjust his own designs for the mecha he's producing for the next step in the plan to realize the Tower of Babel and its Satanic promise.

The same catch applies to the Endiku line, but that's strictly concealed by Red Eyes and the Architect.

As for whom these new pirates are, they are exactly what you expect: the biggest rival bands of traitors, heretics, losers, misfits, lunatics, outsiders, and others that just can't bend the knee to God. Smaller bandit and pirate groups are struggling to finds ways to contact Red Eyes, wanting a piece of the action, and soon enough will get through and sign on to not only recover the losses but greatly expand the Armada's size and strength. Second Salisbury is the first time the entire fleet operates together.

As with Red Eyes, these pirates mostly operate from vessels either stolen or rebuilt from scrap and so are their mecha. The quality of both increase with the status of their captains/pilots. Signing on with Red Eyes allows those vessels to be upgraded into proper warfighting vessels instead of glorified commerce raiders, though crew quality remains an issue.

The other issue with these bands signing on is that Red Eyes is now in command of a patchwork quilt with non-standard command and control practices and structures (if any), and as such they cannot be relied upon to act outside of their ordinary operational parameters. (e.g. Call the Narn Bat Squad when you need a boarding action, but don't mix them with anyone else if you can help it.) They also rely on promises of loot and other plunder to sustain their enthusiasm for the enterprise and maintain willingness to accept orders from someone other than their own.

In short, Red Eyes' warlord ambitions are far from being fully realized. Genghis Khan he is not, not yet.

My Life As A Writer: No Idiot Balls Allowed

When it comes to my fiction, I have a a couple of rules. One of them is this: "The people in charge are not idiots."

This applies regardless of their moral character. Stupid heroes are just as offensive to me as stupid villains, and I abhor the idea of "Because Plot" as the justification for an otherwise unbelievable event. Believable organizations have to function. They can be imperfect in their function, but they have to function and that means those running that organization have to know what they are doing.

This can be difficult to get across in prose. I struggle with it. Badly-done it is just as much "Because Plot" as stupid character inexplicably succeeding for no good reason because otherwise the plot doesn't advance. Properly done, it adds value to the book because it encourages re-reading to find the tells that build up to the logical conclusion that a reader would miss the first time through and gives readers something positive to talk about- and that enthusiasm, in the long term, results in more readers and more sales.

And I want people to read, and re-read, my books,

Of course, it can also go into absurdity, which works when presented properly. Example:

God help me put the words where they need to be to get the job done right.

On a side note, I have opened a store on Redbubble. Only offering cards, posters, and prints for now, and you can find options for the cover to Reavers here.

My Life In Fandom: Tex Talks BattleTech - The Origin of the BattleMech

Proving yet again that Catalyst Game Labs (et. al.) should be cutting Black Pants Legion some fat checks for single-handedly doing more than anyone else to market and promote BattleTech and MechWarrior, here is a brand-new video on the early history of the Inner Sphere and how BattleMechs came to be. Put aside your Netflix; this is another feature-length presentation and it is so worth it.

These videos are like crack for historians who are also fiction fans. Observations:

• The development of paradigm-changing technological breakthroughs really do follow this non-linear process.
• "Weapon of Terror" vs. "Weapon of Elimination" is not an SG-1 trope.
• That entire thing about how formalizing war normalizes it? You better believe that this is real, is a thing, and has played out several times since the Renaissance. The exact same process plays out every time too, down to the rationalization for violating it.
• "Monopoly of Organization" is older than our present, but until it's broken it is the future.

And then there's the post-script.

• Oh Jesus, nearly 20 minutes of hilarious fake ads and credits. Steiner Assault Squad delivers.
• Celebrity D&D. This dunks on Critical Role (et. al.) hard.
• Calls begging for non-typecast work. I bet that happens more than we think.
• Take note of all those artists. They are proven mech guys. You folks what want original mech work done, you now have leads. GO!

Star Knight Lore: The Sunday School Summary of the Cataclysm

Something like this is commonly taught in the parishes of Galactic Christendom regarding the Cataclysm.

The Tower of Babel was not the only attempt to bring all Mankind under the rule of one whom would rule them all, and holding them in thrall attempt to challenge God. However, every attempt that threatened to succeed would be confounded and the hubris punished, some more than others. The most severe to date was the attempt that ended the Old World and brought down the Cataclysm.

Those who long ago betrayed their Father in Heaven and threw in with the Architect of the Tower persisted. Over generations they would lie and scheme their way through all the nations of Man and seize control of every kingdom. In each corner of the world, they seized control over sites of power. In those sites blasphemous rites would continue, and as the power of Man ascended with his mastery of the arts and sciences, so did the potency of this network of blackhearts.

They would create influence networks from the vain, the ambitious, the greedy, and those given over to lusts unnatural. They would arrange for these vices to be slaked in return for these petty pawns renouncing God and writing their names in the black books kept by the servants of the Enemy. The cultists would use, abuse, and discard these pawns time and again over the generations and the complexity of these influence networks soon attained a critical mass as a result.

The cultists selected twelve of the greatest cities in the world. They used their network of pawns to arrange for weapons of great power to be concealed therein. They used the mastery of time to coordinate the detonation of those weapons at a time of great sorcerous import, conducting a mass human sacrifice of billions with the aim of bringing their great master back into this world whole and restored.

But God will not be mocked. He saw this coming. He turned their evil against them, and against those others so corrupt that they would not turn away from their evil.

The ritual scoured them from the face of the earth, as it scoured all that was unclean in His sight, a deluge of fire to match that of water.

And of those who were not burned, they faced their own dead returned to claim them as now they were the minions of Legion. It was a time of scouring, but not without mercy. Those that learned humility would be saved, while those that persisted in their pride would be consumed, and all the evils that the Enemy's thralls concealed was revealed, and now revealed could be destroyed- and in time, one by one, they were.

This is the myth told of the Cataclysm, leading up to the emergence of Ken (and his Sons) as well as the return of the Church from the City of God under Pope Simon I, the Miner's Son, albeit abridged- consider it the Sunday School Summary.

Is this myth literally true? Yes. A global network of Satanists created a front network of Globalists. They arranged for nukes to go off in the top twelve most populated cities in the world, timed a human sacrifice ritual to coincide with their synchronized detonation, and it all went wrong due to divine intervention. A powerful demon broke through instead of Satan and started the zombie apocalypse, and those who endured long enough to put him down were those humble enough to accept help from a zombie-eating mutant freak (Ken) and the Catholic Church (Simon).

There were others calling themselves saviors, and all of them turned out to be evil Dark Lords: sorcerers, Nephilim, etc. They would be fought after Legion went down, and they would be fought again and again as the Church lead a faithful and resurgent remnant in one Crusade after the next- first to reclaim Earth, and then pushing outward from there. About a thousand years later, Mankind dominates the galaxy. Deus Vult.

And yet the evil persists; they're trying again.

My Life As A Writer: Warfare In Galactic Christendom

Given what the settlement and development patterns are, warfare follows an equally predictable pattern of expression. This is because the objective is to capture existing holdings intact, rather than to just destroy them outright, so that constrains what means may be employed significantly. Manpower must be deployed and expended on both sides, which means that vast fleets need to be built and maintained, crews and marines recruited and trained, with all of the economics involved in establishing and hardening those logistical trains.

It also means that serious warfare of the sort known within Galactic Christendom, as in real life, as Total War is rare and serious. Such occasions are usually tied to the Church calling for a crusade, and there hasn't been any such event in living memory by the time of the dawn of the 4th Millenium. That's because Total War involves planet-killing weapons and techniques, from something as simple as fleets towing and launching asteroids at a target planet until its surface is ashes and dust to as awe-inspiring as moon-sized space stations being given Faster Than Light engines and equipped with planet-destroying weapon systems or weaponized solar systems wherein the star's output can be utilized as a cosmic super weapon.

The result is that warfare is mostly naval. Even if resistance on the ground or on the inside of a station is difficult, if time permits the defending population can be besieged and starved out, and if the invaders did their job then they have local supremacy such that the defenders have no realistic expectation of relief arriving in time. For planetary invasions, this process can take longer depending on how well-prepared defenders are; if the defenders can avoid orbital bombardment and maintain logistics, they can withstand an englobement and compel the invaders to attack their hard points while they resort to guerilla-style actions to wear invaders down in the manner of the historic Fabian Strategy.

The wars of recent years have been more constrained than this, being border skirmishes, pirate-hunting campaigns, and counter-insurgency campaigns with all of the shifts in methods and means one expects in such circumstances. Military procurements and practices have shifted accordingly, resulting in some degree of complacency and a rise in resorting to tournaments of wargames to satisfy the desires of militaries to maintain readiness.

The unfortunate consequence of a long period of relative peace has to been create an illusion of military expertise covering a complacency that would be shattered by the first actor to act contrary to, and in defiance of, this present paradigm with brutal and decisive military action. At the dawn of the 4th Millenium, that time had arrived, and from a quarter none expected. The raid on New Edinburgh was the Proof of Concept. The actions on and near Earth was the gut-check. The Siege of Second Salisbury was the watershed event, and of all the warfare that followed none hammered this home like the Siege of New Vienna.

My Life As A Writer: Trade In Galactic Christendom

Galactic Christendom is interstellar feudalism. That doesn't mean interstellar trade doesn't happen. It does mean that current global economic norms do not apply. There is no production intended for export. What trade does exist is when production in excess of local economic needs is sent out to other systems. To prevent a recurrence of things like the East India Trade Company and today's mega-corporations, the Church insists upon usury being banned and each nation and kingdom maintaining self-sufficiency. Given the reality of interstellar exploration, colonization, and settlement this is not as hard to push and maintain as one might think.

The other thing that the Church is unbending about is that economic activity not become an idol to itself, but remain a tool used to fulfill Man's duties and nothing more, and as such it is not unheard of for Church officials to put an Interdict on the houses of a concern due to succumbing to greed and avarice in the manner of past examples- and woe to those who attempt to bribe their way around such a sanction. The Church remembers why Luther nailed those thesis, even if most alive do not.

Money in Galactic Christendom is actual real money--gold and silver coin--with local mints stamping local coin for use in local commerce. Interstellar coin usually is accepted for value depending upon purity and weight alone, and most domains make exchanging foreign coin to local coin easy for travelers going through established transit hubs. Interstellar trade, due to the major logistics hurdle involved, deals mostly in Money of Account and settles physical asset transfers on a frequency determined by treaty; annual is most common, but semi-annual or quarterly settlements occur for closer trade partners. Annual account settlements usually go through Earth as a matter of convenience. Resuming their historical role, the Church charges the Templars with the role of safeguarding this financial system's integrity- down to physically guarding the asset shipments.

Piracy in space and on the seas of planets remains a problem, as does banditry on land, inhibiting trade. It remains an issue because unscrupulous rulers and ambitious players use them as deniable assets against their enemies, so there is often covert assistance of some sort for any successful reaver, but these criminal enterprises rarely go beyond a small area of operation due to these outside ties constraining their operations.

That changed with Red Eyes, but that's what the books are for.

My Life As A Writer: What a Mature System Looks Like In Galactic Christendom

Galactic Christendom is a star-faring civilization. This means not only that Mankind has spread to planets beyond our own solar system, but that each settled system becomes a very dense network of planetside habitats (surface and subsurface), orbital habitats, and space stations in every possible Lagrange point in that system. Let's look at what that means in practice.

Using the home of Mankind--Terra--as an example of a mature system development, let's start with the settlement locations. Each planet is saturated with orbital facilities in addition to its planetside settlements and developments. Most of them use the O'Neill cylinder style popularized by Mobile Suit Gundam and Babylon 5, and they are built not as single entities but in large clusters arranged to facilitate mutual defense from hazards both natural and otherwise. These are not small stations. Each can hold a standing population of over a few million and transient populations of nearly as many. (Most of these are pilgrims, merchants, or out-system nobles visiting estates in the system.)

Due to the large number of celestial bodies with interacting orbits in the system--moons, planets, and the Sun itself--there is a massive number of Lagrange points wherein yet more space station clusters can be constructed and sustained due to the stability of the gravitational forces therein. Frontier systems usually focus on saturating the primary planet's points before spreading out (e.g. New Edinburgh), while mature ones will have hundreds of space colonies at every point. Over time some of these points, being so remote from the rest, either become nests of political or religious trouble or are staked out by officials specifically to prevent that from happening.

This vast, spread-out population within a solar system would not hold together with a unified sense of identity if it were not for the speed of both transit and information. The latter allows localities to maintain connections with the wider system community, and thereby through to even larger polities. The former means that travel in-system isn't so far that it becomes nigh-impossible to respond to local emergencies in a timely manner.

This is because a logical consequence of mapping out these Lagrange point systems is that savvy and skilled navigators can quickly navigate the fastest routes, some sticking to safe means and the more hot-blooded resorting to far more dangerous--but faster--means to get from here to there.

The last big population presence in-system is in the asteroid belts of the system, especially the mega-belt between Mars and Jupiter. Here is where asteroid-based colonies, using techniques originally pioneered for settling Earth's moon, are the norm. By the 4th Millenium, even these enjoy the benefit of artificial gravity and so don't resort to the same means that the cylinder-styled colonies do. The sizes vary, and rarely do you get one so large as to make a million-strong population viable, but that of a village or a small town are found in this belt and in the asteroid clusters elsewhere in-system.

You will find these settlement patterns repeated throughout Galactic Christendom, and the result is a predictable flow of traffic between points therein. Therefore most of the actual space of a solar system is rendered irrelevant; as there is nothing there to exploit, and nothing to conceal your presence, there is no reason to be there. The practical star-farer, therefore, conceives of systems only in terms of points of interests and distance between them.

And as for the common man, unless his is a family whose trade requires travel or he's either on campaign or pilgrimage, "far away" means "across the system" and "that place I'd like to go someday" would be interstellar in scope and scale.

#StarKnightSaga Lore: The Court of Stars

MOVED to the Study.

#StarKnightSaga Lore: Terra, Center of Galactic Christendom

MOVED to the Study.

Star Knight Lore: The Sons of Ken

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#StarKnightSaga Lore: Loveheart

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#StarKnightSaga Lore: The Dragoon

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The Aesthetics of #StarKnight - Overview

The technology of Galactic Christendom, while often fantastic by today's standards, is not of uniform development. Part of this is historic. When the nations went their separate ways in colonizing the galaxy, they left at different times and met different situations along the way to their eventual destinations.

Some of their colonies failed, some became lost for a time and only recently returned to the galactic fellowship, and some suffered losses that destroyed previous capacity or retarded existing ones. Couple this with an ethic that emphasizes local economy over galactic trade, and an aesthetic that prioritizes wise use of local resources--natural and Man alike--over creating the stereotypical steel-and-chrome trope of Science Fiction.

In short, this is what you should be expecting out of Galactic Christendom:

#StarKnightSaga Lore: The Barsoom War College

MOVED to the Study.

#StarKnightSaga Lore: Enkidu

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Narrative Warfare: Tragedy & Hope On "A Casual View of America: The Home Letters of Salomon de Rothschild, 1859-1861"

It's been a long while since Tragedy & Hope put out something normie-friendly on their YouTube channel, but that happened a few days ago. It's relevant to our present situation in the United States, and thus throughout the Western world in varying degrees. At just under 90 minutes, this podcast is less than your average Premier League match and a far better use of your time. Not light viewing, so be clean and sober; have your notepads handy. You're going to learn something today.

Book Tour of "A Casual View of America: The Home Letters of Salomon de Rothschild, 1859-1861" Edited by Signumd Diamond and Published by Stanford University Press, 1961.

The video description has links to Richard Grove's sources as well as the gear he used to make this video happen. If you prefer BitChute, there is a link at the YT page to the BitChute account.

This a Narrative Warfare post because the podcast is about how one of the most influential families in world history manipulated what information gets out, how, and why regarding a past event (The American Civil War) and compares it to contemporary parallels threatening a repeat of that event. That is the essence of what Narrative Warfare is, so that's why it has that categorization.