Brainrot: The Space Edition
Warm up my Pokeggs please and thanks!
(Oh Jones, why are you doing this? Why? You are not good at these things.)
In an effort to revivify my writing I figure I'll do a series of brain-dumps rather than let things pile up. But first, a meme.
In closing, ask and I'll answer:
1. Tell you why I friended you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, a word etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
6. Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.
7. In return, you must post this in your Lj.
Today's theme is space. Specifically the topic is Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters. I can't talk about space without thinking about the 80's so please strap in and adjust your eyes.
Future men from the motherfucking future
What a rollicking good start! Your eyes are now adjusted. Now we've got a rapport going I'll expose my soft shy nerdy underbelly for a short stint.
This is The Bit Where I Talk About Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters
This is one of the best games I've ever played. It has an amazing level of balance in the versus mode of Super Melee. There are immediate foils to certain types of ships and even then with some careful piloting you can come out on top even in a mis-matched ship scenario. The space combat is great fun and has an arcade feel to it that reminds me of the hours I've sat in front of Bosconian trying to get the score counter to roll over.
The story mode stands out on it's own. It varies in challenge at the start depending on what solar systems you pick to visit and how many enemy ships you encounter. Being conservative of resources and bringing back enough to justify the fuel you spent getting it is important but so is seeking out other alien species and conducting acts of businesslike diplomacy. Another element that interests me is there are no words wasted in the script. Every part of what's written (and thus spoken if you have the voice pack installed) is relevant to the development of the various characters. It's all very tidy. I could learn a thing or two from this quality of writing.
And the open source version is free as beer!
My top three favourite species are the Spathi, VUX, and Androsynth.
The Spathi are absolute sweethearts. Look at how terrified they are of everything! It's so endearing. Sure they're incredibly dangerous when retreating and there's that rumour of the Black Spathi Squadron but for the most part they're a whole race that'd rather stay home today, thanks.
I have this standing suspicion that when Fwiffo got hit with the vegetable cart he pulled a Fred Flintstone and forgot who he was (and to a certain degree what he was which is the truest yellow stripe of coward). Thus, the Black Spathi Squad was born and many space adventures happened and promptly disavowed by The Safe Ones for fear of bringing attention to Spathiwa. Years later Fwiffo regained his memory and continued on as his adorable and unwittingly brave little space-mollusk self.
The VUX are to Star Control 2 what the Romulans are to Star Trek. They are duders you do not want to mess with and have a hard-focused abhorrence of humanity. The thing that seperates the VUX from the cool looking spider-like Ilwrath is the hint of vanity just below the surface interactions with the VUX. Where the Ilwrath are following the edicts of their faith the VUX are happily exterminating humans because they think they're ugly. These insults to humanity's appearance are all coming from a species that looks in all defenition of how we'd percieve things Very Ugly and it gives me pause. You're sat in the same position they're in, considering the other sinfully ugly. It's a sneaky little gotcha that made me consider how I determine beauty at all.
Enter the most deadly and dangerous VUX of them all, Commander ZEX. He doesn't hate humans which you'd think would make things a bit easier. No. This is much worse. I dare you to keep the hairs on the back of your neck from standing up a little when ZEX starts throwing the thinly veiled come-ons at you. He's got a barely bridled case of homo sapienophilia for the Captain and he's got a whole damn mini-fleet at his disposal. Sweat sweat sweat.
The Androsynth oh baaawwwwwwwwww Androsynth ;~;
Made men, the Androsynth were created by humans and essentially used as a race of slaves in the same way replicants had a hard-knock deal in Bladerunner. They were made perfect, beautiful, and unable to reproduce. According to a Q&A session with the boys from Toys For Bob, the Androsynth were meant to be monosexual. It makes me smile to know that there was a small nod to alternate sexualities in the game (that weren't xenosexuality oh ZEX you fiend). Nowadays that kind of thing would likely not get past the ESRB without bumping the game to an excessively higher rating. Or it would all land on the censor's cutting-room floor before even seeing the light of day. Oh we can't imply sexuality but violence! Hey, add some more! Where was I? Right. The Androsynth. THEY ARE SO PRETTY LOOK AT THEM LOOK D:
"Are we not men?"
SO PRETTY. And once again, there's that gotcha of considering the concept of beauty and what I consider beautiful. I was doing some spring cleaning and thinking long and hard about the Androsynth. Here I am looking at these men who are clones of what is probably a single recombo DNA and I think to myself:
"Someone picked that appearance out specifically. They boiled down the concept of human beauty and engineered it in to a distilled form. Here I am appreciating how they look but wouldn't they resent it tremendously? Created to be uniformly handsome in the eyes of the human jerks that have made their lives suck so much?"
I imagined they would retain some degree of bitterness. It's no wonder Hayes and the remaining human forces are scared assless of them. Androsynth destroy humans on sight. No wonder, the way they were treated.
Also the Androsynth have solid references back to Devo which I enjoy because goddamn Devo are awesome.
A QUICK INTERLUDE OF CRAPPY POST-IT NOTE ART
I really haven't had proper time to draw anything fullsize so it all ends up on post-it notes.
On the left is an Androsynth taunting Fwiffo for his wife-like behaviours with the Captain. On the right is ZEX showing the Captain A WHOOOOOOOOLE NEW WORLLLLLLLLLLD. Both are the result of unabashed rp.
Guess who can't decide how Zelnick looks! On the left the Androsynth DOS-1.0 looms over a very easily emotionally manipulated Captain. On the right ZEX finally gets what he wants and he's so happy the world is suddenly on a Batman villain-esuqe angle.
The uncropped page of doodles I posted on my DA. Cut off the bottom part because A) I was still up in the air deciding what kind of shell the Spathi have and B) trademaster Greenish in a rainbow th-th-th-th-thong. That's some hot shit right there.
Also I can't stop associating "I Desire" by Devo with ZEX. This is the kind of ill-refined thought that pops in to my head and I usually spend a couple days on hammering it past the state of early knee-jerk imagination into something richer and more adult-seeming. In this case no, I can't seem to manage because it keeps coming up in rock opera format. The lyrics combined with the voice modulation in the song fits perfectly. It also falls in line with my shameful secret really obvious habit that I daydream of animated music videos set to my favourite songs.
For the record most of the action centers around ZEX animatedly menacing the Captain alternating between making a kind of fun of the reverence he has for the Captain and mocking his military position. This is why most of my thoughts tend to go through a kind of mental post-production because some are a bit shameful. Not in the respect that I'm thinking of implied alien tentacle sex but rather that I'm focusing so carefully on such a shiveringly embarrassing medium.
I really should post this to a StarCon community at some point but I think I'll build up something more sensible than a directionless ramble and a handful of scribbles first. In the meantime GO AND PLAY STAR CONTROL 2 IT'S GOOD SHIT MAN.
(Oh Jones, why are you doing this? Why? You are not good at these things.)
In an effort to revivify my writing I figure I'll do a series of brain-dumps rather than let things pile up. But first, a meme.
In closing, ask and I'll answer:
1. Tell you why I friended you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, a word etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
6. Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.
7. In return, you must post this in your Lj.
Today's theme is space. Specifically the topic is Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters. I can't talk about space without thinking about the 80's so please strap in and adjust your eyes.
Future men from the motherfucking future
What a rollicking good start! Your eyes are now adjusted. Now we've got a rapport going I'll expose my soft shy nerdy underbelly for a short stint.
This is The Bit Where I Talk About Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters
This is one of the best games I've ever played. It has an amazing level of balance in the versus mode of Super Melee. There are immediate foils to certain types of ships and even then with some careful piloting you can come out on top even in a mis-matched ship scenario. The space combat is great fun and has an arcade feel to it that reminds me of the hours I've sat in front of Bosconian trying to get the score counter to roll over.
The story mode stands out on it's own. It varies in challenge at the start depending on what solar systems you pick to visit and how many enemy ships you encounter. Being conservative of resources and bringing back enough to justify the fuel you spent getting it is important but so is seeking out other alien species and conducting acts of businesslike diplomacy. Another element that interests me is there are no words wasted in the script. Every part of what's written (and thus spoken if you have the voice pack installed) is relevant to the development of the various characters. It's all very tidy. I could learn a thing or two from this quality of writing.
And the open source version is free as beer!
My top three favourite species are the Spathi, VUX, and Androsynth.
The Spathi are absolute sweethearts. Look at how terrified they are of everything! It's so endearing. Sure they're incredibly dangerous when retreating and there's that rumour of the Black Spathi Squadron but for the most part they're a whole race that'd rather stay home today, thanks.
I have this standing suspicion that when Fwiffo got hit with the vegetable cart he pulled a Fred Flintstone and forgot who he was (and to a certain degree what he was which is the truest yellow stripe of coward). Thus, the Black Spathi Squad was born and many space adventures happened and promptly disavowed by The Safe Ones for fear of bringing attention to Spathiwa. Years later Fwiffo regained his memory and continued on as his adorable and unwittingly brave little space-mollusk self.
The VUX are to Star Control 2 what the Romulans are to Star Trek. They are duders you do not want to mess with and have a hard-focused abhorrence of humanity. The thing that seperates the VUX from the cool looking spider-like Ilwrath is the hint of vanity just below the surface interactions with the VUX. Where the Ilwrath are following the edicts of their faith the VUX are happily exterminating humans because they think they're ugly. These insults to humanity's appearance are all coming from a species that looks in all defenition of how we'd percieve things Very Ugly and it gives me pause. You're sat in the same position they're in, considering the other sinfully ugly. It's a sneaky little gotcha that made me consider how I determine beauty at all.
Enter the most deadly and dangerous VUX of them all, Commander ZEX. He doesn't hate humans which you'd think would make things a bit easier. No. This is much worse. I dare you to keep the hairs on the back of your neck from standing up a little when ZEX starts throwing the thinly veiled come-ons at you. He's got a barely bridled case of homo sapienophilia for the Captain and he's got a whole damn mini-fleet at his disposal. Sweat sweat sweat.
The Androsynth oh baaawwwwwwwwww Androsynth ;~;
Made men, the Androsynth were created by humans and essentially used as a race of slaves in the same way replicants had a hard-knock deal in Bladerunner. They were made perfect, beautiful, and unable to reproduce. According to a Q&A session with the boys from Toys For Bob, the Androsynth were meant to be monosexual. It makes me smile to know that there was a small nod to alternate sexualities in the game (that weren't xenosexuality oh ZEX you fiend). Nowadays that kind of thing would likely not get past the ESRB without bumping the game to an excessively higher rating. Or it would all land on the censor's cutting-room floor before even seeing the light of day. Oh we can't imply sexuality but violence! Hey, add some more! Where was I? Right. The Androsynth. THEY ARE SO PRETTY LOOK AT THEM LOOK D:
"Are we not men?"
SO PRETTY. And once again, there's that gotcha of considering the concept of beauty and what I consider beautiful. I was doing some spring cleaning and thinking long and hard about the Androsynth. Here I am looking at these men who are clones of what is probably a single recombo DNA and I think to myself:
"Someone picked that appearance out specifically. They boiled down the concept of human beauty and engineered it in to a distilled form. Here I am appreciating how they look but wouldn't they resent it tremendously? Created to be uniformly handsome in the eyes of the human jerks that have made their lives suck so much?"
I imagined they would retain some degree of bitterness. It's no wonder Hayes and the remaining human forces are scared assless of them. Androsynth destroy humans on sight. No wonder, the way they were treated.
Also the Androsynth have solid references back to Devo which I enjoy because goddamn Devo are awesome.
A QUICK INTERLUDE OF CRAPPY POST-IT NOTE ART
I really haven't had proper time to draw anything fullsize so it all ends up on post-it notes.
On the left is an Androsynth taunting Fwiffo for his wife-like behaviours with the Captain. On the right is ZEX showing the Captain A WHOOOOOOOOLE NEW WORLLLLLLLLLLD. Both are the result of unabashed rp.
Guess who can't decide how Zelnick looks! On the left the Androsynth DOS-1.0 looms over a very easily emotionally manipulated Captain. On the right ZEX finally gets what he wants and he's so happy the world is suddenly on a Batman villain-esuqe angle.
The uncropped page of doodles I posted on my DA. Cut off the bottom part because A) I was still up in the air deciding what kind of shell the Spathi have and B) trademaster Greenish in a rainbow th-th-th-th-thong. That's some hot shit right there.
Also I can't stop associating "I Desire" by Devo with ZEX. This is the kind of ill-refined thought that pops in to my head and I usually spend a couple days on hammering it past the state of early knee-jerk imagination into something richer and more adult-seeming. In this case no, I can't seem to manage because it keeps coming up in rock opera format. The lyrics combined with the voice modulation in the song fits perfectly. It also falls in line with my shameful secret really obvious habit that I daydream of animated music videos set to my favourite songs.
For the record most of the action centers around ZEX animatedly menacing the Captain alternating between making a kind of fun of the reverence he has for the Captain and mocking his military position. This is why most of my thoughts tend to go through a kind of mental post-production because some are a bit shameful. Not in the respect that I'm thinking of implied alien tentacle sex but rather that I'm focusing so carefully on such a shiveringly embarrassing medium.
I really should post this to a StarCon community at some point but I think I'll build up something more sensible than a directionless ramble and a handful of scribbles first. In the meantime GO AND PLAY STAR CONTROL 2 IT'S GOOD SHIT MAN.