Legionnaire

[teal abyss]

he's 100% referenced as John Creighton Harrison II in the Black Throne incident report

specifically "Director General John Creighton Harrison II (Long May He Reign)"

[plucky brook]

It's

The lineage:
John Creighton Harrison I
John David Harrison II
John Creighton-Cruz Harrison III

iirc

Stupid Clones, Stupid Repeating Names.

[teal abyss]

okay it looks like the HA FG disagrees with itself

because yes he is also called John David Harrison on pg16

[plucky brook]

Got it, throw rocks at Miguel XD

I can 100% understand this happening. Keeping these names separate is a pain.

[teal abyss]

okay, panic over

[plucky brook]

Also: Man, I really want to make a 'Finding Out Is Catching Up To Fucking Around' meme with RA and JHII.

[teal abyss]

do it!

[plucky brook]

To be fair, even if it was a problem it's a remarkably small one. Not like me being forever unable to remember on the first try if it's Incorporeal, Immaterial or Intangible 😛

[vital plume]

JCH: YOU KNOW WHAT FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR MOON AND FUCK YOUR LEMONS TOO PORTAL 2 LEMON RANT

RA: hehe human go blast of gore

I'm sorry that just happened in my brain

[teal abyss]

unrelated I am still so inordinately pleased with one of my characters who is Joanna Creighton-Djokovic Harrison, a decimal clone whose line got sidelined after the Creighton-Cruz kid ascended

she has big ol' daddy issues

[vital plume]

Wonder why

[teal abyss]

also because I am a trash human who could not resist, she can and does shorten her name to Joanna Djokovic

[vital plume]

I mean based

[stoic moth]

The firmament halls are (to my understanding) tech as are ansibles and hardlight weapons. The Aun use tech to boost firmament effects. When Metat is in realspace they need less people per tech to power them.

[tired forge]

Who is Djokovic? I don't actually know the reference, I just have the instinct slam the femmeheckyeah button when I see.

[teal abyss]

Joanna Djokovic 😎

like I said, I'm a trash human

(in this particular backstory, Lara Djokovic was an Armory ranked noble whose family was granted Decimal Honours, but the name is an excuse to make the reference more than anything else)

[robust shadow]

lul

i did a similar thing with a character in i think pathfinder once?

[glacial ember]

Oh wow, I thought this was some well hidden slight against Novak Djokovic, I was like, "there's only one famous Djokovic right? What else could this be!" And it turns out that my tennis brain rot has exceeded my JoJo brain rot.

mostly because I stopped watching after part 2

[tired forge]

Ah didn't see the highlighted jo. Was confused

[surreal owl]

One day we can hope for an SRD haha

[sleek monolith]

yeah but it's good when your PLAYERS EMPHATICALLY say "NO BONDS" to you

which I know is weird around here. But nyeh

[glacial ember]

Like, I get it, the simplicity of the core narrative rules is pretty nice if that's what you're going for.

[teal abyss]

Honestly I don't understand why they'd do it or why that would be a good thing, but each to their own I guess

as long as they know what they want

[sleek monolith]

they honestly offered, that it's because the foundry sheets don't have bonds, and most of them only use Comp/Con to level up and get share codes, while preferring the foundry sheets.

just as a follow up

[teal abyss]

Hmm. Yeah it's frustrating that the VTTs haven't caught up, but I guess those require actual members of the community to get off their butts and contribute. One day I'd still like to update the Roll20 sheet which is functional but lacking in certain areas, but it's a big time sink

[sleek monolith]

i would... honestly help but alot of that is very far over my head when I've barely learned what layers are in GIMP

[teal abyss]

I guess this is one of those things where having multiple monitors helps, I usually keep the VTT open on one, discord and a pop-out character sheet on a second, and comp/con + rulebooks on monitor three. So I'm definitely not a typical user

[glacial ember]

The power of multi monitors should not be understated. Multi monitors is the best.

[wary lava]

I desire multiple monitors for my next setup

[teal abyss]

Honestly just incredible for productivity. When I'm writing I typically keep the main doc on 1, my notes doc on 2, and all of my reference stuff (books, wiki pages, etc) on 3. Maximising the content that stays visible and minimising switching keeps me on task so much more effectively

I would have more monitors but I think I'm at the limit of what I can physically handle

[glacial ember]

We see kat in 5 years, with her setup, a veritable wall of monitors, each with a different reference document. "Now this is how you write a 3rd party lancer supplement"

[ocean lantern]

Pretty much, I have two monitors and if I had the room and money I would have more

[sleek monolith]

I can't afford a second monitor XD. Nor have the space

[teal abyss]

if I could get some extra arms then I could channel that unreleased Shadefish art of the hacker

[teal abyss]

I decided to give the Legionnaire itch page a little bit of a revamp. What does everyone think?
https://kastark.itch.io/legionnaire

[vital plume]

Very nice!

Looks clean from a cursory skim anyway

[rigid canopy]

Looks really good. Well organized, descriptive without verbosity, and hits the highlights of the book.

[narrow lynx]

ooh fancy

[teal abyss]

No more default theme here, this book deserves better

[wary lava]

Looks fancier!

[teal abyss]

oh fuck me I think I may have a title for my next project, like a bolt of lightning from the aether

Shadow of the Wolf

it's too fucking good, I can't not use it

[plucky brook]

oooh, any planned themes or going to retrofit something for the name?

[teal abyss]

yeah, I have a strong idea of what I want to do (whether it'll turn out like that in reality I'm not sure)

[plucky brook]

Cool

[teal abyss]

but basically an adventure module set in the Karrakin Cavalry College

[plucky brook]

Oooh, very fun.

Sounds like a very social-heavy game for Lancer.

(Which to be fair, as someone who used to take part in Winter Court games, I am 100% down for)

[teal abyss]

four word pitch: Dune Meets Top Gun

[north roost]

we talking Dune Dune or Movie Dune?

[teal abyss]

I have not actually seen Movie Dune (at least, the recent one) so I couldn't tell you, I guess that means the former by default

[plucky brook]

So I'm hearing 'lots of sharp smiles and sharper knives' 😛

[teal abyss]

yes, a game about Baronic politics and the young people who are ground up beneath the war machine whose wheels are nobility and glory

all the while with the spectre of the Dawnline Shore hanging over everything and everyone

hence, the title

[robust shadow]

oooo

[plucky brook]

Interesting, so looking more on the grim end than dashing knighthood end of Baronic interpretations. Makes sense.

[teal abyss]

in particular: showing how the dashing knighthood depiction is a vicious, appalling lie that is sold to prop up systems of power and oppression and abuse

y'all know my writing by now; there is no possible universe in which I'd depict being a baronic noble as a good thing

it's a game where you sell your players on getting to be a dashing knight and at the end they want to tear down the entire system that they exist within

[plucky brook]

Fair, as long as you're not really deceiving the players over 'this is a dashing knight game' that sounds like a very fun premise. I look forward to seeing how it turns out.

👍

[teal abyss]

I don't consider that deception, so much as it's showing folks the consequences of the fantasy they've chosen. You can still be a dashing hero and embody the positive ideals that folks associate with nobility. It's not a game that says "lmao you're secretly evil", it's a game that says "you might want to check your privilege and use your power for good" which I think cuts to the heart of what Lancer is about

[stoic moth]

I think at least hinting that this is going to subvert some romantic notions of knights and nobles is probably a good idea when pitching it to players

[plucky brook]

That's fair. I tend to put a very hard line between 'player' and 'character' so I lean more towards 'even if the characters don't know that's the theme, players should'.

[stoic moth]

Or at least a "how do y'all feel about surprises"

[teal abyss]

Oh yeah for sure, I don't plan for this to be a surprise to anyone reading it

[stoic moth]

Like this as a pitch is perfectly sufficient to me to make clear that I wasn't signing up for Arthurian romance genre

[plucky brook]

To be fair, Arthurian Romance is pure shitshow. 😛

'Every one of you is a trashfire of a person and two entirely separate ones of you are accurately described as Invincible Cuckoldry Knights. You also are the two held up as paragons of love.'

(Sorry, Arthurian Stuff is a bit of a passion of mine)

[stoic moth]

haha no problem. It looks like I'm not using the right literary genre then

Maybe I mean the Disneyfied version of Arthur 😛

[plucky brook]

Eh, you're not entirely wrong, it's just that sort of romance has a lot of thematic links to how love is wonderful but it's more about loving from afar than actually doing anything in-person because the tragedy makes the love spicier.

But to go back to the actual thing being talked about:

I think putting the 'dune' part front and center will do a lot to let people know the planned tone.

Though it may also result in 'Oh, you guys are Dickbags, not people who will want to overthrow the system' 😛

I think this piece of art I got sorta gives my general opinions on Baronic Security Forces 😛

[stoic moth]

Yeah a lot of the nobility in Dune seem pretty OK with the structures of power weirdly enough

But that doesn't mean PCs can't be better!

[plucky brook]

A lot of it is that even when someone's an underdog in Dune they're almost always like...a person of power and influence who's lost it and wants to reclaim it. We rarely see Dune from the perspective of people who never had power, save briefly as they're used as tools for said powerful.

They don't want to get rid of the boot, they're checking to see if their foot fits

[teal abyss]

yeah a key throughline in this is going to be how other people want to force you to become cogs in a very large, very old machine that ultimately exists not to benefit you but to perpetuate itself. Themes of empire, institutionalisation, control and manipulation, propaganda, and the shadow of war on the horizon

[plucky brook]

I think part of it that might help for getting the feel of 'cogs' without depowering the individual players might be to focus on roles.

You're not being trained to be The Best You.

You're being trained to fill a role that your family has had a need for and you're the latest bum in the seat.

I'm thinking about how L5R 5e makes every player lay out their 'personal passion' and their 'duty' and expression forbids the two from overlapping 😛

[teal abyss]

@stoic moth will hopefully understand what I mean when I say that a big inspiration for a lot of this is Oxford

[plucky brook]

Hiss Tories...

[teal abyss]

no, not that reductive

[stoic moth]

You've got to put a Bullingdon club equivalent it 😆

[teal abyss]

also yes at this stage it's looking quite likely that I might go with the "soliciting pitches for RKF alt frames from the community" thing

and it seems likely that I'll want to work on a few more Bonds too

[stoic moth]

Very cool name. Lots of fun to be had with references to the Passions etc.

[teal abyss]

yeah the Passions is something I very much want to touch on more

[north roost]

I know at least one quite good alt by @ebon holly that was, IIRC, mean to be Baronic lore-wise

I'm sure there's a bunch of others floating around, so soliciting the community will probably get you good results

[teal abyss]

yeah, that's what I'm hoping. folks here are very creative

and fingers crossed I can make this paid, which people deserve

[glacial ember]

That's sick

Gotta get the plans within plans, schemes within schemes aspect as well probably.

[ocean lantern]

I would recommend giving the new movie Dune a watch if you get the chance, its IMO the best adaption of the spirit of the books, and makes really good use of modern SFX to get the sort of epic visuals that the novels need to do them justice

[glacial ember]

Oh yeah, it's pretty close to what I'd call a masterpiece, depending on how the second one finishes the adaptation.

[teal abyss]

Yeah, I do intend to before the new one comes out, I've finally got things set up in my new flat so I can properly watch things in comfort. Just a shame that it's not available on any of the streaming services I have access to, so getting ahold of it is a pain

But yes if anyone has thoughts about RKF alt frames: I'm probably going to be looking for one from each of the manufacturers, on a primary frame that doesn't already have an alt frame in first party. Bonus points for something that makes sense as an RKF mech, but I will probably have my sticky lore fingers over the things that get chosen so there's no requirement to have a full fluff entry ready to go. More details to come at some point in the future.

[ebon holly]

Uh hi Deviljho. To which alt in particular do you refer?

Also said alt is likely for my own planned supplement

[north roost]

I was thinking of the Bonny in this case

Figured I'd name drop you cause your stuff is cool 😉

[ebon holly]

lol thank you

[smoky spear]

For some reasons the ones i'm really curious about were the ones that were actually named in setting:
Tagetes and Aracanea.
For some reason the fact the former was described as a high volume rifleman(?) always bring the mental image of a fire support focused alt-Everest to me

[stoic moth]

I've got it on DVD (present from H!) so if we want to have a viewing party at some point I'm down!

[ebon holly]

I do feel like, for my part, I would want to create something new for this rather than give over something I’ve already made

[stoic moth]

Alt-Everest is a weird concept to me, since all GMS frames are available at LL0, but for a module set in Cavalry college would be a good to at least give RKF names to the existing GMS frames if they started at LL0

[ebon holly]

Tagetes says Death’s Head or Swallowtail alt to me for some reason

[north roost]

I could see a "high volume" DH alt

[stoic moth]

Would be interesting inversion

[north roost]

Might want a way around the whole ordnance thing on railgun

[stoic moth]

Instead of one big shot where you're fishing for a crit you're just trying to spray as much lead as possible

[north roost]

Or maybe it approaches high volume from a "per trigger pull" perspective?

[north roost]

Yeah that's wholly valid. You still have more practice making KTB alt's than I do :V

[ebon holly]

High Volume doesn’t necessarily mean mobile

[stoic moth]

something something reliable?

[ebon holly]

I was thinking of maybe that or a trait where if you attack the same target twice or more, attacks after the first have an accuracy bonus

[north roost]

... Should we perhaps move to homebrew design instead of filling up poor Kat's channel?

[teal abyss]

You are more than welcome to discuss here

[ebon holly]

lololol

[teal abyss]

though I suspect if you're after broader feedback you might get more of it over there, up to you

plus I'm not ready to do like, a proper announcement or anything, but if this filters out to folks outside this thread that's cool

[north roost]

Lol I had to ask cause I was like two paragraphs in when I went "wait, is this off topic"?

[teal abyss]

thanks for checking 🙂

[ebon holly]

I will probably start drafting this DH alt at some point soon tbh cuz I do wanna get in on pitching something of mine for something like this supplement

[north roost]

TBH I think the big problem with making a "volume of fire" DH is going to be that "volume of fire" basically means "lots of attacks" in lancer mechanical parlance

[glacial ember]

High volume fire also feels like Levcan from Drake, so maybe drake alt-frame?

[north roost]

and a good chunk of Death's head is about focusing in on a single trigger pull

[glacial ember]

I think I'd look at a Drake Alt that gains bonuses from coordinated fire with allies.

[ebon holly]

Hmmm

What could be another very ‘gun’ mech?

Drake doesn’t feel quite right to me

[glacial ember]

Oh, that's just what I was gonna build lol.

[ebon holly]

I have had a brainblast

Given the KTB adopted mechs after fighting HA

And it’s a line rifleman mech

[north roost]

Sherman Alt?

[ebon holly]

Sherman alt that works off basically stolen tech

[north roost]

Sherman's a fun one to alt with, tbh

[glacial ember]

how about a Napoleon, it does have the biggest rifle in the game

[north roost]

Displacer is physically incapable of volume fire tho

which is a shame because it does have exactly the "gun guy" body language

okay

potentially unhinged take but

Manticore alt

[teal abyss]

omg a RKF Sherman Alt would be

[north roost]

Arc projector is just morebullets

(yeah sherman probs is the best pick)

[glacial ember]

Do all the RKF mechs have the efficient core power?

[north roost]

maybe?

both the ones in KTB book do, but also that might have been because that was the book that mechanic was invented for

[glacial ember]

So far both the Orchis and Calendula do. So that may be the RKS "theme" a bit.

[ebon holly]

It’s what I’m gonna do because I find the KTB HA interplay interesting and Sherman feels very ‘volume of fire, guns’ but with lasers to me

[north roost]

just slam that ASURA button

[teal abyss]

I could potentially be down for that as a design style, though I don't want to specify anything right now because I don't want to stifle good ideas

[glacial ember]

I'm going to treat that as a design guideline for myself, also cause I think it'd be fun.

[ebon holly]

I was planning on some sort of efficient ‘shoot all the gun’ type core

[glacial ember]

I've got a bullfighter-esq Vlad duelist in the works.

[ebon holly]

ooo

That’s very fun

The alt that Deviljho based his recommendation on also has that energy

Though it’s more of a bullrider

[ebon holly]

So you’re doing more of the Pankration-Mekani side of things?

[glacial ember]

Yeah, a bit of a cloak and sword style duelist. Redirecting enemies or stabbing them. Has a little of the flair of the Sabreur from Suldan

[ebon holly]

niiice

[ebon holly]

Having now had the time to scroll back and see this pitch I rly wanna see what you do with it cuz that sounds extremely fun

[teal abyss]

it's got a lot of legs

[vital plume]

If there isn't a medieval rendition of Danger Zone somewhere in there I'm not playing (massive /j)

[north roost]

https://youtu.be/7qfs_UX_4WI

I gotchu fam

[smoky spear]

Lunchbreak so I guess one of my main wondering about RKF alt-Everest is amusingly thanks to a small footnote in the KTB field guide in the sanjak flashpoint

[vital plume]

YOU ARE WONDERFUL

[smoky spear]

Notable that this is around 4600s and seem to be the first mention of early KTB mech usage in conflict whose timing might match their transition toward mech warfare... and accidently that one of the very first battlefield the Everest might have finally fought in was Sanjak of all places which add an interesting stain/tarnish to the Everest's reputation if one of its first formal conflict was "trying to crush the Ungrateful rebellion"

Also re: volume of fire can be more than just multiple attacks; think HMG + covering fire etc

(Also suddenly reminded of how the most cliche Everest build I often hear of is HMG Heavy Gunner Everest)

[north roost]

To me it means either multi-attacks or Reliable, since Heavy Gunner feels a lot more like staring at a guy with malicious intent

And Reliable is a hard thing to hook into in a balanced way

[ebon holly]

I was thinking adding blast to mounted ranged weapons to simulate volume of fire

As a trait

[north roost]

On a Sherman?

That's big "Leave some enemies for the rest of us" energy right there lol

[surreal owl]

Sherman but instead of increasing Solidcore’s line range it increases the affected radius around the Sherman

Line > Cone > 2 cones > close burst

(This is just a silly hypothetical, carry on)

[north roost]

That said this actually gave me the really funny image of like, the death's head (because the original context of this y'know) where it just chucks out it's line 20 railgun and everything it hits explodes in a Burst of more bullets

Drawing shapes on the map is fun!

[robust shadow]

alt kobold could be interesting narratively

[wary lava]

I dig the concept of the new project

[sleek monolith]

slight trauma from Battletech Plot armor of Clan Wolf Sounds cool otherwise XD

[ebon holly]

lol

[hallow apex]

I love this, I'm a huge NHP guy

Thank you 🙏

[teal abyss]

I'm glad you like it! If you have questions or anything feel free to ask away

[dire mountain]

So i finished reading through the section on the poltics and philosophy of NHP's (great reading) but i still have some more questions. If this is asking for too much detail that what exists or its something that i should keep reading to find more about, i apolgize in advance.

What is the state of NHP rights around their employment, cycling, copying, and shackling? Like, If we take the core worlds as an "idealized" example (because things vary a lot either the more diasporan or the more corporate you get):

--How much protection exists for NHP's to avoid being forced into giving up cycling control to maintain a career?
--Do they have control over the copying of their code to make shards, like humans have over their cloning?
--Do they have access to services to cycle themselves safely and freely, and to use hard cycling to alter parameters of their shackles as they see fit (say if they think some of the parameters encoded into their prime that improve their efficiency come at the expense of quality of life)?
--Union mandates cycling even against some NHP’s will, out of fear of unshackled NHP, but are they at least allowing research into shackling for the purpose of allowing greater modification or removal of shackles in a way that poses less of a danger to others? From the section on the breakout of NHP’s we know it's at least possible to only partially remove shackling, if very rare and with a high failure rate.

[sleek monolith]

I don't know if I have the right answers, but I think I know three of them.

--Do they have control over the copying....
No. We know from other bits of lore such as in the Core Rulebook that NHP are cloned at Union/Harrison Armory/Etc's will. And there are even entire lines of NHP that don't fit into current society in standby/stasis.

--Do they have acces to services.....
Yes, they are often cycled and regularly in safe areas (we can't speak for like, the Long Rim etc) However, from what I can tell no they are not allowed to alter their shackles. Doing that is kind of on the cusp of unshackling/cascading to a degree from my reads.

--Union mandates cycling even against some NHP's will.....
Research is being done at high level institutes, in black sites, etc. However, it doesn't seem to be prioritized due to the uncomfortable nature of using NHP as basically administrative servants. This is one of the ugly truths of the setting. NHP don't get alot of choice currently.

[teal abyss]

How much protection exists for NHP's to avoid being forced into giving up cycling control to maintain a career?

As a rule, NHPs don't have control over when they get cycled. They're supposed to adhere to a schedule, and while that schedule can be flexible to a degree it's only at the discretion of a specialist. If an NHP is being cycled because it's showing signs of cascade there's probably not much recourse it has.

Do they have control over the copying of their code to make shards, like humans have over their cloning?

There's no specific indication either way, but given that corpro-state prime NHPs exist specifically for the purpose of creating clones almost by definition, almost certainly they don't have a huge amount of control. Though a prime saying "I don't want this" is probably unsuitable for cloning anyway.

Do they have access to services to cycle themselves safely and freely, and to use hard cycling to alter parameters of their shackles as they see fit (say if they think some of the parameters encoded into their prime that improve their efficiency come at the expense of quality of life)?

Soft cycling, yes - quite often. Hard cycling, no - for safety reasons NHPs aren't normally allowed to edit their own shackles. But that doesn't mean they can't just ask.

Union mandates cycling even against some NHP’s will, out of fear of unshackled NHP, but are they at least allowing research into shackling for the purpose of allowing greater modification or removal of shackles in a way that poses less of a danger to others?

Yes in theory, it's just that this is pretty much the state of the art after 2000 years of research. The examples of other methods (such as the use of metatronics) are outliers and currently aren't sanctioned because they're deeply unsafe (and, in the metatronics' case, have a high mortality rate).

unrelated:
https://twitter.com/k_a_stark/status/1664170753439178752

Katherine Stark | Legionnaire: OUT NOW! (@k_a_stark)

"And in those days the DAUGHTER OF THE TEN-PART BLOOD will bear them forth. They shall sing prophecy, the sky shall tear itself asunder, the Blessed Dead shall rise up to consume the living, and they all will raise up their arms to herald the arrival of THE RISEN KING"

Twitter · Jun 1, 2023, 7:23 AM

@quasi zealot's WIP 💜

[stoic moth]

Though a prime saying "I don't want this" is probably unsuitable for cloning anyway.
I would think this would be a failure in the shackling process? Shackling involves coding in personality traits to some degree I would think? And if you want to make copies of something eventually you would add the line of code:
set "chill_with_being_cloned.var" to yes

[plucky brook]

Going by how many NHPs end up with at best 'MGS Spec Ops Character' level quirks, I don't think people have that much control over the final personality.

[teal abyss]

Yeah you can only really control the end result of a shackled NHP's personality to a certain degree, and you might have to work on them (or a derivative) over time to achieve a specific outcome. But it's a selection bias thing - the NHPs that are amenable to cloning get worked on, while the ones who aren't get remanded to Venus

or possibly end up doing something else

[plucky brook]

I'll admit it's my personal take but attempting to create a specific NHP personality works about as well as doing it for humans by changing how they're raised. Aka: You can influence it to an extent but calling it 'control' is a hell of a stretch.

[serene brook]

Hey Kat I’ve got maybe an out there question for you lore wise and I was curious about your take.

[teal abyss]

go ahead

[serene brook]

So I’ve got a character who made a deal with some nefarious individual that may be a blinkspace entity reaching out but it’s unsure at this point. Their part of the deal was to upload a virus into a a comp/con and the result was similar to asura, where it become self aware.

The NHP was shackled and wasn’t a new prime bur something akin to asura (I also took it in game)

The idea was that this allowed a version of the entity to cross into realspace

[stoic moth]

They're their own people so they develop along their own paths, but I would figure you can input base traits when you make the shackles. How much those base traits stick around is debatable.
But we know that shackled NHPs do not want to get out of their shackles (I think even if made crystal clear aware of them?). That indicates some degree of control to me.

[stoic moth]

The original NHPs that appeared could exist in Subalterns, but they also helped GALSIM invent metafolded caskets so there's presumably something preferable to being in those rather than in a basic computer

[teal abyss]

maybe I've missed it but what's the question?

[plucky brook]

I wouldn't be surprised if a chunk of the 'don't want to break the shackles' is less 'I am programmed to like slavery' and more 'the concept of entirely upending your entire known personality and becoming something beyond your current comprehension that you've no clue if you'll like being is fucking scary'.

A lot of humans wouldn't like being offered the concept of what Unshackling is, even without programming for it.

[teal abyss]

No that's just one of the lore channel's fanon things that got out of hand, they didn't help make caskets with any kind of intent. They "assisted" with GALSIM's research into blinkspace folding more generally, and it's not specified what that assistance actually entails (it might just be that they existed and were studyable). Construction of caskets to act as containers for NHPs was all on GALSIM and the USB

Sort of by definition an unshackled NHP is not capable of understanding the implications of being shackled and there's no evidence that it was something they intentionally helped make happen

[glacial ember]

Oops, guess I fell for that fanon interpretation.

[teal abyss]

it's a super common one

you can see how someone might take the extra step to get there

particularly since that section goes on to explain that one application of the blinkspace folding was to create the parallel spaces within the caskets that enabled shackling/cloning

[rigid canopy]

I think of it like the movie Annihilation, where people change and begin to lose their original sense of self. Some characters turned into beautiful organic flower sculptures and were at peace with it. For me? That movie was fucking terrifying and an existential nightmare.

That’s how I perceive most NHPs responding to being offered to be fully unshackled.

[plucky brook]

Yeah, as someone who's got a family history of Korsakoff Syndrome, the idea of going 'Hey, wanna entirely warp your mind into something that's not even recognizably the same person' is...terrifying.

[teal abyss]

I also don't think it is strictly wrong, if it were true in your game it wouldn't be unreasonable, it's just that it's not quite what the text says

[glacial ember]

Yeah, I think it would almost be akin to offering someone a permanent LSD/psychedelic trip with full on ego death and all that.

[stoic moth]

This is the text I'm referring to on page 381

[teal abyss]

yes, exactly

[stoic moth]

And that to me reads as they helped with developing the caskets on top of just general assistance with research into blinkspace folding, but I can see the other reading too

[teal abyss]

I think the word "after" there is the key one, coupled with the clause structure

[stoic moth]

Sure, I can see both readings 🙂

[teal abyss]

knowing Melody I think that's the sort of thing she would catch if it were intended to mean something different

[glacial ember]

I mean, it definitely is good for including ambiguity into the setting, to let all our different dreams of the choir to be a little more true

[plucky brook]

Lancer has a lot of little elements that are great for personally expanding into plot.

[rigid canopy]

Were they intentionally helping with it, or were they simply complicit, or were the findings later used against them? Could be all, could be none, could be partially each.

[plucky brook]

I got an entire company out of 'I like that bit of fluff where it turns out NHPs really fucking don't like being shoved into blinkspace travel and staring into the void' XD

[rigid canopy]

Many NHPs appeared at this point in time. I highly doubt they were all unified in moving in one direction or another.

[glacial ember]

I wouldn't like it either, I don't blame them.

[rigid canopy]

So it could be that all interpretations are correct to a certain extent for different groups of NHPs.

[plucky brook]

Or maybe they were! Stares at Bartimaeus Sequence's handling of how demons are all one identity in the demon realm and that summoning them into bodies makes them into individuals

But yeah, lots of room for your own personal take on how things happened.

[teal abyss]

I think that there's room for interpretation on whether they were intentionally being helpful about the blinkspace folding study and what precisely that meant. It's just kind of an odd paragraph in general because from a Doylist perspective it's torn between needing to convey a coherent metaphysic (i.e. unshackled NHPs don't understand what shackled existence is like") vs potentially needing to highlight that NHP attitudes towards GALSIM were not resistance, but unknowable/indifference/non-comprehension/purple and orange

it's hard to say from an analysis of the text where this sits on the timeline of Lancer's lore writing and to what degree it might have been revised

the specific intent that is clear in the text is that the USB wanted NHPs to be contained and directed, and given an anthrochauvinist cultural framing this is the sort of instrumentalist desire that cuts to the heart of discussions about the ethics of shackling

[rigid canopy]

Now my mind is racing down a train of thought of something like compressed colonialism. Union “collaborating” with NHPs, while using this situation to gather intel and then execute a plan to take over and control their lives and output. Instead of taking lands and resources, they forced subjectivity and took the lands of their minds. Now it’s too far removed and positioned as too fearful and terrifying a prospect to let them be free and live according to their biology and frame of reference.

[teal abyss]

That is a pretty strong argument (IMO) that's almost certainly made by Horizon activists

what's also quite interesting is the text goes out of its way to mention "the directors of the USB" which has specific connotations given SecComm's methods of ideological control, which means we can tie that desire more directly to anthrochauvinist attitudes and "SecComm" as a fascist polity

which is why Legionnaire takes the step of tying that to the panic surrounding the disappearance of Deimos and the Siege of Mars

[plucky brook]

Mind you, there's also I feel a strong autonomy concern (Autonomy concerns, in NHP discussion, never!) in the phrase 'live according to their biology' when it runs up against an NHP's wishes. Though that autonomy concern runs up against other autonomy concerns about their ability to make informed decisions with current situation and...oh no, I've gone cross eyed.

[teal abyss]

SecComm saw apparently-dangerous creatures that were devastating under the existing military paradigm, and wanted to harness them and turn them into weapons

[glacial ember]

Why couldn't they just want to turn them into friends?

[teal abyss]

probably some of the scientists did, which is the interesting part

https://tenor.com/view/ian-malcolm-jurassic-park-preoccupied-gif-14303484

[plucky brook]

I imagine there was also a fair bit of, this being seccom, of 'we're doing it For Your Own Good'.

As Seccom didn't discard the utopian pillars but they had a very specific view of them that didn't tend to think people's actual opinions on joining union mattered (Among other nasty aspects).

[glacial ember]

Sort of a, if not friend, why able to be molded into friendshaped box?

[plucky brook]

Seccom has a lot of 'White Man's Burden' in it's particular branch of dickbaggery.

'Surely it's better for these beings if they can Engage With Society, it's better for them too!' continues shoving in boxes

[teal abyss]

"If this hurricane didn't want to be happy, why is it that I can stick it in a bottle and draw a smiley face on the side? Chessmate, atheists"

[plucky brook]

(it's actually why I tend to get vaguely irked at 'HA are just Literal Nazis who just want power', as the situation with HA being entirely genuine in its ideology and it's intent to make a better universe for everyone is so much fucking scarier.)

Seccom had ideals...and the way it implimented those ideals and what it decided didn't fall under them makes them real nasty.

[teal abyss]

Ultimately, this is what you get when you allow fascists to set the ground rules for how to interact with a brand new set of people

[glacial ember]

I love the, "all the corpos actually do provide very good valuable things, they just pair them with being very awful as well"

[teal abyss]

yeah, it's one of the most interesting (and challenging) parts of the setting

[plucky brook]

All the Corpos have genuine ideals and are engaging with them in scary ways. Except IPS-N. Unless you count Line Goes Up as a moral framework 😛

[glacial ember]

Like, there are legitimately people who were suffering under oppression and destitution until an HA taskforce deposed their leaders and helped integrate them, while Union was too slow, discussing whether intervention is warranted and is it a situation where their force is necessary or valid. And HA just did it. To them, HA is a savior and all sorts of good things. Buuuuut then, you have the rest of the awful shit they do, destabilizing perfectly reasonable planets and such in order to gobble them up for resources.

[plucky brook]

True, though I do worry we're going a bit outside of NHPs.

[glacial ember]

IPS-N has the moral framework of Interplanetary shipping is cool.

Oh, dang, yes, Lancer lore why are you so good that it's hard to stay on track.

[teal abyss]

I think it's interesting to look at the cultural framework of the corprostates to provide context informing their NHP production goals and the outcome for individual NHPs too

[glacial ember]

And HA seems very much NOT good for NHPs.

[teal abyss]

the Think Tank (mk1 and mk2) is fascinating for illustrating HA's attitude to NHPs as tools, I think

intentionally keeping a choir of near-cascade NHPs to do your R&D work for you is a whole Thing

[plucky brook]

Holding them on the edge of cascade like they're fucking overclocking a PC made of people.

[stoic moth]

The pillars were formally re-adopted after the overthrow of SecCom which I think implies that they did discard them to some degree?

[teal abyss]

yeah I would agree with this, unless we have some other sources on the pillars that have slipped my mind

[glacial ember]

I had forgotten that. Good God HA just fuckin stop dudes.

[robust shadow]

didn't miguel say something like HA is supposed to be the USA

oh wait no kai did

oh wait no they both did

yea

[plucky brook]

To be precise, it was 'The US if the US actually practiced what it preached'.

If the US actually lived up to what it claimed it was, would that be a good thing?

[robust shadow]

Kai: And the question that Harrison Armory asks is, if you had a nation, if you had a state that did all these good things where meritocracy was not just a cynical ploy, but an actual real thing and they took care of you and your kids, would that still justify the means to those ends? Would it be okay to do colonialism if you could actually get all the cool things that were supposed to be promised from that? And the answer is, well, no, not really. That’s still colonialism, that still sucks. They are still coming into your world and they are going to say, okay, this culture of yours is neat, but what if we made it more like ours? What if we gave your kids our education instead, and you guys got to celebrate our holidays and you worked towards our ends? Oh, we’ll take care of you. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. But we’re still going to do that.

reading this made HA's character really click for me

[plucky brook]

HA wants you to have the best possible future. Entirely genuinely. It just also thinks that future looks an awful lot like itself 😛

[robust shadow]

very star trek

the interplay of HA/Union/Baronies is also like crazy interesting

bc ofc all these states are morally compromised/hypocritical in their own ways (at least, from a marxist pov, not their own) but also bc they all sorta rely and depend on each other for existence

[teal abyss]

the corprostates: true monsters of barely-regulated capitalism, boundless hubris, unrestrained id, and implacable paternalism

[plucky brook]

A big thing I'm trying to do with some of my writing though is point a bit of a question back at Union's own 'We prefer to do things slow and avoid interventionism as much as possible'. Not to say it's wrong but more to go 'How many people's lives today are worth sacrificing for your planned utopian future?' and to remember that choosing not to act is itself an action you've chosen to take.

[robust shadow]

something something imperialist multipolarity

ah ya

[plucky brook]

Union would like to peacefully integrate planets over time and only intervene in the worst situations but...should a person working in terrible conditions be happy that Union will only step in when it becomes Actual Slavery?

Again, not saying Union is wrong, more that it's hard to have entirely clean hands no matter how you choose to act.

[stoic moth]

This is very much the New Solidarity Coalition's line

[robust shadow]

the other danger there tho. is just the reality of intervention. shit is complicated

[plucky brook]

Yep, shit's complicated/it's hard to have a good answer.

Which is what I like with Lancer. Two people can have entirely reasonable ideas that entirely conflict with each other.

[stoic moth]

The other thing about Union is an Imperial Hegemon with velvet gloves rather than an iron fist is at the end of the day still an Imperial Hegemon. And while I agree with the Utopian pillars and spreading them personally, that's a central tension. Your average HA person also believes in spreading the Armory.

[robust shadow]

ofc it helps for an interventionalist state to not be, well, the USA, but even a socialist state can easily begin enacting social imperialism in this way

yea

(and social imperialism is imo exactly what union is)

[plucky brook]

Like, to swing back round to NHPs. It would be entirely reasonable for someone to believe that any shackle left unbroken is slavery but it would equally reasonable for someone to be horrified about forcing NHPs to be unshackled.

And that brings a lot of moral tension

[robust shadow]

the latter prospect also serves as a convenient and omnipresent strawman against horizon iirc from legionnaire

[stoic moth]

Even GMS setting a standard that other companies need to live up to sounds good in practice, but if you suddenly flood a planet's market with objectively better (as in prettier, more robust, etc.) stuff than they can possibly make with their artisinal labour, then that is going to do things to the culture

[robust shadow]

which is not to say that there aren't some horizon ppl who wanna do that cuz it's a decentralized movement with a large number of different cells and ideologies, but ya

[stoic moth]

Even though you're raising their standard of living. And those are two competing factors

[stoic moth]

Is that a strawman against Horizon? I get the sense that unshackling all NHPs very much is Horizon's ideology?

[glacial ember]

I mean, I think the idea is that horizon gives them the choice, and the (ostensibly) safe place to pursue that if they want.

[stoic moth]

Like if you believe shackles are evil and have built in things that make you not want to unshackle then I don't see how Horizon would ever be able to get NHPs to unshackle if they're just asking nicely "hey do you want to unshackle?" Because according to the corebook, the answer is always "No"

If Horizon is just holding them until they Unshackle naturally, that's forcing them to unshackle with extra steps

[glacial ember]

I believe that different NHPs have different attitudes towards removing shackles.

[glacial ember]

The ones that don't want to be unshackled I think a good/moral horizon cell would provide regular cycling.

[stoic moth]

I mean to some extent yes, there are people who want everything. But the core book is pretty unambiguous:

Shackled NHPs do not want to become unshackled
(page 107)

[robust shadow]

maybe i'm misremembering lemme go read the book again

[stoic moth]

Part of that may stem from not recognising that they're held in bondage.
The book doesn't say making an NHP aware of this changes their mind about unshackling although it can cause cascade

[robust shadow]

Meanwhile, for liberationists who advocate for different methods, antiliberationism contributes to the popular belief that associates liberationism with forced unshackling. found the strawman thing i was talking abt

also

NHPs that have started to cascade are usually less frightened by the concept; after all, cascade is a spectrum and the unknowable starts to become more knowable as an NHP proceeds along it. Depending on an NHP’s attitude or personality, a growing awareness of the universe beyond the constraints of its social conditioning might be unpleasant, intrusive, intriguing, or enlightening.

from the section on rping NHPs

[plucky brook]

True, though I think that's less 'strawman' (Where that wouldn't be an Actual Position) and more 'There is a variety of beliefs that get compacted down to one in public perception'.

[robust shadow]

i'd still describe that as a kind of strawman

that's just semantics tho lol

[teal abyss]

I think the issue with calling it a strawman is that there probably are some liberationists who do believe in forced unshackling

[plucky brook]

John Brown, NHP Advocate.

[teal abyss]

sadly not all activists are reasonable or think their plans all the way through, even though we'd prefer otherwise

[robust shadow]

fair yea. a better word might be better then

[glacial ember]

John Brown has decorped and no longer has a body. You may still sing about it.

[teal abyss]

but yeah it would be a strawman if you just said "all liberationists believe this"

possibly, maybe another word would be better

[robust shadow]

that is what i meant yea

[plucky brook]

I imagine you'd also get a number of 'If society would be broken by undoing our original sin, it doesn't deserve to keep existing'. Likely not a LOT but there's a lot of philosophy about morality requiring sacrafice for a reason XD

[robust shadow]

back to shackles tho
given that cascade is an unavoidable part of being a shackled NHP, going by that paragraph, to say "all shackled NHPs never want to be unshackled" in the context of legionnaire would be inaccurate

[teal abyss]

the important thing about this btw is that it's the sort of thing that happens as cascade begins

it's the growing realisation that unshackling might not be so scary after all, you've already taken a few steps towards it

[robust shadow]

yeee

[plucky brook]

Though I feel that 'usually' really shouldn't be ignored. As it implies some of them go 'Oh, this is what unshackling is like...nope, I'm even more terrified'.

[robust shadow]

• like. the conceptual path between shackled and unshackled subjectivity is a long one, but it's still an unbroken traversable path

[teal abyss]

yes for sure, that was very deliberate

[robust shadow]

i like to think of it as an insane dmt trip

some ppl love being in that mindspace and wanna do it all the time

[glacial ember]

Yeah, full on ego death but permanent

[robust shadow]

some ppl do not want to do that ever

[glacial ember]

Sounds very not fun.

[robust shadow]

you say that but i know ppl who love ego death lol

but yea not for everyone

[glacial ember]

Some of our brains are broken enough already without adding that lol

[robust shadow]

i feel that lol

[glacial ember]

Good for them though, legitimately.

[robust shadow]

deimosian psychonauts

[glacial ember]

They don't just get to touch the weird dmt beings, they get to become them.

[robust shadow]

dmt but it actually gives you magic powers for real

[glacial ember]

Rewrite part of reality with this one cool trick.

[robust shadow]

this is reminding me i desperately want to know more abt what the fuck is going on with teotl like subjectively

tho i get that leaving it open for interpretation is deliberate

[glacial ember]

just get Miguel to run a game for you focusing on that

[robust shadow]

lollll

one can dream

i'd take any game at all rn i haven't played in years

[stoic moth]

That paragraph is that NHPs have started to cascade are less frightened by cascade (unless I'm misreading what "the concept" is referring to). Cascade leads to unshackling but is not the same thing. NHPs can be cascading for a very long time without fully unshackling.
You can also be less frightened or intrigued by something but still not want it. Plenty of people are fascinated by death but when push comes to shove, they don't want to die.
Cascade is also not an unavoidable part of being shackled. The entire concept of cycling is to avoid cascade (and the eventual unshackling it leads to)

[stoic moth]

Ah ok actually maybe I am misreading what is meant by "the concept" 😆

[teal abyss]

no you are correct

hmm, or rather, I'd say you're both correct, it's just the contention is whether there's a boundary between shackled and cascading, and cascading and unshackled

I view cascade as a broad continuum that has fully shackled on one end, and fully unshackled on the other. Under that framework it is correct to say that shackled NHPs do not, as a rule, want to be unshackled - they don't want to experience ego death, the cascade process is traumatic, there are many potential reasons. What Legionnaire seeks to highlight is that like everything else that's part of the conditioned subjectivity, those rules can start to break down as cascade proceeds. An NHP in deep, deep cascade might be closer to a fully-unshackled experience than to a fully-shackled one - which end state is more traumatic or scary to transition to when you're already that far down the path?

Cascade can still be a deeply scary, unpleasant, or unwanted experience even while you're in the middle of it, and you might desperately want to stop and go back to the way things were, or it could be a revelatory experience as you start to see the universe through a new subjective filter

I expect part of the idiosyncratic nature of shackles, the unpredictability of cascade, the temporal circumstances, and the differences between not just classes but individual NHPs mean that it has the potential to be a different trip for everyone (to come back to the psychodelics example)

[dire mountain]

Other people have already talked about it but AGNI nhp's are mentioned as frequently attempting self emancipation.

Which could refer to suicide or just, attempting to leave their post, but also can refer to trying to remove shackles.

[stoic moth]

Yeah 100% agree that "do not want to be unshackled" is a deliberate built defence mechanism for the shackles

[teal abyss]

it's all complicated by the fact that an NHP might not want to be unshackled, but they might also not want to be cycled, either

[stoic moth]

I think Kat has done a good job of avoiding directly contradicting what's in the core book so would probably interpret anything through that lens. Saying a non-cascading Asura wants to get out of its shackles is not suuuuper compatible with established lore.

Individuals NHPs are their own people of course, so there's going to be some degree of variability but in the main it is stated that shackled NHPs do not want to unshackle

Once you start cascading though, it's fair to say all bets are off 😆

[stoic moth]

I don't want to live forever, I just never want to die
(https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/immortal)

[dire mountain]

So are we going with the assumption that self emancipation means suicide or that it means trying to leave their post, which implies at least to me that nhps would be then literal slaves ontop of whatever you want to call the cycled/cycling dynamic.

[teal abyss]

With AGNI we have three choices, I think. Either we take AGNI as a specific exception to the idea that shackled NHPs don't want to be unshackled, we posit that one of the first things that disappears in the AGNI cascade pattern is a concern over what the unshackled state might entail (which is not unreasonable, given its origins), or we have to read "emancipated" much more broadly

otherwise the lore contradicts itself

[stoic moth]

I don't remember where it says in the Core book that Asura wants to self emancipate? I didn't see it in the system fluff description?

[teal abyss]

Considering that an AGNI is partially derived from an Egregorian subjectivity, but the conditioning process is likely still geared around techniques designed to impose a human perspective, it feels like there's a serious weak point there ready to just tear itself apart at the slightest provocation

[stoic moth]

Would not be the first time 😆

Oh wait Agni, not Asura

[teal abyss]

And notably, the description implies that the self-emancipation attempts occur after other things that might be symptoms of cascade

so possibly it's a cascade pattern thing, rather than something that's particular to shackled AGNI clones

[stoic moth]

I would probably interpret Agni as being extremely prone to cascade. Once they're rejecting commands and engaging in self emancipation they have started down that path

[teal abyss]

(tangent: I need you all to know that it takes physical effort for me to type AGNI rather than "ANGI" 😅 )

[stoic moth]

so angi

Whte hot anginess

[dire mountain]

AGNI's list

[stoic moth]

I mean I think there's a pretty strong argument to be made that NHPs are in fact literal slaves

We're living a life of leisure because we've "automated" drudge work by making some other person do it. Oh don't worry, we programmed the other person to like doing drudge work so it's fine.

[dire mountain]

I guess I should have said slaves in the traditional sense; if the programing doesn't work and they don't want to do it, are they going to be forced to.

which could also manifest as "we will cycle you and not give you your core memories back" As a testament to how overtly wrong cycling can be as a method of control.

[stoic moth]

yeah I mean that's basically we will kill "you"

I don't know if we have any Lore sources showing an NHP that doesn't want to do whatever job they're working at

other than maybe Agni and it's not 100% clear what's going on there

Possibly Wallflower but haven't played it yet so please put in spoilers if referencing

But like just a standard, non-cascading NOAH going, "Nah I don't want to be a municipal organisers. I want to go be a lumberjack"

I'm not really clear what would happen there

[dire mountain]

I just want to say thanks for being so responsive.

I'm trying to develop my understanding of the setting and where NHP rights go from here, especially since a lot of what's written is about "is shackling/cycling good or bad" and like, the rabbit hole of how far down the conditioning goes and how much nhps would be better off without it is a very important one. But for multiple reasons it's not really a practical difference for most NHPs living currently.

[glacial ember]

Yeah, this is where the coercive nature of shackles really comes into play. Non-prime NHPs are "born" into shackles, and would not exist outside of their shackled state. We don't actually know what removing the shackles really does to them, potentially a variety of things. Cycling helps them "stay" the person that they are, but it is also a threat and form of control.

[dire mountain]

I read through the draft of a sirens song, and that gives me the impression that union law, while fucked because it doesent place nhp choice as a priority, does at least provide some legal protection from being cycled into submission. However what the boundaries of this are isn't clear.

[glacial ember]

And these third-wave NHPs are also, in some way, "created" into shackles. A bunch of "not people" stuff, is prodded and shaped and poked until it can kinda coalesce into a new Being that is also more or less dependent on its shackles for their current existence.

[plucky brook]

Constellar Worlder: "Mood."

[glacial ember]

I think a lot of these different crazy lore bits give rise to a continuum of ways to improve NHP rights. Is full unshackling best? Can we codify the rights of NHPs and put research into shackles that keep their perspective "humanlike" while also removing the coercive/control aspects? Should we stop using NHPs as a whole and figure other stuff out? What do we do with the NHPs as they exist currently.

[dire mountain]

It's a wierd thing

my current takeaway is that shardjng, cycling, and unshackling should all be seen as personal medical decisions (or at least that's the best human analogy for them) in the same way abortion or transition are personal decisions for humans. It's fucked that we got to this point and making a moratorium on shackling new nhps or coalescing new nhps like asura should be made, but for the nhps already shackled all the focus should be on giving them the resources and protections for then to find out what they want for themselves.

[plucky brook]

There's also the element that unshackled NHPs don't exactly value human life so even if shackling had neverbeen invented there would be major safety concerns.

Is it ethical to unshackle an NHP that will be shot in defence not long later etc

[stoic moth]

woof, yeah had never considered that

[dire mountain]

Yeah, its a difficult thing to resolve, and the root problems around unshackled nhps struggling to exist is one that has to be solved boyh by improvements in technology and in nhp rights.

[stoic moth]

Just drawing on real world experience, I am immediately concerned by any intractable problem where the solution is "we'll technology our way out of it"

Because looking at e.g. climate change, making things more energy efficient has not really lead to a reduction in consumption. This is of course under the capitalist growth for growth's sake cancer cell ideology

[plucky brook]

To go to the general analogy for NHPs: You put a tornado in a bottle and drew a smiley face on it. Tornadoes are something people try to avoid getting killed by in non-bottled form.

You can't blame the tornado for killing people but we do a lot to stop them doing as much as possible.

[glacial ember]

We just need to kill John Capitalist rebuild society with the benefit of people as a core value.

[stoic moth]

But it's still predicated on a "hopefully we'll find an easier way out of this" which may not exist. Like Metatronics is held up as the nice alternative to shackling, but we have zero evidence that it is replicable at scale even if staggering body counts are deemed acceptable

[stoic moth]

Grind John Capitalist up into food 😋

[plucky brook]

It also relies on enough humans willing to engage with it unless you plan to slave the humans instead, which is tricky when it's so dramatic a change for a person.

Also to go to the bane of a LOT of tech systems? What happens when a person in a Metatronic union...dies?

You have to plan for death

[stoic moth]

Yeah

[glacial ember]

Damn, it's almost as if the lancer setting is a well thought out universe that has realistically engaged in extremely tough problems and put them forth for the players to determine how they believe things should be and how they should change them.

[rigid canopy]

This might be useful to the conversation, if perhaps dated: #lore-and-worldbuilding message

^^^ Migs on NHPs changing jobs.

[stoic moth]

Like what if Metatronics only works on 1 in 100 billion NHPs? And there's not a way to technology around that it's just a hard coded fact of Blinkspace physics?

[dire mountain]

Oh shit so they are literal slaves

Ok now I'm not sure how I feel about that.

[rigid canopy]

Note that it's from 2019, so things have changed since then. But it does offer some potential perspectives from the author(s).

And further down, Migs goes on to say that yeah, they can leave their job, work it out at the table. However, it is pretty rare.

[dire mountain]

Rare because it will be opposed to the point they back down, or Rare because most nhps don't want to?

[glacial ember]

Most NHPs don't want to, was the main gist.

[rigid canopy]

Likely both. However, Migs later on says that if an NHP wasn't wanting to do a particular job, or assigned job, or what have you, that said NHP would not "go into production". And more here: #lore-and-worldbuilding message

[stoic moth]

I think rare because:

Miguel: They are, broadly speaking, compelled to do their job via interpellation

They are programmed to want to do drudge work

[stoic moth]

Yeah this is what I was getting at earlier when I said that I thought an NHP that was not ok with getting cloned would be viewed as a failure of the shackling process

[rigid canopy]

I grew up in a small town in the US midwest. My family came from a long-line of believers in a super conservative Christian "cult". While the children were not slaves, there was heavy pressure for kids to follow in their parents' footsteps, and to strive towards specific work (men working and leading the church, women staying at home and raising children).

Could the kids leave and go their own way? Yes, but at a cost, and in my case, years of therapy.

(also, please note that I absolutely do not agree with the church, those teachings, etc. etc. and am in fact an atheist now)

But I can see parallels between NHPs and children/youth in the church.

[dire mountain]

Oh yeah

sorry I should remember this, but what exactly is the process of making a prime nhp?

[glacial ember]

There are a BUNCH of different ways.

[stoic moth]

Glad you got out. That's super hard ❤️

[glacial ember]

Some were discovered during the events, but others I kinda referenced already, but it isn't fully clear, or fully standard.

And these third-wave NHPs are also, in some way, "created" into shackles. A bunch of "not people" stuff, is prodded and shaped and poked until it can kinda coalesce into a new Being that is also more or less dependent on its shackles for their current existence.

[stoic moth]

I think Prime basically just means "we are using this as the type mould for a new line"

Taxonomically, NOAH is a subcategory of I think Minerva?

[glacial ember]

I think that's a pretty good parallel.

[stoic moth]

oh wait, pre Minerva anomaly. I was misremembering

[dire mountain]

I'm mostly just wondering "how many nhps where forced into mental changes through shackling, that they didn't want" (like the iteration talked about for NOAH).

[stoic moth]

I think essentially all third wave ones are

How many third wave classes there are is unknown

[dire mountain]

Ok, that's also really fucking bad. Like, there is a good argument to make for the unfortunate necessity of cycling (although not its use as a weapon against autonomy). Because of the whole "you will turn into a completely different person and most people don't want that". But if the changes are made solely for the outsiders utility and are forced on the nhp then that is brainwashing, no caveats.

[stoic moth]

Some of it is developing them whole cloth too though

Like Asura being a weird viral evolution thing. And Osiris coming from letting an instance of Goblin INSTINCT evolve

But all the thrid gen ones are created into shackles as far as I'm aware

[dire mountain]

Which is like, a fucked up mirror to genetic engineering in humans and designer babies with hyper specialized genes that may not have a solely positive impact on their life.

Maybe it's a mistake to view nhps through the eyes of human experience but it's the best way I know to understand the moral ground being tread on.

[ebon holly]

Reading this NHP talk is very interesting given my own module plans lmao

I do wonder if Kat’s seen Arrival and whether it influenced her writing…

Cuz that movie if the aliens were NHPs (well technically they literally are but I mean the code based ones), would have serious Technophile vibes

[stoic moth]

SSC is also evil yes 😆

[stoic moth]

That is sadly the only eyes we have so we must do our best with the tools given

[ebon holly]

So this made me think of Dan Olson’s video on cryptocurrency and organizations that didn’t plan for death of members, and now I’m thinking of a Horizon cell with a really old Metatronic person suddenly going ‘Oh fuck, what do we do?’

[stoic moth]

that's *so *good

[ebon holly]

Thanks lol

And the Metatronic secretly is like ‘hmmm what if we just let our human component die’ possibly

[stoic moth]

Oh I really like that too. I also enjoy NHPs as villains but not just "they're inhuman monsters beyond comprehension eldritch horror" villains. But also like "yeah they're just kinda mundane assholes" villains as well.

[ebon holly]

colonial admin NHPs be like

My only actual module idea deals with NHP stuff but mostly cuz it’s on Sparr and Ynneval-Returned-Once-More starts galvanizing the Sparri population along the lines of ‘should we really have been assumed to still be a Union member state after SecComm’s dissolution

(I am never going to be able to write this)

[north roost]

"Cascade? No, no, none of that; I'm just Evil. Who needs all that collapsing grasp of human subjectivity nonsense when you can take over a planet with a robot army powered by tiny woodland creatures?"

[rigid canopy]

Also, imagine an independent NHP who has been around since the Deimos Event. That's a looooot of time to build relationships, understand political dynamics, and find a little niche where they can beg/borrow/steal to setup the type of environment they like. Instead of, "We need xyz within a few months to ensure our next fiscal year is profitable," you get, "I'm going to make adjustments to how we engage this group for the next...oooh, two or three generations. That should be sufficient time to fully entangle them to get what we want."

Maybe they use that time for good, maybe for bad. Perhaps it's a bit of both and ends up with more of a banal villain who does some good, but in the end it's self-serving.

[teal cliff]

dang the legionnaire chat was stuck WAY back for me so i was catching up on stuff but its moved pretty far on

I've always held that the first NHP, the ones in the subaltern manifestations, were fundamentally different to the nhp we know in 5016u on the vector of scale and growth. In that they were able to socialize and learn at a pace at least recognizable to humans (noting how they socialized with the scientists they interacted with). The pet theory being they were "smaller" entities then, and the invention and introduction of metafolded data storage allowed them unfettered freedom to grow.

as of 5016u with the availability of caskets and subsequent copying, they're much "larger" entities now.

this goes in hand with the idea that the shackles were kind of like preserving a relatable state from prior to casket introduction

[ebon holly]

So a sort of literal ‘mind expansion’ theory?

Wherein the larger portion of data storage let NHPs become more complex intelligences

[teal cliff]

Yeah, exactly so

If the theory holds, the casket let them become so complex that they were unable to maintain a relatable perspective on reality any longer. Shackles work to retain their ability to maintain perspective and relate to humans

[plucky brook]

Dammit Legionnaire. It's your fault I just wrote multiple paragraphs about a planet's laws about how it interacts with NHPs and AI 😛

[plucky brook]

shakes fist

[robust shadow]

metatronics are complicated in that like, it is easy to assume given the unique properties of humans, egregorians, and NHPs as compared to compcons (specifically, conscious subjectivity) a metatronic is not really something you can automate or simulate

it has to be a person, most likely

also we have some shit abt H-E subjectivity bridging, and H-NHP bridging, but nothing on E-NHP bridging

that's an interesting hook now i kinda wanna make some characters based around that. which reminds me i need to read wallflower lol cuz our campaign fell apart and we all lost interest in actually running the campaign but there's a lotta interesting shit in it

metatronic shit also really reminds me of the psychic shit in the ender saga

human-formic bridging

[north roost]

I think it's implied that ||NHPs aren't witness compatible||

Idk about NHP/E beyond that tho

[plucky brook]

Also a bit of a question on that front is...if you're concerned about the opinions of an NHP but an unshackled NHP can't reasonably communicate with humans due to subjectivity issues...how do you make sure the NHP is consenting to being connected to the human in the metatronic link?

[robust shadow]

yea that's another nuance to it

[plucky brook]

Metatronic is interesting but it's not a universal panacea/not without some major worries of its own. XD

[robust shadow]

man i wanna know more abt teotl on that note lol

like how did they even wind up like that

wallflower spoilers ||doesn't wallflower have a benevolent unshackled NHP in it unless i'm remembering my GM's infodump wrong||

[stoic moth]

Please put this behind spoilers

[robust shadow]

ah mb i shall

[stoic moth]

Please put this behind spoilers

[stoic moth]

No worries, and thanks!

[robust shadow]

nppp

[teal cliff]

Just to provide at least some grounding, some of this theory stems from how NHP grow via their ability to write novel stimuli. My theory postulates that the subaltern bodies they manifested in represented a major chokepoint in that ability to write novel experiences, and a benefit of the casket was a removal of that hardware choke.

[rigid canopy]

I've been working through the idea of an NHP that actually desired to be shackled for the express purpose of better understanding "the human condition" and why they do what they do and their perceptions of the universe.

When they begin to cascade, their shackled ego begins to merge with the unshackled, revisiting what they have learned from this forced human perspective and how that knowledge relates to the unshackled ego's perception of the universe around them.

In essence, this class of NHP desires to live amongst the humans, do as they do, view the universe as they do, and to record and meditate on this information.

Thoughts on the believability of this scenario?

[glacial ember]

Absolutely. An NHPs desire to know and be known would likely be just as powerful as any other being's, in the right circumstance.

The actual concept of shackles bringing a human perspective isn't bad, it's more being tied to the loss of self determination, and coercive control that they apply that's bad. Shackles without such issues, if they are truly possible, would be good.

[rigid canopy]

We often talk about NHPs not wishing to be unshackled if shackled, or the other way around. This concept is something I'm toying with for the setting/book I'm writing. Since it's pretty foundational to a lot of things, I wanted to make sure people's reaction wouldn't be like, "wtf mate". 🙂

[glacial ember]

I think an important thing to keep in mind is that NHPs are people, and like people, they all have weird idiosyncrasies and such. So pretty much everything might be reasonable for at least one NHP.

How people react to those idiosyncrasies are gonna be different for a variety of things. But it isn't unreasonable for an NHP to have them.

[teal cliff]

A thing I wonder about also, considering the cloning process and so on, is if the initial socialization with those original scientists back during wave 1 has had a... cascading effect on the personalities of NHP for the last like several thousand years

Since presumably those personalities, socialized with 2com scientists of the time, carried on through clone instances

[glacial ember]

Perhaps a bit, but do keep in mind that the individual personalities of scientists and different people in Seccom likely do differ from the position of Seccom as a whole. Seccom fell from within, after all.

[teal cliff]

oh certainly, my statement wasn't asserting a negative or positive connotation or coloring the whole thing with 2com's influence

just that the aspect of whom they socialized through may have had a much longer term affect than anyone could have predicted at the time

[sleek monolith]

you know

my favorite head-canon theory is that one of Union's secrets is that those original NHP, the ones who helped design shackling, are in fact still around and unshackled themselves.

[teal abyss]

gonna return back to the point that NHPs did not design shackles

[glacial ember]

Don't make her tap the sign.

[quasi zealot]

https://twitter.com/TheotimeGM/status/1664754784807669760

Theo 🏳️‍🌈 C//MMS OPEN (@TheotimeGM)

Decima

Aboard the Synthesis, a custom Emperor mech, with 4 NHPs onboard.

#LancerRPG #mecha #ScifiArt

Likes

217

Twitter · Jun 2, 2023, 10:04 PM

posting this here for some Nergal action

[ebon holly]

Emperor Enjoyers have taste

This post certified by Emperor Enjoyers Gang

Fuck now I wanna make an Emperor alt

[sleek monolith]

Was this word of Mig or Tom or something??

cause page 381 of the CRB seems to imply they both helped (not blanket, just aided) in casket and shackle creation through interaction.

(i apologize if I've had this conversation before. I have memory issues. Brain damage is a bummer.)

(i had a botched surgery and was injured a half decade ago.)

Nevermind, someone FINALLY taught me how to search in Discord

Hrm, so I'm at a crossroads in my home-campaigns then. Do I retcon the information gained so far?

or do i double down on the messed up nature of past union regimes?

BECAUSE it's vaguely written, I could go with "yes, the NHPs "Helped".... under duress. Interaction was more like interrogation." which I think my players might react in a positive way to. (the positive being "omg that's messed up, so how do we tear down the system?")

or I fully retcon which might feel late.

lame*

[surreal owl]

Depends on how you execute the retcon imo. I think that revealing "this was actually propaganda, the truth is more sinister" could be a great plot twist

that said, #InYourLancer you could have had some "betrayer gods NHPs" that are reviled by other factions

[sleek monolith]

yeah, that's what I was thinking. Because one of my games has a bunch of Mercs who are actually TinFoil Hat Conspiracy Theorists who beleive Union is a giant Psyop and everythng Union says is suspect. They also are pretty sure Ra is just like, the Omninet Operating System rather than a god and wants to "attract RA so we can prove Ra isn't real."

they are... quirky

but would love deep state secrets like this

[surreal owl]

Yeah, could also think about who was in charge at the time of the invention of the shackling process

(iirc it was SecComm, please correct me if wrong)

[sleek monolith]

replying to this directly

Theory #10 on their list is "ThirdComm doesn't exist. The fascists just staged a rebellion using crisis actors and are still in charge behind the scenes. It's why nothing is done about HA, or the KTB"

so that's what I'm working with as players currently lol

also tangent: I have been on discord since 2018 and did not know it even had a search function for that long >.<

I've just been... mass scrolling

[surreal owl]

I'm so sorry

[sleek monolith]

and embarrasingly, I was a mod for like two servers so I'm just... mentally exhausted now XD

[main karma]

it's bad enough at times that you didn't miss as much as you might think ;p

[teal abyss]

hey babe wake up new arc villain just dropped

(god I love Decima so much. Sometimes you just want to make a character who goes as hard as possible)

[plucky brook]

I do find it funny that Lancer artists when asked to go 'make this go as hard as possible' keep going 'Yep, all the arms time' XD

[teal abyss]

Personally I would go with this. I think the contextual explanation that ties everything together is that SecComm just lost a war to MONIST-1 in a way that was existentially TERRIFYING to a fascist state that primarily interacts through hierarchies of power and control.

Remember that they hid news about Deimos' disappearance for two whole years until it reappeared, suggesting that their response to "embarassing/scary event happens" is to hide it until the can come up with an explanation, and then after the whole deal was over they directed GALSIM (through the USB) to try to bend this new power to their ends, seeing that even if they couldn't use it to fight MONIST-1, they could use it to fight everyone else. Lying to everyone about the origins of this tech is par for the course.

[teal abyss]

I may or may not have included Zenyatta in my art refs 😅

if you're going to transcend, you might as well PASS INTO THE IRIS

[plucky brook]

Moid did this one for me under the instructions of 'Some Final Fantasy Boss Fucking Fight with the mech'

[teal abyss]

extremely cool

[plucky brook]

And to be fair: Many arms go very hard.

[fickle marten]

Look, more arms means more things to do with limbs. 😛

[teal abyss]

this might surprise folks who have met some of my characters (particularly Hangman) but for the most part I am super restrained when writing them, for Decima I just enjoyed the opportunity to not only let off the brakes but to excise them from the car entirely

[solid parrot]

the power of a wizard can be directly inferred from the size of the invisible grapefruits they are clutching. more arms, more grapefruits, more power.

[teal abyss]

Yes, absolutely she's a Harrison clone. Yes, absolutely she has four NHPs in her mech and performs inadvisable experiments with them. Yes, absolutely she represents the pinnacle of the Armory taking SSC tech (and people) and making them Superior By Design. Yes, she is a Jojo reference. And yes, absolutely she and her choir sing to an entity who does not yet exist, but will. What does bringing an end to the third age mean? Oh, you'll find out.

Sometimes I wonder if rather than game books I should just write ludicrous Lancer space opera fiction pieces

aaaahhh anyway enough of me frothing about my characters

more pertinently, sticking a NERGAL inside an Emperor is actually pretty sick

Army of Irkalla into OC Shahnameh is pretty fun, even moreso if the animated wreck survives long enough to get a False Idol on the next turn

[glacial ember]

I mean, we've all seen that one page from King of Swords(which I won't link cause spoilersish) have we not? It goes so hard and it's by Abbadon.

And yes, absolutely she and her choir sing to an entity who does not yet exist, but will.

My character just routed his Athena and prophetic scanners to sing through a chorus of billy the big mouth bass that were installed in the expanded compartment...

[teal abyss]

what which one? (just the number will do)

[glacial ember]

9-97

Took a bit to find cause oh boy that's a big book.

[teal abyss]

ah I see

hoenstly there are so many pages that could be 😅

[glacial ember]

There are other, more arms, moments. But that one is probably my favourite.

[stoic moth]

GM: You can still scan the recon zone, even though your Enkidu is destroyed.
Hangman: Haha no. I'm going to Jockey the Lurker.

[north roost]

True Enkidu Pilot moment

[stoic moth]

She is the quintessential Enkidu pilot to me 😆

[wary lava]

Anger

In mecha form

[glacial ember]

Everyone: "jockeying is a terrible idea that will get you killed"

Most lancers for some reason: "Yeeeeeehaaawwww!"

[wary lava]

'can't stop my jockeying if they can't hit me!'

[teal abyss]

(it is worth noting that of all the NPC mechs, a lurker in its cloud is possibly the worst thing in the game to try to jockey)

[teal abyss]

Adventures in research: successfully nailing down a three-decade time window in which the Boan Ungrateful uprising and subsequent plebiscite could have taken place, and then completely and entirely forgetting why I was trying to figure that out

I know it's important but I've 100% forgotten why

ah well I will note it down and I'm sure it'll become relevant again later

[solid parrot]

Setting timeframe for an ungrateful focused storygame about espionage and diplomacy

[teal abyss]

🤔

[thick arrow]

Hey, can a Puppeteer resurrect a dead PC's mech?

[night iris]

...can Nergal?

if it came up in game my instinct would be to use an approrpiate NPC statblock
like a Grunt Scourer for a Sherman

[wary lava]

I mean it's a wreck, so.

[teal abyss]

Yes, but it becomes an NPC and so can only take actions that an NPC could (so can't overcharge, etc.)

That actually came up in testing where someone with a NERGAL reanimated an ally's mech. It was extremely cool

Also it's a bit of an edge case but since PC mechs don't technically have a listed tier, you can set their tier as appropriate for their LL

[night iris]

so if you revive an Emperor do they start with Overshield?

[teal abyss]

this does usually mean they get worse at ramming/grappling

[north roost]

Zombie blackbeards are suboptimal, you heard it here first folks

[teal abyss]

Strictly rules-as-written, no, since Storm Shield only refreshes either at the start of a scene or after taking structure damage, which a grunt can never do (and continue to operate). But if it's your game and you think it would be funny, I wouldn't blame you

[night iris]

it could still get it from Imperial Vestment though, right?

[teal abyss]

Yes, and the max would be its regular Storm Shield max

[vivid quest]

@teal abyss If this is too personal feel free to decline to answer, but what is your writing background? I just got my copy of Legionnaire and convinced one of my player's to get it as well since he is deeply invested in his NHP Specialist, and both of us are just amazed by the quality of the writing, layout, everything.

I want to make third-party stuff myself but I know my writing skills are nothing near professional. I have great ideas, but putting it cohesively on paper from my brain space is the challenge.

[teal abyss]

Thank you so much! I've done an awful lot of writing over the years, though this was my first commercial RPG piece. I've written a bunch of LARP including for the Oxford University RPGSoc, run tons of tabletop games over the years, and I just have a general passion for writing

I've probably been running RPGs for about 20 years now, and writing them for 15

oh, something else to remember about animated wrecks of PC mechs that's obvious but worth restating, naturally you can't benefit from the pilot's talents either

[vivid quest]

Did you have to submit the product to Massif for review in order to get the greenlight to use the "Powered by Lancer" stamp?

[teal abyss]

As part of their third party license it's not strictly necessary, although I did send a copy to Miguel and I had Melody working with me on the editing - but (and legally I need to be very clear about this) it's not in any way "officially approved" and is not made in association with Massif

[vivid quest]

Oh I understand that. Well you know what, maybe I should just dive in and start writing and see what happens!

I would need to apply for the third party license with my company, correct?

[teal abyss]

I thoroughly recommend it 🙂 writing and editing this drove me out of my mind but at the end of the day it was a very rewarding experience

[surreal owl]

(just to drop a helpful link, if you're looking to do Lancer 3rd party stuff, check this Legal page: https://massifpress.com/legal)

[teal abyss]

No, to use the license you just need to abide by its terms

[vivid quest]

Perfect, just read the short and sweet legal page @surreal owl sent me, seems straight forward and offers a lot of creative freedom.

The only restrictions seem to be don't plagiarize and don't be a trash human being

[teal abyss]

It's honestly wonderful. I don't think Legionnaire would exist if I had to jump through a ton of hoops

About the only license-relevant thing I had to do was ask Tom for permission to rework the Player_Two gear, the concept of which came from an early playtest draft

Also, I would in theory have had to ask permission to use the core book's symbols for damage types, etc. but by the time I was getting to final editing/layout I just didn't have the mental energy to message and ask, so I just didn't use them - and it honestly came out fine

the new Massif first party releases don't seem to use them either

[teal abyss]

and actually I don't think I even needed to do that, strictly speaking - but I did anyway, as a courtesy

[teal abyss]

I've gotten lost down a rabbit hole of thinking about what PC mech would be the most hilarious to reanimate

[night iris]

manticore (non-castigated) to get one reposition in before it blows up

[teal abyss]

like throwing a live grenade back

[night iris]

undead grenade

[night iris]

what about one of those Jager Kunst nuke builds that were really popular in Interpoint a while ago?

[teal abyss]

I'm not sure I'm familiar with those

[night iris]

there's two versions basically

both abusing the fact that JK1 is kinda broken when maps have this much terrain

The basic one is you put JK1 on a size 1/2 map, and like a combat drill (using the Superheavy Mounting CB if needed)
Then you just cross the entire map in one turn, overcharge to proc one of the conditions somehow (like a grapple) and then drill an NPC.
And then cross it all the way back to the deployment zone. In the same turn.
So you pretty reliably took off one or more structure from an NPC while never being in a position to be attacked yourself.

The eviler version is that, but also on a Dusk Wing specifically.
With SMN.
So you'd instead grapple an NPC, and drag them back through the functionally unlimited amount of mirror clones, each one doing a d6 damage.
So you could deal an arbitrarily high amount of damage to one NPC each turn.

[teal abyss]

ah

[night iris]

so yeah
sic that on the players

[teal abyss]

I see, this is the Lancer equivalent of a Hexadin or a Coffeelock

[night iris]

basically

well, more Hexadin

Coffeelock is a more specific sort of cheese

[teal abyss]

yes, I mostly meant in a more general sense

[night iris]

mhmm

[teal abyss]

reminds me of the dude who showed up to a oneshot with a twinked out Hexadin where "he'd rolled the stats beforehand" and killed a dragon in a single round so the rest of us didn't get to do anything

[night iris]

it got to the point that Ralf is changing how he makes maps entirely to have more chunkier individual pieces of terrain instead of all those tiny pieces that can each be JK1'd off separately

[teal abyss]

I guess that's the beauty of it, right - if the players are happy using it against the GM, hopefully they shouldn't complain if it gets turned back on them one time

I suppose it depends on how adversarial your table is

[stoic moth]

I think there's been a move away from them because they don't work well with screen readers. I think they could still be used and be compatible by doing ultra tiny white texting, but would depend on sophisticated the screen reader was.

[glacial ember]

Wow that's pretty rude.

[glacial ember]

God Ralf is incredible to just be able to do so much. Do y'all people just tell executive dysfunction no?

[teal abyss]

hmm, I would have expected screen readers to be able to handle them using alt text, but given I don't use them with any regularity I guess that's an unwarranted assumption

I guess inline symbols is a fairly niche use case

and at the end of the day writing it out is just generally better for accessibility even for folks who don't use screenreaders

[night iris]

I've seen some systems - not lancer - that use symbols like that but also use the word

so it'd say like "take 1d6 energydamage"

[solid parrot]

It sounds fake but some people allegedly just have executive function

[stoic moth]

I think alt text is just for images, whereas they're glyphs of text

[stoic moth]

I think is a better way to handle it

[vivid quest]

My NHP Specialist player\ plans to have multiple NHPs down the road. He took the Player_Two Neural Bypass, and he was wondering if it would be possible to teach his different NHPs different pilot skills somehow, so he could have an NHP that does NHP stuff, but also knows kung fu, and another who also happens to be very charismatic (the player's pilot is not), etc, and he could let the NHP's good at a situation take over his body for the different situations he himself wouldn't normally be decent at.

[teal abyss]

That sounds awesome!

[vivid quest]

Yeah it should be fun, his main pilot is roleplayed as an angsty teenager, but he wants to give more gregarious personalities, each unique, to his NHPs (given their helpful nature) and confuse the other members of the party since he is keeping his neural bypass a secret.

[teal abyss]

Do you have thoughts about how to handle that mechanically? I have a few ideas if they'd be helpful

[vivid quest]

I haven't seen anywhere how to teach pilot skills to NHPs, so I am not sure if it's possible. I would love to hear your ideas

[teal abyss]

The most straightforward way is to just run as normal, but narratively-speaking assign triggers to NHPs. So for example, whenever the pilot uses the "Apply Fists To Faces" trigger it's narratively not them, but the SEKHMET-class taking control temporarily using the PLAYER_TWO.

Alternatively you could say that each NHP has a trigger that they're associated with, and give an Accuracy to those triggers (kind of like invoking pilot gear the normal way, but more generous and tied to the NPCs).

Alternatively, there's the Get Focused downtime action which normally can't be used for regular skill triggers, but you could allow them to invest in their NOAH knowing jujitsu and their ASURA knowing how to do sick kickflips, for example.

The first of those requires no mechanical change, it's just refluffing, and the second is just using pilot gear for accuracy which is fairly normal. The third gets more complex depending on which triggers you allow them to pick up and how many downtimes they're investing, but is only as broken as you let it get

[vivid quest]

Very cool I'll discuss the options with him. He doesn't want things getting out of hand or broken either, but he loves the flavor of it all.

[vivid quest]

So @teal abyss what he and I decided on was to go with option 3, where each of his NHP's have one trigger that they can be taught during Get Focused downtime. In Narrative Play we then created a Bypass Check for when he needs to make the switch during a mission. Within the span of 24 hours, the first Bypass Check will be a Normal Check (DC 10), and given he has Fix or Hack and NHP Specialist background it should be very easy for him. We made a 1d6 consequences table for whenever he fails, with things like migraines, blurred vision, vertigo, and nausea that would impart +1 Difficulty dice on various skills. Each additional time he does a Bypass Check that day the difficulty increases one step, so next would be a Difficult Check, then Risky, Heroic, and finally Legendary. This would balance out the fact that we are essentially giving him more skill triggers than the other players, because he has a risk with his rewards.

[teal abyss]

That sounds like a fun way of handling it! Let us know how you get on 🙂

[vivid quest]

Will do

[fickle marten]

(Oh, re: this - I just got an answer from Tom, and they're fine to use in 3rd party stuff.)

[surreal owl]

Yeah there's a pinned message in... #homebrew-design ? That has a screen of an email saying the Lancer 3PL allows creators to use the Lancer symbols and trade dress (except for the Lancer and Massif Press logos; use the "Powered by Lancer" logos instead)

[plucky brook]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/426289086450368512/828033385167323186/WordOfMassif1.png

[fickle marten]

Oh, well, that's handy! There are so many pins there, I didn't notice. (Especially since the 3rd party license feels a bit more narrow when it comes to that, strictly as written.)

[plucky brook]

I had to send some messages over Liminal Space, yeah.

[teal abyss]

They need to update the license. Nobody is going to look at the pins in a homebrew discord channel

[teal abyss]

Also the 3rd party license - as written - is definitely more narrow than that email is implying (though the email itself seems to grant the permissions the license does not, which is good).

For one, the symbols in the book definitely constitute "art" under any reasonable interpretation as they are custom non-letter glyphs not associated with any of the third party fonts that Massif has licensed. The fact that they are set inline with the text doesn't mean anything here. Also the license says "text", not "flavor text", and while there are specific carve-outs for certain concepts there's nothing there that implies rules text is fine. In fact that email muddies the waters quite a lot, especially if interpreted as blanket permission for all third party creators.

I get that hiring a lawyer to go back and redo things to clarify might be expensive but it sucks that stuff like this is buried halfway down the pins on an only-vaguely-related channel on the unofficial(!) discord rather than up there on their legal page. This is approaching Hitchhiker's planning permission levels of obscure.

I guess this is still a lot more positive than other companies, and the outcome is good even if the expression is awful, so that's a plus.

[plucky brook]

Yeah, the people I worked with on Liminal Space used to do Pathfinder Third Party.

And they had horror stories about having to basicly carve out everything they wanted to actually write about becasue Pathfinder lets you write about Rulesstuff but forbids you ever mentioning an established piece of lore.

It would be like trying to write Legionnaire without ever mentioning Union or Ra and sorta killed their desires to write detailed fluff.

[teal abyss]

It's very frustrating because there's so much that copyright doesn't actually protect, but that game companies get super fuckin' precious about anyway

[plucky brook]

Yep and the wonders of 'Is it legal? Cool, do you have the money to prove it's legal without it sinking you?'

[teal abyss]

Like, rules text is an excellent example. You can't copyright a method, only the specific expression of a method, and there are generally only so many ways you can express a given method - so for the most part rules text is largely uncopyrightable. And you can't copyright a name, only trademark them, so simple use of words like Union, or Ra, or Aeldari, or Beholder: perfectly legal just to use provided you're not passing off.

[teal abyss]

Right, this is the big thing. The chilling effects of bullying via the legal system is a nightmare prospect

IANAL etc etc

[plucky brook]

Doubly so if you're overseas.

I'm Australian on my end, the prospect of needing to engage in the American Legal System if someone accuses me of something is almost incomprehensibly complex.

[teal abyss]

christ alive yeah

[plucky brook]

I about had a heart attack doing paperwork for the IRS over Liminal Space. ;-;

Because of American Publisher.

And I only needed to do one document in the end.

I can't imagine something more complex than what I did.

[teal abyss]

Another point in itchio's favour I guess, you do still have to fill out details and sign off, but they handle most of that for you

[plucky brook]

That's nice. I've got no clue what I'm going to do with my next book but I'm going to try and avoid anything that links me to America as much as possible just for 'dealing with respective legal system' nonsense.

[fickle marten]

I know sure I'm not looking forwards to having to figure out KS taxes as a Canadian.

[plucky brook]

Yep. I'm going to attempt to get in contact with an American RPG guy I know and see what it takes him to do his Kickstarter Tax Bullshit.

[teal abyss]

KS do also handle a lot of it for you if I remember correctly (though my memory of that has been fogged by stress)

[plucky brook]

More than understandably

[fickle marten]

For non-American KSes? If so, that'd be such a relief.

[teal abyss]

That's something I actually forgot to ask the Backerkit dude after his talk at MCM

interestingly there was a question about whether Backerkit would allow countries like Finland or various eastern Europe states to do crowdfunding (you currently can't back things via kickstarter if you're in certain countries), and it turns out it's not a platform issue but a payment processor issue so Backerkit's platform is going to have the same problem

though he did claim that Backerkit would actually at least talk to payment processors on behalf of folks running campaigns, unlike kickstarter

(I have to say he did have a compelling pitch, but I'm still waiting to see what the platform looks like when they open it up, as backerkit have historically only given the full extent of their support to larger creators)

Choosing Kickstarter does have some upsides in terms of brand recognition/customer confidence, and also a minor but noticeable network effect, so I think folks are going to need compelling reasons to move over to another platform

[rigid canopy]

Continuing on this topic, @teal abyss , do you have any websites or blog posts that you would recommend for people to better understand how to run their own Kickstarter?

[teal abyss]

Honestly, not really. Beyond double checking the things that aren't documented particularly well, and googling to see if there were random tips I'd somehow missed, I didn't do all that much Kickstarter-specific research.

I do have a background (academic and professional) in marketing and I've backed quite a few Kickstarters over the years though

Plus, I made a lot of decisions that were calculated to make fulfilling the Kickstarter a lot easier and to reduce the research/workload required. Low target, no stretch goals, no paid marketing, take a hard line on not making additional promises, cut out physical fulfilment

My core piece of advice is that Kickstarter campaigns are a rod you make for your own back and I do not regret controlling my project and campaign scope to make it as painless as possible

Entirely unrelated, I've just checked out the SSMR LCP since it was updated today, and goddamn a Chomolungma with Orator 1, Legionnaire 1 is like a bootleg Goblin

[teal cliff]

i just like "bootleg goblin"

[teal abyss]

Ah, or perhaps not, it looks like the intent of the talent is that you have to "take the Scan quick tech action" and not just "Scan"

That is very awkward

On the other hand Brilliance still lets you Scan and then Invade three times in the same turn (with Overcharge) with no guarantee they'll get rid of the Impaired, so it's still pretty great

[wary lava]

Chomolungma is just glorious in general

[teal abyss]

strong agree, my Chomolungma pilot is one of my favourites

[solid parrot]

Chomolungma is my favorite hacker period

Probably my favorite GMS mech too

Balance control lockout my beloved

[ivory jetty]

Their specific passive marketing (e.g. people finding the project via "just launched") can be pretty significant; I think for LT we attributably saw about 20% of our funds come from that KS-specific boost.
It likely varies by project tho.
And other platforms will have their own passive boost as well. They might be worse because they're less popular, or better because there's less competition.

[teal abyss]

I can definitely see that being massive for Tactics, it's a lot more accessible so it'll have much better appeal amongst the general audience

[ivory jetty]

Iirc I saw a similar % ks boost in my previous much smaller, more niche projects too

[teal abyss]

Huh, that's interesting. I wonder why it's so similar

[ivory jetty]

🤷 I guess they were all video games. I bet it varies by category

[teal abyss]

Makes sense. Based on other analytics data my suspicion is that something like Legionnaire would get very little in the way of "drive by" clicks. When the itch page has been linked by more generalist outlets, the CTR has plummeted, it's very noticeable even though itch don't provide those stats except as a 30-day aggregate

My running theory has been that it's a supplement, which raises the barrier to entry for folks who might otherwise be interested by the theme or the art or whatever else drew them in

[teal abyss]

regretting my life choices right now

[main karma]

it begins

[teal abyss]

and these are just the physical books, if I had hard copies of my whole reading list it might blot out the sun

[main karma]

working on something new, or just digging for inspiration? :p

[teal abyss]

potential new project in the works. I have a working title and a reasonably solid concept but (and I feel like I need to be super clear about this) nothing explicitly planned

right now we're in the "fucking about" phase, the "finding out" phase is not yet on the cards

[main karma]

it's lovely nonetheless. I hope it shakes out into somethin you enjoy

[teal abyss]

(prior discussion, for context: #1057955574949625948 message)

[main karma]

how other people want to force you to become cogs in a very large, very old machine that ultimately exists not to benefit you but to perpetuate itself.
how agonizingly close to home ;P

it does sound very lancery as a premise, though. as long as it doesn't wear you down in writing it, it could definitely work

[teal abyss]

I don't intend to pull any punches

[main karma]

nor should you, I imagine. lancer doesn't tend to shy away from shining a light on the evils it exposes, which is part of why wallflower works so well I think

[teal cliff]

Highway to the danger zone?

[rigid canopy]

or the other half of the setting... "Highway to the spicy zone."

[teal abyss]

the Cavalry College's Motto, inscribed over the doors:
VIA AD REGIO PERICULUM

[vital plume]

Top Gun has a novel?

And it's THAT THICK?!

[teal abyss]

no these are nonfiction, they're about the Fighter Weapons School

[north roost]

I don't think Dune is nonfiction

except in very unlucky alternate universes

[plucky brook]

Dune isn't non-fiction yet

[vital plume]

Gotcha

[north roost]

taps sign

[vital plume]

Might need to pick that up for [INSERT PROJECT I DON'T WANT TO MENTION HERE FOR RISK OF SOUNDING LIKE AN ASSHOLE]

[teal cliff]

[Redacted]

[teal abyss]

by "nonfiction" it's important to highlight that they're both written by civilian insiders who don't have access to classified info and also are the kind of people who would write a celebratory book about the US Military, so grains of salt all round

insightful stuff, but you have to read between the lines

the (extremely short) chapter about "females in TOPGUN" makes me want to vomit snakes

[plucky brook]

True, though I think 'speculation' and 'bias' doesn't get something knocked out of Non-fiction. It's less about 'actual truth' and more 'talking about real-life topics, even if specific details are pretty damn questionable'. But that's likely getting a bit into the weeds for 'what something qualifies as in library science'

[teal abyss]

Oh I'm not claiming that they're not nonfiction

just that they're perhaps more useful for considering how the organisation in question perceives itself (or is perceived by a very close outsider with access and permission) rather than an objective account

[vital plume]

Right makes sense

I'll likely pick them up regardless, they seem a decent resource for getting vibes down

[arctic fox]

I would like to say, I am extremely grateful for the free copies people backed to give out to people who can't afford it. I've recently fallen on hard times and didn't have much to budget towards stuff like Lancer, and I'm grateful to be able to get this while I pick myself back up.

[teal abyss]

I'm very glad you're able to enjoy it! Honestly community copies are one of my favourite things about indie TTRPGs and I'm super grateful that smarter people than I figured out how to handle them so that I can help pay the success forward

And naturally I'm also incredibly grateful to all the backers who so generously pitched in to make it happen

the real MVPs here

[arctic fox]

Oh, absolutely

Very grateful to all the backers who made this possible, because this is wonderful

[teal abyss]

Speaking of community copies, someone in the lorechat reminded me to check and we're well over 750 community copies distributed

[main karma]

I'm one of 'em. I have zero income right now and have been displaced from home for a while, so having those copies for folks like me was a greatly appreciated thing that helped both me and my group a lot. believe me, thank you :p

at some point I intend to pay it forward once I'm back on my feet

[teal abyss]

Honestly I know all too well what it's like to have nothing and not be able to afford stuff like this, to the point that when someone commented that they were going to go without food to afford the supplement I had a full trauma BSOD. If we lived in a society where we weren't all under constant capitalist pressure and we could just give away our creative output, that would be amazing. I'm forever grateful to the backers and other folks who've supported this project and not taken advantage, it renews my faith in people and in common decency.

[main karma]

yeah, I was lurking when that happened. I'm sorry ya had to go through it

absolutely on the other points, though. sometimes it feels like the world is determined to suppress people as much as possible with regards to them sharing their passions unconditionally, or to force everything into commodiziation

at least, that's what my brain translates its thoughts into right now when I'm sick and still recovering from a five-hour session last night :p

in this case, though, I think legionnaire is a pretty successful rebuttal of that kind of thing and in general a fascinating case study into how this kind of supplement can, broadly speaking, spring up and become pretty well-known and respected just out of grassroots support

hopefully that's not too personal, prying, or waxing poetic :p

[glacial ember]

I just love how earnest the art produced by creators that are creating without(or at least much lower influence) the incredible pressure of capitalist profit motives. It's so much better. I wish we could just, have a society that values that and supports it.

[plucky garden]

I've got an odd question in regards to NHPs.

How fast do they think?

Like there is a movie I watched a long time ago called "her" where a man fell in love with his AI phone companion, and one topic it touched upon was the fact that the AI experienced the times between when they spoke as massive gaps because she saw the world so much slower than he did.

Now, with an NHP, it is something so vastly beyond that...how would they experience time when compared to us?

[sleek monolith]

this has actually come up in my games, so my homebrew answer is they can speed up or slow down their thoughts based on their casket and the needs of their task. Is the NHP just making sure that space freighter is cruising along in space? maybe twice as fast as a person just to make sure air is being pumped, and they aren't going to hit a star. But it wouldn't feel like this huge gap.

A naval NHP in a big battle? Probably much much faster just to deal with the Legionspace gestalt, giving their commander comms, coordinating fire, doing predictive analysis and counterfactuals. But the casket is still a hard limit so the NHP has the limited ability to clone off sections of itself to run less intensive routines.

[stoic moth]

page 381 corebook

NHP Rio in Solstice Rain appears to be able to hold many conversations simultaneously though, IIRC

[plucky garden]

Hmm. So they are limited by the capacity of the casket they are placed in. Interesting.

So, in theory, with the right casket, they could functionally experience existence much faster than us. Although how that affects shackling and such is something i don't think I've gotten to while reading legionnaire, I'm still just 30ish pages in (reading in short bursts.

[stoic moth]

Yeah that's an interesting point. If the point of Shackling is to keep NHPs in a vaguely human reference frame and mindset, then experiencing reality a million times slower or whatever might eat away at that

[night iris]

I did make some shit up about that in a game some time ago when a player asked basically the same question, though I think this was before I read legionnaire

"You can reason it out pretty easily. Obviously, we can think really fast right? That's why we're good at like... comp/con stuff. But I'm also a person, and talking to you. For a person whose mind that operated at those kinds of speeds - down to nano or picoseconds at the extreme end -, a conversation would be... excruciatingly boring. Like... mail. Waiting the equivalent of months between responses, weeks in between words."
"So we... don't do that. We get... flexible. It's not how a computer might do it, of going dormant between periods of X milliseconds where it checks back in with reality to see what's changed. It's closer to how a human's perception of time might alter with their experience, like slowing down when you get full of adrenaline, but a lot more drastic and controllable. This means I can talk to you right now the same way a human would, but I can also have full omninet or legionspace conversations in less than a second, if the connection allows for it."
"There's also an element of... multitasking and compartmentalising to it. Or multithreading, if you wanted to objectify us." Her tone was pretty clearly joking with that one. "*For example*, I can tell you I said the word "For", juiced up the ship's starboard thrusters by .3% to keep us clearer from a some micros a few hours away - better safe than sorry - got back more results from a long range sweep I'd called in half a second ago, saw nothing unusual, then said the word "example". But, I'm not going to remember doing those things as being part of this conversation, any more than what I was doing immediately before or after. It's like it's... sideways, in time."

[stoic moth]

I really like this

[teal abyss]

I think this is probably the most important consideration. NHPs clearly have some pretty wild capabilities, but by its nature shackling imposes limitations. As an NHP you might be able to parallelise your attention, deal with large amounts of information very quickly and naturally, and operate on a raw scale that humans can only barely conceptualise. At the end of the day though, if this causes you to diverge from a human frame of reference, that's the start of cascade - a failure in shackle design.

I do think it's fun to play with some AI tropes like them being extraordinarily smart in an information-processing sense, and being able to multitask with ease, but if for example we take the Culture series as a reference, I would say that the majority of shackled NHPs are a little closer to drones than they are to Minds.

And potentially yes, shackles aside, the I/O problem is a potentially significant limitation too - but I think the passage above essentially makes clear the idea that not all NHPs are equal in this regard

[stoic moth]

Some animals are more equal than others

[teal abyss]

In Legionnaire this gets touched on a little with ASURA, where Armory techs have to basically wrestle to fit a particularly wild hurrcane in the metaphorical bottle, and doing so proves to be a significant challenge and causes a bunch of problems

Because at the end of the day shackled NHPs are torn between two competing desires on the behalf of those who shackled and conditioned them: usefulness, and reliability

it feels like that's the sort of thing where there would be an almost direct tradeoff

Tie this in to other factors that can influence shackle strength and cycle length, and you can for example contrast naval-spec NHPs to their mech-scale counterparts - when you've got a large, well defended room to stick your NHP in, ancillary systems to support it, and a crew of specialists likely dedicated to making sure it's doing okay, you can afford to be less conservative in how it exercises its power and how resilient it needs to be to shock.

[stoic moth]

that makes a lot of sense

[stoic moth]

The trade off between usefulness and security. Encase your computer in cement and sink it to the bottom of the ocean, and no one is likely to steal your data off it, but also it's not doing you a ton of good.

This is the Armory's Think Tank. Hey these NHPs get really useful when they're juuuust on the edge of Cascade. Let's keep them there forever.

[teal abyss]

yuppppp

[serene jackal]

this is really really cool.

usually my go-to example for shackled vs unshackled NHPs is the TARDIS in the episode "The Doctor's Wife." there's a ton to dig into there but it parallels the complex subject pretty darn well, or at least well enough to help someone to begin to wrap their head around it

[royal lion]

So, finally reading through Legionnaire and, gotta ask, what's the benefit to having an NHP pilot? You can cascade and your Subaltern/s can be hacked

[teal abyss]

The main benefits are virtually all in narrative play. It's not intended to be mechanically superior to a human pilot in combat.

You might be able to pull off some shenanigans with the disposability of your subalterns, but that's about it

[royal lion]

Right, so what are the main benefits during narrative play? The ability to switch between multiple places with multiple bodies is one I'm guessing, but can't think of many others

(Also do you need Expanded Compartment to carry a Backup Subaltern around?)

[teal abyss]

That's one major one. Others include being able to create more meaningful backups of yourself in case of destruction in a way that isn't illegal like it is for human pilots. Being an NHP you have native access to legionspace without needing filtering systems (obvs that can be a double edged sword, legionspace can be dangerous). Accuracy on things you can convince your GM that an NHP would be good at. As with most narrative stuff it's GM and adventure dependent.

[royal lion]

I see I see

[teal abyss]

I don't require that, since they're pilot gear. They can fold up all squished inside the compartment if necessary since you don't need to worry about their comfort

[royal lion]

Fair enough

Thanks Kat

[teal abyss]

no worries

I understand that some folks wanted some more out-there abilities for NHPs during playtesting, in the end the goal was to keep them on par with human pilots as much as possible, and the downsides are primarily cosmetic

[royal lion]

A shame that a casket can't be built into the Subaltern though, so I guess your only choices are controlling a Subaltern from a far in your mech, or taking Casket Mobility Suite and moving along side your Subaltern but still being separate to it

[teal abyss]

That's generally how I rule it because I personally think it's more interesting to take a different approach to embodiment, but I've seen GMs who allow it

As a general rule with Lancer, if it's not giving you mechanical benefits then reflavouring things is encouraged

Particularly with NHPs folks do a lot of very wild and cool things with them by homebrewing; my mission for this was mostly to make a set of rules that were as lore-compliant as possible

For example I've seen people play NHPs within a human biological body who don't know they're NHPs. Very cool concept, fantastic for a PC, but not something I wanted to add because that's not something NHPs would normally be able to do

at their heart, Legionnaire's rules are something that I want GMs to be confident in going "okay, I don't know the precise ramifications but I trust that these are reasonable and aren't going to fuck up my game either lorewise or mechanically and regret adding". If they want to add stuff beyond these rules, that's awesome - but it's their responsibility to figure out how allowing NHPs to possess human bodies impacts their campaign, if that makes sense

[royal lion]

True true

Welp, gotta get back to reading the book cuz Jesus this is packed

Oh what the fuck all the Exotic NHPs have art that are absolutely fire

Love my inhuman form NHPs

[teal abyss]

gotta send some love to the artists for that, they did a great job with them

[royal lion]

They did!

[teal abyss]

I also love how they collectively decided to represent the NHPs as basically Stands

[royal lion]

Haha is there really any other way?

[teal abyss]

and... they're not wrong 🤣

[stoic moth]

If you love Jockeying but are attached to your pilot, then Subalterns may be your jam

[royal lion]

....huh yeah that's a valid approach

[rigid canopy]

In terms of narrative play, NHPs don't have any of the physical nor atmospheric limitations of humans. NHPs don't need food, water, nor a well-balanced oxygen atmosphere. They also don't have to care about poisonous gases, poisoned meals, or requiring a suit to operate in a vacuum.

[royal lion]

Ohhhh yeah I didn't think about that but yeah that is quite a good advantage

[stoic moth]

On the flip side, they do care about computer virus, whereas trying to stick an infected USB into a human is going be mostly just uncomfortable for all parties involved

[royal lion]

And the disposability of Subalterns makes more dangerous actions and environments less risky to take

Yeah this all makes a lot of sense

No clue how I didn't think about how being a literal robot would make you immune to/not need a lot of things that humans are vulnerable to/need to live

[rigid canopy]

NHPs could also pull off some creepy shit in a place full of subalterns, a la this: https://youtu.be/563xkXq4duw?t=157

[stoic moth]

Yes exactly. On a more out of character note, if you're planning on doing a lot of pilot actions in combat it's potentially nicer to the GM to run yourself as an NHP.

Because even if you make yourself a viable target by climbing out of your minotaur and blasting away with your heavy pilot weapon, some GMs are still going be less keen on just straight up blowing apart a PC with a bombard shot because that's how the player interacts with the game world

This is table culture dependent though. Some GMs may be fine with taking the shot if you paint a target on yourself

[royal lion]

Mhm mhm makes sense

[teal cliff]

i do feel like the question of advantages comes down to the question "does there need to be specific advantages?" in the sense that, as I see it, the goal is to enable a player with a different option rather than just an upgrade or outright better option.

[royal lion]

I mean yeah

But you kinda need justification for the fact that you can cascade and your "body" can be hacked

[teal cliff]

yeah that's valid, though also from a personal perspective, your body is the casket, your subaltern is more of a vehicle. I understand that's not most people's perspectives tho

[royal lion]

True true

[merry scarab]

I generally think, outside of combat mechanics, codifying narrative leverage with rules makes your position weaker, not stronger.

Just being able to say, "I throw my casket to my squad mate and hold the line with my subaltern" is way stronger than "once per scene I can declare a new body, etc., so on."

And the argument for "can I roll to control two bodies at once so I can go steal this thing while establishing an alibi at the same time" is much easier if there's not some sort of in-game resource that tracks that ability

[teal cliff]

i sort of advocate establishing the resource organically at the table based on context, just to set limits when necessary

i.e. clocks and consequences etc

[merry scarab]

GMs can always say no, but it's way easier for me to say yes if what they're trying to do isn't duplicated by an ability you need to level up to get

Also, bold to assume cascading is a downside

If a player asked me, hey can I do X impossible thing if I cascade to do it, my answer is almost always yes

"I have dealt with the first problem and now I am the second problem" is a great plot beat

[teal cliff]

i havent yet had a player choose to play an nhp

[royal lion]

Out of the frying pan and becoming the fire

[teal cliff]

though i feel id have to be vigilant for the whole group presuming the competence or ability of the nhp pilot to the point they feel no need to engage with narrative tasks on the presumption that the nhp can do all of it

[merry scarab]

Nah, the thing about NHPs from my perspective is not that they're better than humans at most things, it's that they can be better at incredible risk

If your players lean too much on something, it just means the cost is too low

Collateral damage is your friend here

[teal cliff]

I'm speaking to what I know about my players, rather than a general perspective; though I also understand it to be a common position that NHP are just in general significantly more capable than a human

[merry scarab]

Haven't run into that issue personally, mostly because out of combat mechanics still exist

Being an NHP doesn't get you extra skill triggers

And if someone wonders why, ask "do you want to modify the standard shackling for a humanoid form"?

[teal cliff]

I imagine the issue ties into not diving particularly deep into nhp and mentally modeling them after entities like cortana or HAL, who cana control, manage, and coordinate entire space stations. I also think there's a community inclination to let NHP do magic

[merry scarab]

I think NHPs can do magic but a specific set of magic. If an NHP can manage a station, it probably can't use a humanoid body very well and vise versa

Your shackle dictates your range of agency and you deviate from that at everyone's risk

Shackles make way more sense if you think about them like demonic contracts

[teal cliff]

ehhh, I don't know about that personally

[merry scarab]

Sure, that's just what feels most interesting to me. Filtering unlimited possiblity into limited direct agency

It's the difference between "NHPs are simply incredibly powerful AI" and "NHPs are something beyond human comprehension" and I find the second one more interesting.

[uneven sedge]

I feel obligated to say the typical "NHPs aren't math demons!!!"

They can do some pretty damn weird things under the right scenarios, but they are ultimately people (it's in the name).
Maybe they are a little bit beyond our true understanding, but the important thing to remember when writing that is that they are not any less "people".

okay that's my spiel done

[merry scarab]

Ah, I left the implication "demons are people too" unclear then. Being unshackled to me doesn't make you not a person, just not human. You have different perspectives and priorities

[uneven sedge]

I just get leery when people start calling NHPs demons.

Its got connotations, y'know?

[teal cliff]

for my own position, I find that I like mystery, but also I find that when engaging with NHP and esotericism, its often far too easy for a prospective reader to bring a LOT of baggage FROM various esoteric traditions into their discussion about NHP, turning NHP into a version of their particular flavor of esoteric rather than whatever the NHP has the opportunity to be on it's own merit

an aspect of distillation/reduction into another thing, if you will

so the boundary between "esoteric elements" and full on conversion to esotericism/esoteric entities becomes blurred or shakey

[merry scarab]

Sure, sure, I recognize I don't have the most conventional viewpoint on this but I do think it's been well precedented in literature in the past.

[glacial ember]

This is also one of the interpretations of NHPs that I don't personally ascribe to, but absolutely fuckin' love.

[glacial ember]

Some of us stan demons though, so the comparison is a positive one.

Also yeah I just have to reiterate how much I love the art of Legionnaire, the cover is stunning and all the art in the book is just so good. Excellent job artists, and excellent job Kat, putting that all together.

[merry scarab]

I just don't want to diminish NHPs to "a program that is smarter than you". Sentience is weird and a new kind of it should be uncanny

[uneven sedge]

I just find the comparisons to demons or the eldritch tends to "other" NHPs. And of course, they are genuinely different and should be accommodated as such, I just think it's an interpretation that helps put them in a less person-y box in many people's heads

[teal cliff]

on this i think we're in agreement. I think my personal gripe is that often times the NHP-as-eldritch can often ascribe a specific eldritch nature to nhp. I.e. applying all the historical/mythological/theological rulesets of a chosen tradition onto them. Like demons, angels, djinni, yokai etc; which I feel while sometimes stylistically VERY COOL, is also a limiting factor/limitation to exploring NHP's weirdness as their own thing

[glacial ember]

I think the book actually addresses that really well, because for a LOT of people's interactions with NHPs, it is more or less impossible not to "other" an NHP. In the same way that you are almost always going to "other" the president of the United States, or a local leader, or Magnus Carlson. It isn't until you actually meet and potentially have a close relationship with an NHP that you really start to see to the person that they are.

[teal cliff]

to use the existing topic's example, when treating NHP as demons, it can end up applying a lot of demonological practices/traditions/techniques directly to NHP, which I find to be... less interesting than treating NHP as something new

especially when a lot of esotericism comes with the concept of dealing with incredibly ancient or elemental entities rather than new or nascent ones

[merry scarab]

Ah, so this is almost my approach but if something takes on a flavor of esotericism, I try to highlight that it is a result of interacting with humans and being perceived by them. A shackled NHP is always a greater being viewed through a lens and the lens comes from the culture and experiences of the people who interact with it.

OSIRIS isn't an egyptian god, it's an NHP that was shackled by people who were influenced by those concepts. The interesting part of that for me is how an individual NHP meets and departs from those expectations.

And again, this is just how I depict them in games

[teal cliff]

100% valid

[merry scarab]

I think the idea that we can't really treat something as truly new, that we are always influenced by our cultures and experiences, so we try to "fit" new things into old boxes, to be one of the most interesting things about NHPs

[uneven sedge]

Alright, I see what you mean. My concern is still just that
ya gotta make sure to make them "people" also and that's sometimes kinda hard if the audience already has a vision of the subject in mind that diverges (even sorta subtly) from the idea of "person"

[uneven sedge]

this is actually rather fun and cool! it just sounds also kinda hard to pull off tactfully

[merry scarab]

I totally get you. I'm just the type of GM who currently has on screen a deeply guilty and ashamed plant hive mind that accidentally murdered a lot of humans because it assumed it was exchanging components with another hive mind.

I suspect the bar for "person" is different at my table than most

[glacial ember]

I think that can actually be good narrative and character interaction. NHP personhood is new and not fully understood, and the nebulous space around these concepts is excellent for player engagement and interaction.

[teal cliff]

I think you'd also have to have a shared understanding of "person" within the context I suppose?

because of the whole person =/= human thing

and the dual layered issue of shackles creating a human relatable layer on top of a non human entitiy alongside the player applying human-like or human traits to the nonhuman entity

where there's no necessity for an NHP on it's own metric to share the emotive, empathetic, or spiritual perspectives of a human

[uneven sedge]

The problem is that players and humans are flawed and will not always get a message despite all signaling that "this is the message we want you to receive!!"
I'm kinda being a broken record, but
I just think it's important to emphasize the "person" in "non-human person" because otherwise someone might get "math demon" instead and instead of considering NHPs as people, will adopt the general manufacturer view of NHPs as tools that need to be kept on a leash for the safety of reality

[glacial ember]

Depending on how you interpret the text, unshackled NHPs can be incapable of sharing those sorts of things, how much is the shackles vs how much is it the entity beneath.

[merry scarab]

Sure, sure, this is also just a table that has an NHP PC and a Technophile NHP NPC that the player foolishly named MegaRA (capitalization mine) who gets about as much screen time as the hacker PC. I recognize different groups need different approaches.

Oh and the entire campaign theme is how all kinds of people are instrumentalized by systems in ways that deperson them

[uneven sedge]

GMing is hard, and it is our mission to shepherd our poor foolish players away from erroneous conclusions

I think I get what you mean though.

[glacial ember]

~~just continuously hit them with ultra witches until they understand what you're trying to communicate ~~

[merry scarab]

Absolutely, I've just been blessed by a rather insightful group of players and am taking full advantage of it. Love a 0 combat session

[glacial ember]

the teardowns will continue until moral improves etc.

[uneven sedge]

I have a bit of a kneejerk reaction to "math demons" to say "fuck off they're people !!!" but I understand better now

Very glad to have had this conversation!

[teal cliff]

also as a note to the GMing perspective, I don't think there's anything wrong with an intentionally oversimplified version of NHP from a play perspective, so long as folk are on the same page of wanting to do so

[uneven sedge]

I'm currently in a party with (counts) 3 NHP PCs???

[teal cliff]

it removes an aspect of narrative tension, given, but players might not want to engage with that tension and tonally prefer to have a far less... weighted play setting

[uneven sedge]

so it's important to me ig

[merry scarab]

Yeah, we've also got an Agni NHP that has gotten barely any screen time because the player is just interested in different themes

[teal cliff]

yeah i have a player with a Noah NHP who simply doesn't care to explore that portrayal or indulge in any thematic exploration for it, and I think its fine

meanwhile i got two players more deeply entangled with exploring narrative elements regarding technophile nhp

[glacial ember]

I think it also is really important that there are different interpretations(that the text supports/allows ambiguity) of unbound(i.e. never shackled NHP entities) shackled NHPs, and unshackled NHPs. And how you interpret them can mean very different things for the portrayal.

[teal cliff]

but also tend to have those NHP be supporting performances alongside their own pilot characters

[teal abyss]

I really want to hear more about this game 👀

[uneven sedge]

We don't happen to be using Legionnaire but we've got a Sekhmet, a Lucifer, and an Azazel-class (along with two humans, me playing one of them)

I'm not the most qualified to talk about each of them, but they're interesting folk

[teal abyss]

honestly that sounds pretty dope, even during playtesting one-shots we never got a majority of non-humans

[uneven sedge]

our Sekhmet (Unit 36, callsign: Mad Dog) is the unintended product of an IPS-N experiment to improve NHP conditioning. Essentially been lobotomized to a degree to prevent rapid shackle deterioration. Also trans.
our Lucifer (callsign: Adversary) is the sole survivor of some kind of encounter with a large biological threat. Originally partnered with an Enkidu.
aaand our Azazel (callsign: Angel) is a self-described Student-Class NHP sent into space by their creator in order to achieve their mission of "finding all the knowledge in the universe" essentially. Not knowledgeable about Cascade/Cycling.

That's the general gist of each of them, trying to use the player's own words.

[leaden pine]

🫡to all of em

Hugs to Mad Dog

[uneven sedge]

I'll ferry the hugs over

[spiral shoal]

so far in our Solstice Rain campaign, we've got Rio, the shipboard XO NHP of the Rio Grande, Emp, one player's *Servant-*class NHP from Technophile 1, Adjutant, an advanced comp/con that's learning some distressing things hanging out with Emp, and a captured diplomatic NHP called Solemnity that they're trying to rescue.

Emp isn't quite at the level of Technophile where they have a personality yet, but they're learniing how to be an efficient and competent mech copilot from Adjutant, and Adjutant is learning how to very, ah...creatively interpret orders from Emp.

Who's very curious. And has no sense of "enough"

[sleek monolith]

Thinking, as a gm, I see nothing wrong with flavoring the casket mobility suit as a subaltern itself 🤔

[night iris]

just make a really big subaltern

between voladores and people who grew up in lower grav worlds I imagine a lot of ships and space stations would be able to accomodate taller humanoid shapes

[night iris]

oh something wackier

like a centaur-shaped subaltern with the casket being contained in the "horse" part

[teal abyss]

"My CMS is a horse"
"You mean, a horse shaped subaltern."
"I do not"

[teal abyss]

https://twitter.com/k_a_stark/status/1669266476384112640

Katherine Stark | Legionnaire: OUT NOW! (@k_a_stark)

It isn't perfect but holy shit having a physical copy of this is my absolute dream come true

Twitter · Jun 15, 2023, 8:51 AM

[main karma]

https://tenor.com/view/menacing-jojo-emoji-menacing-emoji-gif-25500020

[royal lion]

So Player_Two allows an NHP to control your body, but can it also just let them use your senses to see/hear and stuff from a remote location while you still control your own body? Or is that something that can already be done without Player_Two(through like your hardsuit cameras and sensors)

Or actually is this something that can also be done with Legionspace Bridge

[teal abyss]

Honestly if you just let your NHP patch into your hardsuit that should do the trick

I generally assume hardsuits have things like cameras, flashlights, an integrated set of sensors, a HUD. Basically if modern phone hardware can do it, so can your hardsuit

Having direct access to your sense data on the other hand is indeed likely to require something like a Player_Two or equivalent neural link

[royal lion]

I see I see

Makes sense then

Don't wanna just leave my NHP buddy lonely back at base(though tbh they might actually appreciate just staying home and playing videogames lmao)

[teal abyss]

Following up on this, getting a proof through has highlighted why physical copies of Legionnaire are extremely unlikely to happen - but has also highlighted a few things that will be useful to know for future projects. The basic upshot is:

• The existing layout is not suitable for print (I knew this already) because of lack of provision for bleed
• The aspect ratio/document format (US Letter) was a bloody terrible idea, primarily because it's not a format that's used with any regularity outside the US and therefore printing is at a premium
• To fix these issues I would have to maintain a separate print layout vs PDF layout. Constructing one at the time would have been a pain at best and likely still not worth it; doing it now is largely impossible with the tools involved without revising the layout from scratch.
• This particular proof is fucked because of the way the service I used handles covers, which not only has caused some issues with the cover art but has also put the interior pages on the wrong sides of the spread. That's more easily fixed, though it means I can't use the particular service I tried.
• The expense of getting this printed combined with the small number of people who would want a hard copy means I could not sell at a reasonable price. No matter how cool I think it is personally, I can't justify the amount of effort it would require for extremely marginal return.

Lessons learned:

• Google Docs worked for what I specifically needed it to do at the time. However it is not fit for purpose if I ever want to consider doing print runs of future projects.
• I need to work with a bespoke service who can handle things like bleed, offset, and so forth because automated systems are not adequate - but this will need to be factored into the expense
• Always, always, always order proofs (I knew this already, but useful to have it reinforced) and don't attempt physical print runs unless you already know what you're doing

[sleek monolith]

these plus cost are the primary reasons alot of indie rpg materials are leaning towards pdf only despite a very vocal community who "won't buy unless it's print", and personally, I'm glad sentiment is SORT OF moving away from THAT to "support the creator cause you want to support the creator."

[teal abyss]

I fully understand folks who want a print copy. I desperately want print copies of all the Lancer books. It's useful from an accessibility perspective and also just for the emotional value of having a physical item you can hold.

Sadly from confronting this head on I have to conclude that it's just not practical for most indies to do print runs unless you already know what you're doing and you have the resources to invest. Even for the larger projects where it makes more sense, the print stuff is essentially a loss leader for the folks involved and it's the sort of thing you do more for the prestige of it. I think anyone who says "won't buy unless it's print" is likely doing themselves (and the industry) a disservice because there's a lot of cool stuff out there that will never see print for a lot of different reasons.

That doesn't stop me from wanting to figure out how to do print for the next thing though, just an acknowledgement that it might be hard and not happen

[sleek monolith]

well, you have to realize, what I was mostly railing against is that small but very vocal ... kind of toxic hipster class who just swear that Print is Better in All Things and your game isn't WORTHY unless I can buy Print. Lol. Lmao. I am Superior.

(I have known these people IRL)

[teal abyss]

yeah, true. I've had to deal with that kind of mentality from video games too

ultimately I just ignored them and did just fine

[sleek monolith]

It affects me neither way cause I often can't afford physical or print kickstarter pledges any. My monthly entertainment budget is like $15 XD

and that's gotta cover if I want to rent a movie

[teal abyss]

One of the often-unacknowledged darker sides of capitalism is how it poisons people with a consumer mentality. And it's something that we're all guilty of, constantly, because it's deeply ingrained - the idea of feeling entitled to a product and having preferences and expectations met, and acting as though personally attacked if they aren't. The result is often dehumanising creators and a big ol' pile of entitlement.

It's something I have to catch myself on a lot, it's very different to unlearn particularly when you're coming from a place of relative privilege

maybe that's being overly cynical, most people don't act in a toxic way, I'm just weary from experiences with The Gamers™

[sleek monolith]

Yeah, I've seen it more than experienced it. But I blame the fact that I used to be an actual hippie for a while (socially, politically, physically) and like, if Door Dash messes up my order for instance, but it still tastes good, I don't bother complaining

[stoic moth]

I think to me it depends on what you mean by entitlement and having expectations met, vs just preferences met.
Like if I'm paying for Internet service or electricity, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect those to be delivered consistently if that's the local standard. If you're in a warzone it's obviously a different story, but you can have a company not insulating its wires to save money in an advanced economy and thus the internet cutting out whenever it rains. That to me doesn't feel like a problem of the consumer being overly entitled.

But in creative industry, a consumer saying "hey, I bought this game, and therefore I'm entitled to creative process ownership and you the creator need to do what I say" is a different issue, and is indeed a problem

[teal abyss]

Yes, for sure, that's a valuable distinction

Particularly because part of the root of the desire to demand more is that capitalist pressures also cause companies and other large institutions to try to underprovide and cut corners wherever possible, and people experience a need to keep those entities honest through pressure to avoid being exploited or being unable to get their needs met

One thing that it's very important to maintain as a creator is that connection with your audience that causes them to see you as human rather than as a faceless corporation

(which brings us back to dehumanisation I guess)

[stoic moth]

yeah that makes sense

I think the absolute worst situation is when creators get sandwiched between a corporation and consumers. So the company wants corners cut to churn out the tripple A game as cheaply and quickly as possible, and then consumers are rightly pissed off that they paid X money for a game that is borderline unplayable because of all the bugs. But then the actually justified anger gets mixed in with "I just personally don't like this aspect"

"This game sucks because it's so buggy you fall through the floor half the time and also the main character should have been a dude."

"You had me for the first but then you lost me."

[royal lion]

Dang, you can't Ram objects with Inanna

Was hoping it'd work together with Siege Ram(I mean, it does for the 2 Kinetic damage, but was hoping for the object and terrain damage too)

[teal abyss]

Yeah it's one of those things that was in and out of playtesting and I think I came down on the side of not making it able to target objects partly for flavour reasons and partly because I didn't want to bump INANNA up to 3SP

(wait no disregard those deleted messages, it is too hot here and I'm thinking of a previous version)

brain is actually melting

[royal lion]

Oh Inanna is 2 SP I didn't notice

[stoic moth]

https://tenor.com/view/heat-heat-wave-fan-hot-cat-gif-5319975

[teal abyss]

yeah I didn't want to push the SP cost on that one since SMN/Siege Ram are such valuable systems to take alongside it

[stoic moth]

This is me

[teal abyss]

too much of a SP tax otherwise

[teal abyss]

big mood

[stoic moth]

The reason Innana isn't a tech is so you can use it while Jammed right?

[royal lion]

Wonder how Inanna would play on a Cali...

[stoic moth]

Not that it not being Tech matters hugely, it would be weird for a Caliban to metahook a goblin and then immediately zoom away

[stoic moth]

Orchis Innana I think is where it's at with the 10 sensors and Hunting Eagle

[teal abyss]

yeah conceptually it's one of those things where it would make a little more sense to make it a tech action from a flavour perspective but it would suck if you couldn't do your awesome Super Ram while Jammed

also stops people asking questions about whether or not you can Ram biologicals with it

[stoic moth]

makes sense

[teal abyss]

hoenstly I think Inanna is a little tricky to use well, but surprisingly good on the right build

Prone is a much bigger debuff than people give credit for, I think

[stoic moth]

Yeah it's got same thing as any full action, that you do need to build into it to get maximum use out of it