#Drachinifel I know this was you

[kinsey3furry300]

Had my character contemplately stack it several times in a row in a computer game and someone said I had all the grace and elegance of French pre-Drednaught design, and I have never seen better Autistic hate mail. Well done to everyone involved . Tumblr, take notes.

[thetruearchmagos]

New OC(s) Idea(s)

Heads up, @theprissythumbelina , GRR Martin's at it again.

So, I was having my dinner and watching the latest Drachinifel, when suddenly he mentioned something that caught my eye; namely, signals intelligence.

Being an absolute fucking nerd, I've had and exercised far more interest in signals / military intelligence than is probably happy, but as topics go it's a hard one to apply in any writing. Worldbuilding-wise, though, I've had a lot of fun with it.

Anyhow, as usual, my answer to the question of how to show off some niche worldbuilding topic is to create an entirely new character and supporting cast around it. In this case, without even being certain which of my WIP's I'd like it them to exist in. [Though I am leaning towards Terror Immortal, or perhaps The Commonwealth Calls.]

The idea is, interspersed between 'normal' scenes / POVs covering the rest of the conflict, I'll cut to scenes lasting a few paragraphs at most which will feature our 'SIGINT POV' character going over some brief, message, piece of intel., etc., and explaining its significance. Importantly, whatever they're going over's going to have some relevance to the specific events I'm developing in the 'fighting' text, and in some cases a keen reader will recognise their intelligence feeding into the higher-up decisions which eventually trickle down to affect the lives and battles of the members of the cast doing the fighting and dying.

Over the course of the WIP / Narrative in question, it's my hope that the reader will gain a sort of trust in SIGINT guy and his observations, and indeed I hope gradual and drawn own exposition on his character and personality might even make them like him. All this serves as a lead up to a big ol' Plot Twist.tm that I'm thinking will play out towards the end of whatever specific 'Book' this character will debut in. Basically, they'll get it wrong. In some small way, in some crucial way, this most skilled analyst of intelligence will make the wrong call at the wrong time, and decisions will be made off of this evidence, and without even knowing it someone, somewhere will die because of this singular slip up.

Can you tell how much I like this guy already?

[ltwilliammowett]

What do you think of Drachinifel's content on Youtube? He's done mostly modern stuff but his Age of Sail content is excellent also!

Hi,

I don't know the channel yet, I'll have to take a look and then I can tell you more. But thanks for letting me know

[thetruearchmagos]

Heheh, thanks! That whole 'character' strictly speaking predates my current plans for the Worlds by a good while, but they've both changed a lot by now. He gets dumped with the 'itinerant fantasy adventurer' role a little, which makes him stand out from the otherwise 'grounded' tone of the setting. But he's me, so he get's a pass once I figure out a name for him other than my actual one.

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And about the ship!

Drachinifel's stuff is very good, and this video on the class in question goes into a fair bit of detail on what set it apart from previous generations of the 'Standards';

For a tl;dw on the cancellation, though, it seems the Soviets didn't have much to do with it, which makes sense to me at least from what I know about the era. The WNT was not attended by the USSR, which at any rate didn't have much in the way of naval aspirations and wasn't seen as the primary threat for US interests yet.

Instead, the US's main hypothetical naval adversaries seemed to be the UK and Japan, which at the time were both close allies in the naval domain, and of course each could account for the US's two major 'ocean-areas'. The cancellation of the SD's legally hinged on the class as designed exceeding 35,000 tonnes standard displacement, and was accompanied by the scrapping of UK and Japanese battleships over that limit and under construction. Whether the US considered this a diplomatic victory or necessary concession is not something I'm really sure on, but Drach has a video on the treaty which I might rewatch to answer.

It's also noted that the armour scheme of the class was a bit lackluster compared to the state of the era's gunnery. So, maybe the loss wasn't too painful.

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Ooooo, you're on a very interesting track there! I'll admit my pacific war history isn't as sharp as the ETO either, and as far as tech goes is a little reductive to 'Japan leads in doctrine in the early war, and is gradually but consistently ground down there and in technology as it progressed'. If you ask me, and you don't have to, considering how long the war in Mortal Sparks lasts, this sort of 'push and pull' feels like something that might come up in the war-side of things.

Either way, wouldn't mind giving whatever it is you've been getting this stuff from 👀

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#tbh#racism probably has something to do with it i'd guess#basically from what I remember it was:#Pearl Harbor#US victory at Midway#battle of Okinawa#Atomic Bombs

Y'know, this reminds me of how, in Singapore at least, I recall the racist assumptions of the British at least being blamed for their poor performance in the battle for Malaya. Might not be what you were referring to, but came to mind.

I'm most surprised that Guadacanal wasn't brought up, out of all the others (maybe Coral Sea too?). It was a bit of a slog and not exactly an unmitigated victory, but it was a big theatre for a few years.

🥸- Which character is most like you?

🕳️- Talk about a research rabbit hole you fell down!

Second one is specially for you to talk about whatever it is you need to rant about

Thank you so much for the ask!

🥸- Which character is most like you?

Short answer is that a little bit of me is in all of them, the correct answer is 'the Magi' (name pending), seeing as he started out as a more direct and literal self insert, albeit with obviously significant chances. Really though, he's very much a caricature in that sense, and power fantasy, but that kinda comes with the territory?

Then there's the fact I've dumped every special interest and passion of mine into Gustav, so...

🕳️- Talk about a research rabbit hole you fell down!

Oueghh!1!!!

So, I'm going to use this as an opportunity to talk about that Battleship one I mentioned in the notes of that post o' yours, but as far as my own stuff goes I recently went down the tangent of trying to find whenever it was people first used the words 'track' or 'tractor' to refer to caterpillar tracks and the vehicle respectively. I know I'm not using tanks as a word or a 'classification', if I can help it, but coming up with something original is tricky, like those sci-fi nerds who avoid using 'frigates' and 'corvettes'.

Anyhow!

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^It's this one, btw.

When I first saw your collage, my mind immediately jumped to the battleship in the bottom right hand corner, which contained this picture:

The screen I was viewing this on was a small one, which is my only excuse, because when I decided to try and check the number on the bow there, the very obvious 62, my brain saw that and thought '52'. Now, I think I recognised the ship itself as one of the Iowa class, and probably a Cold War era one at that, but when I checked the designation 'BB-52' (BB being the US Navy prefix for battleships), I got this:

Now, this is where the actual stupid trouble comes in. I will assume I didn't read the 'cancelled' part here, because I decided to try and find actual photographs of this ship, which, y'know, don't actually exist. What I did managed to find was pictures of the South Dakota-class, but...

NOT THE RIGHT ONE!

You see, the previous ship class to the Iowas was also called South Dakota, and to me they looked pretty similar, so I then assumed that North Carolina was one of those ships, and became even more confuzzled as to why I couldn't find a picture of it.

Then, at some point, I checked the photograph again, and quickly realised that the not-in-that-picture ship I thought was in the picture, wasn't. So... rabbit hole!

Anyhow, though, I did find out about the existence of a class of ship I didn't know anything about, which is handy. I think I've brought up Naval Treaties with you before when we chatted about naval stuff in Mortal Sparks, so I thought it was interesting for it to come up again. They're very interesting phenomenon in international politics and strategy to me, considering some of the behaviour they can push governments to take, and I think any politics or military focused setting should at least consider the place for 'balance of power' treaties like this in them. For what it's worth, I've put in a lot of thought into how they function in the 12 Worlds, a subject I might bring up at some point.

Hope this rant was maybe a little enlightening!