#the mechs fictions

[thesteamhunk]

Obscure UDAD character art but also I am in AWE that I drew these only months apart. I am so happy with my art now and being able to work to this point makes me so happy.

[p2ii]

real talk tho why was angel barefoot while performing in a "dark seedy bar"

GIRL THERE ARE EMPTY BOTTLES BEHIND YOU. YOU ARE GOING TO CATCH SOMETHING

[zhjake]

finally got around to playing the titanfall 2 campaign, always loved their look and feel for a more grounded conventional mech. bt was cute. i will never forgive apex legends.

[cicada-candy]

jonny dville,,, worlds babygirlest Absolute Worst Guy Ever i love him

[lil-tachyon]

The Lagrange Heavy Industries "Journeyman" utility frame was, for decades, a worksite staple. Its low price point, reliability and ease-of-modification made it wildly popular in various industries. Extensive use by insurgent groups, however, severely damaged its reputation. Eventually, its perception as a potential weapon of terror by LHI's clients forced the model's quiet retirement. Successor frames were purpose-built, more difficult to modify, and were often sold with software overrides that allowed corporate agents to shut down frames remotely.

The frame pictured bears the emblem of the radical Earth Orbit Shipbreakers Union, which at one point occupied and collectivized several industrial habitat cylinders before being forcibly broken up by Intrasystem Commerce Authority forces. Although the action failed, it inspired more successful occupations in the further-out belt mining habitats. Journeyman frames featured prominently in both struggles.

[partikron]

I keep thinking about the Dafeng test pilot that you take down in the first chapter of Armored Core VI.

In any other mech storyline, this kid would have been the protagonist. Bright-eyed and hopeful, he would have been the poster child for youthful determination in the face of corporate war profiteering, either finding a cool trick to defeat 621, or being saved by the sudden arrival of other plucky young pilots.

But we both know that no one comes to save him.

The universe of Armored Core is fantastical by any definition, but in this one moment it is at it's most brutally realistic.

"I'm...keeping up with a real merc!" he says, "My training is paying off!"

Reality sets in as the tide turns abruptly in your favor. He is outmaneuvered, outgunned and outfought by the "merc who only kills for credits".

"I can't die like this!"

But he does. All the tenacity of youth couldn't save him from you, and he dies alone and afraid, lamenting his little dream of having his own callsign, his life amounting to the meager credits transferred to your account after the mission.

He would have been the protagonist anywhere else, but here on Rubicon he is a reminder that, in a warzone, no one comes to save little boys.

[curatorofthisdigitalmorass]

Hajime Sorayama

[this-is-cool]

The awesome sci-fi mech designs of Longque Chen - https://www.this-is-cool.co.uk/the-awesome-sci-fi-mech-designs-of-longque-chen/

[ross-hollander]

Traditions for a widowed 'mech.

A square foot or so from something of the pilot's- the fabric cover of a cooling vest, out-of-'mech uniform, whichever -is cut out and hung at whatever most resembles its neck. There are some with scarves or mantles from the number they've been through, some with whole sweeping cloaks.

Get the hangar crew to take the external plating off. The ashes or dog tags will be stored within, safe under the armor. (Anything that could punch through will probably kill the 'mech as well.)

There's an alternative to that, where they take an armor plate off per pilot lost. "Killer" 'mechs are stripped down to bare frames, sent into combat with the expectation of being wrecked in repentance for the pilots they've lost (although, obviously, with the eject systems triple-checked). It's wastefully expensive, but some units just harbor a grudge like that.

Weld the armaments in place. No upgrades, no refits, not unless it loses the whole limb. Even then, most outfits will have it replaced with the exact same model.

If it has hands- after all, that is not something to take for granted -the 'mech will often serve as pallbearer (if there's time for it; obviously, mid-campaign is no time to take a 'mech off the front for a funeral).

Flame it into shutdown, until the metal glows and the systems spark, then patch it up and reboot it. A symbolic co-death for the metal to the meat before being restored to full service.

[laricnoli]

Blueprints of the Aurora

(click for better quality, tumblr compression why must you do this)

[wealmostaneckbeard]

The politics in Lancer the mech pilot TTRPG seems center left to me. A good way to explain what's going on in that game's universe is with this overly long metaphor:

Imagine an alternate history where Nixon somehow beat JFK Jr to the white house, and once in office he lets Kissinger go nuts setting fascists up on an accelerated schedule. That's what Union's Second Committee was like. Then Tricky Dick procedes to nuke Vietnam a couple times. That's the Hercynia Crisis and that FTL Piston weapon launch. JFK and company ride the shock and horror of approaching nuclear war into office on the promise of de-escalation and enforcing civil rights, and they deliver. That's the coup that formed Union's Third Committee. Kissinger, Nixon, and the entire pentagon/raytheon corp take over NASA in Cape Canaveral, Florida where they form a tolerated corporatocracy in exile. That's basically Harrison Armory on the planet Ras Shamra. Now a United liberal-leftist front of America is actively trying to tear down dictatorships around the world that Kissinger set up (he got assassinated at some point in this time line) and replace them with socialist democracies. That is Union's Justice/Human-Rights Department and a few other government branches. So far they've had some success although people are pointing out that it's a bit hypocritical that the liberators are using weapons from corporate conservative states where civil rights are discretely curtailed. That's what's driving political discourse in 5016u in Union's legislative body, the Central Committee and it's myriad political parties.

So yeah Lancer's political intergalactic landscape is a bit like modern day? Except also cthulhu is giving out reality-breaking tech to militant civil rights advocates and random civilians? That's what HORUS basically is, btw.

Now that I've written this out, it would make for a good american alt-history with mechs campaign in Lancer...

[p2ii]

just read both the udad!Orpheus centric fictions

some highlights I really enjoyed

[zhjake]

another1

[dianeramic]

For today's inktober I have a mech my pilot runs and designed in my Lancer TTRPG game! Its name is Stolidus, and it's a weird quadrupedal flightless mosquito thing that specializes in e-warfare and scanning enemy mechs. This is what it looks like all folded up in the hangar!

[dragonkid11]

No one, not a single soul, absolutely nobody:

Me: What if, a mech with a big ass rifle that can stab it into the ground with its bayonet and use it as a monopod to stabilize its even bigger shoulder cannon.