Go back to previous page
Forum URL: http://www.eyrie-productions.com/Forum/dcboard.cgi
Forum Name: Mini-Stories
Topic ID: 184
#0, OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by Gryphon on Nov-24-16 at 11:04 PM
LAST EDITED ON Nov-29-16 AT 11:34 PM (EST)
 
Tuesday, July 20, 2410
07:17 AM
Club Yasen
New Yokosuka, Asgard

Beginning in the late twentieth century, persons interested in the ever-evolving cultural tapestry of the afterlife began to notice an interesting new trend. As soldiers from immediate pre- and post-Contact Earth began arriving in significant numbers, they found a creative off-label use for some of the qualities afforded them by their new status. Instead of fighting all day, every day, and feasting all night, every night, in the classical fashion, they took to exploiting their newly-acquired preternatural endurance by conducting massive marathon dance parties in the modern style. Epic raves.

Truth to tell, it wasn't that new an innovation. Students of the phenomenon were quick to point out to the disapproving that this was simply a new user interface applied to the ancient feasthall customs, and that such "redecorations" of the concept had occurred many times before. The only real difference, apart from the prevalence of surging electronic music and less brawling, hellraising atmosphere, was that the revelers generally didn't break off at daybreak to go and spend the day slaughtering each other. They'd just hang in and keep dancing and partying, sometimes for days or even weeks at a time.

The party at Club Yasen, one of the most popular spots in the New Yokosuka port district, had technically been running for seventeen years at this point, though no individual present at any given time had been there for more than a few days at a stretch. It was just that the club never closed, and though any given musician or DJ generally lingered for only an hour or two, there was always one up there, urging the crowd on.

The one currently on the stage was one of the club's crowd favorites, a performer whose energy and enthusiasm were renowned for intimidating even hardened partiers with their depth. She'd been known to play sets that went on for days, and indeed she was just finishing one now. Booked for a two-hour set starting at 8 o'clock on Saturday night, she'd just... stayed, laying down track after track, pausing only to slam down cans of Navy Special No. 5 and switch rapidly between a succession of costumes. She alternated between DJ sets and full-on original performances, always keeping it fresh, always with a huge smile, soaking up the crowd's attention and adulation without, somehow, ever quite coming across as narcissistic. She just seemed to enjoy being there, lighting up the joint and making people happy.

Right now she was finishing one of her live tracks. Despite being nominally tethered to her instruments, she managed to put across more than a little of the aidoru style in her performance, combining dance moves and hugely expressive body language with her keyboard playing and the duties of managing the various settings of her sophisticated equipment stack. In the last, at least, she was backed up of a small flotilla of the helper spirits popularly (if taxonomically inaccurately) called "fairies" around New Yokosuka: cute miniature personifications of various pieces of gear, each of whom managed a specific item. (Some of these fairies were so well-known in the club scene that they had followings of their own, such as the indomitable TR-808 Rhythm Composer Fairy, provider of unstoppable beats for dozens of Einheri artists.)

At the end of the song, the performer stood next to her board and caught her breath, grinning out at her cheering audience. She had been playing for almost 60 hours now, but though flecked with sweat, she seemed otherwise undimmed. Slim and athletic, currently sporting a tight-fitting tank top with the logo of her band on the front, a ruffled miniskirt over bike shorts, and chunky sneakers, she had her dark hair drawn up in a pair of dumpling-like buns apart from a couple of irrepressible sprigs that jutted up at the top like antennae. Dark eyes sparkled above her toothy, beaming smile.

"Thank you!" she cried, waving overhead with the hand not resting on her microphone. "Thank you all for coming out! I've got to go soon, but we've got just enough time for one more." With a deep bow to the crowd, she gestured to either side, taking in her phalanx of supporting fairies, and then declared, "Naka-chan loves you all! This is the 2-4-11 Projekt and we'll be back soon! Until then..." She winked, drawing a sideways V sign next to her open eye with one hand while the other started playing the opening riff of her last track. "You know what I'll be wondering!"

/* Owl City
"When Can I See You Again?"
Wreck-It Ralph (2012) */

If anyone in the room thought it was odd that a performer in an afterlife nightclub—by definition, full of people who were, technically speaking, dead—would have a signature closing tune built around the central message "life is way too short to take it slow," none was in any mood to remark on it. That was part and parcel of Naka-chan's style, after all: relentlessly upbeat, regarding even death itself as a grand adventure. Having been scrapped once before she was even launched, Naka—light cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy, third and last of the Sendai class—regarded everything else as so much bonus time.


Half an hour later, Naka emerged from the back entrance of Club Yasen, weary but exhilarated. She hadn't really intended to spend pretty much her entire long weekend playing one uninterrupted set, but once she got really into the groove, sometimes she just couldn't stop. Now she had a full day's duty ahead of her back at the New Yokosuka Naval Station.

As she walked down Bard Street toward the waterfront, though, she wasn't terribly worried about that. Partially, that was because it wasn't really in Naka's nature to be terribly worried about much of anything, but mostly, it was because she knew she could count on her not-very-secret weapon to come to her rescue. She'd just turned south onto Front Street, the waters of Asgard Bay lapping at the quayside to her left, when the orange glow of the eastern horizon reached its crescendo and the first brilliant beam of the rising sun swept across the water and touched her...

... and, as it did for every Einheri every morning, restored her instantly to full health and vigor. For millennia, the immortal warriors of Valhalla and Fólkvangr had received this daily gift, originally intended to raise once more those slain, and restore those maimed, in the previous day's battles. Its efficacy as a hangover cure and restorative for those who had partied hard all night had become apparent only somewhat later in the process.

Her smile broadening, Naka quickened her pace to a trot, then a run. Now re-energized, she was more eager than ever to discover the meaning of the cryptic text message she'd received from the Fleet Communications Center toward the end of her set:

All Kanmusu interested in Returning will report to Central Briefing n/l/t 0745 hrs.
NAGATO

"Rhythm of the Night" - an Order of the Rose Mini-Story/Teaser by Benjamin D. Hutchins
illustration by Philip Jeremy Moyer
special to the Eyrie Productions Discussion Forum
© 2016 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


#1, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by Peter Eng on Nov-25-16 at 00:56 AM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Nov-26-16 AT 01:45 AM (EST)
 
>"Naka-chan loves you all! This
>is the 2-4-11 Projekt and we'll be back soon! Until then..." She
>winked, drawing a sideways V sign next to her open eye with one hand
>while the other started playing the opening riff of her last track.
>"You know what I'll be wondering!"
>

I like Naka already. It's one of the things I enjoy about EPU - I may not visualize the characters correctly, but the shape of their personalities is shown beautifully.

I suspect somebody's going to get a surprise result out of their newest project. Edit: After some consideration, I suppose it's possible that Corwin will just bring a rack of Union Cores to Asgard, and anybody that wants to go back can transfer into one somehow.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.


#2, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by Verbena on Nov-25-16 at 08:38 AM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Nov-25-16 AT 08:41 AM (EST)
 
OHO!

That was awesome. I don't recognize Naka (though I'm assuming KanColle right now), but I just love the whole Fleet of Fog concept, and Naka's adorable. In fact, I'd just been thinking about Cantata this morning, for a moment or two.

That is a great pic, BTW. Thanks so much for the effort and hard work drawing all these characters.

OTOH, now we know where Nagato and the rest of the Fleet of Fog ships that left Earth seemed to have ended up. I...didn't expect them to have been -destroyed-, but hey, stuff happens.

My guess is, the Fleet ships themselves would have been livid when they found out what Earth did to Kongo, but unable to intervene from where they were. But maybe Touga doing something similar to Iona was different, because it becomes a celestial matter. And it's not as if Touga's name hadn't come up in the Aesir Council before, on two occasions I can remember. Perhaps that was enough for the Return to be okayed...

Either way, I await with bated breath the continuation of this little sequence!

------
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her


#3, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by Peter Eng on Nov-25-16 at 12:17 PM
In response to message #2
>
>Perhaps that was enough for the Return to be
>okayed...
>

It's possible that the Return wasn't an option for anybody without a suitable body being available, and that with most of the remaining Fog ships in mothballs, there wasn't any way to make one. Not like anybody on Earth was going to duplicate a Union Core and throw it into a few thousand tons of nanomaterial.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.


#4, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by Verbena on Nov-25-16 at 12:45 PM
In response to message #3

>It's possible that the Return wasn't an option for anybody without a
>suitable body being available, and that with most of the remaining Fog
>ships in mothballs, there wasn't any way to make one. Not like
>anybody on Earth was going to duplicate a Union Core and throw it into
>a few thousand tons of nanomaterial.

Mmm, hadn't thought about that one, mainly because Asgard isn't usually limited by capability, it's usually politics. But this could indeed have been triggered by Corwin's report to Asgard including the Union Cores.


------
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her


#6, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by Peter Eng on Nov-25-16 at 01:16 PM
In response to message #4
>
>>It's possible that the Return wasn't an option for anybody without a
>>suitable body being available, and that with most of the remaining Fog
>>ships in mothballs, there wasn't any way to make one. Not like
>>anybody on Earth was going to duplicate a Union Core and throw it into
>>a few thousand tons of nanomaterial.
>
>Mmm, hadn't thought about that one, mainly because Asgard isn't
>usually limited by capability, it's usually politics.
>

There's precedent for this; back in Twilight, Optimus Prime needed to use the Matrix to bring back the returning sparks.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.


#7, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by zwol on Nov-25-16 at 02:55 PM
In response to message #4
>Mmm, hadn't thought about that one, mainly because Asgard isn't
>usually limited by capability, it's usually politics. But this could
>indeed have been triggered by Corwin's report to Asgard including the
>Union Cores.

"You can Return, but no new Fog ships are being created, so we can only offer you a choice of meat-based lifeforms for your new incarnation."

"Thanks, I'll pass."


#5, A few notes
Posted by Gryphon on Nov-25-16 at 01:12 PM
In response to message #0
Club Yasen - "Yasen" is Japanese for "night battle". In Kantai Collection, Naka's elder sister Sendai is obsessed with night battles, to the point where the other kanmusu have nicknamed her yasen baka ("the night battle idiot"). In the context of the game, night battle literally means continuing the battle after nightfall; in the fandom (and encouraged by a number of winky-face dialogue lines in game) it has The Obvious Other Meaning as well.

Navy Special No. 5 - Marine heavy fuel oil, also known as Bunker B. As Mark Knopfler teaches us, if you wanna run cool, you got to run on heavy fuel.

aidoru style - Canonically, Naka does consider herself an idol (in the Japanese pop singer sense); that is in fact how she introduces herself, as "the fleet's idol, Naka-chan." Here we've branched her out a bit, musically speaking.

fairies - Equipment fairies turn up a lot in KanColle. They pilot the miniature airplanes launched by carriers, and represent damage control crews and various pieces of equipment (radar sets, particular weapons, and so on) in fit-out screens. In some fan interpretations, they also operate equipment at sea (gun turrets, for example, are sometimes shown being worked by fairy guncrews).

Not all equipment in the game is represented by fairies; sometimes the weapons themselves are "personified" as sort-of-robotic sidekicks (such as the gun turrets of Amatsukaze, Shimakaze, and the Akizuki-class anti-aircraft destroyers). There seems to be no consistent pattern to this beyond what a particular ship's artist thought would be cute.

TR-808 Rhythm Composer - The iconic drum machine of the 1980s and '90s, in hip-hop and rap as well as techno and pop (which is why the 808 fairy, who can be seen on the 808, directly in front of Naka, is rocking the hip-hop style).

2-4-11 Projekt - Scrapping Naka in-game yields two units of fuel, four ammunition, and 11 steel. She's a common drop and her personality annoys some players, so the running (rather cruel) joke in fandom is that she gets scrapped a lot. The above is presumably not what the name of her act means in-story, but...

Also, here's a clearer look at the logo:

Why "Projekt"? I don't really know. It just seemed more techno when I was making the logo. :)

scrapped once before she was even launched - The Sendai class was planned to consist of eight ships, but only four were under construction when the Japanese government signed the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which severely limited Japan's options in regards to new construction. The IJN brass decided that all future cruiser development would be focused on heavy cruisers; the four Sendai-class ships on which construction hadn't yet started were canceled, and the two least far along were ordered scrapped on the ways. Naka, ship number three, was one of the latter, but her demolition was delayed by the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, after which someone reconsidered and she was completed and launched after all.

The Washington Treaty and the 1923 earthquake figure large in the histories of a number of the most famous IJN ships of World War II, and thus of a number of KanColle characters, most notably the aircraft carriers Akagi and Kaga (both of which were converted from other ships rendered superfluous during construction by the treaty, in Kaga's case because Akagi's sister ship was too badly damaged by the earthquake for her planned carrier conversion to be finished).


#17, RE: A few notes
Posted by CdrMike on Dec-01-16 at 02:10 PM
In response to message #5
>Club Yasen - "Yasen" is Japanese for "night battle". In
>Kantai Collection, Naka's elder sister Sendai is obsessed with
>night battles, to the point where the other kanmusu have nicknamed her
>yasen baka ("the night battle idiot"). In the context of the
>game, night battle literally means continuing the battle after
>nightfall; in the fandom (and encouraged by a number of winky-face
>dialogue lines in game) it has The Obvious Other Meaning as well.

Sendai's obsession being an historical in-joke, as three of the four battles the real Sendai participated in were night battles. "Yasen baka" is one of those fan jokes that the creators adopted, with girls either complaining or noting that she can be heard yelling around the base once the sun goes down. And yes, the...less than pure fan joke was also incorporated in to the game as her marriage line.

>Navy Special No. 5 - Marine heavy fuel oil, also known as
>Bunker B. As Mark Knopfler teaches us, if you wanna run cool, you got
>to run on heavy fuel.

You gotta tell'em! Heavy fuel oil is shipgirls!!

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

>aidoru style - Canonically, Naka does consider herself an idol
>(in the Japanese pop singer sense); that is in fact how she introduces
>herself, as "the fleet's idol, Naka-chan." Here we've branched her
>out a bit, musically speaking.

There's amusement to be had in picturing the j-pop idol becoming a rave DJ. Considering the club's name, I'm guessing Sendai had some part in getting her little sister to put away the frilly skirt.

>fairies - Equipment fairies turn up a lot in KanColle.
>They pilot the miniature airplanes launched by carriers, and represent
>damage control crews and various pieces of equipment (radar sets,
>particular weapons, and so on) in fit-out screens. In some fan
>interpretations, they also operate equipment at sea (gun turrets, for
>example, are sometimes shown being worked by fairy guncrews).

They're treated as the personnel one would expect in a naval fleet, from operating equipment to working in the ship docks. Some of the fairies, particularly ones for pieces of equipment that are unique to certain ships or classes, even look like the ships they belong to. For example, the "prototype flight deck catapult" that's necessary to upgrade Shoukaku and Zuikaku has fairies that resemble the sisters.

>Not all equipment in the game is represented by fairies; sometimes the
>weapons themselves are "personified" as sort-of-robotic sidekicks
>(such as the gun turrets of Amatsukaze, Shimakaze, and the
>Akizuki-class anti-aircraft destroyers). There seems to be no
>consistent pattern to this beyond what a particular ship's artist
>thought would be cute.

Yeah, it's largely at artist's discretion, which has led to some odd situations where ships of the same class wear totally different outfits from their sisters. It actually caused a great deal of consternation when Unryuu was introduced, since fans had based their own mental image of her on the fact that the historical ship was a continuation of the Hiryu class with Soryu's machinery.

At the same time, artists will generally stick to similar themes, which is why Amatsukaze, Shimakaze, and the Akizuki sisters have pet turrets, as Shizuma Yoshinori was responsible for their artwork.

>2-4-11 Projekt - Scrapping Naka in-game yields two units of
>fuel, four ammunition, and 11 steel. She's a common drop and her
>personality annoys some players, so the running (rather cruel) joke in
>fandom is that she gets scrapped a lot. The above is
>presumably not what the name of her act means in-story, but...

Well, it wasn't so much that she was a common drop (all the Sendais are), it's that she can only be gained through construction and has the highest drop rate in any recipe where a light cruiser drop is possible. So admirals would put several hours or days worth of resources into construction looking for a battleship, then get yet another Naka-chan. Since Sendais had no Kai-ni remodel at the beginning and mediocre stats, players got so frustrated with her that they just started reflexively scrapping her.

But like all franchise butt monkeys, what started as a sign of consternation has turned into an affection fan joke. They even wrote her an image song ("2-4-11 of Love") that the game creators got her voice actress to sing. The fact that she and her sisters got Kai-Ni remodels that make them the strongest light cruisers available sort of cushioned the anger towards her still being one of the most common construction drops.

And even as bad as Naka-chan had it, she was still in a better spot than poor Isuzu. After all, nobody was farming Nakas for rare equipment and remodel supplies.

>scrapped once before she was even launched - The Sendai
>class was planned to consist of eight ships, but only four were under
>construction when the Japanese government signed the Washington Naval
>Treaty of 1922, which severely limited Japan's options in regards to
>new construction. The IJN brass decided that all future cruiser
>development would be focused on heavy cruisers; the four
>Sendai-class ships on which construction hadn't yet started
>were canceled, and the two least far along were ordered scrapped on
>the ways. Naka, ship number three, was one of the latter, but
>her demolition was delayed by the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, after
>which someone reconsidered and she was completed and launched after
>all.
>
>The Washington Treaty and the 1923 earthquake figure large in the
>histories of a number of the most famous IJN ships of World War II,
>and thus of a number of KanColle characters, most notably the
>aircraft carriers Akagi and Kaga (both of which were
>converted from other ships rendered superfluous during construction by
>the treaty, in Kaga's case because Akagi's sister ship
>was too badly damaged by the earthquake for her planned carrier
>conversion to be finished).

Entire books could be written about the effects of the Washington Naval Treaty on ship design and naval strategy since WWI. Without it, the Pacific War might very well have been a contest between battleships and cruisers rather than the carrier duels that it largely became. Or a much bloodier affair as both sides would have been free to build as many large ships as they liked without tonnage limits to force design compromises. It's one of those huge "What If?"'s of world history.


#18, RE: A few notes
Posted by Gryphon on Dec-01-16 at 02:47 PM
In response to message #17
>Yeah, it's largely at artist's discretion, which has led to some odd
>situations where ships of the same class wear totally different
>outfits from their sisters.

One of the best examples of that phenomenon I can think of offhand is the Fubuki-class ships, all of whom from the first batch (that is, Special Type I, not Ayanami Type II or Akatsuki Type III) look basically alike... except Murakumo, who looks like the personification of some kind of space cruiser or something. There's no historical basis for this, the real Murakumo wasn't some kind of experimental testing platform or involved in any weird mythical adventure like the USS Eldridge (of Philadelphia Experiment fame); she's just drawn by a different artist with a radically different style.

>At the same time, artists will generally stick to similar themes,

(sometimes to the point of fan ridicule, as in the virtually interchangeable Fubuki sisters)

>which is why Amatsukaze, Shimakaze, and the Akizuki sisters have pet
>turrets, as Shizuma Yoshinori was responsible for their artwork.

At least in Amatsukaze's case, it kind of makes sense that she looks more like Shimakaze than her actual sister ships in the Kagerō class, given that she was the testbed for Shimakaze's experimental engines.

>So admirals would put several hours or days worth of
>resources into construction looking for a battleship, then get yet
>another Naka-chan.

The construction system may be the silliest thing in KanColle, which is saying something, given what an inherently silly thing the game is. Imagine a shipbuilding industry so byzantine and stupid that no one can tell what kind of ship is being constructed until it's operational. Not even the Soviets did that. :)

>And even as bad as Naka-chan had it, she was still in a better spot
>than poor Isuzu.

Or Maru-yu. Poor Maru-yu.

>Entire books could be written about the effects of the Washington
>Naval Treaty on ship design and naval strategy since WWI. Without it,
>the Pacific War might very well have been a contest between
>battleships and cruisers rather than the carrier duels that it largely
>became. Or a much bloodier affair as both sides would have been free
>to build as many large ships as they liked without tonnage limits to
>force design compromises. It's one of those huge "What If?"'s of
>world history.

I think the inherent superiority of aircraft as long-range naval weapons would still have won out, simply because they're so much better at... well... everything; but it would have taken longer, and the battleship-fixated admirals on both sides might have gotten that Pacific Jutland they all spent the war hankering for. One last hurrah for heavy armor and high-caliber gunnery. It would've been something to see.

It's hard to picture how the war would have started in that scenario, though, given that the Japanese wouldn't have had a significant carrier force to carry out the Pearl Harbor attack, or the doctrine necessary for someone to think of it in the first place. As appealing as the image of a gunship Kido Butai including battleships Tosa and Kaga and heavy cruiser Akagi, I doubt they would have sent a battleship/heavy cruiser task force to stand off and shell the place, simply because that would probably not have worked (they'd have had to get so much closer that they would almost certainly have lost any semblance of surprise). Without being assured of a high chance of knocking out the US Pacific Fleet right from the outset, the Imperial Navy would have been a lot less likely to go along with the Army's "southern option" in the first place. We might have seen the version of history where the Japanese attacked the USSR first (the "northern option"), and then, well. That opens up a huge can of historical worms, because how and when does the US even get involved at that point, in the Pacific or Europe?

All of which is quite far afield of the original point, but it's intriguing to consider.

(To bring it back to KanColle a little, I've seen a number of fan artworks depicting Kaga in her originally planned battleship form—she's dressed a lot like Nagato in most of them, which makes sense, since the Tosa-class ships were basically Block II Nagatos. I'm not sure I've ever seen Akagi in her theoretical cruiser rig, though.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#20, RE: A few notes
Posted by CdrMike on Dec-01-16 at 06:11 PM
In response to message #18
>One of the best examples of that phenomenon I can think of offhand is
>the Fubuki-class ships, all of whom from the first batch (that
>is, Special Type I, not Ayanami Type II or Akatsuki Type
>III) look basically alike... except Murakumo, who looks like the
>personification of some kind of space cruiser or something.
>There's no historical basis for this, the real Murakumo wasn't
>some kind of experimental testing platform or involved in any weird
>mythical adventure like the USS Eldridge (of Philadelphia
>Experiment fame); she's just drawn by a different artist with a
>radically different style.

Of the five starters, Murakumo's design is the most out of sequence. Samidare represents the dividing line between regular and uprated Shiratsuyu-class destroyers, while the other three (Fubuki, Sazanami, & Inazuma) at least share the same sort of dress even if they vary in color or size.

>(sometimes to the point of fan ridicule, as in the virtually
>interchangeable Fubuki sisters)

Which is ironic when you consider that the creators intended Fubuki to be the mascot for the game, only for her to be considered too "bland" compared to vividly dressed girls like Shimakaze or wild personalities like Kongō.

>At least in Amatsukaze's case, it kind of makes sense that she looks
>more like Shimakaze than her actual sister ships in the
>Kagerō class, given that she was the testbed for
>Shimakaze's experimental engines.

Likewise Akigumo shares the same uniform as the Yuugumo class because the historical ship was built as the last of the Kagerō class but intended to be the first of a new class, leading to so much confusion in the IJN that she's traditionally classified as a Kagerō class destroyer.

>The construction system may be the silliest thing in KanColle,
>which is saying something, given what an inherently silly thing the
>game is. Imagine a shipbuilding industry so byzantine and stupid that
>no one can tell what kind of ship is being constructed until it's
>operational. Not even the Soviets did that. :)

The only thing more hilariously awful (and nerve-wracking to fans) is the compass system, overseen by the "Compass Fairies," whose job which is basically an RNG deciding which route you'll take on a particular map. Roll one time, you get sent straight to the boss node. Another time, you're gonna have a bad time.

>Or Maru-yu. Poor Maru-yu.

True, Naka-chan just gets scrapped, but Maru-yu...well, there's a reason her fan nickname is "+1 luck potion."

>I think the inherent superiority of aircraft as long-range naval
>weapons would still have won out, simply because they're so
>much better at... well... everything; but it would have taken longer,
>and the battleship-fixated admirals on both sides might have gotten
>that Pacific Jutland they all spent the war hankering for. One last
>hurrah for heavy armor and high-caliber gunnery. It would've been
>something to see.

And probably would have been every bit as inconclusive as Jutland ended up being to WWI naval planners. Like the High Seas Fleet, the IJN may have been successful in sinking more USN ships, but their numerical inferiority and Japan's industrial deficit compared to America would have meant every ship lost to USN guns would be one that could never be adequately replaced. That became evident after Midway, when the loss of three carriers in a single afternoon put them at a deficit that they never really recovered from.

>It's hard to picture how the war would have started in that
>scenario, though, given that the Japanese wouldn't have had a
>significant carrier force to carry out the Pearl Harbor attack, or the
>doctrine necessary for someone to think of it in the first place. As
>appealing as the image of a gunship Kido Butai including
>battleships Tosa and Kaga and heavy cruiser
>Akagi, I doubt they would have sent a battleship/heavy cruiser
>task force to stand off and shell the place, simply because that would
>probably not have worked (they'd have had to get so much closer that
>they would almost certainly have lost any semblance of surprise).
>Without being assured of a high chance of knocking out the US Pacific
>Fleet right from the outset, the Imperial Navy would have been a lot
>less likely to go along with the Army's "southern option" in the first
>place. We might have seen the version of history where the Japanese
>attacked the USSR first (the "northern option"), and then, well. That
>opens up a huge can of historical worms, because how and when does the
>US even get involved at that point, in the Pacific or Europe?

In such a scenario, I could see Yamamoto trying for something less like Pearl Harbor and more like Midway, trying to draw out the US Pacific Fleet by attacking an American-held island and then lying in wait to pounce. Or, barring that, gone with what was his back-up plan, namely attacking the Panama Canal in order to damage the locks there, forcing the USN to take the longer South American route in order to reinforce the Pacific Fleet.

>All of which is quite far afield of the original point, but
>it's intriguing to consider.

I admit I'm an alt-history buff, I love entertaining "what if" scenarios. It's why I'm looking forward to the second season of The Man in the High Castle later this month.

>(To bring it back to KanColle a little, I've seen a number of
>fan artworks depicting Kaga in her originally planned battleship
>form—she's dressed a lot like Nagato in most of them, which
>makes sense, since the Tosa-class ships were basically Block II
>Nagatos. I'm not sure I've ever seen Akagi in her
>theoretical cruiser rig, though.)

Considering that Amagis were meant to be a longer and less-armored version of the Tosa design, an Amagi-class battlecruiser in-game would probably have fittings similar to Nagato.


#21, RE: A few notes
Posted by Gryphon on Dec-01-16 at 07:07 PM
In response to message #20
>Which is ironic when you consider that the creators intended Fubuki to
>be the mascot for the game, only for her to be considered too "bland"
>compared to vividly dressed girls like Shimakaze or wild personalities
>like Kongō.

Aw, Bucky's all right, she's got that girl-next-door thing going on.

Just a moment while I dig up a comment I made on a Fubuki pic over at danbooru a few months ago, in response to the usual carping about how "vanilla" she is:

I never thought it was fair that "vanilla" is equated with blandness in the first place. It's one of the most popular and sought-after flavors in the world. Vanilla pods are the second-most-valuable spice on Earth, capable of being cultivated, at great effort and expense, in only a handful of places. Only saffron costs more per unit mass, and that's only because it's virtually impossible to cultivate; vanilla is by far the more popular of the two. That all seems pretty special to me. And yet paradoxically, thanks to its massive popularity, it's entered the English vernacular as a synonym for bland, boring, unimaginative, and ordinary - which completely overlooks the simple fact that you can find it everywhere because virtually everybody wants it.

So yeah, Fubuki's vanilla. Because vanilla is awesome. :)

>>The construction system may be the silliest thing in KanColle,
>>which is saying something, given what an inherently silly thing the
>>game is. Imagine a shipbuilding industry so byzantine and stupid that
>>no one can tell what kind of ship is being constructed until it's
>>operational. Not even the Soviets did that. :)
>
>The only thing more hilariously awful (and nerve-wracking to fans) is
>the compass system, overseen by the "Compass Fairies," whose job which
>is basically an RNG deciding which route you'll take on a particular
>map. Roll one time, you get sent straight to the boss node. Another
>time, you're gonna have a bad time.

I saw a fan comic once where the admiral got so fed up with the randomness of the Compass Fairies that he decided to ignore them and send his fleet straight to where he knew the boss was—and received a hard, Marvel's-What-If?-style lesson in the ill-advisedness of messing with fate. The artist's take on it was that the course they send you on only seems random because you don't know (and they do) what would happen to your fleet if you sent it anywhere else at that particular point in time. Which I thought was rather clever, in a dark sort of way.

>Like the High Seas Fleet, the
>IJN may have been successful in sinking more USN ships, but their
>numerical inferiority and Japan's industrial deficit compared to
>America would have meant every ship lost to USN guns would be one that
>could never be adequately replaced.

Well, sure. The lesson of the Pacific War (I am finding reinforced in a dozen places in the course of the research I am currently undertaking) is that Japan was never going to win, whatever it did. I mean to say, here you had a country that received most of its oil and steel from the United States, starting a war rooted in technologies completely dependent on oil and steel with the United States. That was never, ever going to work. And the people in charge of Japan knew it! But they did it anyway, because Reasons.

(I'm sad that I really can't get away with entitling my paper on this topic Because Reasons: Japan's Route to the Pacific War. :)

>I admit I'm an alt-history buff, I love entertaining "what if"
>scenarios. It's why I'm looking forward to the second season of
>The Man in the High Castle later this month.

Why bother? We'll be living in it the month after.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#22, RE: A few notes
Posted by VoidRandom on Dec-01-16 at 11:43 PM
In response to message #21
>(I'm sad that I really can't get away with entitling my paper on this
>topic Because Reasons: Japan's Route to the Pacific War. :)

Probably the best two word summary available of the thought processes of the IJN. I'm not sure what two word phrase would suffice for the IJA.

-VR
Bad Crazy?
"They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind."


#23, RE: A few notes
Posted by The Traitor on Dec-02-16 at 03:00 AM
In response to message #22
Them Again?

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.


#25, RE: A few notes
Posted by Gryphon on Jun-05-18 at 04:10 PM
In response to message #5
>Navy Special No. 5 - Marine heavy fuel oil, also known as
>Bunker B. As Mark Knopfler teaches us, if you wanna run cool, you got
>to run on heavy fuel.

N.B. Not a song that Naka customarily covers, but Musashi and her band (the 40/45s) sometimes bust it out at the Crown and Anchor.


Last time I was sober, man I felt bad
Worst hangover that I ever had
It took six hamburgers and Scotch all night
Nicotine for breakfast just to put me right
'Cause if ya wanna run cool
If ya wanna run cool
If ya wanna run cool you got to run
On heavy heavy fuel
Heavy heavy fuel
Heavy heavy fuel

My life makes perfect sense
Lust and food and violence
Sex and money are my major kicks
Get me in a fight I like the dirty tricks
'Cause if ya wanna run cool
If ya wanna run cool
Yes if ya wanna run cool you got to run
On heavy heavy fuel
Heavy heavy fuel
Heavy heavy fuel

My chick she loves a man who's strong
The things she'll do to turn me on
I love the babes, don't get me wrong
Hey, that's why I wrote this song

I don't care if my liver's hanging by a thread
Don't care if my doctor says I ought to be dead
When my ugly big car won't climb this hill
I'll write a suicide note on a hundred-dollar bill
'Cause if ya wanna run cool
If ya wanna run cool
Yes if ya wanna run cool you got to run
On heavy heavy fuel
Heavy heavy fuel
Heavy heavy fuel

Heavy heavy fuel
Heavy heavy fuel

- Dire Straits
"Heavy Fuel"
On Every Street (1991)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#26, RE: A few notes
Posted by Star Ranger4 on Jun-11-18 at 12:00 PM
In response to message #25
>>Navy Special No. 5 - Marine heavy fuel oil, also known as
>>Bunker B. As Mark Knopfler teaches us, if you wanna run cool, you got
>>to run on heavy fuel.
>
>N.B. Not a song that Naka customarily covers, but Musashi and her band
>(the 40/45s) sometimes bust it out at the Crown and Anchor.
>
Though I think the ultimate meta cover for myself is when you had Logan do it at Kei's 'wake'(?)... Somehow I could just HEAR H. Jackman's logan voice in my head when you started describing it and it just felt so... right.

#27, RE: A few notes
Posted by Nathan on Jun-12-18 at 00:23 AM
In response to message #25
LAST EDITED ON Jun-13-18 AT 09:47 PM (EDT)
 
>N.B. Not a song that Naka customarily covers, but Musashi and her band
>(the 40/45s) sometimes bust it out at the Crown and Anchor.

Hmmm.

Musashi as lead guitar and frontwoman, Yama-nee on bass, HMS Furious as drummer, the Fairies of HMS Furious's air group hopping up and down in turn on each key to handle keyboards?

-----
Iä! Iä! Moe fthagn!


#8, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by SpottedKitty on Nov-25-16 at 09:21 PM
In response to message #0
Hooboy. Can't wait to read the story this is leading up to.

p.s. <squee!!!>

--
Unable to save the day: File is read-only.


#9, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by DaPatman89 on Nov-29-16 at 07:05 PM
In response to message #0
...is one of those fairies wearing a Mau5head?

#10, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by Gryphon on Nov-29-16 at 07:11 PM
In response to message #9
>...is one of those fairies wearing a Mau5head?

Yes. Yes she is.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#12, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by ebony14 on Nov-30-16 at 08:51 AM
In response to message #10
>>...is one of those fairies wearing a Mau5head?
>
>Yes. Yes she is.
>

And another clearly uses Skrillex's barber.

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."


#13, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by pjmoyer on Nov-30-16 at 09:31 AM
In response to message #12
>>>...is one of those fairies wearing a Mau5head?
>
>And another clearly uses Skrillex's barber.

And visits his tailor, too.

--- Philip






Philip J. Moyer
Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios
"Insert Pithy Comment Here"
Fandoms -- Fanart -- Fan Meta Discussions


#14, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by DaPatman89 on Nov-30-16 at 03:47 PM
In response to message #10
>Yes. Yes she is.

Fair enough.

Good story, by the way. It'll be interesting to see how that bit at the end gets resolved.


#15, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by Gryphon on Nov-30-16 at 03:51 PM
In response to message #14
>>Yes. Yes she is.
>
>Fair enough.

Well, unless that's her actual head. Magical beings, you know.

It's probably equipment, though. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#19, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by ebony14 on Dec-01-16 at 04:55 PM
In response to message #15
>>>Yes. Yes she is.
>>
>>Fair enough.
>
>Well, unless that's her actual head. Magical beings, you know.
>
>It's probably equipment, though. :)
>

Hopefully. I imagine it would be hard to buy hats, otherwise. :)

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."


#11, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by mdg1 on Nov-29-16 at 09:37 PM
In response to message #0
The only problem I have with this teaser is having a DeBarge song stuck in my head….

#16, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by eriktown on Nov-30-16 at 05:20 PM
In response to message #11
You might be getting the Projekt/techno association from Projekt Records, a long-running (by the standards of the genre) darkwave/industrial label.

#24, RE: OOTR Mini/Teaser: Rhythm of the Night
Posted by mdg1 on Dec-02-16 at 10:42 AM
In response to message #16
Um, no... I'm 99.999% certain that DeBarge has NEVER been called darkwave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAQSZhazYk8

:)