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Forum Name: Symphony of the Sword/The Order of the Rose
Topic ID: 531
#0, RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-08-18 at 05:59 PM
Here it is!

(Also, I just noticed that I forgot to run the RSS generating script after I published TFLF #16. Whoops.)

--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.


#1, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Verbena on Aug-08-18 at 07:03 PM
In response to message #0
Oh HELLS yes. Just got finished. Didn't realize Shimakaze went through -that-, but...yeah. Wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm not. And Kongo and Maya's interactions are just as hilarious as you promised. Looking forward for the pair to find the White Rose detachment just as Kongo figures out how she's been -had- and just hands Leonne's stuff to her. =) I want to say more but I'm a bit short on time, I'll see if I can add more later.

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


#10, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-11-18 at 04:33 PM
In response to message #1
>I want to say more but I'm a bit short on time, I'll see if
>I can add more later.

Please do! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

--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.


#13, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Verbena on Aug-12-18 at 00:33 AM
In response to message #10
LAST EDITED ON Aug-12-18 AT 00:36 AM (EDT)
 
Not sure I've ever done one of these line-by-line things, and it HAS been a while since I've seen one, so let's go!

>Even with the tools and capabilities at her disposal, though, it was going to take a while to dig a hole that big

When I was reading this, I wondered just how exactly Akashi, or -anyone-, would do it without months and a fleet of construction equipment. Omega-class beam weapons are available, though.

>It was in his stateroom aboard that vessel, therefore, that Admiral Corwin Ravenhair found himself being shaken gently awake.

>"Admiral?"

It's not immediately obvious from the way the story is written, but Utena's here, too. I think the Admiral needs to institute a 'knock first' rule if he and Utena/Anthy are going to spending any more time aboard ship...

>The commercial area around Wai'alae Avenue

Like most other readers, no doubt, I knew exactly where they were going and why the moment I saw this street name. It must have sucked for Leonne to have to drop everything, but the way things went, she would never have had a chance to go back and pick up her life anyway.

>they were scale models of warships from the mid-twentieth-century Pacific War. One represented Lionfish herself, a Balao-class American fleet submarine; the other was unmistakably the Japanese battleship Nagato

>Both of them were portraits of human men, both dressed in the uniforms of Pacific War-era United States Navy officers, one significantly younger than the other. Kongō could find no matches in her intelligence database for the younger, but a match for the elder turned up within only a moment of searching: Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood

Leonne made it clear in Cantata what she saw in VADM Lockwood, but Nagato was her real CO. Not sure why Leonne would have a model of her CO. And the younger sailor is even more interesting. Leonne wasn't around during WW2, was she? I thought past husband at first, maybe, but the timing is way off (It's revealed later to be the captain of the Lionfish.) Kongo points some of this out herself, so I'm sure it'll be answered in due time.

>The only really odd thing about either one of them was the peculiar annular device hovering above Tatsuta's head, like a sort of cybernetic halo

I'm surprised Corwin didn't make the immediate connection--Tenryu's devil horns and Tatsuta's halo. The irony, of course, is both are outward appearances only. If you know what they feel deep down, I think the two should be reversed.

>Shimakaze, on the other hand, was dressed... arrestingly strangely

Given how strange all the other Mental Models are dressed, I'm not sure why this stood out, ridiculously risque though it is. The whole point is the ladies don't have a good grasp of human fashion. (Of course, the meta reason is Kancolle is much more fanservicey than Arpeggio ever was.)

>So now she's terrified. Looking for somewhere to hide. Waiting for the other shoe to drop

Ohhhhhh dear. Like I said in my earlier post, I didn't think it was like -that- for her.

>Or, rather, it took Kongō that long, with musical accompaniment

Carnival da yo!

>Léonne liked coffee, and appeared to make it using a process that involved salt

*chokegaspwheeze* SALT?!

>Standing here amid the hastily abandoned fragments of a human life—even a counterfeit one

The idea that Leonne's human life was counterfeit is arguable at best.

>But when Kongō received her buffered copy of Fleet Coordinator Nagato's last message, and under her direction we all manifested our Mental Models

Still VERY much looking forward to finding out the big mystery here--the connection between the kanmusu of Asgard and the Fleet of Fog. Oh, there's a story here waiting to be told...

>You're describing her as if she were the original ship from World War II, not a member of the 21st-century Fog fleet," Corwin pointed out.

>Tatsuta looked faintly surprised. "Yes... yes, I suppose I am. That's... since we manifested these bodies, that seems to be how we think of ourselves. Isn't that strange?

Yes; yes, it is. But far from uninteresting.

>And then, with quick, decisive motions, she unbuttoned the top button of the baseball shirt she was wearing, hauled the shirt off over her head, and held it out to the blonde. "Start with this

As was pointed out before, it really is a great thing to see Utena be herself again. It HAS been a long time.

>Kongō had no idea what to do. Interacting with ordinary civilians was not part of the mission parameters she had been told to expect

And this while they were being sent undercover into a human society to track down a person's house? Whoever briefed Kongo and Maya was an imbecile.

>Especially since he was an enlisted sailor. Senior Chief Petty Officer Captain Cook Kealoha, what a mouthful. And he wasn't a cook, either!

I'm almost afraid to ask what his rating actually was.

>To hear you and her describe it, it sounds like a nice place. Peaceful. Not..." She made a vague gesture. "Our usual kind of crazy

Can I just say I love how they're resigned to insanity being their lot in life? I love how matter of fact they are about it.

I had the chance to... just be human for a while. And I think... I think maybe Shimakaze needs that kind of chance. Hell, they probably all do."

>"Hmm. That's not such a crazy idea," said Corwin thoughtfully. "It's a seaport town, so they wouldn't be in a completely alien environment, but they'd be away from the fleet, the routine of station life... me...

Not sure how I feel about this. I work in a place where sailors and civvies interact all the time, and it's not a big deal. But I know some enlisted, particularly people who've been deployed, have a hard time adjusting to civilian life. I think it's good that the new Fog girls experience civvie life at a less hectic pace, but not so much because it's normal as because it needs to become the new normal. If that makes sense.

>With a flicker of violet light, the long-shanked glaive she favored as a melee weapon appeared in her hands; she regarded its edge thoughtfully

Oh, Tatsuta, you're just like your sister. Until the 'thoughtfully' part.

>What was more, she'd made a career serving in the humans' armed forces. Serving aboard ship, no less, which struck Kongō as a fantastically perverse thing for a Mental Model of the Fog to do.

Yes! I think Leonne did it partly just to -be- perverse, quietly laughing every time humans made a mistake she wouldn't have. I think she'd have had a blast.

>Did that mean it was going to happen to her? Would she wake from maintenance cycle one day soon to find herself acting as erratically, as strangely, as inefficiently as all the others? Forming irrational attachments to things, developing tastes and habits unconnected with, or even detrimental to, the performance of her function as a ship of the Fog? Perhaps even having... opinions?
>Inconceivable.
>Intolerable.

Ohhhhh dear. And I've pointed this out before, a long time ago, but this conflict is very central to the original Arpeggio story. I shouldn't spoil, but the last couple episodes show exactly where this could lead if things don't go right.

>It was also an annoying reminder that there was an uncomfortable number of things that hadn't bothered her until Midway

Amazing how a little human interaction can undo months of careful, planned brainwashing. Actually, come to think of it, that's a very common Fog reaction; coming to a belated realization because they only started -thinking- not long before. It's as true in the original show as it is here, and I like how smoothly the adaptation of Arpeggio was made. I don't know nearly as much about Kancolle, so I can't comment, but I'm just as well pleased to take their interesting characters and make them Fog. There's an inherent silliness to Kancolle that I have a hard time ignoring.

>The first thing she noticed was Clemson's ever-present aide. Kongō had wondered, seeing him alone out in the hallway, where she was, since she had never once seen him without her. She knew nothing about the woman

Color me intrigued. Black Omega operative? EoJ deep undercover operative? Inquiring minds want to know.

>As he spoke, Kongō realized that there was another human figure walking toward them from the direction of the strange hybrid ship's gangway. As it approached, it resolved into the shape of a teenage girl... of a sort

Holy CRAP. Question: Should I be thinking 'Kancolle Abyssal' here, or 'Night of the Living Dead'? I didn't see anything like the name Buran in the list of Abyssal ship classes, but that might mean nothing.

Anyway, this is long enough! Thanks again for continuing to write; I know how much heart and soul you pour into all of this.

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


#14, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-12-18 at 02:28 AM
In response to message #13
LAST EDITED ON Aug-12-18 AT 02:36 AM (EDT)
 
>>Even with the tools and capabilities at her disposal, though, it was going to take a while to dig a hole that big
>
>When I was reading this, I wondered just how exactly Akashi, or
>-anyone-, would do it without months and a fleet of construction
>equipment.

Well, she's got the latter. Anyway, "dig" is really not quite the right word; it's more a matter of mass conversion. All of that rock and earth that's being removed is either being converted into the materials needed to construct the facility, or converted into nanomaterial to support Fleet operations. It's a surprisingly quick process once you've got the machinery set up.

>>It was in his stateroom aboard that vessel, therefore, that Admiral Corwin Ravenhair found himself being shaken gently awake.
>
>>"Admiral?"
>
>It's not immediately obvious from the way the story is written, but
>Utena's here, too. I think the Admiral needs to institute a 'knock
>first' rule if he and Utena/Anthy are going to spending any more time
>aboard ship...

Oh, no worries. Unlike most Japanese protagonists, Utena knows how to lock a door when the occasion suggests it. :)

(I don't know if it's occurred to her yet that Iona can see everything that happens anywhere aboard the boat? But maybe it hasn't been a consideration so far. ... Or maybe that's why Iona suddenly had a whole bunch of diagnostics to do rather than interact with her directly, since she'd just reported to Corwin that everything checked out fine like an hour before. It's hard to tell what Iona's thinking sometimes. :)

>Leonne made it clear in Cantata what she saw in VADM Lockwood,
>but Nagato was her real CO. Not sure why Leonne would have a model of
>her CO.

She used to build ship models during downtime when she was on active duty. She gave most of them away to shipmates—for her, the building process was the fun part—but she could never quite bring herself to part with Nagato. She probably couldn't even really articulate why not, if you asked.

It only occurred to me after I published the story that she should also have had a model of USS Amberjack (SSF-2781), the Skate-class fusion-powered attack submarine that was her last command before she retired from the Navy.

>I'm surprised Corwin didn't make the immediate connection--Tenryu's
>devil horns and Tatsuta's halo.

It'll occur to him one day. He still thinks Tenryū's things are supposed to be some kind of bat ears. Maybe radar antennae.

>>Shimakaze, on the other hand, was dressed... arrestingly strangely
>
>Given how strange all the other Mental Models are dressed, I'm not
>sure why this stood out, ridiculously risque though it is.

Well, considering the way the rest of his fleet tends to dress, the only other one whose outfit is really odd is Yamato. Most of the others are just wearing school uniforms, except Kaga, and Corwin's seen plenty of modified martial-arts getups in his life, so that doesn't even really register.

>The whole
>point is the ladies don't have a good grasp of human fashion. (Of
>course, the meta reason is Kancolle is much more fanservicey
>than Arpeggio ever was.)

I don't know how you can say that after the extended god damn, y'all, have you seen what Haruna's hiding under that coat? scene, or the so we're all agreed that Takao's got the stern of the year, right? beach scene. :)

>>So now she's terrified. Looking for somewhere to hide. Waiting for the other shoe to drop
>
>Ohhhhhh dear. Like I said in my earlier post, I didn't think it was
>like -that- for her.

As Tatsuta notes, it wasn't quite, but it was bad enough.

>>Or, rather, it took Kongō that long, with musical accompaniment
>
>Carnival da yo!

Welcome to the carnival, welcome to the party, welcome to the edge of your seat.

>>Léonne liked coffee, and appeared to make it using a process that involved salt
>
>*chokegaspwheeze* SALT?!

I've heard tell it's a Navy thing? Supposedly cuts the bitterness; something to do with ions. I couldn't tell you first-hand, I can't with coffee at all.

>>Standing here amid the hastily abandoned fragments of a human life—even a counterfeit one
>
>The idea that Leonne's human life was counterfeit is arguable at best.

Well, sure, but this is Kongō's train of thought, not mine.

>>Kongō had no idea what to do. Interacting with ordinary civilians was not part of the mission parameters she had been told to expect
>
>And this while they were being sent undercover into a human society to
>track down a person's house? Whoever briefed Kongo and Maya was an
>imbecile.

"Told to expect" notwithstanding, I'm not 100% sure anyone briefed them, at least for this specific task. Kongō may have just decided to check out this angle on her own recognizance. At which point, well, she didn't expect to have to talk to anyone, once she'd determined from the public record that "Léonne Poisson" lived alone.

She may not have thought the matter through.

>>Especially since he was an enlisted sailor. Senior Chief Petty Officer Captain Cook Kealoha, what a mouthful. And he wasn't a cook, either!
>
>I'm almost afraid to ask what his rating actually was.

Nothing too esoteric. He was a reactor operator, mostly in submarines.

His name commemorates Captain James Cook FRS RN (1728-1779), the first European to make diplomatic contact with Hawai'i, in 1778... and the first, a year later, to be killed in the course of committing a catastrophic diplomatic blunder in Hawai'i. Oops. Oh well, can't win 'em all.

>>To hear you and her describe it, it sounds like a nice place. Peaceful. Not..." She made a vague gesture. "Our usual kind of crazy
>
>Can I just say I love how they're resigned to insanity being their lot
>in life? I love how matter of fact they are about it.

:) "My life didn't stay normal, because it's my life and it can't."

>>"Hmm. That's not such a crazy idea," said Corwin thoughtfully. "It's a seaport town, so they wouldn't be in a completely alien environment, but they'd be away from the fleet, the routine of station life... me...
>
>Not sure how I feel about this. I work in a place where sailors and
>civvies interact all the time, and it's not a big deal. But I know
>some enlisted, particularly people who've been deployed, have a hard
>time adjusting to civilian life.

Well, keep in mind that in this particular case he's talking specifically about the ones who just came from Earthfleet, with all that that entailed; the others never lived among humans at all, so they'd be completely lost in such an environment, but on the other hand, they've never learned to equate the company of humans in a fleet hierarchy setting with unpleasantness the way Tatsuta, Yūdachi, and especially Shimakaze have.

Maybe Corwin's not putting it as well as he could, since he's kind of thinking it through out loud, but what he's really hoping is that by setting them entirely outside the structure of the fleet's hierarchy—away from both flag officers and any sort of command ship, even one as benignly disposed as Yamato—he can give them a chance to regroup and sever some of those unpleasant associations, before they undertake the task of integrating into a new fleet with different (and hopefully better) rules. If they learn in the process that humans aren't necessarily a Bad Thing, so much the better.

The others will have opportunities to go ashore too, but there are things to be done first, and the need is not so urgent with the ones who've never done it before. (And Léonne is completely squared away on that front, anyway.)

>>With a flicker of violet light, the long-shanked glaive she favored as a melee weapon appeared in her hands; she regarded its edge thoughtfully
>
>Oh, Tatsuta, you're just like your sister. Until the 'thoughtfully'
>part.

I don't hold Tenryū to be quite as uncool as some fan artists—in my interpretation, she's at least partly making fun of herself, and knows she isn't as intimidating as she appears to want to be. (Hence the scene in Cantata wherein she wryly acknowledges that Kongō has no real reason to be scared of her—but of her entire squadron, half of whose location is not yet known to the enemy, plus at least one submarine? Yeah. Shoe's on the other foot now. :)

Meanwhile, Tatsuta is. As intimidating as Tenryū thinks Tenryū is, I mean. :)

(That said, and to be fair, we haven't yet seen Tenryū at the top of her game. She was a bit hampered in Operation AF by the need to mind Kaga's flank, lacking the speed to undertake wide maneuvers and then race quickly back to position like the Special Type destroyers could. She was doing a bang-up job as a torpedo squadron leader, but being a torpedo squadron leader isn't necessarily glamorous.)

>>What was more, she'd made a career serving in the humans' armed forces. Serving aboard ship, no less, which struck Kongō as a fantastically perverse thing for a Mental Model of the Fog to do.
>
>Yes! I think Leonne did it partly just to -be- perverse, quietly
>laughing every time humans made a mistake she wouldn't have. I think
>she'd have had a blast.

One of the things I'm really pleased with in this piece is how much Léonne is a main character in it, despite never appearing at all. There's so much in here, either expressed or implied, about her; and putting it there required (or at least caused :) me to develop so much more about her history that didn't make it onto the screen this time. She really came to life in the process, despite spending the entire actual story racked out in Kiska Harbor. :)

>I don't know nearly as much about
>Kancolle, so I can't comment, but I'm just as well pleased to
>take their interesting characters and make them Fog. There's an
>inherent silliness to Kancolle that I have a hard time
>ignoring.

Well, the thing about Kancolle (and I think this has come up before) is that it doesn't really have a canon. The game is very light on its own lore, and the various manga, semi- and entirely-un-official dōjinshi, and the anime all have different takes on what's really going on. It leaves a lot of latitude for creative exploration. Sort of like Vocaloid in that respect—we know what the characters look like and we have clues to their personalities, but everything else is open to development.

>>The first thing she noticed was Clemson's ever-present aide. Kongō had wondered, seeing him alone out in the hallway, where she was, since she had never once seen him without her. She knew nothing about the woman
>
>Color me intrigued. Black Omega operative? EoJ deep undercover
>operative? Inquiring minds want to know.
>
>>As he spoke, Kongō realized that there was another human figure walking toward them from the direction of the strange hybrid ship's gangway. As it approached, it resolved into the shape of a teenage girl... of a sort
>
>Holy CRAP. Question: Should I be thinking 'Kancolle Abyssal'
>here, or 'Night of the Living Dead'? I didn't see anything like the
>name Buran in the list of Abyssal ship classes, but that might mean
>nothing.

There are hints to both of the above in the last bit of the credits after the stinger scene, but beyond them I'll say this much:

1) Captain Clemson's aide is not either of those two things.
2) Again, not really either (but sort of closer to the latter). Buran is a variation on Fubuki (their names mean the same thing, "snowstorm"), but she is not meant to be the Abyssal version of same who appears in some Kancolle media.

We'll learn more about Buran in RCFR v2. Capt. Clemson's aide may take a little longer. :)

Thanks for your notes! This was fun.

--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.


#15, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Verbena on Aug-12-18 at 09:18 AM
In response to message #14
>>>Even with the tools and capabilities at her disposal, though, it was going to take a while to dig a hole that big
>>
>>When I was reading this, I wondered just how exactly Akashi, or
>>-anyone-, would do it without months and a fleet of construction
>>equipment.
>
>Well, she's got the latter. Anyway, "dig" is really not quite the
>right word; it's more a matter of mass conversion. All of that rock
>and earth that's being removed is either being converted into the
>materials needed to construct the facility, or converted into
>nanomaterial to support Fleet operations. It's a surprisingly quick
>process once you've got the machinery set up.

Ah! Of course. When in doubt, invoke nanomolecular assemblers. I really should have known.

>
>>>It was in his stateroom aboard that vessel, therefore, that Admiral Corwin Ravenhair found himself being shaken gently awake.
>>
>>>"Admiral?"
>>
>>It's not immediately obvious from the way the story is written, but
>>Utena's here, too. I think the Admiral needs to institute a 'knock
>>first' rule if he and Utena/Anthy are going to spending any more time
>>aboard ship...
>
>Oh, no worries. Unlike most Japanese protagonists, Utena knows how to
>lock a door when the occasion suggests it. :)

That's good to hear. =) Perhaps Iona will just learn to consult the state of that door's lock before peering in the room.

>
>(I don't know if it's occurred to her yet that Iona can see everything
>that happens anywhere aboard the boat? But maybe it hasn't been a
>consideration so far. ... Or maybe that's why Iona suddenly had a
>whole bunch of diagnostics to do rather than interact with her
>directly, since she'd just reported to Corwin that everything checked
>out fine like an hour before. It's hard to tell what Iona's thinking
>sometimes. :)

Iona -does- have inscrutability down to a science!

>
>>Leonne made it clear in Cantata what she saw in VADM Lockwood,
>>but Nagato was her real CO. Not sure why Leonne would have a model of
>>her CO.
>
>She used to build ship models during downtime when she was on active
>duty. She gave most of them away to shipmates—for her, the building
>process was the fun part—but she could never quite bring herself to
>part with Nagato. She probably couldn't even really articulate
>why not, if you asked.
>
>It only occurred to me after I published the story that she should
>also have had a model of USS Amberjack (SSF-2781), the
>Skate-class fusion-powered attack submarine that was her last
>command before she retired from the Navy.

Oho! Yeah, she was an officer, Cappy and Maya mentioned. Wonder if she felt anything for her captain then?

>
>>I'm surprised Corwin didn't make the immediate connection--Tenryu's
>>devil horns and Tatsuta's halo.
>
>It'll occur to him one day. He still thinks Tenryū's things are
>supposed to be some kind of bat ears. Maybe radar antennae.
>
>>>Shimakaze, on the other hand, was dressed... arrestingly strangely
>>
>>Given how strange all the other Mental Models are dressed, I'm not
>>sure why this stood out, ridiculously risque though it is.
>
>Well, considering the way the rest of his fleet tends to dress, the
>only other one whose outfit is really odd is Yamato. Most of
>the others are just wearing school uniforms, except Kaga, and Corwin's
>seen plenty of modified martial-arts getups in his life, so that
>doesn't even really register.

Ah. Actually, this was my bad; you're right. I was factoring in a lot of other characters Corwin has never met before. Kongo, Maya, Haruna...basically, Arpeggio characters. Kancolle characters' weird parts are often artifacts of the combat harness, and they're just not using them.

>
>>The whole
>>point is the ladies don't have a good grasp of human fashion. (Of
>>course, the meta reason is Kancolle is much more fanservicey
>>than Arpeggio ever was.)
>
>I don't know how you can say that after the extended god damn,
>y'all, have you seen what Haruna's hiding under that coat?
scene,
>or the so we're all agreed that Takao's got the stern of the year,
>right?
beach scene. :)

Oh, I didn't remember the specific scenes, I admit--it's been a long while since I saw Arpeggio--but I still contend there's a difference between having a few scenes and having it all the time. At least it's not nearly as obnoxious as Strike Witches. I can't even make myself watch that for long, as much as I love Our Witches at War.

>
>>>So now she's terrified. Looking for somewhere to hide. Waiting for the other shoe to drop
>>
>>Ohhhhhh dear. Like I said in my earlier post, I didn't think it was
>>like -that- for her.
>
>As Tatsuta notes, it wasn't quite, but it was bad enough.

Indeed.

>
>>>Or, rather, it took Kongō that long, with musical accompaniment
>>
>>Carnival da yo!
>
>Welcome to the carnival, welcome to the party, welcome to the edge of
>your seat.

Exactly.

>
>>>Léonne liked coffee, and appeared to make it using a process that involved salt
>>
>>*chokegaspwheeze* SALT?!
>
>I've heard tell it's a Navy thing? Supposedly cuts the bitterness;
>something to do with ions. I couldn't tell you first-hand, I can't
>with coffee at all.

Huh. I've never heard that one but I know exactly who to ask.

>
>>>Standing here amid the hastily abandoned fragments of a human life—even a counterfeit one
>>
>>The idea that Leonne's human life was counterfeit is arguable at best.
>
>Well, sure, but this is Kongō's train of thought, not mine.

Well, true. =)

>
>>>Kongō had no idea what to do. Interacting with ordinary civilians was not part of the mission parameters she had been told to expect
>>
>>And this while they were being sent undercover into a human society to
>>track down a person's house? Whoever briefed Kongo and Maya was an
>>imbecile.
>
>"Told to expect" notwithstanding, I'm not 100% sure anyone
>briefed them, at least for this specific task. Kongō may have just
>decided to check out this angle on her own recognizance. At which
>point, well, she didn't expect to have to talk to anyone, once
>she'd determined from the public record that "Léonne Poisson" lived
>alone.

Well, she did think about what she'd been told. But yeah, whoever she spoke to may not have known what her plans actually were. She could easily have misinterpreted, too. She's almost willful about it, to the point she's surprised Maya could actually deceive a human.

>
>She may not have thought the matter through.

She'll learn. The question is how much gets blown up in the process. ^_^

>
>>>Especially since he was an enlisted sailor. Senior Chief Petty Officer Captain Cook Kealoha, what a mouthful. And he wasn't a cook, either!
>>
>>I'm almost afraid to ask what his rating actually was.
>
>Nothing too esoteric. He was a reactor operator, mostly in
>submarines.

Fair enough.

>
>His name commemorates Captain James Cook FRS RN (1728-1779), the first
>European to make diplomatic contact with Hawai'i, in 1778... and the
>first, a year later, to be killed in the course of committing a
>catastrophic diplomatic blunder in Hawai'i. Oops. Oh well, can't win
>'em all.

Ouch.

>
>>>To hear you and her describe it, it sounds like a nice place. Peaceful. Not..." She made a vague gesture. "Our usual kind of crazy
>>
>>Can I just say I love how they're resigned to insanity being their lot
>>in life? I love how matter of fact they are about it.
>
>:) "My life didn't stay normal, because it's my life and it
>can't."

Yep! I saw this line too but didn't feel the need to copy -everything-. =)

>
>>>"Hmm. That's not such a crazy idea," said Corwin thoughtfully. "It's a seaport town, so they wouldn't be in a completely alien environment, but they'd be away from the fleet, the routine of station life... me...
>>
>>Not sure how I feel about this. I work in a place where sailors and
>>civvies interact all the time, and it's not a big deal. But I know
>>some enlisted, particularly people who've been deployed, have a hard
>>time adjusting to civilian life.
>
>Well, keep in mind that in this particular case he's talking
>specifically about the ones who just came from Earthfleet, with all
>that that entailed; the others never lived among humans at all,
>so they'd be completely lost in such an environment, but on the other
>hand, they've never learned to equate the company of humans in a fleet
>hierarchy setting with unpleasantness the way Tatsuta, Yūdachi, and
>especially Shimakaze have.
>
>Maybe Corwin's not putting it as well as he could, since he's kind of
>thinking it through out loud, but what he's really hoping is that by
>setting them entirely outside the structure of the fleet's
>hierarchy—away from both flag officers and any sort of command ship,
>even one as benignly disposed as Yamato—he can give them a chance to
>regroup and sever some of those unpleasant associations, before they
>undertake the task of integrating into a new fleet with
>different (and hopefully better) rules. If they learn in the process
>that humans aren't necessarily a Bad Thing, so much the better.
>
>The others will have opportunities to go ashore too, but there are
>things to be done first, and the need is not so urgent with the ones
>who've never done it before. (And Léonne is completely squared away
>on that front, anyway.)

Hm. That's a good point; that those three have entirely different problems than the rest, but at least they've served near humans before and that culture shock wouldn't be as bad. I didn't think of that detail. And the rest aren't ready yet, not really, but they'll have a softer landing, so to speak. And their need isn't as urgent, perhaps.

I once had a coworker in an old job who was -just- discharged from the USMC before working with us, and it was very, very painfully obvious. Not in a bad way, but no one could mistake him for anything but a vet. It just takes time to pick up on civvie social cues, it's not something that can really be actively taught.

>
>>>With a flicker of violet light, the long-shanked glaive she favored as a melee weapon appeared in her hands; she regarded its edge thoughtfully
>>
>>Oh, Tatsuta, you're just like your sister. Until the 'thoughtfully'
>>part.
>
>I don't hold Tenryū to be quite as uncool as some fan
>artists—in my interpretation, she's at least partly making fun of
>herself, and knows she isn't as intimidating as she appears to want to
>be. (Hence the scene in Cantata wherein she wryly acknowledges
>that Kongō has no real reason to be scared of her—but
>of her entire squadron, half of whose location is not yet known to the
>enemy, plus at least one submarine? Yeah. Shoe's on the other foot
>now. :)

Oh, absolutely. I knew her tough-gal act was at least partly just that; an act. I think you even stated it once before, mentioning that it's part of how she overcomes being as antiquated as she is.

>
>Meanwhile, Tatsuta is. As intimidating as Tenryū thinks Tenryū is,
>I mean. :)

Tatsuta is deadly serious all the time, yes, and devious, underhanded, and clever. What she doesn't know yet, that her sister does, is just how outclassed she is against Corwin in melee combat. If she knew, I have a feeling she'd have used some method of intimidation that didn't involve a weapon.

>
>(That said, and to be fair, we haven't yet seen Tenryū at the top of
>her game. She was a bit hampered in Operation AF by the need to mind
>Kaga's flank, lacking the speed to undertake wide maneuvers and then
>race quickly back to position like the Special Type destroyers could.
>She was doing a bang-up job as a torpedo squadron leader, but being a
>torpedo squadron leader isn't necessarily glamorous.)

Fleets win engagements when everyone knows their role to play and sticks to it. Individual heroism is common on the human level, but very rare (though it's happened; see Yudachi's backstory) on the ship level.

>
>>>What was more, she'd made a career serving in the humans' armed forces. Serving aboard ship, no less, which struck Kongō as a fantastically perverse thing for a Mental Model of the Fog to do.
>>
>>Yes! I think Leonne did it partly just to -be- perverse, quietly
>>laughing every time humans made a mistake she wouldn't have. I think
>>she'd have had a blast.
>
>One of the things I'm really pleased with in this piece is how much
>Léonne is a main character in it, despite never appearing at all.
>There's so much in here, either expressed or implied, about her; and
>putting it there required (or at least caused :) me to develop so much
>more about her history that didn't make it onto the screen this time.
>She really came to life in the process, despite spending the entire
>actual story racked out in Kiska Harbor. :)

Hells yes, and I appreciated it a lot. Leonne's the only one with that kind of intricate backstory, of course, and it would have been easy to handwave it. But between her own life, and Kongo's and Maya's interactions with it and each other, those scenes really made this piece stand out.

>
>>I don't know nearly as much about
>>Kancolle, so I can't comment, but I'm just as well pleased to
>>take their interesting characters and make them Fog. There's an
>>inherent silliness to Kancolle that I have a hard time
>>ignoring.
>
>Well, the thing about Kancolle (and I think this has come up before)
>is that it doesn't really have a canon. The game is very light
>on its own lore, and the various manga, semi- and entirely-un-official
>dōjinshi, and the anime all have different takes on what's really
>going on. It leaves a lot of latitude for creative exploration. Sort
>of like Vocaloid in that respect—we know what the characters
>look like and we have clues to their personalities, but everything
>else is open to development.

Yeah, I think I remember this being mentioned. Sort of reminds me of the Neuroi-chan thread in Strike Witches, which got straight up abandoned, but just like the loose canon in these other properties, leaves the door open to a much better story than they originally told. I think we discussed that aspect before, come to think of it.

>
>>>The first thing she noticed was Clemson's ever-present aide. Kongō had wondered, seeing him alone out in the hallway, where she was, since she had never once seen him without her. She knew nothing about the woman
>>
>>Color me intrigued. Black Omega operative? EoJ deep undercover
>>operative? Inquiring minds want to know.
>>
>>>As he spoke, Kongō realized that there was another human figure walking toward them from the direction of the strange hybrid ship's gangway. As it approached, it resolved into the shape of a teenage girl... of a sort
>>
>>Holy CRAP. Question: Should I be thinking 'Kancolle Abyssal'
>>here, or 'Night of the Living Dead'? I didn't see anything like the
>>name Buran in the list of Abyssal ship classes, but that might mean
>>nothing.
>
>There are hints to both of the above in the last bit of the credits
>after the stinger scene, but beyond them I'll say this much:
>
>1) Captain Clemson's aide is not either of those two things.
>2) Again, not really either (but sort of closer to the latter).
> Buran is a variation on Fubuki (their names mean the same thing,
>"snowstorm"), but she is not meant to be the Abyssal version of
>same who appears in some Kancolle media.

Ooo. That name means quite a bit, and if not Abyssal...then perhaps their crude attempt to do something similar to Shioi. They don't know about her, but I'm sure Corwin's raising of the wreck of I-401 could have given them ideas.

>
>We'll learn more about Buran in RCFR v2. Capt. Clemson's aide may
>take a little longer. :)

Looking back, how did I miss that name? My, my. I see two possibilities here: Either a different ship Kongo was conditioned to ignore (because they should have detected each other if one simply did not know the other; is that correct?) or the aide is a plant from the kanmusu of Asgard. Wouldn't THAT be hilarious?

>
>Thanks for your notes! This was fun.

I had a lot of fun writing them!

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


#16, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-12-18 at 04:11 PM
In response to message #15
>>It only occurred to me after I published the story that she should
>>also have had a model of USS Amberjack (SSF-2781), the
>>Skate-class fusion-powered attack submarine that was her last
>>command before she retired from the Navy.

So I've added that to the sequence, because why not. Embrace the flexibility of the new media, old man! (I've been grappling with this for years. :)

>Oho! Yeah, she was an officer, Cappy and Maya mentioned. Wonder if she
>felt anything for her captain then?

In Amberjack she was the captain; as a more junior officer, she was too professional for that kind of thing. She was a very well-regarded officer; she'd have gone farther in her career if not for the Earthdome fiasco in 2406. One of the first things they did upon unifying all the constituent states' wet navies into Earthfleet was get rid of all the crewed submarines, and Commander Poisson was far from the only officer to retire early in protest.

(Retire early in terms of when she intended to; she had her 20 in and so could do so without penalty, but she was at one point aspiring to flag rank.)

Incidentally, that's why she hates those droid submarines so much. They put a lot of friends out of work and led to the premature scrapping of a lot of good boats, Amberjack included.

>Ah. Actually, this was my bad; you're right. I was factoring in a lot
>of other characters Corwin has never met before. Kongo, Maya,
>Haruna...basically, Arpeggio characters. Kancolle
>characters' weird parts are often artifacts of the combat harness, and
>they're just not using them.

There are other Kancolle ships who have peculiar costumes (the Kongō class's uniform is not particularly risqué, for instance, but it certainly is arresting, and then there are the Unryū-class carriers), but he hasn't met any of them either.

>>His name commemorates Captain James Cook FRS RN (1728-1779), the first
>>European to make diplomatic contact with Hawai'i, in 1778... and the
>>first, a year later, to be killed in the course of committing a
>>catastrophic diplomatic blunder in Hawai'i. Oops. Oh well, can't win
>>'em all.
>
>Ouch.

The local swiped one of his ship's boats, and he decided what he was going to do was personally lead a shore party to kidnap their king and ransom him back in exchange for the boat. What could possibly go wrong?

>I once had a coworker in an old job who was -just- discharged from the
>USMC before working with us, and it was very, very painfully obvious.
>Not in a bad way, but no one could mistake him for anything but a vet.
>It just takes time to pick up on civvie social cues, it's not
>something that can really be actively taught.

I'm sure I've told this story on the Forum before, but I had a Marine co-worker at Livingston who, in response to a parking dispute we were having with the Toshiba office next door in the business park, sent the company all-employees mailing list a carefully detailed battle plan in which he envisioned leveraging the military experience of all the veterans in the company, himself included, to overpower Toshiba and drive them from the battlefield office park. It ended with the sentence,

Toshiba started this but we will finish it. SEMPER FI

We were pretty sure he was kidding? But, man, he had thought it through. Be polite, be efficient, et cetera. :)

>Oh, absolutely. I knew her tough-gal act was at least partly just
>that; an act. I think you even stated it once before, mentioning that
>it's part of how she overcomes being as antiquated as she is.

Well, that and her hidden ultimate weapon of last resort. ;)

>Tatsuta is deadly serious all the time, yes, and devious, underhanded,
>and clever. What she doesn't know yet, that her sister does, is just
>how outclassed she is against Corwin in melee combat. If she knew, I
>have a feeling she'd have used some method of intimidation that didn't
>involve a weapon.

Tatsuta has heard about that encounter (I'm sure it's featured in Tenryū's fumbling, flustered attempts to explain to Tatsuta why she's so entertainingly, transparently attached to the Admiral), but she rates her abilities higher than Tenryū's. She assumes it was just a case of Tenryū being a dork as usual and getting romped for it.

Tenryū knows she'll never be able to persuade her otherwise, so she's just going to have to leave her to learn better on her own. If she finds out that Tatsuta actually threatened the Admiral, of course, she's still going to be mortified. :)

>Looking back, how did I miss that name? My, my. I see two
>possibilities here: Either a different ship Kongo was conditioned to
>ignore (because they should have detected each other if one simply did
>not know the other; is that correct?)

Under normal conditions, Fog Mental Models should be able to recognize one another, although Kongō's observation in Cantata that Tenryū wasn't trying to hide her IFF signature suggests that it's something they can at least attempt.

--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.


#17, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by drakensis on Aug-13-18 at 03:28 AM
In response to message #16
>Tatsuta has heard about that encounter (I'm sure it's featured in
>Tenryū's fumbling, flustered attempts to explain to Tatsuta why
>she's so entertainingly, transparently attached to the Admiral), but
>she rates her abilities higher than Tenryū's. She assumes it was
>just a case of Tenryū being a dork as usual and getting romped
>for it.
>
>Tenryū knows she'll never be able to persuade her otherwise, so
>she's just going to have to leave her to learn better on her own. If
>she finds out that Tatsuta actually threatened the Admiral, of
>course, she's still going to be mortified. :)

My mental image for Tenryū's character is rather moulded by this recent chapter of http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/leave-her-johnny-kancolle-si.613343/page-266#post-49410607 where, to quote the narrator "The Flustered Chunni is strong with this one."


#20, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Verbena on Aug-16-18 at 04:28 AM
In response to message #16
>>>It only occurred to me after I published the story that she should
>>>also have had a model of USS Amberjack (SSF-2781), the
>>>Skate-class fusion-powered attack submarine that was her last
>>>command before she retired from the Navy.
>
>So I've added that to the sequence, because why not. Embrace the
>flexibility of the new media, old man! (I've been grappling with this
>for years. :)

Ah, the classic Stalinization. Yes, indeed.

>
>>Oho! Yeah, she was an officer, Cappy and Maya mentioned. Wonder if she
>>felt anything for her captain then?
>
>In Amberjack she was the captain; as a more junior
>officer, she was too professional for that kind of thing. She was a
>very well-regarded officer; she'd have gone farther in her career if
>not for the Earthdome fiasco in 2406. One of the first things they
>did upon unifying all the constituent states' wet navies into
>Earthfleet was get rid of all the crewed submarines, and Commander
>Poisson was far from the only officer to retire early in protest.
>
>(Retire early in terms of when she intended to; she had her 20 in and
>so could do so without penalty, but she was at one point aspiring to
>flag rank.)

Indeed, I figured that's what you meant. Having a house still costs money, even if your personal maintenance expenses are a little different than normal. =)

>
>Incidentally, that's why she hates those droid submarines so much.
>They put a lot of friends out of work and led to the premature
>scrapping of a lot of good boats, Amberjack included.

Aha! I was wondering.

>
>>Ah. Actually, this was my bad; you're right. I was factoring in a lot
>>of other characters Corwin has never met before. Kongo, Maya,
>>Haruna...basically, Arpeggio characters. Kancolle
>>characters' weird parts are often artifacts of the combat harness, and
>>they're just not using them.
>
>There are other Kancolle ships who have peculiar costumes (the
>Kongō class's uniform is not particularly risqué,
>for instance, but it certainly is arresting, and then there are the
>Unryū-class carriers), but he hasn't met any of them
>either.

Indeed.

>
>>>His name commemorates Captain James Cook FRS RN (1728-1779), the first
>>>European to make diplomatic contact with Hawai'i, in 1778... and the
>>>first, a year later, to be killed in the course of committing a
>>>catastrophic diplomatic blunder in Hawai'i. Oops. Oh well, can't win
>>>'em all.
>>
>>Ouch.
>
>The local swiped one of his ship's boats, and he decided what he was
>going to do was personally lead a shore party to kidnap their king and
>ransom him back in exchange for the boat. What could possibly go
>wrong?

*facepalm*

>
>>I once had a coworker in an old job who was -just- discharged from the
>>USMC before working with us, and it was very, very painfully obvious.
>>Not in a bad way, but no one could mistake him for anything but a vet.
>>It just takes time to pick up on civvie social cues, it's not
>>something that can really be actively taught.
>
>I'm sure I've told this story on the Forum before, but I had a Marine
>co-worker at Livingston who, in response to a parking dispute we were
>having with the Toshiba office next door in the business park, sent
>the company all-employees mailing list a carefully detailed battle
>plan in which he envisioned leveraging the military experience of all
>the veterans in the company, himself included, to overpower Toshiba
>and drive them from the battlefield office park. It ended with
>the sentence,
>
>Toshiba started this but we will finish it. SEMPER FI
>
>We were pretty sure he was kidding? But, man, he had thought
>it through. Be polite, be efficient, et cetera. :)

That is awesome! Reminds me of a joke email someone put together where I work regarding all the construction and parking challenges we have. It parodied a lot of emails the COS had put out in the past, and the COS himself sent the email around to everyone. Better sense of humor than I'd credited him with beforehand, I admit.

>
>>Oh, absolutely. I knew her tough-gal act was at least partly just
>>that; an act. I think you even stated it once before, mentioning that
>>it's part of how she overcomes being as antiquated as she is.
>
>Well, that and her hidden ultimate weapon of last resort. ;)

Now that, we shall see I hope.

>
>>Tatsuta is deadly serious all the time, yes, and devious, underhanded,
>>and clever. What she doesn't know yet, that her sister does, is just
>>how outclassed she is against Corwin in melee combat. If she knew, I
>>have a feeling she'd have used some method of intimidation that didn't
>>involve a weapon.
>
>Tatsuta has heard about that encounter (I'm sure it's featured in
>Tenryū's fumbling, flustered attempts to explain to Tatsuta why
>she's so entertainingly, transparently attached to the Admiral), but
>she rates her abilities higher than Tenryū's. She assumes it was
>just a case of Tenryū being a dork as usual and getting romped
>for it.
>
>Tenryū knows she'll never be able to persuade her otherwise, so
>she's just going to have to leave her to learn better on her own. If
>she finds out that Tatsuta actually threatened the Admiral, of
>course, she's still going to be mortified. :)

Heh. Tatsuta's armor against the world is by being clever and devious, so she can't afford to look weak. She's all about the facade. Inside, though, I wonder if the fact Corwin wasn't fazed by it meant anything to her...but you're right. Only one way for Tatsuta to learn.

>
>>Looking back, how did I miss that name? My, my. I see two
>>possibilities here: Either a different ship Kongo was conditioned to
>>ignore (because they should have detected each other if one simply did
>>not know the other; is that correct?)
>
>Under normal conditions, Fog Mental Models should be able to recognize
>one another, although Kongō's observation in Cantata that
>Tenryū wasn't trying to hide her IFF signature suggests that it's
>something they can at least attempt.

Ooo. Yes. You're right, I had forgotten. And Kongo and Maya weren't expecting another ship as an adjutant, so...yeah. Hm. Several things she could be.

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


#23, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by MuninsFire on Aug-17-18 at 03:00 PM
In response to message #15
>>>>Léonne liked coffee, and appeared to make it using a process that involved salt
>>>
>>>*chokegaspwheeze* SALT?!
>>
>>I've heard tell it's a Navy thing? Supposedly cuts the bitterness;
>>something to do with ions. I couldn't tell you first-hand, I can't
>>with coffee at all.
>
>Huh. I've never heard that one but I know exactly who to ask.
>

So, coffee maniac here - if you have particularly hard water, or if you're using water that's been in an iron storage tank for some time, your coffee is going to be nasty due to the accumulated mineral content.

Water softeners use a process involving ion exchange with tanks of brine; this pulls out the iron and calcium, and makes the water much easier to work with.

If, like me, you have hard water but do not have a water softener, you can put a large pinch of salt in your coffee grounds. It doesn't come out tasting salty, but the quality of the resulting coffee is noticeably better.

The iron storage tanks, as an aside, were quite the innovation for navies when they came into use; prior to that, drinking water had been stored in wooden casks, and was subject to evaporation, algae growth, and other issues. Despite the taste issues, the iron tanks largely solved most of that problem. More modern ships will use stainless, to avoid as much of the metallic flavoring, but IIRC the ability to source stainless water tanks only came about after WWII - so Lionfish's coffee ritual is, in part, a legacy holdover from a prior era.

As a -further- aside, if you use apple-smoked salt in an earthy coffee like, say, Sumatran Mandheling, the result is -utterly fantastic- when you use the dregs of the coffee pot as your working liquid when making chili.


#2, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by SpottedKitty on Aug-08-18 at 08:35 PM
In response to message #0
Interesting bit with Project Warlock (three guesses where this comes from) at the end there. It seems we've just been introduced to the UFverse equivalent to the Abyssal Fleet.

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


#9, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-11-18 at 04:32 PM
In response to message #2
>Interesting bit with Project Warlock (three guesses where this
>comes from) at the end there.

I thought I mentioned this in the annotations for Cantata, but it doesn't appear so. Maybe I'm remembering it coming up in the discussion. Anyway, the Earthforce Navy's Project WARLOCK is a reference to a couple of coincidentally similar things: the canonical Earthforce's attempt to hybridize Shadow technology into its warship development in Bablyon 5, and also the "let's build an autonomous battle robot based on a partially destroyed Neuroi core, how hard can it be?" thing from the original Strike Witches series.

>It seems we've just been introduced to
>the UFverse equivalent to the Abyssal Fleet.

Well... I mean, there is an Abyssal version of Fubuki in the original, but she doesn't look anything like that.

--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.


#3, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Nova Floresca on Aug-09-18 at 00:38 AM
In response to message #0
So, first impression: Kongou's one of those people who picks "custom install" for new software, throws away everything she can't possibly imagine using, and then wonders why the program doesn't run very well?

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."


#4, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Peter Eng on Aug-09-18 at 12:36 PM
In response to message #3
>So, first impression: Kongou's one of those people who picks "custom
>install" for new software, throws away everything she can't possibly
>imagine using, and then wonders why the program doesn't run very well?
>

My impression is that she has certain expectations based on working with version 1.0, but she doesn't read the version notes when changes come through, then she wonders why things are different under 2.3.

The part that amuses me is her firm declaration that It Won't Happen To Her, even as it is happening.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.


#5, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by StClair on Aug-11-18 at 02:06 AM
In response to message #4
I look forward to watching the development that Kongou is certain she isn't, and won't be, having. (Though I doubt she'll find it at all amusing or pleasant, more like irritating or even horrifying; like some hellish blend of creeping insanity and a virus program, slipping into and corrupting her well-regulated thoughts, manifesting when she least expects/is prepared to deal with it.)

Also, the interaction between her and Maya reminded me hilariously of a certain other (former) alien invader and their strange, excitable assistant.


#6, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Offsides on Aug-11-18 at 03:44 PM
In response to message #5
>Also, the interaction between her and Maya reminded me hilariously of
>a certain other (former) alien invader and their strange,
>excitable assistant.

I was kinda imagining Pinky and the Brain, and how there's at least one episode where Brain has a change of heart at the end rather than simply having his plans foiled. :)

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>


#8, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-11-18 at 04:20 PM
In response to message #6
>>Also, the interaction between her and Maya reminded me hilariously of
>>a certain other (former) alien invader and their strange,
>>excitable assistant.

That was... well, it was entirely accidental, but I very much doubt the analogy is entirely unfounded, now that I think about it.

["I have captured the human for meat testing! Praise me! Praise me."]

>I was kinda imagining Pinky and the Brain, and how there's at least
>one episode where Brain has a change of heart at the end rather than
>simply having his plans foiled. :)

"Fear not, Maya. The unwieldy atomic weight of gold will not be a hindrance to our next battle strategy."

--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.


#7, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-11-18 at 04:17 PM
In response to message #4
>The part that amuses me is her firm declaration that It Won't Happen
>To Her, even as it is happening.

I really enjoyed the way that scene came out, if I do say so myself. I'm not sure about the manga, but in terms of the anime, Arpeggio Kongō wouldn't be Arpeggio Kongō without cognitive dissonance so loud it could shatter every window in a metropolitan area.

--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.


#11, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Nova Floresca on Aug-11-18 at 08:30 PM
In response to message #7
Kongō is definitely a better character in the anime; her manga incarnation is a a pretty blunt instrument. On the other hand, Maya is more self-aware in the manga, although still crazy. For example, she indulges in "strategic" piano playing, e.g. "I'm going to play this at Kongō over the JTN until she gives me *something* to do".

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."


#12, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-11-18 at 11:21 PM
In response to message #11
>Kongō is definitely a better character in the anime; her manga
>incarnation is a pretty blunt instrument.

BRUTICUS
Not a very subtle weapon, is she?

GALVATRON
Somehow, I think subtlety would be lost on the Fleet of Fog.

>On the other hand, Maya is
>more self-aware in the manga, although still crazy.

The manga version does have the advantage that she is an actual character.

--G.
"Maya's not stupid, she's advanced."
-><-
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.


#18, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Sofaspud on Aug-13-18 at 04:55 PM
In response to message #0
I will try to reply with more once I get a chance, but in the meantime:


> Captain Daniel Clemson was Admiral Kurita's chief of staff,
> which made him more or less the only non-flag-ranked officer
> cleared to know about the Fog project. He was a tall and
> youthful man of Afro-Caribbean descent, though he spoke
> English with an accent that sounded more like it had come
> from a British prep school

...

> The first thing she noticed was Clemson's ever-present aide.
> Kongō had wondered, seeing him alone out in the hallway,
> where she was, since she had never once seen him without her.
> She knew nothing about the woman, other than that she was
> surprisingly young and evidently Japanese. Around twenty, of
> average height, she was very pale, an effect accentuated by
> her short, jet-black hair and the severe black uniform she
> wore. She never spoke, only shadowed Clemson wherever he went
> and watched everything happening around him with dark,
> penetrating, but unreadable eyes. Kongō didn't even know
> her name.

Are those descriptions taken together *supposed* to make me think of Idris Elba and Rinko Kikuchi, respectively, a la Pacific Rim?

Or am I missing the mark entirely?


--sofaspud
--


#19, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-15-18 at 09:27 PM
In response to message #18
>Are those descriptions taken together *supposed* to make me think of
>Idris Elba and Rinko Kikuchi, respectively, a la Pacific Rim?

Not necessarily, but it's not the worst read. Clemson is young for his rank, quite a bit younger than Elba was in Pacific Rim (my mental image of him looks more like Jacob from Mass Effect 2), but he speaks similarly.*

As for Akitsu Maru, well, again, the parallels are not exact, but you're not too far wrong, either.

(Note that in that picture, she has more of a facial expression than Kongō has ever seen on her.)

--G.
* As an aside, this just reminded me that one of my favorite things about Elba's performance as Stacker Pentecost in Pacific Rim is that he has two different accents. In the scene where he's so worn out and just done with it all that he finally unbent a bit, and he's talking to Raleigh about his illness, he loses his clipped military diction and reverts to what I suspect is the character's "native" accent, which is way more "rough part of London". "The Mark Is... we frew dem bad boys togedder in six monfs." It's brilliantly done.
-><-
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.


#21, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Sofaspud on Aug-17-18 at 00:46 AM
In response to message #19
>
>Not necessarily, but it's not the worst read. Clemson is young for
>his rank, quite a bit younger than Elba was in Pacific Rim (my
>mental image of him looks more like Jacob from Mass Effect 2),
>but he speaks similarly.*

I can't say that I disliked Jacob, but he didn't make enough of an impression on me -- or at least, not enough of a positive one -- that I could place what you meant, either.

Ah well, any excuse to dust off ME2 is a good excuse, right?


>
>As for Akitsu Maru, well, again,
>the parallels are not exact,
>but you're not too far wrong, either.
>
>(Note that in that picture, she has more of a facial expression than
>Kongō has ever seen on her.)

Mm.

This is one of those times (fairly common, hangin' round these parts) where I have only very slightly more than no idea what you're talking about. I'm aware of Arpeggio of Blue Steel in the sense that I've watched the first season of the anime, but I lack any firsthand knowledge of other sources. Your comments here tell me there's manga, apparently there's a video game of some sort, maybe? -- and brother, let me tell you, I don't even want to *peek* into the corners of the internet where shipgirl arguments fly back and forth like shells from their cannons, because, yowch.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that EPU is pretty much my 'canon source' for these characters, so I'm not likely to catch references like Akitsu there.

I don't mind this; I'm just pointing out where I come from. :)

>
>--G.
>* As an aside, this just reminded me that one of my
>favorite things about Elba's performance as Stacker Pentecost in
>Pacific Rim is that he has two different accents. In the scene
>where he's so worn out and just done with it all that he finally
>unbent a bit, and he's talking to Raleigh about his illness, he loses
>his clipped military diction and reverts to what I suspect is the
>character's "native" accent, which is way more "rough part of London".
> "The Mark Is... we frew dem bad boys togedder in six monfs." It's
>brilliantly done.

I didn't realize that's what that was! I thought that Elba's native accent had slipped through for a minute or something. I agree, that's clever.

And now, as threatened previously, a more in-depth though by no means exhaustive take:

> Warming to her thesis now, the blonde battleship smiled a slightly smug
> little smile and declared confidently, "A battleship and a heavy cruiser
> of the Fog walk among them, and no one has taken any notice."

Huh. Kongo and Maya, right? I guess they changed clothes since the episode I sa--

> By the time they arrived at the corner of Wai'alae and 13th Avenue, they
> had an entire school of curious onlookers: tourists, locals, all mingled
> together, hanging back a not-very-discreet distance and snapping pictures.
> It was like a little impromptu street festival with the two Fog Mental
> Models at its focus.

-- ah. Guess not, then.

Kongo and Maya. On a stealth recon mission.

What could possibly go wrong, he said completely straight-faced.


> Letting it pass, she turned her attention to the rest of the objects.
> Three of them were immediately recognizable: they were scale models of
> warships, two from the mid-twentieth-century Pacific War. One of those
> represented Lionfish herself, a Balao-class American fleet submarine;

I am ashamed to admit it took me until this point in the story to realize just whose home Kongo and Maya were invading, and what sort of recon mission they were on.

I am not a smart man.

> Corwin went to his ersatz desk, but did not sit down in the folding camp
> chair that stood behind it, instead remaining on his feet while he looked
> them over. He hadn't seen much of these three over the (very busy) weekend
> since he and the Midway ships had rescued them from Earthforce; apart from
> a brief meeting on Saturday morning to welcome them to the fleet, they had
> mostly kept out of his path, almost to the point where he suspected they
> might be avoiding him.

I wondered what was going to happen with the extras picked up during that trip.

Well, I mean, I knew somehow they'd end up where later pieces have shown them, but I wondered *how*.

> The light cruiser regarded him with dark, unreadable eyes for a moment,
> then said calmly, "Do you really not understand?"
>
> Corwin blinked. "Uh... I guess not."

Me either!


> Folding her arms, Tatsuta scowled at him, the first overt show of emotion
> she'd yet produced. "You fool," she said. "Do you think she wears that...
> outfit... because she thinks it's stylish?"

... oh goddammit.

> Corwin considered her with a grave expression for a moment, then said, "I
> bet I'm not going to like what I'm about to learn... but I think you had
> better explain."

I think I'd rather she didn't but yes, yes she had.


> "I'm fine," Kongō replied brusquely, and then—in a snap decision that
> surprised even herself—she ordered, "Organize and pack everything here
> for transport. We'll take it back to Kure for further study."
>
> Maya blinked. "Everything?"
>
> "Yes, Maya, everything. It's a small dwelling, you should have plenty
> of space in your number-one hold."

I hope this means we're gonna see a redemption arc for Kongo. I really really do.

(I don't feel like Maya needs one; she's, for lack of a better term, innocent.)


<Black Omega Bad News Pain Train>

Nyyaaaarrrrgggggghhhhhh.

That about sums it up. I don't really feel like trying to dissect and analyze the situation all clinically. Just... fuck.

> "Eh, no worries," Utena said, stepping out of her jean shorts. "I'm still
> as dressed as I ever was to play hoops back in high school," she added,
> modeling her sports bra and bike shorts with a little grin. "Besides, the
> only guy on this island's my husband, and I promise you, he's seen the
> rest of my hull before."

Snrk.

Thanks, Utena, I needed that about now.


> Opening a secure channel to Earthfleet Command, the heavy cruiser
> declared cheerfully, "Hiiiii, this is Maya from the Asiatic Special
> Surface Detachment! I have a load of cargo that I need to get beamed
> to my number-one hold, please!"
>
> The operator at the other end didn't seem to think there was anything
> odd about that request; she merely replied in a calm, clipped tone,
> "Roger, patching you through to the Global Transporter Grid now. Please
> define the scan area."
>
> "Rooooo-gerrrrrr," Maya sang, drawing a box around the container stack
> with her laser designator. "There you go!"
>
> "Copy, coordinates received. Energizing now, stand clear."
>
> "Bye-bye, Léonne's things!" said Maya, waving gaily, as the containers
> shimmered and disappeared.
>
> "Transport complete," said the Earthfleet operator. "Anything else you
> need?"
>
> "Nope, all good for now," Maya replied. "Seeya!"
>
> "Earthfleet out."

Earthfleet Operator is either a robot -- BUMA? -- or the most chill person on the planet.

Well, they'd have to be at this point, all things considered.

Reminds me -- not entirely coincidentally, I suspect -- of listening in on the ATC tower. I realize it's a high-stress job and all, but the good ones make your blood pressure drop just listening to their laconic drawl.


> "We don't know Commander Poisson personally," she said, "but we're kind
> of like colleagues." Dipping her hand into her giant happy-face handbag,
> she displayed her Earthforce ID too quickly for Cappy to really read,
> then went on, "We're with the quartermaster corps."

Why am I surprised that it's Maya who's the quick-thinking con-artist? I really shouldn't be. Kongo wouldn't understand deception if it bit her in the ass. Oh wait.

> "Put that back. It's a petrochemical. Why did you look up Léonne's
> neighbor on the Nightwatch facial recognition database?"

Aw, c'mon, Kongs -- she might like it. Let her live a little!

(Part of me is giggling like the perpetual twelve-year-old that I am and pointing out all the bad puns and innuendos that can be milked from this one bit. I am very firmly not allowing that part to reach the keyboard.)

> Did that mean it was going to happen to her? Would she wake from
> maintenance cycle one day soon to find herself acting as erratically,
> as strangely, as inefficiently as all the others? Forming irrational
> attachments to things, developing tastes and habits unconnected with,
> or even detrimental to, the performance of her function as a ship of
> the Fog? Perhaps even having... opinions?
>
> Inconceivable.
>
> Intolerable.

Don't knock it until you've tried it, Kongo.

> «I am Buran,» she said, in what Kongō's language plugin informed her
> was flat, accentless Russian. «I am the first of the Special Type I-A
> destroyers.» She paused, lowering her hand, and then went on in
> precisely the same toneless voice, «I will be in your care.»

I'm not sure I'm parsing this part correctly. Didn't Clemson state that Buran was Kongo's new escort vessel? Doesn't that imply Kongo is in Buran's care?

Or does the term 'escort vessel' not mean what it seems to mean on the face of it?


At any rate, good stuff! I've expressed before, somewhere, that the Diqiu stuff doesn't rock my world much -- it's fun, but it's not what I come looking for most of the time -- but this stuff is very firmly putting its thumb on the button and mashing it for all its worth.

I don't know what exactly that button is, but it is being mashed. This and the recent-ish Vocaloid bits both.

I am eagerly waiting for more. Thanks!

--sofaspud
--


#22, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-17-18 at 01:20 AM
In response to message #21
>Kongo and Maya. On a stealth recon mission.
>
>What could possibly go wrong, he said completely straight-faced.

They mostly got away with it, presumably in large part because Honolulu is a pretty chill place. In some towns they'd probably have caused a riot.

>> Folding her arms, Tatsuta scowled at him, the first overt show of emotion
>> she'd yet produced. "You fool," she said. "Do you think she wears that...
>> outfit... because she thinks it's stylish?"
>
>... oh goddammit.

Yeah, that's just about how Corwin feels at that particular moment, too.

It really dismays him how often he comes up against the fallout from that sort of behavior in his life. I mean, is he missing something? Is it really that challenging to just not be like that? What the hell is wrong with these people?

>> "Eh, no worries," Utena said, stepping out of her jean shorts. "I'm still
>> as dressed as I ever was to play hoops back in high school," she added,
>> modeling her sports bra and bike shorts with a little grin. "Besides, the
>> only guy on this island's my husband, and I promise you, he's seen the
>> rest of my hull before."
>
>Snrk.
>
>Thanks, Utena, I needed that about now.

She's learning! There's more than one way to ride to a rescue. :)

>Earthfleet Operator is either a robot -- BUMA? -- or the most chill
>person on the planet.

Comes with the job, and the standard operating procedures for same. "No questions asked" pretty soon leads to "no shits given" or you get so tangled up in wondering what's going on that you have to find something else to do.

>> «I am Buran,» she said, in what Kongō's language plugin informed her
>> was flat, accentless Russian. «I am the first of the Special Type I-A
>> destroyers.» She paused, lowering her hand, and then went on in
>> precisely the same toneless voice, «I will be in your care.»
>
>I'm not sure I'm parsing this part correctly. Didn't Clemson state
>that Buran was Kongo's new escort vessel? Doesn't that imply Kongo is
>in Buran's care?
>
>Or does the term 'escort vessel' not mean what it seems to mean on the
>face of it?

From what I've read, it seem that's a common figure of speech in Japanese conversation, something people who are going to be working together often say to each other when they're introduced. A lot of the ship girls in Kantai Collection say some variant of it in the first line they speak in-game, when they're introducing themselves to the Admiral (i.e., the player).

(The customary answer is "I'll be in your care as well," implying that We'll All Be Working Hard Together.)

>At any rate, good stuff! I've expressed before, somewhere, that the
>Diqiu stuff doesn't rock my world much -- it's fun, but it's not what
>I come looking for most of the time -- but this stuff is very firmly
>putting its thumb on the button and mashing it for all its worth.
>
>I don't know what exactly that button is, but it is being mashed.
>This and the recent-ish Vocaloid bits both.
>
>I am eagerly waiting for more. Thanks!

Glad you're enjoying it. Next up will probably be the next The Federation Lives Forever!, and then a Mini in support of/setup for Fleet Record 2, which we're working on sort of in parallel (as they're both happening at around the same time).

--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.


#24, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by SpottedKitty on Aug-17-18 at 08:57 PM
In response to message #22
>Next up will probably be the next The
>Federation Lives Forever!
, and then a Mini in support of/setup for
>Fleet Record 2, which we're working on sort of in parallel (as
>they're both happening at around the same time).

I've got to say I'm really enjoying the car crash between the HTT/Fog/Avatar stories and characters. Out of all the crossover mashups in the UFverse, this has developed into one of the more fun ones.

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


#25, RE: RCFR v1: The Human Experience
Posted by Peter Eng on Aug-26-18 at 02:12 AM
In response to message #0
Upon re-reading this, I think I know who Shimakaze needs to meet.

Dorothy would probably have insights that nobody else can offer.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.