This Looks Awfully Familiar...

This map is a map of the Internet, posted by somebody that logged IP connections. While looking at this, I pulled out my copy of the Ghost in The Shell manga, and turns out that the map that Shirow posted...looks an awful lot like about the map he had...and very much like a star cluster.

Hm...if Sword of the Stars could support it...run a map built like this. Or Starfire...GOD, the game would take few YEARS to go through. We'd need computer support just to track the production. And combat....I'm scared in so many ways. We could reach battles that would make ISW 4 seem tiny and puny. It could be fleets measured in thousands of ships. Hell, we might even have to make the game played so that whole TEAMS of players were playing the Emperor and Imperial governors of just one empire, as a part of an game that would take years to play through. It's scary on so many levels.

But, it's one of those things that should be tried. And played.

When I win the lottery...maybe.

Watching The Last Episode Of Battlestar Galactica Season Three... (Warning, Spoilers)

...and, I do have to say this.

What the motherfracking hell was going on?
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Are they all toasters and just don't know it? We know that Laura Roslin, Caprica Six, and Athena are sharing the "imaging" of the Opera House with Baltar.

Which also leads to the next big question-what happens next? Galactica is facing off against a BIG Cylon fleet. Starbuck is back...and she says she knows how to get to Earth. Lee's in a Viper, and probably realized what he is-a pilot. We have the Final Five there...and that means that there are at least two hybrid Cylon/human children. And, what is their ultimate agenda? To finally end the war between Cylon and human?

And, there won't be new episodes until 2008.

Motherfrackers!

ADDITION-Friend of mine made a comment, and I have a scary theory.

Roslin is an early version of the human/Cylon hybrid. She had a vision of Leoben Convoy in Season One, not focused...but pretty specific. The drug she was taking for her cancer was causing hallucinations, not quite specific. This might have unlocked her latent ability to image. After she was injected with Hera's blood to cure her cancer...the hallucinations and dreams have been getting more and more specific.

All of her hallucinations that we see on-screen are of Cylons. Even the near-death hallucination she had in Epiphanines had Cylons in it, in one form or another.

That she's imaging with Hera/Athena is one thing. That they're sharing the imagery with Caprica Six is something...crazy. Does that make Baltar a Cylon? A hybrid that shares "imagry" with Caprica Six (their mutual hallucinations)?

And, what is the agenda of the Final Five? All of them are trusted people, having proven their loyalty time and time again, in blood and fire. Where does their agenda lead for all the sides?

BWAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!

You know, you look at this, and you realize that people are crazy in GOOD ways.

Somebody is going to do the stats in a game system, you know it. Probably Warhammer 40K.

And, you know somebody will make the miniatures.

And there will be the battle...

Damn it, I want this on a T-Shirt. And if it wasn't going to call down a Plague Of Lawyers...I'd make this T-shirt...

Anime Crash Test Dummy

I think this is going to be my big thing for the next few months. I'm going to be looking at various fansubs and seeing what's pretty cool and what sucks.

There will be much suckage, I'm fearing. I haven't seen a lot lately that has me impressed.

So, time to fire up the BitTorrent software and see what's up. Note, I'm going only to post complete series (just in case it's pretty decent at the end), so be warned.

Anime Frustration

I think that me and Steve DenBeste are in full agreement on this-the latest round of anime is kind of sucking.

Badly.

Worse, a lot of remakes, a sign of studios that are needing a serious creative boost (and I want to know whom thought it was a good idea to make a second season of Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan, so I can whap them on the back of the head with a two stroke guitar). Those whom are "in the know"-what is the average age of directors and anime writers these days?

Sadly, even the fansubs are getting kind of dull. Let's see, what I got recently was Soko No Strain, in which the main female lead's best friend is a doll that she talks to and never responds, never acts, never does anything but sit there, the entire series. The mecha were too curved for my tastes, looking more like mobile statues than weapons, and the whole concept of a war that takes place at relativistic speed was done better by, oh, Gunbuster and The Forever War....

My theory? Two-fold. The first is the export market has finally caught up with Anime-they know that eventually something will be sold to America. And, they want the next Naruto, the next Cowboy Bebop, the next Evangelion-the mega hit that will make them millions in DVD sales, toys, models, look-alike cosmetic surgery, porn... And, if what I can see on TeeVee and in the stores is what "Americans" like to buy, we're buying a lot of yaoi, drama, shonen-ai faire, and similar. No big mecha stories or "deep" plots.

Oh, and porn, lots and lots of porn...

Second? The cost of investment in anime means that a lot fewer chances can be taken. Like movies, if you don't have a "name" (voice actor, director, studio, etc), fans won't go to see the movie/anime. This means that this is the time for the independent studios to start making products. I do think that the Internet will save anime-if only because within the decade, somebody will make a complete series, produce it, master it, press it on DVD...and only meet once for the release party.
(And, if there's any justice in the world, I'll be writing the scripts and directing...).

I'm a tad frustrated...and I hope to see more neat stuff, and soon.

Watching Gunbuster and Gunbuster 2

So, I just got Gunbuster on DVD, and watching Gunbuster 2 (Diebuster) via the ever-lovely and useful BitTorrent (I swear, I've saved more on getting BAD anime via download than all the reviews in the world). And, you know what? Gunbuster still holds up, despite being nearly twenty years old (yes, TWENTY years, that's scary...). My only complaint-if any-would have been that if there was a series that deserved a "reimaging" or at the very least bringing the animation quality up to "modern" standards, this is it.

And, despite the fact that GAINAX can't normally do a sequel to save their lives, Gunbuster 2 ties in a lot of the same themes. The same universe-and the way the story is told, it's more like a continuity of the original series. The series is a hell of a lot better than any of the "oh no, humanity sucks" tales of Evangelion (GOD, that series has gotten on my nerves lately, much better series are languishing in obscurity, yet the passive-aggressive Shinji and annoying company are going to have a new series made of their adventures...). I would love to know more about what happened before Gunbuster 2, why the Dix-Neuf had it's degeneracy reactor removed, why the defense system of Operation Galaxy Center Throw changed into the Space Monsters of the series, and why the Topless came about...a hell of a lot more than wanting to find Shinji Ikari and give him a beat-down that would make Camile Vidan go "damn, that boy has it rough".

Supposedly, Gunbuster 2 will be coming out on DVD. Will I get it? Do bears poop in the woods?