Life Of The Party, Part 1: The Three Tenets

Hey everyone, we’re back with another hobby highlight, this time we’re looking at the impressive collection by our very own Detinwolf. What drew me to his work was his exceptional clean parade ready paint jobs. Detinwolf seems to be gunning for studio painter at this point, and he might get my vote! Enjoy this look at a prolific hobbyer who won’t be happy until he has every heavy gear model painted (in parade colors no less)!

Jay C. Yan

While one could never hope to fully catalogue the diversity of this planet’s desert-crossing endeavours, this document provides an outline of common practice. It primarily focuses on basic structure and organization, with limited attention to internal culture, more varied and requiring more care than can be discussed with brevity.

The Van

Ranging ahead of the convoy, the Van is usually small, as little as a single vehicle or scout on foot. Pathfinders and surveyors, the Van tests the terrain with sensors and their own hide to ensure safe passage for the rest of the convoy. Without them, it would be far too easy for an entire convoy to be lost to a buried white sand deposit or sinkhole, or simply lose the route. Ground penetrating radar/sonar suites scan for white sand, unstable ground, and similar buried threats, while the crew use eyes, ears, and intuition to look out for other dangers. Arms and limited armor are also common in more violent areas; canny ambushes are often only found by sticking your nose in them, and it’s good to have some firepower to brandish when negotiating passage with bandits or local warlords. Medium vehicles, such as Camels or literal vans, dominate, possessing the capacity to operate independently and carry all the necessary equipment, without the ponderous weight of a Long Runner. They are otherwise kept fairly light for their size, often with aftermarket kits and larger tires to improve all-terrain capability. Despite physically leading the group, this is rarely a position for people high on the social ladder. It does not tolerate distraction. However, many a convoy leader or respected elder has experience in the Van, which demands and vindicates trust like nothing else. 

To those who find this scroll, heed my words. I, Balthazar Caro, the last sane man on this damned rock we know as Terra Finis, have created a record of our baseness and depravity. Terra Finis—the Last Earth! Would that this name were true, for what the rabid dogs who call themselves men have done here has shown that they deserve no future, no descendants to inherit their legacy of horror. Every part of this diseased boil we call a world has become host to its own, unique nightmare.

Hey everyone, the site migration is more or less finished and we’re alive and kicking again so it’s time to get back to our community hobby spotlights! This week in the Heavy Gear Hangar we’ll be spotlighting a lovely little force by Marley AKA dr.racoonphd aka MamelukStan on the discord. This wonderful Southern army has been lovingly collected and painted with an excellent camo pattern that matches the crafted table perfectly. I hope you all enjoy this spotlight as much as I have, as always, a big thank you to Marley for letting us highlight this force.

[++TRANSMISSION OPEN++]

T+0: Gate transit signature detected at HO-01/5404.4 gate. Gate security patrol reports a large number of contacts.

T+1: Gate security patrol eliminated. Contacts confirmed hostile and burning for Home orbit intercept course.

T+3: All available forces in Home mobilized to intercept. Maneuver groups formed around carriers Hornet, Novosibirsk, and Admiral Vogel.

T+7: Intercept group exits Home orbit. All available HOPE patrols mobilized to orbit of Home or Away.

With most Terra Novan leagues claiming descent from the pre-ice age cultures of Earth, it was almost inevitable that the oft-reinterpreted holiday of Christmas would be refurbished as a convenient source of iconography and continuity. Christmas on Terra Nova is generally agreed to fall on 25 Autumn, and its celebration has taken various forms throughout the centuries, with various traditions falling in and out of favor.

The North

The Northern Lights Confederacy generally tends to take a dim view of Christmas. Sorrento Revisionist antipathy towards anything associated with Jerusalemism. Even the more secular charity-focused version of the holiday is seen as representation of what Second Follower Ryon Speck called the “obsessive Jerusalemite tendency to sacralize every act of common decency; so that by performing it once a cycle they feel they have emancipated themselves from the obligation to do it at any other time.” Christmas celebrations are seen as a negative stereotype of Jerusalemite foolishness, regardless of its similarity to Prophet’s Blessing, and the fact that the other Northern Leagues celebrate it is a key point brought up by isolationists. (Most Jerusalemites in the Confederacy do not, in fact, celebrate Christmas, as Clearwater Jerusalemism is descended mainly from Judaism and Islam. The stereotype remains anyway.) The Apostate Revisionists, however, do tend to celebrate Christmas, having inherited the practice from its origin in the Eastern Sun Emirates. Adrianna Xing has insisted on the existence of a Christmas tradition separate from any actual Jerusalemite beliefs that is focused on the idea of helping the needy that Revisionists should aspire to. Apostate Christmas as practiced in the NLC is largely an adaptation of the Western Revisionist tradition, though with influence from the Emirati one and a handful of elements from other regions (such as the character of “Ol’ Scrootch”). This has led to constant attacks by the Prophet’s Shield upon the Apostates for having contaminated themselves with Jerusalemism. As Apostasy has become increasingly popular in the NLC, wealthy Apostates have taken to throwing extravagant Christmas parties specifically to enrage their enemies.

Gate Mechanics

A gate is type of small wormhole that connects two distant points in space. Gates result from a quirk of hyperdimensional geometry where the presence of a gravity well in an area affects certain particles in quantum entanglement, causing the higher-dimensional space between them to fold in on itself (for the details of why this happens, wait 2500 years for Markus Tannhauser to publish his book on the subject). Like any waveform, spacetime can be added and subtracted from itself, and in certain cases the foldspace phenomenon ends up being subtracted enough to bring the two consanguineous entangled particles close enough to each other in higher-dimensional space to cause a noticeable spatial discontinuity at either end.

30 years ago, a group of friends from Montreal published a hybrid mecha RPG/wargame. Intended as a tribute to their favorite series like Star Wars, Battletech, Babylon 5, and most of all Armored Trooper VOTOMS, it was intended to lead to a small handful of further products telling a story set on the planet Terra Nova. The idea was that the line would tell a self-contained story and wrap up within 5 years, with the setting being left behind in favor of new games.