Business - Plan 2
I'm reorganising my websites, with the aim on turning my hobby into a business, and produce Sciror (game background) and Spheres of War (ruleset). This is a follow up from Plan 1 from a while back. I'm streamlining so I am not spread so thin.
As always, I'll post everything I create for Sciror and Spheres of War on my websites for free. I'll create PDFs for download (edit: SoW Tactical Fragment 1 is now out), and compile related PDFs into eBooks and Printed Books for sale. For example: all the SoW Fragments will be collected together into a rulebook.
I've put up a Patreon account, which I add rewards to later, probably free eBooks? At the moment I think of my Patreon as a 'tips jar', to support my work. At the moment I have an empty hat, but with a bit more busking I hope to change that. Here is what I am planning;
Read the rest of this entry »Navigator Theory
Being a Navigator is a natural human ability, linked to the latent psionic power of the 'sixth-sense'. This is important to the Machines' Empire plans, as they lack this ability. While a machine can drop a ship into the 'Warp' and move around in the Warp, they cannot see the Warp. The Machines are utterly blind warp-side. This is where humans come into the equation;
- A regular human is given a mind-link jack to become a Navigator.
- The Navigator is hooked into the machine sensorium network (which hard links to the human mind, not the Warp) to become the ship's Navigator.
- The Machine fires up the warp-drive and drops the ship into the Warp.
- The Navigator then visualises where they want to go.
- The Machines immediately takes the ship out of the Warp.
- The ship has travelled to the visualised destination.
Remote Drone Worker
One of the aims of ECORR, and VotNF, is encouraging family and community cohesion. Not only by gating the community and keeping school and amenities local within guarded safe-space, but also in adopting future technologies that decrease the break up of the community. One of the major factors breaking up communities is moving because of a new job. Ideally, we'd move the job to the person, rather than the person to the job.
Thanks to IT, many office workers use shared working spaces (like WeWork) or working from home. Flex-time allows more time for family life, creating a better work-life balance, and reduces travel time to zero. Those using IT to facilitate their jobs have a more stable community, because they do not have to move to the job, the jobs come to them, and jobs from all over the world can come to them. These shared working spaces are found in the interior of the ECORR structures. Safe and secure.
Currently the same is not true for manual labour jobs, especially outdoor and distant jobs, such as working on electrical grids or oil rigs. We do not that the technology to remove into such jobs, but in the future, we may.
Read the rest of this entry »Sciror vs 40K Timeline
In translating Philhammer into Sciror, and ripping out all the GW IP, I thought it'll be a good idea to line up the various era if both timelines with each other. Then swap out 40K names for Sciror names, before reworking the whole background. Sciror may be based on Philhammer concepts, but I'd like it to be a suitably different take, and though it'll end up all grimdark, there are solar punk elements before everything falls apart.
The top era of the timeline belong to Sciror, the bottom era of the timeline belong to 40K.
Mecho-Communist
Some areas of the Supremacy economy needs sorting out. With our modern world facing mass automation and machine learning, I think it would be interesting to throw that into the Sciror mix. The Machines (Artilects and Artiloid servants) can supply all the goods and services people need to live. This does not result in a Communist utopia as there is still a ‘sexual marketplace’ and people compete. If people compete, you have winners and losers.
The machines give everyone the same resources, an allowance of goods and services on a daily basis. This does not stop wealth inequality, as people can give, trade, and sell their excess to others. Or sacrifice to create excess. Which means other people make more than their allotted amount by providing non-machine services to other people. The main economy is entertainment, think ‘YouTube as everything’. Everyone has a channel, and everyone is trying to produce content. Some are better than others.
Read the rest of this entry »Legionary
This is the prototype of the Sciror Legionary. With my experience of designed a 3D version of the GW Space Marine, I know how tricky it can be to make the armour look right. In this design I'm trying to make the armour look anatomically pleasing, as if the armour was the character - but a human can still fit inside. To achieve this requires messing with perception, playing with the optics. The legs are given the illusion of being longer by inserting pivot points high on the waist, and the perceived 'head' is really a sensor array (the 'visor') being mounted towards the top of the head. Both the eye line and crotch are lower than the seem to be. A real pilot's head would be a little lower, in the neck area, and if you look there is a dome like helm under the 'visor'. The shoulder array has the pivot in the middle, but on a human the joint is high on the shoulder.
Read the rest of this entry »VotNF sorting
I've updated the VotNF index to link to more articles, and converted a couple of posts into pages. They still need a bit of work and simplified language, but the gist of it is down. Working towards unify the concepts, and laying out the basics for VotNF and how it will all lead into Sciror.
I also added in this rather nice image of brutalist architecture;
Which has some of the staggered terrace design elements I'm discussing, which adds a little credence to the whole ECORR concept. Combined with the idea that multi-story car parks can already span the width of most British roads, and I think we are on to a winner 😉
At the heart of the design, ECORR is nothing more than building a multi-story car park over a road than slapping a shopping mall on top and covering that mall with housing.
Sciror - mobile
I've updated the old Sciror website with a mobile responsive theme. If you spot any issues, please let me know. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this website. I thought about making it a WordPress site for Sciror development, but for now, I'd rather have all development in one place, here on philhammer.com.
In moving the project forward, all new Sciror stuff will be posted on philhammer.com, and I'll move the final pages over to sciror.com, and compile them into a pdf when complete. At a later date, I may switch it over to a WordPress site to gain feedback from customers, to refine and clarify, rather than develop or experiment.
Patreon
I've set up a Patreon account to support what I'm up to. I'll be progressing the Sciror and Spheres of War projects. My aim is to create free PDFs of both products, and sell hard copies through a print-on-demand service. Sciror is my Philhammer background remade without any GW IP, and Spheres of War is a table-top and RPG rule set.
I've also added the Patreon button to the Connect page, and added the "subscribe | patronise" button below to all posts (which only shows up in single page mode, if you are wondering why you cannot see it from the main blog page).
Tears in the rain
Rutger Hauer (23 January 1944 – 19 July 2019) played one of my favourite characters. I know he was the bad guy, but he was my hero. As a young man I felt his rage, and the impotence of not being able to change your life, resisting the pressure of conformity, and the power fantasies that breeds. Roy Batter found his God and made him pay, but I was not so fortunate, as mine was a bit more elusive. All of which made the end scene all the more impactful. Tears in the rain. One of the few films to move me to tears, and brought the nihilistic horror mortality to the fore in a young mind. His calm acceptance of his death, his dignity, the joy of life, and forgiveness had a profound impact on me.
I later found out the Rutger used his own words, and that scene is now considered one of the best in film. Rutger said he has an affinity with Roy, and it's ironic the character Roy died in 2019, and so did Rutger.
Many memories are being washed away as I age. Memory is funny like that: you only remember what you dwell on and distort your own reality. Something Marcus Aurelius bangs on about, that you forget all the little things you did to get where you are, but the little things, your habits, are what built your achievements. If you are not careful, you start to wonder how you got to where you are.
With Rutger's death, I'm reminded of this all, and over the past few weeks I had a good think about it, and I must confess: I love life 🙂