Dynamo-Joe

I mean... WHAT? ...Okay.

My Space Pirate Captain Harlock homage - Azure Dupree (Where Harlock's main color is black, and Emeraldas' uniform is in shades of red, naturally Azure's main color is blue) Naturally I find inspiration for her in some of the BEST music for adventure on the sea of stars you'll ever find!

My original main on live (recreated here and now up to incarnate level again) was Cyberman 8. He's a literal "deux ex machina". An android with a positronic brain that houses the "ghost" of a former human being. He's a fighter and a speedster. If I were to write an "elevator pitch" for him, it would be "Robocop - except more Formula 1 racer rather than main battle tank". Naturally I have a whole playlist for him. Here's a few selections:

As a cosmetic form shift only "prestige" or even temp power, I don't personally see the harm in the idea in general. I have really enjoyed the "rocket surf board" power and and use it frequently for characters who don't otherwise have an inherent travel power. Same with the Longbow jetpack you can buy (just buy a couple of hours use of it every couple of months or so). (Personally, I really LIKED the APPEARANCE of some of the vehicles in Champions Online. I just didn't like them AS A SET OF POWERS and as a COMBAT option. I almost never used them that way because I hated that aspect. But as a flashy way to get around? Sure!) The only potential issue I could see is - for some of the larger options like the Longbow Jets or Arachnos fliers, maybe limit their ability to interact or intersect with the ground. This is due to clipping issues and sightlines. That is to say - ever notice how the existing versions do NOT come closer to the ground than the head height of the tallest possible character model that could be standing beneath them? Limit any such cosmetic vehicle to THAT height above the ground. Don't let them come closer. You could even have a bit of fun with it and have any character using such a power do a fancy "superhero landing" ("that's hard on the knees!") after dropping the last few feet from said vehicle. Also - for those type of larger cosmetic vehicles - I would add the suggestion of adding in a small delay to the summons. Doesn't have to be TOO much. But say - make it like the current costume change delay. Once you dismiss one and exit it - you can't re-summon one for at least 15 seconds.

“Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until 'Doom,' no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon...” --Terry Pratchett Violence is never the answer. Violence is a question. The answer is YES.

I have seen that and let me tell you - as an old school Yamato fan - Yamato 2199 (and 2202 - and 2205) - THIS is how you do a Reboot/Remake RIGHT!!! Let me absolutely GEEK OUT here on an example of how the reboot takes elements of the original but reworks them - not necessarily for realism - but for internal consistency. This is less for your benefit, Doc_Scorpion, so much as others who might not know. I assume this is all familiar to you. :D The Yamato in the remake is bigger than the original. But not by TOO much. JUST enough to fit in things properly (and even then several elements are downscaled to how they were portrayed in the original. The fighter bay and the much smaller Wave Motion Engine room (that the hanger surrounds) were - aside from the ship being significantly larger than the original canon (333 Meters vs original 265) - were arguably the biggest internal departures from the original depiction. And they are absolute ingenious additions to the concept. (more below) In the original, there was actually supposed to be an open space in the middle - a short "runway" ending in a drop out of the rear hatch downward. On either side of that "runway" were "Shelves" where the fighters were stored/parked. Three(3) levels high (though animation mistakes sometimes made this Four(4) levels high)) and 4 rows back on either side for a total of 24 spaces. There was actually supposed to be an UPPER Fighter bay where a similar arrangement (reversed) led to two launch tubes forward of the catapult launchers. This fighter bay was almost never shown in operation. In total the original fighter complement of the original series Yamato was supposedly 48 fighters. Needless to say - if you do the geometry, (particularly taking note of the MUCH larger engine room somehow sandwiched between the lower and upper fighter bays) this is WILDLY impossible, and the original Yamato would've had to have been somewhere around 600 meters in length for this to even get close to working as portrayed. The original series Yamato had to be part TARDIS! The length of the ship was always canonized at 265 meters despite all of this because that's nearly exactly the length of the original sea-going battleship Yamato and the producers insisted that it stay that way. Why? Because the original Space Battleship was supposed to be LITERALLY the old wreck refurbished. This is also wildly impossible now that we understand two things - first - we now have a much better understanding of the process of corrosion at those depths. In 200 years there will not BE any wreckage left to resurrect, there will only be nodules of iron oxide and maybe a few scraps of the thicker armor sections left. (For comparison the Titanic will be COMPLETELY gone in about 100 years - possibly less) The other thing that kind of kills the concept of a resurrected Yamato is that the wreck is in worse shape than originally thought when the show began in 1974. (In fact they hadn't even FOUND the wreck until after the original run of the shows and movies concluded in 1983!) They thought it sank in one piece and landed upright. But in fact, the Yamato is broken badly into 3 distinct chunks and two of them are upside down. Yeah - that ain't happening... So the remake version is NOT the original resurrected Battleship. It's built in the same spot. And likely the high concentration of iron ore from the original wreck helped disguise the construction from sensors. And it is built largely in the same shape - also for camouflage (but also for other reasons which don't bear going into in this post). But the space version is - as noted above - larger than the original. And the engine room and fighter bay block make MUCH more sense than the original. Also - the remake makes it clear that the ship only carries 24 fighters in the fighter bay - plus the two Cosmo Zero catapult launched fighters - for a total of 26, not 48. The rotating launch system not only works - and also FITS in the space depicted - but it's AWESOMELY COOL to watch in operation! As a big fan of the original - I have to say the designers have kept the spirit of the Yamato intact while plugging numerous holes in logic and volume. This really is the best possible version of the Yamato. (Sorry for the word avalanche here. This is one of those topics that once you get me started, it's hard to STOP. :D )

My Journey was very similar. I was already an avid fan of sci-fi - even before the days of Star Wars. I was introduced to TV Sci-Fi of course by syndicated reruns of Star Trek in the early 70s ( I watched, but hid behind the couch as a 7-8 year old when the Doomsday Machine episode aired. Heh. ). I also loved Space 1999. Then of course Star Wars hit like the proverbial BOMB in the American zeitgeist and I was an avid fan of that. ( later I rode my bicycle about 2 miles down to the local mall theater and back on 7 consecutive Saturdays during the 1980 Texas heatwave and saw Empire Strikes Back 14 times (twice each of those Saturdays). ) Concurrent to that I was an avid watcher of cartoons - and it's entirely possible, given my personal timeline and preferences as a kid, that I might've seen the ANIMATED Filmation Star Trek series FIRST, and THEN started watching the original. But I'm unsure of that. But among other things, I watched Speed Racer and Battle of The Planets - without really understanding that both were from Japan. Battle of the Planets in particular kept my interest in the waning years of the 70s and my (then) waning interest in animation in general. American animation at the time was - with a few notable exceptions - dying. Particularly on television. Stupid, repetitive fare. Not even the Animated Star Trek or Flash Gordan shows were that good (though later on, I discovered how hard Filmation had tried make things work with shoestring budgets and limited animation and still tell decent to good stories. They were simply doomed from the start by higher powers.) And then I was disappointed to see adverts from the local independent TV station that was running Battle of the Planets that something new was going to be taking it's place. Disappointed, but... then... VERY interested. Because this looked very VERY interesting! Star Blazers. Lets's start off with the first ten minutes of the first episode. We see Earth - and it's clear it is Earth from the outlines of the continents - but it looks overall more like MARS. No oceans. Burnt orange looking like her sister 4th planet! The Grizzled voice of Admiral Avatar describes how the Gamilon Planet bombs (asteroids with Nuclear critical cores) have essentially razed the surface of the planet - and how the populace is hunkered down in underground cities to escape the radiation on the surface. Earth's last major space fleet is going out to confront the Gamilons near their base at Pluto. You watch Earth - US - the good guys - against the aliens fight one of the most spectacularly animated (for those days) space battles you've ever seen. AND WE LOSE. BADLY. All of the ships of the fleet save for Avatar's are destroyed, and that one ship is damaged and limping back to a planet that is no longer a respite! That's the first 10 minutes! That is HEAVY STUFF for a cartoon! Can you imagine how INSANELY HOOKED I was as a 13 year old? The rest of the episode gives a glimmer of hope as a mysterious Queen Starsha of Iscandar has sent us plans for a Faster than Light drive that would allow us to get to her planet to pick up a device that might heal Earth of all the damage it has suffered. And we get a first glimpse of the sunken Yamato - still called Yamato at this point - though they'll soon change the name to ARGO by the 3rd episode for Star Blazers. (A surprisingly apt choice of replacement name for the time - since if you look at this first series in broad strokes it does definitely echo the ancient myth of Jason and the Argonauts!) The second episode is where we get the big reveal that what appears to be a long wrecked WWII Battleship... actually... isn't. Up from underneath the rust and mud launches a brand new Space Battleship in response to a Gamilon Attack (they finally figured out something weird was going on in the area and were finally attacking) and the power of the Yamato/Argo is beyond belief! It's also one of THE COOLEST DESIGNS FOR A SPACESHIP OF ALL TIME. (THANK YOU MATSUMOTO-SENSEI!!!!) Yes - it doesn't make NEARLY as much logical sense as some ships that had come before (or after) in TV and movie Sci-Fi - but HANG the sense of it - a literal SPACE BATTLESHIP - with energy weapons replacing shells - but the guns overall still looking very much like the old WWII counterparts - with the great WAVE MOTION GUN in the prow. And able to launch it's own fighter wing for support... RULE OF COOL man! RULE OF COOL! Sometimes you just have to GO with it to really appreciate it! Look - I'm as much a fan of HARD Sci-Fi as anyone. I know that ships like the classic Space 1999 Eagle, The Rocinante from the Expanse, and the Discovery from 2001 have their OWN version of cool. But sometimes - and especially in anything done by or influenced by Matsumoto-sensei - you have to let all of that go and roll with the ROMANTICISM. ( And to tie it in with the salute to Matsumoto-Sensei - a similar aesthetic - perhaps even more so - applies to Captain Harlock's Space Pirate Ship ARCADIA. Yes - the flag flaps in the non-existent air - IN SPACE. And I DON'T CARE!!! :D ) I somehow managed not to miss ONE SINGLE episode of this series for its entire first run in 1979. We didn't have a VCR at that point in time (though we soon would) so I often recorded episodes on cassette tape from a recorder laid down in front of the TV Speaker in the living room so I could listen to it again later. Later on I did record my own copies of the series. And then later yet when they became available, I bought commercial tapes and later, DVDs. I became such a fan that I attempted to kit-bash a model of the Missouri into a space battleship. I had gotten about 80% of the way there before I found an ACTUAL model of the Yamato in my local comic store. While I'm still convinced I could've done a credible job with the kit-bash, it was SO much better to have the model. And - ironically - I found my first "Roman Album" (a type of "information guide" and visual reference to an Anime TV series or Movie that Japan produced at the time). I say - "ironically" because it was NOT a reference guide to Yamato. But to the feature film MY YOUTH IN ARCADIA - the origin story (at least one version) of Captain Harlock. Now I had NO IDEA who this Harlock guy was. But he was the COOLEST character I'd seen since Star Blazers first started airing. And he - and the cast of characters from this film - and his ship - the Arcadia (in her green variant) were OBVIOUSLY by the same guy who had done the designs for Yamato. Not long after that discovery, I attended my very first convention ever in 1983 - a one-day affair called "Yamato-Con" held in Dallas. And made contact with a whole bunch of other crazy folk like me who loved this stuff - and helped introduce me to the wider world of Anime in general. I was there at the beginning of American Anime fandom. I even helped put together the first national Anime Convention - Project Akon. A form of which is still running today. (Sadly - the original owners sold it and it's gone corporate now as of about 2015 or so. I consider the TRUE Akon convention to be dead at this point.) I could continue to write and talk about my adventures in Fandom. And in the past, I have. And in the future, perhaps I should again. But this single post is already TOO LONG. Suffice to say - I have a lot of history in Anime. And most of it starts with Matsumoto. Of course I knew his passing was inevitable. But I am still sad he's gone. I comfort myself with the fact that I still have yet to experience ALL the worlds and variations of his works that it's possible to see. And Space Battleship Yamato is STILL going strong in a new iteration under new hands. ( EDIT: I used the word "Cartoon" instead of "anime" several times in reference to Star Blazers above - I was trying to write from the perspective of myself from THAT TIME when I didn't even know the word "anime". In fact - here's a bit of language amusement for you - most anime fans didn't know that word either when I first entered the fandom. We had to make do with the clumsy portmanteau "Japanimation" to describe our hobby. It was late in 1984 when several independent translators discovered the word "anime" and we began using THAT. And yes - "Japanimation" sounds vaguely offensive these days. What can I say - it was a different time - and it was a linguistic kludge anyway. We ditched it as soon as we had something better. And the word anime IS better. Fewer syllables for one thing! Easier to say! )

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2023-02-19/legendary-manga-creator-leiji-matsumoto-passes-away-at-85/.195093 https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2023-02-20/anime-manga-industry-members-honor-leiji-matsumoto-memory/.195096 For those who might not know who this man was - here's some images associated with his works. I heard the news yesterday that Matsumoto-Sensei has passed away. I've been trying to figure out something to say off and on all day. One of my fondest dreams was to meet him. If only for 10 to 15 seconds. Just to say "Thank you" for all he's done. So much of who I was in my youth - and carried forward - was influenced by his works and visions. So many friends I've met are due to him, if indirectly. I will never forget Leiji Matsumoto. I don't think the world will forget him. Space Battleship Yamato, Captain Harlock, Tochiro, The Arcadia, Emeraldas, Maetel. The Galaxy Express 999. They all live in my memory and heart and the hearts of so many others. I have an image in my head of Matsumoto Sensei boarding the Galaxy 999 and waving to the platform as the train leaves. And the further out it goes, the younger he appears, until he is the young man he was when he first dreamed it all. May we all meet in the Endless Sea of Stars. A lovely tribute piece posted on Deviant Art: https://www.deviantart.com/inksilvery/art/Goodbye-legend-950333322]https://www.deviantart.com/inksilvery/art/Goodbye-legend-950333322

So I honestly thought I was done with the Dynamo Mecha designs. And then I had a most interesting IDEA. What's the LEAST LIKELY attack power set you'd ever expect from a classic Mecha Unit? Scrolling down... No... no... Been done... No that would look TOO silly... Wait... THAT? Hmm... Let's look at the costume options... Nope. Nope... Nah too obvious. Oh... I never thought of THAT as a weapon before... But... YEAH!! I'm still experimenting on one of the test servers, so this isn't on live just yet. But tentative name is "Dynamo Lupus Rex"

Ultimate "D'AHHH" adorable moment incoming! "Dangit... Where ARE those onion ninjas? I thought I sprayed for those... "

You know... I'm getting a weird "Part Harlock, Part Rogue Trader" feel to this one. Like - this is the kind of mercenary specialist you'd see onboard a Space Pirate ship. Like this one: I mean... if we're being really HONEST AND UPFRONT about our iconography... :D

One of my party members "borrowed" a couple of lines from FREEMAN'S MIND the other day. I didn't call them on it cause I thought it was funny as hell - and appropriate. We were up against Knives of Artemis. "It's Occam's SHURIKEN! When the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!" "See? That one dropped in from nowhere! I should expect that! But at the same time I CAN'T expect that! Because they're NINJAS! As soon as I expect it, they won't do it! Ninjas understand quantum mechanics better than people realize!" The fact that he was wearing a hazard orange power suit of unknown origin and a striking Tony Stark beard and glasses I'm sure was just a coincidence.

Back to the NPCs - I spotted the following line from Faultline in his Tuxedo at the formal Ambassador shindig on that one RWZ arc. [NPC] Faultline: "So I said, 'Ninjas and lawyers? Then it's a Tsoo Sue Studio!' " [NPC] Faultline: "Get it? Sue like litigation versus Tsoo the gang? No? Oh nevermind, no one appreciates an artiste." I swear - I've never seen that line before. And I wonder - do I like it so much because it's the kind of absolutely TERRIBLY cringey pun that I would come up with?

Just in case you're wondering - the following is the sound of two geeks asserting dominance amongst the herd. [09:00] [League] Cyberman 8: (there's a response line from MST3K the movie that comes to mind whenever I'm fighting the Rikti Mentalists - with their exposed heads - "Oh, I'm very vulnerable there! Oh, there go the piano lessons! I can't remember my dad!" ) [09:01] [League] Hitstone: (Sounds like you'd better consult the Interoceter.) [09:02] [League] Cyberman 8: Interociter incorporating planetary generator... Interociter with voltarator... With astroscope... turns the book sideways] Saaaay, Miss Interociter!

Overheard in General Chat on Everlasting one late evening: "Take me out." "On a date or with a sniper?" "Surprise me." Commentary on the above: "Yes, my kink is to be killed by bad casting choices in Canadian based post apocalyptic movies. So hot."

Oh - speaking of clownage... Back on Live I was touring a friend's base that was completely Carnie themed. It was quite elaborate in places. Had a full carousel! I hope they make it to Homecoming and recreate something similar. Anyway - my rebel brain connected a couple of things and I typed up a bit of commentary while the base builder was there: Cyberman 8: You know what's really kinky? The four poster bed - and the circus organ music. Cyberman 8: I mean... Joker and Harley.... Cyberman 8: GAAAAHH... MUST. WASH. BRAIN. Obsidian Light: LOL!!

Way back on live, in the Going Rogue Beta, my SG teammate and I are running to a mission and we pass a whole group of of about 15 clockwork in nice neat rows, sort of parade-rest formation (like the N5 Series from I-Robot). And my partner executed one of the most epic typos... ...in the world. [Team] Rebecca Heisman: Big Spawn of Cocks can be creepy no? [Team] Sassinak: O_o [Team] Sassinak: Yeeees.... [Team] Rebecca Heisman: CLOCKS! [Team] Rebecca Heisman: *REDFACED TYPO OF DOOM* [Team] Sassinak: ((*Whooping in laughter*)) Yeah you gotta watch out for any size flock of roosters, they can be terribly vicious! 🤣

Myrdinn: ...eh, I'm trying to come up with something for "Nemesis Spot" and "Nemesis Plot", but coming up empty. Myrdinn: ...Nemesis Dot? Oroborous: Well of course he cooks his Nemesis Brots in his Nemesis Pots Myrdinn: Nemesis Knot. Something Alexander dealt with atlantea: Walk to the Dot is a Nemesis Plot! (And it even rhymes! ) Myrdinn: Nice! Shinobu: Did we do Nemesis Frat yet? Solar Emissions Well if Nemesis made beer would he have a Nemesis Vat? Starrphyre: Nemesis Hops? atlantea: Well if he was doing "The Robot" on top of the Nemesis Hops, then he'd be dropping the beat on the pot of hops as a bot. Myrdinn: .... right on that dot. atlantea: Ka-CHING!