Chapter 3 is well and truly underway, and I’m very confident that, as I always like to try to do, it will advance both the complexity of the story and the quality of the artwork. To my satisfaction, at least.
This page was a lot of fun to draw, because it was a chance to get into Mike’s head, so to speak, something I try to do with my characters but have so far not really had more than a fleeting chance to do with Mike. The scanline effect on everything he sees and does is very retro, and might be a little disorienting, but I think it gives a fair idea of “Mike on the Inside” that I really like. The error message, by the way, is a little joke to myself and my fellow architects – it’s an error that the program AutoCAD frequently spits out when it decides it doesn’t want you to do something, and like most Windows errors, it’s cryptic and gives you no indication of what’s actually gone wrong, just that everything is ruined and there’s nothing you can do. Who was it who said “Never trust a computer you can’t throw out the window?”
Also, we get to see a little sidelong bit of the story’s background, as well. I won’t enumerate it, but see if you can see some of the little things I’ve suggested about the 6-Commando world here. Just for fun, I’ll start you off: Sarah is a cavalry officer! Her high-collar, cornflower blue cavalry dress uniform looks quite becoming, I have to admit. Unfortunately some of the embroidery details I added in got lost in the reduction – just another thing that’ll show up better in print.
And finally, yet another milestone: as I write this, it is Saturday night – I’m a full day early with this page! Exciting, huh? Well, I’m not getting used to it – I’m sure stupid reality will intervene sooner or later. But a full day’s head start on the next page certainly won’t hurt. But until then, be well, and I’ll see you next week!
Gee, the background looks like what I saw on my screen the other week.
I got news for you – it’s what I see onmym CAD workstation about once every hour.
–M
My personal favorite is the “unknown error” I mean realty that is just a sloppy programmer not trapping properly. with an error listing the failing module. That is almost is as bad as “unexpected error” which I’ve seen too — exactly how many errors are expected? you are designing a heavy battle filed tank you would have to expect it to be nuked.
We can barely keep our cell phones working right, so you have to expect that a tank, however complicated, would have an error from time to time if it had a computer brain. Also, Mike has been operating continuously since he was built so his registry has GOT to be clogged by now…
Okay, so I’m kidding, but you’ll see where this is going eventually, I hope. And this was a little opportunity to vent my growing frustration with my own CAD workstation. What a bummer.
–M
I used CAD a bit in my civil engineering classes, but I never received any error message. I must be lucky. Or I simply didn’t use the program to it’s full potential, which is more likely.
As a Quebecer (I don’t even know how it is spelled in English), I find pretty funny and pleasant to see that Major Sarah works for the Milice nationalE (milice est un nom féminin : une milice) de la République Québécoise, which means that in 6-commando’s world we finally have our own country. I like Canada, but after the last federal elections I feel that our province is completely different from the others. We chose socialism and more equality, they chose conservatism, privatisation and gifts to the richest.
Thank you for this little tweak of politics^^
HA! You’re right, I dropped the E. I do speak French, but I sometimes make mistakes even with English, so… You should see how badly I mangled the Russian before Hilvon sorted me out.
On the subject of Québec, (I think in English they call them Quebeckers, though I hate that word), in 6-Commando, it is an independent Republic. Québec was constituted as the République Québecoise on February 2, 1964, by national referendum. They are on very good terms with Canada and the United States, and play host to the exiled French Republic, which has its headquarters in Montreal. However, you might be disappointed to know that it is a broadly conservative full-Presidential system, more on the model of de Gaulle’s Fourth Republic than on what many Québecois hope for in the real world. They are very committed anti-communists, and have at times had Nationalist governments that verged on what we in our world might call authoritarianism, although the current government (in the time of the story) is the Parti Patriote, which in the 6-Commando world is a Center-Right Christian-Democrat/Market Liberal coalition that favors political détente and economic competition with the FSR. The President is Louis Deloitte.
On the subject of real-world Québec separatism, I would dispute that socialism leads to equality, or that it would be wise for a potentially independent Québec to pursue such policies – I’m a committed Libertarian. But I do think that French America has gotten the short end of the stick in a lot of ways, and that increased autonomy for French Canada and more respect for its linguistic and cultural distinctiveness in the Americas would be a good thing. French culture, especially French colonial culture, is not adequately respected in North America, and I sympathize with the Québecois in this, however much I may disagree about ways and means. Tough we’re all full-blooded U.S. citizens of at least two generations, a large part of my mother’s family hails from Acadie, and I am very unapologetically proud of that part of my heritage – it’s why I use a Québcois pseudonym to write under, and why my whole family has such high respect for French language and culture. Moreover, in the United States, there has been a shocking decline in interest in French language as a fundamental building block of the classical North American education, which is really sad. And it was in large measure the great thinkers of the French enlightenment to which America owed the principles of its early foundation. English thinkers too, don’t get me wrong, but French also. And so in 6-Commando, I decided to give them a chance as an independent country. That Sarah is from Québec was kind of an accident – it just sort of happened that way when I started writing, and seemed to suit her. And her whole personal story just fell into place as I went.
And by the way, you ARE lucky – AutoCAD is notoriously finicky and irritating to use. It’s made worse by the fact that in the US we use the Imperial System, which is very hard for floating-point systems to track. The problem is that the Imperial System is far easier to use for building construction than metric, because it is based on geometric progressions that can be constructed without measuring standards. But try to get a computer to give you 3/64 of an inch and you can basically forget it!
–M
I always thought that the standard was to just use Quebecois. The whole -er thing is very informal, anyway, which is why somebody from New Zeeland is a Kiwi and not a New Zeelander. Basically, the rule seems to be -er unless -er sounds dumb.
(also, did not know about the origins of the imperial system, so…thanks for that.)
Yeah, as “rational” as a decimal system seems on the surface, it’s not ideal at the scale that most building construction uses. The metric system is supposedly more scientific, mainly because it works really well for people performing calculations with it, but I will go to the mat to defend the enormous utility of the Imperial system in Architecture – it is much, much better suited to building than Metrics.
The great thing about the Imperial system is that the base building unit, the foot, is evenly divisible into whole halves, thirds, and quarters, all of which you can construct very easily with a compass. Decimal units, as lovely as they are for mathematics, can’t boast the same properties: try to divide a meter into even thirds with no remainder, and you’ll see what I mean. The origins of it are masons’ customs from the middle ages. It’s not perfect, of course – the system breaks down at very small and very large measures – beyond a mile and less than about 1/64 of an inch. But fractional measurement allows you to make whole units very easily with very simple multiplication, where decimal measurement forces you to use, well, decimals, and that can get very clumsy in the field.
As for “Quebecker” I hear the term used all the time and it annoys the heck out of me – as you say, it does sound dumb.
–M
I often wonder what life would be like if our number system were base 8 or base 16 or base 12. Metric would match up with imperial to some extent then.
I never have to make architectural drawings, though, so Metric is the best for me, especially since I’m in a field that works in tremendously huge negative exponents. (If I’m really feeling elitist I use planck units. You peasants and your “coefficients.”)
I know its not really the tone you were going for and I don’t want to seem lowbrow, but I keep thinking of a bit out of South Park, where an American general is going over the plans to invade Canada and the incredibly expensive and complex battle-computer breaks down, to which the general barks “F*$%@ing Windows 98!”
I kinda get a sense of techno chauvanism from Mike’s builders, a very American style of obsession with military hardware being very very high tech, very very complicated and very very expensive, then being mystified when it breaks down.
That’s the whole UNA way in the story – very gadget-prone and with a great faith in superior technology, like hovertanks, Rumblers, all their different types of battlesuit, and so forth. The FSR is much more results-oriented, with retrofitted weapons and lot more rugged technology. Like the Hind and Hip helicopters. Why build hovertanks, they figure, when we already have all these gunships we can stick new guns on?
On the other hand, the UNA is much more willing to push the edges of technology and so man-for-man, their troops are more effective: 6-Commando is about the size of an expanded battalion, yet is able to hold and consolidate most of South Central Africa. No small feat for a unit of about 4000 men.
–M
I like this. Experiencing Mike booting up is a really nice start of chapter three. Despite being a tank, Mike is of course nearly human so by overlapping all those photos and boot/error screens you really send out an AI consciousness feel.
The only nitpicky thing I have about this page is about the “screen refresh lines” in all the different windows. All together they are a bit overwhelming, but other than that it is a great page!
Yeah I might have overdone it with the scanlines. Maybe if I’d made them little less prominent – they diffuse a lot of the detail. Oh, well – forward march!
Glad you took the time to check it out, by the way; I know you’re super-busy printing Semmie the Forest Gnome and prepping for your next book! So, thanks!
–M
Mike’s mind seems to placing more importance on memmories that indicate that he is needed. “Only You Can Save Mankind!” Unless that’s a deliberate design choice by his builders – that speaks of any number of psychological issues.
Yeah…but what an issue. It survives a nuke, persues the enemy, finds the damsel in distress…. but doesn’t fire a shot to get her back. Yet. Just kinda of stands there staring… unpleasently.
I’m thinking a Clint Eastwood/ John Wayne personality disorder, rough and tough and gets it done…HIS way. Kind of “Unforgiven” meets “Rooster Cogbourn”.
Or maybe he’ll turn into a “Hannibal Lectur” meets the “Red Queen”… oooohhh…I wanna see that!
What language is mike written in?