Rep. Bonamici,

We are in a bleak time, but I think there is still hope. Several times in my lifetime, power has passed between the parties during a Presidential election, only to be passed back during a subsequent midterm. I believe that is the opportunity Democrats must be seeking starting today.

Two years of unified Republican rule will bring many hardships to our country, but it will also bring outcry. By the time you and your colleagues head back out to the campaign trail, the country will be ready to listen to alternatives.

You must provide them those alternatives. I still believe that Secretary Clinton would have been a fantastic President, but she never managed to crystallize a strong idea of what she was for, only what she was against. That’s not enough. We MUST have a strong Democratic platform, as if 2018 were another Presidential election. You, and the other Democratic members of the House, must come together and form a clear, unambiguous statement of intent–one not pre-hobbled by the realities of passing legislation past a hostile White House, but rather one that is aspirational, hopeful, and honest.

First and foremost, I would argue, the Democrats need to be the party of democracy. Re-instating the Voting Rights Act, or a modern equivalent, must be priority one, but that can’t be the limit of it. Anywhere and everywhere, Democrats should be pushing to make registration and voting easier than ever. We must forcefully push back against claims of voter fraud with a counter-narrative (that happens to be true) of Republican voter suppression and gerrymandering. In two years time, the GOP will have sold off as much of the country to their rich friends as they can. Use that as a weapon–THEY are the party of fat cats and WE are the party of ordinary voters.

Second, we must take a stand against racism and police violence. Every summer now we see clashes between protesters and militarized riot cops. In 2018, those clashes will likely take place during the campaign itself. Democrats must be the party that stands against police overreach. Yes, that may turn off some white law-and-order types, but we must come to accept that Democrats who would demotivate their minority supporters in favor of chasing fickle white voters are ceding victory for no good reason.

Third, we must strongly argue in favor of mandatory financial transparency on the part of all government officials in high office. The senior administration officials, the secretaries of the departments, everyone. The GOP will be neck-deep in crony dealing by the time the next election comes; let’s force them to defend that.

I’m sure you and your experts can see this as well as I can. I hope that you join with your fellow Democratic Caucus members in formulating a unified message and strategy that will help us go big into 2018 and nullify the final two years of Donald Trump’s administration.

We must resist. We must fight. Every inch. Every issue. We cannot allow these kleptocrats to destroy our great nation.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing of the battles you wil fight.

– April Daniels

Okay, I’ve got thinks more or less cleaned up, with a snazzy new theme and a snazzy new preorder button for DREADNOUGHT. (Hint, hint.)

My old hosting company is moving out of the US and I didn’t want to follow them for legal reasons, so I set up a new host somewhere else and started the process of migrating the blog.

Long story short: the XML file I thought was a full backup of my blog was not. I’ve lost all the media I put in my posts, plus the theme, the plugins, the customization. This is foolish on my part and a good lesson for you all–a full backup is a FULL BACKUP, not just the export file.

Also, Filezilla can fucking suck me. One goddamn mistyped key and it completely deleted the main folder for my site when I was trying to get that aforementioned full backup. There was, of course, no undo button.

This means that the site’s going to be ugly for a few days as I put it back together. Such is life.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

Hahaha, you get it? You get it? Because combined arms is a term for a kind of military action where many different sorts of weapons systems contribute, and brothers in arms is a term for an army, but because I’m me all the NPCs and squaddies are going to be women? Ya get it? Tell me I’m funny. Please.

Anyhow, I want a mech strategy game. We’re getting one, which is awesome, but as much as I love the BattleTech world, their focus has always been on the big stompy robots (They’re not robots! They’re mechs! Fake geek girl! Faaaaake!) to the virtual exclusion of all else, at least in the video game incarnations of the series. Tabletop BT was a little different, with lots of options for infantry, artillery, and tank support, but mainly it was about four to twelve battlemechs on a side slugging it out with each other until the mission was over. That’s fine. They’re great games, I love ’em to death.

But I want a mech combat game where the other combat arms aren’t window dressing and canon fodder. Where you take control of a company sized formation that includes all sorts of units, and each one of those units has a vital purpose. Sure, the mechs may be the stars of the show, but they’re not omnipotent and unassailable.

Here’s what I imagine: You’ve got your mech platoon, your tank platoon, and your infantry platoon. The mechs get the main work done. The tanks are nearly as powerful, and you get more of them besides, but they’re not as versatile and are not as good at spotting the enemy. Infantry are the only unit that can capture and hold objectives, and when they’re dug and have a good line of fire for their rockets, are nearly as powerful as tanks or mechs.

There’s no rock paper scissors in this game–any one of these unit types can be dangerous. But there is a consideration for using the right tool for the job. You don’t let your infantry lead an attack. You don’t let your tanks stray into rough terrain without recon to back them up. You don’t send your rock stars, your mecha, out on a sideshow errand.

Instead of going for a turn based game, I think it’d be fun to make this game real time tactics instead. But real time at a variable pace that can be paused, slowed down, or sped up at any time. You should never feel rushed playing.

Now, I said that I want combined arms, and I stick by that, but come on, giant robots are wicked sick, so the mechs would be the main part of the game. They’re the one platoon you can directly control. The other platoons under you are indirectly controlled by giving orders to the officers in charge. They accomplish the mission as best as they can, though since they were trained to fight as part of a company they will get anxious if you send them away from the main body of the company.

The art style for this should be cartoony, I think. This isn’t a grim macho game for grim macho grognards. People who are scared of bright colors should not play. Your subordinate officers have pop-up portraits when they acknowledge or react to your orders. Through these portraits and their voice acting, you get a sense of their morale, though you can check for yourself at any time as well. As you complete missions, they improve their skills and become more adept at accomplishing the tasks you set them.

The mechanics would aim for being quick to learn, tough to master. Realism–whatever that means once you’ve got giant robots in play–is eschewed in favor of clearly presented information and interesting choices. In real life, you don’t know if you’re well hidden until the enemy either spots you or fails to do so. For example, in this game, once you hide your guys in a copse of trees, they go all shadowy and dark. Lines of fire and lines of sight are clearly and easily displayed, without an overlay feature if possible. You get a preview of what your LOS will be if you move to a given position before you move there. I don’t ever want the player to regret a move on the basis that she didn’t know she wouldn’t be able to see or do what she wanted to do from that new position.

Everything about this game should be geared towards welcoming newbies into the fold, and then building them up to the level where they can be competitive in multiplayer, if that’s where they wish to go. If they choose to stay with the single player campaign and skirmish mode, that’s cool, too. To that end, the campaign should start with a very clear, very simple set of tools at hand, and then gradually up the complexity. Upping the complexity is NOT the same as bumping the difficulty, by the way. The game should start moderately difficult, and then end a bit more difficult. I don’t like single player strategy campaigns that are boring to start and a chore to finish, so that’s not going to happen here.

The single player campaign shouldn’t be too long, either. A big thing that scares newbies away from strategy games is their boasting about how long it takes to complete. I want this game to feel like a satisfying experience in 12 to 15 hours, with robust NG+, multiplayer, and skirmish mode options giving you extended replay options. If you want to put 200 hours into the game, that’s wonderful, but it shouldn’t be required just to finish it or feel like you’ve explored what the game has to offer.

I think a skirmish campaign feature might also be cool. You link a number of skirmish missions together into a dynamically generated (if, by necessity, narratively flat) mini-campaign that can be played in an afternoon. That way the strategic layer remains a relevant gameplay consideration over the long haul.

As for the story? I think that with the cartoonish art style and the nerdy affection for combined arms warfare, a project like this would greatly lend itself to goofy dark humor that doesn’t take the proceedings very seriously.

This isn’t the most cogent thing I’ve ever written. I just put 1500 words into my manuscript and my brain is kind of fried. But I wanted to get this up here.

For you

Because I care.

There’s an idea that’s been percolating in the back of my head for a while. Or more precisely, a collision of two separate ideas, each coming from a place of good intention.

Government power is not the only power to be concerned about. There are other powers in society–social, economic, cultural–that can also unfairly impinge upon people’s liberties.

Only government suppression of speech is censorship. Private suppression of speech is a matter of individual rights. It’s no infringement upon a speaker’s liberty to refuse to lend your voice to their ideas, nor to attempt to persuade others take your view of the acceptability of a certain forms of speech.

 

These don’t really go well together, but I often see both ideas put forward (at different times) by a single group or individual. It kind of makes you wonder just what exactly they mean by “free speech” doesn’t it?

I don’t have any pithy answers here. Just a whole lot of questions.

I’ve got a tumblr now. Posts here will be automatically reblogged there. Additionally, if you talk to me on tumblr I will do my best to respond. Follow me so I’ll know to follow you back: http://msaprildaniels.tumblr.com/

Hi!

You’re reading this on my new site!

It’s almost identical to the old site, except the URL is now my name. Isn’t that badass? Yes. Yes it is badass.

I’ve got an agent! I am now represented by Saritza Hernandez of the Corvisiero Agency! I completely forgot to put up a post about it here because I’ve been so inundated with a sudden flurry of activity about Dreadnought now that I’ve got an agent. (Did you know there’s a lot of work that happens immediately after signing with an agent? There is. There is SO much, but it’s more exciting than drudgery because holy crap things are finally happening!)

One of the major things that’s underway is planning for a new website which will be at aprildaniels.com. There’s nothing there now, but in a few weeks this blog and all its content will mosey on over to that URL.

I’ve also been completely snowed in by a HUGE PILE of research as I get ready to work on my next project. I’m not quite ready to announce what it is, but I think you’ll all be quite excited when I am. My agent sure is. (Guys! I’ve got an agent!)

Anyhow! Excited!

“There’s one thing you should never put in a trap–”
“A wolf? A trapped wolf is dangerous to get out of your trap.”
“What? No. Me.”
“Why is it dangerous to put you in a trap?”
“Well…because I’m the Doctor…”
“So?”
“So I’m very dangerous when I’m trapped.”
“But not when you’re free?”
“That’s not what I–”
“Look, if you’re not dangerous when you’re free, then how do you keep getting trapped?”
“I don’t KEEP getting trapped!”
“Then how has it happened so often that you have a rule about it?”
“Hold on, let’s start again from the beginning…”
“Right. So, wolves.”
“Not wolves! Me! I’m dangerous to put in a trap!”
“But not more dangerous than you are when you’re free.”
“Correct.”
“So how do you keep getting captured?”