Bay 12 Games Forum

Well back then in the 1600 you had already some very skilled clockwork-people and mechanical algorithms werent that complicated. Music-boxes and clockworks could inspire and help the control mechanisms in the mechs.

More problematic is the powersupply, i guess electric power would need some more time to develop and steam engines would need huge amounts of coal.   

The advantages of a huge armored machine (especialy if you can get the hightech materials from the original mechs) is that it would be impervious to small arms fire.
One of the major disadvantages would be the lack of modern communications and weapons-guidance. The mech being a huge tower (say with treads!) could counteract that a little bit giving the crew overview over the battlefield and a extended horizonline.

It could also work as mobile fortress/comnmandstand for nobility with the realtive scraceness making them Knightly (siege)weapons. Some smaller mechs (squires) could carry spare parts, ammonitions and fuel.

Now, I can't talk from the P.O.V. of someone who's transitioned, as I haven't yet, but as far as I've been learning about the process (starting hormone blockers soon ((only $5 every 10-12 months. Cheap af))), it seems to me like it'd work to counter act the great big problem that is my gender dysphoria. I think that statistic that people pull our when they say "transgender people have the same rate of suicide post-op", is because when a lot of people transition, they're going throu gh other things. Gender dysphoria has been linked to depression, anxiety, etc. And, I think what the transgender community needs to know, is that no, it won't magically make all your problems go away, getting hormone therapy or a sex change. But it can help, with that big problem, so you can work on the other things more often.

I am a bit further into the transition (Male to Female), genderdysphoria is one of the causes for depressions and yes it gets better with hormones. Transdermal patches (similiar to Nicotine-patches) work better then gels and creams in my experience.
 
The other side is society where you have a few distinct problems. The active bullying - say the BS about toilet usage - sure is one but there are some sometimes very subtle things.
For example "expected behaviour", even if its subconciously expected, can be very big stressor - atleast for me. Having to behave in a certain "manly" or "womanly" way so you get taken seriously is always a fight. Discussing with someone nets different responses whatever i am seen as man or woman. My behaviour, say in dealing with Agencies and Departments, gets interpreted as bitchy and hysteric when i a appear as woman but the very same behavior was fine when i was there as male a few months prior.
Looking at womans clothing at first was very problematic since there is always the chance to be called out on it by someone less supportive ("That perv is looking at panties yuk!") and this can become a fear that persist to later states.

Luckely i didnt had to experience this at all but the the reaction to the coming out can be very harmfull. My family and friends accepted me as i am but i also know cases where families disowned their children up to death-threat and orphanage.
On the other hand you sometimes have far to eager Family/friends that just relabel you, telling you what a "proper" Man/Woman does, intruding your personal space with say making BS name-suggestions (no i dont want the Female version of my firstname because i hate that firstname!) or generally assuming that you dont know the first thing about being your gender (like knowing your sizes for clothing)!.
 
Similarly the work environment could be very toxic. Starting with school it can be very hard, by outing yourself you offer another oppining for bullies to strike. The outing also squarely places you between the genders (since you are transitioning) so finding friends on either side can become quiet a task.
Later being in a job dominated by one gender or another can lead to problems. You are sometimes seen as intruding into the domain of a gender. Conversely sometimes you are seen as questioning the sexuality of your coworkers by your mere existence as if transsexuality would be contagious.

Phonecalls get annoying for MTF since we cant change our voices that easily leading to being permanently labelled "Sir" or "Mister". Speaking to someone in person will often out you if you couldnt train/operativly change your voice yet. For FTM its a little less of a problem since the testosterone helps with the voice a great deal.

And the most annoying thing for me was the legal aspects of being transgender. Here in Germany i had to PROOF that i feel wrong in my birth-gender for atleast 3 years. Then i had to do atleast 6 moths of Therapist assisted life in my Gender.
Only after that i could apply for a legal change of sex which further requires two reports by 2 separate but specialized Psychiatrists and then a f*ing court-hearing which also can cost up to 5000 Euro.
All in all it can take 6 months to a year and tons of money to get your legal gender and name changed.
Even after that my Health-insurance expected me to jump further hoops to grant me the right to get Hormone-therapy and subsequently a Genderreasignment Operation. The first badge of Meds i had to pay by myself which was around 160 bucks.

Genderdysphoria, depression and anxieties related to it could be easily reduced or treated if society and the Legal apparatus would pull the sticks out of their arses.

Brb hunting the last known unicorn, to make earings out of it's bones

Here take a redbull, you will be up all night. And good hunting!

edit:

Actualy for the duck i wonder of you could code something like that right now. We got some tags for growthpaterns already. Stoats should be able to change furcollor (brown <> white) as well.

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That raises the question (for me at least): Were people homophobic in the medieval ages?

If by "medieval ages" you meant medieval ages in Europe (if you don't, then the term "medieval ages" doesn't refer to anything, so please be more specific), the reply is yes, a lot. There could be acts that would be considered as homosexual acts today, sometimes in Orders, chivalry and places with rituals and only men, but it was as such forbidden and heavily repressed. (Think of the Knights Templar, who were accused of homosexuality and burnt for that, which gives you a strong evidence of how it was viewed).

But thats only for the European Christian places. History has seen many Cultures and pre-christian Romans and Greeks were OK with homosexuality. There were even marriages in 2nd century Rome with binding contracts. Similar things can be said for Pre-columbian natives in the Americas. Before the African States were overrun by Missionaries they were also more egalitarian towards homosexuals but that turned around pretty much with Catholics and Evangelicals - today they like to spout the Myth that everyone was hetero before the West interfered.
 Asia has its own history but there to many places werent as bad as Medieval Europe.

Europe isnt the Navel of the world, there were so many things happening elsewhere and personally i see Dwarf fortress humans as pretty much prechristian. Then again i do hope that we get some much better Civilisations stuff, laws and such were the legality and asseption can bet better reflected.

Well we have martial trances and such already, why not lump moods for techiques into it. This way we always can loose the dwarf and the technique before the dwarf calms down & retreats/wins.

So how much time is a turn? I mean how many days/months/years? With popgrowth happening every 5 turns it would come down to, for baseline humans, something like 3 years? 

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"Wohhooooo" Angus shouted as he dove through the piece of sky, spreading his arms and legs and with that the taut membranes of his wingsuit. He had sprung from the cliffs ledge close to his Gods workshop, tethered to a rope so he wouldnt fall of the island. Sailing downwards he aimed for another rope full of bloater that last nights windstorm had ripped of its anchoring point.

The line was almost ripe for its first tapping, all 25 bloaters were now in there 3rd year and had swollen considerably in the last months accumulating more and more gas. The herders not only used the gas for cooking but also as lights during the dark nights, illuminating the clifface with few dozen lanterns.

Falling into the light blue, wind rushed by Angus ears, here was the right place to be! Humans might not have been build for the air but they gave a fuck and conquered it anyway. Dominating the air was their biggest advantage even if the technique was stolen from the flying squirrels of the cityforrest but even before that they had employed kites of many shapes and used falcons to catch fat waterfowl that fed on the clouds of drifting algae. Just like such a falcon Angus shot down to the rope, stalling in the last second to catch the lazily drifting end.

The bloaters natural buoyancy stopped him almost gently as latched onto the 3 finger thick rope and he dared to breath deeper then before, the best part was over now. The only thing left to do was to wave the green scarf he had tucked under his shirt signalling the others to reel him in again.

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Goibniu had watched the spectacle from the window of his "shrine", if you wanted to describe the workshop as that. Cutting, sewing and glueing he was working on a grand idea, an idea that would get his people of this rock and to other rocks! Soon they could trade with the other tribes maybe find out what these omnious "Forefathers" were up to.

"His" people learned so much over the last years, the new houses along the cliff for example were mostly woven* structures, like little spidernets and cocoons from the kudzu vines. The more woody vines were soaked in water and cooked till they were plyable enough to be bend. The result were spars, curved and straight that worked as frames for a good many things. They even had expanded theyr vine-yards considerably planting them all along the edge of the island only to let them grow wild till it was time to harvest increasing the amount of building material as much as possible.
 
Must have been his natural influence on people that gave them the idea to build houses just like theyr chairs and other furniture.

On the other hand his people didnt really have much to work with so a little bit of craftyness was to expected, gathering wood from the city was a dangerous idea with all the many dangerous things that waited under the foilage.
Once in a while a heave armed hunting party would go out trapping a few rats and squirrels for pelts and leather. Sometimes they brought in a bit old rebar from the ruins which was forged by one of the elders into new tools and weapons, that same old nut thaught the kids how to do it.
Even then though theyr weapons were mostly made of wood, spears with steel-tips, "swords" that consisted of a curved vine with an inset strip of steel that acted as edge** and bows with firehardened arrows. Metal of any shape or kind was hard to come by these days.

His 13 fingers stoped working, their tips bleeding just a little from the occasional picking with the dove-bone needle. "Yeah that might work." he said looking at the sealed fabric spanning over the wooden frame, project "hot air balloon" being well under way. 

"Time to get some divinity." was his next though as he got up making a note to go to the "Divinity Distribution Center" as well as the "Celestial Information Center" to find the next years "Incentives". 

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Goibniu is on his way to the DDC and CIC (possible place's to meet chat & trade)

* like Basket-weaving
**like a curved single-edged Macuahuitl

OOC:
Quick question for the players: I guess the swarm and Chickens are natural fliers? The undead, werefoxes and lightningmonkeys seem to be unable to move around to other islands as off yet. Although the Fog could create a few new servants when he/she/it chooses to move itself to a new place.

Anyone keen on making on having a map?

It would make sense that erosion and slowly turn the island into a rounddish form that turns around the center of mass if its the anchor point for the skyfloaty !!Magic!!. Plants and foilage would hold the soil on top store water and such while the bottom is subjected to the full brunt of the elements. Depending on how the islands "orbit" and rotate you would surely have some cliffs that are entirely covered by mosses and lichens while others get sanded down by winds and (sand)-storms.
All that mass must be somewhere too so i would imagine that there is quite some dust in certain winds and airstreams which in itself must form natural paterns, trapping islands in low wind areas.
Also all the water from the oceans must be in the air or wherever ... so clouds and hyperstorms? With that much water and dust (nutrients!) in the air i could see algae living in waterdropplets and such once again being the mayor producers of oxygen, temperature in the different altitudes might also play a role similar to longitude and latitude, it might influence the prevailing climate with a island higher up being colder then a lower one leading to climatic stratification.
Certain birds could feast on the airborne algae, certainly waterfowl like ducks that already lived on things like duckweed while fish must be virtually extinct.

And yes i am overthinking this a little bit.