Lieutenant Fusilier takes The King's Shilling

[GBscientist]

So if Australia and Canada never gained independence, how did Space Britain treat the indigenous populations of both colonies? Because I know that, for Canada's part, some of the most odious practices started before Confederation, but were continued and expanded under independent governance.

Given how hot button this issue is right now, I will understand if you don't want to get near it. It just happens to be top-of-mind at the moment because we had the first national Truth and Reconciliation Day on the 30th.

 

[diltill]

I'm more interested in culture, like did Gilbert and Sullivan exist? Is everyone still stuck in operas and classical music? Are their Machine jazz bands in America? So many questions.

 

[open_sketch]

The what

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My current working hypothesis is that the Indians successfully secured independence from the British Empire some time in the mid-19th century, then formed a subcontinent-wide government to prevent any of that sort of nonsense from happening again, sidelining the Mughal Emperor in the process because he was clearly about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.

Since India at the time was a bit... loosely connected... the resulting government called itself a 'confederation' and includes a number of nominally semi-independent 'princely states' and whatnot.

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Bingo. It's a super-loosely associated collection of principalities and empires and hangers-on kinda-sorta linked together politically which people outside of it point to and go "ah, the Indians!" This is a construction that matters a lot more to the people outside it than inside it. Lieutenant Kennedy's dad was the British ambassador to one of the principalities inside it and spends every dinner party in British space correcting people about the particulars.

Decolonization took *just* long enough in India for the precolonial structures to have been deprecated too much to be reinstituted, without taking so long that national consciousness replaced it outright, so what's left is a web of messy alliances, leftover bureaucracy, and trade.

 

[open_sketch]

Thank you so much, that was all quite interesting. While I am sad that Space Canada isn't really a thing, I do find it entertaining that Space Quebec is (if only because all my redneck neighbors would find that fact absolutely infuriating) But this leads me to two further questions: First; how do Space France and Space Quebec get along? Close allies, barely tolerated, divided by a common language? Second: How easily would a modern Canadian recognize Space Poutine? Is it something we'd consider within the boundaries of Acceptable Poutine Variants, or has it diverged too much?

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Space Quebec hates Space France to a staggering degree for abandoning them to the British. Space France frequently forgets Space Quebec exists.

Do Space Liners exist?

On one hand, Space Titanic. On the other hand, everyone who wants seems to be able to afford their own ships, and the stations aren't exactly big enough to have huge amounts of tourists.

Are there any primitivist movements who reject robots, or other of-earth societies that make major breaks from Concert culture.

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Space liners do exist! Not everyone wants to do with the hassle of owning and operating their own ships, or they might not travel enough to make it practical. But beyond that, machines gotta move around and *they* don't own their own ships, so you have a lot of liners that have a handful of lavish first-class cabins for humans taking that route and a bunch of machine passengers going to where the work is.

There are, that's most of the inhabitants of Earth right now, but nope, the Concert represents the whole of Space Culture as best as the Concert knows!

Are there Machine Tetottlers who lock out the circuits in their processors that make them able to get drunk? Are there, on the flipside, machine drunkards who can't hold down a job and just get earworms stuck in their brains perpetually? Could playing "Funkytown" cause sudden bouts of mass intoxication as machines are unable to stop humming that riff?

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Oh, almost certainly the first, and probably a few of the second, though being too drunk to work is not a fun place to be for a machine.

Lucy once hummed the melody to Funkytown in her manor and nearly caused a civilization-threatenign containment breach.

Well since we were given carte blanche on questions:
So building off of the various Empires of the Concert, I'm curious about their machines. There's clearly a lot of variety in the cosmetics of different machines (hair color, face sculpt, chassis material etc.), but are there culture-specific cosmetics for the various Empires? For example, would a Japanese equivalent of a Maria be styled (sculpted, dressed etc.) after traditional Geisha, or would they just be a Maria with a Japanese name dressed in Taisho Era attire? Are there obvious variations (either cosmetic or psychological) between the various cultures' different machines (ex: the difference between Dora, Theda and Thea)?

Also the idea of Australians not colonizing the most dangerous planets in the Concert and becoming Napoleonic-Catachans feels like a lost opportunity. And is Space Mexico a thing, or are they still part of Space-Spain? Are they constantly in a race with America to grab more worlds, as a galactic "Fuck You" for the land they lost in the Mexican American war?

And the question I think we ALL want the answer to: Did Texas become its own Space Empire?

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Yeah, there's culturally-specific differences in machine designs, but if you lived in the universe you'd almost certainly be able to figure out what type of machine just about any machine is within a few seconds of looking at them. They have a Vibe even if the specifics change. We actually do see a Japanese Maria in Maid to Love You: Marie is fascinated to see that she has details picked out on her face in paint instead of only having things projected.

Beyond that, the white glass aesthetic of British machines is very much not universal, though glass machines are more or less the norm in most places. The glass is also relatively new for many kinds of machines: originally it was a look that was pretty exclusive to James and Marias, with other machines harder-wearing, but now its gotten to the point where more or less only Fusiliers and a handful of holdouts in heavy industry keep the metal faceplate thing. Glass faces have subsurface scattering, which makes them look way more naturalistic, but the colour is going to vary with location and preference. The only colours that don't get used are human skin tones.

Machines generally tend to resemble the dominant ethnicities in the places they get made, with some variation for like, immigration, bored craftsmen, etc (I imagine The Question Of What Ethnicities Machines Ought To Look Like is one of the giant cultural questions swirling about in the background of the setting).

Space Mexico is a thing, Space Texas is not.

Are those population numbers just humans or including the machines? Actually, huh. How much does the machine-to-human ratio vary by culture? Is it strongly determined by economics and the common machine lineages across cultures mean that most nations have comparable economics and thus machine-to-human ratios? Are the civilizations with novel lines (e.g. IIRC there was some talk about Space Japan being the most likely to have been sufficiently nationalistic-isolationist to have gotten its own lineages) all that different economically as a result of their novel lineages?

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There is some variation, but the British 250-1 ratio is about the norm.

There aren't really novel lineages too much, because anything useful got copied across nations. Most of the core set of machines are British because, well, the British Working Machine Company was first and got a head start, but Marias and Matthews are French, Abbys are American, and Fusiliers were a multinational project. I've not terribly defined beyond that.

(This is also why James and Marias break the pattern with different first name letter thingies. James were the British Royal Machine company making a valet counterpart to the lady's maid, to which the French Machine Dudes were like "uh, there already is one its the bulter machines" and this never quite did get resolved.

This is purely personal indulgence on my front, but what's sports culture like in the Galactic Concert? Are there any games that are particularly popular, unpopular, or noticeably different as compared to our world? Are there any kind of major tournaments, and how are they structured? Especially with the consideration of interplanetary travel in mind. Are there any teams that are particularly famous, and do they correspond to any real-life teams?

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We see what Football looks like in Maid to Love You (it's still using the 1840s rules) but beyond that... idk?!? We know that football is wildly popular among a lot of machines though, the city has a team and some of Fusie's comrades in the ranks were big fans.

Would a marching band accidentally cause a dancing plague amongst the robots if the conditions are right?

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Probably not a dancing plague. Different kinds of music has different kinds of effects on machines, and I like the idea that marching music might be like machine amphetamines, for when you need your Fusiliers particularly fucking hype to murder some alien bastards.

So if Australia and Canada never gained independence, how did Space Britain treat the indigenous populations of both colonies? Because I know that, for Canada's part, some of the most odious practices started before Confederation, but were continued and expanded under independent governance.

Given how hot button this issue is right now, I will understand if you don't want to get near it. It just happens to be top-of-mind at the moment because we had the first national Truth and Reconciliation Day on the 30th.

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A lot of First Nations avoided colonialization because of the butterflies and many of them exist in a mix of their old Earth lands and rocketing around in space with everyone else. I'm really, really looking forward to doing some big multinational fights so Fusie's flank can be covered by a unit of Comanche mounted Fusiliers or Six Nations skirmishers.

I'm more interested in culture, like did Gilbert and Sullivan exist? Is everyone still stuck in operas and classical music? Are their Machine jazz bands in America? So many questions.

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I dunno!!! I'd have to go in and figure out specifics!

Jazz exists but you have to be really careful about playing it around machines because of its powerful effects

 

[Tithed_Verse]

Instead, the terminology that caught on here was to refer to the engine of a car as its horse, which soon mutated into just calling any self-propelled vehicle a horse.

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I've honestly been imagining motorcycles for the 'horses' that the hussars and dragoons use.

 

[bookwyrm]

I've honestly been imagining motorcycles for the 'horses' that the hussars and dragoons use.

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Surely it would be Locomotive Velocipedes good fellow!

 

[Raw90]

There was a mention of American formal events requiring civvies, is there a reason for that? Or is that just part of the broader American oddness?

 

[Depressed_Ferret]

I'm really, really looking forward to doing some big multinational fights so Fusie's flank can be covered by a unit of Comanche mounted Fusiliers or Six Nations skirmishers.

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I love every bit of what you just said and I would very much WANT MORE. Ottoman Janissaries with laser-axes! Cossack mounted with carbines! African stealth skirmishers with short spears and personal energy shields! Japanese Ashigaru with laser O-Zutsu hand cannons!!! I can't wait to see all the different and wonderful new machines with their different naming conventions and battle tactics!

 

[DragonCobolt]

Honestly, I think it'd be neat to do an anthology series with writers of other cultures.

Like, tell them the basics, then let them extrapolate out, put it all in one big book and call it something cool.

 

[Depressed_Ferret]

Honestly I'd just be happy with what amounts to just one long list of all the different machines, their aesthetics or quirks, and names; so an anthology basically doing that with interesting stories??? Sounds badass!

 

[ancusohm]

the British 250-1 ratio is about the norm.

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Huh, you know the stories tend to follow machines who work relatively closely with humans. But there's been mention that most machines have way less contact with humans than Marias do.

It makes me wonder about how an all machine society society would develop over time.

I mean, there has to be a planet out there somewhere that's just kind of boring. Maybe someone set up a mine there, but the human owners never visit. Why bother? The machines manage the place perfectly well.

If the settlement were staffed mostly by boxies, then most of the machines would never have really interacted with a human. Then suppose they're left alone for a few decades with little outside contact except for the occasional cargo ship (crewed mostly by other machines) to pick up raw materials and drop off spare parts.

After all that time and isolation, what would the typical machine on that world think of humans? How well would they hold up over the years of never seeing humans benefit from all their labor? How would one of those machines handle it if they suddenly had to interact with some humans?

I realize that machine are practical sorts who look out for each other. There are probably clerks somewhere who make sure that even the most remote settlements have enough turnover to stop the machines from going strange from the isolation. But when you're dealing with societies as large as the Concert then surely even a planet can fall through the cracks once in a while.

 

[ancusohm]

There was a mention of American formal events requiring civvies, is there a reason for that? Or is that just part of the broader American oddness?

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It might be some American oddness. If memory serves, the early US was pretty wary of its own military. They didn't want the standing army to get too big and stage a coup. The uniform etiquette might be a holdover from that.

 

[Simon_Jester]

I've honestly been imagining motorcycles for the 'horses' that the hussars and dragoons use.

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When you have hoverbikes, motorcycles tend to be less practical.

It's likely that there was a transitional period of motorcycle cavalry.

Space Quebec hates Space France to a staggering degree for abandoning them to the British. Space France frequently forgets Space Quebec exists.

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Yes, but what about the poutine?

Lucy once hummed the melody to Funkytown in her manor and nearly caused a civilization-threatenign containment breach.

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It must be a bit sobering to realize one knows multiple cognitohazards capable of incapacitating 99.6% of the population of the civilization one lives in...

We see what Football looks like in Maid to Love You (it's still using the 1840s rules) but beyond that... idk?!? We know that football is wildly popular among a lot of machines though, the city has a team and some of Fusie's comrades in the ranks were big fans.

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Hm. It occurs to me that human sports teams being cheered on by an enormous mass of machines are one way for a lot of machines to feel like they're helping humans all at the same time, while still actually enjoying themselves and without having to worry that what they're doing isn't good for the humans in question.

Probably not a dancing plague. Different kinds of music has different kinds of effects on machines, and I like the idea that marching music might be like machine amphetamines, for when you need your Fusiliers particularly fucking hype to murder some alien bastards.

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Working hypothesis:

There are Highland machine units and they are terrifying. The pipes are Space Britain's ultima ratio reginae.

 

[open_sketch]

Huh, you know the stories tend to follow machines who work relatively closely with humans. But there's been mention that most machines have way less contact with humans than Marias do.

It makes me wonder about how an all machine society society would develop over time.

I mean, there has to be a planet out there somewhere that's just kind of boring. Maybe someone set up a mine there, but the human owners never visit. Why bother? The machines manage the place perfectly well.

If the settlement were staffed mostly by boxies, then most of the machines would never have really interacted with a human. Then suppose they're left alone for a few decades with little outside contact except for the occasional cargo ship (crewed mostly by other machines) to pick up raw materials and drop off spare parts.

After all that time and isolation, what would the typical machine on that world think of humans? How well would they hold up over the years of never seeing humans benefit from all their labor? How would one of those machines handle it if they suddenly had to interact with some humans?

I realize that machine are practical sorts who look out for each other. There are probably clerks somewhere who make sure that even the most remote settlements have enough turnover to stop the machines from going strange from the isolation. But when you're dealing with societies as large as the Concert then surely even a planet can fall through the cracks once in a while.

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For a lot of machines, humans are kind of like celebrities. Like, if you're one of a hundred machines working in a factory somewhere, what's going on with the human family that you work for is the highest of gossip. Did you hear the young miss is seeing somebody new? A musician, I hear! Oh, her mother won't like that!

Machines are perfectly capable of abstract thinking and understanding how they benefit people without seeing it. I joke sometimes that machines have a perfect understanding of the labour theory of value, they just think that profit is the cool part that ensures humans somewhere benefit from their work, but beyond that the French machines have co-ops and still understand how they can do socially useful productive work. That said, their human employer visiting their factory would be a day of great importance and a chance to see it in tangible form, and that's a big deal!

There's also just not that much isolation because goods still need to move and machines need replacement parts and new technologies ensure you want to keep up with the latest production methods to maximize efficiency. Beyond that, its never just like... a mine somewhere out in the boonies with nothing else. Machines need support infrastructure too, a mining outpost isn't just a hole in the ground and some power plugs. There's going to be a cute little town there with meeting spaces and a town square and events and art, there will be clerks for keeping records and mechanics for keeping everyone going, a tailor repairing clothing, a few housemaids who run a laundry together, builders for the town, etc. Many of them will be relatively independent and not all employed by the mine's owner. (machines generally prefer working for services and collecting a wage to self-employment, though, like Beatrice writes for a publishing house and is paid a nice wage to meet daily wordcounts rather than publishing and collecting royalties).

It'll be a nice little community, they won't go any weirder than any other small town where everyone knows one another. And every week a ship comes down and they load it up with ore, they get newspapers and gossip from the outside, new machines will join and others who are curious about other jobs or who just want to see the galaxy a bit will ride it back to the ship and head to a city. things go on year after year, machines fall in and out of love, play games, read books, learn new hobbies, tell each other stories, and never, ever want for something to do or a sense of purpose. why would they go crazy? it honestly it sounds really nice

remember, at the end of the day the robots are a kind of escapism, they're... you might call them a capitalist realism utopian fantasy? like, if i have to live in this stupid system, i really wish i could be like this, cheerful and helpful and hardworking and proud to be making somebody else richer, like it was a charitable, noble thing. Instead of the reality where we work to avoid starving while heaping more money and power onto a handful of ultra-rich greedy assholes at the expense of the planet and everyone on it, instead of the current situation where i have weekly anxious spirals over my class position, alternating between working myself to death and languishing in burnout and despair.

i just wanna be a robot, beep boop

 

[Squishy]

i just wanna be a robot, beep boop

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Have you tried romanticizing your own job more?

 

[CyberFemme]

Instead of the reality where we work to avoid starving while heaping more money and power onto a handful of ultra-rich greedy assholes at the expense of the planet and everyone on it, instead of the current situation where i have weekly anxious spirals over my class position, alternating between working myself to death and languishing in burnout and despair.

i just wanna be a robot, beep boop

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Bad Sketch! No feeling guilty over achieving a moderately comfortable standard of living! Back to therapy with you!

 

[open_sketch]

Have you tried romanticizing your own job more?

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can't, too petite bourgeoisie

i have given significant thought and done more than a little setup work required to reorganize my business such that i would be paid an hourly wage and profits would be collected by somebody else, i just haven't implemented it out of a mix of fear of ridicule and because i don't make enough money to pay my own wages consistently, nevermind give a return to an owner who isn't me.

 

[CyberFemme]

can't, too petite bourgeoisie

i have given significant thought and done more than a little setup work required to reorganize my business such that i would be paid an hourly wage and profits would be collected by somebody else, i just haven't implemented it out of a mix of fear of ridicule and because i don't make enough money to pay my own wages consistently, nevermind give a return to an owner who isn't me.

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Sketch, your precious commie, you can't into socialism yet. You haven't finished going through primitive accumulation.

 

[open_sketch]

Sketch, your precious commie, you can't into socialism yet. You haven't finished going through primitive accumulation.

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honest to god not being alienated from my labour is incredibly alienating. wage labour makes sense: i work for X hours, i get X hours worth of money. there is a direct relationship between how many work i do and compensation. by contrast, the way things work now is i labour for weeks and months and years on things, put them up on the internet somewhere, and money just... happens. somehow. even though im not doing work anymore. i dont know when the money will stop. i can't tell when i've been paid back by society for creating Thing.

marx failed to consider the particular ways in which i am out of my fucking mind i guess

 

[ancusohm]

why would they go crazy? it honestly it sounds really nice

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Oh, yeah. It legitimately sounds awesome. Personally, I would love just being able to look at my own code. Like, in the original version of the story, that when Fusie's deprogrammer can physically point at her thought patterns? Pure wish fulfillment

I probably just keep looking for/imaging a hidden dystopia in this setting because I never fully outgrew my 'grim-dork' phase.

Also, I guess there are few settings that are this nice. I know you've talked about how the Galactic Concert isn't a true utopia, but it comes closer than almost any other setting I can name. I suppose that part of me keeps expecting the shocking reveal that it was actually super evil all along.

 

[open_sketch]

Oh, yeah. It legitimately sounds awesome. Personally, I would love just being able to look at my own code. Like, in the original version of the story, that when Fusie's deprogrammer can physically point at her thought patterns? Pure wish fulfillment

I probably just keep looking for/imaging a hidden dystopia in this setting because I never fully outgrew my 'grim-dork' phase.

Also, I guess there are few settings that are this nice. I know you've talked about how the Galactic Concert isn't a true utopia, but it comes closer than almost any other setting I can name. I suppose that part of me keeps expecting the shocking reveal that it was actually super evil all along.

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i kinda like the idea that looking at your own code isn't terribly psychologically healthy, like you'll just think yourself into loops doing that, the same way that sitting alone with your own thoughts isn't always the best plan. but its a boon to your therapist yeah!

 

[NemoMarx]

i kinda like the idea that looking at your own code isn't terribly psychologically healthy, like you'll just think yourself into loops doing that, the same way that sitting alone with your own thoughts isn't always the best plan. but its a boon to your therapist yeah!

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I thought the idea of comments from your therapist that would just flag when certain lines of thought came up was pretty neat. That's a very effective way to shortcut CBT faster.

 

[open_sketch]

I thought the idea of comments from your therapist that would just flag when certain lines of thought came up was pretty neat. That's a very effective way to shortcut CBT faster.

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That's 100% coming back when i finally get to edit it, but i'm going to be introducing it more organically this time.

 

[CyberFemme]

honest to god not being alienated from my labour is incredibly alienating. wage labour makes sense: i work for X hours, i get X hours worth of money. there is a direct relationship between how many work i do and compensation. by contrast, the way things work now is i labour for weeks and months and years on things, put them up on the internet somewhere, and money just... happens. somehow. even though im not doing work anymore. i dont know when the money will stop. i can't tell when i've been paid back by society for creating Thing.

marx failed to consider the particular ways in which i am out of my fucking mind i guess

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Marx developed his theories during the industrial age, I would expect that they'd need an overhaul to jump into the information age but I haven't read enough theory to say what that overhaul should be.

 

[Squishy]

can't, too petite bourgeoisie

i have given significant thought and done more than a little setup work required to reorganize my business such that i would be paid an hourly wage and profits would be collected by somebody else, i just haven't implemented it out of a mix of fear of ridicule and because i don't make enough money to pay my own wages consistently, nevermind give a return to an owner who isn't me.

Click to shrink...

OPEN SKETCH