Den of Katrina/Kian Zoonce, art and rambling

Your friendly neighborhood themby artist, world builder and alleged war criminal. Be warned ye who enter and brace thyself for Technobarbian Cassettepunk and Dieselpunk aesthetics with cyborgs galore! Also found at: https://bsky.app/profile/katrinazoonce.bsky.social twitter.com/zoonce

[bacony-cakes]

unscheduled esmé activity

[stedilnik]

How it feels to join a regular bot helldive after two weeks of... whatever that was.

[stedilnik]

Marylin was also there. She was helping.

[thepromiscuousfinger]

[totally-cis-offical]

I need a “humans are space orcs” thing where all sentient species are weird like that, but in their own unique ways

And a lot of them are aware of this (like we are when we make these “humans are space orcs” stories)

Maybe one species enjoys getting bit by something equivalent to mosquitoes. Maybe one actively avoids the hospitable places on their planet because it’s boring without a challenge. You get the gist.

I want to see a bunch of aliens (+humans) sitting around a table talking about how their own species is a bunch of freaks

Everyone is space orcs

[totally-cis-offical]

Best possible addition. This is a top-tier insight

@hotcheetohatred

[stephenleasheppard]

The thing about "humans are space orcs" is it was originally conceived of as a response to science fiction tropes in which every alien species had its own special thing except humans, whose special thing was either Most Generic, Most Adaptable, or Most Je Ne Sais Quoi. Like, in a lot of science fiction, Klingons are Honorable Warriors, Vulcans are Logical Scientists, Romulans are Cunning Strategists, and humans are all of the above in a way that leaves us slightly less good than any of them at their shtick but better overall and able to triumph because of our lack of specialization and the assumption that we are, somehow, just destined to be the best. See this scene from Enterprise for what I'm talking about. There's a similar scene in Mass Effect where Mordin talks about how humans are more variable and adaptable and less predictable than all the other races in that setting, which is super annoying if you know anything about how much our species is defined by the genetic bottleneck we suffered during the Ice Age -- the generic bottleneck that has left us all so genetically similar to each other that we can do crazy things like donate blood and organs to each other, things other species can't tolerate.

@prokopetz proposed that humans ought to get something special of our own that isn't just "We are the bestest and specialist in some generic way that feels like a vague and unsettling metaphor for American superiority and manifest destiny amidst all the other cultures of the world," and settled on space orcs because "Pursuit predators with freakish endurance" was the ecological niche we occupied during our own evolutionary history up until we started doing the civilization thing. The assumption from the start was that every other sci-fi or fantasy species would each be freaks in their own way, and the point of humans are space orcs was to let us be our own sort of freak, too.

People who expanded on the humans are space orcs stories immediately turned it into a reason to write little stories where humans are the biggest freaks or the only freaks and we are, in fact, the specialest most manifest destinyest je ne sais quoi-laden metaphors for the superiority of American culture over all the other cultures of the world. I hate it I hate it I hate it.

Which is to say you've reinvented the point of humans are space orcs from first principles. That's pretty cool.

[prokopetz]

I think my mistake was failing to appreciate just how readily "humans have exceptionally high cardiovascular endurance due to our real-world evolutionary history as specialised persistence predators" could be twisted around into "humans have superior Will to Power", which is the other problematic special niche humans have historically been assigned in popular science fiction.

[punkrock-bottom]

You're a faggot and chronically online

[punkrock-bottom]

I just realised this might have been meant as hate and not a daily affirmation of how cool and awesome I am.

[is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not]

[hardspaceships]

A destroyer takes a quick dip to rapidly cool off and refill its coolant reserves

"Take her in slowly, get ready to flip and do a belly landing, NSWR shutoff in 5!"

"Man, this is going to affect the trout population."

Art by pushfreight

[guerrillatech]

[hyde-the-toad-bard]

God I'm sorry I didn't mean to leave pre-crime all over the place oh this is gross

[blumineck]

I had some leftover pumpkins…

(Some of these are based on real techniques, but they are all applied inadvisable here!)

[draconym]

Me: Fuck, the paper towels I want are on the top shelf.

The Sir David Attenborough That Lives In My Brain: Being smaller-than-average presents an added challenge to foraging ... but necessity is the mother of invention. A little creativity turns a baguette into a tool, and voilà--

(paper towel roll falls on my face)

Sir David Attenborough, pleasantly: Success.

[tau1tvec]

[cryptotheism]

War is hell and valorization of military imagery is fundamentally a childish and reactionary thing, but transitional periods of military history are a rich field of study, and I can't pretend this image of horse mounted trench lancers doesn't go hard as fuck.

[henstomper]

everywhere i go everyone compliments me on the particle cannons i attached to my body. they say things like "those look effective against armored targets, and also very precise" and then i blush cutely and obliterate a scrap car

[jp-nichts]

"thanks I installed them myself 😊💜"

[jp-nichts]

[hemipenal-system]

trans girl who is a predatory- no not in the sex way. why’d you assume that? 🤨 she eats people

[tonysbabe29]

[evilwizard]

okay im gonna hypnotize you with my ruby amulet now DONT BE WEIRD ABOUT IT. im doing this to make you betray the king. IT IS NOT A SEX THING

[violet-hady]

I think the fact that you immediately thought about clarifying it’s not a sex thing kinda makes it sound like it is a sex thing.

[evilwizard]

FOOL. i would be using my sex amulet for that

[quark-art]

had to draw this

[anarchblr]

@dabblingindissent — what battletech would suit me?

[dabblingindissent]

i feel like any traditional raiding mech would fit you well- these are mechs that are fairly swift- so a light or medium mech, although some heavy classes and one or two assault classes are also used, usually with an entirely energy based weapon loadout so that ammunition and supply lines are not a consideration while deep behind enemy lines.

often times they will also have hand actuators so that they can grab things and make off with them, but this is not a strict requirement.

this is still a fairly broad category so I'm going to cheat a little- i saw this meme earlier and thought about making a battletech version of it.

and the mech i would give John Brown [and you] is the Firestarter, specifically the FS9-A, which is equipped only with lasers and flamethrowers that vent its fusion reactor to produce heat and plasma. no supply concerns, just point it in a direction and fire.