My previous post about alternate mechsploitation species did better than expected, so I guess Iâll do some more falconposting.
Iâve seen more than a few pounds positing âwhat if Hounds, except we replace this one thing I donât likeâ? The most common one is to go towards trying to make the two partners build each other up more. In-universe, youâd see this new pilot archetype as a reaction to Hounds, trying to improve on them.
If your alternate archetypes are ânicerâ, I suggest going the other way: lean into your concept as hard as possible, and then ask: how do we get from this animal back to Hounds?
When I first started sketching my ideas for falcons and falconers, I conceived of falcons as being an in-universe counter to hounds. After all, I was reacting out-of-universe in that order. But now it goes the other way: in my current setting guide, falcons came first, and then hounds came about as a corruption of the dynamic.
Total War Makes Total Monsters. The harshest version of your concepts should be the one that comes last chronologically. The cycles of abuse and hurt should lead to worse and more desperate measures being taken as things progress.
You can look to real history for this. The nazis ran their armies past the breaking point not with designer combat stims, but by giving them crystal meth and telling them to go another 50 miles. Vietnam was not run on good strategy- it was run on body counts.
If my falcons are designed to have a more functional and uplifting relationship, my hounds are what happens when a fascist tells a falconer that they need results now no matter what.
That falcon who signed up to shoot at aliens and is having an impossible time adjusting to shooting at humans? Sheâs a prime target for being made into a hound.
That one division that thinks war crimes are the answer, no matter how counterproductive and immoral that is? If the falconer and falcon have a disagreement on the policy, theyâre probably going to decay into a handler and a hound.
By going in this direction and including both your new archetype and hounds in the same story, you have a lot more opportunity to include both your optimistic elements and to really ramp up your horror. The further Iâve gone in this direction, the more rancid my Handler dynamics have gotten. Underneath the abuse and control is what used to be a more cooperative and loving dynamic, at least on the surface. Now, that past has provided the hooks for something brutal.
