SciFiGamers, My Part in Their Downfall

You know, it’s great when you see your kids grow up and achieve something in the outside world.

About a year ago someone decided that the way to get ahead in life would be to set up a Tumblr blog that harvested images and posts from the Warhammer Subreddit and presented them as their own with no credit or attribution. This was eventually noticed by the admins, and said blog was deluged with DMCA takedown requests until Tumblr had no choice but to shut it down with extreme prejudice. Hooray!

Before this happened however, I made a suggestion in the thread discussing the issue, that we should all add “SciFiGamers Sucks Ass” to our posts, in the hope that the bot behind the theft would slavishly copy such comments across. A few people attempted this, posting messages much more explicit, but the blog was shut down shortly afterwards and nothing much came of it.

A few months later the same blog popped up again under a slightly different URL. I made my suggestion again, this time providing “SCIFIGAMERS GARGLES DONKEY KNOB” as a sample message. The idea took off like wildfire and before very long the thread and the parasite blog were decorated with messages such as “Here are my Imperial Knights. By the way, SciFiGamers ingests it’s own feces!”. Once again the blog was taken down shortly afterwards. Victory!

Earlier today it was discovered that another site was parasiting off the Subreddit. The Mods made my humble idea official policy, and before long the infringing site was bulging at the seams with absolutely awful – and often hilarious – messages condoning all manner of perversions and extreme political views. Before long the actual owner of the site showed up in the Subreddit and apologised, having taken down all of the pirated content. However it was then discovered that the original offenders were at it again, so the bile cannon was redirected their way. As I type this, SciFiGamers are overwhelmed with crude and offensive messages, and the campaign has made it to the front page of Reddit.

I’m so proud! ;D

Round the Cape to the Far Antipodes

I took delivery today of some Lego I’ve ordered to put together a model of Inquisitor Golesh Constantine Pheppos Heldane to go with my other Gaunt’s Ghosts minifigs. Nothing unusual about this you might think, except that I placed the order back on May 19th.

Now, I can accept that prior to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, 113 days might be an acceptable delivery time between the UK and Perth, but I really would have thought that the Royal Mail would have moved on from clipper ships by now. Or perhaps the Ordo Chronos of the Emperor’s Holy Inquisition got wind of my plans, disapproved, and caused the parcel to get lost in the Warp? The Lego seems normal with no obvious signs of chaotic taint, but one can never really tell, so I won’t let the resulting model get too far away from Saint Sabbat, just in case.

In any case, Firestar Toys can be absolved of any blame as they clearly did post the parcel a few days after my order. Whatever problems occurred did so after my order left their remit, so I will happily continue to recommend them to all aspiring minifig builders.

Keep your eyes peeled for Inquisitor Heldane!

Lesser Known War Machines of the Astra Militarum

The Leman Russ Expectorator
A rare model of Leman Russ battle tank, the Expectorater replaces its main armament with an Expectorator Cannon, which fires congealed globules of Space Marine phlegm at the enemy.

The limited supplies of Astartes saliva (which is collected by specialised Chapter Spitoon Servitors post-combat) restrict the use of the Expectorator to actions where it it expected to prove particularly effective, such as against Emperor’s Children Chaos Marines who have shown themselves to be horrified at the idea of being covered in rancid spit.

The Leman Russ Exasperator
The Exasperator Battle Tank swaps its main weapon with a bank of servitor powered mega-vuvuzelas. The indescribable cacophony produced has proven able to drive even Slaaneshi noise marines off the field, hands clamped firmly over their ears.

The Leman Russ Exnihilator
All attempts to create a hybrid of the Executioner and Annihilator Battle Tanks have so far met with failure, with many Astra Militarum Commanders firmly of the opinion that the Tech Adepts responsible only maintain the effort due to an unhealthy fascination with puns.

Happy Taumas!

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all cross the zone,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a drone,
The fire-ports were locked with their lasguns in place,
In the hopes that an enemy would soon show his face,

The guardsmen were sleeping, tucked up in their billets,
Dreaming of recaff and sizzling grox fillets,
For the rations were low, the supply lines were cut,
The Commander sat up with his rumbling gut,

Unable to sleep he pondered, and tried,
To figure how long they could last unsupplied,
Then on the perimeter sounded a klaxon,
He leapt to his feet, glad of such a distraction,

Across to a gunport he flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutter and lifted the sash,
The night vision auspex he pulled to his eye,
Providing a scan of the objects outside,

His bolt gun unholstered, preparing to shoot,
He beheld a Piranha and eight spikey Kroot,
And a little blue driver with a slit in his brow,
He knew in a moment it must be a Tau,

The Tau and his Kroot flew in over the ice,
And he whistled, and shouted (via translation device),
“Now Gnawer! Now Chewer! Now Nibbler and Biter!
“On Shaper! On Shooter! On Slicer and Fighter!

“To the top of the bunker! To the top of the wall!
“Now lift away! Lift away! Lift away all!”
To the top of the bunker the xenos all flew,
Boxes strapped on to the Tau and his crew,

The Commander spun round, as the ceiling hatch popped,
Through it the Tau and his porters all dropped,
He looked like a daemon, his skin pale and blue,
His oddly cleft face and his cloven feet too,

But a wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Showed the Commander he had nothing to dread,
Not speaking a word, they went straight to their task,
Resupplying each backpack and filling each flask,

Then raising salute with a hand sign quite strange,
They headed back out to the place whence they came,
The Tau primed the piranha, the Kroot gathered round,
And away they all flew, barely making a sound,

Yet to the Commander he yelled (via translator),
“Happy Christmas to all, for the Good that is Greater!”

POSTSCRIPT

(The Inquisition turned up at the rise of the sun,
Destroyed all the evidence and purged everyone)

Concerning the Eldar

…you’re correct about the Eldar having a kick-ass interstellar empire back in the day. The problem was that it was too kick-ass. Life was too easy, everything served up on a platter with no challenges, which lead to the Eldar getting bored out of their pointy little skulls.

Some of them dealt with this by exiling themselves to primitive border worlds, where life was tougher (the descendents of these guys are the Exodite Eldar of the 41st millennium). The majority however started looking for things to excite them, and ended up getting into all kinds of weird and perverse stuff that would make a modern day S&M club look like a kindergarten picnic.

In the 40k universe, emotion affects the warp. The emotions of the Eldar are far more powerful than those of humans, so billions of Eldar getting their rocks off with weird excesses caused one hell of a disturbance, which culminated in the Fall (with a capital F). This involved the birth of a new Chaos God, Slaanesh, and the conversion of the core of the Eldar Empire into a breach between realspace and the warp which is known in the 41st Millenium as the Eye of Terror. The vast, vast majority of the Eldar were instantly consumed by Slaanesh, with only small numbers surviving via a number of lucky or ingenious methods.

(There’s some very old fluff that talks about some Eldar surviving within the Eye of Terror and worshiping Slaanesh. You can take or leave this as you see fit).

Additionally the Eldar had their own gods, most of whom were eaten by Slaanesh. Exactly what these gods were is open to all kinds of interpretation, but a couple of them survive in some form or other.

OK, so the survivors of the Fall…

The Exodites: As mentioned above they were on outlying planets of the Empire and weren’t corrupted like the rest of the Eldar, so they managed to survive. The Exodites avoid getting eaten by Slaanesh (which would normally happen when they die and their souls enter the Warp) by wearing psychoactive crystals called “Spirit Stones”. Spirit Stones capture their souls as they leave their bodies, and hold them safe until they can be transferred to matrix of wraithbone built into the planet and known as the “World Spirit”. The souls of deceased Eldar then chill out in the World Spirit for all eternity – or at least until someone comes along and destroys it, or a mutant tyranid vampirises it, or they need some more wraithbone constructs to trim the hedges.

The Dark Eldar: Way, way back in history the Eldar (or their creators, the Old Ones, who may or may not have been giant frogs) built a system of extradimensional tunnels that kind of go into the Warp without being part of the Warp. This is the Webway, and it allows quick travel back and forth across the galaxy with minimal chance of being eaten by Daemons. A whole bunch of the corrupted Eldar took shelter in the Webway when Slaanesh turned up, and remain there still in a vast city named Commorragh.

Because the Webway is so close to the Warp, Slaanesh can reach in and suck at their souls, so they need to either replenish their souls via mercilessly torturing other beings to death, or fend Slaanesh off with the souls of other beings, who they mercilessly torture to death.

(The Dark Eldar are not your friends.)

The Craftworld Eldar: Craftworlds are Eldar spacecraft the size of planets. They were built prior to the Fall, either (depending on which fluff you read) as trading craft traveling slower than light between Eldar worlds, or specifically as refuges for Eldar worried about the way their society was going to hell in a handbasket. In either case, some Craftworlds managed to get the hell out of Dodge before the Fall happened, and continue to sail between the stars to this day.

The Craftworld Eldar are (understandably) paranoid about falling prey to the same temptations that destroyed their ancestors. As such they control their emotions by devoting themselves to a “path” – a code of behavior similar to martial art, perfected to the nth degree. The most detailed paths in the background are those of the various Aspect Warriors, but there is a path for every job that needs to be done on the Craftworld, which presumably means there are things like “the Path of the Window Washer” and “the Path of the Waitress”. But hey, it seems to work for them.

The Craftworld Eldar also use Spirit Stones to save themselves from Slaanesh, and transfer their souls into the wraithbone structure of the Craftworld, which is called the Infinity Circuit. There is a rumour that when the last Eldar dies, the Infinity Circuits of all the Craftworlds will spontaneously combine and birth a new Eldar god, who will kick Slaanesh’s ass – but I wouldn’t bet on it. In the meantime they can temporarily pull souls out of the Infinity Circuit and use them to power wraithbone constructs, although they don’t like doing this because it’s kind of like digging up grandpa and making him wash the car.

The Harlequins: The Harlequins are merry pranksters with the mystical powers of interpretive dance and converting your internal organs into mincemeat as soon as look at you. They’re the wandering minstrels of the Webway who turn up in Craftworlds, on Exodite Planets, in Commorragh and even (on occasion) on human worlds to perform their dances, which tell the stories of Eldar history. They are protected from Slaanesh by one of the few remaining Eldar gods, who duels Slaanesh for their souls when they die. Their acrobatic skills and shiny costumes make them terrifying in combat, so if they put on a show for you, sit down, shut up, and clap at the end.

If a Harlequin offers to kiss you, politely decline.

If you say hello to the dwarf, turn to page 8. If you kick him, turn to page 10.

This is hilarious!

If David Cameron must ban anything, let it be Warhammer fantasy games

But even more hilarious are the hopeless Aspies* in the comments who can’t seem to grasp the idea of satire, or who can grasp the idea of the satire but are so in love with the hobby that it deeply wounds them to see it maligned so!

(* I’m an Aspie, so I get to call other Aspies out)

Good News, Bad News

Bad News – The Data Centre that hosts our servers went down on Friday afternoon, meaning that everything for all of our clients was offline.

Good News – It wasn’t our fault.

Bad News – Our clients are unlikely to understand the distinction.

Good News – They got everything back up and running in a couple of hours.

Bad News – Except for one of our critical servers.

Good News – The critical server was up and running by Saturday evening.

Bad News – One of my esteemed colleagues – who I have to work with today – lost a big chunk of his weekend getting it back up, and will most likely be in the kind of mood that would make the Pope kick little children in the face.

Good News – I got to go home early on Friday.

Bad News – Having gone home early on Friday I don’t get paid as much.

Good News – I decided to catch the bus into the city rather than to Subiaco, and along Mounts Bay Road, just near the Eliza statue I spotted a fin poking out of the river. My first thought was “shark!” but then I realised the shape was wrong, and a flash of back and a puff of spray revealed it to be one of the Swan River dolphins. Awesome! I’ve never seen one of them before!

Then when I got home I had to time to do up a few more Snoos for the Warhammer subreddit’s Snoo contest. Which was a good thing, because the Eldar Farseer Snoo I put together ended up winning! đŸ˜€ It can now be seen on top of the subreddit, and the mods liked my work so much that I’ve been contracted to create a new Snoo each month for the forseeable future. In return I’ve been allocated the title of “Honored Artificer of the /r/warhammer Snoo” and awarded a $25 Games Workshop voucher, which is nothing to be sneezed at.

Eldar Farseer Snoo
Eldar Farseer Snoo. Behold his Majesty!

Bad News – The $25 voucher is in US Dollars and hence (apparently) can’t be used to buy anything from Australia.

Good News – GW has an excellent customer service reputation, so I’m confident that if I email them I’ll be able to get it sorted out.

That is all.

Housekeeping

Mint for pillow?

Before I go offline for the weekend, some housekeeping…

The trains to Midland were screwed up yesterday afternoon, so I ended up walking along the rail line from the city to the liquor store on Guildford road from where I got a bus the rest of the way home. Annoying, but good exercise I suppose.

It’s state election day tomorrow! I have a horrible feeling Colin is going to get back in. After all, he – apparently – stands up to Canberra (this is about the only campaign slogan the Liberal Party seems to have). Vote early and often people!

I’m going to Oz Comic-Con this weekend to see William Shatner and Richard Dean Anderson. As observed by my colleague Daniel, if we could get them to fight it would solve all kinds of nerd arguments…

With my net access down I’ve actually been painting some of my 40k models. Much to my surprise they’re looking OK (latest pics at the end of the set).

Some more personnel have joined the Lego Tanith First and Only. Chiria, Costin, Dalin Criid and Lucky Bonin are all now fit and ready for duty.

Ummm, that’s about it I guess. See you next week…

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