CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
Would you accept Käfer?It will always be Kafer (and Klaxun) for me
[2300 AD] Any news on Invasion?
- Thread starter GunbunnyFuFu
- Start date
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Translator says bogue is French for bug.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
No, because my keyboard can't type that without adjustment - I'm not German.
But that is how it should have been all along isn't it?
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
I really don't understand the change other than political wokeness insanity.
Kefir - fermented milk drink
Kafir - islamic racist word
Kaffir - racist South African word
Käfer - beetle
Kafer - anglic version of the above in the 24th century.
Kaffir - Wikipedia
Bryn the 2300AD guy
Banded Mongoose
The Kafers can be called by their official French name; Les Capuchons (the Hooded Ones, or "the Hoodies"), or by their own name for themselves; the Vah.
The convention in English is to drop the umlaut (and all accents) - Kafer, Jager etc. but Germans using non-German keyboards like to add an e to show it's a long vowel.
The term Kafer is the English language name for the Vah, which is German is Käfer, and French is Les Capuchons.
The convention in English is to drop the umlaut (and all accents) - Kafer, Jager etc. but Germans using non-German keyboards like to add an e to show it's a long vowel.
The term Kafer is the English language name for the Vah, which is German is Käfer, and French is Les Capuchons.
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Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
Easily confused with "Hygge lifestyle" (Scandanavian)? Perhaps Vah will settle the confusion
Bryn the 2300AD guy
Banded Mongoose
Incidently, on this board Colin explained why he changed Kafer. His (now ex-)wife thought it was a racist slur. Initially he wanted to rename them Rukh (Pyx), which he thought was Ukrainian for Lobster. It's Ukrainian for "movement," as in a political movement.
Bryn the 2300AD guy
Banded Mongoose
My investigations into the evolution of 2300AD has shown some major changes between the 1st and 2nd editions. Specifically, the way stutterwarp discharge worked changed majorly. This means that the Bayern simply couldn't have made it's voyage under 2nd edition rules. Mong 2k3 uses 2nd edition rules, and the journey is, in fact, impossible.
The other major changes were largely artefacts of the Colonial Atlas being written by a large group, all of whom interpreted the rules in different ways, and the established facts were often missed. This was particularly egregious in LKW's Tirane* and Neubayern writeups, Bill Connor's write-ups (one of which, King, necessitated a major rewrite of the tech level), Deb Ziegler's Kie-Yuma (no planet can exist there) etc.
There are aspects of Colin's fanon which are universe breaking, such as Jumpers and Libertines.
* There was "Holy War" over the Tirane article, specifically that the colonies belonged to the wrong nations, and the later Earth/Cybertech SB revised things back to the originals. Colin's version uses the overridden CA.
No-one liked it. I can remember at the time Colin said he didn't like the Kafers, and was looking at some way of getting rid of them. He took suggestions from the then mailing lists and ran with that.
agentwigggles
Cosmic Mongoose
So is this edition of 2300ad a dude?
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
Sigg, I know you mean to be sarcastic and satirical but there's no reason to go inciting riots just for giggles, man.So because someone thinks it is a slur, with no education on the matter, trumps common sense.
Thank Allah Trump won.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
So I guess the big question is is Colin still the lead writer for Mongoose 2300?
I liked a lot of his work in both editions published and, like every gamer ever made, I didn't like other bits. At the end of the day it was all IM2300U and no harm done.
The one seriously major thing I didn't like was the Aerospace Designers Guide. Under those rules even a TransNat couldn't make money operating freighters. Perhaps that was the intent... in OTU Traveller PCs could be free agents to decide their own destiny but in 2300's smaller universe in order to get into space you had to be an employee of somebody.
And no, I didn't much like the change with Käfers either, but I'm a military historian and knew that 'the bug' was both a French and German colonial term for going insane. Since this was never adequately explained by Frank Chadwick or any of the other original contributors, people naturally thought of it as the racial epithet... and to be fair the terms are related. But again, you can call the species from Gamma Serpenti 'the potato bugs' at your table if you want. The whole 'controversy' really is much ado about diddly shit.
None of this makes me any less of a fan of the setting. When Invasion comes out I'll still buy it. I've had email correspondence with Colin and I like him and would like to support his writing if possible.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
1. Call them weevils.
2. I bought Aerospace, and I'm working on trying to figure it out.
3. Considering my political leanings, it's ironic.
4. I tend to consider Pournelle a prophet, and we do seem to be in the latter half of the CoDominium.
2. I bought Aerospace, and I'm working on trying to figure it out.
3. Considering my political leanings, it's ironic.
4. I tend to consider Pournelle a prophet, and we do seem to be in the latter half of the CoDominium.
Bryn the 2300AD guy
Banded Mongoose
The AEH looks pretty, but is unusable and unrealistic. It has a bunch of incorrect formulae and makes a couple of utterly killer errors that prevent it reproducing a 2k3 ship:
1. The stutterwarp formula is changed to a square formula from a cubic with a very high constant*
2. The value for a power point is wrong (it should be 25 kW)
This makes it trivial to make a warp 10+ ship. The warp limits in the AEH were added post-facto in response to me pointing this out. Colin acknowledged the mistakes he'd made but stated it was too much effort to fix. I think he deleted the post afterwards.
* The physics of rotary engines, which a stutterwarp must be to produce a gyroscopic effect, are that speed is proportional to the cuberoot of power. GDW got this right.
Lurking Grue
Cosmic Mongoose
What's really disheartening, is that looking at the release schedule page, only Invasion is listed there for 2300AD. Nothing else. Is there nothing really in the writing stages even? So, it could easily be a year before we see anything (in print) for 2300AD, including Invasion. I'm sorry to say, but at the speed the new releases are coming for 2300AD, it might almost as well be a dead line - not quite, but to an outsider, it might well seem like it.
Bryn the 2300AD guy
Banded Mongoose
Gavin Dady, who revised Bayern, has just turned in an adventure set on Joi. If I were the Mongoosians, I'd bypass Colin and publish it immediately.
Thats a good idea and at least get 2300 back in the limelight
Waiting on some more work from Gavin before publishing.
BTW, update on Invasion - looks like it will be imminent (as in a number of days or so), but also now have an inkling of why it has been so delayed. The initial manuscript will be huge. Huge. Don't know how that will affect the final title yet but... there is a lot.
