As you know, I'm a fan of BattleTech. For a long time, BattleTech fiction was only available on sourcebooks and in a small publication of short stories called BattleCorps. It was filled with vignettes, stories too short to be worth a novel and yet still integral to the universe of BattleTech, if only in terms of tone and themes.
It's been a while since I've read "En Passant," so I don't think you need to worry about spoilers. This may not even be accurate.
It's 3065. The Federated Commonwealth's Civil War continues apace. Some noble houses, especially those on the border with the Draconis Combine, have stayed neutral. Years of enmity with the Dragon have kept them laser-focused on an external enemy, even while Loyalists and Allies tear the rest of the realm apart.
An heir of one of these small houses, Päl Wyndham-Sandoval, returns home from a failed pre-emptive strike against the Combine. Travel in BattleTech is slow; it takes a week to get to a jumpship. An instant to jump, but another week before you can jump again. War itself isn't any faster.
He's recovering from minor injuries and only wants to see his wife, Khim, and son. A son that barely knows him. His parents are interested in the political fallout of their misadventure across the border. For them, it's grim; those with actual power are working to ease tensions with the Combine.
Päl himself supports this. He is happy to be home with his wife and child. He loves his family and he's happy to be out of combat so he can wear his wedding ring again.His parents are apoplectic, trying to drum up hatred for the Combine and plunge this sliver of peace back into war as part of their own petty power plays. Perhaps they'll throw in with Katherine Steiner-Davions Loyalists so they can pursue their vendetta against their neighbors.
That evening, as the family prepares for a banquet in honor of his returning, an assassin enters his quarters. They take his wife hostage and just as Päl realizes he is the target and not Khim, he strikes.
It's been a while since I've read "En Passant," so I don't think you need to worry about spoilers. This may not even be accurate.
It's 3065. The Federated Commonwealth's Civil War continues apace. Some noble houses, especially those on the border with the Draconis Combine, have stayed neutral. Years of enmity with the Dragon have kept them laser-focused on an external enemy, even while Loyalists and Allies tear the rest of the realm apart.
An heir of one of these small houses, Päl Wyndham-Sandoval, returns home from a failed pre-emptive strike against the Combine. Travel in BattleTech is slow; it takes a week to get to a jumpship. An instant to jump, but another week before you can jump again. War itself isn't any faster.
He's recovering from minor injuries and only wants to see his wife, Khim, and son. A son that barely knows him. His parents are interested in the political fallout of their misadventure across the border. For them, it's grim; those with actual power are working to ease tensions with the Combine.
Päl himself supports this. He is happy to be home with his wife and child. He loves his family and he's happy to be out of combat so he can wear his wedding ring again.His parents are apoplectic, trying to drum up hatred for the Combine and plunge this sliver of peace back into war as part of their own petty power plays. Perhaps they'll throw in with Katherine Steiner-Davions Loyalists so they can pursue their vendetta against their neighbors.
That evening, as the family prepares for a banquet in honor of his returning, an assassin enters his quarters. They take his wife hostage and just as Päl realizes he is the target and not Khim, he strikes.
In BattleTech, using ancient weapons isn't unusual. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. Elizabeth Hazen kept a katana in her cockpit. Victor Steiner-Davion did as well, come to think of it. Ninja stars and knives are a part of the setting.
Päl trains with knives. Throwing knives. He throws two. One strikes a fatal blow at the assassin and they drop their gun. The other fatal strike is in Khim's chest. Päl runs to his wife to share final words with his beloved, taken from him by political machinations.
Fortunately a faint, blue light and a familiar chime fill the room. As it fades, there stands a landing party from Star Trek: Lower Deck's USS Cerritos. The haggard catwoman, her orange fur standing out against her bright blue lab coat pushes Päl to one side.
"Move, wifeguy. This is doctor business now." With expert use of smooth grey tools and soothing, blinking lights, she heals Khim. Satisfied, she stands up, "It was a simple knife wound. If she can't pull through it's not on me."
Saying no more than three references to Star Trek: The Next Generation and FASAnomics, the landing party departs.
Satisfied his wife is alive, Päl interrogates the dying assassin. They reveal the person who hired them was Baroness Wyndham-Sandoval. Päl's mother.
In shock, and mildly injured from his encounter with the assassin, he stumbles to the reception area. He is past surprise when he finds mother and father are already using his "reported" death to drum up a narrative for another war.
All eyes turn on him, the son returned. The dead man alive. He says he learned who hired the assassin, and it was the Loyalist leader Katherine Steiner-Davion.
In BattleTech history, we already knew the Sandovals and their reach of the Federated Commonwealth eventually stood down and supported the Allies in the Civil War. The inner workings of that decision weren't worth getting into, but this story is a small piece of those larger moves.
A son once used as a pawn entering the political world of lies and murders for a mix of vengeance and mild political convictions. Classic BattleTech story.
Well, except for the one thing.
Khim wasn't saved by the wisecracking crew of the Cerritos and the gruff but lovable Dr. T'ana. She died in Päl's arms, killed by his hand as a war injury and the ring used to symbolize their love fouled his aim. There's shame in those final moments, and a structure of complicity.
Not only that the good must eternally react to the will of the malicious, but that even in reacting to survive we may make another victim. A contagious feature of that malice, I suppose.
As much as I like BattleTech and Star Trek, they do not smush together. Neither do Star Trek and Magic: The Gathering.
Päl trains with knives. Throwing knives. He throws two. One strikes a fatal blow at the assassin and they drop their gun. The other fatal strike is in Khim's chest. Päl runs to his wife to share final words with his beloved, taken from him by political machinations.
Fortunately a faint, blue light and a familiar chime fill the room. As it fades, there stands a landing party from Star Trek: Lower Deck's USS Cerritos. The haggard catwoman, her orange fur standing out against her bright blue lab coat pushes Päl to one side.
"Move, wifeguy. This is doctor business now." With expert use of smooth grey tools and soothing, blinking lights, she heals Khim. Satisfied, she stands up, "It was a simple knife wound. If she can't pull through it's not on me."
Saying no more than three references to Star Trek: The Next Generation and FASAnomics, the landing party departs.
Satisfied his wife is alive, Päl interrogates the dying assassin. They reveal the person who hired them was Baroness Wyndham-Sandoval. Päl's mother.
In shock, and mildly injured from his encounter with the assassin, he stumbles to the reception area. He is past surprise when he finds mother and father are already using his "reported" death to drum up a narrative for another war.
All eyes turn on him, the son returned. The dead man alive. He says he learned who hired the assassin, and it was the Loyalist leader Katherine Steiner-Davion.
In BattleTech history, we already knew the Sandovals and their reach of the Federated Commonwealth eventually stood down and supported the Allies in the Civil War. The inner workings of that decision weren't worth getting into, but this story is a small piece of those larger moves.
A son once used as a pawn entering the political world of lies and murders for a mix of vengeance and mild political convictions. Classic BattleTech story.
Well, except for the one thing.
Khim wasn't saved by the wisecracking crew of the Cerritos and the gruff but lovable Dr. T'ana. She died in Päl's arms, killed by his hand as a war injury and the ring used to symbolize their love fouled his aim. There's shame in those final moments, and a structure of complicity.
Not only that the good must eternally react to the will of the malicious, but that even in reacting to survive we may make another victim. A contagious feature of that malice, I suppose.
As much as I like BattleTech and Star Trek, they do not smush together. Neither do Star Trek and Magic: The Gathering.
So Magic: The Gathering is doing a Star Trek crossover. Magic started doing crossovers in 2020. Part of the reasons I left, and that reason is in the fiction above.
I'm borrowing from a few blog posts down the line, but there's a difference between a game whose systems simulate the visuals and narrative elements of it and a game that simply has those visual and narrative elements stapled to it like Hannibal Lecter wearing a guy's face.
The backwards version of that is that I like the feel of Magic: the Gathering. I like the story and universe behind it. Liked.
As opposed to the other end of that spectrum, which contains players who would play with greyscale cards containing a series of numbers and letters on them. Hell, for those players they might as well replace the name with a unique alphanumeric string.
I'm borrowing from a few blog posts down the line, but there's a difference between a game whose systems simulate the visuals and narrative elements of it and a game that simply has those visual and narrative elements stapled to it like Hannibal Lecter wearing a guy's face.
The backwards version of that is that I like the feel of Magic: the Gathering. I like the story and universe behind it. Liked.
As opposed to the other end of that spectrum, which contains players who would play with greyscale cards containing a series of numbers and letters on them. Hell, for those players they might as well replace the name with a unique alphanumeric string.
behold, questing beast
But as someone who likes the story of the Magic: the Gathering universe, its structure, its tone, and its themes, I think it's bad when Magic isn't those things. I've got a bigger blog brewing about how, "things are things because they have the quality of those things," which sounds obvious but apparently fucking isn't.
Structurally, Magic–at least the Magic I grew accustomed to from 2009 to 2018, plus a little bit of backfill–was a fantasy setting. High fantasy. People do magic and magic can do anything. Even then I quibbled about the growing separation between the stories being told and the game as it was played.
I will give you $20 or 57 The Elderspells if you can name me once when Jace summoned Jace's Phantasm*. Your choice.
But it was generally high fantasy where a few people had a spark that let them pass through planes. They could also, Gideon Jura aside, do magic. There were also a lot of magic things in and around those planes, like dragons, Phyrexian oil, and Amonkhet's Curse of Wandering.
Those planeswalkers would go to planes to find things out or explore and either deal with the problems there or make themselves a problem.
Star Trek is–
I realize now I'm not even talking about the cards that were spoiled. That'll be Friday.
–similar on a structural level. Go to strange new worlds. See new power/threat. Get involved. Solve problem with your own powers/threats.
Part of the rift is science fiction versus fantasy. I'm sure there are a thousand essays on this. Send me some of those essays; my definitions are purely from my own perspective.
For now, lemme drop this:
There's no absolutes. Star Trek has a human who had visions of his future Typhoid Mary Waifu and they never explain it. They got six different types of ghosts and they act like calling them "laminar flow energy beings" or whatever makes it okay. It's not okay. The ghosts aren't okay. They don't belong here. Not any more than science-fiction belongs in a high fantasy setting.
The structure and logic of science and science fiction won't work like magic. Definitionally, magic is the stuff that works in defiance of science. Once you define that, it's either science or alchemy. All games are abstractions, yeah, but–oh, here's the floppy, bloody face of a security guard descending upon our numbers!
Systems should reflect differences and I think there's a big difference between a chain of scientists researching polymers, compact power sources, computerized stabilization algorithms, intuitive user interface controls, and anti-grav fields to assemble a grav sled and Bigby's Hand.
For now, lemme drop this:
There's no absolutes. Star Trek has a human who had visions of his future Typhoid Mary Waifu and they never explain it. They got six different types of ghosts and they act like calling them "laminar flow energy beings" or whatever makes it okay. It's not okay. The ghosts aren't okay. They don't belong here. Not any more than science-fiction belongs in a high fantasy setting.
The structure and logic of science and science fiction won't work like magic. Definitionally, magic is the stuff that works in defiance of science. Once you define that, it's either science or alchemy. All games are abstractions, yeah, but–oh, here's the floppy, bloody face of a security guard descending upon our numbers!
Systems should reflect differences and I think there's a big difference between a chain of scientists researching polymers, compact power sources, computerized stabilization algorithms, intuitive user interface controls, and anti-grav fields to assemble a grav sled and Bigby's Hand.
I think those ideas are incompatible structurally, but concede that "the effect is it carries things" is fair. I also believe that fair equivalency supports a structure that's not anything but vibes and ignorance.
Moving on from the general to the specific, events in Magic happen because creators make up a new thing to make it happen and sometimes those events cause another one while the world-changing artifact goes…somewhere?
Moving on from the general to the specific, events in Magic happen because creators make up a new thing to make it happen and sometimes those events cause another one while the world-changing artifact goes…somewhere?
"Eventslop," if you will. "Capeshit," if you will and you're willing to throw punches a little wider.
Call an episodic format what you will, but if a past episode suddenly matters it's gonna give you a little recap. The selective continuity of things like comic books and Magic: the Gathering weaves a story as compelling as the gossamer-thin membrane that separates those two.
The difference in structure is the pretense to a saga and the prevalence of violence.
Because the tone of Magic is either violence or mind mages fucking a gorgon, which I assume is similar tonally. There's a threat that's just evil and powerful. The good guys beat it back down. Seal it away if it's popular enough for a sequel, kill it if it doesn't resonate (or is Dovin Baan).
Even in visiting the worlds, the goal of Star Trek isn't some magical forgotten thing with power. They visit those worlds to understand those new life forms and new civilizations. They drop in with pajamas, sensors, and a tenuous communications link to their ship. It's not about projection of power and it's damned rare that raw strength–or the occasional superpower–is what solves the problem. It's about humans making human decisions, even when they're not humans.
The tone of both is heroic. Star Trek is an action series. But that action can be a lot of things. When I first learned about the Star Trek set for Magic, my response was reasonable.
The Star Trek: CCG was at its heart a dungeon delver (I've played a lot of dungeon delving games) and felt like Star Trek. A team, some preparation, some unexpected obstacles, and a mission hanging above all of it. That's it. It's about a team and applying more than power or an everything-proof shield to problems.
Magic is about a board full of guys and protagonists casting the spells they need when they need them (this isn't a critique of Magic: the Gathering; it's how I define the fantasy genre).
It's also about theme. Magic: the Gathering doesn't much have themes. Bad guys are bad? Cruelty is bad? Hypocrisy is bad? I don't contest those things are, but to pluck another string on my "MtG lore is basically MCU lore," harp: where's the beef? "Bad things are bad," isn't a theme. Well, it's a pissweak theme, anyway.
It's the extruded corporate messaging. It directs the natural virtue any art has to espouse into a safe and mild form. Then it pours the final product into a trough where it's so mild the fewest number of piggies have an excuse not to shoulder in and consume it.
I'm not going to look directly at Star Trek (2009) and tell you all Star Trek is a universal bastion of alienating values. I can tell you motherfuckers online won't shut up that that's what the first two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation were.
In the big pile of a lot of different things that is Star Trek, you won't find a moral position in every thing, but you can't miss 'em while you're digging. Even if I occasionally accuse latter-day Star Trek of being kinda rote and bland about it, the rote and bland inclusion of some high-minded idea is still in there.
Look, you can make a Magic card about anything and make sure the general vibes are there. If Benjamin Sisko was transported to the Magic multiverse, he'd probably sigh really hard before becoming the messiah of something to get back home to his family. But when you try to fit the whole of Star Trek into Magic: the Gathering. Well it's not Hannibal Lecter, but:
Magic is about a board full of guys and protagonists casting the spells they need when they need them (this isn't a critique of Magic: the Gathering; it's how I define the fantasy genre).
It's also about theme. Magic: the Gathering doesn't much have themes. Bad guys are bad? Cruelty is bad? Hypocrisy is bad? I don't contest those things are, but to pluck another string on my "MtG lore is basically MCU lore," harp: where's the beef? "Bad things are bad," isn't a theme. Well, it's a pissweak theme, anyway.
It's the extruded corporate messaging. It directs the natural virtue any art has to espouse into a safe and mild form. Then it pours the final product into a trough where it's so mild the fewest number of piggies have an excuse not to shoulder in and consume it.
I'm not going to look directly at Star Trek (2009) and tell you all Star Trek is a universal bastion of alienating values. I can tell you motherfuckers online won't shut up that that's what the first two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation were.
In the big pile of a lot of different things that is Star Trek, you won't find a moral position in every thing, but you can't miss 'em while you're digging. Even if I occasionally accuse latter-day Star Trek of being kinda rote and bland about it, the rote and bland inclusion of some high-minded idea is still in there.
Look, you can make a Magic card about anything and make sure the general vibes are there. If Benjamin Sisko was transported to the Magic multiverse, he'd probably sigh really hard before becoming the messiah of something to get back home to his family. But when you try to fit the whole of Star Trek into Magic: the Gathering. Well it's not Hannibal Lecter, but:
Next time I'll talk about cards.
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