The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

There’s a sort of media upload page that collects all the pictures uploaded to the Wiki. After you put it there, you take the file name from it (so like Acacia.png) and add it to the info box section that allows for pictures.

Thanks!

I’ll get a link up as soon as I figure out how to get Zara’s and Diamond’s pictures on their page. Also, your art is cool!

It's a great story, and if you want to repackage it for a wider audience, I'm not gonna stand in the way. {= ) You wouldn't be the first PPCer to take basic concepts from HQ and work them into something original, either. Some have even gotten published. Some have even become publishers!

(On a tangent, who's seen Loki, and how much does the TVA remind you of the PPC? {; P )

~Neshomeh

I'm perfectly happy with the 'torso as neck' concept - it just means they're convergant on the likes of giraffes and azhdarchids, which do freaky things with their cervical vertebrae. Brontosaurus shows that you can also make them freakishly wide, so I can easily ('easily') believe that something could have evolved a tall, flat neck that's similar to a human torso.

But arms? Nah; you're not going to evolve a hexapedal tetrapod on this planet. I only know of one mobile manipulator that can appear that far up the neck; they must be trunks.

There must have been some evolutionary driver for moving the nasal openings down the neck. Eventually the nose separated itself from the dual trunks, leaving them as muscular tubes half-merged with the skin of the neck. Then... hmm, reptiles have cervical ribs. The advantage of manipulator 'arms' should be obvious, so could the trunks have absorbed the ribs for structure and then separated themselves from the neck?

It'd be a long and complex process, but a look at whale fins shows that it's entirely possible for bone structures to make massive shifts like this. We'd want to start with an Eocene proboscidean, probably something like Moeritherium. Perhaps they went through an aquatic stage - true "sea-horses"!

(I admit I can't make 'and then they looked exactly like humans' make a lot of sense, unless... ooh, if we use the aquatic ape hypothesis we could say they predated on early hominids by swimming out and waving their trunks to look like a drowning human!)

hS

I have a question for you folks regarding my PPC writing.

Some of you might remember my PPC interlude Whispered Tales from last year, a horror story about a response center known as RC 1000, which sometimes vanishes and reappears and has some pretty messed-up stuff inside. Originally, I was going to expand on this story and write about my DIA agents' response to such a phenomenon, but yesterday I had an idea for an original fiction novel that is basically RC 1000 in a different environment. Now, I super don't intend on stealing any PPC stuff for my own writing, don't get me wrong. The only things in common between the PPC and my story would be that the heroine finds a disappearing office at her workplace which has weird stuff inside, and that there would be a secret organization at her workplace, dedicated to figuring out the mystery of that office (sort of the DIA if you squint, but with a much more specific goal). My own story would be very different in tone and setting and completely serious, so it wouldn't involve ideas from the PPC universe in any way. But I'd feel very bad if I didn't ask you folks first whether it's okay to turn a PPC story into something else, even if I wrote that story myself.

Thoughts?

To mark the holiday season and me being bored because my laptop is currently in for repairs, I’m going to be drawing some pictures of a couple peoples’ agents. It’ll be a mix of holiday stuff and summery stuff, because it’s currently summer in New Caledonia.

For day one, we have Zingenmir’s agents Naergondir and Dawn McKenna taking advantage of Chez Thorondil’s temporary chocolate sale. Gotta get the bonbons before they’re gone-gone! /ba dum tss

I already have a list of scenarios drafted, but I’m always open to deviating or adding in other agents, so please feel free to volunteer yours. Please link me to visual references if you do. Permission is not required to volunteer your victims agents, but I do highly prefer it.

Happy holidays!

I can imagine it without significant cognitive stress, anyway. {= ) I mean, horses can extend their necks all the way down to let them graze while standing, so it's not that much of a stretch that the analogous muscles attaching the centaur's humanoid torso to the equine back would work similarly. At least, not if the centaur is in good shape.

The problem is more likely to come from the rib cage, not the spine. Maybe centaurs don't have humanoid ribs? Or, if they do, the ribs must be significantly more flexible, not quite so firmly attached to each other and the breastbone. There must be a breastbone, collarbone, and shoulder blades, otherwise the arms won't work. The pectoral muscles do attach to the ribs, too, but I think you could do away with ribs and instead have a differently shaped breastbone, like a flattened T with wings, to compensate. A centaur might not have quite as much arm strength as a human or the ability to rotate the torso in the same way, but that's what the stalk eyes are for it doesn't need to; the head still turns well enough.

Basically what I'm saying is, the torso isn't a torso, it's a neck with arms on. {; P

~Neshomeh

Like... the humanoid torso forms a right angle with the equine one. How the heck would you need to hinge that... pelvoulder to flatten the humanoid portion in line with the equine, either forward or backward?

Perhaps they need to be born around a right-angle too; point the horse legs backwards, and pivot the birth when you hit the shouldewaist.

Or maybe they just hatch from eggs (it works in Minecraft!), or... could centaurs be marsupials? Has there ever been a marsupial horse?

hS

(No, there hasn't, but Google is convinced that Palorchestes counts. I guess the skull is a bit horsey... and crikey, apparently it's the same size. Strewth.)

Agreeing with hS; I reckon a centaur baby would have to be born more or less like a foal, ideally in "diving position" with hooves and head first. In the centaur's case, though, you've got a whole torso coming between the front legs, and may or may not need the arms to also be in "diving position" depending on how developed the humanoid shoulders are. That might be one of those things you don't want to let your audience think about too hard, or they might remember how impossible centaurs are. {= )

Horses can also deliver foals in breach position (hind end first), but as in humans, this is more dangerous and may not be successful without assistance. Twins are extremely dangerous in horses, partly because one twin is often breach, partly because they may both try to be born at once and get stuck, partly because labor takes longer and one or both may suffocate in the womb if the placenta detaches too soon or the umbilicus is compressed or torn.

If you want to check out some foalings for reference, the channel Friesian Horses has several videos showing the entire process. It's not for the faint of stomach, but absolutely fascinating and, IMO, beautiful.

~Neshomeh

1: Good flippin' question. I had to do the reverse of this with Agent hS, and managed it (I hope!) by pushing him more towards listening to others rather than suggesting his own ideas. For Éowine, you could have him show a tendency to believe his own plan is always the best one - but also make him right. That puts him on the border between 'not listening to anyone' and 'actually better at this', which leaves the reader room to wonder. Obviously that doesn't mean he should always get his own way - but sometimes, when he doesn't, things go a bit wrong. Obviously he's too superior to actually comment on this... ^_~

2: Don't know about the differences, but I assume centaur childbirth would be closer to horse than human. Humans are born useless because their heads are the biggest part of them, and have to meet the constraints of the pelvis; a horse body can have a wider pelvis (walking upright has not been good for our reproductive biology), but also I think the body is larger relative to the head, so a centaur can be born precocious (ie, able to walk from birth).

A quick check shows that a key difference is that a foal's feet come out first, and appear some 20 minutes before full delivery. Humans are usually (and most safely) born head-first, and come out very quickly: once the head is out, the baby follows at once. It looks like horses don't have the hours of contractions beforehand, though, so that's a point for their side - and yeah, I reckon a centaur would be horse-like in this respect.

hS

Éowine is growing proud over time, with a sense of intellectual superiority and at-least-I-have-some-common-sense. This is to set up what happens on a later mission into Arda. How do I show this gradually growing conceit without making him unsympathetic?

Another thing: How does foaling compare to human childbirth, and to which would centaur childbirth be closer?

After two years since my last (and first) mission I have finally got around to writing (and finishing) my second mission!

It is a short read, only 4800 words long. It features my Agents Phil and Spensor once again taking on a winged Mary Sue in the Transformers Prime continuity. This time around the Sue is Megatron's daughter and is causing large amounts of OOCness within the canon cast. Also our Agents make a bet about who will clean the RC and have a brief discussion about the finer points of Cybertronian biology.

I am not necessarily looking for readers who are familiar with Transformers but some familiarity with the franchise would be appreciated.

If you are interested please respond to this thread or DM me on Discord (SillyPhilly or just Philly on the PPC server) and I will share the doc with you.

Thank you in advance,

SillyPhilly

But first: you realise that is definitely being used verbatim, right? :D We just need to get the T'au to the point where they're both able and willing to awaken the Lion.

Okay, back to this:

994.M41

Cadia has fallen.

Weakened by the Galactic Empire's long-term blockade of the Eye of Terror, the chaotic (naturally) effects of firing a superweapon into said Eye, and elements the Eldar Armada raiding around their borders, the Cadian garrison was unable to stand against the Thirteenth Black Crusade. It has always been said that Cadians would fight to the last man - and Abaddon the Despoiler has proven that to be the case.

Cadia. Has. Fallen.

With the Cadian pylons gone, the boundary between the material universe and the Immaterium is rent in two. A massive cascade of Warp storms spills out, spreading out in a ragged arc from the Eye of Terror - and spreading across both galaxies.

The Imperium of Man is rent in two. Holy Terra is entirely cut off from the bulk of the galaxy, but by a strange twist of fate - or the mocking plans of the Powers of Chaos - maintains control over its grand Crusade into the invading galaxy. Beyond the Rift, the light of the Astronomican is darkened, and even mighty Ultramar is shrouded in an ocean of darkness.

Yet the Imperium's many enemies, already strengthened by the collision of the galaxies, are largely unaffected by the changes wrought on the galaxy The Tau-Rebel Alliance is far from the Rift. The New Republic is cut off from its sparse southern systems, but also from the Galactic Empire which has been attempting to reconquer the Core. The Chiss Ascendency, fighting relentlessly against the Crusade in the invading galaxy, isn't even aware it exists. The hordes of Chaos are positively revelling in the chaos (naturally), and the Black Crusade is forging southwards from the rubble of Cadia.

In these times of division and doubt, there are no accurate records of the secrets and schemes enacted by agents of the Imperium. Agents delve into the Webway, seeking the Dark Eldar and Commorragh. Others are seeking Necron Tomb Worlds, to awaken the sleeping machines as a desperate defence against the forces of Chaos. A group of Inquisitors has banded together, seizing one of the Imperium's few hyperdrive-capable ships and transplanting a Genestealer Cult from an infected world to the Republic-held rim of the new galaxy. And in darkened Ultramar, an ancient agent of the Mechanicum named Belisarius Cawl is gathering allies for a scheme of his own.

Far away, in the sundered southern half of the Galaxy Far, Far Away, Emperor Palpatine has finally returned to his people. Gathering the Imperial Council at the shipyards of Fondor, he looks out towards the galactic core and the visceral Warp-infused light of the Great Rift that lies there.

"The Warp is an affront to my New Order," he says to the gathered Admirals and Moffs. "The Powers that live there thought to corrupt me, to break my will - but they failed, and in my captivity I learnt many things. There is a way to defeat them, to destroy them utterly. I have foreseen it." And the Emperor... smiles.

Yes, I diverted the Rift. ^_^ I had to, if I was going to bring it into the other galaxy. Great for the Tau, not so good for everyone else.

Other notes on where we left off: the New Republic is using Hutt-created faux Space Marines on the front lines, but the Rift has cut them off from the source. The Tyranids have Force-sensitive monstrosities and are doing awful things to the Tau-Rebel Alliance. The Eldar are tentatively on the side of the New Republic, largely because they think Palpatine is going to ruin everything if he actually achieves anything against the Warp entities. At least one Alpharius is controlling raiding parties of Chaos Clone Troopers in the GFFA. Hyperdrive tech is becoming more common, with only the Imperium really missing out. And, oh yeah, Darth Vader is now a daemon-prince in the service of Khorne, leading a hideously corrupted army of Orks and Imperials in a two-front war against Slaanesh and Tzeentch, which is largely why Abaddon has gone a'crusading.

Star WarHammer - where everyone's headaches are about to get much worse...

hS

The Cabal's plan rests heavily on a genocide of humans upon whose emotions the Chaos gods feed and thrive, which isn't a great plan for humans however you slice it. This would not in fact work, at least in part because the Chaos gods feed on all emotions, not just those of humanity; if you can't get an eight-course banquet with attendant wine list, a bowl of plain white rice is better than nothing. What you have there is a plan that feeds all of them in various ways. The Emperor's plan wouldn't have worked either: he tried to outlaw religion, when the Chaos gods didn't need religion - they needed people to believe in things, which is not quite the same thing.

The thing that would have stopped the Chaos gods was cutting off humanity's dependence upon the Warp, which was what the Emperor was working on in his lab when Magnus teleported into it and accidentally blew it all up. Magnus did, in fact, do something wrong; he just had no way of knowing that he had, and was (imo) used as a catspaw to kerplode Neoth's sanctum of Webway tech, probably by Tzeentch. Now, hyperdrive? Hyperdrive is a similar threat. No contact with the Warp means a dimming of power far beyond what the Chaos gods foresaw, even though psykers maintain a tiny connection to it through their powers. That's something they'd try incredibly hard to prevent the Imperium getting their hands on... though they wouldn't actually have to try that hard. It threatens the very foundation of the Imperium. The Astropath Houses would decry it as forbidden. The Mechanicus would decry it as the work of perfidious xenos hereteks. Guilliman would see it for what it was, but he'd need to actually know about it first, and that, I think, is where the Chaos gods would strike. Mortal puppets prevent the Imperial Regent from ever finding out what hyperdrive is beyond "some terrifyingly effective warp drive of foul xenos invention". This is a job for Alpharius! And also Alpharius, and Alpharius, and probably also Alpharius.

I will also say that touching the spirits of dead Primarchs through the Force and possibly resurrecting them is... probably not a great idea for anyone. I mean, first of all you'd have to find them. Now, the thought of a Knightguide-piloting Rapid Insertion Fire Team (yeah i worked hard to make that anagram RIFT) breaking into the Rock and resurrecting the Lion is just plain awesome and would make for an unbelievably tense story, in a similar manner to Rogue One's war-story approach where anyone could die at any moment. But then what happens after that? The Lion is resurrected by the T'au and a human witch in some piece of heretical techno-arcana. What happens then? What does the Lion, the architect of countless Imperial xenocides, whose greatest failure came as a result of getting tied up killing humans who had allied with xenos, do with that information? And furthermore, what do the Angels?

I can imagine it now. The last remaining Knightguides and their Jedi crashing through the warded doors deep into the Rock. They're fighting now, every trick of T'au technology and Force mastery needed to descend deeper into the Rock's stasis-dungeons. One by one they fall, battlesuit systems overloaded. Only the greatest pilots remain, guarding and guiding the Jedi to their destiny. The tides of the Immaterium have pulled in dark tricksters from the ranks of the Fallen - making it a three-way battle through the catacombs of sundered Caliban. Cypher catches up to the T'au force and tries to block their path with blade alone, for he knows these xenos don't like the taste of cold steel. He of course has not reckoned for the presence of Jedi training and an adaptation of T'au fusion blasters into a battlesuit-scale proto-sabre. Still, he fights. His mind is focused on duelling the battlesuits to a standstill in a great hollow chamber. He doesn't notice the Jedi's battlesuit slip away into the recesses of the chamber until the wall parts and a rush of psychic energy sends him to his knees. This wall of presence cripples the Fallen Angel long enough for him to be run through by one T'au sabre thrust, mortally wounding him. With the threat down, the last surviving T'au take up defensive positions to protect their Force-sensitive bondmate, dimly aware of some kind of pressure in their heads. But they feel the Force as it manifests. The Jedi loses herself in it, her body suffusing with cosmic energies, and she says to the sleeping giant: "Awake". And awake he does, and awake he is, and he has been saved. And now, from the shadows, appear the Watchers In The Dark, with raiment and armour. And now, with his last strength, Cypher returns the broken Lion Blade to its master.

"This I have foreseen", says the Lion. "This I have known would come. For this day would I wait to return." The Jedi slumps forward, her battlesuit systems redlining in an effort to keep her alive. "I am the First, and I have known that xenos would save me. The Watchers told me of this as I slept. They would send a knight and her guides when the time was right to wake me." A T'au XV-97-0 overloads its nova reactor to block a fusillade of bolter shells and searing plasma. "And now, my sons, my Angels, I return to you and command you. Cease your fire. The Lion wakes."

And Azrael, Supreme Grand Master of the Unforgiven, looks on. He sees this vision of the Primarch, resplendent in his ancient plate, bidding his Dark Angels... do what? The Primaris Angelus Mortis, the bane of xenos and their collaborators throughout the Great Crusade, the noblest and truest to the Emperor's will of all his mighty gene-sons, bids them abandon their paramount duty? Madness. Or worse. Does the First Son forget the creed of the Imperium, or has it been driven from his waking mind? Suffer not the alien, so the Emperor said. Suffer not the witch, so the Emperor said. And the Emperor also said...

"Suffer not the traitor," says Azreal, and opens fire upon the Lion.

The Lion bows his head, for he was forewarned of this, but what he does not know is the depths of honour in a Jedi. Acting on pure, force-guided instinct, and aided by the burning star in the engine of her battlesuit, the Jedi powers forward with battlesuit-sized lightsabre - a true lightsabre, with a giant crystal once mined in the darkness of Ilum - and deflects the onslaught of fire back into the ranks of the Dark Angels. The battle rages on, the Imperium's most ancient order of warriors against the youngest race in the stars. The Re'b'el pilots know what they must do. And so, they buy time for their Jedi to work. She guides the Lion to a corner, away from the battle, giving ground to take it later, patient, Kau'yon, Jedi. She equips him with a miniaturised, unbelievably low-rated, hyperspace motivator, connecting it to an incredibly advanced computing engine that fits upon his armour like a jump-pack would on an Assault Marine. The Lion likens it to a Ravenwing warrior's equipment, and she smiles, and it's sad. The T'au are giving it all they've got, but a RIFT squad is few in number by design. The Jedi and the Lion look upon the last remaining battlesuit as its pilot sells her life dearer and dearer, and the two hold hands as their motivators charge, and just as the last Knightguide is overrun, they disappear, teleporting to the cloaked Kor'vattra ship above the Rock. It fires its hyperdrive and it too disappears, and Lion El'Jonson watches the smear of stars in realspace and real time, and he knows now what that vision was and what it means.

The Lion has returned, on the side of right. Against him is his brother, who is on the side of right just the same. Both are convinced of the justness of their cause; both, in time, shall be convinced of the other's madness. Who shall triumph? It is beyond my knowledge. Finding out seems like a great read though.

Well, not so much 'meanwhile'. SWH ran up to 994.M41, but that's a year after the 13th Black Crusade falls on Cadia. "Meanwhile" would be 14 ABY in the Star Wars timeline, or what should be 9 years after the Battle of Endor and the declaration of the New Republic.

The remnants of the Empire have fled into the Unknown Regions and been met by secret reinforcements. Reading between the lines, these probably come from Snoke, as a puppet of the not-exactly-dead Palpatine. They may also have a Chiss element. Grand Admiral Rae Sloane is probably still in command.

The Republic is firmly established. Luke Skywalker has spent a few years wandering around looking up Force lore, but by now seems to be building a class of students, including one who looks a lot like Yoda as a baby. He would officially restore the Jedi Order in 15 ABY.

Han Solo has tried family life - he and Leia had a son, Ben, who is now 9 - but seems to have given up on it. By this time the Falcon has already been stolen, which implies Han and Chewie are out smuggling again while Leia helps run the galaxy.

The sequel characters are all pretty young still. Poe Dameron is already flying ships. The likes of Finn and Rose are small children. Rey's mother might just be pregnant.

Elsewhere... well, the problem with the Disney Canon is it hasn't got a lot of 'elsewhere' yet. The Knights of Ren are active, so we can postulate several Force cults now that both the Light and Dark have been decimated. The Chiss Ascendency is probably still its isolationist self; an interesting point is that we now know their ships are navigated by specialised Force-sensitives known as skywalkers (no connection). Rogue Imperial factions are still causing trouble. There's still criminals, and still heroes.

~

Most of which can't carry over to SWH except in the broadest strokes. Your stuff, though... well, the T'au won't be experimenting with warp drive when they have access to hyper drive, but a lot of the rest can make it over. In particular, we left the 13th Black Crusade at the gates of a weakened Cadia. There is every possibility of 994.M41 being the year the Rift opens across two galaxies.

Two questions, while I contemplate the state of the galaxies:

1. How many Primarchs should enter the fray? Bobby Gulls is probably a given - but the SW sequels made 'sacrificial Force resurrection' a canonical power. Can we give someone a vision and send them to, say... the Rock? How does the prospect of Guilliman and the Lion as unwitting rivals on either side of the Rift strike you?

2. Ten thousand years ago, the Cabal had a plan to destroy the Gods of Chaos by wiping out humanity. The principle was that the Powers were so heavily invested in humanity that its death would utterly deprive them of the emotions they feed on, wiping them out. Is that plan still viable? More specifically, could Palpatine have foreseen or intuited it while a 'prisoner' of Tzeentch? Because if the Great Powers of Chaos can be destroyed by starving them of the minds of humanity, well, ol' Sheevie might have a few ideas about free will and how to do away with it...

(I know last time there was a faction who were firmly on the 'Chaos can't be destroyed' side, but we're not talking about force of arms this time.)

hS

But that can't happen in Star Warhammer because the Fourth Sphere Expansion went so drastically differently. In the canon one, the T'au accidentally blew a hole in the universe with a mass jump using experimental warp drives. This led to the formation of a wormhole in realspace to the Nem'yar Atoll and further conflict with the Imperium. That part of the galaxy is really far away from T'au space, so it's highly unlikely that they're in contact.

However, the biggest problem for the T'au is the forces of Chaos - and it's the only ones that weren't really mentioned in the Star Warhammer doc. Typhon, the Herald of Nurgle, has attempted to breach the Nem'yar Atoll and bring plague to the T'au, and if he breaks through then there's a wormhole right to the T'au Sept. The Tyranids are still around, there's problems with Drukhari raids on T'au and Kroot worlds alike, but the worst part is that it's kind of accepted as canon that the Ethereal Caste are a bunch of moustache-twirling villains who get what they want via pheromone-induced mind control. Which is fine. It's awesome. I'm so excited that this is a thing. Just giving me the best vibes. I have not once groaned like a frustrated walrus. And you can't prove it not neither. =]

As far as the Imperium goes, it's in a period of resurgence. Rowboat Guiltygear has basically taken over as the Imperial Regent, and is currently reuniting both halves of the Imperium after the galaxy was cut in half by a gigantic warp storm. He is aided in this by Belisarius Cawl, who has made a ton of super-awesome new Space Marines to refill the ranks of the Astartes, and the geneseed definitely all came from Loyalist Primarchs honest please ignore the ones in purple armour who are called the Sons Of The Phoenix they're descended from (checks notes)... Rogal Dorn.

Obviously Abbadabbadingdong and his Thirteenth Black Crusade went really well for the Everchosen. The entire planet of Cadia was thoroughly kerploderated, which meant so were the Cadian Pylons, which were holding back the Cicatrix Maledictum from forming. Abaddon succeeded and is now the target of retribution by Imperial forces. The Orks are still piling on the hurt too, with them growing stronger and fightier than they used to be before, as well as more cunning. As it turns out, the only thing more dangerous than a Waaaagh! is a Waaaagh! led by somebody with a plan.

Drukhari are still Drukhari, which is to say just the worst people in the setting, and they're raiding everyone. The Craftworld Aeldari are just trying to stay alive, though something is brewing between them and the T'au. The Tyranids are hungrier than ever. Most terrifying of all, though, are the Necrons. Their whole history has changed, making them into people who broke free from the C'Tan and shattered them into billions of pieces, then enslaved those pieces and turned them into living weapons. The Genestealer Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor has made its way to Holy Terra itself, and the Custodes are having to hunt them down. Basically, everything's going to hell in a handbasket and everyone's killing everyone else.

Plus ca change. =]

Here, have a croissant! Fresh out of the bakery and extremely tasty.

sips tea like a gentlewoman while looking at the "Sonic the Hedgehog" franchise and its more than 10 different official continuities

I don't think I actually got any email like that? Either that or Gmail's just acting up on my end.

-OrangeFox

I've just checked, and we namechecked the Thirteenth Black Crusade in the original. It looks like the plot had been revealed up to the hunt for Commorragh and the repairs to the Golden Throne when we wrote it (there's a note dated to November 2017 to that effect), but I'm almost positive Guilliman hadn't reappeared when we started - there's no way we would have deliberately missed a chance to drag in a Primarch!

I was vaguely following the events of M42 for a while there, but I've rather lost track. What is going on in the galaxy of war these days - and how has it affected the T'au?

hS

I am now wondering what the combination looks like in the present timeline, with stuff like the Cicatrix Maledictum, the fall of Cadia, and the Indomitus Crusade. Plus, in ninth edition, T'au need all the help they can get...

Cause I put what characters I’d be bringing and their gifts in that. Also I’m in

Have a colorful paperclip chain!