A Dawning Gift - a Destiny 2 piece

Preface: I wrote this piece back during the holiday season. In Destiny 2, there is an in-game holiday called 'The Dawning' which fills the role of Christmas, New Year's, and other assorted winter holidays. There is also a friendly Fallen who has been featured in recent lore, who has a Guardian fireteam working with him. So, inspired, I wrote a thing.

Gamr Drivl: Star Wars Bounty Hunter

There's never been a shortage of Star Wars video games. From starfighter simulators like X-Wing and TIE Fighter, to shooter games like Dark Forces, Shadows of the Empire, and Battlefront, to adventure titles like Jedi Fallen Order. The quality may vary (looking in your direction, Masters of Teräs-Käsi) or be surrounded with controversy (Battlefront II), but there's never been a lack of them.

There was a game that had been in development prior to the Disney buyout of Lucasfilm that had been tentatively titled Star Wars 1313, which would have been the first game to not feature The Force in some way. 1313 would have explored the seedy underbelly of Coruscant, the capital world of the Republic/Empire, and centered around famed bounty hunter Boba Fett and an unnamed partner. Alas, Disney cancelled the project when they took over the Star Wars franchise.

But with the success of The Mandalorian, I think we could re-explore the concept a bit.

Night Predator

You're a monster under the bed. Everyone in the house is asleep. You just heard someone break in.

Author Preface: I subscribe to the r/WritingPrompts subreddit, largely just to read some of the interesting prompts and the equally interesting responses people compose from it. I saw this one the other day, and something just came to me. Not quite keeping with the prompt, but that's how the writing process works sometimes. Story below the break.

...And Why the Sequel Trilogy Doesn't

Well, I wasn't intending my last blog entry, on Why The Mandalorian Works So Well, to be a two-parter, but I finally got around to seeing The Rise of Skywalker, Episode IX and the conclusion of the Star Wars Skywalker Saga, over the weekend, and I am compelled to discuss the Sequel Trilogy.

More specifically, I am compelled to discuss why it was simply not good. (Spoilers for the Sequel Trilogy and other Star Wars series below.)

Why "The Mandalorian" Works So Well...

Everyone online is talking about The Mandalorian, the new Star Wars TV show. The flagship launch series of Disney+ has had people buzzing since the first episode dropped, and every week it seems to get better. The title character is already viewed by fans as a badass, and of course everyone loves Baby Yoda. But what makes the series work so well is the writing, and I'll expound on this below the break. (There will be spoilers at least for the first episode of The Mandalorian, so be warned.)

Gamr Drivl: Freedom Fighters (Revisited)

My brain, in case my readers haven't figured it out, likes to take ideas and concepts to turn them over and expand on them. That's often been how I approach my Gamr Drivl blogs; I take a video game idea that occurs to me, and work on how one could make an interesting game out of it. In some cases, the "interesting" comes from a new wrinkle to the game mechanics (as in the case of my Gamr Drivl: Mad Max blog), or from a new setting for a game in a series (see Gamr Drivl: Fallout: New Orleans), or a new approach to the storytelling. (see Gamr Drivl: Fallout Antebellum)

But my brain likes to take old things I've written and keep turning them over as well. This can help when I'm working on something new, as it leads to deepening a concept or story. But it can be annoying if it's something I've already published somewhere, when I want to move on to other things.

I've learned, however, that sometimes it's best to go with it, and get it out of my head. This is, after all, why I started this blog in the first place.

To that end, and to get some drivel out of my head, let's go back and revisit my very first Gamr Drivl below the break.

Gamr Drivl: Fallout Antebellum

War. War never changes.

Since time immemorial, there has always been conflict in the center of human history. Man against Man. Tribe against Tribe. Nation against Nation. War about land. War about gods. War about freedom.

In the 21st Century, the conflict saw two great nations, desperate to feed their hungry infrastructures, their hungry populations, their hungry consumption, arming themselves for what would become known as the Great War. China and America. Superpower against Superpower. A war about resources.

And on October 23rd in the year 2077, the war would ignite with nuclear fire, changing the face of the world and the face of civilization forever. But even in the wastelands that remained afterward, as Man formed new Tribes, as Tribes formed new Nations, one fact remained true, and that is that war...

War never changes.

But what about what happened before the War? I expound about a new idea for the Fallout universe below the break.