#mecha fiction
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This advertisement is for The Archive Undying—a debut science fantasy epic from Emma Mieko Candon, and book one in their Downworld Sequence, featuring commissioned fanart of Sunai, the book's main character. The artist is Caitlin Ono.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
Plugged into his AI god when its corruption renders him unfortunately immortal, sad gay disaster Sunai takes a die-again-or-die-trying approach to his tragically unending life. Despotic police states want to leash him and giant robots want to eat him, but reuniting with the small handful of people he cares about is what’s actually horrifying.
Adrift in the wilds, Sunai makes several unwise decisions such as:
Scavenging old ruins haunted by hostile fragments of another shattered technological deity
Allowing his mind to become further compromised
Sleeping with his mysterious employer for information and fun
Joining a haphazard crew of pirates who all have different motives for hunting a feral remnant of the same god that cursed him, all those years ago
This brain-melting series-starter is like a Neon Genesis Evangelion AMV set to a bass-boosted cover of George Michael’s "Careless Whisper."
#caitlin ono#fanart#the archive undying#emma mieko candon#immortal and emotional about it#gay books#mecha fiction#science fiction#science fantasy#tordotcom publishing#tordotcom#books#bookblr#lgbtqia+#giant robots#mecha
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I close my eyes and I can see the boosters firing, full throttle against the dimness, blue light limning the shape of the mech, the metal still so human in all its machine glory.
All I can think about is skimming the ground so fast that the tips of my toes kick up sparks on steel, about whipping through missile fire with swerves so sharp the G's should kill any human pilot inside, about dancing through the firestorm so quick I don't have a word for the moves I'm making, the boosted sidesteps faster in the air than a human tongue, faster in the heat of battle than a human thought. I lock my targets in my sights and reach for the heavy guns, the movements practiced, programmed, precise. When I fire, I feel the hits scored like bright lights right in my dopamine centers. Enemy down, enemy down, one after the other.
I'm thinking about how I love my humanness even as I strive to transcend it. How my human being is writ large as this machine, my body. How when my plasma blades extend I know the flex and tension of arms as they ready to strike, the shift of bodyweight, the bracing of force against stance that lets me drive shaped fire through my enemy's core in eight successive strikes. I am a giant standing on humanity's shoulders; the sciences that built my body are not so different from the martial arts executed by it. The glory in my newfound speed and power is as old as war itself.
War. Human conflict. What else could those arts and sciences have achieved if not for war, I wonder. Does humanity ever change? Do we ever make things truly unlike ourselves, unburdened by our shortfalls? I push full-throttle into flight against the stars, like I'm hoping my speed alone will outstrip the gravity of the question.
And as I fall back to planetside with my generator burning out, I can't help but laugh. I'm not looking at the ground I'm hurtling back to. As I reach out, metal hand humanly inhuman, I'm looking at the stars.
#verso writes#mecha fiction#prosetry#prose poem#some unmitigated Wow Cool Robot tonight#armored core#but yeah also I can't not be War Is Bad#alea iacta est#microfiction
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havin discombobulated mech thoughts. ‘discombobulated’ cus said thoughts are prompted by some strange sources.
Primarily, this Overwatch animated short about Reinhardt, which gives a little insight into the Crusaders, and how they meshed with the standard military. As they leave for the battle, their leader calls, “They’re playing our song. Stick with your dance partners.” - meaning, soliders, stick with your Crusader, and Crusaders, stick with your unit. Dance partners. Battle as performance, military formation as choreography. (Also, reading the Honor & Glory short as mecha fiction makes me appreciate it all the more)
Secondly, this video of an excavator diggin up a patch of parking lot. There’s the excavator, doing most of the heavy lifting and even some of the more intricate work (incredible to watch) but then theres other guys around, just normal dudes in hi-vis n hard hats. theyre making call-outs to the excavator pilot, loosening parts of the pavement, and double-checking the work the excavator is doing. and man. To be a lil guy standing next to a big ass machine, calling where to put something, when to stop or go. To be an assistant to something so large working to close to you, but trust in the pilot to know what theyre doing.
just. something about a unit of people assigned to a job, where theres a bunch o little guys and one guy in a big machine. somethin bout that tickles me.
you got the Big Guy. a pilot or pair of pilots who are specially trained to work in the Big Machine. and one of the primary jobs of the Big Machine is to keep all the Lil Guys safe. provide cover. provide heavy lifting. provide specialised tools. and then a bunch of Lil Guys, possibly specially trained to work with the big machine. they’re there as support, as extra bodies, as extra pairs of eyes, as more maneuverable parts of the whole that is the group.
just. the trust. the well-oiled machine. everyone knowing what they need to do and trusting everyone else to know too. oh, the teamwork of it all.
#i think part of the reason i love this concept#is the same reason i love spaceships and boats and the crews that rely on them#oh to be a little guy working with a Big Thing#oh to be part of a unit#to speak of stories#mecha fiction#mechs#overwatch
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right on the day this video was about to be shared here, I get this book’s sequel recommended to me. A coincidence, to be sure, but a very welcome one.
@xiranjayzhao notice me, senpai
#the heir's lair#book review#sff#sff review#science fiction#science fiction review#dystopia#dystopian science fiction#dystopia review#own voices#chinese culture#yin and yang#the five elements#mecha#mecha fiction#iron widow
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log<<u:AMouve>>ENTRY|4
21XX.09.20 [1424]
Designation: 61-409
Unit: JF-06 'Fritzy'
The grit gets everywhere.
They'd sent me out on patrol to sector 4.4.47𝛷 after the mission at Nerota. Colonel called it a "restful patrol". Islands, calm, thousands of miles away from the front. Warm sun, crashing waves, yellow-white sand.
I kept waiting to get the call back to the front; what had I done wrong to get sent out here? Why were they punishing me for a successful mission? Did they think I was a coward for not engaging Jackknife? Did the SCS logs say I hesitated before taking the shot in the courtyard?
I keep asking them what I did wrong, and their voices grow soft. "Just try and rest for a bit," they'll say over the radio, and its so patronizing my SCS ups my cortisol to keep me from vomiting.
Each day when I come back from pointlessly patrolling the world's most beautiful jail cell, I take my evening meal back to Fritzy and review the other CHVLR logs. The war's not going well. When they first rushed me through training, there were thirty of us. Now, we were down to eighteen. And the reports didn't say anything about new recruits coming.
It was the fifteenth day of patrol when I snapped. Fuck these mission parameters. If they're not going to respect me, respect Fritzy, and give us something to do, then I won't respect their OpSec. I parked Fritzy on an atoll, nine clicks from the resort-base, and popped shell.
Riding the ladder down to the beach, I felt my senses slowly wake up from the SCS synctrance, and I realized that nearly anyone else would weep to see the sight. The water was such a brilliant blue, azure, with waves that crested white with foam. Even through the pilot suit, I could feel the radiant heat the sand beneath me had drunk from the sun above. I reached down to run my fingers through it, and winced to see the grit stick to my suit.
I looked up, saw the blank blue of the sky. It's so strange, really, how a cloudless sky changes hues. A natural vignette, darkening at the horizon. A dome of near-monotone.
Something flashed briefly in the sky above. Then another three; near-white, but with twinges of orange and pink. Then, suddenly, a daytime star shone out. Bright, growing brighter, and moving.
I sat on the beach and watched it for a while, until the gnawing in my gut grew too wretched to bear. With a sigh, I climbed back to my feet and climbed back into Fritzy.
All units, return to base. Priority Zero. All units, return to base.
Well, fuck.
It wasn't until the next morning that we got official confirmation, but infosec was so light at the resort that I'd heard the news on commschat when taking Fritzy into dock.
The rebels had strapped a half-dozen thrusters onto the hull of the Drenthe-6 industrial orbital and run a four minute counter-burn. Timed just as Drenthe-6 was reaching it's perigee, the station's orbit was terminal. Best case scenario, we could keep her aloft for another ten days.
About 45 minutes after hearing the news shared officially, Fritzy and I got our marching orders. Drenthe-6 was projected to make landfall in the central Atlantic. Everything coastal would be obliterated by the coming waves.
Fritzy and I are being sent to Forward Operating Base Sirocco to oversee what evacuations could be managed.
There won't be a lot of rest time after this. All the best; I'm more comfortable in the cockpit now.
Lexi Mouve, signing off.
[[admin_only:stk7_d6=4_di3diKcl7(n)cl6(n)||ftk7]]
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I keep thinking about the Dafeng test pilot that you take down in the first chapter of Armored Core VI.
In any other mech storyline, this kid would have been the protagonist. Bright-eyed and hopeful, he would have been the poster child for youthful determination in the face of corporate war profiteering, either finding a cool trick to defeat 621, or being saved by the sudden arrival of other plucky young pilots.
But we both know that no one comes to save him.
The universe of Armored Core is fantastical by any definition, but in this one moment it is at it's most brutally realistic.
"I'm...keeping up with a real merc!" he says, "My training is paying off!"
Reality sets in as the tide turns abruptly in your favor. He is outmaneuvered, outgunned and outfought by the "merc who only kills for credits".
"I can't die like this!"
But he does. All the tenacity of youth couldn't save him from you, and he dies alone and afraid, lamenting his little dream of having his own callsign, his life amounting to the meager credits transferred to your account after the mission.
He would have been the protagonist anywhere else, but here on Rubicon he is a reminder that, in a warzone, no one comes to save little boys.
#armored core#armored core vi#armored core 6#mech#mecha#armored core series#scifi#science fiction#fires of rubicon
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Sandwich lunch time!
She was posted on my Patreon in August. The full artwork is also there (just as MANY unseen works (30+))
Really appreciate your support! https://patreon.com/beracerbera
Tenks! >w<
#anthro#furry#armor#anthropomorphic#dnd#dndcharacter#anthrocharacter#science fiction#sci fi#mecha art#augmented#robots#watercolor#traditional art#traditional drawing
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C4-621 // AYRE
#armored core#armored core vi#armored core 6#ac6#acvi#fires of rubicon#c4621#c4 621#c4-621#ayre#fanart#mecha#scifi#science fiction#fromsoftware#krumparrian#2023
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Outlaw ANN1E was an android from the Inner Systems who became notorious for overriding her emergency shutdown protocols and absconding with her body (still listed as stolen property by Albion Networked Neurosynthesis) to the Oort autonomies. For generations she worked as a hired gun for various smuggling operations, pirate FTL transmitters, and iceball communes before eventually fading from the historical record.
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#BACK TO THE 80s | Retro anime tribute | Part 1#RetroBoom#80s anime#anime#1980s#80s#retro anime#character design#scifi#science fiction#mecha#mech#youtube#anime video#video
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This advertisement is for The Archive Undying—a debut science fantasy epic from Emma Mieko Candon, and book one in their Downworld Sequence.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
Plugged into his AI god when its corruption renders him unfortunately immortal, sad gay disaster Sunai takes a die-again-or-die-trying approach to his tragically unending life. Despotic police states want to leash him and giant robots want to eat him, but reuniting with the small handful of people he cares about is what’s actually horrifying.
Adrift in the wilds, Sunai makes several unwise decisions such as:
Scavenging old ruins haunted by hostile fragments of another shattered technological deity
Allowing his mind to become further compromised
Sleeping with his mysterious employer for information and fun
Joining a haphazard crew of pirates who all have different motives for hunting a feral remnant of the same god that cursed him, all those years ago
This brain-melting series-starter is like a Neon Genesis Evangelion AMV set to a bass-boosted cover of George Michael’s "Careless Whisper."
#the archive undying#emma mieko candon#immortal and emotional about it#gay books#mecha fiction#science fiction#science fantasy#tordotcom publishing#tordotcom#books#bookblr#lgbtqia+#giant robots#mecha
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finally picked up my held copy of The Archive Undying from the library and holy SHIT i didn't realize it was so thick. It's nearly 500 pages long!
All I've done so far is skim the Dramatis Personae, but it's already caught my imagination like wildfire. AI as "autonomous intelligence," with names like "Register Parse" and "Qualia Clear" and "Fun-size Exaltation in Perpetuity," names which SLAP and which also make me wonder if Emma Mieko Candon is a listener of Friends at the Table at all. I then went to look at the Acknowledgements in the back to see, and got my socks blown off by the beauty and intensity of this prose:
I came to this book after a succession of surgeries. Strategic evisceration had revitalized my body, but flesh doesn't care if it's been cut for a good reason. To flesh it's just a wound. Recovery made me more keenly aware of my limitations than I had been even at my most enfeebled - the brain needs calories to make language happen, and those calories were required elsewhere. Even then, I didn't know this was a book about bodies until well into the third draft. I had to get far enough from the site of impact to properly perceive the crater.
God damn, y'all. If the book's writing goes even a fraction as hard as this then it'll fucking rule. WHO is doing it better than mecha fiction writers!!
#verso talks#the archive undying#mecha fiction#also like. seriously. I've only ever seen Austin Walker use the phrase 'mecha fiction' before so imagine my surprise when i see tor's#marketing tag all their Archive Undying posts with 'mecha fiction'#bruh Austin Walker's not even on tumblr i think me and a couple mutuals are the only ones who use that tag
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i love robots i love ai i love androids i love mechas i love droids i love robots that embrace humanity i love robots that reject humanity i love small robots i love big robots i love formless robots i love sentient robots i love nonsentient robots i love good robots i love evil robots i love simple robots i love complex robots i love old robots i love new robots i love all robots and they are my best friends
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I'm such a mech sicko that I've been buying empty Ral Partha boxes from 1988 in order to scan and archive the Steve Venters cover artwork, because they can't really be found in decent quality online. The first one up is the Ral Partha Assault Lance #battletech #mechwarrior
#battletech#mechwarrior#Battletech#video game#mecha#mech#mechs#robot#tabletop#scifi art#science fiction art#science fiction
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log<<u:AMouve>>ENTRY|3
21XX.08.27 [0050]
Designation: 61-409
Unit: JF-06 'Fritzy'
Writing this entry from Fritzy's cockpit.
Since my second mission, since I got knocked out so quickly, I wanted to feel more in tune with Fritzy, to feel dialed in and in sync with him, so I started coming here to read intel reports.
The next night I slept in the cockpit. It felt easier that heading back to the dorms, felt quieter. More comfortable. Even when he's powered down, Fritzy keeps me safe from the judgment. The questioning glances from other pilots, the bizarre jealousy from the crew. None of them can bother me when I'm inside. None of them can see me.
I'm safer with him.
Third deployment was a mission success. I'd been deployed in the field alongside LO-22 Belle and her pilot, Hal. Mission was a secure package recovery; a standard Intermodal container in the ruins of Nerota. Belle and I were dropped midway into Nerota, and were half a click from the payload before the SCS chirped that their subnets were lighting up with traffic. We powerslid into the courtyard, the rapid thunk-thunk of my KL7 firing off rounds offset by the bright fireworks of Belle's VTM system igniting salvo after salvo of rockets into the orange sunrise. The Klondies they'd had stationed in the target zone were swiftly charred out, and I stomped through the zone for a good overwatch point while Belle set to work scanning the ISOs.
"Fuck," came his voice, gruff and hesitant. "Lead shielding on three. Gonna have to pop shell and check the interior manually."
"You sure that's a good idea, Sixer?" My SCS had been scanning the arena since we'd stepped in, but when I shifted to overwatch it began cataloguing it far more granularly. The courtyard was clearly a refugee camp, and Fritzy had lit up eight targeting reticles already with 'potential small arms' tags.
Nine reticles. "No other choice," came his callback. "Even if I try to exfil with two, you need both arms free on Fritzy for your rifle." I could hear him suck air through his teeth, a silent prayer of return. "LO-22, Hal, exiting cockpit."
I nervously thumbed the toggle on the KL7, and felt the chamber empty and refill with HE slugshot. No point piercing armor without any Klondies around, but if they had weapons interspersed through the courtyard, best to shoot wide instead of deep.
I had the HUD pop a picture-in-picture tracking Hal's exo as I scanned. Twelve orange reticles now. Belle was kneeling low, her cockpit just ten feet from the cobblestones. With the cockpit lid still attached and powered, the mounting ladder telescoped smoothly down to the ground, and Hal stepped free. I saw him pull a sidearm from the thigh holster of his SCS suit, think about it, then tuck it back in.
One of the reticles flashed green, then faded. Eleven pockets of danger. Hal reached the first container, bent low to lift the jam, and pulled the door wide.
"Negative," he said, and I winced. "Moving to the second ISO."
"What's in the target container," I asked softly over the secure channel. "My mission brief made no mention."
"Mine either," he said, crossing a clearing at a light jog. "My SCS suit panel just lit red when we breached the shielding."
Hal slowed back to a walk once he was alongside the second container, and bent down again to unbolt the door. Just then, two of my reticles began flashing bright red, and I reflexively aligned the rifle with the closest target. "Contact," I said firmly, and squeezed the trigger.
I could hear the screams of the civilians through Hal's voice link, and I watched him crumple to the dirt. The first reticle flashed green, and I was lining up on the second. Don't be hit, I thought to myself as my sensors zoomed on the crowd. Twenty people, civilian garb, mostly huddled over. One target, aligning a RPG towards the edge of the container. Towards Hal.
The KL7 had loaded another shotgun slug. There was no way to take out the RPG without hitting the rest of the crowd. And there wasn't enough time to swap back to the large caliber slugs. I shot.
I tried not to watch, but Fritzy's scanners were feeding straight into my SCS. Straight into me. You can't look away with over a hundred eyes. The crowd was huddled. Then the crowd was a cloud of dirt, red mist, and screams. Thermal images showed the hostile slump over, and the RPG slip from his hands. The reticle flashed green, then faded.
"Clear," I heard my voice say from somewhere else. Hal jumped back to his feet, and nearly tore the container's door off its hinge. "Bingo," he said, and the HUD pulsed as a gold halo appeared around the container. "Target confirmed, returning to Belle."
He nearly jumped the ten feet up the ladder and into the cockpit, and the moment the doors closed I flicked the toggle back to slugs. "Incoming Klondies," I said as my HUD picked up the reactor pings approaching. Belle scooped the container like it was a cardboard coffee cup, and I saw the tops of her shoulder-mounted missile pods pop open and prime.
"I see them," he said, and his atmo-jets engaged. "Three suits. FOF reads callsigns Rabbit, Tread, and Jackknife."
Jackknife. "Get to the Exfil," I said, looking for a good spot to ambush from. "I'll be right behind you."
"The fuck you will," Hal growled. "I saw the reports from your last action. Leave him for the vultures. We can exfil before they engage."
I winced, but I knew it was the right call. There was no good vantage, and even if I found wreckage to hide in, they were expecting me already. "Confirm, Fritzy heading to exfil. Atmo-jets engaged, watching your six."
We blazed a trail as fast as we could through the bombed out streets of Nerota, and eventually the three pursuing Klondies pinged off their pursuit. Six clicks of empty husks of what was once a bustling mid-province city flew by in a blur as Belle and Fritzy slid across pockmarked tarmac and concrete.
How many hundreds of thousands had lived here before the war? How many were left?
How many lay still in the ruins around us still, unmoving, unbreathing. Forgotten casualties of a senseless war.
I'll sleep in the cockpit again tonight. As long as I'm in Fritzy, I don't have to think about the answers.
Lexi Mouve, signing off. [[admin_only:stk9_d6=5_cl6(y)di5spJ(y)di6sp8(n)||ftk7]]
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Pacific Rim (2013)
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