About talespin

I'm a journeying writer, a disillusioned educator, and an east coast Canadian.

Fiddling with Feds

Many VGA Planets players say the Feds are for beginners — toss out some torps and attack. Sure, you could do that and maybe survive, but victories with the Solar Federation are, in fact, a complicated matter.

https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/picard-memes-patrick-stewart-best-viral-star-trek-moments/

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Manners Makyth Man

Studying at Oxford University makes you realise you should stop being a brat and have some respect for elders, tradition, and all that came before you. Suffering through blitz matches at Planets.nu makes you wish there was a commonly-agreed-upon set of guidelines which encourages players to be honourable and polite.

http://www.winchestercollege.org
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Making the Grade: On Prowess, Vol. 2 — Deadliness

Napoleon Bonaparte possessed the mind of a genius of war. He gained his prowess by studying the traditions and theories of the military leaders who came before him. He was inspired by them and harnessed their wisdom to become one of the most ruthless, offensive-minded generals of his time. There is no other role model as perfect for this study on deadliness in VGA Planets.

“With speed, surprise, maneuver, thorough planning, dictatorial power over military affairs, and a boldness unmatched by any soldier of his generation, Napoleon wrecked army after army that the European powers hurled against him.”

(Teters, 2004, p. 14)

This second volume on prowess evaluates each empire’s fleet on its ability to kill, as measured by combat mass, warship armaments, and the class of ships in each fleet.

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Origin of the Echo Cluster By Means of Unnatural Speculation

— OPINION? —

The Echo Cluster is a distant point in our galaxy dotted with the blood globules of a trillion life forms, and it forms the exciting backdrop of the space opera known as VGA Planets. Yet, what is the origin of this mysterious group of dots and circles? We find out today.

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Making the Grade: On Prowess, Vol. 1 — Agility

You say you survived to the end of the game, but if you didn’t win, who cares?

The overarching goal of this series is to give players the knowledge, and therefore the confidence, to choose the path of action. This volume examines the agility of fleets on the battlefield as influenced by fuel consumption, attack accuracy, and warship maneuverability.

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Making the Grade: Introducing Prowess

“The public supports war until the body bags come home” was a persistent thought meandering through my mind as I was writing these articles. I wanted to evaluate each race’s capacity for killing, and something in the back of my mind made that topic feel… uneasy. When I continued to hesitate putting it into words, I eventually recognised that my struggle existed because of the nature of what war games reflect. It also occurred to me that the trend of “winning games by making friends” surfaced, in part, because many of us were conflicted about aggression in competition.

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Planets Mag 2022: A Year In Review

I blinked and missed 2022. If you shared that experience, I wrote this article for you.

Amidst mental and physical fatigue, Planets Mag continued to produce thoughtful and helpful material, and I felt it was worth travelling back in time to see what exciting things happened. Unfortunately, my Lorean Class Temporal Lance was broken and ex-Emperor Darth Balls was missing in action, so I settled for opening the cabinet of published posts and re-read our content. As I flipped through the files, several pieces caught my attention. Our Articles of War project grew, our science fiction collection added some new adventures, the magazine’s invitational games grew more popular, and our strategy guides continued to support Nu‘s growing population. In all, it was a successful year.

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Tales of Timmy Tim – Episode 1: Granddad’s Portrait

This is a short story series I’ve been working on. It’s a story about a cook, Timmy Tim, who comes from a long line of fearsome space pirates, and his sidekick, Slink. It’s meant to be a fun and humourous little bit. It was also inspired by the 90s game, VGA Planets.

1

The occasion called for baked apples and fresh roe, garnished with asparagus, string beans, and carrots. It was exquisite, refined, and no well-to-do, highfalutin aristocrat ever disapproved of it. The galley was empty, almost silent, except for the tapping of a chef knife on a wooden cutting board.

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