Dusting Off the Nerve Staple

And the horror of the office

This Week’s post looks at what makes for a juicy detail.

Nova wrote about the concept of Hyperdiegesis, teaching me a new word in the process. I chimed in on discord, so I get a nice mention in there too.

I guess it's the text version of this artwork thing I wrote about before. An intriguing little detail that makes you wonder about an unexplored element of the setting.

I love them in films and books, where I can decide to breeze past it or let myself imagine what lies beyond the mist.

In RPGs I find them great sources of inspiration as a GM, but I probably wouldn't use them at the table as-written. If my version of Obi Wan is going to mention the Clone Wars off-hand then I'd probably have at least a rough idea of what the Clone Wars were.

The Clone Wars are a good one to chew on, because I think it's a detail that has a medium amount of juice.

A juicy little detail should immediately impart something to the reader, even if there's no further explanation in the text.

By that measure, "You served my father in the Clone Wars" is okay. Clone is an interesting word, and it conjured as least a few possibilities to mind. Let's explore some alternatives.

"You served by father in the Second Zalthkar War" is bad. Really bad. The word "war" is broad, and kind of boring for such a horrific concept. Zalthkar certainly isn't helping out either.

"The Seventh Zalthkar War" is still bad but better. At least we can start to imagine that Zalthkar is a war-torn place, or perhaps the name of an ongoing enemy.

"The Zalthkar Revolution" gives us a bit more juice. At least now we have a stronger notion of what Obi Wan was up to.

"The Zalthkar Massacre" would give us something to chew on. Which side was Obi Wan on here?

But I don't think "The Clone Massacre" sounds right. Perhaps "Clone" is a juicy enough word that it needs the relative dryness of "War" to really shine through.

There's a reason why this is all especially interesting to me right now.

Do you ever think about nerve stapling?

As I've shouted before, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is a masterclass in delivering a game setting. The nerve staple is a delicious little juicy fruit that exemplifies this.

You see the icon above as a button on the control panel for each of your colonies. Using it supresses unrest, though it also counts as an atrocity, which can have diplomatic ramifications.

The game never explained to me what the nerve staple was. Even though the icon is evocative, the name alone does so much of the heavy lifting. You don't need the game to explain what happens when you hit the "nerve staple" button and your colony's unrest decreases. The juice flows fast.

I'm trying to tap into that energy for the setting of MAC Attack, with one example being a pretty obvious nod to the nerve staple.

Each faction gets a little quote underneath the portrait of their leader. Like this guy:

But then further down the same page you also get a quote from one of the other factions, offering an alternative look.

I suspect I'll never forget the nerve staple.

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Elsewhere

• MÖRK ORG returns hopeless soul-destroying fantasy to its natural habitat: the office. Oh, and I’m writing a little contribution for it too. Check it out while it’s still funding.

• Skeleton Code Machine is running MECH WEEK, with lots of interesting reading if you’ve been enjoying all the MAC Attack talk.

• Lots of new people over at bluesky, with yet another x-exodus happening. If you’re new there you can follow me too.

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Coming Soon

Over on Patreon I talk about the pitfalls of faction design.

In MAC Attack each faction is based on a group that splintered from HumanityFleet upon completing their voyage across the stars. Early on I knew that I wanted one of the factions to have organic MACs, bordering on kaiju as much as mechs, with a hefty dose of Tyranid bio-titans. 

This faction ended up as New Genesis and I love the way they’re looking in Amanda’s fantastic artwork. They have their origins in the terraforming division of HumanityFleet, and it’s implied they’ve adapted a little too hard to their new home. 

Expect the full post here and on the blog next week.

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