Morgane here. It’s been really busy, but I want to take the time to answer a few questions that’s been popping into the inbox and elsewhere.
Are the forums ever going to come back online again?
Yes and no. The forum software is a bit outdated, so it’s not gone, just archived. We’ll bring it back up when we find a need for it. There’s some pretty good stuff that’s left behind that should be front-and-center for the main site.
When is ____________ book going to come out/When is ______ getting translated into English?
When they’re ready.
I’m going as fast as I can. All of us here are holding down full time jobs or are in school, and we’re still at most got creative team-members in the single digits, not counting our various supporters and volunteers (that might bump it up to very, very low double digits).
Is the Pacific team going to make it to ________ convention?
That’s up to Zero who does the traveling. I believe we may be returning to Boston. There’s also talk about something up in Hawaii maybe. However, right now we’re mostly focused on consolidating our operations. That generally means to make sure supplies are in order, books are getting sent to where they’re supposed to be at, people are in contact with who they’re supposed to be, so on and so forth.
Just, to be perfectly frank, there’s what I’m working on, and what the circle is working on. At its core, it’s basically a one man show (not mine, but Zero’s). Remember Zero is the one who works to put all the books together, gets in touch with the artists, arrange for translations, and puts the books together. If you head over to our expeditions page you can see what’s been out so far.
For Pacific proper, there’s the character books like the Pacific books, lore and sketch books like the Action Reports, actual pure-history stuff like the Navy foods books, the stuff here on the site that we’re still slowly cranking out, and books like Silent Service that’ll be, for all likelihood, a combination of online and offline works.
That’s just Pacific. At this point, chronic exhaustion has taken hold. I’m not tired of working on Pacific. Not at all. However, I can only go so fast with my responsibilities and obligations in real life. There’s some other stuff that’s coming out – a Legend of Zelda book is being worked on, for instance. There’s also a historically oriented Fate book that’s been previewed. Then there’s other stuff that’s in the making.
Do you still play KanColle? What about FGO or Azur Lane?
To be honest, not actively at this point. I pop in maybe four times a year to do events. Other times I might log on once in a while to set expeditions. The game hasn’t exactly aged well, and I look forward to see whether or not the shift in their source code will bring some much-needed QoL changes.
I did play FGO for quite a bit, but it’s gotten pretty stale. I’ll wait to check out the new story arcs, but people that know me know I have quite a few things to say about the storylines.
Azur Lane I never started. I’m not good with that kind of bullet hell-esque action games. xD
(If the theme here isn’t clear, it’s more like, I don’t really play much – certainly not as much as a few years ago.)
What do you think of Intrepid/ What do you think of _____ (insert ship, tank, or whatever girl here)
Generally, if you ask me if I like a shipgirl or not, I’ll probably say I think they’re good/okay/interesting/some generic positive emotion. I think it’s easy to find something endearing about a particular design, and I think it’s generally better to focus on what someone did well than not.
Intrepid I’m … eh, it’s hard to say. I feel the re-adjusted proportion makes her look a bit better (Zuikaku and some of the other arts had this issue before, if you’ll recall back to like, 2015/2016), but that’s kind of it. Personally, I think I like Shibafu’s other shipgirls a lot better.
What time is Silent Service set in?
Okay, this is actually a good question. Silent Service is set in basically the “pre-Abyssal invasion” period. So, at this point, the human protagonists like Mike are already present in the story. Things are moving. MERLIN is up in the skies. Abyssal activity has increased. It’s the calm before the proverbial storm. Thus, it’s set basically in the late 80s (especially since Lori’s trip to America takes place during Silent Service, remember?)
Sometimes, however, Tautog or other shipgirls break the 4th wall and talk directly to the readers in some of their pieces. This is in effect a “timeless” setting, where time really doesn’t matter. Think of these as stand-alone episodes or interjections for you, the reader, to enjoy. It’s part of the content that we’re interested in creating.
… You have odd situations where I screw things up and blend in the two. I’ll work on more clearly delineating those, but I think I haven’t mixed things up too badly.
How many subgirls are in Silent Service?
- Originally it was going to be a swimsuit calendar, remember?
How big is Mike’s subgirl force?
Much bigger than 12. Not all are drawn, but by the start of the Abyssal War I think we’re looking at a total of like, 30 or so subgirls?
Are the namesake ships of the same shipgirl the same shipgirl or different shipgirls?
The answer, as always, is that “it depends” or that “STEC doesn’t know yet.”
While some of the girls talk about wanting different equipment and display a clear awareness of upgrades or predecessors, I want to reiterate that Pacific has yet to have a single instance in which said upgrade have successfully taken place.
Furthermore, in the above scenario, that’s just a case where Pennsy is trolling Sanny. You think in a setting where magical fairies make stuff on a daily basis it’s hard to create a few cosplay pieces or play dress-up?
Is JFK still president?
Yes.
Does JFK still get assassinated?
Yes.
Who has the biggest shipgirl force by 1985?
1985 is an odd date to pick, but sure. US, Japan, UK, USSR in that order.
Why don’t you join the public discord?
For a few reasons. One, I feel like it’s better that an environment exists without me participating directly in it. I have a tendency to suck the humor out of most occasions and I’m really serious. Definitely not much fun to be around.
Two, as my team knows, I like to interact with everyone. People who wrote emails to me know that unless it fell through the cracks (it happens on very rare occasions) I’ll generally response in a somewhat timely manner.
Something like discord is going to be impossible for me to attend to in a way I’d like. I’d need an extra 24 hours a day so that everyone can be given equal treatment. A question is a question is a question. It deserves the same amount of thought put into it.
So it’s not like I’m actively avoiding people. The inbox is open and I do ask Sune and the others if anything happened that might be interesting. If we’re taking the house party analogy, let’s just say I’m in the kitchen cooking, alright?
Why doesn’t the Abyssal attack humanity NOW? It seems awfully suspect that a technologically advanced foe capable of dimensional travel couldn’t beam their forces planetside at the drop of a hat.
Let’s think about this question for a second.
Are the Abyssals stupid?
The answer is probably no, right? They have a good track record of destroying other planets in other dimensions, with or without shipgirls fighting back.
Is it to the Abyssal’s advantage to wait to attack and give humanity a chance to build up?
Obviously no.
So, if the Abyssals aren’t stupid, and they should attack as soon as possible, what does that leave us?
One of the “themes” (well, I really don’t want to deal with something that fancy) of Pacific is the unknown and its implications. Part of why the Abyssals are so horrifying is that by (creative) design, they are mysteries. They can’t be reasoned with. They show up from nowhere. They don’t even leave a corpse for you to study.
I’ve alluded to this before, that it’s part of the Abyssal’s “way” of warfare. Equipment and technology is important, but you break the wielder, and no gun is going to be able to compensate for the lack of fighting spirit. That is not to say that the equipment does not matter, but simply that the Abyssals focus very heavily on targeting the operator behind the equipment as well.
So, how do you win against an opponent like this? The first thing you do is you start peeling back the layers and see if you can figure them out.
Think back to rumors of the Japanese during World War II. (Not singling out Japan specifically, but an example.) They handed us a string of defeats, morale was low, and we had no clue as to how they operated, how many of them there were, and so on.
(The officers and the people making war plans knew more, but to the average soldier or sailor on the ground? Before they had went in to fight? I think some of the first-hand accounts admitting to fear is very human, and are no less inspirational than the ones who are brave.)
It took some experience and some understanding to realize what their weaknesses are. Then we started to turn things around.
The Abyssals are going to be a lot tougher than fighting the Japanese.
The question to you is, do you believe they can be beaten?