作者： Morgane

前线来信·Mail call, 美舰本·Pacific

[Mail Call/Blog?] 2017/11/08 – Generic Controversial Question #1

by Morgane 2017年11月9日

Our site has been experiencing frequent outages in the last couple of days. So, instead of getting posts out regularly, we’ll try to figure out what’s wrong.

Since I haven’t actually posted mail calls in a while (I still on average a couple of questions from long to semi-long term readers at day in my inbox…), and today’s the election day’s anniversary, I figure I’ll probably answer some of the more loaded questions that I’ve gotten, just so you know where I stand.

As usual, these questions tend to represent how I think as a person. It does not in any way reflect upon the team’s viewpoints at large. In 2017 we’re still very diverse on every axis – a bit like the actual world of Pacific, heh.

Generally they tend to address some of our more partisan reader’s queries. Since it doesn’t fall under the typical Pacific design notes, it goes under mail call instead.

Why haven’t you made any more 2016-related posts?

I have. Just not here. Don’t think I’ve been sitting still in real life or in the virtual space. The internet offers a degree of anonymity that is tremendously valuable. It allows people to be judged solely on the merits of the argument.

Though, of course, some of our dual-language readers know exactly where to find me. However, that’s beside the point. 😉

Part of this is because there’s not much that needs to be said. I’m a Trump supporter. Still is. If anything I’ve only became more appreciative of how corrupt our government is. That alone is enough to get me banned on some parts of the internet and ostracized or worse at work. The woman card only goes so far as a saving throw, you know.

While politics and the ethical values that lies underneath play a big part in our daily lives, it’s really not quite the central piece of what we’re about. We’re really more on the “do” rather than “preach” side.

Part of this is because I work in a specific way. One year later after the election, I still read the assorted ultra-liberal press for my daily dose of news. The bias is becoming increasingly self-evident, and I believe – given that we are a democracy – that in the end we deserve the country that we get.

So if something as simple as Abe and Trump throwing fish bait can be twisted into an attack piece…

I’ve attached the original footage in gif form. Look at it and decide for yourself if he’s really so dumb as he can’t feed fish.

See. This is how I believe things should be done. You get the evidence for what it is. Obviously there will be biases and perspectives, but so long as you’re aware of the rationale and reasoning behind it, I believe you are more than capable of examining the evidence.

In other words, I am inherently wary of anyone telling you exactly what, when, and how to think. With graduation on the horizon, I don’t need that MD next to my name to tell you that it is far more effective for someone to reach a conclusion on their own based on what evidence is present. After all, we shouldn’t just walk up to a patient and tell them BECAUSE OF MY AUTHORITY you should believe in this diagnosis. Rather, the better way to do things is to explain, in as simple terms as possible, why the diagnosis occurs. Our credentials play a big part of it, sure. It’s what we’ve earned. However, the credentials come with an actual set of skills. To put it another way. I’m a doctor because I learned a set of skills in medical school. If need be, I can prove my credentials in a case of emergency. I am therefore a doctor not because of the letters by themselves, but the letters symbolize a set of things that I am qualified to do.

Here’s the kicker. I think pretty much anyone can do the things we do, so long as they’re willing to put time and effort into it. If even something as complex as medicine can be accomplished, I think the ballpark for journalists (just as an example) is even lower.

Does the journalist report the whole truth? That’s easy to find out. Head to your red and your blue sites and figure out which bits ended up getting omitted. If you can’t see it and decide for yourself (and I’ve also had this asked as a curious question – mostly from our East Asian readers), consider this.

What politics ultimately boils down to is a set of values. Anyone has the ability to formulate those. People just have to be asking themselves a lot of questions. Good ones to ask would be: who is he/she getting paid by? What is his/her personal opinion on a number of simple to measure yardstick issues? Given the culture of each publication, what is the overall atmosphere/tone of the publication? The Federalist is pretty different from say, FOX. CNN is pretty different from say, Bloomberg.

I follow contemporary events and politics because it’s my duty as an American citizen to be in the know. I think it was a great privilege to be able to document the election last year – you’ve got the entire 2016 timeline that Zero’s organized to see how I’ve reached where I am today.

In fact, for what sort of an America I want? You’ve got our circle’s track record that speaks for itself. You’ve got the values embedded in Pacific, which speaks for itself. You’ve got all my commentary over there on WW2, which speaks for itself.

But that’s me. That’s who I am. I’m not asking you to become me. Not asking you to have the same conclusions as me. I’m not going to go out of my way to make any further arguments on behalf of my “side.” I merely seek for my readers to understand what my “side” is.

Therein lies the third part.

I don’t need you to hear my “side” or my arguments from Morgane. The argument itself is sufficient and you can hear that from anyone.

Look at the strength of the argument and the quality of the argument, not the person. The truth speaks for itself. The messenger in this case doesn’t matter.

I hate internet celebritism with a passion you probably won’t believe. I hate the cults of personalities that inevitably springs up, and I hate how – in matters of things pertaining to moral or ethical value – people invoke personal authority or charisma. This personal attitude is actually reflected in how I do things.

Ever wonder why I don’t show my face on the internet? Why I don’t jump onto the e-celebrity “political commentary” bandwagon?

I play a ton of RTS and other grand strategy type games. You don’t think there’s a market for some kinda “gamer gurl” streaming type thing in Asia, which is a big part of our audience, much less the US here?

Why don’t I monetize Pacific and (in our perspective) beg for donations at every turn?

Because I want people to listen to my words, and not listen because I’m another generic pretty face.

Because that’s not how I do things. We, as a whole, believe in hard work and set out to prove it. These are things I work on out of love. We aren’t averse to monetary compensation, but if that’s what we’re after we’d have shuttered down and sold our stuff to the wandering Mobo gaming companies years ago.

Because I’m not after personal fame or internet points. Enterprise-chan is basically a bot that automatically mirrors our site updates. She occasionally tweets random cute stuff but that’s it. I value personal interactions where there could be meaningful interaction.

Because I want people to think for themselves. I still do, even in the current year. *laugh*

Lastly, it’s because of how we run things. I’ve said it before. The way we run things is really more like a really big house party. The site’s our house. The readers are our house guests. The contents you get – articles, art, etc – is our hospitality. Some days it’s a feast. Some days it’s what I scrounge up in the kitchen.

All of it is what we made. The art’s homegrown. The words are coming from straight from the heart. The books are assembly locally (I mean, a lot of the team are Chinese nations) and made with local ingredients.

We’re pretty comfy in terms of how we do things. Sure, the house is undergoing renovations and clean-ups right now, but if we’re happy with what we’re doing, why would we do things differently?

When I feel like I need to make a particularly pertinent point politically, I’ll do so. I’ll do it with personal honesty and rigor. Otherwise, just sit back and enjoy the ride. 🙂

前线来信·Mail call, 美舰本·Pacific

(Historical Inspirations) Prelude to Guadalcanal

by Morgane 2017年11月5日

Hi! Tautog here. Yes, Morgane’s actually put me in charge of the rest of the site, at least for the weekend while she’s busy taking a break from a lot of overtime at work.

Given it’s November, I thought I’d provide some historical context on how the battles at Guadalcanal took place. See! We talk a lot about how these were some of the most amazing and unusual naval battles during WW2, but I think we should understand just what was going on in the minds of our commanders (and the Japanese).

The general situation at Guadalcanal is not unfavorable.

Nimitz, Oct. 30th, 1942.

Let’s recap a bit about what has happened since. Coral Sea. Midway. Eastern Solomons. Santa Cruz. We’ve had four big carrier battles in a very short amount time, and we were beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. US fighter pilots were getting adept at fighting the Zero in the air. US CV officers were learning how best to control and direct their air groups. Fighter cover is improving. Aerial recon is improving. AA gunners were improving (the new AA guns do help!) and the general situation is doing better.

To put it simply, we’re learning. The Japanese were too, but they were less quick. While we did just lose the Hornet, Japan is stuck consolidating forces at Truk. Furthermore, they were unable to dislodge the marines fighting around Guadalcanal – the Savo Island victory, ironically, removed Japanese focus from their losses there. While official Japanese media was wildly enthusiastic (Santa Cruz was chalked up as “three US carriers and one battleship sunk,” haha) the actual military’s outlook was somewhat mixed despite the Emperor’s encouragement below.

The Combined Fleet is at present striking heavy blows at the enemy Fleet in the South Pacific Ocean. We are deeply gratified. I charge each of you to exert yourselves to the utmost in all things toward this critical turning point in the war.

On one hand, Nagumo and Kusaka estimated that a good number of carriers (Ugaki calculates 4, Nagumo is more conservative and assigned it 3) are sunk. Midway has been avenged! Tokyo has been avenged! (The Japanese were well aware that the Hornet would have made a fine prize) Tennou-heika-banzai!

On the other hand, Japan has once again stretched themselves dangerously thin. Post-war pro-navy anti-army narratives tend to pin the failure on the Imperial Army, who failed three times over the last month to retake Guadalcanal. However, it must be pointed out that the Emperor himself also had significant influence in the campaigns that followed. For instance, within the same dispatch as above, here is a second part.

Regarding the struggle for Guadalcanal. It is a place where a bitter fight is being waged between forces of Japan and the United States. It is an important base for the Imperial Navy and I hope that the island will be recovered by our forces as soon as possible.

Emphasis on “as soon as possible.” This demand was not at all unreasonable, as the Imperial Army has been bleeding men left and right. Implicitly, a huge amount of pressure was thusly placed on the navy to deliver greater and greater results. This is where the Imperial Navy starts to bleed as well. Japan has not been able to trade aircraft with the Americans very well. One 70 plus plane loss like the Eastern Solomons or Midway battle might be absorbable, but Santa Cruz brought another (some sources count up to 90, others at least 69) staggering loss to Japan’s naval air.

In other words, the writing was on the wall. The USN is starting to learn, as I’ve mentioned up there, and Japan’s losing far too many planes and pilots at this point. Something has to be done, and Japan decided to seize the initiative.

Thus, the better question to ask is why wouldn’t Japan risk a naval assault on US forces after Santa Cruz? There is no way Japan would not try to force a naval action to knock the US navy out of the game. They had to. The army was running out of supplies. The Americans were bringing more and more troops in by the day. GHQ counted on the American carriers being out of action – even if the carriers weren’t sunk, they surely could not stop the Japanese from advancing further. The IJN brought what transports they could spare, and sent a large convoy forward. In total, during the days before the actual battle, sixty-five destroyer loads of troops were dropped on the island.

To catch any American reinforcements off-guard, Yamamoto sent out a a raiding force. This is Hiroaki Abe’s group with two BBs, 1 CL, and 11 DDs. This force had a simple mission. Hit Henderson field. Neutralize it. Let the Imperial Army reinforce Guadalcanal.

Here’s where the plan went awry. Our submarines, twenty-four in all, saw them coming from a (few hundred) mile away.* What’s more, Halsey has already correctly deduced that the Japanese would try this move, and called in Kinkaid’s TF 16. Sure, Enterprise was still under repairs, but the battleships and the DDs on our side should be more than sufficient. After all, our goal is to destroy enemy naval units and interdict Japanese reinforcements.

Meanwhile, we’ve got our own transports on the way. The primary combatants of the 1st naval battle of Guadalcanal actually came from the escorting ships of two transport convoys. The first group, Admiral Scott’s Atlanta and her DD escorts, were escorting attack cargo ships. These, such as the USS Libra, were pretty heavily armed for transports and could provide some fire support if needed. The second group, Admiral Callaghan’s cruisers and destroyers, were escorting transports.

Imagine yourself in Callaghan’s shoes. You know that this was probably one of the most important sites of the entire Pacific War. You know, for a fact, that the Japanese were coming with battleships. On the 10th of November, your superior basically told you to expect a heavy Japanese attack coming your way.

Originally, if things went well, the transports would drop in quietly and leave as soon as possible. That didn’t happen, as the Japanese scouts were very good, forcing Callaghan to immediately unload. Submarine, aircraft, and other intelligence basically confirm the presence of Abe’s task force – the one with the two BB – coming this way. Furthermore, in the same day, carriers were also sighted.

The intent here is clear. The Japanese is going to attack the American transports and try to cut off supplies. If the transports are sunk, it’ll be a major blow to US forces. But the real prize is Henderson airfield, which the Japanese are almost certainly going for – especially with that large task force they’ve sent.

You have a couple of cruisers and a bunch of small ships.

There is literally nothing else. No reinforcements will be coming tonight. Meanwhile, you’re almost certain that they’re coming tonight.

So what do you do?

We’ll block’ em. Hard.

Puts Sanny’s profile quote in vol. 2 (“Yes, I know it’s suicide. But we’ve got to do it!”) in a new context, doesn’t it?

Callaghan was a good man. Quiet. Contemplative. He was well-liked by his crew (they affectionately called him Uncle Dan) and was known to be a capable officer. Almost everyone who knew him comments that his faith plays a big part in his actions and interactions, and he carries himself with a sort of dignity not unlike heroes like Hector or Roland or, you know, any number of personages from ancient epics.

This is not to say that he made no errors. Plenty of errors were made on both ends. Some were avoidable. Others weren’t. But, I think given what we know of him, it’s clear that Callaghan went in with the intent of completing his mission.

Now, close to a hundred years later, I think we can all proudly tell the admiral, mission accomplished.

*Morgane’s editorial comment: Tautog is obviously very pro-submarines. While it is true that submarine scouting provided significant intel, it really is a massive team effort, from our submarines to our airplane scouts to intelligence agents embedded in various Japanese bases to literal eyeballs. 🙂 

前线来信·Mail call, 美舰本·Pacific

[Mail Call] 2017/11/03 – Morgane’s Fireside Chat #8

by Morgane 2017年11月3日

Or what should really be titled “How Pacific “canon” works in terms of character design.”

About a couple of weeks ago one of our readers wrote in with this comment.

Despite the general hostility some of your team members have towards the UK a deeper glance into Pacific’s history reveal quite a bit of interaction (mentioned) with the Pacific shipgirls.

I understand that maybe the artists are not necessarily into the Royal Navy. Furthermore I do understand too that there are other shipgirl games and franchises that do have British shipgirls (the Warspite is one such example) however I was wondering if there has ever been any significant work done in a Royal Navy shipgirl?

So, to answer this question, I’m going to basically have to start with how Pacific came about. You’ll notice that unlike the other KanColle derivatives/clones/etc we actually generally don’t overlap with KanColle characters. The reason here is that, to speak of things plainly, there is no need for us to do so.

Other games need to take customer shares from KanColle. We don’t. Being fans of the franchise aside, Pacific is literally a creative project. At most we do (for now, anyways 🙂 are some books. Anything we make tend to have the very explicit goal of making ourselves happy and entertained as well as to build up Pacific’s overall world. We’re makers of shipgirls. That hasn’t changed. We’re basically interested in getting people more interested in the Second World War and offers the Allied perspective on things. That hasn’t changed either.

What has changed is the increasingly large number of characters that Pacific has in her “repertoire.” And, because I’m interested in building as good of a “world” as possible for our girls, you’ll see plenty of non-Americans surface. This is why some characters nominally relegated to the background have been fully illustrated at this point. Lori is actually probably the best example of the bunch. Originally, we had envisioned a trio of three U-boat sisters (Lori, Dracha, and Ulla) each representing a particular perspective of Germany post-war. That was in early 2016. It took mid-2017 for us to get to around drawing the other two.

The Royal Navy is in the same situation. Plot-wise they’re kind of very important. With the RN-STEC active and up and about STEC can focus on the Pacific (and the geo-politics that go on in the near East) exclusively. In some parallel universe I’m sure we’re creating a book called the Atlantic (oh, wait, Maria’s actually doing something very similar to it) and slowly expanding into the Pacific.

Unlike Pacific’s main cast, however, Royal Navy shipgirls that we create tend to fulfill specific plot functions. With the exception of Edda (who is a personal favorite and a regular) they tend to generally appear within internal planning as little more than plot devices. Add the fact that I’m actually the only one on the team who has an interest in the Royal Navy, it becomes extremely hard to design one that we would find satisfactory.

As such, given the massive backlog of things we’d like to have illustrated, you can see why they don’t generally get much beyond the sketch stages.

Here’s an example of a character who we’ll probably … not get around to finishing. I’ve actually posted her sketch and design around a few times so a lot of you probably have seen it before. This is Pacific’s Queen Elizabeth. You can see that the date of her initial design inception is 2015. In other words, immediately after Pacific vol. 1’s Chinese release.

So, here was someone who made it past the initial rounds of discussion. Like pretty much every shipgirl creator out there, we essentially settled on a number of national traits and tropes that are associated with the English. Her physical appearance was easy enough. The person we wanted to draw serious reference to was a redhead, and as such, it made perfect sense to give her the same shade of hair color.

A queenly, steely individual would probably style her hair in the same way. So, we had to give her a hairstyle that was “sharp” or in November’s words, “scary” looking.

Back then Sune has significantly less influence over shipgirl designs than she does now (xD), and we thought something very prim-and-proper would be nice. Since she serves directly as a foil to some of our more elegant and mature shipgirls (remember, Jer wasn’t posted to the public at this stage!) it only made sense to provide her with a ballroom gown. The intent was to emphasize on the “lady” aspect.

(You’ll notice that the shoulder-less ballroom dress look is basically what KC’s Warspite ran with, nearly two years later.)

Unfortunately, work basically fizzled out after that. We simply had no time to refine the design further since vol. 2 was immediately on the horizon. I still have a large number of fabric patterns and designs that we planned to work into her dress, and we had a lot of jewel patterns that we obtained from various sources to spiff her design up but November (bless his heart) basically lost interest around a week or so later.

Do we still use her in our storyline planning? Absolutely. First of all, someone has to actually provide security to Buckingham Palace. Secondly, we have a personality for her. She’s not really that easy to get along with mostly because she tends to be a bit distant. You know the type of person who’s very serious in demeanor? It’s not even that she’s mean. It’s just that.

Thirdly, we’ve essentially figured out her plot “arc” (she’s instrumental in the crown and the competent English folks retaking control of RN-STEC for reforms. Indirectly, she’s responsible for the English represent (Garrett Fairbanks)’s presence in the other side of the ocean. Directly, she’s actually been around for a while. If she’s around to handle Lori’s escape and the diplomatic fiasco that one caused, she’s definitely an experienced hand at politicking.) and we have a great idea about how her powers and abilities work.

However, therein lies the issue. Since we haven’t posted those specific arcs yet (it hasn’t came up in a question, and we’ve got a lot of other stuff we’re working on) you can see that she’s relegated to the bench. Some day, she’ll have a chance to introduce herself to you. I think we’d all be looking forward to that.