Author: Sleepypete

Hello everyone,

Advent Day 16 ! What does it bring today ?

Apparently I have taken that one from the wrong side, with the Lego Thingy pointing the wrong way !

Another S’mores marshmallow today. Tasty good and dipped in breadcrumbs. The Lego Thingy is something that dates back to Episode 1 : The Phantom Menace and it is one of the Multi Troop Transports, which brings all the battle droids to the yard. Here’s what someone has pulled out of quite probably, one of the illustrated manual things :

Click for bigger.

Gonna have to watch the Star Wars films again at some point. Yep. All of them. I haven’t been watching many movies at home lately, stream watching, game playing and drawing have been favoured instead. I still have some blurays (and dvds) that I haven’t watched yet, although I’ve been doing better at resisting buying Stuff for the sake of owning it, rather than me being likely to watch it. Stuff takes up space and needs money that could go on other Stuff.

Like Elite paint jobs ! Haha, not bought any of those since the couple for the Python, although some will appear at some point.

Not long now until disappearing on leave …. and quite possibly straight in to watching the latest Star Wars on Thursday. Maybe. We shall see.

Mass Effect for today is a bit of a whopper of a spoiler … it’s Urdnot Wrex sitting on a throne. How could he have got there ? He was a dispossessed wanderer in the first game. What could have happened ? The Wrex story is a decent one and weaves its way through all of the games.

Today’s Elitecember post is Thargoids … These guys have gone through a renaissance since the first game :

Look at that ! Wireframe 3d graphics on a home computer, 35 years ago. This hadn’t been seen before and pushed the limits of what was possible. 10 years later, this arrived :

The Thargoids took a break from Frontier Elite 2 but they came back for the third game Frontier First Encounters. They are the only major alien race in today’s Elite galaxy, at least they’re the only one to make their presence felt. (There are also the forerunner Guardians but they are gone, leaving only automated defences and relics behind).

An enigmatic bunch, harbouring a decent amount of aggression due to naughty acts done to them (like an attempt at genocide) by people in the Elite galaxy. It’s a rough, tough place … Today, they’ve taken on a more organic, knarly, rocky look :

That one was taken planetside but I’ve seen them in space as well. I haven’t been pulled out of hyperspace yet but I’ve seen that happen to Kolo. They’re an advanced alien race, with systems that disrupt our spaceships and they don’t like us very much … Here’s what they did to a starbase :

Yep. Few repairs needed I think.

That’s it for today ! Back tomorrow with SRV. No drawing today, maybe drawing tomorrow :-).

Hello everyone,

Advent Day 15 brings … let’s see :

A Salted Caramel Marshmallow, a Battle Droid and the Citadel.

Another lovely marshmallow, although ? The Naked Marshmallow Co make a lot of different marshmallows … I would have thought that the selection wouldn’t repeat quite so quickly. Am I expecting too much there ? They’re still lovely marshmallows and … it’s that close to the end of the working period for me this year that I might well order some :-D.

Lego Star Wars sees another Battle Droid join the flock. Not quite sure what it makes of the marshmallow.

In the background, we have the Citadel. It’s the central point of the Mass Effect universe, a mysterious space station that lies at the centre of the Mass Relay network, providing a home, a seat of government and … more. The “More” is of course hidden behind spoilers. It’s a wondrous artifact, with two main parts :

The circle at the end is the Presidium ring, where the control centres and the Posh Bit lies. Because this is a spin gravity station, it’s a slightly lower gravity than the rest of the Citadel.
The 5 arms are the Wards, kilometers long arms which have the living areas built in to them. The arms can close up when the Citadel is in danger, forming an impenetrable barrier.

It’s the scene of action and intrigue on the inside and forms the backdrop to several space battles throughout the series.

Today’s Elitecember theme is “Keelback”. What’s a Keelback ?

There we go … master of perspective at work. Nah. Not really. This was actually drawn from a reference too. Ah well :-D.

There we go. That one is the Tortoise Beats Hare, the Keelback owned by my current Commander. It’s not a ship I’ll use much, although this one did all right with its small scale trading and courier missions role. But … the ship is a bit too much of a compromise, not really much good at any of its jobs.

There’s my last one, the Art Burke, named after the more combative of the Ice Road Truckers.

Today’s Elite was a bit of a mixed bag … I actually lost 2x ships ! The Type 9 freighter can’t dodge well and you shouldn’t really mission with it, like I was attempting to. Soooo … up a fair bit on a Community Goal that I’m carrying cargo to (including a Shiny Shiny Cobra Skin !) but down a bit on losing the 2x ships. The penalty for losing ships is having to pay an insurance fee to get them back and the loss of reputation from the various factions. It’s a very low penalty.

I wasn’t happy with the Keelback picture so I did a quick (ish) sketch of something different :

There we go … And here’s another one !

See you all tomorrow.

Hello everyone,

Advent Day 14 and I’ve been enjoying a fair bit of motor racing today. After concluding my campaign with the GT racing cars, I started up another one with the endurance racing cars. It has 6 hour races … (with a lot of speeding up involved). I enjoy the game mostly because it allows good strategy, actual results from getting the strategy right and mistakes when you get it wrong really count.

Oh and it’s one of a bunch of games available as part of the Yogscast Jingle Jam on Humblebundle until the end of the month (linky).

If a single player game is too easy because it doesn’t punish mistakes, then I find it a bit boring. My team won both races today, well, both races in their class. One thing about the usual endurance racing is mixed classes, which means more action on track.

The other motor racing for today is the Bahrain 8 hour race which has been pretty much background stuff, but still good to listen in to. The Toyotas are well ahead up front, as they should be (technological advantage) but the Aston Martin is winning in the GTE Pro class. Good times.

What’s behind the doors today ?

We have a Milk and Cookies marshmallow and the Star Wars thingy is I believe a Droid Hovertank from Episode 1. That first prequel was a decent movie, if rather flawed. Still enjoyable though.

Mass Effect is showing the team today, as they were in Mass Effect 2. From left to right, we have :
Garrus Vakarian, Turian Rebel, Grunt the Krogan, Jack the crazy biotic, Mordin Solus the Solarian Scientist, Miranda Lawson of Cerberus, the lovely Tali’Zorah, Assassin Thane Krios, Enigmatic Legion, Crunchy Jacob and Samara the Justicar.

We’ve covered most of those already but the two for today are Mordin and Samara. Samara’s is a tragic tale, an Asari who had to become paladin in order to hunt down a homicidal daughter. Her race, the Asari, mate in body and mind, using latent telepathy. Most of the time, that’s Happy Times for the other person. In the case of an Ardat Yakshi like Samara’s daughters, it overloads the senses and kills the victim. So Samara’s fate is to hunt down her daughter in order to stop her murdering more people.

Mordin Solus is one of the legends. He’s a scientist who you recruit early on in order to find a defence for the Collectors’ (enemies of the second game) paralysing swarms. And more. He has all the best lines, all the best remarks and … is a total hero.

His fate in Mass Effect 3 actually brought a few tears. And that’s extremely rare for me. One of the best non player characters I’ve seen in a story, be that in a game or tv show or book.

Also sings Gilbert and Sullivan. (Would highly recommend clicking on this link and watching the video). And … it had to be him. (ahh the references)

Today’s Elitecember theme is “Docking”. No drawing today but I do have a few screenshots. I even did a video a while ago …

There we have the Odo on her way out, lifting off from the pad and heading out through the mailslot to the outside.

And a few seconds later. I still think that’s a gorgeous paint job.

Here we are a few jumps later, coming in to a different space station. Better ask for permission to enter before approaching that mailslot.

And on the inside, heading for a landing. Bit more of an industrial station this time with much different lighting and features inside.

And then there’s the planetary bases as well, here we are coming in to Abel Laboratory, home of one of the engineers. I need to do some prospecting very soon because I’m out of some of the materials. Used them up, souping up the Odo.

On final approach, heading straight down for a vertical landing.

And finally, resting on the landing legs, ready to head inside.

It’s not planetary bases and the big space stations though, the big advantage of the Python is that it can land at the Outposts as well. These are smaller, non rotating stations which cannot take the biggest ships. Had to wait at this one because someone was hogging the landing pad.

I’m about to head back in for more travel, trade and helping out with a Community Goal …

See you all tomorrow !

Hello everyone,

Weekend is here ! Time for a chill out. Hopefully watching the next World Endurance Championship race tomorrow, however their coverage is an absolute mess and it can be tough to find a way of watching it without paying any money. And I’m not going to pay money to watch it. I like the racing … but not that much.

Gosh that was a weird intro ! What’s behind the doors today ?

There we go.

That’s another Gingerbread Marshmallow and I’m pretty sure the Lego Thingy is a Mouse Droid. The one that sits very close to the ground and guides people to their destinations. And … on looking for a bigger picture of it, the EXCITED BOUNCING NOISES may have started happening. I’ve recovered a bit but … Check this out :

That’s from Rebrickable.com and here’s a link to the page. It’s not just a Lego Mouse Droid. It’s a remote control Lego Mouse Droid. HOW AWESOME IS THAT ?

Before I go on, I’m still excitable from enjoying a lovely afternoon/early evening out with someone who had bought me something AWESOME. Check this out :

It’s a custom t-shirt, imported from America and not only is the design particularly amazing, it felt like it was made from lovely soft material as well.

This will be a prized gift indeed.

Where was I ? Today’s Mass Effect poster is Aria T’Loak. She isn’t a member of the crew but she’s a key NPC who runs Omega, an independent space station built out of an ancient asteroid base. Sassy, powerful, angry, sexy, Aria is an Asari who runs Omega with an iron fist and gives the player someone to talk to when connecting with the quests there.

And there’s more too but that’s spoiler territory. The Mass Effect games are best played blind, so your particular, unique story develops and unfolds before you and spoilers dampen the impact.

The Elitecember theme today is Federation. There are 3 main power blocs in the Elite universe, the Federation, the Empire and the Alliance. The Federation grew out of Earth and are a kind of amalgam of the democracies and republics we have on Earth at the moment.

(I’m not mentioning the election – that’s not something for here !)

The impression I have of Elite’s Federation is that they’re a bunch of overbearing, over regulating autocrats who look to tell the rest of the galaxy how they should do things. I might be doing a bit of transferance from our current governments there. I try and ignore this government as much as I can, staying under their radar while doing what I want to do not what they want me to do.

And I do exactly the same thing in Elite. I’ve done a lot of work for Elite’s Federation but that’s so I could unlock all the ships. And …. SHINY :

I’ll come back to the Admiral Luperza at some point, it should be a devastating destroyer of people with Wanted tags. As was the Odo … I went in to the game last night to fly the Odo around and it was quite cheerfully making explosions out of anyone who dared to attempt an interdiction.

The paint job is spectacular, although that one is assisted by the light of a close by sun. There’s going to be more pictures of the Odo tomorrow for the Docking post.

I did actually do a drawing today but I didn’t have much time. I also attempted to draw from memory too, with no references.

Maybe a bit more angle to the forward neck pylon.

Today was a good day. See you tomorrow !

Hello everyone, day 12 and a special day in the UK …

Job done. Always vote, it’s your right to vote as you choose. As in, I’m not going to tell you or suggest to you who you should vote for, just be careful that the candidates or parties are actually telling the truth when they’re persuading you who to vote for.

And that’s all for politics for a little while, just wanted it in the thumbnail :-D.

Today’s Mass Effect comes to you from the domain of Day 0 Came In The Box DLC. Or downloadable content that’s just you paying a little extra for stuff that should have been included. In this case, an extra character for the team and a few extra missions.

I did not buy this particular DLC. It was another sign of EA going for extra monetisation with their games and I wasn’t going to support that. It was very controversial … Mind you, I haven’t bought the other Mass Effect 3 DLCs either …

Salted Caramel marshmallow today – these are lush. And we have either :

A Death Star Gunner trooper or … Jynn Erso from Rogue One. Could be either.

It might be a short one today … I did a Mall run after getting in from work and a combination of things means I’m getting pretty tired now. Let’s see :

It’s coming near the end of a tiring (and fun!) year and I’m winding down for a break. 4 more working days to go.
Poorly left ankle, must have twisted it.
Sore leg. Had a heavy cramp while attempting to sleep last night, slightly torn muscle.
Those aren’t stopping me from getting around though :-). I’ll be having a wander around town tomorrow afternoon.

The Mall run brought :
A drawing pad and pencils – probably nothing from them tonight because I want to take Odo’s Courage out for a ride and my right wrist is a bit sore.
Very odd looks from the lady on the sausage-inna-bun stall. I think she thinks I’m strange. I think she’s a good judge of character.

Elitecember theme today is “Explosion”, which could be a bit tough to draw … But I do have screenshots :

That was something that exploded on the weekend.

That’s a massive Red Giant star (Betelgeuse) that will at some point soon (in astronomical terms), contract and explode. No boom yet.

That was something that was attempting to make my Buggy explode, my ship was being helpful by providing top cover air defence.

The star on the left had exploded at some point, collapsing into I think a White Dwarf in this case. Also Python in the sun.

And there we go ! See you all tomorrow.

Hello everyone,

We’ve reached Day 11 ! Actually sketches today. I’ve been watching Salvation series 2 on Netflix, which means the display I use for sketching on digitally gets used for watching the Netflix. However … I have a small drawing pad …

But first, what’s behind the doors today ?

Confession – I made an error yesterday. I mistook one Krogan for another. Instead of Urdnot Wrex, it was Grunt. One Krogan scientist’s answer to the genophage was to ignore it … He believed that the characteristics selected by the genophage was the ability to survive it, not the characteristics of the ideal Krogan. So he set out to make the perfect Krogan, Grunt was born and introduced in the second game. Another rough, tough, fighter and he gets his own “fate” scene in the third game. Another super powerful scene that tugs on your emotions, pretty much like all the Mass Effect games.

Today we have Legion, a Butterscotch marshmallow and a gun turret.

The marshmallow survived as long as was needed to take a picture … but just barely. I need more posh marshmallows in my life.

If you remember Tali from a few days ago, the reason her race, the Quarians, were exiled from their homeworld was due to the rise of the artificial lifeforms, the Geth. The Geth started as servitor robots but one day, they started asking questions like “Does this unit have a soul ?” and other demonstrations of impending sentience. The Quarians reacted badly to this and attempted to shut them down … resulting in an uprising where the Quarians lost.

Legion enters the story in Mass Effect 2, as a Geth who also becomes part of the team. Legion acquires their own story and even though they are devoid of emotions, they are every bit as powerful as the rest of the team. Or maybe they do have emotions, wrapped up in code, unravelled in the mysteries of the network and as unfathomable as the figures at the last decimal places.

Elitecember’s theme today is “Python” and I have a hell of a ship to show you today :

That paint job is magnificent is it not ? I never believed that I would spend money on cosmetic items like this but that livery is absolutely stunning. The Python is a good ship too, a great all rounder that’s capable of trading at every port, fending off attacks by pirates and finding its way into every corner and getting out again intact.

Let’s have another look :

Pretty. I haven’t taken the Odo’s Courage out of the hangar yet though. Haven’t had time. (Plus watching Salvation on Netflix also uses the screen that the internet spaceships go on). The name is for Rene Auberjonois, who played Odo in Star Trek Deep Space 9. He’s the latest of a succession of people who have been lost to the world in recent weeks.

Odo was a fantastic character in Deep Space 9. Sensitive, wanting to learn, cynical, relentless, caring. Starting as a unique individual, we saw him questing to find where he belonged in the galaxy. What were his origins, who were his people. Who would he be able to call family. Odo went through so many trials throughout the series and this remarkable character set the tone for so much of DS9.

I’ve remarked about how the voice actors in Mass Effect brought their characters to life. Rene Auberjonois did the same wherever I’ve seen him. I’ve sadly not seen him in much, DS9, Librarians, Warehouse 13, NCIS, ST Enterprise, SG-1 but it was a privilege to see his work.

Definitely one we’ll miss, as will the others like Mr Troi, Roxette’s Marie Fredriksson and so many others. And it felt fitting to name this ship after Odo.

There have been other Pythons … (It’s a great ship)

That one isn’t mine and exploded not long after this screenshot was taken. (Night vision was active so I could see the rocks)

This one was Shipka, named after a tradition from Katherine of Sky. Everything gets a “-ka!” after the name. Including internet spaceships. It felt like something fun to do at the time. Still does 😀

And that’s the back end of the Python from my first game.

There will be more shots of Pythons later. Oh … sketchiness may have happened :

And then more sketch :

There are a few paint jobs with patterns like that :-).

See you tomorrow for “Explosion”. Uhoh …

Hello everyone,

Day 10 ! No drawing today. I had an idea but I think it’d be a bit too much. Plus I haven’t used the ship in question, so griefing about it wouldn’t be fair.

(I’ll gripe about it a bit later on)

What’s behind the doors today ?

Milk and Cookies marshmallow survived this time for picture taking !

Again, not the best but not the best with these marshmallows (not sponsored) is still pretty great. This may well count as Best Advent Calendar Ever :-D.

I had no idea what the Star Wars thingy is today so I had to look it up again … Apparently it’s the Jakku Quadjumper from The Force Awakens :

(link to original post – Jays Brick Log)

Our Mass Effect character of the day is Urdnot Wrex, who joins the story in the first game. He’s a Krogan, which are essentially the Mass Effect version of Klingons. A warrior race, tougher than most armoured tanks and warships with aggression to match. Also pretty intelligent, especially when it comes to things that go bang.

An ongoing theme in the games is the Krogan Genophage, where to stop a newly technologically uplifted Krogan race from rapidly dominating the galaxy, genetic engineering warfare was used to drastically cut their birth rate. This marks the Krogan psychology and finding a way to end the genophage is a recurring theme in the games. It’s another way of making them different and interesting. Urdnot Wrex is an especially tough cookie and a great member of the team.

The Elite theme today is Type 10, which is a ship that emerged a little while ago as some kind of deviant aberration. I haven’t owned one (and will keep it to the very end) but, this is the shipyard page :

This one started out as the Type 9 freighter, which I see as a bit of a necessary evil … it carries a huge amount but … it’s a slow space truck and nothing more. With the Type 10, cargo space was sacrificed in favour of improved defences and weaponry. Perhaps better manoeuvrability too if the shipyard page is to be believed. I might get one when I hit the 4 billion credit mark. Not before though, there are better ships to fly.

I’ve just retired this one :

The Black Sheep, coming in on approach to Jameson Memorial, her job complete and retiring with honour.

And coming in to dock again. The Black Sheep served well as a cargo carrier, mission runner, secure courier and was also the peril of all most some of those who attempted to interfere. A fine ship.

She went off to far off places ….

And prevailed when other, lesser ships may have succumbed to their damage. No duck tape was required with the damage to that canopy.

But all good things and all that, I picked up 2 ships today. One will make an appearance tomorrow (needs fitting out, plus THEME !) and I’m saving the Corvette for later. However …

Meet the Admiral Luperza, a Federal Corvette named in honour of the lovely Maggie Krohn (see links on the right hand column again) who is a stalwart of Roll4it, maker of awesomeness in games, wonderful leader of communities and all round amazing person. As the final ship in the Roll4it Federation line, it was fitting that Maggie (Luperza is one of her gaming names and I thought the name had a great ring to it) get the best one. The ship that would be in charge.

The Admiral Luperza will stay in the hangar for a little while though, I’m saving this one for when I’ve gone through another few ships. Plus I’m feeling that itch to get out and about around the galaxy again and this ship is definitely not the ship for that :-). It’s built for shooting things …

Is that the dinner bell ? Time to hit Publish and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Day 9 !

What’s behind the doors today ?

Another Gingerbread Marshmallow today. Not their best, still really good :-).

We have another minifigure today, in the form of Luke the Jedi Master. I’m wondering what he’ll get up to in the last film.

The Mass Effect character is the deeply tragic, Thane Krios. He’s introduced in Mass Effect 2 as a Drell assassin hired to help you out. You meet him on a mission where he’s on his way to fulfil a contract (i.e. assassinate) an insane Asari lady who you actually come across in the first game. He’s silently staying just a few steps ahead as you make your way through the mission and you meet up at the end. A tragic figure, he suffers from Kepral’s Syndrome as a result of his race being transplanted from a desert world to a humid, ocean covered world. This condition is terminal for our brave assassin so he’s using what time he has left in the cause of our protagonist.

I didn’t use Thane in game much but his tale is especially compelling. From his introduction, through exposition around missions, to his eventual fate. That last scene is another of the reasons why I haven’t been able to play through Mass Effect 3 again, the writing, characters and their various fates brings out all the emotions and feels.

What can I say, the Mass Effect series has some incredible characters and very special voice acting to bring those characters to life.

The Elitecember theme for today is Scanning and … I don’t think I have any Elite screenshots for you today on that theme … However.

In honour of the wonderful Potato Queen Cmdr Kolo (link to twitch on the right), I present :

He’s giving that potato a good long look. Not happy with the right arm on this one and the wing limb could do with being a lot lower but … This one is another graphics tablet plus GIMP again and I like some of GIMP’s features more than I do Corel Painter Essentials. The Corel product has far better choice of brushes to draw with though as GIMP is limited to Pencil, Painter or Airbrush plus tools like the dodge tool I’ve used to create the white highlights.

That one was the warm up … This is the main one :

Click for bigger and more readable references.

I’m at a loss for tomorrow’s Elite pics though. The theme is Type 10 and … I’ll save griping about that one for tomorrow.

Later !

PS I know what the dwagon holding the potato needs … More fingers ! The pose was intended to be a hand holding the potato from below but I think it needed something different.

Hello everyone,

Day 8 of Advent ! What’s behind the doors today :

There we go.

Another Mint Choc Chip marshmallow today – this one was lush last time so I’m looking forward to eating this one. (Yep, it has survived so far, I thought I should get something more proper in me first !)

Not too sure that the Lego item is today though … (quick peek at spoiler places later, it’s the island in Last Jedi).

In the background we have the daily Mass Effect lore pic and it’s the turn of Miranda Lawson today. She turned up in the second game and was essentially your handler and ship Executive Officer. Except it doesn’t really work out that way in games like that and she’s essentially another member of the crew with specific talents who you can bring along on missions. In the case of Miranda, she had been genetically improved for intelligence, looks and biotic power.

This character got a lot of stick for that and for good reasons too …

The biotic powers weren’t quite as good as the other primary biotics (spoiler redacted but I fell foul of it in my first play through).
The intelligence wasn’t brought out in the character development and writing.
The looks were exploited by means of That Outfit and the poses which the animation team put the character in.

I liked Miranda … but I was cringing at certain elements of the characterisation which, as said above, were just plain exploitative. Her counterpart, Jacob, had similar issues … he just played with his guns and did crunches all day. Nothing more interesting than that.

It’s a shame too because the other characters were far more fleshed out and intelligently written, making you have genuine feelings for them. I’m sure there are a few more of those coming up and I’ll write about them as their turn comes.

The Elite theme for today is Orrery and it’s another where I struggled to find something I could draw something for, outside of screenshots. The usual view of solar systems in Elite is like :

The system is represented in a logical format, showing you the stars, planets and whether there is anything juicy to look at. This one is Jambo Dadi, where I was enjoying doing some bounty hunting yesterday. The Orrery is a more 3d representation of the system :

And there we go. I don’t think that actually tells you much ?

That’s the system map for our Solar System. In Elite terms, we have a pretty complicated solar system with lots of moons and moonlets orbiting around the bigger planets. (Click for bigger and hopefully readable text and … picture’s from the wiki). The typical interesting systems tend to have between 10 and 20 objects to have a look at.

Scanning’s tomorrow actually, I should do some more prep for that.

May add something later too … my Elite character is about 500 ly away from Sol at the moment but I may well add in a picture of how our place looks in the two views. Actually, let’s do that …

There’s the system map. Looks like they’ve added in a bunch of extra-solar objects over to the right there and just counted the smaller moons of Saturn and Jupiter.

There’s the outer system Orrery, showing the gas giants and those extra-solar objects …

And finally, the inner system. The Orrery nicely shows the representation of how far apart the various objects are.

That’s it for today I think !

Day 7 !

What’s behind the doors today ?

In the foreground, we have Chewbacca doing something horrible with a Porg over the fire, plus a S’Mores marshmallow. Tasty, tasty S’Mores marshmallow.

Today’s Mass Effect pic is Tali’Zorah vas Neema, as she starts in the second game. Tali is a beloved character in the game series, voiced admirably by Ash Sroka (IMDB link). It’s a pretty short list there but I know she’s been in more roles (like the Xenophile advisor in Stellaris) and she really brings Tali’Zorah to life. There are many amazing characters in the Mass Effect series and Tali is quite possibly, the most loved of them all.

And it’s the voice acting that turns the words into something that makes that happen.

One curious thing is that the Quarian race of which Tali is one of, is a very slightly different race to the norm. Pretty much all of the Mass Effect intelligent races are bipedal humanoid in shape, with variances along that theme. So the Turians (Garrus from yesterday) and the Quarians have exoskeletons and need different food. The Quarians also have an extra joint in their legs, which coincidentally makes them look like they wear high heels all the time.

They are also forced to live in ships, the Migrant Fleet, after being evicted from their homeworld by the artificially intelligent Geth and consequentially, inside environmentally sealed suits as they have minimal immune systems. This also drives their naming convention, so Tali’Zorah vas Neema is Tali of the family Zorah of the ship Neema.

It’s all part of making a fantastic universe to dip in to as you play.

Today’s Elite theme is “White Dwarf”, another where I’m not sure how I would have pulled off a drawing. But … I do have screenshots ….

Oh wait. Wrong White Dwarf. I can’t remember how many of these I bought over the years ! White Dwarf was a gaming magazine owned and run by Games Workshop, who you may recognise from how they’ve expanded into being a pretty ubiquitous presence. They’ve done well too, instead of exploding and imploding like so many others who rapidly established a presence, they’ve survived where so many have disappeared.

Some of that is probably due to being able to exploit their market … they are pretty much the only wargame miniature figure producers. But it’s also because people are highly interested in playing with the stuff. Their games are all over the place and some of that is copying from those who came before (orcs, dwarves, elves …), some of that is making the rules easy to understand and play.

I started buying White Dwarf at issue 98 and back then, it was a mix of background articles, rules previews, tutorial guides on building models and painting them and it had huge amounts in there of artwork in both the drawn and modelling world.

The sad realisation came though a few years later that it wasn’t so much a hobbyist magazine any more, it had turned in to a marketing arm aimed at selling their product. I lost interest and walked away from buying it. Part of that was down to eliminate buying stuff that wasn’t food though. Yeah, been there, it’s not fun. But then I started working and my finances looked up from there on in.

What is a White Dwarf in the real world ?

The in game graphics may not be representative of the real stars !

Here we have the Searching for Biscuits looking on at a rapidly vibrating White Dwarf star. They are degenerate stars at the end of their life which are in a cooling phase. They’ve burned up all of their fuel, gone through the expansion in to a red giant like Betelgeuse and started contracting and cooling as their fuel source runs out. They start at a particular size (between 8 and 10 solar masses), outside of which other things will happen to the star, like degeneration in to a neutron star or a nova explosion.

The colour comes from what happens when the hydrogen fuel runs out. Normally stellar fusion will start with Hydrogen with one proton and fuse it into heavier elements like Helium (2 protons), Lithium (3 protons), Beryllium (4 protons) and then into Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen. Stellar fusion is how everything in the galaxy becomes more than the base protons, neutrons and electrons. And novae and supernovae are how those elements become spread throughout the galaxy, to form the worlds that orbit younger stars. But before then, the balance of the elements in the star determines their colour (spectroscopy) with the carbon and oxygen in the White Dwarf producing that colour.

There’s more about them in the wiki page (link!).

Astronomy is a great science to dip in to occasionally, although it can get mind bending.

Cya tomorrow.