Maps! Fabulous video showing rise of sea level over time

The map shows rising sea levels from current to 5000+ plus. The Himalayas are the last thing to go.

Perfect for your post-apocalypse world building scenarios...

Christopher Bretz's realistic 'post-apocalypse' maps

Okay, they're not really post-apocalypse, more post-climate change. These are far more realistic and 'grounded' (heh) than the Gordon-Michael Scallion flights of fancy into glorious cranktown. 

According to an Anthropocene Magazine article, he created these when he grew concerned about global warming, and redrew the world map with coastlines 80 meters higher than they are currently. 

The most striking change? Florida is gone. Absolutely, totally... gone. 

Check out the Anthropocene site for more, including the map of Europe. 

Chris Bretz's map of post-climate change North America

Future maps of Gordon Michael Scallion

Post-apocalypse North America

These are a mix of fact and pseudo-science-sorcery, but they're still fun. 

Gordon-Michael Scallion put out two map sets, one in the nineties and a second set in the early aughts. Great background for a post-apocalypse sci-fi adventure like... Magnum Thrax!

Check out more over on the awesome Geographicus site.

The ruins of the world

Repainting old Wizard of the Coast Star Wars miniatures

Little tiny people ("Robots are peeeeople!") from a miniature galaxy far, far away

Years ago, in The Before Time, in The Long Long Ago, I played Star Wars: The Role Playing Game from West End Games (WEG). It was popularly known as D6 Star Wars, and it was a blast to play. Admittedly, it did require totalling up large numbers of dice, especially as players became more skilled. My math challenged brain actually rather preferred Traveller's even more simple system, which had fewer problems with scaling. At least from my experience.

I also had Star Wars Minatures Battles, also from WEG, which had a system more like Traveller: just roll 1D and add bonuses. It, too, was a blast to play, although I never had enough little metal miniatures to really do much, being perennially cash strapped.

Years later, Wizards of the Coast came out with a line of Star Wars miniatures. These were relatively cheap, if you bought them second hand, with resellers at the time letting the less popular miniatures go for as little as 25 cents. And since I was buying them for the old WEG miniatures game, I didn't care about how good the miniatures were for the Wizard game, which meant I could pick up excellent, cheap sculpts because they weren't the best performers in the Wizard system. Booyah!

So I picked up a small pile of them. 

They're made of bendy plastic, which has pros and cons. 

On the con side, they don't hold as much detail as harder plastic minis. They also came pre-painted, which was a big plus for me, as I'd become more time strapped than cash strapped, BUT the paint jobs weren't... amazing. 

On the pro side, they are tough and resilient, and don't break easily. Bends can be fixed by putting them in hot water, tweaking the pose, then running them under cold water. Boom! Good as new. The pre-paints mean you don't need to spend a huge amount of time painting them. They also printed a long line of figures, with a lot of variety. And as it was also made for the Wizard incarnation of the role playing game, you get figures that aren't always focused on combat. That's great for the RPG side. 

There's a new line of figures under the Legion banner, but these are only for a miniature combat game. Those figures are more detailed, come unpainted, break easily, and are hella expensive. 

Meh.

So pick your poison. 

I recently dug out some of my old figures, having gotten back into RPGs over COIVD, and wondered if I could improve them with a little speed painting, washes, and dry brushing. 

And you know what? 

It works, and it doesn't take a lot of effort.

I used a pack of speed paints from Army Painter, plus some old acrylics for flats... although those are a little thick for such tiny figs, even when thinned. The set above were a dramatic improvement on the pre-paints; the photos don't really do them justice.

This is what the Acquilash (Acqualish?) technician looked like before the repaint:

The conservative Acquilash

No colour difference between the kneepads, rope, equipment, hair, jacket, etcetera. So I added silver to his tech gear and had fun filling in details and an eye catching red jacket.

The Bothan (which never appeared in the movies) was painted with flat, glossy colours that looked garish and plastic. Yes, I know the mini IS plastic, but I don't want it to LOOK like plastic. Dry brush on the head, washes over the arms and boots, and voila! See above. Not so plastic.

The glossy Bothan

The Kel-Dor bounty hunter (honestly I don't remember this species in the movies at all) was kind of flat. Some speed paint to add depth really spiced things up (IMHO). 

The flat Kel-Dor

Andor Season 2 is coming

 The best Star Wars since Empire, Andor's second season is coming this April. 

The music works well for an ad, but I'm hoping they don't put contemporary music actually in the show. 

I'm expecting something politically well informed, with even more action. It's cramming four years into one season this time, after all, so it's bound to be a rabble rousing, rebellious good time.

I'm stoked.

Denis Villeneuve hates Ewoks too

No less a figure than auteur sci-fi director Denis Villeneuve shares the widespread disdain for the Ewoks:

“I was 15 years old, and my best friend and I wanted to take a cab and go to L.A. and talk to George Lucas — we were so angry! Still today, the Ewoks. It turned out to be a comedy for kids," he said. "Star Wars became crystallized in its own mythology, very dogmatic, it seemed like a recipe, no more surprises. So I’m not dreaming to do a Star Wars because it feels like code is very codified.”

Can't argue with that. 

See the full article over at CBR.

I compiled my own thoughts on the weeble-wooble fuzzballs here. 

Photo of two Ewoks (one has been shorn of hair)

Head canon: Star Wars edition

Polish Star Wars poster?

I like the idea of head canon, especially as I get older, and the franchises I loved get longer and longer in the tooth. 

It's inevitable that franchises will have ups and downs, golden eras and dark ages, fabulous creative teams and capricious greedy studio hacks who care nothing for the material, have nothing to say, and just want to milk it for every penny they can get their grubby cheeto stained fingers on. 

Or is it me with the cheetos? Whatever.

So I thought I'd put together a list of my own head canon. 

There's different international flavours of Star Wars, so why not my own? Copyright, that's why! 

First up is Star Wars, because, honestly, that one is pretty easy.

My official (and completely irrelevant outside of my head) list: 

• Star Wars (just Star Wars, not the Very Special Edition with Blossom)

• The Empire Strikes Back (original cut)

• The Return of the Jedi (original cut, but only half of it)

• The Mandalorian season 1 (some of it) and season 2 (a little of it)

• Andor (all of it)

I'm not really a fan of the prequels, but George Lucas deserves his due: he didn't blatantly rehash the first trilogy, lazily reordering elements. He added to the whole, and he didn't blow up another d*mn Death Star (okay, that Trade Federation control ship came close). Still, it wasn't the creatively bankrupt hack job the sequel trilogy was.

Just as The Force Awakens regurgitates A New Hope, The Last Jedi recycles The Empire Strikes Back. It's so obvious, yet no one sees it (or they don't care). I still don't get why people swoon over this lacklustre film. It doesn't 'democratize' jedi or force powers: the jedi were shown to not have kids in the prequel trilogy already. Lucas set that up, so why this film gets the credit I have no idea. 

Star Wars unlike you've ever seen it before!

And as bad as I find Last Jedi, the Rise of Skywalker is an irredeemable, unwatchable abomination about which nothing further should be said.

Sadly, younger fans HATE Andor, they find it slow paced, boring, and insufficiently superficial with lots of bling bling. Not enough Death Stars blow up, and there isn't enough ostentatious back flipping. They'd probably prefer Swan Lake with lightsabers. 

Me? I think it's fascinating, smart, historically informed, and well constructed. It has slow builds that yield big payoffs. It's brilliant, far better than anything else put out since Empire Strikes Back. 

That said, Andor's NOT a kids show. Lucas famously declared himself a toymaker who also made movies (mostly to advertise the toys) and that the films were made for specifically for children. I think he's mistaken, in that the first two films are actually all-ages (despite muppet Yoda), and it's only with lame Ewoks and subsequent prequels that it smashed right into children's faces, rather than a general audience's. 

My head cannon reflects this. 

From Samurai rip-off to Samurai-in-Spaaace!

How the h*ll Andor ever got greenlit given the franchise focus on kiddies I can't explain, but it makes up for a lot Disney has put out. Not enough, mind, I'm still a disgruntled old fan who regularly yells at the younglings on his lawn (at least I don't dice them with a lightsaber, unlike Ani 'Are you an Angel' Skywalker), but a lot.

The Disney era for Star Wars has a few other highlights: they've put out some cool games (Rebellion, X-Wing, Armada) and... uh, okay that's about it. 

I've aged out as an audience member. As the feral kid says, it just lives now in my memories.

Oh, Feral Kid... what wonderful memories you have!