Further Fictitious Equipage

Yeah, so I had more thoughts on SF equipment. Oh, by the bye, this isn't the computer I usually write these on. There should be a special hell for those who write spyware—and a special method of sending them there, if they disguise their spyware as a security alert. Like beating them to death with frozen airliner lavatory waste.

No, I didn't fall for it, but I can't use that computer until the nonsense is resolved.

Without further ado:

• The pistol had a sight in Combat Evolved (that's why it has one in Reach), but they took it off in Halo 2. My brother's theory is that it's got to do with the dual-wielding, and he's probably right. But I like the in-game explanation: that's the compact variant of the gun.
  
  Gentlemen, really, you've already impressed me enough. It would be okay to stop.
• So before, my felinoids' swords were sorta katana-like, with hilts more like Napoleonic sabers ('cept two-hand length). Then I thought, hey, clip points are neat, like on a Bowie knife.
  
  But then I thought, hey, actually, a sword-length Bowie knife with a two-hand length hilt would be cool—the particular combination of features we think of as "sword" ain't set in stone. Just look at some of India's swords to see that. Anyway now, basically, the felinoids' swords look more or less like this.
• And, yeah, I realized: a part of that would be, my felinoids, much like Western Europeans, have a tradition of straight swords—curved swords are probably slightly better for cutting from horseback, but straight swords are your guy for massed combat: because for that, you need stabbing. Remember how I said katanas are counter-intuitive for stabbing? Well a gladius or an Oakeshott XII arming sword makes stabbing strictly point and click, and the latter is pretty damn good for slicing, too.
• Their weapons aren't made of metal, though. Their current swords are made of an opaque, white, vaguely pearly stuff whose chemical formula is probably as long as your arm, and probably involves six different kinds of special notation.
  
  But they still call it steel—except that, indeed, they call it bronze. See, I decided, their word for "steel" actually meant "iron bronze", and their word for the synthetic they currently make weapons out of is the same thing. Basically it's a word that means "alloy or other composite substance that's used for making weapons".
  
  Their guns are made of a different synthetic, a vaguely translucent gray-green whose shine looks vaguely oily, like you might see on certain soaps (glycerin soap, I think? I'm a dude, sorry). I dunno, it just seemed like it'd be a cool thing to make guns out of. I remember visual textures, if that makes sense, a lot—one thing I really like about Reach is how different the material of human and Covenant gear looks. I mean, Elite armor totally looks like candy.
• My brother getting a 3DS has been a godsend, even though no decent games exist for the damn thing yet (not a breathtaking strategic move, Nintendo). Why? Its 3d camera, that's why. I had already had volumetric displays in my book (you quaint chalcolithic Zinjanthropi call them "holograms"), but I couldn't help thinking, "How do you do them with video phones? Do you have a big frame, like a shower, the person stands in?" Well, the 3ds has a phone-sized 3d camera.
  
  Basically, the display it would make would be a volumetric ("holographically projected") bas relief, just the front 2/3 or so of the user's body, as far up as the camera can see (upper arms up, probably).
• Is it weird that the mere presence of soda machines in Halo games makes me happy? I mean, sure, the attack on the corvette in Reach could've given us our first glimpse of the Food Nipple; nobody's denying there's still much work to be done. But "what, if anything, are their vending machines like?" is an important cultural-setting detail that's far too often neglected, especially in American works (Japanese SF is often much better about it). And trash cans, and drinking fountains: Reach has lots of both! Plus, you can knock trash-cans off a higher level, onto a lower, in the multiplayer, and tell your opponent (perhaps a younger male sibling) that you're striking him in effigy, or perhaps making war upon his natural habitat. Not that I've ever done that. More than once. Each.
  
  Remember how Bebop has the periodic appearance of the Cup Noodle of the 2070s, with the pull-string to activate the heating element in the bottom? Yeah. Hey SF writers, what's the low-budget instant food of your setting like? If you don't know the answer, well, why not?
• Also, coffee. Apparently the smeerp has quite the unusual biology, in that one of its most common subspecies is, essentially, coffee (a smeerp, of course, is essentially a rabbit). Rather than coming up with stupid names for coffee, call it coffee: or have them drink something else. My felinoids, since they have catlike senses, drink hot water in the morning—it's a lot more flavorful to them than it would be for you. They also drink broth (which I occasionally do, too, it's great when you're sick).
  
  I mean, nobody in East Asia puts milk or sugar in their tea (South Asia does, but they drink black tea, not green—those facts are probably connected). Mexican hot chocolate has cinnamon in it. Are you really so irredeemably, benightedly provincial that coffee's the only hot beverage you can think of?