RPG Saturday: Space: 1889

 

Space: 1889 was a Victorian Era era role playing game released by Game Designers Workshop (GDW) in 1989. It did not see the commercial success that GDW wanted and was quickly cancelled by GDW in 1990. This is somewhat amazing to me, as interest in the game has held on with subsequent versions (same setting but different game mechanics) being published by several companies over the intervening years. 

    The game is an amalgam of the science fiction of Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, and Edger Rice Burroughs, combining the fantastic elements of their stories with the scientific theories of that day and age, giving an early steam punk vibe. It reflects an alternate history of the Victorian Era where Mars and Venus are habitable and interplanetary travel is possible. The result is the colonial revelry of the Great Powers extending to include the inner planets of our solar system. 

    The basic background of the game is informed by certain theories of the period: that Mars was a world slowly dying from lack of water, crisscrossed by canals; that Venus was a hothouse world covered with thick jungles, swamps, and oceans much like a primordial Earth, hidden under a permanent haze of clouds; and that space was filled with the Ether--the medium which transmitted light waves and gravity. 

     The alternate history used by the game begins with Thomas Edison inventing an Ether propeller that can move a craft through space. However, the propeller will not work until a craft is lifted to altitude of 24,000 feet on Earth. Once a working device was developed, Edison and a Scottish adventurer named Jack Armstrong set off for Mars in 1870. The initial lift was provided by a hydrogen balloon after which the Ether propeller took them to Mars where they made first contact with the Martian inhabitants. With their return to Earth, the race to colonize Mars and the other inner planets took off. Because the power for the Ether propeller comes from solar boilers, Ether ships are limited to the inner solar system, so the outer planets remain unexplored.

    While Zeppelins and dirigibles are used for airships, one of the most valuable exports from Mars is liftwood--a naturally occurring tree wood that when correctly harvested and shaped has antigravity powers. By a system of louvers made of lift wood, a ship can control its lift and maneuver above a planetary surface. So the best airships use lift wood. 

    There is other "mad scientist" type technology that you can incorporate into your game--lightening cannons, freeze rays, and mechanical men, for instance--but other than the Ether propeller and other technology necessary for space travel, most of the other technology in the game is either technology that existed or extensions of the same that could have been possible if the right inventor (and investors) had come along. 

One of the three main types of Martians

     The game system was actually quite simple. Characters were primarily defined by six attributes: Strength, Endurance, Agility, Intellect, Charisma, and Social Level, with scores ranging between 1 and 6. Unlike some other games that incorporate some version of social level as an attribute, it makes a real difference in this game as it limits which careers are open to a character and also is used to determine their wealth--basically the amount of money and other resources available to the character. 

    But this is also a skill based game system. Characters can gain skills in three ways: default skills which are associated with certain attributes, with the character receiving one for each of the attributes (plus "throwing"); skills awarded by virtue of the character's career; and skills "purchased" by use of skill points or experience points. 

 

    There are two basic game mechanics in the game. In one method, the player rolls a number of 6-sided dice equal to the score of the attribute or skill being used and compares it against a target number based on the difficulty of whatever the character is doing. For instance, if a character was trying to force open a door and had a Strength of a 4, the player would roll four dice and add up the total. If it was equal to or greater than the target number--say, 12 because the task was "difficult"--then the character would succeed in forcing the door. However, for quicker play for things of a "standard" difficulty, the player would roll a single die, and if the result was equal to or less than the appropriate attribute or skill level, the character would succeed in what they are doing.

    Combat has special rules. In Melee combat, each weapon has a number of hit dice that are rolled to see if the target is struck, which number may go up or down depending on certain modifiers. The person controlling the character being attacked also rolls a number of dice to block or parry blow. Each successful blocking die cancels out a successful attacking die. If the number of successful blocking dice exceeds the number of successful attack dice, not only has the attack been stopped, but the extra die or dice can be used for an immediate attack (e.g., a parry and riposte with sword). This seems complex and slow, but I believe the intent was to try and capture the feeling of two opponents trading blows. 

    Missile attacks (e.g., shooting a rifle, throwing a spear) are resolved similar to the basic game mechanic, but with modifiers to reflect different situations or the distance to a target. 

    And there are special rules for mixing both melee and missile attacks (e.g., Martians armed with spears attacking a British officer armed with a revolver). And the game has fairly detailed rules on fights between airships, fighting animals, using heavy weapons or explosives, and so on.

    If you want a more detailed explanation of the rules, see the video at the bottom of this post. 

    But beyond the rules is the setting of the game. There is a lengthy chapter just describing the Victorian Age, space travel (including rules on creating Ether ships), different types of equipment and weapons, inventing new devices, and, of course, the descriptions of the different bodies that the characters could travel to: the Earth's Moon (including a sample adventure), Venus, and, of course, Mars.

    I have to admit that I haven't really played this game much. It was published during a period when I was living overseas. Sometime after I returned, a friend of mine had bought it and, looking through it, I was intrigued. But I think we only played through one adventure ... and I'm not sure we even finished that adventure. This friend like buying a game, playing one or two adventures and then, seemingly bored, would move on to something else. And that seemed to be the case here. 

    But the setting intrigued me, so when I came across a copy of the game a couple years back, I picked it up. Later I stumbled across a copy of the Referee Screen which I picked up as well. In addition to the actual screen, it also included a booklet with some additional or expanded rules. 

    I still haven't put together an adventure--time and other commitments--but as I look through it again while writing this, I sure want to give it a try. 

    There were a surprising number of supplements and adventures published for Space: 1889 including rules for a miniatures war game. A computer game was even released. The rule book, supplements and adventures are available as PDFs on Drive-Thru RPG.  

    Interestingly, someone even produced a full length fan film based on the game setting (see the video at the very bottom of the post).  

 VIDEO: "Rules Breakdown: Space 1889"
RPGGamer (9 min.)

 

VIDEO: "Space 1189 - The Secret of Phobos Full Movie"
Orkenspalter TV (2 hrs 33 min.)

Vox Day: Citizen Vigilante And Why It's Too Late For A Political Solution

Vox Day discusses Citizen Vigilante and the political class' reaction in his piece "It’s Too Late Now." He notes some comments from some unnamed individual who found the movie disturbing because they "worry that unhinged members of our society might try to copy the main character," and urges that society can vote it's way out of this problem. Day responds:

No, we can’t. That’s the problem. There isn’t a better way any more, there isn’t even a different way, because the very forces that have brought the West to this juncture have relentlessly prevented the people of the West from having any voice in their own invasion and subjugation. Popular approval for this program of legal, government-assisted invasion was never, ever, sought. Every attempt to stop it through political means was thwarted in an illegitimate manner by the system. Mass immigration, political refugees, and migration have ALWAYS been very politically unpopular. No one ever voted for open borders. No one in Minneapolis ever asked to be invaded by Somalis. Every time a European country voted against its own submission to the EU, people were paid off and it was forced to vote again until it voted “the right way”.   

He discusses the morality and necessity, concluding: "Every nation, every people, have the immutable right to cast out the foreigners from their midst if that is their will. And every nation, every people, have a moral duty to do so when the foreigners are preying upon their women and their children."

    There seems to be a certain inevitability to this. It is reminiscent to the build up to World War I. You can go back and read books in the decades leading to World War I and it seemed an accepted fact that there would be a war with Germany. Here, the political class had to know that mass immigration would, over time, encounter greater and greater push back, yet they continued. The question is why did they continue.

    In some respect, I can understand that because the welfare state Ponzi scheme is collapsing along with collapsing birth rates, these countries need to import more warm bodies to pay into the system. But if that was the primary concern, there would have been some mechanism to screen who was coming in to ensure it was someone who would be productive. But the authorities didn't, which makes me believe there is more to it--that it really is the product of a hatred and loathing of their own peoples. 

    If there is nothing else to come out of this film, it will shift the Overton Window. I've noticed people posting memes essentially pointing out that remigration is the moderate position. That may, in fact, become the popular position.  

Meme Of The Day: Did It Though?

 

VIDEO: .22 Punch Out Of A Snub Nosed Revolver

This video compares the Federal Punch in .22 LR against a Federal Personal Defense in .38 Special +P, both out of snub nosed revolvers. Shots were initially taken into clear ballistic gel and then followed up with a heavy clothing barrier and a fiber board insert to simulate ribs. Surprisingly, the .22 Punch penetrated around 14"--just shy of the penetration depth of the .38 Special. This isn't an argument that the .22 will cause as much damage as the .38, but that the .22 Punch has much better penetration than other .22 LR out of a snub nosed revolver, and will reach the recommended FBI penetration depth against those barriers.  

 VIDEO: "Is a .22 LR Snub Nose Revolver Viable for Self Defense? This Ammo is a Game Changer! - Federal Punch" - Gun Sam Revolver Ballistics (17 min.)

VIDEO: Backcountry Splinting

This video goes over wilderness treatment of a suspected fracture, stating with removing of a boot or other clothing that might cause injury as the limb swells, and then demonstrates the shaping and securing of a SAM splint. They used a dark colored splint, but my thought with emergency equipment is to have it in bright colors to make it easier for rescuers to spot you. 

VIDEO: "Splinting in the Wilderness (Survival Doctors & PrepMedic)"
PrepMedic (12 min.)

Insurrection: NY Mayor Defies Supreme Court

The New York Post reports: "Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised to never accept the US Supreme Court’s ruling allowing President Trump’s administration to strip deportation protection for Haitian and Syrian migrants." 

Postal Service Won't Deliver Mailed Ballots In Corrupt States

From Time Magazine: "Postal Service Plans Not to Deliver Mail Ballots to States Unless They Hand Over Voter Data." 

    ... the Postal Service’s proposed rule said that agency employees would verify the eligibility of mail-in ballots by checking them against lists of voters that states would share with the federal government. The proposal, though, said that Postal Service staffers “would not verify whether individuals should or should not be included on a State’s Mail-In and Absentee Participation List,” adding that “states will retain full control over the content of that list.”

    At a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday, Steiner confirmed that the proposal would mean that the Postal Service wouldn’t deliver mail-in ballots if a state didn’t provide this list of voters who have requested absentee or mail-in ballots. 

Democrats are upset even though it was their corrupt practices that necessitated this new rule.   

Meme Of The Day: Here's The Thing, Snoopy...

 

Weekend Reading #62

Some longer and more involved reading for the weekend:

• Active Response Training's Weekend Knowledge Dump for this week. A few of the links that caught my attention in particular:
• The Spectator Australia has a piece on crime in Australia, including this bit: "When we compare these broader estimates, Australia’s rape and sexual assault rate is roughly three times higher than that of the United States. Australia’s assault rate is about twice as high, and its burglary rate is about 2.5 times higher. Robbery is the only category where the two countries report similar rates."
• Gat Daily has some tips on body language that will communicate that you are not a soft target to a criminal, such as "You should attempt to walk confidently, at a purposeful pace. Your arms should swing naturally and utilize full-body movement."
• Jerking the Trigger has a simple knife hack: using a static cord to hold the knife, allowing it to be completely carried completely concealed rather than wearing it on a belt.
• Gun Digest has some information on the legality of brandishing or displaying a firearm.
• For those that shoot revolvers in competition, Caleb Giddings has an article on determining if your .38 Special loads meet the necessary power factor.
• Urban Combatives has a video on using a water bottle in a sling bag as an improvised weapon.
• Tactical Wisdom discusses what it terms the three blade rule: that you should always have available to you a pocket folding-knife, a fixed-blade knife, and a multi-tool. The author contends that these three knives will allow you to solve most problems requiring blades and other tools. Greg, commenting on this article, also discusses why he does not carry a dedicated self-defense knife.
• Finally, an article on the dangers of bullet setback, which is often due to the constant unloading and loading of your duty or concealed carry weapon with the same bullet always being the one chambered. Each time you do that, the bullet is getting force applied and pushed slightly into the case. I also commonly see it with misfeeds, which can push a bullet quite far back into the case. The danger is that as the bullet is seated deeper, the gas pressure upon firing increases: "It’s estimated that 0.10 inch of bullet setback in the .40 Smith & Wesson can cause pressures to double."

• "CIA Drug Pilot Claims to Have Flown JFK Assassins Into Dallas"--Covert Action Magazine.  The article begins by noting:

    In a February 1985 episode of the hit NBC television series Miami Vice, Eagles singer Glenn Frey played a swashbuckling CIA pilot, Jimmy Cole, who flies ace detective Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Rafael Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) to Colombia to conduct a drug deal.

    Crockett and Tubbs had been recruited by the DEA to work undercover as drug smugglers to help bust cartel operatives. 

    Frey’s character was loosely modeled after Robert “Tosh” Plumlee, a CIA pilot whose exploits over a 40-year career are detailed in a new memoir, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves, with Ralph Pezzullo.

    Contrary to the depiction on Miami Vice, Plumlee’s memoir shows that the CIA often worked hand-in-glove with organized crime and was the one at times smuggling drugs into the U.S.

    Plumlee claims that, on the morning John F. Kennedy was killed, he flew Johnny Roselli, a CIA-Mafia liaison, and other members of the assassination team into Dallas.     

The article traces Plumlee's history from 1957, when he was helping run guns to Fidel Castro, to the 1980s when he was flying guns to the Contra rebels and bringing back drugs. The article also notes:

    Declassified FBI and CIA files from the 1990s, and as recently as 2023, confirm Plumlee’s role as a pilot with ties to several federal agencies, sometimes under the pseudonym of William H. “Buck” Pearson. Plumlee also testified multiple times under oath before congressional committees, including the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (1990-1991).

    This testimony, Russell says, much of it originally classified as top secret, reveals not only Plumlee’s proximity to the CIA’s JM/WAVE station in Miami in the early 1960s but his involvement in clandestine aviation activities during the 1980s “drug war.”

    Released documents in 2023 and 2025 provide further strong evidence supporting Plumlee’s having operated as a deep cover “asset,” challenging the FBI’s characterization of him as an “unreliable chronic complainant” who “gave confusing, illogical” accounts concerning the abort mission in Dallas. Senator Hart stated publicly that Plumlee’s information about the Kennedy assassination and CIA-mob connections was significant enough that he sought to follow up on it, only to be stymied by the powers that be. 

• "'Kill Your Parents' at the Obama Presidential Center"--Daniel Greenfield. At the recent opening of Obama's Presidential Library, the peasants "were forced to squat in camp chairs on the dying grass of what remained of a once beloved neighborhood park, burning in the hot sun, while their betters, politicians and celebrities, watched the spectacle up close."

    Media reporting spent a good deal of time spotting celebrities in the VIP section. There was a sprightly Tom Hanks in sunglasses, there was Oprah, on her fortieth diet, and girlfriend Gayle King, and LA Mayor Karen Bass who had to return home after Los Angeles burned again which seems to happen every time she leaves town.

    And then again there were the people who actually mattered, who had made Obama and the era of radicalism he brought into national politics, happen.

    “Dig it!” the old woman in the third row of the Obama Presidential Center, had once gloated over the brutal murder of Sharon Tate by the Manson Family. “First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach! Wild!”

    “Kill all the rich people,” the old man wearing the Communist ‘red star’ had defined his radical movement. “Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, Kill your parents.”

    Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, the former terrorist leaders of the Weathermen and the Chicago power couple who spotted Obama and moved him up the political ladder getting third row seats to the opening of the Obama Presidential Center spoke more eloquently about what Obama represented than any of the hollow political speeches and media press releases.

• "Postmodern Marriage" by C. Bradley Thompson. An excerpt:

    We live in a postmodern age that seeks to change or destroy the core principles and institutions that are at the foundation not just of the West but of all civilizations. Under the long shadow cast by Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Herbert Marcuse, we live in a time of nihilistic totalitarianism (nihilism is the means and totalitarianism is the end) that has as its direct goal the dismantling of those ways of living grounded in metaphysical reality.

    Let’s begin by putting our concerns in a broader context. Those who seek to destroy marriage, do so in the name of an ideological passion.

    When early twentieth-century Marxists realized that there would never be a proletarian revolution of oppressed workers because the working class was the greatest conservator of the bourgeois way of life, they recalibrated their strategy and decided that the values most important to the working class would have to be destroyed first and foremost. This led the twentieth-century Left on its “long march through the institutions” to extinguish those moral values and institutions that were suppressing and holding back the Marxist-Leninist revolution foretold by the laws of dialectical materialism. That’s when the Left discovered Nietzsche and Freud and began to wheedle away at the soul of Western man.

    After the Left captured and transformed the universities, schools, media, Hollywood, and various professional associations, etc., they went for civilization’s jugular. The single greatest scalp won by the Left in the last twenty years has been their corruption and transformation of the institution of marriage. The postmodern Left is now giggling as their minions have stripped marriage of its necessary component parts and left it corpse dangling for all to see and mock. (Apologies for mixing my metaphors!)

He goes on to describe post-modern marriage, which is defined more by what it is not than what it is. And because it is nothing concrete, it can therefore be anything. Or as the author puts it:

Ultimately, the postmodern definition of marriage is open-ended and therefore unintelligible. It has no objective referents other than whims and feelings; in fact, it represents an attempt to rewrite reality. But a concept that means everything means nothing. Ultimately, the argument for same-sex marriage is a case of ideological wish-fulfillment. 

Read the whole thing.

"Citizen Vigilante" Available On X For Free ... For Now

    The Realist has informed me that Elon Musk has posted the full movie of Citizen Vigilante on his X-account. I don't know if this is just for a limited time or not, so you might want to hurry if you want to watch it in that format. I'm sure that his reason for doing so is primarily to get around the European censors who want to ban the movie. 

    I'm planning on watching it this weekend and so will probably rent it from Amazon. 

    John Wilder has watched it and has some thoughts about it at Wilder, Wealthy and Wise. But for those that felt let down by some of the older vigilante movies, such as Death Wish, with its statistically improbable cast of criminals, John writes: "However, I’m going to make a bold statement:  this film is more red-pilled than Death Wish.  It is garlic to Hollywood’s© vampire."