- the idea of the Helm being especially festooned with sensors and filters is one which fits very well with other NL stories. The developing idea is that in this era the Helms have to filter the Night Land into a sort of virtual reality in order for the wearers to endure it. cf for example the story "Slope" (by me, but Brett and I have used each others' ideas extensively http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightslope.html

Their nightsuits are not the heavy amplified coverings used by the Watchmen for patrols or close exploration work. They are as thin as cloth and as light as paper, unamplified and uninstrumented. Their only augmentation is in the complex filters in the Helms, which make up thirty percent of the suits' weight and consume all their power. Long ago, men could survive in the Land by relying only on their own senses. Now they must wear the Helms, which mount shields and sensory enhancements on a pattern two million years old. The Helms capture and amplify sound, and scavenge what little light there is in the Night Land. They map the paths through the dark, and they pass messages to other men in ways that hopefully are not obvious to the entities of the Land, where even telepathy is too risky to be used. They enhance and they communicate and they also protect, for they shield the eyes as well as the Soul from that which can destroy merely by being sensed.

but these are the heavy amplified suits used for close in work,

- the one thing I don't like are the heavy lower limbs and boots. Very bad mechanically - the last place you want energy-soaking mass is at the end of your limbs. reminds me of mecha, not in a good way. mecha are not the product of real world evolutionary selection

- is there a risk of the "ruff" looking foppish?, - maybe more like radio telescope dishes / bat ears / antennae?

- another gothic suit

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 10:27 AM

Subject: Re: Night land : Sea of images: Section 3.

The first pic I've been messing about with layouts for is the 'Outside on the land, Meyr ravished by Eater whilst the others weild Diskos'.

Thus, befgore I decide exactly whom goes where, I've been doodling a lot of 'Space Armour' in an attempt to get something different from the Usual Look and to discover how these chaps occupy space.

These are the present 'Shape' I'm playing with.

I'm assuming we have 'Stuff' to disperse/repulse in the Night land which gives me an excuse for Valvepunk-looking metallic nozzles. The helmet arrangement has a 'crest' but it's horizontal rather than the standard vertical. This is actually an armoured array for a bank of lights that sit either side of the head (Headlights, if you will).

The 'Helm' consists of the goggles (Themselves, fitted with lots of lenses and do-hickeys) and 'Empty scream'-shaped mouthpiece under a small peak, all iof which swing back onto the helmet itself, to expose the face behind the 'cheekguards'.

The shoulders are, you'll note, topped with a ruddy great 'Plasma dispersal' (Whatever) array' which slightly echo an Elizabethan ruff, slightly echo some gothic yoke and generally look 'spikey'. This is attatched to a similarly 'spikey' backpack, giving it a Gothick sort'v look.

The chest is very prominent, akin to the Conquistadors, but this time we have the excuse of it being filled, not with rags but with 'Life Support Tek'.

The boots were either going to be small and dainty or big and clompy. With all that weight on the upper torso, I've opted for the great clumpy boots and legs.

Kurosowa-style 'banners' complete the 'look'. Probably something more baroqe than the ones shown. It also occurs to me that there's absolutely no reason we can't have fabric streamers to this outfit if needed.

The whole thing should, finally, have a slightly 'Insectile' texture in the plateletts, decorated with scrollwork. I suspect Andy will interpolate the word ;'Fractal' here.

I've been presuming the 'Quints' have different armour, but now I find myself thinking 'Why?'.

What's the verdict here?

----- Original Message -----

From: pinlighter

Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 3:59 PM

Subject: Re: Night land : Sea of images: Section 3.

ARMOUR and MANSHONYAGGERS

A few points

** the most beautiful machines human beings make are war machines. This is comprehensible because war machines, like living things, are undergoing intense real-world selection and the unfunctional unbeautiful gets flensed away according to criteria which are absolute and objective.

The most beautiful war machines approach the grace of a living thing.

** the most beautiful of an evolving line of machines are the last ones built before the machine type becomes obsolete under the impact of a quantum leap of new technology. Battleships like the Scharnhorst or the New Jersey were built just before big-gun warship was pushed aside by the aircraft carrier, for example. Contemporary fighting arcraft are about to be pushed aside by drones, but they have achieved real beauty too.

** this applies to armour. (Armour is a machine for the purposes of this discussion). Perhaps the most beautiful ((and therefore most functional, if the equation I'm drawing is correct) form it took was the Gothic, which unsurprisingly looks not unlike a Centurion. A little after this peak it was rendered pointless by gunnery and became ceremonial - and it's at this time that the parade armour becomes popular. ((Which rather undercuts Brett's referent to Negroli, because he was working in an era of armour's decadence, while in the Night Land the armour is still vitally functional and undergoing cutting-edge evolutionary selection by the forces of the Land. This is not to say that the point of armour as decorated, or as an expression of clan and personal status, is wrong, because it isn't, but there is a difference here which must be appreciated. The Negroli forms are over-ornate to a nonfunctional degree. But decoration and badges of status and affiliation were used on armour at all times. They tended however to be separate from the armour - surcoats, crests, etc. Well, Brett has actually said all this already, hasn't he???))

** however we are now at the end of time looking backward to the past and there are no more leaps in tech. Armour has become perfected to a level never seen in our history, and looks as graceful as a living thing. How to draw this? Well, in the absence of any other option I'd draw on the coolest Gothic suits I could find on the web and make them a little smoother and at once more organic and more high-tech - chaos-death-spikybits seem intrinsic to the Gothic forms but are probably counterindicated in the Night Land.

This last advice is very detailed, probably going beyond useful levels, because too exact & particular, and I emphasise please,treat it as just my feelings at this time, definitely not prescriptive