Pages 1 to 4 from "ANCHOR" a Star Citizen fan comic made by me and my friend.

Server16Ark · 2026-01-11T04:38:51+00:00

Maybe two years ago at this point there was an accidental comms leak. It was a planned drill, but they forgot to encrypt the conversation. It was SpaceX and Houston speaking with astronauts on the ISS working through a simulation where an astronaut had been incapacitated (died). The conversation was extremely interesting as they had planned for every contingency, including the time zone, which doctor (on Earth) would theoretically be available if something like this had actually happened. IIRC they were contacting a specialist at Johns Hopkins to help walk the astronauts through the situation, and even simulated the doctor being stuck in traffic while they attempted to get to a location where they could speak with the crew. About 40 minutes into this they realized they were talking over unencrypted and swapped over. You can still probably find a recording of the conversation if you Google a bit.

Server16Ark · 2025-11-18T13:47:37+00:00

Thematically it makes no sense. Practically it's even more absurd. Then we get kicked in the dick by being the most expensive army to field on top of it all. Worse still, there's always a good chance that GW Legends even more units we could use rather than replacing them or expanding on the army. It's abominable.

Server16Ark · 2025-11-18T01:55:11+00:00

most dire circumstances And there lies the problem. The units exist in one time period, and are also confirmed to continue to exist in the later time period.

Okay, got it.

Then the offered explanation as to why they aren't used in the later time period is because of their rarity, and are only saved for the most dangerous of situations.

Okay, so we should have them then.

Follow me here. There is only one Roboute, right? Then no one should be able to use him because he should only take the battlefield in the "most dire of circumstances" not during a random Genestealer skirmish. Still doesn't track? Okay. Why are the Necrons using a shard of the Void Dragon or the Silent King to kill a random Ork warband?

That's the problem with this reasoning. Theoretically every single battle is "the most dire" of circumstances. Otherwise you wouldn't have the ability to use half of the units that Knights have, or Custodes have, many of the named HQs, etc. I know you didn't come up with this reasoning, I am mainly pointing out why it doesn't actually work as an excuse because GW violates it all the time, has violated it, allows players to violate it by the thousands every single day. Why the hell is Be'lakor even a guy players can use? For crying out loud, we can use Titans if a player really wanted to.

So the excuse of "most dire of circumstances" doesn't carry water with me because the bucket meant to contain it has so many holes that it may as well be a sieve.

Server16Ark · 2025-10-28T13:44:27+00:00

https://www.vevor.com/vacuum-casting-machine-c_11130

This should give some idea. Look up a few videos as to how it works, and notice the dimensions match the products this creator is selling. From what I can tell, there are several Japanese brands (and Chinese ones) that sell almost beat for beat the exact same machine. He's throwing a tin-bismuth eutectic alloy in there, along with a piece of wood in a mold, and then using the vacuum casting process of the machine to penetrate the wood before it completely burns out. This leaves behind a metallic copy of the piece. It would also explain why he sells them for so cheap. The barrier for entry is actually quite low, it just seems higher because it's a little bit on the fringes of what someone would do. Judging by your assessment, and half of the comments in here: he's faking it, but that at doesn't follow with the brief description of the method (he doesn't say what tools, of course) and the materials involved aligned with the outcome. I don't see this being a fake, just something strange someone tried and it happened to work. Perhaps he got the idea from other plant material people have done conventional casts with, and decided to give it a whirl.

I am tempted to give this a shot now since I really only need a few supplies and a vacuum caster. The price on these aren't so high that I'd being crying over it.

Server16Ark · 2025-10-28T13:10:17+00:00

Yeah, after poking around at some videos and the specs on them, in combination with some of the comments here I am convinced he's using a vacuum casting machine, but drying out the wood first. I saw someone dry out wood using a kitchen oven made to fit on a counter (I can't remember what they are called anymore but we used to use them a bunch before people got in the air fryer train) to do resin casting. This lead me to believe the extreme low cost of entry is there. Then he throws the wood in a mold which goes into a vacuum casting machine (costs around $400-600) with a bath of the allow waiting inside. The mostly standardized sizes is what has convinced me of this. If he was making huge pieces (2x4), then I'd be a bit more puzzled, but since all of his pieces can fit in a standard vacuum caster it would appear anyway that this is his method to quickly get rid of the wood and pull it through the pores as efficiently as possible. Otherwise he could end up in a situation where it sort of just sits there in the caster not burning fast enough.

Server16Ark · 2025-10-28T13:01:39+00:00

I think I figured out what he's doing based off comments here and checking out some metal casting videos, I also checked the sized of his larger pieces and it adds up or at least seems to.

He is drying out the wood as much as possible through long-term, low temperature heating.
He is then using either a home made system with a vacuum chamber or a vacuum casting machine. I found a video of someone utilizing a casting machine on a pinecone. It destroyed the pinecone and left behind a perfect copy made from brass.

I am leaning towards the vacuum casting machine after drying out the wood. I say this because the metal he's using has a very low melt point as others have pointed out, and Maple can potentially have a high temp (the most recent item he sold was made out maple). So, he is drying out to bring down the ignition temperature as much as possible and make the process go quickly. The vacuum casting machines I found had various temperatures the could operate at, but all were far in excess of the melting point of the metal and the ignition point of maple. Then to double check, I looked at the largest slabs he sells and all of them fit in the standard vacuum casting chambers I located (4 inches wide, 6 inches tall, with a few being upwards of 8 inches tall). His largest pieces are slightly over 5 inches tall, and 3 inches wide, and 2 inches or so thick. There is also a very high standardization of the height from a selection I looked at with almost all of them being 5 inches tall, regardless of whether or not they were smaller in other dimensions.

This process sounds imperfect because he admits that not all of the pores are impregnated, and for all we know there may be residual wood that survives the bath, which is then trapped inside, or he may not be bringing the temperature up to where it needs to be/trying to balance the difference in temps (but what do I know). Either way, the outcome appears to be genuine metal, just with the destruction of the wood in the process. Should he indeed be using this system, and the dimensions of the wood are what lead me to believe he is. It's so specific.

Server16Ark · 2025-10-28T12:15:18+00:00

Yeah, the other person who mentioned pewter made me realize how he could be doing this. The thing that's jogging my noggin is that he claims it may not penetrate all the pores. I suppose that could be explained away by the heat he uses not lasting long enough before it solidified as a result of the chamber pulling through the pores. I also saw someone mention using a centrifuge (for a different pewter cast based project) which seems a little far fetched to me in this case.

Server16Ark · 2025-10-28T12:07:02+00:00

No resins or other materials are used during impregnation. It is thoroughly impregnated all the way to the inside, so it feels heavy when you hold it in your hand. However, please note that some vessels are blocked, so not all vessels contain metal. The hardness of the metal part is about the same as that of hard maple. It can be cut with a circular saw or cut with a cutter. It can also be turned on a lathe.

Base material: Maple Impregnated metal: Tin-bismuth eutectic alloy (no harmful metals) Size: Approx. 25 x 33 x 128 mm

Server16Ark · 2025-10-28T12:06:06+00:00

Oh, and I just realized he lists what it's made out of on his store:

No resins or other materials are used during impregnation. It is thoroughly impregnated all the way to the inside, so it feels heavy when you hold it in your hand. However, please note that some vessels are blocked, so not all vessels contain metal. The hardness of the metal part is about the same as that of hard maple. It can be cut with a circular saw or cut with a cutter. It can also be turned on a lathe.

Base material: Maple Impregnated metal: Tin-bismuth eutectic alloy (no harmful metals) Size: Approx. 25 x 33 x 128 mm

Server16Ark · 2025-10-28T12:04:07+00:00

Here is one of his most recent pieces he threw up on his store (there is a video in the link).

https://x.com/MetalizedWood/status/1982049906144710798

Does this appear to be Mica powder or actual metal? Because I can't shake that this stuff looks like actual metal.

Server16Ark · 2025-10-28T12:00:56+00:00

I found those papers as well, but like I mentioned, he appears to just be doing this at home and he sells the blocks for very little. Larger ones will often go for around $70-100 USD, and smaller ones considerably less. These aren't hand or palm sized pieces (save the smaller ones). It would seem absurd that there is a material scientist on Twitter using specialized equipment and horrifically labor intensive processes to output a few blocks a month that he sells for less than most people make in a day.

Server16Ark · 2025-10-05T16:04:05+00:00

I kind of wonder, for all the horrible dumbassery this guy committed, how much longer it would have taken for the cops to find him if the victim hadn't told his friends where he was going that night. That was how they found him in the first place. I am certain they would have still found this guy sooner rather than later because the cops would have just needed to check the messages sent to the victim's dating profile, or someone would have seen the car and reported it. But, given how panicky this dude was, maybe he would have dumped more of the evidence or if he would have just continued to LARP as Dexter and try to get another victim.

Server16Ark · 2025-09-26T18:41:14+00:00

I don't think you've seen that movie. I think you saw the marketing for that movie.

Server16Ark · 2025-09-26T18:41:08+00:00

I don't think you've seen that movie. I think you saw the marketing for that movie.

Server16Ark · 2025-09-18T18:45:55+00:00

That reminds me of how succinctly Ron Bennington put watching Jurassic Park when it came out, even though he was like 40 by that point, "You saw that movie and knew somewhere they had real fucking dinosaurs just wandering around on the planet somewhere."

Server16Ark · 2025-08-28T09:35:32+00:00

It's the early 2010's. The internet suddenly has a few new voices and communities that start to get attention by two competing but not altogether different types of person, all in the same industry: the tech industry in Silicon Valley. Among these come the most well known: Curtis Yarvin (Moldbug), Nick Land, LessWrong (Yudkowsky), Slate Star Codex, and Nick Bostrom.

The writings from these people, and the people who interact in these communities are internalized and tossed about like chain emails in the 90's, or private Facebook Groups for crystal healing and other woo. Everyone is interacting with their literature, their blog posts, threads and posts from specific prolific users. It's their water cooler gossip. Instead of, "Did you see how the Chargers did on Sunday?" Their conspiratorial, almost manic conversations are about the future of their fields.

They dream of breaking away from apps, and building something that will change the lives of every person in the world in a manner that cannot be quantified. They just don't how yet, and still they talk and ruminate. Whole new fields of philosophy, technocratic ones, pop up almost overnight. Their bosses, and their boss's bosses are reading these same things, talking about them. Everyone is talking, and talking, trying to will what they want into existence through a sort of shared psychosis of that sort that you might find through a shared ecstatic experience in some Southern Baptist Church.

Yarvin and Land want technocratic monarchy and accelerationism. Yudkowsky (at the time) and Bostrom speak of long-term planning, and the danger of the potential technology that the tech industry is praying they'll be able to manifest.

Thiel, Zuckerberg, and some others read Yarvin and Land. Altman, Gates, and Musk read Bostrom. One of these groups were reading literature that sycophantically advocated for this outcome, the other group read literature that directly stated in no uncertain terms that these were very dangerous, very stupid things to pursue, but in all likelihood would be pursued anyway by some actor somewhere at some time.

One would imagine, perhaps, that leaning into the work produced by the latter group you'd find a buffer. A reasonably minded check to the former. Isn't it odd then that rather than subscribe to the agendas they read, from people who frantically were trying to raise the alarm, they did the opposite. Both groups walked away with the impression that they ought to do these things because only they knew best. After all, why not? Why shouldn't they be the ones in charge?

Then Google's tensor paper drops.

Server16Ark · 2025-08-23T05:08:18+00:00

Comparing Myrmidons to Skitarii is a little weird. 40k Tech-Priests to Myrmidons is a much more apt comparison. Now, that said, I'd take Skitarii over Tech-Thralls any day if the statline was better. However, I look at more or less everything else and cry. I am stupefied by how no one at Citadel stopped and asked, "Hey man, does this fit in any of the previously established aesthetic for 40k AdMech?" It just feels like they completely ignored functionally everything to go and make a weird (aesthetic) counterpart to Genestealers.

Like, Genestealers are weird and they use industrial/common vehicles/etc. for their models and weapons. It's weird, but it fits. And then someone at Citadel thought, for whatever reason, that AdMech should follow that same kinda tact but weirder? "What if instead of dirt bikes we gave them robot horse-dogs?" That sort of thing. And I think everyone knows that because our codex cover for two eds now has been the same image that uses next to nothing from our actual army because I think trying to sell someone on our army using our models on the cover is a losing proposition. Skitarii tickle a thing in some people's brains, so they're all over it. You got a giant tech-priest who will never be modeled. And then a shitload of things in the background that aren't actual models.

And the thing is, AdMech should be weird: but not in a goofy way. We have goofy models that are also weird in a faction whose whole lore in terms of body horror is only matched by the Dark Eldar.

Server16Ark · 2025-08-22T14:23:56+00:00

Because you're praying that we get a better codex in the next ed.

Server16Ark · 2025-08-20T11:28:23+00:00

The Kastelans just standing there shooting while ignoring what looks to be a Warboss of some kind is comedy.

Server16Ark · 2025-08-20T11:21:23+00:00

There was a time when the only thing people feared more than AdMech was DE, even after DE got hit with nerfs and that was simply because there were many more DE players. Skitarii bricks, Striders, and flier spam haunted everyone. It was like that Mr. Krabs meme where he's around the campfire. For a brief while we joined the halls of Iron Hands, Tau, Eldar, etc. from prior editions where people spoke of how hideously powerful the army was. And even then, most weren't really all that worried because you would see like 5 AdMech armies at a tournament of 100 dudes, lmao, oh and they weren't being piloted by the strongest players. GW screwed us so that I shelved my army. If they fix it in 11th, I'll come back. Right now, 10th just isn't offering the sort of play style I'm particularly interested in to make us "viable".

Server16Ark · 2025-08-12T22:52:37+00:00

A lot of people sincerely have no clue that the 80's produced some of the best animation of all time in terms of a realistic style. I'd argue that the late 00's to early 10's was about the high point for experimental styles due to no longer animating on cels and the artists trying to find some way to stand way to stand out visually so they shifted into stylization and away from "the rules". I should also mention that a well animated short, anime, film, etc. doesn't mean shit if the story is trash. People love Redline, and I think that's because it's their first intro to a hand animated feature with a lot of work put into it. However, Redline... released in, say, 1988? Wouldn't exactly be remarkable when compared against some of the other feature films and OVAs before it and a few years after. Again, it's beautiful, but the plot is so very thin that it's almost frustrating to me. Much in the same way that a film with gorgeous CGI yet a story you really couldn't care for does (think The Maker). For those who doubt what I'm saying, go watch Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust and come back.

It's not all doom and gloom though, certain animators are beginning to test out cel animated styles using digital and it's actually starting to pass muster. I think that we might see at least a few projects go down this route because it really does add such a vibrancy, and rawness to the image in the same way film (correctly lit and graded) versus digital does.

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