#foundry discourse

“They say it’s the latest and greatest in fusion, but I don't see what's different." Salim pushed back his hood and turned the angular fusion rifle over in his hands, checking it expertly. "It doesn't even have new optics."

Ted-8 shuffled awkwardly. "It's not about how it looks, it's about what's inside. And as for the sights, why replace something that still works perfectly well just for the sake of making something new?"

Salim tilted his head in a half-nod of appreciation. "I suppose that's fair enough—but as to the rest, I'm just to trust Omolon's made some upgrades without being able to examine the internal workings? This sticker says opening the exterior casing voids the warranty."

"They have a business to run, after all," Ted said with a small shrug.

Salim's eyes flashed angrily. "A business? I should put my life in Omolon's hands—and the lives of the pilgrims I escort—for the sake of Omolon's business?"

"Well," Ted stammered, the glow of his vocal modulator flickering, "that's—I didn't mean—you're certainly entitled to know what exactly's, uh, what's been improved—which is why Omolon publishes these schematics along with the list of model features." He extended a hand, offering up a datapad.

Salim did not take it. "Let me tell you what I think," he said. "I think this weapon is perfectly good, but not substantially different than anything else Omolon's already made, nor indeed anything else other foundries have on offer. I think Omolon—and the other foundries, all these businesses—feel a greater need to put out something new to sell to justify maintaining or raising their prices year after year, rather than optimize the production of their existing model lines to lower the per-unit cost of standardized weapons—the weapons we need to keep the City safe."

He glared, his grip on the body of the fusion rifle tight and fast. Ted stood stock still.

"And I think," Salim breathed, relaxing as he pulled up his hood, "it is a good thing there are so many weapons already on the secondary market. A Guardian can get what they need—even if it isn't the latest and greatest."

"Finally got your hands on one of those poison stinger type things, eh?"

Rela looked up. It was Es. "Yeah," Rela said. "Wait list for new-built Black Armory stuff goes to Jupiter and back, but my order finally came up."

Es sat beside the Warlock, eyeing the elaborate bow in her hands. "Surprised Ada makes any of these at all these days, after she cut off the whole Black Armory line. Then again, with her newfound interest in fashion, maybe she makes an exception because this one is so... stylish."

Rela shrugged. "Maybe." She did not particularly like Es, especially when she suspected they were making some kind of fun of her, which was never entirely clear.

"Custom finish, I see."

"Not custom, just an option."

"Ah." Es waggled their eyebrows. "Ada really is all about style now. Finish options—wow."

Rela tried to return an even gaze, but found herself blurting "Care to join me in the Crucible, observe its performance?"

Es inclined their head gracefully, like a courtier accepting the invitation of a queen. Rela hated that. "I would be delighted."

"You have to write something."

Javier slumped back in his chair, the open document on the screen before him conspicuously empty. He looked up at Edna, desperately. "Must I?"

The Titan nodded gravely. "You must. You took a job. When you take a job, you gotta get it done."

"Ugh." Javier pressed his hands over his face.

"What's the problem, anyway?" Edna asked, toying with an antique pistol on Javier's shelf. "Should be easy work for you, reviewing a gun."

Javier glared out through a gap in his fingers. "I couldn't give less of a fuck about Suros' latest iteration of their uninspired, bog-standard hand cannon. There is nothing to say about it beyond the fact it works and its fine."

"Sounds like someone wishes he hadn't left his old job."

"I didn't leave, I got laid off—and Häkke's benefits sucked anyway. But at least their guns were good."

Edna raised an eyebrow. "Suros' guns aren't good?"

Slumping further into his seat, Javier raised a hand to fend off any impending criticism. "I'm not saying they don't make something good now and then, but let's not mess about, eh? Suros has been riding on the success of the Regime line and its old artificial scarcity for years, and strictly speaking they didn't even design that platform."

"So maybe you should say that." Edna returned the ancient handgun to the shelf and leaned close to examine a row of archaic ammunition specimens.

"Ha, yeah, sure—and lose my job without even getting my first article published. Solid advice."

The Titan crossed her arms, which was like two strong trees growing around each others, and shook her head. "I'm not saying you should shit on Suros' entire business. I'm saying you should talk about how the company's reputation is built upon the Regime, and situate this new piece in terms of that lineage."

Javier blinked and sat up partway. "Situate? Did you say situate?"

Edna shrugged smugly. "Contrary to popular belief, Titans can read, you know—and some of us do."

"Tex Mechanica must be getting desperate."

"How do you figure?"

"They've finally stooped to producing a mundane, mass-production product."

"You say that like you haven't seen the factory floor where they churn out the Last Words."

"OK, fair, but even if they sell those by the bucketload, they're still... I dunno, unusual. Exotic, even."

"I'd say this is a pretty unusual shotgun."

"Maybe in terms of how it compares to typical, modern shotguns, sure—but think about it relative to what Tex usually makes. Sure, it's archaic, plays up their usual Old West fantasy, but it's simple. No fancy mechanism, no tricks or gimmicks. No outrageous adornment. Hell, I don't think they even stamped their logos on it anywhere readily visible. And you wanna know the kicker?"

"Go on."

"Rumor is the design may not even be theirs."

"Like they based it on something? So what? That used to be Suros' whole business model."

"No, not like that. Like they got the whole design from somewhere else. Now, I'm not saying I think that's true, but consider whether there's ever been any doubt about the originality of a Tex Mechanica design before this."

"On the other hand, consider how much doubt there certainly has been about the, uh, professional ethics of Tex Mechanica as a company. Wouldn't be surprised if it turned out they stole every design they ever made."

"Well, you may harbor those suspicions, but all I'm saying is something must've shifted in their boardroom to give the go-ahead to making a piece like this—and it can't just be that they're short on glimmer."

"I just... there's nothing worth saying. It's the same old crap." Javier slumped forward over his desk, burying his face in his forearms.

Carter-3 reached over and patted his shoulder in uncertain sympathy. "You managed to write something for your first article. You just have to... uh... keep up the momentum."

Javier let out a muffled groan. "I only got that done because Shruggernaut was looming, telling me I had to write something. She basically threatened my life."

"Uh-huh." Carter raised a doubtful brow plate. "Well, I could try that if you think it'd help, but—"

"No..."

"OK, so... What do you need to get started?"

With exaggerated strain, Javier pushed himself up off his desk. He slouched back into his seat like a half-empty sack. "Suck my brain out and replace it with an advertising AI module Suros ripped off from Clovis Bray. Probably something like that."

"...OK." Carter stood up and made for the door. "I'll just... let you get back to it. Seems like you need space to work."

"Carterrrr," Javier whined, pressing his hands over his face, "why did I take this job?"

"Beats me," she answered from the doorway. "But something convinced Suros you were the best guy for it, so... good luck." She flashed a nervous smile and slipped out the door.

Javier put his head back down on his desk, face first.

"Suros special edition, come and get it! Oh, hey—is something up?"

"Nah, I'm just sad. Dunno why."

"I thought you of all people would be stoked about this new Suros x Crucible drop. And it's an Iron Banner week, so perfect time to put it through its paces, yeah?"

"Sure, it's cool. The rifle's cool."

"So what's the matter?"

"I dunno. Just not feeling it."

"Is it the red? I don't know why it only comes in red. They should've made it in different colors. Missed opportunity for collectability, really."

"No, not that. I think I'm fed up with business as usual—including actual businesses like Suros and the rest."

"I... don't get it."

"Well, I mean, here we are—again—twiddling our thumbs under the shadow of a looming existential threat, waiting for the stars to align or whatever so we can see exactly how the Hive god of deceit is gonna screw us over, and what are we doing about it? Bupkis. Whole lotta bupkis. The Vanguard keeps us running little patrols, Eva Levante still puts on her little festival, we keep playing around in our little Crucible matches, and the foundries keep selling their little special edition drops."

"Uh... what's a bupkis?"

"It means 'nothing.' I mean we're doing nothing."

"Oh. Well... I guess I get where you're coming from, but what could we do different right now? The whole deal with Savathûn is up to the Awoken Queen, and there's not really anything we can do about what she decides to do. There's even less we can do about whatever a Hive god is gonna do when she's finally showed up to dump her schemes on us."

"So, what? We should just sit around and distract ourselves while awaiting our next, latest impending doom?"

"I think we don't do ourselves any favors by just obsessing over some big bad on the horizon that we can't do anything about yet. If you wanna call doing something else with your time distracting yourself, fine. But I say why not grab a shiny new special edition Suros piece? As a treat. You gotta give this thing a try."

“New Suros just dropped. Economy model.”

“Oh yeah? Any good?”

“Not as many fancy features as the high-end line, but looks like it can get the job done.”

“So what’s the catch?”

“Well... the materials are good, and the construction’s high-quality, but it doesn’t seem to be able to stand up to repeated Light infusion.”

“So it’s just a mundane firearm then?”

“No, it can get powered up if you channel through it, but... whatever level you get it to, that’s it. Can’t infuse it stronger later.”

“Huh. Wonder what gives.”

“Me too. I’ve seen people pump Light into weapons and armor made of all kinds of junk—sometimes literal trash. Can’t figure why a decently made piece like this can’t take a basic infusion.”

“Maybe... You don’t think they’d make it that way on purpose, do you?”

“On purpose?”

“Yeah, like... I was reading in the archives the other day about a concept in pre-Golden Age consumer economics, something called ‘planned obsolescence.’ It was this idea that manufacturers deliberately produced goods that couldn’t be upgraded or repaired, or even that would fail after a predetermined lifespan.”

“...Why though?”

“So they could count on selling their customers replacements.”

“That’s... they did that?”

“Yeah.”

“And that was legal?”

“Apparently.”

“Wow. But Suros... wouldn’t...”

“Suros made their name by recycling and revamping recovered Golden Age weapon designs. What if they’ve picked up ancient sales strategies as well?”

"Is Omolon xenophobic too?"

"Excuse me?"

"Omolon makes guns for Future War Cult, right?"

"Yeah..."

"And the War Cult's leader is deliberately stoking prejudicial public sentiment against the Eliksni refugees, right?"

"I suppose you could call it that, but she's genuinely concerned about the disastrous futures she's seen where—"

"Doesn't matter. Whether she earnestly thinks the Eliksni we've taken in are a danger to the City or she's simply exploiting their presence to advance her political standing is beside the point. The question is just whether she's being xenophobic and encouraging xenophobia with her platform—and you agree that she is."

"Well—"

"Meanwhile, Omolon has made weapons for the War Cult for years, and is well aware of their client's political positions. There's no way Omolon's executives have somehow missed Lakshmi-2's recent anti-Eliksni fearmongering, right?"

"Of course not."

"OK, so: Lakshmi-2 is encouraging xenophobia; Omolon knows that, yet hasn't suspended their contract to supply the War Cult; Omolon therefore implicitly condones the War Cult's message. Hence the question: is Omolon xenophobic too?"

"Sounds like you've already answered that for yourself."

"I'm curious what you think."

"I think we shouldn't be surprised that a corporate entity like Omolon is more concerned with profits than ethics."