BTS: The FAFF
It's actually dumber than you think it is
I have a particular friend who likes to groan at my terribad ideas. I got a particularly good one when I told him the idea behind this mech. This was all part and parcel with the birth of Pioneer Technologies.
“I was driving home and thought, ‘What if Red Bull was a company that made mechs?’ Well, what kind of mech would they make? I got to thinking about ATVs, and it shot off from there.“
I told them the name and… they didn’t get it at first. I had to explain the meaning behind the word, “faff”.
What’s in a name?
Wiktionary, the free dictionary that anyone can temporarily sabotage edit, describes faff thusly:
“An overcomplicated task, especially one perceived as a waste of time.”
As well as:
”A state of confused or frantic activity.”
FAFF is a backronym. Originally, I looked around online for the names of famous ATV racers that would provide a good appelation. But, I immediately started to feel like going for something silly would better fit what I the piece. I searched around for a silly word that I could use for the name of the ATV mech, and “faff” came to mind.
Alright, “Fast Attack”. The first half was done in seconds. What to make of “FF”? It took a bit, but I settled on “Fight/Flight”, which gave me the silliness that I’d wanted. The Fast Attack Fight/Flight mech, or FAFF.
Introducing: A Big ‘Ol Faff
Working on the FAFF was almost a stream of consciousness design flow. “What if I did this?” “How does COMP/CON handle that?” It was a long series of small revisions that brought me to my current style guide of presenting items more or less in-universe with commentary from a chorus of auxilliary characters.
First, Pioneer Technologies is introduced as a megacorp that’s inherently silly but takes itself seriously. Seriously enough to produce a combat-capable mech frame and give it a full production line. Silly enough to name it “FAFF”. Next, there are characters that provide commentary in a forum-like format, something that should be familiar to anyone using IRC, Discord, or anything from the time in between.
These characters point out the silliness, hanging a lampshade on this immensely powerful corporation. It continues; informative posting is paired with dialogue by the “posters”, creating not only a place to add humor but a space for me to add explanation where I felt most comfortable.
Such as here. I re-read what I’ve written a lot while writing, revising as I go. Near the end of development, I was feeling incredulous that a pint-sized frame could or would make for an effective grappler. And, that is one part of what the FAFF is designed for. It needed an explanation as to how that made sense.
I felt the paragraph was as long as I’d wanted it to be and didn’t want to break it apart. Using commentary to add an in-universe explanation as to how a Size 1/2 frame is capable of grappling anything bigger felt like the most logical solution. The first half between Stunlock and Fire Tiger was a joke that I’d added in very early on. The second half was an addition that carries the joke a little further and creates that explanation that I’d needed.
And, we’re back to the tug-of-war between silly and serious. This is the kind of writing that I tend to enjoy the most.
The FAFF is the first piece that I’ve made for Pioneer. It not only has a heavy lifting job in representing itself, it has to represent the company that made it. I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job in doing that.
The GigaWhat Now?
I settled on the WordsNextToEachOther convention for Pioneer pretty early. To me, a company that invokes buzzwords is one that evokes silliness. Hence the name “FutureNOW Mechvelopement Program”, which made me laugh enought that I pointed to it specifically. This also informs the name GigaJoust.
The full name of the FAFF’s core system is “Pioneer Tech 2.6.0 DET-T Reactor & GigaJoust“, combining the integral melee weapon with the mech’s reactor (a “Hyperwild”, heh). The system’s name is a reference to Nissan’s RB26DETT engine, which powers several generations of the GT-R.
I chose to echo Stunlock’s equation in the core power’s name, which I can’t hear in my head without picturing Mister Torgue in a lab coat. That, in turn, led me to expand the FAFF a little bit.
The original idea was a CQB mech that could turn into an ATV to get more speed and evasion. That opened up when I thought about Torgue, and how inclusion would both draw more people to the mech and allow for more stories to be told. So, the buyer gets to pick ATV, trike, or motorcycle. It’s also why Pioneer’s emblem is a waving checkered flag.
Alright, that’s it for now. Later.