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Vorlonagent

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Posts posted by Vorlonagent

  1. Posted

    44 minutes ago, TamarTree said:

    No one's brought up Arthur's "foreign child" dismissal of Van. Granted that the boy did kick him and stick his tongue out at him, so I could see the prim-and-proper Arthur being peeved at that, but why bring up that he's foreign? Is he simply concerned about entrusting research for the FBI to a non-American (a legitimate concern, especially given the agency's broadened mandate post-9/11), or is he revealing his personal prejudices?

    This plus Arthur's "i am an American" line aren't sitting that well with me at the moment.  My reasons why would be best taken up on the Politics thread, and we've been down that road once before with Ashley's pre-Goonmanji fanfic.

  3. Posted

    37 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

    Peacocks are noisy and if they're male those tails take up a lot of room.  They're also hard to housetrain.  I don't think a peacock could pass a Good Citizen test.

    Snakes, on the other hand, are fairly low-key, unlikely to bite, and much less dangerous when they do (assuming poisonous snakes are still forbidden).  A snake will usually wrap itself around the nice warm human's shoulders or waist and then settle in for a nice nap.  They're relatively easy to restrain/keep contained.  They're nice and dry and clean, don't slobber, only poop as often as they eat, usually when given water to soak in, and don't knock people over out of enthusiasm.

    Definite asterisk concerning some of the larger constrictors...  And snakes on aircraft is a situation definitely not Samuel L Johnson approved.

  5. Posted

    56 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

    Kind of like greyhounds. I've seen video of a running greyhound. They are amazing, beautiful creatures. An online friend of mine owns one and it can run much faster backwards than she can run facing forward. It loves being chased but has to give the silly slow two-legs a big advantage for it to be fun.

    Cheetahs : Greyhounds who got the "Hello Kitty" skin.out of a lootbox...

    Drasvin and The Old Hack reacted to this

  6. Posted

    38 minutes ago, Southern Cross said:

    Actually, judging by Grace, it's possible the reason Vlad had such difficulty with transforming was that he has no lespuko DNA.

    32 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

    Entirely so, but I think it is equally possible that it was because the genetic manipulation done by the company was so bungled that it damaged Vlad's natural shapeshifting abilities. (This is my preferred headcanon but it is based on nothing else than my own story conceptions, so please feel free to ignore it.)

    I think you're both right.    I think Vlad was such an absurd combination of species that shape-shifting to/from his nonhuman form was so very hard.  Throwing Lespuko into Vlad's mix would have probably saved Vlad a lot of pain but as explained with Grace/Shade-Tail, the Lespuko ability to pick, choose and combine pieces of forms is very powerful and dangerous.  Without the threat of Damian, the Shady corporation lab appears to have chosen to not to take the risk and Vlad paid the price..

    The Old Hack reacted to this

  7. Posted

    16 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

    Cheetahs are rather high-strung and skittish.  At the San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park, they routinely will raise an individual cheetah with a very laid-back dog as a constant companion.  They bring the pair near the crowds, the cheetah starts to get nervous, looks over at their buddy and sees that they're still calm and happy, and the cheetah relaxes and copes with the crowds much better than without that emotional cue.

    I've been to the Wild Animal Park (since renamed "Zoo Safari").  They have Cheetahs trained to run 100 yards/meters at full tilt after a toy on a winch.  They only run it a couple of times because the Cheetah can kill itself running at full speed for too long.  They do a medical checkup before each run to figure out if the Cheetah is up for the run (or for another one).  There's no stealth running at that speed.  You can hear the thump of each paw as it flies by and while there's a fence between people and the Cheetah Run track, if you're in the front row along that fence, the Cheetah will be 5 feet or so from you for that brief moment when it goes by.

    Compared to other big cats Cheetahs look almost two-dimensional.  They're very long, thin.  Presumably that's to reduce air resistance.

  11. Posted

    1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

    ... is that history class which includes stuff like who had sex with whom?

    You'd want a class in that.  Some people's sexual history are terribly complicated...

    3 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    ... is that history class which includes stuff like who had sex with whom?

    I would say training is the important part. If the pulse rifle is sturdy enough, it may be better weapon than rocks even unpowered and without bayonet ... IF the soldiers are trained to use it that way instead of being so confused by it not firing they stop even looking around.

    The re's a huge difference in response time between

    "Get to the locker and bring out the Old Weapons!"

    and

    "Fix Bayonets!"

    The Old Hack reacted to this

  12. Posted

    48 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

    In the Jenkinsverse, humanity definitively learns of the existence of aliens when a particularly bloodthirsty species (their preferred diet is sapient beings, ideally eaten while still alive) attacks a televised NHL game in Vancouver BC. This show of force will both get the aliens a serious feast, and show humanity how helpless we are.

    There are no survivors of the attack.

    That is, no alien survivors.

    Some of the hockey players get minor bruises.

    ...mostly inflicted by each other on each other before the attack.

    48 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

    Evil Overlord List #23: I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.

    You don't cache the low-tech weapons. You make them standard-issue.  At least in the case of commonsense weapons like knives and bayonets.  That, plus decent hand-to-hand combat training should suffice nicely.  Keeping a reserve cache by definition means they will be "specialty" weapons the troops are less familiar with.  You want the bayonet in the soldier's kit from day 1.  And it gives the pulse rifle a dash of steampunk flair to boot.

    Edit:  The Evil Overlord list is nearly as addicting as TV Tropes but fortunately much shorter.

    #142: If I have children and subsequently grandchildren, I will keep my three-year-old granddaughter near me at all times. When the hero enters to kill me, I will ask him to first explain to her why it is necessary to kill her beloved grandpa. When the hero launches into an explanation of morality way over her head, that will be her cue to pull the lever and send him into the pit of crocodiles. After all, small children like crocodiles almost as much as Evil Overlords and it's important to spend     quality time with the grandkids.

    CritterKeeper and The Old Hack reacted to this

  14. Posted

    15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

    It would be a bit like an alien race making contact with us but the only human they got to interact with would be Jack Black on a perpetual sugar high.

    Closer, I think to judging the intelligence and capabilities of the Human race exclusively from watching Barney the dinosaur.

    15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

    I think you are right. Especially when one considers that during the initial phases of WW1, the troops actually moved fairly rapidly. It wasn't until the battle of the Marne that things really bogged down, and by then they stayed bogged.

    I took an adult-ed American history class and was very surprised to find that trench warfare was used in the American Civil War.   It was one of Grant's go-to tactics against Lee.  Going through school, I assumed Grant vs. Lee was all movement and maneuver and the North finally had someone competent running the Army of the Potomac  Trhough most of the war, it had generals who commanded desks better than soldiers.  It's a problem with the US and extended periods of peacetime and I expect it's not just with the US.  The skills needed to advance in a wartime military vs the skills needed to advance during peacetime have very little to do with each other.  I think it's at the heart of a saying I once heard "no unit ready for battle is ever ready for inspection."

    15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

    This was actually what the Gungans had planned until Amidala talked them into helping the humans. She offered a high-risk plan with a possible quick win as well as a more permanent alliance that the Gungans (and humans) would both profit from. But as you say, if this had not happened, the Trade Federation could still have spent forever trying to pacify the Gungans without succeeding.

    In fact, even if the plan had failed, I suspect that enough Gungans would have escaped to still make Naboo a very bad bargain for the Trade Federation. Since they are all about profit, it is quite conceivable that they could turn Naboo into such a bad deal for the Federation that they might eventually have departed out of sheer despair at the constant red figures that would be all they ever got out of the planet. By then, the human population might well have been reduced to almost nothing but the Gungans could have cared less.

    I thought the Gungans just said "why should we care?  This is all surface-world stuff that doesn't concern us."  But I could remember wrong.  I saw Ep 1 once, when it was first run and never wanted anything to do with it again. 

    15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

    All true. It is just that... their weaponry was too primitive and the Ewoks themselves kind of runty. Also, those stormtroopers were supposedly elite units. Given that apart from what they captured the Ewoks only had muscle powered weapons it just doesn't seem convincing. Originally the plan was to have the residents be wookiees. If they had stuck to that, the battle would have been far more believable to me.

    That's why I suggested Ewoks as a "small change with big consequences".  While Star Wars is as much fairy tale as science fiction there's only so far you can push suspension of disbelief...

    15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

    Harry Turtledove's 'Worldwar' series postulated aliens invading Earth during WW2. They possessed superior weapons and tanks but the human opposition had numbers and the ability to not only replace losses but rapidly improve on their technology. Worst of all, these aliens had only ever conquered two other planets and neither had possessed technology worth speaking of, and they had not waged war among themselves for many centuries... so their doctrine had just not kept up with their technological advances. Their poor doctrine in particular hurt them badly when fighting humans.

    Also, the Empire believed in cheap fighters in large numbers. The basic TIE did not even have shields but relied on maneuverability to not get hit. Add in swarm tactics and they became a force to be reckoned with. The Rebels did not have as many pilots or ships but what they did have was a better resource proportion of pilot to fighter. As a result they had the X-Wing which individually was superior to the basic TIE and probably at least the equal of the TIE Interceptor. The Rebels could only be very, very relieved that neither the TIE Advanced nor Defender saw production in any large numbers.

    It's kind of weird to consider that the Empire lost following the same strategy that worked for Turtledove's humans.

    I think TIE fighters were pure swarm tactics.  Quoting The Mighty Jingles, "Throw enough shit at the wall, some of it is bound to stick".  They really don't maneuver well enough to keep from getting shot, their accuracy is terrible, they can't take a hit and survive...gods...TIE fighters are the Stormtroopers of space.

    15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

    I also suspect the shield requires considerable power or why else would it have been down initially when the Empire arrived at Hoth? Once it was up it could repel 'any bombardment' but it probably took power from almost everything else the Rebels had.

    In the season 3 finale of 'Rebels' Thrawn did manage to nearly destroy the Rebel base shield with continued bombardment but he broke off before annihilation so he could capture the leadership. Mind you, that was a jury-rigged shield generator they had scrounged from battle wreckage dating to the Clone Wars so was probably neither current nor performing at optimum capacity, and possibly not even intended to last against large scale orbital bombardment to begin with. A single battleship it might have been able to hold off for a while, but Thrawn had an entire fleet.

    ...and yet nobody in the Empire even considered a "Yamato Gun" for Star Destroyers.  It's either high-volume plink-fire. or something so overblown as to destroy a planet, at least if you have the Lost Orb of Phantasmagoria handy.

    14 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

    Palpatine said that an entire legion of his finest stormtroopers were lying in ambush down there. My own headcanon is that some bureaucratic screwup sent that legion to the other end of the galaxy by mistake. Subsequently some terrified bureaucrat dispatched a couple battalions of green recruits barely able to tell their left feet from their right in their place, hoping no-one would notice the difference.

    You are missing the real possibility that those WERE elite...for stormtroopers.  :)

    13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

    You are underestimating the situation. That legion of finest stormtroopers did never existed except on paper. It was created by bureaucrats reporting better results of training than what really happened because they feared they would be punished otherwise ... and unaware that their reports are exaggerated even more by others.

    It is easier to tell Hitler things are going well (Re Goering) than to actually make them go well.  At least until Hitler finds out and force-chokes you or fries you with lightning...

  15. Posted

    2 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    ... and that they have trouble hitting the correct side of planet, yes.

    There's always an exception to be made if drama requires it.

    3 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    To be fair, you can't really defend against orbital bombardment. The siege was likely so Empire can take captives and intelligence ; if the base would prove to be too well defended against that, they could always let the star destroyer fire at it from orbit or put some asteroid on collision course.

    Hmmm ... apparently the shields CAN protect against orbital bombardment, but maybe can't be hold too long, at least when under attack. Surface attack was used as a quicker, not necessary only way to break them.

    I doubt the Rebellion could have shielded an entire planet or would have wanted to if they could.  The technology is there.  The Empire shielded the archive planet in Rogue 1.  But I'm not sure the Rebels could ship in the tech to shield an entire planet.  moreover, they're on a tight budget and a planetary shield has to cost some big bucks to ship in, set up and operate. 

    And the Rebels don't have remotely enough resources to actually repel an attack by the Empire/First Order in any case.   So why invest in shielding a planet when you plan to run at the first sign the Empire is coming, not fight them off and hold the planet against their attack?  Shielding the base makes sense.   So they don't drop a 100-ton rock on you and solve their problem that way.

    I imagine the base shield could be worn down by continuous weapons fire, but as you say, it's not fast and the Empire puts a premium on getting things done NOW rather than correctly.  If the Empire were patient, they would need a more ships for a tighter orbital blockade that they could afford to leave in place over the span of a year or more.   Then drop an asteroid someplace ecologically catastrophic like an ocean or a polar ice cap.with the idea of making it impossible to ship in food or supplies and making it impossible to the Rebels to farm what they need.  And simply wait for the Rebels to starve to death or try a suicide breakout.  Correcting for technology difference, it's the way sieges have been handled on Earth for thousands of years.

  16. Posted

    5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    However, Ewoks had BIG element of surprise on their side, and I suspect numerical advantage.

    It also helped that Stormtrooper armor was purely decorative...

    6 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    It's interesting how their technology is superior to ours but the way they are using it is extremely ineffective. Robot-based infantry requires very advanced technology but yes it's still tactic of first world war, and their starfighters, while obviously able to fly in atmosphere, are so sparely used ...

    ... but yes, it might be because they haven't got that style of war for centuries, if not thousand years. Pacification of primitive natives, yes. Space battles, yes. But war between armored units, no.

    We know from watching the Rebellion that they often have bases discovered and have to run away.   (one wonders how the Rebel base on Dantooine [Ep 4] could ever have been abandoned without having been overrun by the Empire first).  Immobile Rebel base defenses seem only there to hold off a siege long enough for personnel and portable resources to escape, not actually hold territory against a determined attack.  At which point it's grab everything not nailed down and bug out.  It's a design requirement for X-wings to jump to lightspeed on their own, while TIE fighters can rely on capital ships.

  17. Posted

    I feel a little happy.  I called the part of Voltaire's plan where He wanted the Magic reset tostrip human magic users of their spells.  I did not call how he set up Pandora: driving a wedge between her and Raven then getting Raven targeted by Vampires to trigger a Constitutional Convention, Immortal-style.

  18. Posted

    1 minute ago, The Old Hack said:

    The horrible thing is, I feel the Gungans in general (not including Jar-Jar) are just so much better than the Ewoks. Yes, they are comparatively primitive but their weaponry makes sense. Instead of using stone age weaponry it is more like a late 19th century army (with an extremely tough defensive position) facing a WW2 army. Admittedly they get cut to shreds and rout as soon as their big shields collapse but at least that seems reasonable. In fact, the Gungans could potentially be far more dangerous to the Trade Federation if they had been able to fight them in wetlands, marsh or even on the shore of a lake. It is only because they are forced to go on the offensive to draw the Trade Federation forces out that they end up fighting on an open plain where the droids had all the advantage.

    Completely agreed, about gungans > Ewoks.  I never gave it much thought to be honest.  Jar-Jar sort of overshadows the rest of his race.

    I'd suggest that the Trade Federation was more a late WW1 army.  There's no air cover worth noting and what armored units they have aren't organized in units of their own but dispersed through the infantry, as was common for WW1 and pre-WW2 tank doctrine.   The battle for Naboo never got bogged down to static battle lines, which is where the characteristic trench warfare of WW1 comes from.

    In the case of the Empire, the design of walkers of both the "elephant" and "chicken" varieties are very reminiscent in function (though not form) of WW1 tanks.  Certainly their primary use in the movies was against enemy infantry.  I can only conclude that the Empire never faced armored resistance so there has been no evolution toward units that work like "tanks" as we understand them.

    By having the First Order add air-cover to the big battle in Eps 7 and 8, Star Wars dips its toe into early WW2-style ground action, though I don't think their armor use has yet evolved as far as the blitzkrieg.

    Getting back to Naboo, If you're the Gungans, why fight on the surface at all? They couldn't repel the Trade Federation if they stayed underwater, but they could make Naboo nearly impossible (and expensive!) to occupy.   Not that a Gungan asymmetric resistance would help Naboo's human population much. 

    Conquering is much simpler than occupying.  Movies often forget this.  Star Wars as relatively light, fanciful fare can be forgiven, however.  (the unforgivable sins committed by the prequels tend to be those they inflict on themselves and Star Wars as a whole, not genre conceits)

    As an aside, I found myself looking over Wikipedia's "History of the Tank" article and found a picture of the "Frot-Laffly Landship" (AKA the "Frot-Laffly Armoured Roller", which reminded me of the big Jawa thing from Ep 4.

  21. Posted

    45 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    I just suspect that Luftwaffe flying above hostile soil was not result of that strategy. Them not leaving that hostile soil, THAT certainly required some effort.

    I agree that it's hard to see the Luftwaffe being "lured" in the sense of getting German planes to go anywhere they weren't planning on going.  It's really more a ""roach motel" strategy, but that doesn't read as nice in history books.  :)

  25. Posted

    5 hours ago, Drasvin said:

    Building two separate planes would potentially require more production capacity then building a single plane that could do both. The separate planes would require at least two production lines, while the single plane could make do with a single line, which could be a boon if there aren't enough factories to go around. Though I'm not sure if that boon would have been worth the massively increased design and development time needed.

    ...but it's hard to avoid ending up with a result that isn't great in any role

    *cough*F-35*cough*