The Old Hack

Oh, I am not belittling any of these weapons. I am merely wondering why all daggers in that world are apparently forged with high breakability as a feature.

I did like that bit in Jaquinto's 'Swashbuckler' where, whenever a rapier or epée clashed with a dagger, the dagger had a one in six chance of breaking. As to real life disarming, I saw a HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) practitioner who said that the simplest way to disarm someone in a swordfight would probably be to injure their weapon arm.

Monster lists are a huge problem in convincing science fiction stories spanning large numbers of planets and environments. They really need to be very extensive in order to avoid repetition, not to mention varied in nature. In the earlier mentioned Star Wars: the Old Republic, a big problem is that so many monsters look like one another even on planets halfway across the galaxy from one another. This is of course partly because of the game engine -- good models take time to create and you can only have so many unless you are prepared to spend ludicrous amounts of money and programming time on them. Then, as mlooney hints, there is the whole problem of discovering all the species extant on a whole planet. Humanity has existed on this planet for thousands of years and we still occasionally discover surprising new variants. Imagine just landing on a new world and then trying to work out what and where and how many potentially dangerous beasties there might be. Especially given that even on Earth, good camouflage has long been considered a winning evolutionary move. mlooney, if you need a helping hand with monster lists and ideas for same, or even reading and editing them, I'd like to offer a hand. Or even some general editing. If nothing else, maybe I can provide some useful opinions or at least act as a sounding board.

It might conceivably be part of a Sister Act, with Mrs Kitsune played by Whoopi Goldberg.

Fair enough, and I'm not saying you have to be. But it sounded to me like you wanted to see a huge battle scene of Sith versus Jedi, and I tried to deliver. My apologies if it disappointed. :/

Bah. That is utter redundancy. I could have managed that in only 490 pages.

Ah, that's the problem. Star Wars: The Old Republic was set in the time before the Rule of Two was instituted by Darth Bane. In fact, you could with some justice claim that these times were the entire basis for the Rule of Two. The ideal of the Sith was that some day the Sith'ari, a perfect being, would come into existence. Obviously all the followers of the Sith Code wanted to be it. It led to a massive chaos of plotting, backstabbing, manipulation and betrayal that more often than not caused the Sith to be their own worst foes. The Sith Emperor came very close but in the end his plans were undone by all the mad internecine treachery of his own followers. In the aftermath of the fall of the Sith Empire, Darth Bane came into being. The last remnants of the Sith were busily wiping themselves out and the survivors mostly got hunted down by the Jedi. Darth Bane realised that in order to reach the goal of the Sith and achieve the state of Sith'ari, you didn't really need large numbers and that they in fact were a handicap. He instituted the Rule of Two, and it was large and by respected by his successors ever since. But make no mistake: the Sith Empire had large numbers of Sith. Quite a few of them were actual Sith (the race, not the philosophy) and many carried actual Sith blood in their veins. In fact, HK-47 determined that 98% of the Empire's population had at least one Sith in their family trees, turning the returning Revan's plans to exterminate the Sith race (a very small portion of which remained full-blooded) into a genocide numbering in the trillions. Of these, the Force wielders all followed the Sith code. And some of them, to the dismay of many of the leading Sith, even avoided the temptations of the Dark Side. (It sounds weird, but it is true. The Sith were no more immune to the blandishments of the Light than the Jedi were immune to the temptations of the Dark. I personally suspect that another reason Darth Bane wanted the Rule of Two was to put an end to this Light nonsense upsetting their plots. Easier to control if it was only master and apprentice. And even that failed in the end when Sidious couldn't keep his apprentice from the Light...)

Actually it was because of the sheer terror effect that would invariably occur when an entire line of soldiers fired simultaneously. It would result in a massive rolling thunder of powder and all the bullets striking at the same time. The physical effect would be much the same as if every soldier fired in their own time but the effect on enemy morale was much more severe. Or in some cases, on your own side's morale. In one particular war the morale of the Spanish musketeers was so bad that the ONE time they managed to get a line to fire all at the same time, the massive sound of the volley was so terrifying that the firing line ITSELF broke, fleeing in blind panic from the sound of their own muskets. Not that the Spanish cavalry was much better. For one thing, it lacked usable mounts. There are definite limits to how effective an unmounted cavalry charge can be. In fact, during that entire war the only successful cavalry charge they managed to complete was against a cluster of limbered artillery.

Duh. Harrison Ford, of course. Meh. I still think the horses would like these odds better than running straight into the machinegun meat grinder.

You mean that Michael Bundesen from Shu-Bi-Dua didn't actually rob banks, fight in heroic Viking battle a thousand years ago and that he wasn't a superhero? I have been fibbed to

Mph. I am unconvinced that sword versus bat'leth would be that big of a difference. Range is important and part of human war history has always been trying to find better ways to kill at longer and longer range. But range is not all-important, in older times mobility and armouring could and often did trump range. A sword trumps a bat'leth in reach but only by a foot or so at most. While significant, this in no way means automatic victory for the swordsman any more than a spearman will automatically kill a swordsman. As to lining up troops on the field, you did that for matters of combat efficiency, not 'honour'. Massing your troops gave them added shock effect and a mass of troops would slaughter a mob or a skirmish line. Arm your mass with long pointy things and suddenly it also became much more resistant to, say, being overrun by cavalry. The downside of massing your troops was of course that it became all but impossible to miss them when firing ranged weapons at them. But it took many centuries before ranged weapons improved to the point where compact formations and lines in battle became completely obsolete. As late as in the American Civil War, troops still fought in compact formations; artillery and rifles notwithstanding, the risk of being shredded by a cavalry charge was just too great if soldiers deployed in a skirmish formation. Only a couple of decades later this was no longer true. The invention of repeating rifles and the Maxim gun killed cavalry as the deciding arm on the battlefield. Of course, not everybody realised this at once and cavalry stayed as an important arm in many armies. And at least for reasons of mobility, it retained usefulness for a while. It was just that it turned into mounted infantry instead -- you ride to reach your position fast, then dismount and fight with your horse left outside the line of fire, hopefully. I am sure the horses at least considered this a vast improvement.

Or, you could click here. o.o (Link rather too violent and loud to be safe for work.)

I know it would really catch my attention if they in any way rode bareback on horses with saddles. That must be really uncomfortable, not to mention annoying for the poor horses.

Everything will be up in the air. Which was really my point, we have no idea what the new rules will be like if the system changes.

Nonetheless it is good to hear. At least sometimes the community can get together and get the job done!

Wait, politicians actually thinking forward and spending money towards preventing future repetitions of a potentially recurring problem? Is that legal? o.o

If magic changes, the size of an object may cease to matter as much. In the new paradigm, the material crafted from might rule over size -- for example, a gold ring might be able to hold a more powerful enchantment than a magic staff.

You're absolutely right, we had better write Dan and point this out! O.O

What? No. The house didn't turn upside down or sideways relative to the rest of Moperville, so it can't have been. o.O

Alas, yes. After the magic change, Tedd will need to enchant rings instead. So we will have to settle for flight rings.

Not that she was taken along. It was the thought balloon I was referring to. It was the first sign that she was capable of doing more than just reflexively dislike anyone guilty of being male.

A bit earlier, perhaps. One of the first signs (to me at least) appears around here. (The end of 2002.)

*wince* Still not exactly a trip to the beach. But I am glad you are hanging in there. Tell Mrs. Prof that we have both of you in our thoughts and that we hope things will turn around soon.

Yeah, and the landings can be murder. Not to mention that the trip home can get really involved and full of monkey business.

Eh, I was tired, too. Sorry about the sour comment, I just felt silly when I started a new thread only to see that you had already done that but misdated it.