NP, Monday, August 1, 2016

[Vorlonagent 442]

1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

Almost every writer I've heard talk about the process of creating a story (and I attend writing panels at sci-fi cons) has mentioned getting into an argument with one of their characters - and losing.

I know I lose more than I win...

[hkmaly 490]

20 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Of course, to my mind, the answer to the question would depend on what anciliary powers are included.

It's actually invalid question. "Only one superpower", "only three wishes", "only one thing on desolate island" ... it can be interesting in the "what will people thing about" sense, but in reality it would be ineffective limit. As proved by people who found lot of loopholes for the "three wishes" scenario.

(Also, Tailsteak had good answer to that superpower question (in middle of post)).

6 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

On 08/02/2016 at 6:31 PM, CritterKeeper said:

Reminds me of all the writers who talk about their characters deciding what they're going to do on their own, refusing to do what the writer wants or taking them completely by surprise.  Pandora is both writer and character here. :-)

Almost every writer I've heard talk about the process of creating a story (and I attend writing panels at sci-fi cons) has mentioned getting into an argument with one of their characters - and losing.

Of course. The ones who won that argument never got famous enough to be asked to speak at panels at sci-fi cons or anywhere else.

[mlooney 3,417]

Only one super power?  Telekinesis of at least 4 or 5 times my weight.  Give you flight and moderate super strength.  And a ranged attack.

[Asari 6]

Pandora's "Whoops" in this 8/1/16 EGS-NP comic reminds me of her "Whoops" in the 7/21/14 EGS Main Story comic.

On 7/21/14 I don't think I understood why Pandora was saying "Whoops."  Maybe I figured that she was commenting on the bad timing of Tedd's first use of his magic.

But now I think that Pandora did not intend to mark Tedd when she put her hands on his shoulders in the 6/11/14 EGS comic.  I think that she was just feeling protective of Tedd regarding Luke (see 7/14/14 EGS).  I think marking Tedd was 100% an accident.  The 8/1/16 EGS-NP comic shows that Pandora does not have full conscious control over her own magic.

BTW, I came here to look for the 7/21/14 forum thread to see why people thought Pandora said "Whoops" back then -- but found out that all those past threads are gone.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

39 minutes ago, Asari said:

BTW, I came here to look for the 7/21/14 forum thread to see why people thought Pandora said "Whoops" back then -- but found out that all those past threads are gone.

Sadly, the old forums seem to have been forever lost in the Great Crash earlier this year. I am sorry.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

4 hours ago, Asari said:

But now I think that Pandora did not intend to mark Tedd when she put her hands on his shoulders in the 6/11/14 EGS comic.  I think that she was just feeling protective of Tedd regarding Luke (see 7/14/14 EGS).  I think marking Tedd was 100% an accident.  The 8/1/16 EGS-NP comic shows that Pandora does not have full conscious control over her own magic.

We have Pandors's own words on this one.  "This wasn't part of some master plan.  I impulsively used my vast power to do something nice without thinking it through."  And she was musing to herself, not talking to anyone else, so there's no reason to think she's lying.  So, she did Mark Tedd deliberately, but it was a spur-of-the-moment thing.

By the way, I see this was your first post.  Welcome to the forums! :-)

[Cpt. Obvious 73]

8 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Sadly, the old forums seem to have been forever lost in the Great Crash earlier this year. I am sorry.

I'm feeling it might be a good thing if we were to call it the Great Crash of 2016, or GC2016, to help remind us of what's been lost and when. With my bad memory I need every little help I can have to remind me of things like this. And if Murphy at some future date decides to throw some more spanners at the server it would save us from having to relabel the event...
 

[Vorlonagent 442]

14 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Sadly, the old forums seem to have been forever lost in the Great Crash earlier this year. I am sorry.

It's actually the Mandela Effect.  Thanks to the LHC, those forum threads now never existed.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:

It's actually the Mandela Effect.  Thanks to the LHC, those forum threads now never existed.

No no, the Mandala only warned of the Great Crash, it did not actually cause it. The real culprit was Commander Vimes falling through the roof of the University Library just as the lightning triggered the Glass Clock, which sent reverberations through L-Space and caused the redisintegration of the now never-existed files.

[Vorlonagent 442]

6 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

No no, the Mandala only warned of the Great Crash, it did not actually cause it. The real culprit was Commander Vimes falling through the roof of the University Library just as the lightning triggered the Glass Clock, which sent reverberations through L-Space and caused the redisintegration of the now never-existed files.

For the Crash and other unrelated timestream damage, Vimes should have been stripped of all rank, tarred and feathered.  Instead the revised history conferred on him an additional title than before his accident, which he has now held for the last 5 years.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

Just now, Vorlonagent said:

For the Crash and other unrelated timestream damage, Vimes should have been stripped of all rank, tarred and feathered.  Instead the revised history conferred on him an additional title than before his accident, which he has now held for the last 5 years.

Oh come on. It wasn't his fault. He actually helped repair the Timestream.

Well, for a given value of 'repair'. If 'pounding it senseless, making it beg for mercy and shoving it into the path he wanted through brute force' counts as 'repair', we're golden.

[Vorlonagent 442]

4 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Oh come on. It wasn't his fault. He actually helped repair the Timestream.

Well, for a given value of 'repair'. If 'pounding it senseless, making it beg for mercy and shoving it into the path he wanted through brute force' counts as 'repair', we're golden.

Well as is said, "If all you have is a hammer..."

In the revised continuity, is the Crash considered collateral damage to the physical assault history suffered in its correction?

[The Old Hack 2,448]

4 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Well as is said, "If all you have is a hammer..."

In the revised continuity, is the Crash considered collateral damage to the physical assault history suffered in its correction?

I think you can safely count Samuel Vimes as a hammer. Or maybe an ax.

What revised continuity? There's only this one. We've always been at war with Eastasia.

[Asari 6]

21 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

We have Pandors's own words on this one.  "This wasn't part of some master plan.  I impulsively used my vast power to do something nice without thinking it through."  And she was musing to herself, not talking to anyone else, so there's no reason to think she's lying.  So, she did Mark Tedd deliberately, but it was a spur-of-the-moment thing.

Thank you.  (Kicking self for not clicking on the following comic.)  I got carried away by the two Whoopses.  

21 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

By the way, I see this was your first post.  Welcome to the forums! :-)

Thank you again.  First post here, but I posted once in a while at the previous 910CMX forums, and before that at the old EGS Webcomic.net forums.

[Vorlonagent 442]

15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

I think you can safely count Samuel Vimes as a hammer. Or maybe an ax.

What revised continuity? There's only this one. We've always been at war with Eastasia.

Oh yes, right.  Silly of me.  I can never keep tabs on who we're at war with from week to week...

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

On August 10, 2016 at 0:37 PM, Vorlonagent said:

Oh yes, right.  Silly of me.  I can never keep tabs on who we're at war with from week to week...

It's easy here, the last Declaration of War from the United States was against Romania during WWII.  Nothing since has been an actual war.

[mlooney 3,417]

55 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

It's easy here, the last Declaration of War from the United States was against Romania during WWII.  Nothing since has been an actual war.

A authorization to use all levels of force needed, passed by both houses of congress is a declaration of war, even if those magic words aren't on it.  Plus, for what it's worth, Panama declared war on us.  We replied by removing their "head of state" via loud rock and roll.  Delivered by the 82nd Airborne Division, 7th Light Infantry Division and the 75th Ranger Regiment.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

9 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

It's easy here, the last Declaration of War from the United States was against Romania during WWII.  Nothing since has been an actual war.

There was a town in Spain that was so indignant at Denmark's support of Napoleon during the Napoleonic War that its municipal leadership decided to declare war on Denmark sometime back in 1812 or thereabouts. This state of hostilities lasted without cessation for more than a century and a half until a Danish newspaperman found a reference to it in the archives. He decided to go there and investigate, and lo and behold, the current mayor of the town found that yes, war had been declared and no, no peace treaty had ever been formally signed.

He then took the newspaperman as a prisoner of war, cruelly treated him to a grand dinner with the finest wines he owned, and together with the other guests they debated the matter and finally decided that the time had come to bury the hatchet. And the newspaperman got to return home with a formal and signed declaration of cessation of hostilities. I do not know if an actual peace treaty has ever been agreed on but at least there has been no violations of the ceasefire so far.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053084/

"The Mouse That Roared" is my favorite when it comes to commentary on declaring war.

[ijuin 572]

2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

There was a town in Spain that was so indignant at Denmark's support of Napoleon during the Napoleonic War that its municipal leadership decided to declare war on Denmark sometime back in 1812 or thereabouts. This state of hostilities lasted without cessation for more than a century and a half until a Danish newspaperman found a reference to it in the archives. He decided to go there and investigate, and lo and behold, the current mayor of the town found that yes, war had been declared and no, no peace treaty had ever been formally signed.

Given that nation-states are the modern unit of sovereignty for wars, if the town was acting contrary to its national government, then the national laws supersede the local action. Refusal of the town to submit to its own national government essentially puts them in open rebellion against it (i.e. civil war).

[The Old Hack 2,448]

57 minutes ago, ijuin said:

Given that nation-states are the modern unit of sovereignty for wars, if the town was acting contrary to its national government, then the national laws supersede the local action. Refusal of the town to submit to its own national government essentially puts them in open rebellion against it (i.e. civil war).

Wow! Then they were in a state of civil war all that time, too! Awesome!

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

3 hours ago, ijuin said:

Given that nation-states are the modern unit of sovereignty for wars, if the town was acting contrary to its national government, then the national laws supersede the local action. Refusal of the town to submit to its own national government essentially puts them in open rebellion against it (i.e. civil war).

 

2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Wow! Then they were in a state of civil war all that time, too! Awesome!

Perhaps someone should tell them.  They might get another mention in the press out of declaring an end to their rebellion, and if the one telling them were in any way, shape, or form representing the nation, they might get a nice meal out of the deal. ;-)

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:

 

Perhaps someone should tell them.  They might get another mention in the press out of declaring an end to their rebellion, and if the one telling them were in any way, shape, or form representing the nation, they might get a nice meal out of the deal. ;-)

Actually I thought about it. This was during the Peninsular War and at the time the rule of Spain was contested between Napoleon who wanted his brother on the Spanish throne and the rebelling Spaniards who received assistance from England and the Portuguese. I am not even sure a unified national government per se existed or if it was only a king in exile.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

http://mentalfloss.com/article/30895/11-wars-lasted-way-longer-they-should-have

Here's an interesting list of wars that continued on paper long after the last shots were fired.
The two thousand year war between Rome and Carthage is my favorite.

[ijuin 572]

The concept of debellatio  would apply in a lot of those wars--in essence, an enemy state is destroyed when its government falls and the new government is not considered to have continuity with the old government. Rome destroyed Carthage as a functioning government (i.e. there was no longer any legitimate authority that could surrender for them).