Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme

[Willie the Duck]

I know one guy who did rather well wearing a hazmat suit and used a crowbar.

Yes, that is undoubtedly the original reference diremage was making.

[factotum]

Maybe I'm being thick here, but when have the Pa'anuri ever been shown as having the strength to chuck *planets* around? Sure, their very high gravitational effect would theoretically allow them to do that, but assuming that's what is happening here, those planets aren't going to go very fast when "thrown" (otherwise they'd be torn apart by tidal forces). So, overall, I'm with Tagon, this really isn't much of a danger.

[Thomas Cardew]

Yeah., there's practically none for a warship. It's trying to kill a fly by throwing a bowling ball at it. Unless this is how Howard claims the DMBs cause a supernova by throwing the planets at the sun... even that's no real danger to the ship as it can teraport away, and a supernova is going to cause more damage then anything it can do anyway.

[Thomas Cardew]

When did we go from 'this isn't me just a preprogrammed copy with limited options and knowledge' to 'I know everything and am up to date' cindy?

[PraetorDragoon]

When did we go from 'this isn't me just a preprogrammed copy with limited options and knowledge' to 'I know everything and am up to date' cindy?

Off-panel, as usual.

You know, I am wondering if we can plug Schlock in there and give him full command of a planet sized warship.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

But the big significance of this update is that the rig Ennesby is using probably won't work either. Not directly anyway.

[Max_Killjoy]

When did we go from 'this isn't me just a preprogrammed copy with limited options and knowledge' to 'I know everything and am up to date' cindy?

I'm not convinced we did, the whole thing could just be sloppy use of "I" by the Cindy-clone.

[Gez]

You know, I am wondering if we can plug Schlock in there and give him full command of a planet sized warship.

Schlock's species did evolve from computer memory storage devices, so he should be able to interface, somehow, with a little bit of glue provided by Cindy-Shell.

[HandofShadows]

Schlock's species did evolve from computer memory storage devices, so he should be able to interface, somehow, with a little bit of glue provided by Cindy-Shell.

Quite right. In some ways Schlock's species is more similar to the DMBs than most any other life form we have seen.

[Rakaydos]

Quite right. In some ways Schlock's species is more similar to the DMBs than most any other life form we have seen.

Hmm. Does that mean that, hooked to the dark-matter ressurection machine, he could "Give his form to this formless smear" and engage in immune-combat with the rest of the dark matter entities?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Hmm. Does that mean that, hooked to the dark-matter ressurection machine, he could "Give his form to this formless smear" and engage in immune-combat with the rest of the dark matter entities?

Wow, that would be one big Schlock.

I'm actually hoping this is where Howard is going with this now. (Even though comic pictures of two creatures that size fighting aren't that different from images of normal sized creatures fighting, even the background is the same, provided the smaller creatures are standing in front of a window.)

[HandofShadows]

If Schlock gets his immune system, there probably wouldn't be much of a fight.

[The Glyphstone]

Can someone decipher the art here to figure out what happened?

[JavaScribe]

Can someone decipher the art here to figure out what happened?

I'm confused too, but as best as I can tell, Schlock seems to have abandoned ship and used some sort of weaponized teraport to rip apart of the opposing Pa'anuri.

[factotum]

Given the comment there were missiles on the way, did they just teraport their ship into the middle of the Pa'anuri and let the missiles do the job? Agreed, though, if that *is* what's happening it's incredibly unclear.

[Rakaydos]

Given the comment there were missiles on the way, did they just teraport their ship into the middle of the Pa'anuri and let the missiles do the job? Agreed, though, if that *is* what's happening it's incredibly unclear.

The enemy panuri is already in the middle of a ship, and I only see 1 ship there- I am forced to conclude that the ship the missiles were shot at is currently unmanned.

[geoduck]

The enemy panuri is already in the middle of a ship, and I only see 1 ship there- I am forced to conclude that the ship the missiles were shot at is currently unmanned.

Yes, it's definitely not clear, but I think that last panel is attempting to depict the panuri dying after getting hit with the missiles.

[Grim Portent]

Missiles don't hurt Pa'anuri, they don't interact with matter enough for that. It's the whole reason teraports have been the only weapon used on them since they first appeared.

I think the idea is that schlock's mini-ship suit has a teraport cannon and he jumped around shooting the pa'anuri from multiple angles. Note how he's out in the void rather than still on the bridge of the ship he was previously on.

It's really unclear though.

[factotum]

I just don't think Schlock's suit would have anything like the power required to hurt a beast the size of a planet, though. They did *something* with their captured warship to hurt the thing, I'm pretty sure of that, it's just entirely unclear what.

[Rakaydos]

I just don't think Schlock's suit would have anything like the power required to hurt a beast the size of a planet, though. They did *something* with their captured warship to hurt the thing, I'm pretty sure of that, it's just entirely unclear what.

That argument would apply the same to the Dragon class warship being able to shoot up a planet-size target, despit being able to terraport into an empty warehouse.

[HandofShadows]

I just don't think Schlock's suit would have anything like the power required to hurt a beast the size of a planet, though. They did *something* with their captured warship to hurt the thing, I'm pretty sure of that, it's just entirely unclear what.

Terapoting hurts and can kill them. I think that's what they did there. The ship teraported into the DMB and killed it for the moment. Really hard to figure out this page

[factotum]

That argument would apply the same to the Dragon class warship being able to shoot up a planet-size target, despit being able to terraport into an empty warehouse.

Well, firstly, remind me where that happened, because I don't remember myself. Secondly, a Dragon-class warship is orders of magnitude larger than Schlock's little mini-suit. If you're saying Schlock's suit is as powerful as the Tough's main warship, why do they have a warship at all? They could just go around in their suits and do more damage!

[NEO|Phyte]

Keep in mind that said fragsuit has been busy eating parts of planet-size warship to make itself bigger and better. Also teraports tend to not look that explodey so there is definitely something going on outside of "spammed teraports at it"

[halfeye]

Also teraports tend to not look that explodey so there is definitely something going on outside of "spammed teraports at it"

Teraports don't usually happen into Pa'anuri, I'm not sure what's going on, but there does seem to be reason to think spamming teraports into a Pa'anuri might hurt it, and that would seem to fit what we saw.

[NEO|Phyte]

Teraports don't usually happen into Pa'anuri, I'm not sure what's going on, but there does seem to be reason to think spamming teraports into a Pa'anuri might hurt it, and that would seem to fit what we saw.

The explosions are the wrong color to be visual representation of Pa'anuri teraport wounds.

[The Glyphstone]

Can someone ask Howard on Twitter or something?

[Kornaki]

I think in theory in the center of each teraport blast you can see the thing that's being teraported. It definitely doesn't look like the ship. It could be Schlock in a suit.

I also agree if Schlock can kill them this easily the threat is a lot smaller than I originally believed.

[diremage]

I think in theory in the center of each teraport blast you can see the thing that's being teraported. It definitely doesn't look like the ship. It could be Schlock in a suit.

I also agree if Schlock can kill them this easily the threat is a lot smaller than I originally believed.

Maybe not-Cindy called in close air support now that they are in a galaxy where that's a thing?

Ennesby compared hitting a DaME with a standard ship-based teleport to peppering a bull elephant with a saturday night special, so I don't think that's really what happened here.

Come to think of it, they won the first fight by "blanketing the core in TAD systems," which might not stop an intergalactic teleport but would certainly be a bit painful for anything that landed in the kill zone. Wonder what happened to those? And why is that no longer a solution here?

Edit: Nope, I'm wrong, Schlock killed a whole planet-sized DAME by his lonesome in the time it took to talk smack to it. What's the big deal with these guys, and why did an entire fleet fail to defend Xuvoth but Schlock by his lonesome can solo them?

The plot holes, you could throw Jupiter through them x.x#

[Kornaki]

She's wrong, this is not entertaining.

[HandofShadows]

Ennesby compared hitting a DaME with a standard ship-based teleport to peppering a bull elephant with a saturday night special, so I don't think that's really what happened here.

You have to remember that the ship Schlock is using is the size of a large planet. It's not a saturday night special, it's a 16 inch battleship gun.