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2018-09-20, 01:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2017
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2018-09-20, 03:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
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2018-09-20, 08:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2012
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
Good grief, are they trying to send the UNS some sort of message, or are they really that obsessive about having all their stuff?
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2018-09-20, 10:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
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- The Lakes
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2018-09-20, 11:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2012
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
I guess they want to broadcast: "Do not offend us for any reason. If you dare to so much as touch our stuff, we will end you."?
Even if the comic does manage to justify all this, I kind of wonder why it's emphasizing it so much.
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2018-09-21, 02:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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2018-09-21, 06:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2009
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- Germany
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
Teraporting is pretty cheap, I'd say. At some point in the distant comics past (in the first book) it was mentioned that the process consumes some matter; but I think modern ships have this fixed. And energy is pretty cheap, even the energy of 15000 warships...
One Oafan warship however is composed entirely of PTU hulls, which are not cheap. It could well be that the energy bill of a billion terraports still comes cheaper than one new ship hull...
(But I'd still guess, it's the Toughs in person they are really after. For whatever reason.)Last edited by Onyavar; 2018-09-21 at 06:03 AM.
participate in fan translations of OotS to your native language:
English transcript, Deutsche Übersetzung
(links to dormant projects from others: Traduzione italiano,
Traducción español, Tradução em português, Traductions françaises [- trois fois!], מסדר המקלתרגום עברית )
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2018-09-21, 06:51 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
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- The Lakes
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
This whole "but it never belonged to them" thing is also ridiculous.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2018-09-21, 11:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2007
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2018-09-21, 11:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2016
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- The Lakes
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
As I said in the reddit thread for today's strip...
I really, really do not understand why we've not seen a single objection in-comic to the notion that the Toughs "stole" something. All the characters have so far just made sad faces and gone along with the assertion that the Toughs are completely in the wrong here and have a massive debt.
The old Oafans did their best to make everyone think they were dead and gone.
Then the AI in charge of the place made itself forget them over and over, and went crazy from loneliness and memory edits, and made the place they were hiding look even more abandoned and derelict.
Then the "resurrected" Oafans and their benefactors (the horse-looking many-limbed dudes whose name I can't remember right now) told everyone that the place belonged to them, and they were telling the truth as far as they knew it. Because, again, the old Oafans did their damnedest to make themselves look extinct and gone.
Legally, if you fake your own death, don't leave a will, and then a probate court gives your stuff to whoever they determine is your next of kin, and then they sell it off... can you come back 20 years later and claim that the people who bought it actually stole it from you and are in debt to you for all that stuff?
Nevermind millennia instead of decades in the situation in the comic.It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2018-09-21, 01:50 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
And that is very, very obvious. This seems to bother you almost on a personal level. Would it help if we affirmed that we notice it too? Or that, barring information we aren't privy to, it doesn't make sense (certainly that no one is voicing that position, regardless of the overall legal end-determination).
What I don't get is--where were all these ships the reawakened Oafans are now flying? I mean, we know where--the modern Oafans had them, but they weren't treated as this immense horde-like threat at the time. Why are there now so many they can brute-force search the galaxy for running-silent ships and make even Petey feel unsafe and so on? Why didn't people treat them as this great big potential threat before? Why did the Toughs sell the UNS a bunch of ships for a battleplate if there was all this? Previously it was made to look much more like the Oafans had crazy ability to make PTUs, but not really anything else anyone else wanted. Now they are the 2nd or 3rd (depending on whether they outclass the whole UNS navy, or just a single new silently-running super-battleplate) largest navy in the galaxy. Why this change, and more importantly how this change?
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2018-09-21, 01:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2012
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2018-09-21, 01:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2007
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
Difficult to say, but the Schlock verse does, and the current scenario is consistent with what we have seen before.
The issue everyone seems to be having is with what rule is being applied.
The oofans say those ships are theirs. And if anyone asks "on what basis?", they answer with "15000+ long gun warships still under our control". Which solves the matter immediately.
Might makes right in Schlockverse. There is nothing new about this.
Grey WolfInterested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est
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2018-09-21, 02:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2013
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- USA
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
That's the answer now. But it wasn't when the issue was first introduced. Putzho made an unquantified comment about them having a lot of long guns but nothing definitive. And it wasn't information the Toughs were privy too. But they still never objected to being classified as thieves, etc.
I have no problem with the 'might makes right' answer being the oofans response. I have a problem with no one is trying to defend themselves before being given that answer.
The bigger problem for me, is as I said before, I'm both bored and annoyed. People are acting like idiots for no reason, no one is offering a reasonable defense/critique of the situation, this isn't being related back to the plot I care about in any meaningful way (at least not yet which means pacing issues), it's not funny on its own (which would help said pacing issues), and plotlines we were supposed to be invested in get wrapped up basically off-screen (e.g. Chinook most recently but the attempted civil war coup STILL sticks in my craw as a wasted opportunity). And to top it all off: if we're going to go down this rabit-hole, I'm really annoyed that the position that the Toughs did nothing/minimally anything wrong in this situation is being summarily dismissed and not even worth inclusion in the strip.
See last line above. I'm can't speak for others, but I'm just expressing frustration at out of hand dismissal. It's one thing if the Toughs argue that and the oofans said, "Interesting arguement you make, let me make 15,000 explosive rebuttals." That's par for the course. Instead we get, "You're right, we're a horrible people"
I think these are new ships. At least ones the Neo-Oofans didn't have. The Neo-Oofans had the one World-Cylinder. Mega-Structure as that one resurrected -old-oofan called it. I think we're seeing ships from all the other old-oofan mega-structures; the rest of their civilization coming out of hiding/ freedom after Putzho lets them out of their cage.Last edited by Thomas Cardew; 2018-09-21 at 03:18 PM.
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2018-09-22, 06:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
I suspect that all these "new" ships are warbucked old ships that had been stasis gelled for 10's of thousands (millions?) of years, pilotted by their appropriately-grown AI's that were housed inside the computer.
As for the claim of theft: Is it any different from "Hey, you invaders robbed our cultural landmarks for your museums, please give them back to us even though we have no military might to force it" except that now they *do* have that military might, and the title of this book is ...Not "fire at". I never used the word "at"
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2018-09-22, 07:45 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
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- The Lakes
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2018-09-23, 01:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
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2018-09-23, 07:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2009
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
Hah, good analogy. Well, look, the pharaohs have returned, and they are Gods and will smite everyone who robbed their graves. And it doesn't matter if these items are currently in the museums of western nations or in those of modern Egypt: The archeologists are all graverobbers, and earned the curse of the pharaoh. "You thought we were dead? Fools!"
I used the analogy before: "you rescued their butler, then searched the house. You thought they were dead and agreed with the butler to sell the silverware to the UNS and split the money" The way our justice system works, you should return the money (or the items!) to the houseowners, on account of being a fence and/or a thief. Extenuating circumstance nonwithstanding (the butler found they are not dead, and revived them, what would not have been possible without you rescuing the butler in the first place). That extenuation is still very important and the oafans would be bad people if they squeezed the Toughs dry for it. And look, they are returning the favor and just rescued the Toughs from the UNS!
...
On the newest update: does anyone else also think that Ventura has been working on an important (and unauthorized) secret project that WILL be a huge problem if Ventura doesn't supervise it personally all the time, including right now?participate in fan translations of OotS to your native language:
English transcript, Deutsche Übersetzung
(links to dormant projects from others: Traduzione italiano,
Traducción español, Tradução em português, Traductions françaises [- trois fois!], מסדר המקלתרגום עברית )
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2018-09-23, 10:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2016
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- The Lakes
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2018-09-23, 02:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2005
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- Eberron
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
Man this thing was full of outdated stuff.
Swoop Falcon
I make(made?) avatars! Last updated 12-23-2008. Requests not unwelcome. Last request 01-12-2010.
Avatar by me.
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2018-09-24, 08:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
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2018-09-24, 12:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2013
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- Bristol, UK
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2018-04-03
Perhaps not.The end of what Son? The story? There is no end. There's just the point where the storytellers stop talking.
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2018-09-29, 12:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2013
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- USA
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
Wait how is Ennesby next of kin? My money would have been on Ventura...
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2018-09-29, 12:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2005
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
Chinook used to be Tagii, remember, who was kept locked up in Ennesby's spare helix-code for an extended period. That plus him being another AI is enough, I guess?
Also, Ventura is currently dead, so she can't be consulted in a next-of-kin situation until she stops needing next-of-kin herself.NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2018-09-29, 10:29 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2013
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- Bristol, UK
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
The end of what Son? The story? There is no end. There's just the point where the storytellers stop talking.
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2018-09-29, 10:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2008
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
Judging by the last time we had this virtual reality, the clock speed in there is really slow. It's definitely faster talking to Ennesby.
The name is "tonberrian", even when it begins a sentence. It's magic, I ain't gotta 'splain why.
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2018-09-29, 12:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2013
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
I remember. But given that's there's not exactly a biological equivalent to that... calling the host the parasite's next of kin? And I'd be more inclined to call one of the Tar-bots next of kin. If Ventura as programmer is 'mother' the tar-bots are siblings. Or adopted/step siblings given that she effectively mind wiped and reprogrammed them on her own...
And Ventura's dead sure, but only mostly dead. And Petey seems to be talking to the mostlly dead Kevin just fine. Fake immortality is weird. And Venture only needs next-of-kin if she doesn't have a living will.
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2018-09-29, 01:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2008
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
Kevin's clock is running much faster. He needs to be revived faster, because he's more important. Petey even told Kevin that Ventura and the rest would seem like statues to him if they were in the same environment.
The name is "tonberrian", even when it begins a sentence. It's magic, I ain't gotta 'splain why.
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2018-09-29, 08:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2012
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
New comic.
And, as expected, the Toughs are going to atone for being filthy thieves by working for the Oafans. Possibly forever.
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2018-09-29, 09:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
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- The Lakes
Re: Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.