Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme

[factotum]

The sets "non-extinct volcano" and "safe place to live" do not overlap.

Non-extinct volcanoes are all dangerous, the details just vary. We just saw that in Hawaii recently --even those "safe" and "sedate" types of volcanoes are not actually safe to live near.

I don't think anyone ever argued that living near a volcano is safe. (And even volcanoes thought to be extinct can wake up again--Vesuvius hadn't erupted for a good 300 years before it wiped out Pompeii, for example). It's a matter of whether the advantages of living there are worth the risk, and the answer many times throughout history has been "yes". For exactly the same reasons people throughout history have lived on flood plains, despite the dangers of drowning and property destruction that come with it.

[Onyavar]

Okay, once your civilization has nothing more to learn, nothing to earn from the planets and stars in the galaxy, and will be comfortable in stagnation, it seems prudent to leave the danger.

[tonberrian]

Especially since someone keeps shooting at the sufficiently advanced societies.

[HandofShadows]

Especially since someone keeps shooting at the sufficiently advanced societies.

Well, this time around they seems to be in a lot better shape than the ones before in countering those snipers.

[Kornaki]

The sniping is through a similar effect to the teraport right? We've been told teraporting to an area outside a galaxy is significantly harder. Maybe heading to extra galactic space is the safest option to avoid getting shot.

[Max_Killjoy]

If the "extragalactics" are running from other intelligent life... they're not going to be happy about being found my something that can reach them.

[factotum]

If the "extragalactics" are running from other intelligent life... they're not going to be happy about being found my something that can reach them.

That can't be the whole story. We know that the extragalactics we're talking about went out of their way to rescue the intelligent dinosaurs. OK, sure, that was partially down to guilt because it was them flying through the Oort cloud that destablised the asteroid that threatened those people, but even so, it's not a simple "Other intelligent life bad, destroy!" with them.

[JavaScribe]

This still leaves the question of who kills off/kidnaps the settlements that decide to take their chances, and who cleans up the evidence so well that they didn't even think there were ancient advanced civilizations until now.

[HouseRules]

I don't think anyone ever argued that living near a volcano is safe. (And even volcanoes thought to be extinct can wake up again--Vesuvius hadn't erupted for a good 300 years before it wiped out Pompeii, for example). It's a matter of whether the advantages of living there are worth the risk, and the answer many times throughout history has been "yes". For exactly the same reasons people throughout history have lived on flood plains, despite the dangers of drowning and property destruction that come with it.

Natural Disaster Zones have higher GDP to rebuild the property destruction. There are many benefits to living in those zone, but the inflated GDP is an issue. Economists need to separate out the rebuild portion of GDP before it could be comparable to other places. It's a Contrapositive to the Sunk Cost Fallacy.

[sihnfahl]

The sniping is through a similar effect to the teraport right? We've been told teraporting to an area outside a galaxy is significantly harder. Maybe heading to extra galactic space is the safest option to avoid getting shot.

It's more of a distance thing. It takes a lot of energy to do it. Petey's energy budget only let him send a small ship with digital copies of the people involved. So, VERY small ship.

Also, because of 'jitter', it takes a galaxy-wide sighting mechanism to even get within a ballpark. It took the Andromedans quite a few shots to center in on Petey.

[HouseRules]

They took about a dozen shot to get towards Petey. Someone will correct me for the correct amount.

[Onyavar]

Did I just sight the Stickverse Snarl in the Schlockverse?

Is there some merit to the old theory of Schlock being the MitD?

[Kornaki]

It's more of a distance thing. It takes a lot of energy to do it. Petey's energy budget only let him send a small ship with digital copies of the people involved. So, VERY small ship.

Also, because of 'jitter', it takes a galaxy-wide sighting mechanism to even get within a ballpark. It took the Andromedans quite a few shots to center in on Petey.

https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-03-29

This is what I was referring to. Being outside the galaxy has more advantages than just distance.

[Max_Killjoy]

Someone set them up the capacitor.

[HouseRules]

Petey is playing a game of do or die. If those people shot, Petey would use the Capacitor as a bomb.

[halfeye]

Did I just sight the Stickverse Snarl in the Schlockverse?

Is there some merit to the old theory of Schlock being the MitD?

Nah, that's much bigger than the snarl, if you read the commentary.

[guttering flame]

Petey is playing a game of do or die. If those people shot, Petey would use the Capacitor as a bomb.

I assumed the snarl belong to the planet-ship people, to hold the potential enemy invaders until they know they're not hostile. Alternatively it belongs to a third party for capturing their long ago enemies in the planet-ship. Or it's one of the many many defense weapons immigrants leaving the milky way built to ensure the galaxy doesn't spew it's danger out to them.

[Douglas]

I think it's the power source that's going to fuel the final teraport, built because that teraport will require a rate of energy expenditure that the core generator can't support.

[halfeye]

I assumed the snarl belong to the planet-ship people, to hold the potential enemy invaders until they know they're not hostile. Alternatively it belongs to a third party for capturing their long ago enemies in the planet-ship. Or it's one of the many many defense weapons immigrants leaving the milky way built to ensure the galaxy doesn't spew it's danger out to them.

It's got Petey's ship at the end of it's arm, and they've not left yet, it's Petey's.

Ninja-ed.

[Max_Killjoy]

I think Petey done messed up.

[Kornaki]

It doesn't seem like this is a good trade off at all. Couldn't he have built another capacitor before sending them off?

[factotum]

The "capacitor" wasn't a physical object, it was a collection of energy Petey has gathered over years. The only way to build another one would be to take years building up energy again.

[Willie the Duck]

I think Petey done messed up.

It doesn't seem like this is a good trade off at all.

All this so they could go interview some guys who left the galaxy (and hopefully not get blown up by their point defense in the process)? Why did he agree to this? I'm sorry, but he should not have said yes. More to the point, he wouldn't have said yes (unless we are missing something). Previously, he was willing to let his best friends die because he couldn't afford the energy expenditure and let the Pa'anuri win. What is he gaining now that is this valuable? Previously it seemed more like an expensive favor to a friend. Now it seems insane.

[Spojaz]

If I remember correctly, the Pa'anuri have a galactic generator twice the size of Petey's. He's buying time fighting a war that he will lose. It makes sense, in that context, to trade a bit of time for the chance to talk to the only people whose technology could be advanced enough to let him win. A poor gamble perhaps, but a necessary one.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

All this so they could go interview some guys who left the galaxy (and hopefully not get blown up by their point defense in the process)? Why did he agree to this?

The possibility to an answer to the question "Why does the galactic civilizations cease to exist every few bmillion years? Is it rogue AIs? DaMEs? Resource Constraint? What?"

The answer of which in advance would be worth not just this expenditure but orders of magnitude higher too. Heck, such as it is, if they do get the answer, it'll probably be a bargain (but right now it is a gamble if they'll get it at all)

Grey Wolf

[halfeye]

The possibility to an answer to the question "Why does the galactic civilizations cease to exist every few billion years?

That's every few million years. There are thousands of evacuations out there, the (real life, and so far as I remember the Schlockverse too) universe has only been going for 13 billion years.

[Willie the Duck]

If I remember correctly, the Pa'anuri have a galactic generator twice the size of Petey's. He's buying time fighting a war that he will lose. It makes sense, in that context, to trade a bit of time for the chance to talk to the only people whose technology could be advanced enough to let him win. A poor gamble perhaps, but a necessary one.

Okay, you are right. He's gambling big on an unlikely solution, but in his current position behind the 8 ball, it is a necessary gamble. I do fear that the answer to his question of, 'how do I defeat the Pa'anuri?' will be answered with, 'we dunno, that's why we left.'

[Onyavar]

He's gambling big on an unlikely solution

I think of that being more a large investment, not a gamble where Petey would loose something important.
All that he gave up was energy, materiel (Most of which went into a sensor phalanx that he may use again) and digital copies of his friends. And time setting it all up.

[tyckspoon]

All that he gave up was energy, ...

One of the biggest recurring points in the comic has been that there is never enough energy to do everything you want. Petey committed a huge resource to this, one that he cannot easily rebuild. If they don't get useful answers from the exo-galactic ships, the answer to 'why do intelligent civilizations keep disappearing' may well be 'Paanuuri ate them all'. At least for this cycle, and directly because Petey spent the energy bank he needed to keep them at bay.

[Kornaki]

The "capacitor" wasn't a physical object, it was a collection of energy Petey has gathered over years. The only way to build another one would be to take years building up energy again.

Agreed. But they can probably wait a year while they build up the energy to launch this expedition, and not leave the galaxy perilously at risk.

The fact that they recently discovered that galactic civilization keeps failing does not mean that the event is almost upon them. It especially means they shouldn't compromise the existing efforts to prevent its collapse just to learn about how it happened last time