Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme

[keybounce]

Persuing Dinosaurs?

[Narkis]

Persuing Dinosaurs?

Pursuing Dinosaurs.

[Kornaki]

Aha. Simulation Tagon is not a tagon created by Petey, it's a Tagon created by the extra-galactic aliens to guess what real Tagon's motivations are. What we are seeing is one of the simulations that made Blue announce the most probable reason the teraporters have arrived is to chase down their dinosaur ancestors.

(I realize that's not what this actually is, but it would be a fun twist)

[Narkis]

Spoiler: new comic

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Err, shouldn't Petey have coordinated this before pressing the button that triggers galactic invasion?

[Kornaki]

Spoiler: new comic

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Err, shouldn't Petey have coordinated this before pressing the button that triggers galactic invasion?

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if he tried to coordinate it before he did the teraport, everyone would have told him not to do it. Easier to ask forgiveness etc etc wasn't one of the Extinction event hypotheses that the global superpower ai starts to go a little nuts?

[factotum]

I wouldn't go quite as far to call it a "trigger".

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It's more like Petey has left the door unlocked--it will likely take the Pa'anuri a while to notice that they can just walk in.

[Kornaki]

Petey is the only one who knows how often they try, so I will take his word for it.

[JavaScribe]

I wouldn't go quite as far to call it a "trigger".

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It's more like Petey has left the door unlocked--it will likely take the Pa'anuri a while to notice that they can just walk in.

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Apparently not.

It was mentioned earlier that they are somehow observing the Milky Way in real time. Maybe it was that?

[HouseRules]

Wait, they are stealing planets for resource now?

[halfeye]

Wait, they are stealing planets for resource now?

If they are trying to mess things up, then putting a Jupiter or even Neptune mass planet into an orbit that crosses all the other orbits should do a fine job of it.

Fifteen minutes of work for a several year cleanup? Time very well spent.

[JavaScribe]

Wait, they are stealing planets for resource now?

The ice giant does seem to have changed shape. Maybe they're planning to show off by ramming it into the Unioc homeworld?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

If they are trying to mess things up, then putting a Jupiter or even Neptune mass planet into an orbit that crosses all the other orbits should do a fine job of it.

Fifteen minutes of work for a several year cleanup? Time very well spent.

It also happens to be a particularly effective vector of attack when you have trouble with interacting with regular matter and prefer to use your own gravity as a weapon.

Grey Wolf

[Max_Killjoy]

If this is what was coming as soon as Petey used that energy for the very-long-range teleport, then Petey shouldn't have been so eager to conduct the very-long-range tereport. This doesn't feel like the smart Petey we've come to know, but rather they worst of neurotic-Petey who can't get over his own questions.

[Ibrinar]

Yeah his priorities seem a bit wrong unless the plan is to just copy them in fleeing the galaxy and he wants to ask for some tips for world ship design.^^

[JavaScribe]

Yeah his priorities seem a bit wrong unless the plan is to just copy them in fleeing the galaxy and he wants to ask for some tips for world ship design.^^

Would even that save them at this point? As soon as the Milky Way core generator is conquered, I wouldn't put it past the Pa'anuri to work on figuring out a way to take out the extra-galactic fleets next.

[Max_Killjoy]

Teraports hurt the Panurri, yes?

I guess figure out how to teraport the entire Andromeda galaxy 5 feet to the left... ??

[HouseRules]

The ice giant does seem to have changed shape. Maybe they're planning to show off by ramming it into the Unioc homeworld?

Treating planets as giant comets and throwing them around as sling bullets.

[Willie the Duck]

Teraports hurt the Panurri, yes?

I guess figure out how to teraport the entire Andromeda galaxy 5 feet to the left... ??

And then a step to the right?

[factotum]

Treating planets as giant comets and throwing them around as sling bullets.

Given the thing they're doing this with is 5 times more massive than the giant planet you wonder why they don't just slam *it* into the Unioc homeworld instead. Guess it maybe took a lot of time and effort to build it!

Mind you, given that the object doesn't appear to be solid, is its massive mass purely down to an enormous amount of energy contained within? Or is this something similar to Oisri? (I don't remember if we ever found out why gravity was so anomalously high there).

[NEO|Phyte]

Given that it is presumably one of the warships Petey spoke of, I suspect a notable amount of its apparent mass is from the dark matter entities crewing it.

[factotum]

Given that it is presumably one of the warships Petey spoke of, I suspect a notable amount of its apparent mass is from the dark matter entities crewing it.

Surely it can't be crewed by dark matter entities? By all appearances it just teraported into the system, and we know that Pa'anuri can't stand teraports.

[Max_Killjoy]

Surely it can't be crewed by dark matter entities? By all appearances it just teraported into the system, and we know that Pa'anuri can't stand teraports.

Perhaps it provides them with protection against teraport's deleterious effects.

[JavaScribe]

Surely it can't be crewed by dark matter entities? By all appearances it just teraported into the system, and we know that Pa'anuri can't stand teraports.

That brings up a good question. How do Pa'anuri get around? Whatever is left of the gatekeeper wormgate network wouldn't be letting them in at this point, and the only wormgate between the Milky Way and Andromeda was destroyed by Schlock, right?

[factotum]

I thought they worked through proxies in the main--we know they have to get baryonic entities to build any sort of tech for them.

[HouseRules]

The Pa'anuri started moving towards the Milky Way from since they were first created. Thus, they are able to get there. They do travel at faster than light technology that is slower than teraport.

[Dexam]

It seems that art imitates life: shots have been fired.

[Grim Portent]

Can't the Pa'anuri make stars go supernova? Pretty sure that was how they were suppressing life in Andromeda, and it seems like it'd be more efficient than slingshotting planets around.

[JavaScribe]

Can't the Pa'anuri make stars go supernova? Pretty sure that was how they were suppressing life in Andromeda, and it seems like it'd be more efficient than slingshotting planets around.

If they have a baryonic starship, then there are probably more efficient ways to wipe out the Uniocs than blowing up their sun for that matter.

I can think of a few possible reasons for being inefficient:

• They are showing off to put fear of the Pa'anuri in the baryonic races.
• They want to express just how much they hate them.
• They want to damage the baryonic world to the degree that no new life will spring from it for some time.

[Max_Killjoy]

Petey has proven he can interfere with the "supernova strategy", and the teraport-attacks are effective against unprotected Pa'anuri. So, they're trying something else, but still thinking in terms of what they can do to stars and planets.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Petey has proven he can interfere with the "supernova strategy", and the teraport-attacks are effective against unprotected Pa'anuri. So, they're trying something else, but still thinking in terms of what they can do to stars and planets.

They have trouble seeing anything smaller than that. What they need is an antibiotic - i.e. a process to kill what, to them, is microbes. The problem is that it is really hard to develop antibiotics against adapting creatures (such as intelligent ones or, in our case, quickly mutating ones such as the flu), so they are instead opting to kill the bodies that house the microbes entirely.

Grey Wolf