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2020-04-30, 01:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
AKA: "Just eat it", "The winning point of the moral compass", or ...
Welcome to another exciting installment in the ongoing adventures of Tagon's Toughs. Here we will discuss the hit webcomic Schlock Mercenary!
These days, some people will get eaten by Schlock, and we might see a pretty explosion or two. We're seeing a war between barionic and non-barionic matter, as Andromeda and Milky Way fight a war long before Andromeda gobbles up Milky Way just because of gravity (lets face it, gravity sucks), with "Attack the healers" being the call of the battle. Of course, when an anti-matter bomb would only scratch the paint of the healer, fighting back requires ... unconventional forces.
Spoiler: Previous Threads
Schlock Mercenary
Schlock Mercenary
Schlock Mercenary thread: The Tub is Full of Happiness Again
Schlock Mercenary III: One million years of crowdsourced kitten videos
Schlock Mercenary IV: Chrome and Punishment
Schlock Mercenary V: You're Missing Something Wonderful
Schlock Mercenary VI: Eat It, Kill It, Make Friends With It, Take a Bath in It
Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
And the most recent,
Schlock Mercenary VIII: insAIne in the mAInfrAIme
Hey, this is actually the X thread. Let me fix that then.Last edited by keybounce; 2020-04-30 at 01:15 AM.
Not "fire at". I never used the word "at"
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2020-05-07, 04:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
OK, I have lost track of all the time clones at this point. Can someone help me?
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2020-05-07 has Tagon carrying a warhead, as a direct callback to an earlier. If I'm counting correctly, this is the third Tagon.
My memory:
The first was killed while doing a base infiltration that went fubar; he died making sure someone else got out. I can't find the link to that one. This was when the first timeline was past the "split point", when Andromeda was destroying Milky Way's gates to the point that when they realized they were being manipulated/attacked, it was no longer possible to respond.
This timeline was "reload game?" restored to a prior point with some extreme science abuse that allowed both Kevyn and a tiny schlock to return back with knowledge of what happened.
The second timeline had a Tagon that "mostly died" while delivering a warhead, and had to be regrown from leftovers; this took four months?
If alt-Kevyn is saying that this Tagon is smarter than his Tagon, then he's comparing the one that died in a fubar mission (as dumber than) to one that has explicitly denied being the same as the one that carried a warhead into a conflict to deploy it.
How much of this memory is accurate, and how much of the archive do I need to re-read?
EDIT: Corrected the pselling of 'Kevyn"Last edited by keybounce; 2020-05-08 at 11:48 PM.
Not "fire at". I never used the word "at"
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2020-05-07, 04:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Tulips Cheese & Rock&Roll
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Tagon's character has been written as a bit more thoughtful in recent years. He's able to talk with his dad, knows the limits of his own experience, has normal conversations with women, small things like that.
The Tagon Kevyn used to work with years ago was a very capable soldier, a good field commander and a decent human being whenever it really counted, but there has been some development over these years, and this Kevyn spent those years working with Petey.
Also, even back then Kevyn underestimated Tagon, he warned Pranger that Tagon might not get the triple cross because he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but Tagon got it just fine. The guy has a habit of thinking nobody can possibly be as smart as he is, and it's other Kevyn that learned humility from Elf.Last edited by Lvl 2 Expert; 2020-05-07 at 04:56 PM.
The Hindsight Awards, results: See the best movies of 1999!
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2020-05-09, 12:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2005
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- Eberron
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
I suspect that the original timeline Tagon death probably shouldn't count, since the current Tagon never experienced said death due to time travel.
The warhead delivery death wasn't mostly dead, it was all the way dead, they rebuilt him from his most recent brain backup (which turned out to be 45 minutes prior)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.
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2020-05-10, 08:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
From my read of the Planet Mercenary RPG the Xuvoth system was part of the League of Galactics. So it would seem odd that they would think P.D. being invaded by the entities whoose invasion of the Xuvoth system lead to them, or anyone, no longer having a presence there.
Last edited by Lizard Lord; 2020-05-11 at 11:04 AM.
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2020-05-11, 01:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
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2020-05-11, 08:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2007
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
May you get EXACTLY what you wish for.
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2020-05-14, 03:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2013
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- USA
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
That's ... not how the first responder protocol works. Yes, the first officer on scene is the incident commander, but that role can and frequently is assumed by senior or more qualified officers when they arrive on scene after being caught up. Otherwise you'd end up with stuff like a fire lieutenant running the entirety of tornado response because his truck was first one to respond to a call.
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2020-05-14, 05:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2020
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2020-05-14, 06:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2014
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
That's how it works in our world, where organizations like NATO do their best to have some kind of comparable ranks between their member states. In a big and wild universe were presumably some cultures just have an entirely different idea of what a military is it's still a silly protocol, but not to the point that I can't forgive the idea of it existing.
The Hindsight Awards, results: See the best movies of 1999!
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2020-05-14, 08:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Agreed, but that's because Howard wants the Toughs in charge so he's jumping through hoops to put the Toughs in charge anyways. In universe, they'd be subordinating themselves to Petey or forming another fleet-mind to work with him the way the multi-species alliance did before because that's the only type of entity capable of handling a simultaneous battle across multiple systems and dimensions. First here which disbanded And then here which didn't. Just with a better off--switch to avoid another creating another psycho bear. Pretty much every major military would have been working on ways-to-make-sure-this-never-happens-again-other-than-not-forming-one-because-we-really-need-this-tool after the first one.
Eh. He was explicitly referencing 'old', which usually means our modern, and 'first responders' not military. As a first responder it was enough to jar me out of the comic. And NATO's a bad example as it's whole purpose is coordinate multiple member states armies.
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2020-05-14, 08:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2012
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
That... sure is an inflexible protocol.
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2020-05-14, 09:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2011
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
What's being described in comic as "first responder" protocol, the characters themselves know better as "A sergent in motion outranks a louie who doesnt know what going on."
As first on the scene, the toughs get to put the reinforcements where they need them. And if that means delegating command to someone more qualified, that too is a prerogative of command.
Edit: of course, then they give it to the really rapidly moving sergent... *sigh*Last edited by Rakaydos; 2020-05-14 at 09:41 PM.
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2020-05-15, 12:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Okay, now they're being ridiculous. A protocol meant for armies does not apply to individual soldiers.
Though at this point Schlock probably technically is the largest non-pa'anuri fighting force in the galaxy, outweighing the UNS' battleplate collection by a factor of 100 or so, so he might have still gotten to be in charge if they used a less silly protocol. (Okay, okay, his employer might still get to be in charge, there is no single usually reasonable protocol that would put the sergeant personally in charge of a galaxy worth of ships.)Last edited by Lvl 2 Expert; 2020-05-15 at 12:10 AM.
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2020-05-15, 12:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-05-15, 05:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2009
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
I think the point is they are trying to use the simplest method possible to assign command here. NATO would be a pretty big waste of money if after 60 years and billions of dollars they haven't come up with something better to use amongst themselves.
There's probably a hidden agenda with picking this method, which is encouraging everyone to get off their butts and get over there to avoid being bottom of the pecking order. This will hopefully avoid everyone deciding to just wait it out and let others fight.Last edited by Kornaki; 2020-05-15 at 05:16 AM.
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2020-05-15, 06:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2013
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- USA
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
"First responders" doesn't refer to military personal, it's typically for people who respond to emergencies most commonly accidents and natural disasters, but also terrorism. The US Homeland Security defines it is as
"The term "first responder" refers to those individuals who in the early stages of an incident are responsible for the protection and preservation of life, property, evidence, and the environment, including emergency response providers as defined in section 2 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. § 101), as well as emergency management, public health, clinical care, public works, and other skilled support personnel (such as equipment operators) that provide immediate support services during prevention, response, and recovery operations"
The system Howard is referring to, since he called it ancient today which means our contemporary, is probably the incident command system (ICS) which was developed by the Bush II administration in response to the CF that was Katrina response. It establishes command lines and procedures precisely so that, the on-site commanders can handle the immediate emergencies while accessing additional resources and transferring command upwards if needed. It's for civilian emergency/first responders. Particularly because the US military can't freely operate in the US without authorization, hence the need for Governors to mobilize the national guard in a crises.
So much this. Schlock's operating in a clearly defined existing command structure, just because he was first on scene doesn't mean he now commands the Toughs.
I meant that NATO is for coordinating an existing alliance, not managing an ad hoc one. It's reason for existence is coordinating military forces, while first responder protocol is for responding to an emergencies not fighting a war.
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2020-05-15, 11:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2009
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
The thing about "A sergent in motion outranks a louie who doesnt know what going on." is that it is and must be temporary - it lasts until the louie knows what's going on.
If there's enough time for Commodore Tagon to personally tell Schlock what's going on, there's enough time for Schlock to tell him what's going on and transfer command. Not to mention that the AIs seem to have all of the necessary information.Last edited by uncool; 2020-05-15 at 11:24 PM.
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2020-05-16, 06:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2011
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2020-05-16, 05:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2009
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2020-05-16, 05:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2008
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Let's be fair. Rank is a function of firepower, and Schlock is currently the strongest Milky Way space combatant by several orders of magnitude. And unfortunately for everyone else, the only Toughs' AI in the Milky Way is Suit-Cone. And she's not a real AI! (Maybe. Some fabber cycles devoted to making a better Suit AI wouldn't have gone amiss.)
The name is "tonberrian", even when it begins a sentence. It's magic, I ain't gotta 'splain why.
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2020-05-17, 03:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
You know, it's a good thing Schlock is derived from an ancient computer memory system, because at the moment he seems to be having no trouble being simultaneously his regular self aboard the Sergeant in Motion, a more-than-planet-sized dark matter entity, and also embedded into the ship's infosphere. Pretty sure that would drive most beings stark raving mad.
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2020-05-17, 06:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2017
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Jasnah avatar by Zea Mays
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2020-05-17, 09:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2009
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2020-05-17, 11:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
I find Petey's objection to Schlock unconvincing. Nobody in a modern military operates without support. Even in WWII, the leadership would probably not have been able to find the front without a massive staff deciphering reports and managing the maps. Schlock can probably tell the Commodore (or suit-cone) where he needs help and let them direct reinforcements for maximum effect. Letting Petey run the show would cut Schlock out of those decisions.
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2020-05-18, 04:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2017
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Jasnah avatar by Zea Mays
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2020-05-18, 08:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
For me, it's less about 'finding' the front, otherwise we get into the military equivalent of the coastline paradox, and more about knowing where it should be, what the objectives are, what the enemies' objectives are, what needs to happen to win the war. Actual strategy. Schlock understands his current battlefield. He has no idea where to go or what to do next, he needs someone to tell him that. Thus he is incapable of leading it an a meaningful way. He's also incapable of coordinating it, given that he can't 'manage' a conversation with Commodore Tagon and fight at the same time.
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2020-05-18, 08:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-05-18, 09:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
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2020-05-18, 09:12 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"