Results 121 to 150 of 268
-
2020-07-10, 10:48 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Or, they just want to keep the Pa'anuri from controlling the core generator? Seems to me that's by far the simplest explanation.
-
2020-07-10, 10:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
- Location
- Watching the world go by
- Gender
-
2020-07-11, 10:16 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2012
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
So does Schlock share Thurl's sentiment that Petey cannot be trusted with the core generator, or does he just want an infinite food source?
-
2020-07-11, 10:19 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
- Location
- Watching the world go by
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
-
2020-07-11, 08:58 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2014
- Location
- East Coast USA
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
I am pleased to see (at least some of) the extragalactics intend to return. It makes it far less likely that someone will declare war on Petey, who just lost all his capital ships. Granted there is a lot of battlefield salvage, by which I mean the Pa'anuri vessels. Unfortunately, that usually means more fighting over who gets the loot, since it may be turned to a permanent advantage in power.
-
2020-07-12, 07:04 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2008
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
So that's -three- plot-critical epic story threads that were left on cliff-hangers and resolved entirely off-screen. I'm getting a bit pissed off here. Can we get less "let's listen to people post-hoc narrate the important bits"?
Avatar by Assassin89
I started my first campaign around a campfire, having pancakes. They were blueberry.
My homebrew(updated 6/17):
SpoilerIn progress:
Prolonged Spell(Fix for Persistent spell)
Weapon Training(replaces Weapon Focus chain)
Shelved:
Ascendant Feats.[New content!]
Finished:
Belts of potionade
-
2020-07-12, 09:40 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
What's annoying me slightly is that Schlock eating them in the Milky Way, and Ennesby blowing up their long gun in Andromeda, appears to be all that's needed to have ended the war. This is a war that's effectively been going on for thousands of years, ever since the Pa'anuri plotted to help the Gatekeepers make a core generator that would blow up the Milky Way, it seems it ought to have been a bit harder to resolve than that.
-
2020-07-12, 11:01 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
What turned the tide in Andromeda is Ennesby taking over their core, not the blowing them up. They lost the super weapon and the power source for most of the stuff they did.
Member of the Giants in the Playground Forum Chapter for the Movement to Reunite Gondwana!
-
2020-07-12, 11:26 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Location
- Indianapolis
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Yup, that. Both of the core generators are now securely in the control of the Milky Way baryonics, which means their full output can be turned to carrying out the war in Andromeda and the Paanuri no longer have anything capable of responding on the same scale of energy. That's game; the basic options for the Paanuri at this point are try to negotiate for lenient terms of surrender while they still have some fighting capability they can use as leverage (ie, 'be nice to us in our defeat or we'll force you to spend the next x-ty many years dealing with a guerilla war') or drag out an impossible war until they've been destroyed to the point that terms can be dictated to them. ..or hope that some miracle happens and gives them back the Andromeda end generator, but I'm pretty sure the Toughs have 'random off-screen BS resolutions' locked up here.
(Ennesby just randomly getting connected to the Andromeda core really feels like Taylor just didn't want to deal with things any more, and I would have liked to see how the exogalactic diplomatic mission managed to convince the impressively paranoid survivalists in charge of Boloceade to even begin to consider returning to the galactic center.)
-
2020-07-12, 11:30 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2007
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Which is when the Third Option comes into play.
All that loot? Dismantle the items and turn them into intergalactic commons. We're not talking a Credomar situation (put a city into a working gun to keep someone from firing it). We're talking dismantling a Credomar situation and turning them into actual buildings. Another sphere for virtual life. Or whatever.
As I recall, their sims said that only ONE path of their predictions would result in their survival. All other paths saw them destroyed by the pa'anuri.
And it was a slim chance that required specific things to happen - things with a very low chance of probability - to escape that fate.
Guess what Schlock and Ennesby managed to do...Last edited by sihnfahl; 2020-07-12 at 11:32 AM.
May you get EXACTLY what you wish for.
-
2020-07-12, 12:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2004
- Location
Hark! An avatar drawn by Kate Beaton!
-
2020-07-12, 06:10 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
The name is "tonberrian", even when it begins a sentence. It's magic, I ain't gotta 'splain why.
-
2020-07-12, 07:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2008
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Avatar by Assassin89
I started my first campaign around a campfire, having pancakes. They were blueberry.
My homebrew(updated 6/17):
SpoilerIn progress:
Prolonged Spell(Fix for Persistent spell)
Weapon Training(replaces Weapon Focus chain)
Shelved:
Ascendant Feats.[New content!]
Finished:
Belts of potionade
-
2020-07-12, 08:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
- Gender
-
2020-07-12, 08:21 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
- Location
- Watching the world go by
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
One of the things I liked about Massively Parallel was that we got hints about where the other stories were going to go before we saw them which made every pass through the month interesting. I am glad that we get to see both Tagon say "you should come back" and that he got such a reaction from the Senechator.
-
2020-07-12, 08:37 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2015
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
It's worth noting that the existence of the core generator(s) drastically changes what 'coming back' entails. We just saw Sorlie get sent back, effectively instantly, across a distance that took the exodians literally tens of millions of years to cross. Physically bringing the worldships back is not a thing that's actually happening, but the beings living in those worldships can now return instantly something that was impossible only a few years ago.
And, of course, it's possible for the exodians to simply send copies of themselves back, they don't actually have to incur any existential risk at all to their current membership if they don't want too (forking does weird things to storytelling).
-
2020-07-12, 08:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- The Lakes
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
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.
-
2020-07-12, 08:48 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2015
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
But so are the worldships. The exodians don't physically exist as flesh-and-blood - which is why Boloceade had to build a special space to meatjack the Toughs into - they're entirely data creatures. Each worldship is basically an All-Star, simply constructed around a specially-designed star and give propulsion somehow.
-
2020-07-12, 09:23 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
The name is "tonberrian", even when it begins a sentence. It's magic, I ain't gotta 'splain why.
-
2020-07-15, 08:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2008
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Ugh, another jump forward. Let us experience the story in a linear fashion Howard.
-
2020-07-15, 09:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
- Location
- Watching the world go by
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
-
2020-07-16, 01:03 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
I don't have a problem with the jump forward either. As I said earlier, what I have a real problem with is the overly easy and anti-climactic resolution of a war on an intergalactic scale. I'm sure Howard used to know how to write satisfying resolutions to his storylines, what happened to him in the last few years?
-
2020-07-16, 04:36 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
"Epilogue"?
At least I don't think I'm the only one that doesn't really feel like this story was resolved.
Ending was better than Game of Throne's ending. But ... no where near what I got used to expecting from books 8-14 or so.Not "fire at". I never used the word "at"
-
2020-07-16, 05:16 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2013
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Honestly I think the theory that he lost interest and just started skipping telling the details because he just wanted to get it done is still the one that makes the most sense to me.
Well giant schlock was fun for some chapters until the rest was skipped.
-
2020-07-16, 05:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
-
2020-07-16, 12:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- The Lakes
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
If you follow Howard more broadly, it comes across as if he's worn out and dealing with health issues... he's been working on this thing non-stop, without a break, for years now... he was late with an update one day, because the server caught fire, and that's it. If the strip had been 6 or 5 days a week, or he'd given himself a week off each year, I think we'd see less of this undertone of him wanting to get it done by a certain date.
Really, this "wrap it up with a tell instead of a show" seems to have begun at the end of the first Oafan arc, when Enesby and Chinook came back from dealing with the ancient station AI and summarized what had happened.
And maybe that intersects with one of the internal problems of the strip, dealing with the increasing capabilities of the AIs and how they could easily have overshadowed the flesh and blood characters.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.
-
2020-07-16, 03:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
It is a slightly depressing way to end all of this.
I really would wish Howard had taken, i dont know, a months vacation, before writing his final arc.
There were really a lot of stuff i would have prefered to see play out as it unfolded.thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar
-
2020-07-17, 01:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Today being a case in point: "Oh, your dark matter version fixed the orbit of Othlin yesterday. You didn't need to see that or anything, right?".
-
2020-07-17, 07:16 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- The Lakes
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
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.
-
2020-07-17, 09:03 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
I think in general Howard has decided that this part of the story isn't really what he wants to be focusing on, and is just getting it done.
Science fiction writer David Brin had a similar thing with his Uplift series -- he started a second trilogy in that universe, and did some really good storytelling with the crew of his human/dolphin-crewed spaceship Streaker, as well as the antagonist ships chasing it (much as a good part of the first trilogy was). But then by the last book in the second trilogy, he had to tie a ribbon around the big interstellar plot/conspiracy/whatever that was the background event upon which the Streaker's escapades were set and... he just kinda wrapped it up with a dull wet whimper.
I suspect that when Howard gets back to doing what he wants to be doing with his characters (in whatever format that takes), his writing skills will once again rise to the challenge.