Results 61 to 90 of 268
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2020-06-14, 05:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2007
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
i don't think it was a linchpin in their strategy, but still a very powerful card.
They didn't have to send the fleet in against Petey's nodes, IIRC. The hypercannon took out one of Petey's power nodes without any assistance; it took a few weeks to charge, but once they had a firing solution, pop.
The fleet, I believe, was just going to be on an extermination mission (the paa'nuri noted they would have to kill all of the baryonic lifeforms anyway), which is easier to do than use the hypercannon when Petey learned not to use things that could be targeted by it for a normal power source.
Ah, and I forgot this little gem: when they took out the Shoemaker-levy with non-baryonic missiles.Last edited by sihnfahl; 2020-06-14 at 05:39 PM.
May you get EXACTLY what you wish for.
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2020-06-14, 06:48 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- The Lakes
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Looking at the comic again -- as someone noted above, it's possible that this hacked shot was lined up to take out the weapon itself and at least one node of the core generator, as the line of the shot is right back down the power feed.
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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2020-06-14, 08:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Stop teasing us, Howard!
The name is "tonberrian", even when it begins a sentence. It's magic, I ain't gotta 'splain why.
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2020-06-14, 10:20 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.
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2020-06-15, 12:57 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Uh-oh. They're only six light-minutes away from a thing the size of a solar system that got blowed up? That does not sound like good news!
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2020-06-15, 04:08 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2014
- Location
- East Coast USA
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
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2020-06-15, 04:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
I'm not concerned about the remnants of the beam, I'm thinking about the shockwave spreading out from the gun itself exploding. If you're standing next to a bomb it doesn't really matter to you if the bullet that sets it off was really carefully aimed, you're still in trouble!
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2020-06-15, 05:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2013
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
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2020-06-15, 04:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Location
- Indianapolis
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Well, Ennesby is going with "You're gonna want to see this!" and not "Ok, we need to be somewhere else now," so it would appear he is at least not too concerned. And I think the main issue there would be potentially shrapnel, not an energy blast - they blew up a physical object, not set off a bomb, and while it's a *big* physical object the odds of being hit by a chunk of it that was not specifically aimed at them from a distance of several light minutes are pretty negligible
Edit: Actually I forgot about Space being Really, Really, Really Big. Anything physical coming off the destruction is not only enormously unlikely to be on a collision course with them, it's going to require something in the area of days to get there, as it won't be traveling anywhere near relativistic speeds. And the energy front will be greatly attenuated by the time it reaches their observation station, if there is any of it functionally left - the transuranic materials the Paanuri build with so they can even interact with the baryonic realm should handle that easily, let alone if the station/node they're in has any capacity for shields or gravitic controls that could be used to help absorb it.Last edited by tyckspoon; 2020-06-15 at 05:52 PM.
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2020-06-15, 05:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2016
- Location
- Earth and/or not-Earth
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
I made a webcomic, featuring absurdity, terrible art, and alleged morals.
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2020-06-15, 06:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
But there is a blast front.
Member of the Giants in the Playground Forum Chapter for the Movement to Reunite Gondwana!
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2020-06-15, 06:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2007
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2020-06-15, 08:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Um. Being in the same system as an explosion THAT big is inadvisable. I'm not sure there IS a minimum safe distance for "viewing" supernova. Not without some serious delays. That core generator very well might still turn unusable.
Edit: Yeaaaaaah. We're talking LIGHTYEARS away to survive.Last edited by tonberrian; 2020-06-15 at 08:06 PM.
The name is "tonberrian", even when it begins a sentence. It's magic, I ain't gotta 'splain why.
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2020-06-15, 09:00 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.
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2020-06-15, 10:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
- Location
- Watching the world go by
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Looking at the appropriate "What If", I am fairly certain that they would die from neutrinos.
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2020-06-15, 10:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Location
- Indianapolis
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Alright, yeah, time to try to achieve minimum safe distance. Hope they were able to bring down TAD in that station.
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2020-06-16, 02:20 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Last edited by factotum; 2020-06-16 at 02:22 AM.
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2020-06-16, 05:40 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Location
- Greece
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
So today's joke is that Ennesby is an idiot.
Many thanks to Assassin 89 for this avatar!
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2020-06-16, 06:33 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Something just occurred to me. It's a bit meaningless for Kevin to immediately say that a Type IIn supernova produces that much energy, because they vary--it depends on the mass and makeup of the pregenitor star. Type I supernovas are the ones which always produce the same energy output. Also a bit pointless him putting such a precise value on the energy anyway, given that Ennesby already said it was a guess how big the explosion would be.
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2020-06-16, 08:00 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
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2020-06-16, 04:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Not "fire at". I never used the word "at"
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2020-06-16, 04:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2006
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Oh my, the hindsight and foreshadowing.
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2019-06-29
I'm here to shoot somebody, or eat somebody. Both if I'm lucky.
You're here to arm me, aim me, and sometimes tell me what not to shoot.
... That is such a good description of what happened.Not "fire at". I never used the word "at"
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2020-06-16, 04:49 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.
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2020-06-16, 06:07 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
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2020-06-16, 08:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2008
- Location
- Star Road, not Star Way
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
you know that I'm more than just a doll do you?-Geno
Add me on Steam!
Spoilerby Thecrimsonmage and By Shades of Gray by Akrim.elf
and current made by me.
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2020-06-16, 10:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- The Lakes
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
Sometimes Ennesby is trying so hard to come up with the clever or precise solution, that he misses the simple direct solution.
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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2020-06-17, 08:04 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2017
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2020-06-17, 12:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
- Location
- USA
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
I mean even if he couldn't turn it off for some reason, they have 3 minutes to blow it up themselves and port out. Which seems infinitely preferable to trying to time the jump for when the elevator hits...I know that doesn't work, it's a metaphor...
Also, shame Pi isn't there. I always figured if anyone set off a supernova or equivalent, it'd be him. Or that he'd get to watch.
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2020-06-17, 03:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
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2020-06-17, 04:08 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
- Gender
Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"
...Huh. If they blow up the core generator, and this seems like they just might have, they'll be stuck in Andromeda forever. Unless Petey can build a ship big enough to teraport them back, at least...
The name is "tonberrian", even when it begins a sentence. It's magic, I ain't gotta 'splain why.