Schlock Mercenary III: One million years of crowdsourced kitten videos

[Loreweaver15]

Maxim.

"If the demo guy is running away in a panic, it's time to see if you can break the sound barrier..."

I believe you mean "An ordnance technician at a dead run outranks everybody." :P

[factotum]

Breacher missiles arnt going to fly worlds away, which they would need to do to be closer to XT. They're just going to make "an EARTH SHATTERING KA-BOOM!!" big enough to distract the missiles...from worlds away.

I think this is where the confusion arose--when they were talking about light being able to hit the enemy missiles, I thought they were going to use a high-powered laser or something (hence Shodan's comment about it being a very bright light), rather than just set off a bright explosion and hope that distracts the missiles.

[EnragedFilia]

Anybody who asks Pi to make a bright light and doesn't expect an explosion to be involved doesn't know Pi very well.

In fact as far as I can tell, anyone who lets Pi do anything at all and doesn't expect an explosion to be involved doesn't know Pi.

[Ibrinar]

Anybody who asks Pi to make a bright light and doesn't expect an explosion to be involved doesn't know Pi very well.

In fact as far as I can tell, anyone who lets Pi do anything at all and doesn't expect an explosion to be involved doesn't know Pi.

I think he is quiet capable of doing things without explosions. For instance preparing things that can explode for later explosions should happen without all to many explosions.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Anybody who asks Pi to make a bright light and doesn't expect an explosion to be involved doesn't know Pi very well.

In fact as far as I can tell, anyone who lets Pi do anything at all and doesn't expect an explosion to be involved doesn't know Pi.

When all you have is bombs all your problems look like the cracked walls from Zelda?

[Kornaki]

Spoiler

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the literal translation is flying vermin. Target acquired!

[factotum]

Anybody who asks Pi to make a bright light and doesn't expect an explosion to be involved doesn't know Pi very well.

Shodan didn't ask Pi to make a bright light--he simply said they'd need a very bright light, and Pi stepped forward of his own accord.

[sum1won]

Spoiler

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That was a very meticulously designed fart joke.

[Marnath]

That's kind of a weak argument by Bristlecone. Does it really matter that the literal translation is "Broken Wind" if the symbolism behind that term is akin to "Angry God?"

[Ibrinar]

Well the name has other symbolism than Broken could work as description for the insane AI and the meanings of Wind are interesting (and make sense for a floating species). But yeah seems a bit pedantic.

[Gez]

That's kind of a weak argument by Bristlecone. Does it really matter that the literal translation is "Broken Wind" if the symbolism behind that term is akin to "Angry God?"

It matters because Howard Tayler likes fart jokes. "To break wind" is a euphemism for flatulence.

[Marnath]

It matters because Howard Tayler likes fart jokes. "To break wind" is a euphemism for flatulence.

Yes I know that.
That doesn't have anything to do with my point though since it's an Oafan term and not a human one.

[EnragedFilia]

In terms of actually translating anything, it's important to know both the literal and intended meaning of things. Although based on the information available here, I would go with "damaged wind" for the literal rendition (and only partly to avoid that fart joke) and probably something like "injured god" or "broken god" for the idiomatic meaning. In addition, the fairly rare words "godhead" or possibly "godhood" might be worth considering to better reflect the concept of wind considered simultaneously a non-personified force of nature and a personified deity, which additionally attempts to reflect the nature of an AI tasked with managing the entire environment while also maintaining a sense of self distinct from yet inextricably linked to that environment. Rare words like that are sometimes more useful for expressing complex translations thanks to this additional degree of flexibility that results from most native speakers of the target language being only marginally familiar with it at best.

I'm still interested in how "Tikkuts" could be sounds that are painful for Oafans to produce, considering how common several of them are in the Galstandard Peroxide the extant Oafans keep speaking, not to mention how Ennesby managed to render it as "Eina". We could be dealing with a logographic writing system, something more obscure like a use of kenning, or a comparatively mundane issue such as character namespace collision.

[NEO|Phyte]

Based on their speech bubbles, I suspect that all the Oafan conversing we see is being parsed through a translator and spit out through those thingies they wear. Depending on exactly how said translators work, it could be they don't actually have to vocalize the words in their native tongue.

[ChowGuy]

I'm still interested in how "Tikkuts" could be sounds that are painful for Oafans to produce, considering how common several of them are in the Galstandard Peroxide the extant Oafans keep speaking

Well, for starters, it's not "Tikkuts," it's "T'kkkuts" where Howard is presumably following his usual convention of using apostrophes for otherwise otherwise unrepresentable sounds. That gives most likely a strings of six constants plus a glottal stop or some such thing, for beings that seem to use a lot of [breathed] vowel sounds normally so....

[happyman]

So the wind is metaphorically broken. When will it break physically? Or did we do that already with Credomar? Or the Butt'hanni?

[The Glyphstone]

Not only does he explicitly lay out the fart joke in case there is one reader somewhere who didn't get it, he makes it almost plot-relevant.

[Landis963]

Not only does he explicitly lay out the fart joke in case there is one reader somewhere who didn't get it, he makes it almost plot-relevant.

Well, I kinda liked that he did that. Possibly the joke didn't absolutely have to be said, but given that he didn't have Ennesby pick up on it serves as a nice underscore.

[Nightsbridge]

I don't think I've ever seen a pun used as a dead-serious dramatic beat until now.

[HandofShadows]

Just shows that Mr Tayler is a very good writer.

[Cikomyr]

Berlew vs. Tayler?

[HandofShadows]

Berlew vs. Tayler?

BOTH are! But this is a Schlock Mercenary thread. Mr Berlew has his own sub forum above were people can sing his praises.

[happyman]

Berlew vs. Tayler?

Good Heavens, no! The subjects and style are far too different for me to want to figure out which one I like more.

I could go on for much longer, but the simple fact is, I want to read both, and don't really care to compare and contrast.

[Fjolnir]

is this a new maxim or one that is rarely quoted?

[HandofShadows]

I would say it's a new one.

[Marnath]

Considering that he announced there would be a new Maxim a couple weeks ago on twitter, I'm going to say "yes."

[Cikomyr]

Oh Ennesby

Smack-talking Chtuluh HAD to be Option 1, didn't it?

[Feddlefew]

Huh. So those sheets are oafa skins.

[factotum]

Huh. So those sheets are oafa skins.

I'm puzzled--what in today's strip led you to that conclusion? Not that there was any particular reason to doubt the analysis in the first place, mind you...

[Feddlefew]

I'm puzzled--what in today's strip led you to that conclusion? Not that there was any particular reason to doubt the analysis in the first place, mind you...

Look at the pattern on the inside of the deranged God-AI's skin-tatters. It's the same as the one on the scraps of material floating around in there.