Schlock Mercenary III: One million years of crowdsourced kitten videos

[ChowGuy]

I actually really like that one. plus, it's less of an obscure reference and a more open-ended pun.

One could even say it was a pun pun

[Cikomyr]

One could even say it was a pun pun

And I just realized the second pun about puns

[The Glyphstone]

What we need is a rehabilitation and redemption arc. I can see it now:

Schlock Mercenary IV: Chrome and Punishment

I'd still prefer The Schlock Hits The Fan (since it's mine), but this would be my second pick. Picking a title based on the current story arc isn't a good idea, since it looks like it's almost over.

[Zaydos]

I like the Chrome and Punishment suggestion.

[hajo]

With today's comic, Wind of change comes to mind

[ChowGuy]

Orrrrrr he's going to keep the fleet and sell the intel and the fleet's services. This is Tagon, after all.

You can't sell what you don't own. Well you can, but Petey's not into anyone's piracy but his own. It's T'kkkut's fleet, and she's only offering to lend it to Tagon (for an as yet undisclosed price).

And may I remind you that the Oafan were losing their war against the DaMEs ten million years ago when they went into hiding. Fleetey's already got the FSG in his pocket, and they managed to fight them to a negotiated peace settlement that got them out of the galaxy.

[Fjolnir]

The fact that they are the ONLY hyperdrive/teraport/annie plant style guys alive now from that period according to what history tells us (the gatekeeper war postdates this and of course the new war does as well...) we might want hints as to the DaME's endgame no matter what...

[happyman]

You can't sell what you don't own. Well you can, but Petey's not into anyone's piracy but his own. It's T'kkkut's fleet, and she's only offering to lend it to Tagon (for an as yet undisclosed price).

And may I remind you that the Oafan were losing their war against the DaMEs ten million years ago when they went into hiding. Fleetey's already got the FSG in his pocket, and they managed to fight them to a negotiated peace settlement that got them out of the galaxy.

Intelligence is intelligence. You never know when two facts, innocuous or seemingly useless by themselves, will have a baby which can change everything.

So yeah, Petey would probably have an interest in Broken Wind.

[Kane]

I should have seen that coming, and I did not.

I'm mildly alarmed but not nearly enough as I feel I should be, considering what Tagii did last time it was in control of something.

[Marnath]

Called it!

[factotum]

Question that occurs: what is powering these Oafan warships? Can't be annie plants...is it the same mysterious something that's powering Eina-Afa itself?

[NEO|Phyte]

Why can't it be annie plants? If the Oafans were trying to hide, they could shut off the plants in a way that doesn't leave them unable to be turned back on.

Though yes, the real mystery here is what is the station using for power, because hiding from things that can detect annie plants in a station that would need some beefy as hell annie plants wouldn't go over well.

initial thought is that those circlemabobs on the can of sky could be solar panels, but that doesn't really seem like it'd work all that well in a system with a dead star. Unless the star wasn't dead back then.
:edit: ok, checking back at their arrival in the system, there is in fact a live, if low mass, star to go along with the dead one. So solar power isn't off the table, though it'd have to be some hella efficient panels to get enough juice for that monstrocity.

[BannedInSchool]

Maybe they're using living Oafans as batteries.

[ChowGuy]

So solar power isn't off the table, though it'd have to be some hella efficient panels to get enough juice for that monstrocity.

Why? That "monstrosity" is getting artifical gravity from it's spin, and the ecosystem is providing its own food and air recycling. All the major systems are mothballed, so there's not much need for anything but light. Some fair sized fusion reactors will provide plenty of power - where do you think that "low mass star" is getting it? in a can of sky big enough to comfortably drop Mars into, there's plenty of room for those.

The biggest problem you have is not getting energy, but getting rid of the waste heat, and that's what those circulombobs most likely are for - they're cooling fins.

[NEO|Phyte]

Are fusion reactors self-sustaining? 10 million years is a long time to be floating around in space, even if it's been in powersave mode.

[ChowGuy]

Are fusion reactors self-sustaining? 10 million years is a long time to be floating around in space, even if it's been in powersave mode.

Hmmm... well, let's see... the local one has been in operation for about 8 billion years and still seems to be working OK. Admittedly it's a tad bigger then anything even the Oafans are likely to have built, but hey - that oddly "low mass star" may be their fusion plant. The Gatekeepers used controlled toroidal singularities as a power tap on their stars, whats to say another advanced tech couldn't do something similar to turn a super-Jupiter into an artificial star and tap it directly?

[factotum]

Though yes, the real mystery here is what is the station using for power, because hiding from things that can detect annie plants in a station that would need some beefy as hell annie plants wouldn't go over well.

If they have some sort of advanced power generation technology that works without needing annie plants, no reason why they can't use the same in their ships--unless the technology is too bulky to put in something that small, of course.

I disagree with ChowGuy's assessment of the can not needing much power, though; just providing enough light for all the gigantic flora and fauna to flourish would be a major undertaking in a structure that size, and presumably the power requirements have increased considerably since the internal defences and TAD got switched back on. Yes, our local fusion reactor has been burning for billions of years without a problem, but that's because it's absolutely massive--so massive it can lose four million tonnes in weight every second without even noticing. A much smaller reactor couldn't do that.

[Guancyto]

Man, when you have to tell someone about all the agency he had over the course of your misadventures, you have already started (or finished) mentally reclassifying him as a prop.

[Felius]

Well, that's one AI that definitely can think on the long term.

[Discus-Spinner]

Next question; if the can is spinning for gravity, and has fluids sloshing about inside, how much rotational energy does it lose (ultimately as radiated heat) over ten million years?

(Worry later about how much energy was spent spinning it up in the first place.)

[HandofShadows]

I wonder how the meeting between T'kkkut and Petey will go?

"Petey, meet T'kkkut, the oldest AI in the galaxy."
"T'kkkut, meet Petey, the most powerfull AI in the galaxy."

A bit of a mind screw for both of them?

[NEO|Phyte]

Eeeeh, you'd want to include the 'known' qualifier in both of those statements. The galaxy is a big place, and there's still plenty of it unexplored.

[ChowGuy]

Turtles Fart jokes all the way down.

[HandofShadows]

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Someone had hands again. I wonder if Tagii.. er Chinook will go back to a more human form. And the Toughs have the most INTERESTINGLY named ships.

[Radar]

We got some time-skip and I guess, that

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Oafa got injected with those metallocytes prevelant in the local fauna.

I really want to know more.

[factotum]

I really want to know more.

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As far as I can make out, the original Oafans got a significant chunk of their IQ from metallocytes floating around inside their gasbags, or else part of the aluminium interior of said gasbag. The Prabstdi didn't know this, so when they re-created them they didn't include the metallocytes, thus leaving the Oafans at a childlike level of intelligence. What they've just done is re-introduced the things, increasing Oafan intelligence markedly.

What I still don't understand is how Tagon, of all people, figured that out! It's like there's a logical step we, the readers, are missing.

[ChowGuy]

What I still don't understand is how Tagon, of all people, figured that out! It's like there's a logical step we, the readers, are missing.

Yeah, it's not like Tagon has ever heard of anyone storing memories in their skin before. And it's not Tagon who made the connection to the metallocytes, or to "brains" - it was Ebbirnoth and (of all people) Schlock.

Then again, Schlock probably has more familiarity with distributed brains then anyone else around.

[EnragedFilia]

Are you sure? It seems just as likely that Ebby reported his team's findings to Kevyn, who immediately realized that the metallocytes and the swarm-sophont might be related, and went about investigating the theory that the ancient Oafa had them as well. Kevyn has always been good at having that sort of epiphany, after all.

[ChowGuy]

Are you sure? It seems just as likely that Ebby reported his team's findings to Kevyn, who immediately realized that the metallocytes and the swarm-sophont might be related, and went about investigating the theory that the ancient Oafa had them as well. Kevyn has always been good at having that sort of epiphany, after all.

Except we actually see Ebby and Schlock making the connections in-comic.

[Wayson]

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Well, I was wrong when I said Tagon would rent, not sell. Looks like he plans to just straight-up sell the fleet to Petey. I was hoping for an evolution into Mercenary Admiral Tagon, but alas.

I do wonder why Petey is selling warships to the UNS, when his need for them in Andromeda is likely immense. I also wonder why he has a warship shortage when he could simply gate-copy every warship he needed.