Schlock Mercenary III: One million years of crowdsourced kitten videos

[teratorn]

Or they lied to her, there's no tooth, and she's not working for the UNS.

[Spamotron]

Kevyn is shortsighted about this. The kinds of people Intaffint want to infiltrate would be paranoid about hypernode bugs and likely have hypernode deadzones where they discuss sensitive information. In Para's particular case she was being posted to a mercenary warship facing a situation where the ship enters a zone of wide spectrum jamming in combat would have to be considered a likely possibility.

I'd like to take credit for the insight but most of the brainsweat thinking it all through occurred as a collaboration between posters on the Nightstar Schlock Mercenary forums.

[NEO|Phyte]

Kevyn is shortsighted about this. The kinds of people Intaffint want to infiltrate would be paranoid about hypernode bugs and likely have hypernode deadzones where they discuss sensitive information. In Para's particular case she was being posted to a mercenary warship facing a situation where the ship enters a zone of wide spectrum jamming in combat would have to be considered a likely possibility.

I'd like to take credit for the insight but most of the brainsweat thinking it all through occurred as a collaboration between posters on the Nightstar Schlock Mercenary forums.

I suspect targeted jamming, or whatever it means when a hypernode is "off the grid", is different from combat jamming, which IIRC is just sending out enough static to drown out any signals.

[ChowGuy]

Or they lied to her, there's no tooth, and she's not working for the UNS.

Or she is working for the UNS, they lied to her, there's no poison in the tooth, and she doesn't know nearly not nearly as much (or is nearly as important) as she'd like she is. Which would mean they were playing right into massive her ego, along with implying they had a way to "keep her in line" if they needed to.

The hypernoded tooth itself could still be there (she'd remember it being implanted) but it's "abjuration only" - a listening device that's doing the real information gathering and reporting.

As Kevyn says, we're leaning about not about her employers, but her relationship to them.

[BRC]

OR hypernode jamming is probably not that unusual as a combat tactic. They don't want their deep cover agents dropping dead the moment they enter a jamming field.

[Landis963]

...I'm starting to gain a deep respect for the ingenuity of Para's UNS handlers. At the very least, they are interested in Oisri not just because it is a "big gun," a la the blonde harridan we know and love.

[factotum]

Indeed, whatever Para is involved with seems a lot more subtle than the "use nannies to convert all the Gavs into clones of our troops" sledgehammer being used by the other faction.

[Bulldog Psion]

The fact that Para worked on Ennesby's lips gives me hope that they'll be removed. Though it's just a minor detail, I preferred his lipless mode of yore.

[Landis963]

Miss Ventura, Kevyn is paid, among other things, to be paranoid. This should not be a surprise to you. Good for trying to parlay that into advantage if you get fired rather than killed, though.

[Squark]

One way or another, that spiky basket is ominous. Either Tailor has been subverted and it's dangerous... Or he hasn't, and it's dangerous. More to other people in the latter case.

[Thalnawr]

One way or another, that spiky basket is ominous. Either Tailor has been subverted and it's dangerous... Or he hasn't, and it's dangerous. More to other people in the latter case.

Of course it's dangerous, it's going to be awesome battle armor for Schock (finally!). Besides, Schlock has already died once this arc, so that thing's gotta be totally benign to him, and death incarnate to anyone that annoys him sufficiently.

[Brom]

Or an emergency relief valve, or a heater, or oh any number of things. I remember once someone accidentally broke open a control unit in a cryo plant, and a 100 MMCFD of wet gas went up the flare. I didn't get to see it, but I'm told the flame went 200 feet up.

I don't want to derail a thread, could I maybe get away with asking for a single follow up post on what all this is? Namely, 'what's a cryo plant in the context of real life,' 'what is MMCFD?!' 'What differentiates 'wet gas' from normal gas?' and 'So...why would cryo gas be flammable?'

Sorry, I just know exactly nothing about what you're describing, but from what it sounds like human error resulted in a chemical meant for an entirely different purpose becoming a 200 foot long flamethrower gout.

Which, you know.

Awesome.

So explain if it's okay? =D

[ChowGuy]

Wet [natural] gas is what comes out of the ground. It's mostly methane (CH4), but also contains some heavier hydrocarbons (ethane, propane, etc). A cryo plant is where the the gas is cooled to separate it into components (by evaporators, similar to how your air conditioner works). The components go to chemical plants for plastics and other uses, and the remaining dry gas sold as boiler feed, so yeah, it's flammable.

MMFCD is a standard unit of flow measurement - million cubic feet per day. A 100MMFCD gas pipeline (there were actually three lines coming in) is big. Really big.

The "human error" would have been in allowing the plant to continue operating without full control, which could have had much worse consequences then a an "awesome flamethrower." (Also, as I recall there was a forklift involved. Stuff happens, the trick is to keep worse stuff from happening.)

[Rockphed]

Hmmm, is Howard about to go off on a "do clones have souls" tangent? This could be interesting.

[factotum]

I doubt it, because there have been far too many situations where people have been cloned for that to be a factor in the comic--the big one being Haban, of course. It would only be relevant if the Ambassador Gav was the original anyway, and I'm pretty sure even the Gavs know which of them was the uncloned one.

[ChowGuy]

I doubt it, because there have been far too many situations where people have been cloned for that to be a factor in the comic--the big one being HabanKevyn, of course. It would only be relevant if the Ambassador Gav was the original anyway, and I'm pretty sure even the Gavs know which of them was the uncloned one.

FTFY

And yeah, it's highly unlikely given that every time the tangent's come up on the official boards, Howard has declined to be drawn into it. Also irrelevent as there is (well was) no discernible difference between any pair of gate clones. Unless, and specifically with respect to the Gav's you mean the one clone that did not emerge from a wormgate, and he's very dead.

[Rockphed]

Maybe "do clones have souls" is the wrong way to put it. Maybe "do clones have copies of the soul of their originator?" would work better.

[ChowGuy]

Maybe it's a metaphysical question of the sort this board doesn't favor?

[AmberVael]

Hmmm, is Howard about to go off on a "do clones have souls" tangent? This could be interesting.

This soul thing. . . can I get one by eating someone else's?

[HandofShadows]

Looks like someone is start to loose thier mind and in about the worst way.

[factotum]

One wonders if this is the onset of the Gavmogre transformation (since we've not seen one "on camera" yet) or if it's something Oisri is doing...

[HandofShadows]

Maybe both! Though probably the takeover though. The first thing the takeover needs to do is take out the brain of the Gavmogre so it can rebuild the "new" version.

[ChowGuy]

Looks like someone is start to loose thier mind and in about the worst way.

*snerk*

Don't know if that was intentional or a typo, but either way...

ETA: I should talk

[Landis963]

so, uh, is anyone else hoping these aren't as smart as Binnie?

[factotum]

so, uh, is anyone else hoping these aren't as smart as Binnie?

Binnie's trick wouldn't work again--both of the Toughs present this time have their helmets closed, because they've been expecting this sort of thing.

[Ialdabaoth]

Binnie's trick wouldn't work again--both of the Toughs present this time have their helmets closed, because they've been expecting this sort of thing.

of course, if they can eat through diamond nanoglass with their sweat, they can eat through a helmet - all they need to do is touch them on the face.

[ChowGuy]

of course, if they can eat through diamond nanoglass with their sweat, they can eat through a helmet - all they need to do is touch them on the face.

Hmmm.... three Pseudowalskis against two gToughs with guns in power armor. Unless PI still has his goodie bag with him, this could shape up to be a fair fight.


And we how the Toughs feel about fair fights.

[Landis963]

Binnie's trick wouldn't work again--both of the Toughs present this time have their helmets closed, because they've been expecting this sort of thing.

I know. I'm just hoping "horde of shambling zombies" rather than "highly effective melee army."

[Bulldog Psion]

It looks like the Gavs are all done for.

[BRC]

Well, IIRC, all the medical wing Gavs are dead, except for three of them who just got Zombied.

The rest of the Gavs on the other side of the base are now Pseudowalskis. Those are going to be the threat.