Schlock Mercenary IV: Chrome and Punishment

[HandofShadows]

I really wonder how many other webcomics generate this kind of discussion?

[Cikomyr]

I really wonder how many other webcomics generate this kind of discussion?

I actually taken my own line of thought regarding this side of the argument from SFDebris, in his review of "His Way", where he discuss the illogism of having Odo (a liquid specie who reproduce assexually) wanting to have an intimate relationship with a female character.

edit: however, it makes more sense for a being like Odo to associate/identify with a specific gender --> he was raised and developped among beings who all have this dichotomy.

[teratorn]

You don't associate gender to your liver or teeth,

Not in English, in my native tongue liver and teeth are masculine, while ears, hands and mind are feminine so I didn't even give a second thought to hive-mind being a she.

[Gez]

You don't associate gender to your liver or teeth

Yes you do.

Gender isn't sex. Gender is the grammatical concept which determines language elements like which pronoun you use. And "neutral", as it exists in English (and many other languages) is a gender.

Many languages do not have a neutral gender at all, instead having only the masculine and feminine genders. For instance in French, liver is masculine (le foie) and tooth is feminine (la dent). In other languages like German, there is a neutral gender but sexless concepts can still have a non-neutral gender. Note that despite the association with sexes, masculine does not imply maleness, and feminine does not imply femaleness. For example in German the word for little girl is Mädchen, which is a diminutive form of Magd (cf. English "maid"; a calque of Mädchen in English would be something like "maidling") and there's a rule in German language that all diminutives in -chen are neutral. So suppose you have a little German Girl named Gretel: if you refer to her as "Gretel", her gender is feminine; if you refer to her as a Mädchen, her gender is neutral. Some other languages do not have masculine and feminine genders at all, but instead have "animate" and "inanimate" genders, so a man and a woman would have the same gender, but a man and a table wouldn't.

[ChowGuy]

I really wonder how many other webcomics generate this kind of discussion?

Pfft. You should see some of the discussions on the (current) official board.

Just remember, as someone (*coff*me*coff*) once posted:

But we have no arguments here. We have civilized, rational, intelligent discussions, punctuated with the occasional burst of heavy weapons fire. But no arguments.

Because as someone else (*coff*Howard*coff*) posted:

An armed Schlock Mercenary forum is a polite Schlock Mercenary forum.

[ryuplaneswalker]

That sounds exactly like the sort of crowd who would read Schlock Mercenary.

[Cikomyr]

"Hey there. Just FYI, our main gun also happens to be a WMD"

[HandofShadows]

"Hey there. Just FYI, our main gun also happens to be a WMD"

Really though, aren't all main weapons on Schlockverse warships WMD's? This one just seems a little less fucused on it's target.

[Marnath]

Really though, aren't all main weapons on Schlockverse warships WMD's? This one just seems a little less fucused on it's target.

More than just the ships. I'm not sure any of the Toughs carry a weapon that wouldn't qualify for WMD status depending on your definition of "mass." Man-portable anti-starship fullerened antimatter RPG's, concealed antimatter grenades, that little pistol of Murtagh's, everything Shlock has ever touched.

Actually, does Legs carry a sidearm at all? I don't remember.

[NEO|Phyte]

It sounds more like the array irradiates the hell out of itself rather than whatever it's targeting. Also we know there's something going on with the ship, this could be an elaborate story to keep her from getting a look at it to see what it actually is.

[Radar]

Yes you do.

Gender isn't sex. Gender is the grammatical concept which determines language elements like which pronoun you use. And "neutral", as it exists in English (and many other languages) is a gender.

(...)

It seems then, that I used a wrong term for what I tried to say. I never would have guessed, that the grammatical term for variety in personal pronouns is also gender. In my language the word used for it has nothing to do with gender and aside from feminie, masculine and neutral, there is also a distinction between personal and nonpersonal nouns. To makes things funnier, in plural form there is only personal-masculine and non-personal-masculine (or non-masculine-personal - I'm not sure, how to translate that). And then you learn, that some nouns don't have singular form even if they refer to single objects.

At any rate, I still think, that the choice of pronoun has little to do with the composition of the hive-mind in question, since one can have organs with varied grammatical gender and it has no baring on the gender of the whole being.

[memnarch]

More than just the ships. I'm not sure any of the Toughs carry a weapon that wouldn't qualify for WMD status depending on your definition of "mass." Man-portable anti-starship fullerened antimatter RPG's, concealed antimatter grenades, that little pistol of Murtagh's, everything Shlock has ever touched.

Actually, does Legs carry a sidearm at all? I don't remember.

At best, her newest armor suit might have attached weapons, but I don't recall seeing a gun of some kind held.

[factotum]

It sounds more like the array irradiates the hell out of itself rather than whatever it's targeting. Also we know there's something going on with the ship, this could be an elaborate story to keep her from getting a look at it to see what it actually is.

+1--although it might not even be an elaborate story; it could be the unvarnished truth, and so long as what the Toughs are trying to hide isn't subject to radiation damage, it could be kept in the dangerous place just fine (although getting it in and out might be a problem!).

[ChowGuy]

That sounds exactly like the sort of crowd who would read Schlock Mercenary.

Well, it has been referred to as "the only community where people will assume that '30 inch sniper rifle' refers to the diameter of the barrel."

[ryuplaneswalker]

Well, it has been referred to as "the only community where people will assume that '30 inch sniper rifle' refers to the diameter of the barrel."

All of the boom.

[Cikomyr]

In all fairness, arguing: "Yhea, I know there are thousands of fakers, but MY pill will genuinely enlarge your penis" is rarely a selling argument for scammers.

[TheStranger]

Somewhere out there, there's a Nigerian prince who lost 100 lbs. in 30 days and makes $2000/week from home, who wants nothing more in life than to help other people.

[Marnath]

Somewhere out there, there's a Nigerian prince who lost 100 lbs. in 30 days and makes $2000/week from home, who wants nothing more in life than to help other people.

Poor guy, couldn't even give away that fancy car he promised to the one millionth visitor to his website.

Which reminds me just how long it's been since I actually saw that one. Did it stop or does my pop-up blocker just catch them better than it did in 1999?

[Grim Portent]

Poor guy, couldn't even give away that fancy car he promised to the one millionth visitor to his website.

Which reminds me just how long it's been since I actually saw that one. Did it stop or does my pop-up blocker just catch them better than it did in 1999?

It's still around, but it's not normally a car these days. Usually an iPod or a Kindle or something.

Though I bet the Toughs could sell their ships, a ship is a ship after all, they just wouldn't get fair value for them.

[Cikomyr]

It's still around, but it's not normally a car these days. Usually an iPod or a Kindle or something.

Though I bet the Toughs could sell their ships, a ship is a ship after all, they just wouldn't get fair value for them.

They just need to do a...

Demonstration?

[factotum]

Though I bet the Toughs could sell their ships, a ship is a ship after all, they just wouldn't get fair value for them.

Does this expedition by Neosynchronicity into Sol have anything to do with the Toughs selling the ships? I thought that was all being negotiated back on Parnassus Dom.

[Kornaki]

Maybe it's the tiny little detail, that the whole hull is made out of transuranic alloys. Nobody in known space has enough of those to spend them on anything else then annie plants.

This theory got shot down particularly hard and specifically today.

[Radar]

This theory got shot down particularly hard and specifically today.

Indeed it was, so I have to wonder, what is it that they need to hide and at the same time, what is it that they try to sell?

edit: on a related note, I do like that the technology does march on in Schlockverse.

[Bulldog Psion]

Something being in a contract doesn't make it enforceable. I'd be willing to wager that a general contractual provision for mandated unspecified surgery would not be enforceable in the modern U.S., especially if her original job didn't have anything to do with it, in which case she could not have reasonably expected it would come up.

The UNS does not play anywhere near as nice as the U.S. does in its grimmest moments. The UNS, in fact, appears to be an openly, unapologetically violent dictatorship whose legal system grants people with even moderate amounts of authority the power of life and death over any prisoner, permits torture to be used openly at the whim of any officer, and which is ready to kill anyone and anything who crosses it even minorly. I personally can't see much difference between the UNS and the Obenn, other than the amount of fur.

[Discus-Spinner]

I got the impression that the UNS may have formal rules against that stuff; it just doesn't enforce them at all well. However, a recent footnote on one strip said the UNS legislative body is explicitly a plutocracy - so no, it's not even trying much to look nice.

[Gnoman]

I personally can't see much difference between the UNS and the Obenn, other than the amount of fur.

The UNS, more precisely two representatives of one element of one branch of the UNS military, has been shown to be willing to take out the crew of one small warship and carry out a deniable strike with disposable mercenaries in order to preserve secrecy. Meanwhile, when the Toughs accepted a contract to take out a pair of street gangs (granted, that was a bonus to get paid more times for something they were going to do anyway), they used non-lethal means only, while the same was true when they believed they were hired for riot control, and they preferred to pay the Tough's superfortress to go away instead of simply sending a couple of battleplates to crush it into fuel. In addition, the UNS is an openly multispecies nation with very clear traditions of equality.

The O'Benn are openly xenocidal and plan to execute the entire galaxy for the crime of "existing while not being O'benn."

We've seen plenty of nastiness out of the UNS, to be sure. O'benn nasty? Not even close.

[Cikomyr]

I agree with Gnoman. I mean, the USN have had some disreputable elements in its military and intelligence agencies, but they are just trying to preserve their security.

O'Benn are openly genocidal and warmongerers. They make me think of myself when I play a 4X space game

[NEO|Phyte]

Man, is there anything short of hard vaccuum that can hinder Schlock's hearing?

[Rockphed]

Man, is there anything short of hard vaccuum that can hinder Schlock's hearing?

A vat of genuine imitation ovalquik perhaps.

[memnarch]

Man, is there anything short of hard vaccuum that can hinder Schlock's hearing?

Probably not, with the exception of course, being signal interference. (lots of extra sounds and what not)