Schlock Mercenary V: You're Missing Something Wonderful

[tonberrian]

Seeing as how Schlock was able to take out full-on supersoldier nannies with a minimum of fuss, I'm not terribly concerned.

[Godskook]

They got a memory rewrite to work on him, so maybe. On the other hand, he may have intentionally not resisted that one, due to the consequences for successful resistance, so that's not especially strong evidence.

What you can do in a lab, on a battleplate, is not what you can do in the field with zero resources except nannies that -weren't- purposed for this.

[Lizard Lord]

They got a memory rewrite to work on him, so maybe. On the other hand, he may have intentionally not resisted that one, due to the consequences for successful resistance, so that's not especially strong evidence.

Sorta work at least. Schlock did find a way to save those memories even if it was more like reading a book to him.

Worst case scenario Kowalski costs Schlock an eye. and he has a tree for those now.

Spoiler

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Granted, that's not even possible now.

[Cikomyr]

Awwwwwww

They are so cute together.

[Landis963]

And now Murtaugh's figured out the OvalKarrot, and all is well with the Schlockverse.

[factotum]

You'd think Murtaugh ought to be able to get another Neosynchronicity-class corvette from the Oafans--it wasn't like there was a shortage of those ships back in the can full of sky!

[Discus-Spinner]

Note also: Kowalski has been transferred to Petey, presumably on Breya's authority. Logical, in that Petey is one authority figure who won't be tempted to exploit having this highly competent sociopath on hand - having a good stock of less unpredictable, more borderline sociopaths already.

[Bulldog Psion]

Note also: Kowalski has been transferred to Petey, presumably on Breya's authority. Logical, in that Petey is one authority figure who won't be tempted to exploit having this highly competent sociopath on hand - having a good stock of less unpredictable, more borderline sociopaths already.

Am I missing something? I don't see anywhere that it indicates Kowalski has been transferred to Petey. He's aboard a UNS battleplate in the custody of a UNS officer, as far as I can see.

[Alent]

Am I missing something? I don't see anywhere that it indicates Kowalski has been transferred to Petey. He's aboard a UNS battleplate in the custody of a UNS officer, as far as I can see.

"This tastes way better than Petey's newest inmate would have."

Sure, he's a parcel post in mid-shipment, but there's only one person on camera who meets the description of "newest inmate"

[Bulldog Psion]

"This tastes way better than Petey's newest inmate would have."

Sure, he's a parcel post in mid-shipment, but there's only one person on camera who meets the description of "newest inmate"

Yes, I did miss something. My bad. That's what I get for posting first thing after waking up. Thanks!

Anyway, the note under this comic made me a bit sad: "But you have not yet reached the end of Schlock Mercenary. There's still quite a bit of that left."

Schlock Mercenary is wrapping up. Order of the Stick is wrapping up. Shortpacked! has already been wrapped up and replaced with some useless, drab college webcomic. My three favorites, which I've read for many years, are all going into the dark, or are already there.

Someone needs to sing "Auld Lang Syne..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acxnmaVTlZA

[HandofShadows]

I think you need to look closer at the end line "There's still quite a bit of that left." It's just the end of the book, not the comic.

[Welf]

There is something left, but it does slowly wrap up. I guess next we go to Schuul and get the story of the Schuul war, and the there is the whole affair with the black matter entities, where they came from and how to deal with them. (And Tagon needs to find a girlfriend.) But I doubt any new big story lines will be started.

[factotum]

I think you need to look closer at the end line "There's still quite a bit of that left." It's just the end of the book, not the comic.

He never said nor implied it was the end of the comic--if he did, he would have said "Schlock Mercenary has wrapped up". "Is wrapping up" is what we know the strip is doing, because Howard has said there's only another 3 or 4 books to go after this one.

[Discus-Spinner]

Heh. I read these posts just as the new Marina and the Diamonds album hits the last track ("Immortal") on my media player.

That's what we do it for
To reserve a space
In history it's just
part of the human race...

I think that most of my favourite Web comics have been stated or implied to be at least past their half-way stage by now. They won't last forever - but I'd rather that they wrapped when it's their time than that they dragged out into mediocrity. There'll be other good things along eventually, I'm sure.

[ti'esar]

New comic (and book) up.

So are those little yellow things on the Broken Wind's hull all Neosynchronicity-type corvettes, then?

[Mando Knight]

It looks like it. It seems that Oafan warships are possibly just carriers for deploying the NUSPI-craft and a large fuel tank to resupply them... though since the NUSPI array fires through a wormhole it can probably also fire the weapons while the daughtercraft are docked and increase the fire rate by continually pumping fuel to the annie plants.

The original intent of Cindercone's super-freighter design is also pretty clear with the NUSPI-craft being part of the Oafan warfleet: if you routinely fire a weapon that drains the entire fuel reserves of your smaller ships with a single shot, you're going to want a fleet tender that can carry a lot of fuel to resupply them.

[factotum]

So are those little yellow things on the Broken Wind's hull all Neosynchronicity-type corvettes, then?

I don't think they are, because they're nowhere near big enough--they're less than a tenth of the length of Broken Wind herself, which makes them less than 50m long; Neosynchronicity was a lot bigger than that. I thought they might be annie plants, but they're the wrong shape and colour for that. Therefore, my guess would be observation blisters? Two of them appear to be "unlit" (e.g. not yellow), which is what makes me think that.

[ti'esar]

I would have thought they were annie plants, but you can see three identical-looking ellipsoids teraporting in besides the Broken Wind. Maybe they're not the same type as the Neosynchronicity, but they do seem to be attached ships.

[Cikomyr]

Does Broken Wind has a NUSP gun too.....?!?

[factotum]

I would have thought they were annie plants, but you can see three identical-looking ellipsoids teraporting in besides the Broken Wind. Maybe they're not the same type as the Neosynchronicity, but they do seem to be attached ships.

Yeah, that makes sense, looking at it again--the "dark" blisters are where two of the additional vessels detached, presumably. (Although why they do that, rather than just teraporting in and *then* detaching the probes or whatever they are, is anyone's guess).

[tonberrian]

Further nail in the coffin for the nodes being Neosyncronicity-class. In this strip, we can see them together, and the Neosyncronicity is much larger than the nodes. I'm going to agree with them being NUPSI drones, though. And possibly now equipped with Very Dangerous Array tech.

[halfeye]

Further nail in the coffin for the nodes being Neosyncronicity-class. In this strip, we can see them together, and the Neosyncronicity is much larger than the nodes.

It's also nearer the "camera". We don't see how much nearer. So, while it looks as if it's bigger, it doesn't necessarily follow from that image that it is.

[tonberrian]

It's also nearer the "camera". We don't see how much nearer. So, while it looks as if it's bigger, it doesn't necessarily follow from that image that it is.

Then this strip, then. For the nodes to be the same size as the Neosyncronicity, it'd have to be right on top of them.

[Marnath]

Then this strip, then. For the nodes to be the same size as the Neosyncronicity, it'd have to be right on top of them.

And none of the Toughs would ever be so reckless as to drive their ships that close to each other.

[factotum]

I estimated Neosynchronicity at much larger than 50m because of the size of Sorlie's guestroom on the ship, which is a good 4-5m square and around 3m high--that would be a huge chunk of space on a 50m ship, especially when we can see from the various sectional shots we've seen that a good half of the interior space is taken up by the NUSPI and the main annie plant.

There's also a comparison shot here:

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2014-03-30

The sally port looks to be about 6m across, judging from the size of the people in the lift below it, but my trigonometry isn't sufficient to estimate how big the sally port is compared to the rest of the ship in the first panel.

[halfeye]

I don't think they are, because they're nowhere near big enough--they're less than a tenth of the length of Broken Wind herself, which makes them less than 50m long;

In my case, that's the bit I'm not remembering, where was the length of the Broken Wind mentioned? I agree 50m for Neosyncronicity is is probably a bit short, though a metre is a lot bigger than a foot, 6m is about 20ft for example, and I'n not sure that sally port is more than 12ft.

[ti'esar]

Broken Wind's length was given literally last comic as just over 500 meters.

[andrewas]

From the schlock facebook page:

Neosynchronicity was (IIRC -- I'm pulling this off the top of my head) 100m long, but it might have been bigger. Early in Delegates & Delegation we see her in front of one of Chesapeake's annies.

Broken Wind has a number of, for lack of a better word, "drones" ringing her hull. Those are less than half the size of Neosynchronicity, and while their hull color is the same, they're a different thing.

[halfeye]

Broken Wind's length was given literally last comic as just over 500 meters.

That's my memory for you.

Mind you if it had been in dialog I might have taken more notice, though I couldn't garantee that.

50 metres sounds small, but there have been smaller sea ships, and being a broad shape means you get a lot of volume for that length. I dunno, I think there's still a possibility that those are ships around the Broken Wind, but we'll probably find out soon enough.

<edit>

From the schlock facebook page:

Ah, thanks for that.

[tonberrian]

I wonder where Howard is going with this. It seems like he's doing some sort of serial escalation, and the only thing that I can think of that would fit next would be the Can. Of course, the Can is big enough that it would mess with Sol System's gravitational setup...

Also, Cindercrone is as big a moon. Granted, Daphnis is one of the smallest moons in Sol system, but still. Moon sized.