Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days

[guttering flame]

Is it me, or Tagon would gain a lot out of reading his own staffing report?

I am in a lot of Honor Harrington books, and i rarely see a CO take command without getting a customary understanding of the people who will be your subordinates.

Tagon probably prefers to get his own impressions of his underlings. A staffing report contain the bias(es) of its writer. He's an intuitive type.

[Cikomyr]

Tagon probably prefers to get his own impressions of his underlings. A staffing report contain the bias(es) of its writer. He's an intuitive type.

I am not even talking about an assessment of each personel.

I am taking about a damn list of personel, including posts and species.

[Kantaki]

New comic.

Tech support is a horrible job.
Especially if you're dealing with weird sci-fi devices.
Even more so if they start doing stuff they can't do.
Not to mention if it actually isn't your job.

[Rockphed]

They let an AI whose primary use is hacking in to things and migrating hardware into their lobby with UNSECURED wifi? Truly, these people deserve whatever horrible fate befalls them at the hands of the Toughs.

[Landis963]

They let an AI whose primary use is hacking in to things and migrating hardware into their lobby with UNSECURED wifi? Truly, these people deserve whatever horrible fate befalls them at the hands of the Toughs.

Even if it were secured, you'd need a pretty good set of e-defenses in order to keep Ennesby out.

[factotum]

They let an AI whose primary use is hacking in to things and migrating hardware into their lobby with UNSECURED wifi?

How are they supposed to know that, exactly? It's not like he's carrying a neon sign saying "I am Ennesby, hacker supreme! Cower before my might!".

[Landis963]

How are they supposed to know that, exactly? It's not like he's carrying a neon sign saying "I am Ennesby, hacker supreme! Cower before my might!".

If the techie were paying more attention, he might be a little suspicious at the highly-mobile AI node wandering into his workspace, but he's not, so he isn't.

[HandofShadows]

How are they supposed to know that, exactly? It's not like he's carrying a neon sign saying "I am Ennesby, hacker supreme! Cower before my might!".

Don't give him any ideas. He might do that.

[Rockphed]

Don't give him any ideas. He might do that.

He would leave graffiti to that effect in meat-space in his wake. I don't think he would be stupid enough to get that sort of target painted on his little node.

[factotum]

OK, this is odd...why are Neoafan Freehold ships banned from Sol system?

[Douglas]

OK, this is odd...why are Neoafan Freehold ships banned from Sol system?

Maybe to avoid tempting everyone into trying to steal the ultra-valuable material? Note how the question was specifically about the hull.

[Kantaki]

OK, this is odd...why are Neoafan Freehold ships banned from Sol system?

A) Those things can start wars just by being around. Noboby wants that at their own door.

B) Remember who is usually flying around in those things. The Toughs cause chaos and destruction whereever they go. Nobody wants them at their own door.

[Cikomyr]

This is so silly. The Long Guns can be fired from anywhere. Just them being IN your solar system doesnt make them have an easier time shooting you down.

What you should worry about is spotters.

[Douglas]

This is so silly. The Long Guns can be fired from anywhere. Just them being IN your solar system doesnt make them have an easier time shooting you down.

What you should worry about is spotters.

Allow me to quote the Secretary General: "Collective freak-out."

They're too frightened by the weapons to be thinking rationally about them, and are taking any measure they think might possibly help, however thread-bare the reasoning. This is like the galactic release of the Teraport, except without the accompanying release of TAD.

[factotum]

This is so silly. The Long Guns can be fired from anywhere. Just them being IN your solar system doesnt make them have an easier time shooting you down.

Critically, though, nobody outside the Neoafan Freehold actually knows that. The only time they've seen confirmed Long Gun usage was when the Neosynchronicity shot down into the city from orbit, a distance of a few thousand miles at most. In fact, I recall Chinook being quite anxious that nobody found out just how long range Long Guns are, presumably because it would make the can full of sky a target for anyone who doesn't like the idea of their ships being shot out of the sky from the other side of the galaxy!

[eschmenk]

Still, you would think that somebody in the Penultimate Admiralty would know what kind of range Credomar was designed to have even if word had never gotten out that it had fired into the Sol System from elsewhere. That would tell them what sort of range is possible.

[guttering flame]

Still, you would think that somebody in the Penultimate Admiralty would know what kind of range Credomar was designed to have even if word had never gotten out that it had fired into the Sol System from elsewhere. That would tell them what sort of range is possible.

The problem is popular opinion. When your government can't solve a frightening problem it does the next best thing: it makes a lot of noise, shoots randomly in all direction and pads its security forces both within and without. It doesn't matter none of that helped with the original problem. It obviously did something security related so its subjects are reassured. (maybe this is getting too real-life politics?)

[factotum]

OK, so scratch my earlier post--apparently everyone *does* know the range of a Long Gun, they're just too stupid to think through the implications. I am *sure* I remember them needing to hide the Long Gun's ability when Chinook was using them to blow up the pirates attacking Beshkin-Sashik not so long back, and that was after they used the one at Sol--am I misremembering that, or getting the events out of sequence?

[eschmenk]

I remember it the same way.

The problem is popular opinion...

The most recent update seems to confirm that the problem is within the Admiralty, itself. Breya said that they haven't internalized the situation. That would mean that they haven't had a chance to think about how anyone else would react to it.

[Rockphed]

I remember it the same way.



The most recent update seems to confirm that the problem is within the Admiralty, itself. Breya said that they haven't internalized the situation. That would mean that they haven't had a chance to think about how anyone else would react to it.

The admiralty and government probably know lots of things about the long guns. The general public? Not so much. It is possible that the UNS, Petey, Lota, and the Neofan Freehold are the only governments that actually know what is going on.

[eschmenk]

"The Admiralty has not yet internalized that information, Captain."

[factotum]

I've been wondering why they built Tagon Mk II a Dragon-class cruiser rather than just giving him another Oafan hull vessel, since no explanation was forthcoming in the strip itself. Seems it was a rather artificial way to force him to be the one that investigates the crash site on Bacchus.

[Gnoman]

The Oafan-hulled vessels are absurdly overpriced to make any ship out of. It is much like building a battleship out of solid gold encrusted with diamonds - even if it had a useful function, nobody sane would do it. They're using the ones they have because they found them that way, but when they decided to build a new ship it was simply better to build conventional.

[factotum]

The Oafan-hulled vessels are absurdly overpriced to make any ship out of.

But they have thousands of hulls, is the thing. Yes, those hulls are near priceless to anyone but an Oafa, but to them and their friends it's "Plenty more where that came from!".

[guttering flame]

But they have thousands of hulls, is the thing. Yes, those hulls are near priceless to anyone but an Oafa, but to them and their friends it's "Plenty more where that came from!".

I doubt cost was a central issue in Tagon's new ship. It was supposed to be a nostalgic gift from father to old-new son. With the oafan hulls the company's got all the money they could want. Fabricating a custom made ship was no problem.

[HandofShadows]

Using an Ofan hull would make the ship a target for people wanting the hull and the ship is to small take care of itself against such odds.

[eschmenk]

But they have thousands of hulls, is the thing. Yes, those hulls are near priceless to anyone but an Oafa, but to them and their friends it's "Plenty more where that came from!".

In addition to what's already been said, the ships would have to be almost completely rebuilt anyway. They were created to be crewed by huge bags of gas, not heavier than air crewmembers. Futhermore, the designs assumed that the enemy would be DMEs, so they don't have the right defenses and weaponry for the enemies Kaff would likely run into. Despite its idiotic name, Kaff's new ship is much better suited for Kaff's crew and situations that they would probably find themselves in than an Oafan ship would be.

While it is true that the Toughs have a nearly infinite supply of Oafan hulls, they have a nearly infinite supply of money, too, so why not get what they need?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I've been wondering why they built Tagon Mk II a Dragon-class cruiser rather than just giving him another Oafan hull vessel, since no explanation was forthcoming in the strip itself. Seems it was a rather artificial way to force him to be the one that investigates the crash site on Bacchus.

In-story, two reasons:
1) PTU hulls attract pirates unnecessarily - and while you can beat them, isn't it better to avoid the stupid random encounters?
2) They don't provide any advantages over regular hulls (as explained when they built regular side-boats to the big one).

So if you have enough money that you'd rather purpose-build a ship rather than reuse an existing one, you might as well build the hull out of regular materials.

Grey Wolf

[eschmenk]

I've been wondering why they built Tagon Mk II a Dragon-class cruiser rather than just giving him another Oafan hull vessel, since no explanation was forthcoming in the strip itself. Seems it was a rather artificial way to force him to be the one that investigates the crash site on Bacchus.

BTW, you are correct, of course, about the plot being very artificial; it's just the specifics that were wrong. It makes no sense for the Admiralty to have had their "collective freakout." It's their jobs to plan what to do if horrible things happen. The long gun technology is technology that they should have known about and thought about already. They also obviously need to think about other horrible things, such as nannites turning their soldiers into weapons for the other side and nannites turning them into weapons for the other side, and so on. That's their job. They should be capable of doing it. Even if there is little constructive they can do in a situation, they should be capable of doing that as well. (Similarly, in the event of a DME attack, the battleplate just powers down and does very little so as to not attract attention.)

TLDR: Using conventional materials to build the Tough's new ship wasn't artificial. The absurd ban on the Oafan ships was the artificial plot device that made it so that Kaff's ship must be the one to investigate the crash site.

In-story, two reasons:
1) PTU hulls attract pirates unnecessarily - and while you can beat them, isn't it better to avoid the stupid random encounters?
Grey Wolf

I don't think they necessarily can beat pirates, at least not if Chinook is unable or unwilling to use the long guns. I recall them loosing a science ship they were supposed to protect and almost loosing the rest of the ships to a Wing Commander who became a pirate at the end of the previous book. The long guns saved them in the previous attack, but they wouldn't have won otherwise. It's a matter of how big the pirate attack would be and could the long guns save them.

[Kantaki]

Wow. If Captain Cybear keeps this up I can only hope he won't get through a Iron Woodsman phase.
On the other hand this proves that couples get more similar to each other over time.