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2016-11-06, 07:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Last edited by eschmenk; 2016-11-06 at 07:34 PM.
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2016-11-06, 07:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
I doubt the Toughs had any idea EMPs would work until after Para got her hands on one of the nearly dead bio-mech-suits (and whoever knows how many dead ones) and started poking around in it. They knew basically nothing about Esspies and their military capabilities before this, so them knowing EMPs are effective would be rather unlikely.
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2016-11-06, 08:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Well, of course they probably didn't know in advance (although maybe they should have), but why not try using an EMP just in case it might work! They would have found out that it did. Wouldn't that have been better than being killed or injured?
In many battles, it's a matter of finding out what your enemy's vulnerabilities are and trying to take advantage of whatever mistakes the enemy makes. Why didn't they try to do that?
BTW, I eventually got tired of listing all of the obvious ways in which the Toughs acted incompetent lately, so I stopped. One of the ways I probably haven't mentioned yet is: Why in the hell didn't Flinders at least try to find out what the Esspees' vulnerabilities were, as she was supposed to do? The obvious people to ask would have been Petey (why did they wait until Kaff was about to die to ask for help -- it wouldn't have cost Petey anything to give them any information he had) and either Bala-Amin or Sorlie (since it was a UNS ship and personnel that needed protecting, they might have provided any information the UNS had). Based on the way HT showed her behaving (whining about not being Ebby and acting like it would have been merely a biological issue -- even though they were robots!!!), I'm sure she didn't even try asking them. I don't know if it would have helped, but she should have at least tried.
Of course even if Flinders had behaved competently she might not been able to get the information, but even then my first point would still apply.
One more thing: Para did have data for the robo fairies (the Esspees bug forms). I don't know how useful that would have been in knowing about any EMP vulnerabilities for their large form, though.Last edited by eschmenk; 2016-11-06 at 09:02 PM.
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2016-11-07, 11:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2013
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- Bristol, UK
Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
The end of what Son? The story? There is no end. There's just the point where the storytellers stop talking.
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2016-11-07, 01:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2015
Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
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2016-11-07, 06:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2009
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- ??Ph??
Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
You seem adamant in seeing plot holes everywhere.
Apparently either Petey isn't going to give them time to receive the three hulls before bombarding the place, or the hulls aren't functional ships that the Esspies could use to evacuate themselves. HT probably hasn't bothered explaining that. In any case, having the Toughs evacuate the Esspies isn't a new idea. That was from six months ago.
Also remember that as far as anyone outside, (like say the UNS), the Esspies just commited piracy, without knowing that these actions can be atrritbuted to a rogue faction of the Esspies. (as the Esppies tree coms are down). So no love lost.
Weither Petey would knock Uli-Ola to rubble with the Esspies still on it... it would be pretty out of character, so I imagine then there'd be another arangement then.Last edited by smuchmuch; 2016-11-07 at 06:52 PM.
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2016-11-09, 04:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2009
Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Schlock's line today is a callback to something a waaaaaay long time ago. And demonstrated his character growth as well.
Member of the Giants in the Playground Forum Chapter for the Movement to Reunite Gondwana!
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2016-11-09, 07:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2015
Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
I'd rather not see them. I just can't avoid doing it and still read the comic. They just seem obvious to me.
If that were true, the conversation between Murtaigh and Kevyn last Sunday wouldn't have made any sense. Kevyn was looking for a way for Murtaugh to recover her costs. If she didn't have to give the Esspies anything anymore and hadn't already done so, she probably wouldn't have any costs to recover! Murtaugh claimed that the contract specified a different penalty, which was that she could claim their tree. She didn't say anything about not having to deliver the three ships or hulls.
Granted, there might have been some chance that Murtaugh could have been stuck with the ships or hulls because she paid for them but they hadn't been delivered yet, but in that case she could have sold them and recovered most or all of her costs. If she needed to do that, she should hurry and sell them before Petey's plan could result in Ula-Oah's PTUs being distributed. Since she didn't seem to be worried about the price dropping, apparently she doesn't have any ships or hulls that she needs to sell, so this idea seems unlikely.
Do you have any evidence that the contract worked the way you claimed it does?
Whether or not they would owe the Toughs (Murtaugh, actually) something doesn't automatically have anything to do with whether or not Murtaugh owes them (or already paid them) something.
IMO, it seemed pretty out of character for Petey to hit it the first time with the Esspies still there. If Petey had any arrangement in mind, he obviously didn't share it with the Admiral or Flinders, based on what they have been saying. Having said that, he might have made arrangements if no one else did or might have a plan that he didn't mention. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.
I'm waiting for some pages to accumulate before reading them, so I don't know what's in the pages since Sunday.Last edited by eschmenk; 2016-11-09 at 09:28 PM.
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2016-11-10, 02:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Uli-Oa is a big object, and the impactor he threw at it was fairly small--I'm sure he specifically aimed it in order to not hurt the Esspees. It acted as a pretty good demonstration of what would happen to them if they stick around, though, which presumably the Toughs will use as a negotiating point when they ask them to leave!
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2016-11-10, 12:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2015
Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Right, it's more that Petey didn't come up with a complete solution (planning where the Esspies would move to, etc.), then contact them himself and act superior while telling them about his plan. Maybe the Esspies already have that figured out and he knows that they did, but it's rare for Petey pass up a chance to talk about his superiority. It could be that the civilian Esspie channels were already locked out by the time he would have tried talking to them. I don't remember the order in which things happened.
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2016-11-12, 04:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
OK. So, why did the ancient Oafa feel the need to have a mobile 8km wide teraport cage in their arsenal?
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2016-11-12, 05:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Last edited by NEO|Phyte; 2016-11-12 at 05:12 PM.
Man this thing was full of outdated stuff.
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2016-11-12, 05:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2013
Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Probably a few reasons.
1: Presumably, teraporting large quantities of atmosphere via Teraport cage to the can of sky makes more sense than trying to ship it. (Ahah, each half is a teraport cage.)
2: Consider the Toughs using Teraport cages to deploy troops into the mob asteroid. Now consider doing the same thing with multiple warships. The smaller warships that the Oafa built used large numbers of small sturdy hulled gunships. Cindercone isn't a Cargo ship. It's a TAD breaching carrier that launches carriers.
3: Sudden death option for a pa'anuri battery that's thrown it's AI loyalty collar.Last edited by Alent; 2016-11-12 at 07:53 PM.
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2016-11-12, 09:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2009
Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
I thought they were in a crazy rush because everyone was coming to kill them and Petey was blowing up the planet. Are those not true?
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2016-11-13, 02:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Maybe Petey's solution has been communicated to the incoming ships? Or maybe those ships, not being battleplates, take longer than six hours to traverse the TAD zone. Anyway, the strip Norren linked to suggests they were loading these things with materials, teraporting those materials to where they were needed, rinse and repeat.
Now, are they planning to do something similar with the Esspee tree-city? Pretty sure they're not going to want to keep the thing aboard Cindercone long, considering what's happened already.
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2016-11-13, 04:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2009
Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
What the heck is this gun (-ship) thingie?
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2016-11-13, 07:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2009
Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
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2016-11-13, 08:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2015
Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Well, the UNS put up automated defenses, which may be slowing down the "everyone." However, Petey thought it was important to keep everyone from being killed in the fighting, but people were being killed already by the automated defenses, so it's already too late to completely prevent that. Anyway, presumably there is a big rush to stop the killing and Petey is in a big hurry to shred the planet and yes, everyone is probably trying to get through the defenses as quickly as possible.
Yeah it doesn't make much sense that there isn't more of a sense of urgency, but that's nothing new.
Meanwhile Captain Landon is AWOL, but doesn't seem to be in any trouble. Bala-Amin seems to either not know or not care that the UNS research ship that had scientists aboard who seemed to be reporting to her has been stolen, even though she seemed to think that the research they had been doing was extremely important.
I'm not sure why they wouldn't just terraport Cindercone wherever they want the tree to go. The only problem would be if Cindercone couldn't terraport close to the destination. Maybe they've been completely surrounded by hostile TADs. Using it as a cage would still require a receiving terraport cage at the destination which would limit where you could send the tree.
However meta-logic probably trumps any in-story logic, so I agree that they probably will use Cindercone as a terraport cage. (HT just revealed that Cindercone is a terraport cage so it will be used as one and it's not as if in-story logic matters much.) If they actually are going to use Cindercone as a terraport cage, they probably are terraporting the tree into the can of sky, which is the only place a receiving cage would be located, AFAIK. Presumably, they would use the one Sorlie was investigating. The Esspies will probably be moving into the can of sky.
I have no idea why someone didn't think of the Esspies moving into the can of sky at the very beginning of the arc, though. Murtaugh's contract with the Esspies was stupid (in several ways). If the balloons wanted the scientists to be able to study the ball of PTU strands, then the balloons should have been the ones to offer the Esspies something in return for permission. But of course, that's just in-story logic.
About the only reason I can think of for using the "world movers" as terraport cages, rather than terraporting the loaded world movers would be if the DMEs couldn't sense the terraport cages, but could sense the terraports that didn't use cages. I hope that's explained sometime.
If they are going to use terraport cages, I would think that something more like Kevyn's beach head cage design would have been better than big spheres. The idea would be that you would just throw gravel into one cage and have it fall out of the other. The cages would be moved around to wherever they were needed.Last edited by eschmenk; 2016-11-13 at 09:45 AM.
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2016-11-13, 10:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
The end of what Son? The story? There is no end. There's just the point where the storytellers stop talking.
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2016-11-13, 01:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2015
Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Yes, I think they need something that matches Cindercone, too. That's largely why I predicted that they are terraporting the tree into the Can of Sky and would use the ship/cage that Sorlie was investigating as the destination cage. It's the only other cage that matches Cindercone that's currently up and running, AFAIK.
Here is the meta-logic: Gee, we find out that Sorlie has a huge terraport cage inside the Can of Sky and that Cindercone is a huge terraport cage, too, and we find that out when a huge tree needs to be moved from where Cindercone is to somewhere else. Surprises can happen, but the Checkov's gun / Duex ex Machina and how it will be used seem rather apparent in this case.
Although I probably don't need to say it, just to be clear, I think each cage needs to be fully enclosed for the terraport to work, so each end needs both halves. (A full ship at both ends.)Last edited by eschmenk; 2016-11-13 at 02:17 PM.
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2016-11-14, 03:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Well, no need to speculate any longer--it *is* an enclosed Cindercone-class ship at both ends of the teraport. I guess that's *marginally* faster than just teraporting the entire ship to the destination and then teraporting back? The question now is, where have they transported the city to? Not the can full of sky, by the looks of it (and that wouldn't be a great idea anyway, given the Esspees' tendency to mess with things they shouldn't be messing with).
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2016-11-14, 07:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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2016-11-14, 08:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Hey, these Esspees didn't do anything wrong. The military commander stabbed them ALL in the back and happily walked away to let them die.
As the two ships being a huge teraport cage it can be a LOT faster you don't have to worry about TAD's or travel time for large amounts of bulk material.Member of the Giants in the Playground Forum Chapter for the Movement to Reunite Gondwana!
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2016-11-14, 10:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Teraporting the entire ship isn't any slower than just teraporting the contents, though...that's kind of the problem with teraport in the first place, it's an instantaneous travel-anywhere device, which is generally plot-breaking. Hence the widespread deployment of TAD devices, and the teraport itself having to be open source so the Toughs don't have a huge advantage over everyone else.
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2016-11-14, 11:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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2016-11-14, 04:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
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2016-11-14, 07:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Hey, these Esspees didn't do anything wrong. The military commander stabbed them ALL in the back and happily walked away to let them die.
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2016-11-14, 10:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2015
Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Yeah, unless you're the Toughs, of course. In the current case, the UNS may have their own TAD up over the top of the Tough's TAD. We know the UNS's TAD goes further out. Since the Toughs didn't allow the UNS to teraport into the Tough's TAD, so I doubt the UNS will give the Toughs their codes.
It seems to me that if the ancient balloons wanted to terraport gravel into the can of sky, they would have just terraported the gravel directly without bothering with the World Mover ships. I don't know if we will ever get an in-story reason for why they didn't.
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2016-11-14, 10:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
Hazarding a guess, I would say the fact that Teraports are harmful to the dark matter entities they were using as power sources for world forges might have something to do with them wanting to build adequate shielding to keep the lights from suddenly going out mid construction.
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2016-11-15, 02:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Schlock Mercenary VII: A T.A.D. Too Much Dialogue These Days
It's possible that a teraport using the cages at both end uses less power than a regular one? When you're transporting this amount of material that might be significant.