Chuckg

Re: [Campaign] UNITY Prime

Don't worry. The pilots are some of UNTIL's best. I'm *sure* they'll at least be able to hit the ocean, and not the city.

Re: [Campaign] UNITY Prime

Session #3:

"Striking Sparks, Part 1": UNITY Prime responds to a desperate call for help from Argentina. A madman with godlike electrokinetic powers has taken over the Presidential Palace and is holding most of the government hostage. But what is VIPER doing in this scenario? Is the Defense Minister really trying a coup, or are the other guys? And with the episode ending with their plane being shot down over Buenos Aires, how will UNITY Prime survive?

(Session logs and summaries available here).

Re: THE ULTIMATE TECHNOLOGY: What Do *You* Want To See? -- Unofficial Sourcebook Prop

Anybody here tremember the old Traveller:New Era supplement, "Fire, Fusion, & Steel"?

Yeah, like that.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

If you draw the line to exclude funky chi powers, then you exclude all the wuxia SFX ever written -- and if you're throwing *that* out, then what kind of 'comic book martial arts' tourney *is* this? It'd be like holding a 'comic book speedster' contest and then outlawing everybody above Black Racer and Speed Demon.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

There's a lot of hearsay going around.

Now that you jog my memory, I vaguely recall hearing a '6 of 10' estimate... but from a *Wizard magazine* editor, not a DC editor. And Wizard, natch, don't know its *** from its elbow.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

When Bruce was recovering from his broken back, Shiva could've whipped him *ten* out of ten times, until he finally got back in shape. Dude was seriously hurtin' for a while.

I don't recall the editors saying this. Linkage, if possible?

Re: 1905: The New Century Campaign

Title and author?

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

Chuchg we seem to be at cross purposes here. I dont maintain that my examples have ever hapened in comics as i dont own or havent read all of Karate Kids stuff and dont even claim to be a expert on current comics.

... so, you don't know the characters, you don't know the comics, you don't know much of anything current, and yet you think that *you* should be the one setting the benchmarks?

What. Ever. I give up.

Re: DC Suckverse?

Perhaps you're the exception and not the norm?

If so, then him and me are both exceptions.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

Change the name from batman to Karate kid' date=' if that make you feel better about my example ( and i bet he has actualy done that at sometime )[/quote']

 

Actually, no, he hasn't. See what happens when you make stuff up and try to use it as an actual example?

 

What credibility your arguments originally had is now rapidly dying.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

*puzzled*

He uses it as an example of what he wouldn't accept, while also saying that he finds many comics today unacceptable. But even the comics he finds unacceptable haven't gone as far out as where he set his benchmark, so ???

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

Batman knocking out superman with a head butt for example.... i cant concieve of any amount of skill being able to hurt someone who can withstand nukes.

I am unaware of this actually happening in comics ever. Next time you want to use an example, how's about one that you didn't make up?

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

And yet, that is precisely how the comic books with him in it have explained such since the character's inception.

If you don't like skills that allow people to break the laws of mundane physics, you read comics in the first place why?

Note -- with Goku it's largely genetic as well, Saiyan DNA.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

As i said' date=' peolple will maintain this is not a power. So she tested negative for meta gene....so what. MAs are people who are skilled fighters no more no less, [...']

Val Armorr, Daniel Rand, and Karnak the Shatterer will all be very surprised to hear that they're not really martial artists.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

Yup, she's the pilot.

Re: If you liked the movie Equilibrium

Then after that' date=' we're going to be treated to the film adaptation of [i']Bloodrayne[/i] (I just don't know when exactly).

It's already out, and it sucks horribly.

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/index.php/2006/01/06/movie-review-bloodrayne/

Re: What happened to the Champions?

Seeker was awesome.

Re: Ridiculous things in comics that you don't mind.

Mayor Wilkins so aptly explains the first three seasons that it's genius.

Seasons 4-7, OTOH, have no such explanation.

What's worse is that season 4 made it plain that the existence of vampires and whatnot was known on the Federal level(*), and yet, the govt's response was zero at best, and literally worse than doing nothing at worst.

I dunno about you, but I like to believe that the existence of supernatural predators routinely kililng job lots of people every night would spur the government to, you know, actually try to kill the damn vampires. Or at the very least put the word out so that the common citizenry knew -- carry yer holy symbols, don't invite people in at night, issue stakes and holy water in squad cars, etc... and please, don't go 'But Wolfram & Hart owned the United States government!' Anybody who is demonstrably incapable of fixing even one statewide election without having to mind control the opponent into a nervous breakdown is demonstrably less in control, crooked politics style, than the Mayor of Chicago is. (After all, here in Chicago, we can fix elections just fine without needing to bust out mind control magic.)

(*) The arrival of the "FBI Agents" in season 1 to take the Invisible Girl away was a hint, yes, but up until the Initiative arrived it could still be plausibly argued that while the X-Files Division of the Buffyverse knew *something* was going on, their knowledge as to the full scope of the problem was woefully incomplete. And then along comes the Initiative and its successors, who know *way* more.

Then comes the retcon in AtS season 5, where the Initiative has roots going back to World War II and that both the US and German governments were fully aware of the existence of vampires even 50-60 years ago (shown in the flashback in "Why We Fight") and yet, nothing is being done. I mean, damn, it's not like politicians and their families are immune to vampire attack either...

Re: New Advantage: Painful

The general axiom is that once you're CON Stunned, you're only one more shot away from Knocked Out, given that 'kick 'em while they're down' is such an effective strategy.

So, no, a bit too powerful, I thinks.

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist

Well, we have to wait until next month and BATGIRL #73 to know for sure, but BATGIRL #72 kinda hints that all points regarding Cassandra Cain are about to become academic. In the 'she's probably dead' kinda way.

She got stabbed through the heart by her psychotic 'older brother' (the first, and only partly successful -- physically adept, mentally completely psychotic -- result of David Cain's little train-kids-to-be-superhuman-killers project).

The only dramatic tension is 'Will Lady Shiva throw her in a Lazarus Pit next issue, and if she does, will it work?' (note -- this being the fastness of the Society of Assassins, one of Ra's Lazarus Pits is right next door, we saw it in BATGIRL #71.) However, since I think the title is being cancelled next month, that kinda answers the question.

The stabbing (as Cassandra pushes somebody else(*) out of the way to save her life):

http://img75.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bg72172fx.jpg

The dying(?) words:

http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bg72191cf.jpg

The unanswered question...

http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bg72218zy.jpg

(*) Cassandra was busy trying to smuggle out a couple members of the Society of Assassins who didn't wanna be assassins no more.

Re: Ridiculous things in comics that you don't mind.

awww. Chuckg rants are always fun... I feel disappointed.

Well, the last rant was years ago on another message board which since crashed, and I've forgotten lots of the juicy details... and I will like hell watch season 4 again to *remind* myself of them. *ow ow ow*.

Re: Ridiculous things in comics that you don't mind.

Joss took it to the point that even when the authorities *did* believe in vampires and demons, they were *still* hideously incompetent... but my rant on why the Initiative made Zap Brannigan look like Grand Admiral Thrawn will have to wait for another day.

Re: Ridiculous things in comics that you don't mind.

No' date=' I mean that many fictional worlds, including the mainline Marvel and DC worlds, require the collective intellect of the human species to be remarkably lower than it even is in real life.[/quote']

 

I nicknamed that phenomenon "The Sunnydale Effect" -- i.e, the plot contrivance where the PCs are always needed to save the day because the NPC authorities are, one and all, extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemely stooooooooooooooopid.

Re: If you liked the movie Equilibrium

It looks so unapologetically, wholeheartedly, shamelessly fanboy.

I guess I'll give it a look.

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html

"Your imagination has been captured by the roaring rockets from Heinlein's SPACE CADET or the Polaris from TOM CORBETT, SPACE CADET. But are such rockets possible? How does one go about defining the performance of these atomic-powered cruisers?

 

This document gives some hints and equations that will allow back-of-the-envelope calculations on such matters. Though horribly simplistic, they are far better than just making up your figures.

 

This site was mainly intended for science fiction authors who wanted a little scientific accuracy. But anybody who is interested can play with the toys contained within, designing their own Planet Rangers Rocketships. It is assumed that the reader has enough knowledge to know the difference between a star and a planet, and enough skill to use a pocket calculator. Computer spreadsheet and computer programming skills are a plus, spreadsheets in particular will make your life much easier."