Ian Mackinder

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... I would have suggested 'HAVE A NICE DAY'. My Sororitas character has this inscribed (in Latin) on the business end of her Heavy Flamer.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Awesome as always, Drhoz. The usual problem here, I'm afraid - would rep you if I could.

Re: History of Space Opera, aka Finally an io9 article that doesn't suck. I'm sorry if you consider me to be guilty of a hatefest. You made comments about individual Traveller editions / versions, and I responded with my point of view. Strange that. Suppose 'someone' COULD have said "Hey, let's NOT compare individual Traveller editions this time", but you did so. Noting also that I very specifically did NOT go into the whole TNE thing. Now, kind of wonder now if I should have, just so you could have had something to have a proper cranial explosion about. Might I very respectfully suggest. XO, that you switch to decaf before continuing your discussion on what you consider to be Space Opera? I'm out of this thread, so you needn't worry about my alleged de-rails.

Re: History of Space Opera, aka Finally an io9 article that doesn't suck.

Re: Ultra-Tech Punishments?

Re: Ultra-Tech Punishments? Memory implantation. Couple of examples of this in Star Trek. One gave the offender very detailed false memories about a long and extremely unpleasant jail term, then letting the offender go. Not sure how this was supposed to work in terms of rehabilitation but, if deterrence without having to run an actual prison system is your culture's thing, it has possibilities. The other was, for a murder, giving the offender the victim's memories of the event, then forcing the offender to replay this repeatedly.

Re: Brainstorm: Artificially Slowed Time It is a very interesting idea, and seems quite reasonable on the face of it. One thing occurrung to me is how this condition would affect their view of the outside universe. I assume that navigation / astrogation would be handled via the ship's computer, which would automatically correct / compensate for this in the data it presents. However, if they ever need to "go manual", any readings taken of the outside universe would be skewed. For example, objects would seem to hurtle past the ship at a MUCH higher speed than they really are and, when one tosses in relativistic effects (or apparent lack thereof) as well, it can get rather weird trying to keep track of that stuff. .... Hmm, yeah, it could be weird all right - considering that light-speed would SEEM to be 360 times faster than it should be. A number of corrections would be needed before any manual readings make sense. If, for some reason, the people do not realize that they have been "slowed", then it could get really REALLY weird from their points of view. Man, this makes my head hurt just thinking about it. Another thought is that these android bodies may not necessarily have to be humanoid-shaped. There may be very good psychological reasons for doing so, but for activities that (for example) involve scrambling around the ship's exterior and/or in zero-g, something arthropod shaped (spider, crab, insect) might be better. The 'Eclipse Phase' rpg includes a wide selection of such bodies for characters to link with or download their minds into. Alternatively, the android bodies might be humanoid, but be modularized so they can be configured for specific tasks or situations. For example, if going into zero-g, being able to swap out the body's feet for graspers would make a lot of sense. Or swapping out one or more fingers for some kind of tool (Cyberpunk 2020 has a few ideas here).

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... The Universe Is My Airlock?

Re: Creepy Pics. Noting that such coverpics usually had only a tiny resenblance at best to the actual stories.

Re: "Neat" Pictures

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... ... And they had also better hope that whichever alt-universe loses all that matter doesn't have well-armed inhabitants who take it personally.

Re: Zeppelins I think the real potential the USN saw in aircraft-carrying airships in the 1930s were as search / recon platforms. They could travel a lot faster than any ship and, with their aircraft, could scope out huge areas of ocean at a time.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... More brain bleach over here, please. Great stuff, Drhoz. As usual, I would rep ya if I could.

Re: A Thread for Random Videos

Re: "Neat" Pictures I always liked this response (once heard on an episode of 'The Goodies', but doubtless to be had from various sources): "What's worn under the kilt?" "NOTHING! (Pause) It's all in perfect working order."

Re: "Neat" Pictures These days, the comics he appears in are.

Re: A Thread for Random Videos Oh, wow. Rep if I could.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Awesome stuff as always, Drhoz. Rep ya if I could.

Re: Creepy Pics.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... From our WH40K game: "Ohhhh-kay, it has come to THAT, has it? 'Let's see what sick stuff we can get my Battle Sister character do THIS week' ...."

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... An AD&D game, many many years ago. Things had been going well for the party. They had gone really really deep into the dungeon, well past what was previously known. There had been persistent rumours of various wonders yet to be found, including a ferocious wyrm and gateways to other worlds - all of which the PCs were determined to find. They break into a new tunnel, totally unlike anything they have previously seen. This tunnel is huge, several metres high and wide, arched at the top and very regular in shape. Part of the dragon's lair, they guess, doubtless worn smooth by the vile creature's comings and goings. The party are just starting to check their surroundings, including some odd things about the floor, when they see the glare of the dragon's eyes down one end of the tunnel, and hear its roar as it charges towards them. Being experienced dungeoneers, they immediately fall into standard battle formation. Close-in fighters in the front rank. Polearm guys right behnd them in the second rank. Spell-lobbers powering up at the rear of the formation. They've fought dragons before, and they know the drill. The entire party is then hamburgered by a commuter train in Sydney's underground railway system. Lord knows what the police investigation made of it all. Yeah, the GM worked for the railways, and he thought it would be funny to teleport the party to an area he knew well - specifically, the stretch between Wynyard and Town Hall Stations (known to be an ... "interesting" place, anyhow). The Players almost killed him for that - before working up new characters to head down there and try to avenge their predecessors.

Re: A Thread for Random Videos They do. Been around for quite a while, too. But it is rather like shock absorbers on cars - when things get rough enough, you still get some effects. Also, it is possible that the stabilizers were not being used at this time. Temporarily shut down for maintenance, perhaps, or because the ship is moving close alongside something else (the stabilizer fins stick out several metres from the ship's underside, so there are times they DEFINITELY need to be retracted). Well-designed table, though. Does a VERY nice job at staying completely level despite what the rest of the ship does.

Re: Jokes Same story here. Great stuff.

Re: "Neat" Pictures She should go into politics. The fact that the compere didn't beat this idiot to death with his microphone is a triumph of self-control.