Ian Mackinder

Re: anti-Hummingbird gadget

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader? Maybe. Depends on how successfully this hypothetical alternate leader of the Luftwaffe could both do his job well and get along with the Fuhrer (ESPECIALLY when things were not keeping up with the latter's expectations). An unenviable juggling match, to put it mildily. There were some very competent people in the other services, but none of them ever seemed to fully manage this trick.

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

Re: Darth Vader vs. The Hulk Refer my previous post. If Doc doesn't let his ego write checks his intellect can't cash (a VERY tall order, I grant you), then (maybe) Yes. He throws in various and sundry expendables (minions, robots, etc.) to get the Hulk's measure, possibly wear him down and (most likely) steer him into a specific locale and/or mindset that suits the Doctor's purposes. He doesn't face Big Green directly until "the time is right", if ever. Doc Doom's real disadvantage is ego. It has always been. If that did not keep tripping him up, he would have become Supreme Overlord of the Solar System long ago.

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader? Points I would like to make as regards the Battle of Britain and Operation Sea Lion. The standard assumption is that Germany was unable to achieve control of the air over even a portion of Britain, and this is what led to Sea Lion's cancellation. The fact is, this is a gross over-simplification. Establishing control of the air over part of Britain was merely the first step of several. The next step would have been to reliably maintain this control. Not an easy task at all, given the limitations of the Luftwaffe, differing aircraft production rates and the threat of RAF units being redeployed from elsewhere. The step after that was to somehow neutralize the Royal Navy. The largest and most experienced navy in the world, in what was basically its own backyard. The Kriegsmarine did not have the strength to do this (as typified by the later Norwegian campaign), so it would have been up to massed attacks by U-boats and from the air. Massed air attacks would have meant diverting forces from maintaining air control of the planned invasion site(s), and thus taking pressure off the RAF. Yes, damage would have been done, but would it drive the RN completely out of the area, both day and night? I really doubt it. Then, there is the invasion itself. Airborne assault (paratroop and glider) would have played a major part but the aircraft would have been flying into particularly hostile territory (with questionable air cover), so losses would have been heavy. The seaborne phase was critical, and Sea Lion called for most of the troops to be carried to England in towed, open barges - Germany simply did not have anything better to do the job. Ghod help those troops if the weather turned bad, OR (more significantly) if even just a few RN warships got in amongst the fleet. Some might make the valid point that, post Dunkirk, a lot of British Army units lacked heavy equipment. Yes, but not all - and the German airborne forces also lacked heavy equipment at that stage (those 'Gigant' gliders did not come in until much later). It could be argued that at best, it would have been an ugly fight. An important example to consider is the later invasion of Crete. The Axis won that one, but their losses were appalling. That was against a scattered and comparitively isolated defending force without any real air cover of its own. The fact that a small number of RN ships got in amongst the seaborne component of the invasion and did one hell of a lot of damage did not help much either. With victories like these ..... In short, the Germans COULD have pressed Operation Sea Lion but, unless there was a major differance from the historical situation, victory would have been far from certain and losses would probably have been enormous whatever happened. Which is one reason why they did not go ahead with it.

Re: Darth Vader vs. The Hulk Been thinking about it some more. OK, the Hulk is not totally indestructible, but he comes a heckuva lot closer to it than Vader. Vader has some nifty tricks, but nothing in his personal arsenal that is likely to do than annoy Big Green (or whatever ####ed colour he is supposed to be THIS month!). Furthermore, Vader tends to make bad decisions - even by Evil Overlord standards. So, in a straight-out pounding match, I would expect Incredible H to (eventually) turn Darth V into atomized spam-in-a-can. Darth might do a lot of impressive dodges but, eventually, Hulkie will get so derned ANGRY that it won't much matter where Darth happens to be - if he is on the same tectonic plate, or even the same planet, he is in big trouble. However, it occurs to me that some super-villains facing the Hulk are a lot more circumspect in their dealings. They throw minions, robots and/or illusions at him; get his measure; possibly wear him down (a little); and then make their move. The smarter ones pretend to be Hulk's friend, and then steer him into pounding on somebody else (usually a Good Guy). Now, this level of deviousness may be beyond Darth Vader (MAYBE). An aside here: it would be quite in charecter for his master. But the real point I would like to make is that. if DV was converted into Hero system stats, allowance would have to be made for the extremely large organization he is part of (the Empire). Which means a buttload of agents, probe droids, star destroyers, TIE fighters, walkers and mostly expendable stormtroopers - and arguably a whole lot of other stuff besides. OK, unlikely that most of these will be able to do much, but at least they can serve to give Darth Vader an idea of what they are facing before he jumps in to get his own clock cleaned. There is also the possibility that his resources might include a Mad Scientist or Oddball Weapon that possibly can achieve something. Yes, that is out of the scope of a classic face-off (which is what most people here are talking about), but still something to consider.

Re: Darth Vader vs. The Hulk I question if Hulk actually has enough IQ to find Jar Jar annoying. And it is not like Jar Jar is likely to whomp him hard enough to be considered an enemy (except maybe by accident - a MAJOR accident, at that!). After all, JJB is about as pathetically goofy and incompetent as a biped could possibly get - and STILL be able to walk (semi)upright. Which is probably why he ended up as a Senator in the Old Republic. Been numerous instances where the Hulk has chosen to befriend especially pathetic / goofy / incompetent beings instead of whaling on them. An encounter with Binks would probably go on similar lines, since Hulk is probably one of the rare individuals who actuallys think JJB is funny. Upon consideration, that is a scary scary idea for a team-up.

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader? My own understanding was that the SA was basically uniformed muscle. Quite numerous, certainly but not elite.

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stephenson Another British spy of note was 'Tricycle' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricycle_(spy)

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader?

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader? Heard of the books. I assume you mean that Rommel was not seriously injured by the air attack mentioned. Historically, he was implicated in the 'Schwarze Kapel' (the German conspiracy to kill Hitler), and forced to commit suicide (the understanding being that his family would not be harmed by the Nazis). FDR's death happened late enough in the war that it is questionable whether there would be that much effect. The most significant change I can think of offhand is the targeting of the atomic bomb - I could be wrong, but think I once heard that Truman vetoed at least one proposed target choice for one reason or another. In general though, Truman did a fair job, IMO. The biggest differance may have been in the postwar period - the division of Europe and relationships with the Communists, for instance. It has been claimed that the Communist Chinese went cap-in-hand to the US for support after the war (the only other choice being Stalin - think about it!), and Truman knocked them back cold, choosing to stick with the Nationalists. One has to wonder how different the subsequent history of eastern Asia might have been. As for the Ultra codes, note that the Allies did have other successful code-breaking operations plus some exceptional agents (Intrepid, for example). Without Ultra, there may have been differances - varying decisions by the Allied commands, specific operations that turned out differantly on either side. It would have prolonged the war, but whether or not this could have led to Allied defeat is highly debatable. Afterthoughts.... First off, the Germans and the Japanese were no great shakes at communications security. The Germans were probably made overconfident by Enigma, but things like using the exact same format for all encoded messages (such as always beginning or ending with 'HEIL HITLER') or repeating the exact same message in two or more different encryption keys made decryption by the 'wrong' people that much easier. It might sound bizarre but the Germans made a frequent habit of both these things, amongst others. The Japanese leadership never seemed to grasp that the Allies had people who were actually pretty good at speaking and reading Japanese, and so Japanese communications security was downright incompetent much of the time. The single biggest problem the Allies had with their code-cracking was the sheer VOLUME of intercepts they were picking up at any given time. Second, whilst the AH scenario of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan conquering the entire world is a popular (and scary!) theme, it is perhaps not that likely. I think the most likely 'best case' result for the Axis powers would have been to carve out their own respective niches within Eurasia, and then bog down in a 'Cold War' situation with whatever remained of the Allies. Much like what happened between the West and the Soviet Union historically.

Re: league of extraordinary PULP HEROs

Re: anti-Hummingbird gadget You know, instead of working up a new power or gadget to swat Hummingbird, have you considered a different approach? Basically, this all started because some @#&*% set your Character up. So, perhaps use that same gambit to steer her at somebody else. How is Foxbat's social schedule, for instance? Alternatively, maybe there is an obnoxious rival or other NPC (or PC, even?) out there who obviously needs (or deserves?) some ... special attention. If the GM is playing her true to form (and not just to #### with you), then her attention span is not all that great. So, definitely let her "get" your Character, then work at being as boring as possible - not nasty or inconsiderate or anything like that, just BORING. At the same time, begin setting up the next ... er, ah ... target of her affections. Should not take all that long for her to switch targets at all.

Re: Doctrine for beginning vampire slayers? Friends help you hide. Good friends help you hide bodies.

Re: shadowcats vehicular insanity shop: Orel Ulyanovsk Class CVN

Re: Jokes Small town in Texas, with four places of worship - a Baptist church, a Pentecostal church, a Catholic church and a synagogue. It is perhaps a mark of Ghod's sense of humour that he chooses to afflict each of these places with a plague of squirrels. Thousands of the little varmints scampering around the rafters and under the floorboards, chewing on anything interesting that they can find, and disrupting proceedings with their incessant chattering. Unsurprisngly, each faith chooses a different way to cope with the problem. The Baptists have several meetings, and eventually decide that the squirrels are, after all, God's creatures and therefore killing them is not nice. Instead, the deacons opt for "catch and release' - capturing the little buggers and releasing them into the wild several miles outside of town. All of their squirrels are back in about a fortnight. The Pentecostals opt for a more traditional approach - using the power of prayer. A series of vigils and special prayer meetings are held where the participants pray for the squirrels to leave. Instead, their sqiuirrel population doubles. The Catholics take a more creative approach. They baptize their squirrels and make all of them members of the church. Now, they only see their squirrels at Easter and Christmas. The Jews are very very quiet about how their squirrel problem is dealt with, but the truth comes out, eventually. They caught just one squirrel, then had a special service at which that squirrel was circumcised before he was let go. They haven't seen a squirrel since ...... * *

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Ravens!!! With frickin' lasers in their heads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Someone had to say it.

Re: Witch Way Maybe the place needs a 'Mrs Kravitz' somewhere, like 'Bewitched'. The nosy neighbour who kept seeing weird things but, by the time she can get somebody else to investigate (her husband, the police, etc.), it is all normal again. Inevitably leading to certain speculation about her medication and drinking habits. **** An alternative might be to have a non-magical ultra-paranoid conspiracy theorist type living on that road. Somebody who can provide entertainment by snooping where / when he really shouldn't and, occasionally, be useful to have around (esoteric knowledge, deductive / observational skills, etc.). And, when it all suddenly hits the fan (Horrseman of the Apocalypse rampaging down the road, etc.), this will probably be the guy who unexpectedly produces a Minigun from his garden shed and helps the PCs out. **** I also highly recommend viewing that Tom Hanks movie, 'The Burbs'. Several great ideas for neighbourhood personalities - no Witchy / supernatural types, but only because they are weird enough WITHOUT that particular brand of weirdness.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Why not the Ferengi? One tour of duty there from this bunch, and the Ferengi will probably be BEGGING to join the Federation.

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

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... He COULD tell you, but then he would have to kill you.