The Weapon

Well it really depends on how horrible your world is, specifically how horrible for unfortunate children. I mean if the adventurers left them at an orphanage would it be a clean, disciplined but not abusive educational establishment? Or would it be like Little Orphan Annie? Or the orphanage out of Tanya The Evil (she killed a fellow orphan to stop him stealing her food). If all the alternatives for where to leave the child suck then adventuring isn't that bad. You learn a trade, are less maybe less likely to be killed than some places, definitely don't get sex trafficked and could end up with money enough to buy a farm/small business.

Pathogens can react differently depending on the genetics of the host. If you manipulate this you can actually get targetted diseases, fatal to selected people but trivial to others. Depending the bioweapon-maker a mutant could get the sniffles and a non-mutant die. Or it could be racially targetted, or it could be (mostly) harmless to anyone but the specific target.

Danger sense is, depending on how it works, a test for the disease. Of course knowing the FDA, they well take ages to approve it if they ever do. In the meantime you know that guy getting on a plane had a lethal disease but you can't say why. Or if you can the government doesn't officially believe you. Stopping him is kidnapping. Hilarity ensues.

What if the inhabitants of hyperspace were freaked out by the ships coming through? They don't know where they come from, aren't sure if they are intelligent beings, vehicles or natural phenomena and can't predict when they will appear or disappear. Maybe even the weapons they normally use in their universe don't work on stuff from ours.

It's an original idea. All based on fact though. Humans are insane.

Inertial dampners work against the force of the ships own engines. As soon as something ELSE causes the ship to move (e.g. weapon hits) they take time to compensate. Usually not enough to move you more than a few feet, but still, it's an unnecessary risk.

Yeah that Protector-stage human genocides an entire sentient species _because they might threaten one of his descendants at some stage_. Note that said species are on Mars, humans almost never go to Mars, and no Martian has ever killed a human, or even harmed one.

"Our victory is assured human. In a few minutes our greatest battleship will be in position to deliver an Aris-class citykiller, which is uninterceptable. Then the war is over." "Oh god, billions are going to die!" "Billions? No depending on which city is most convenient to bomb it will be 5-10 million. After that you'll submit to..." "That's never happened." "I can assure you we've destroyed cities before." "So have we, it's never stopped humans fighting before, no human nation has ever surrendered because one of it's cities was destroyed. Some have had MOST of their cities leveled and still fought." "Don't be rediculous, no intelligent species would take fatalities over 1% of their population and keep fighting." "Emporer if you think no intelligent species would take casualties like that, you just called humanity unintelligent. We're not, we're insane. We have fought on with greater than 10% populaton loss, and that was one of the nations that WON." "Captain, why is this human prisoner making up such absurd lies." "I don't think they're lies. In fact it explains something. Several human ships have collided with ours after taking enormous damage. We thought they were prone to some sort of control failure, but that's not it is it, Mr Anderson? They weren't moving randomly they were deliberately ramming us weren't they?" "You only just figured this out?"

Cassandra Power, Precog, no conscious control, Limitation (no predictions that you can benefit from), (no predictions that will be believed by anyone else ) Saying "I told you so" gets boring..

The article makes a number of HUGE assumptions. 1) that the vast majority of the "tweaks" don't replicate other "tweaks", 2) that you can add in as many tweaks as you want without causing a disasterous interaction between any of them, 3) that it's physically possible to have a human brain be that smart. That a smart person wrote this just shows the problem isn't in people being too dumb, but being too dishonest.

"A solid blow, even from a wooden training sword, should compress the tyre significantly" No it shouldn't. "- much more than he did, meaning he wasn't hitting it very hard" Yes he was and he clearly was. "- and I trained with guys who could literally compress a tyre of that type with a blow so that the two sides actually touched." No you haven't. Never happened physically impossible. "Honestly compels me to admit that those two guys had no wrists:" Ore real existance. "I've also watched a professional re-enactor demonstrate this on a training dummy wearing mail, to prove that it was possible with a sharp weapon. He gave it two solid hits, and then I guess his grip slipped, because on the third strike, he sliced his palm right open through a heavy leather gauntlet, and had to be driven to hospital, with his hand wrapped in a blood-soaked towel. So yeah, it's dangerous." Nope you never saw that, you're lying. When you start by claiming that you saw something that's physically impossible, that's your credibility gone.

It's not all that dangerous. There's a video on youtube where a guy really slams down on a tire using this technique without injury. Title: Half-swording - Why grabbing a sharp blade in a sword fight is not crazyHalf-swording - Why grabbing a sharp blade in a sword fight is not crazy

Yeah just because some watery tart threw a sword at him, he thinks he can keep adventures to himself.

I challenge you sir, thrown porcupines at 10 paces!

Ok, so if you wear the protection amulet and the armor are you even tougher? I could see at least leather with some reinforcement still being worth it. Or do they not stack? Is the protection they offer so good that people are practically invulnerable, or just better than armor (given that armor slows you down)? If the former I could see fights becoming grappling matches for the amulets. If the latter then I could see more lawlessness as people walk around fully protected without having to be encumbered or obvious.