archer

From what I was told in church as a kid, "holocaust" was formerly the word that Jewish people used to refer to the burnt animal offerings which were made on altars back in Old Testament days. I've seen that story repeated on the internet in various places but I haven't looked on anything which I'd consider to be an authoritative site on Jewish religious practices or terminology to confirm it is actually true.

Yeah, budget constraints hurt on a science fiction show. They probably will background Isaac since this last major story arc revolved around him and focus on some other person in a character-driven story. But I'd like them to at least acknowledge in that low budget story that the human race is in danger of being made extinct and got damned lucky in the previous episode.

The Kaylon goal is to extinguish life. They never specified "the Union" or even "sentient life" that I saw in the episodes. The Kaylon could send single ships out in every direction to divert a comet or asteroid into every planet capable of sustaining life. It might be months before the first one hit any planet and by then the ships could have diverted asteroids to hit every non-industrialize world the Union fleet is likely to visit over the next decade. It'd be difficult if not impossible to even link what's happening to the Kaylon since the Kaylon are aware of what the Union can and can't detect on a normal basis and Union ships are likely to be falling back to cover Union space against the Kaylon threat rather than ranging out on exploration missions. The Union, once it becomes aware of the threats, would be forced to divert the vast majority of the fleet in order to try to save non-Union worlds and their potential resources. Or alternatively they could choose to ignore all the death and destruction, which might make it more difficult for them to recruit allies among the surviving civilizations. In any case, if the Union forces disperse, the Kaylon could have their choice of whether to attack Union worlds or whether to pick off Union ships while they're isolated. And if the Union decides to not disperse the fleet, the Kaylon could make sure whatever S.O.S. messages the Union ignores comes to the awareness of every planetary government, inside and outside the Union. That might be even more dangerous because the Union might even rip itself apart from the inside if the individual planets come to think that the Union is callous and uncaring.

Personally when I looked at your question, I tried to figure out what was wrong with the name "Haganstone" which might be offensive to people. It wasn't until I googled Haganstone and found out that it had no meaning that I read more closely to find out what you meant by the question. The word "holocaust" has been around since ancient Greece (holos + kaustos meaning "whole burnt"). The word was carried over into Latin then old French then into English when the French moved in and ruined the language (j/k). I wouldn't use the name to intentionally drive off a player. But I expect adults in my games to be adults and to be exposed to some uncomfortable concepts without causing a problem about it (the occasional bit of gore, homosexuality, pansexuality, nudist colonies, topless beaches, the holocaust, genocide, drugs, etc. I don't personally ever do rape stories in any kind of detail but the players might have to deal, at least in passing, with NPC's who've been brutalized.) If their character wants to get mad at Holocaust for using that name, that's a great roleplaying opportunity. But if the player wants to be mad at me for using a character which has that name, honestly, I'm not okay with that on any level.

Yeah... I thought the article was amusing in that it was careful to say a "liquid metal" was the key to the process and careful to say that it was happening at room temperature...but was careful to not mention the name of that liquid metal. That immediately makes me think that the "liquid metal" in question is mercury. In any case, I'd think it'd be more economically viable to liquefy the CO2 for transport and pump it back deep underground into already-existing oil wells (to force more oil to the surface) than it would be to turn CO2 into coal, transport it as coal, then buy a place to bury the coal.

I didn't think the Orville battle lived up to the last season of DS9 epic battles. But I wasn't expecting the Orville storyline to ever go in for an epic space battle at all so I was very pleased to see it. I think Earth's alliance needs to go after the Kaylon and kick the Sithspit out of them without any delay. Planets with living biospheres and squishy dominant lifeforms are too fragile when faced with an enemy which is a mechanical lifeform that is completely unethical and hyper-smart. Eventually the machines will figure out that they can do without the pretense and subtlety and just bring overwhelming force against worlds before defensive fleets can be assembled. I'd like to actually see Isaac pass along the Kaylon shield upgrades, which was done to the Orville, along to the rest of the Planetary Union fleet. And get credit for doing it.

Note that the type of deflection the article is talking about is the asteroid being deflected through explosions or impact which might break up the asteroid. It doesn't seem to be talking about deflecting it with a gravity tractor, for instance.

I crumbled a cinder block with my bare hands one time. The effect was very cool both to watch and to do. The secret was that the cinder block had previously been heated until it was weak and brittle but not heated in such a way that the cinder block was charred in any way. It looked and felt like a normal cinder block until you tried to apply a moderate amount of pressure upon it.

Amadeus Cho was so forgettable that I forgot about him.

Booster Gold - One of my favorite characters of all time: the purpose of gaining superpowers is to become rich, famous, and (not incidentally) babes. Would love to see him doing his normal get-rich-quick schemes with the trainee looking on in horror. Colossus - I like the earnest version of Colossus from the Deadpool movies (which you sometimes see in the comics). He desperately wants to instill a sense of heroism in a trainee. But almost any set of powers would allow a trainee access to efficient shortcuts which are less than heroic.... Deadpool - Obviously Groo, the Wanderer - Completely epic. I could see Groo as the mentor who goes through a new trainee a week since the trainees can't keep up.... Hercules (Marvel) - I want to see an Olympian party animal "have at thee". I could see the person being mentored as being the mature one in the relationship, the one who's trying to reign in the mentor and try to not solve every problem with his fists. XS - How do you mentor when it's literally faster to take care of the problem yourself? Starfire - Alien princess fan service The Question - I loved his portrayal as a conspiracy theorist in the Justice League series. Raven - Considering her struggles early in her career, I'd like to see her in a mentor role to a young magical hero. Spider-Gwen - I don't think her potential has been tapped, nor has she.

Still one of the best story arcs ever, IMHO.

I don't remember not seeing that one at the theater.

At least Jay Inslee has the most interesting name so far. The Urban Dictionary defines "slee" as "A drunk slut who is often extremely wasted and is always caught surrounded by members of the opposite sex." https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Slee

"Help! I'm trapped in a Western democracy which is being run by a reality TV host!"

I pity the fool who isn't smarter than the average Orc!

I'm reminded of some accounts in WWII, the Marines in the Pacific were given camouflage green uniforms. After a couple of months in the sun and rain, the green washed out and there were a bunch of tough-as-nails Marines running around the jungle in what looked like white PJ's.

My idea is that the original "phase change" came from a church leader who convinced/converted the king to do something new and different a few generations back. The church had the idea of the virtues of moderation but just really no philosophy of how to apply that virtue to change anything in society at large rather than just in the heart of individuals (the seeds of the idea of commonwealth were there but not emphasized as much as it is now). Since that time, the royal family has been brought up in the new governing philosophy and (not incidentally) more faithfully in the church so that it's a change which takes hold and doesn't fade away whenever the current ruler dies. The other religions in the world are deity-based with gods who take varying degrees of interest in their followers. I haven't made up my mind whether this religion is based around a deity, around that former church leader as his religion's version of a Supreme Buddha, or whether the religion is just a philosophy without holy texts or deities. I'm a little hesitant to go the Supreme Buddha route because I don't want the religion to come across as a personality cult and I'm not sure if I can explain it without either having it come across that way or actually having to use the words "Supreme Buddha". I'm not wanting players to pigeonhole the concept as either weird ancestor worship or as Buddhism then dismiss it from their awareness. Maybe that's inevitable from the players but I'd like the setting to make what's going on in the background weird enough that players notice and attribute it to the religion. And ideally investigate on their own to see what the heck is happening (new construction everywhere, people being nice to each other, villages being clean and being cleaned, etc) I'm more comfortable going with the deity-based religion since the players will be more familiar with that construct but not really sure about a deity who would be on point to be up for sudden massive societal changes. (Temple of the Healing Hand just east of Pandathaway, anyone?)

" (and a few she simply abandoned because they were too hard for her to understand or use) " I love that line.

We know almost nothing about the Disney crap. There's 40-ish years of unaccounted for time. Luke might have been deeply involved in running the government/military/resistance or he could have been a dedicated Jedi teacher. Luke might have trained an apprentice for 20 years, have him become a master, then that guy was in charge of training at least some of the recruits. We also don't know when Kylo started training, when his training with Luke's group stopped, when he might have started his Sith training, or how old Kylo is at the moment. I don't think it's unreasonable that formal Jedi training started at the age of 3-4 since we saw that in the prequel films and in the Expanded Universe. If we accept that and Kylo is supposed to be around 25...well, then he's been a pathetic student for somebody whether Luke or the Sith.

Dozens of free PDF's of West End Games RPG version of Star Wars. Rule books, Sourcebooks, adventures, guides, races, planets, ships, characters, even a couple of "choose your own adventure" solo books. Also some conversions of WotC's d20 Star Wars into the West End Games d6 system. Had no idea all of this existed until a few minutes ago but it looks like most everything Star Wars that WEG published. http://www.starwarstimeline.net/Westendgames.htm

Dozens of free PDF's of West End Games RPG version of Star Wars. Rule books, Sourcebooks, adventures, guides, even a couple of "choose your own adventure" solo books. Also some conversions of WotC's d20 Star Wars into the West End Games d6 system. Had no idea all of this existed until a few minutes ago but it looks like most everything Star Wars that WEG published. The setting is the pre-Disney Star Wars Expanded Universe. http://www.starwarstimeline.net/Westendgames.htm

I know that the Expanded Universe timeline doesn't mean much anymore. But it shows A New Hope then three years later is Empire then ROTJ as one year after that.

Try putting a normal person through combat then have them use a swingline or glider wings. I can guarantee that having outstanding athletic ability has something to do with using either.

Unusual Group Detects doesn't conserve sight group adders, for me at least. My metal detector doesn't work through my microscope. My mystical Detect Orcs doesn't work with my telescope so I'm never going to detect those Orcs on the moon. I can think of certain SFX where an Unusual Group Detect might seem sensible for it to work with sight group adders. But I wouldn't personally allow when the Invisibility character used points to make sure that doesn't happen.

I'm kind of imaging what it would be like in a world with no real concept of a "middle class lifestyle for everyone" but with a government and a church each groping somewhat blindly to move their citizenry in a direction which might end up better for everyone. Imagine if you have no experience with running water, sanitation, heat and cooling indoors, a 9-5 job, good roads, good schools, screens on your windows to keep out flying insects, a competent police force, and all the other comforts many people take for granted in modern life. You only know that things could be much better but you not only don't know how to get from point A to point Z but you only have a fuzzy idea of what point Z might actually be. The government is attempting to move things through invention, the dissemination of information, and gently forcing people to do things which are good for their own long term interests. The church is trying to do this, in part, through getting money to the right place at the right time so when there's an opportunity for an individual or a community to move forward that the lack of money isn't an obstacle. I liked the concept of "commonwealth" which was mentioned as a tenant of the church because I think this is where things are heading. Someone asked whether the church should be charging interest at all or not. The answer to that is a "yes" because the church is going out on a limb to finance a heck of a lot of things which might not pay off. If the church doesn't have money coming back in, it can't continue to be as generous in loaning out money for new projects. Yes, some of the payback is coming in goods and services rather than money, as was mentioned earlier (and in fact some of the loans would be in the form of the person getting goods and services rather than cash). But the money interest is vital to keep the project going over the long term. Also the church is hedging secretly against future disasters such as a famine or war. If push comes to shove, the church will be trying to ship in food from overseas during famine or shipping in mercenaries and shipping out refugees in time of war. Again, I haven't figured out if the church is corrupt at the top or not. It could certainly be that the money stash could be used for personal gain and secret luxury for the people at the top while the impression of the rest of the hierarchy is that the money is being saved for extreme emergencies. I'm also considering how surrounding kingdoms might be viewing the somewhat revolutionary activities occurring in this kingdom. If their activities actually increase the quality of living in the kingdom, peasants from the surrounding kingdoms might be wanting to move and/or the surrounding kings might be considering how much of a threat those changes are to their ability to stay in power. I'd imagine a lot of organized churches elsewhere would see a church which is "buying influence" among the peasantry to be a potential threat to their position.