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[kisame12794]

The reason they aren't bombing us is because this facility represents a large investment, and they
d rather not destroy it if possible. That and we have enough laser defenses to largely negate the impact of the shells.

[Parisbre56]

Plus, our planetary defenses actually being better than their fleet (since the fleet didn't know we were here, they were effectively ambushed, plus their fleet was designed for space combat, with ground combat capabilities added as an afterthought). Our planetary defenses are so good that they make any sort of bombardment almost useless, at least with the kind of weapons they're using (their weapons are desinged for space combat, not bombardment). The only reason they were allowed to send troops to the ground before we started shooting at their ships was so that we could weaken them before we boarded their ships and to maintain the element of surprise (it's harder to realise how screwed you are when the revelations happen incrementally, instead of one big "Hey, guess what, we can own your ass!" move). Of course, there was always the chance that they could win the ground battle but that is the risk we have to take in exchange for not having to build our own kilometer long spaceships, which would be expensive and take years, even with an entire planet working on it.

EDIT: One magister said an enemy would have to send enough ships to block out the sun to take Hephaestus.

[Xanmyral]

@Dark: I agree with you there, although it seems there are other reasons too.

@Kisame: Exactly, they don't want to lose a resource. I do fold on the argument of amps against them being their defeat, but you can't say it isn't a boon at the least.

@Paris: A smart plan, very guerrilla warfare.

I'm wondering, are their any mass sized amps? Such that allows for mass scape changes?

[GreatWyrmGold]

The dictionary definitions I've seen have "never dying" as part of it. I tend to trust dictionaries more than works of fiction when it comes to providing definitions.

1. Immortality doesn't exist in real life. It can only be found in fiction, and frankly I trust the real thing more than dictionaries.
2. I never said immortality didn't mean not dying, I just said it meant not getting killed. If you get killed by a boulder, a bullet, or a (fan)blade, but you come back, you aren't dead, so how could you have died?

1. Dictionary definitions would be based upon the fiction that defined that concept.
2. I would call the dead masses of flesh that were his previous incarnations quite dead.

1. Again, I trust the fiction itself more than things trying to define the fiction.
2. But the masses of flesh aren't the person any more than the masses of tissue that slough off the surface of peoples' bodies are...and they don't always stick around.

It's implied by joining a debate on the concept of cool. Like I said, you're moving the goalposts...to your home field?

Or more accurately, to an actual field. Because trying to debate on entirely subjective grounds wouldn't be much of a debate.

True, but you can't expect people who are...um...playing...some game not in a field...to move to a field just so you can stick to your rules. We're not even keeping score.

If the mountain's made out of charcoal I can turn it to diamond...

1. How?
2. Pretty much no matter what your answer, I'm going to be criticizing your comprehension of physics. FYI.

Mass manipulator and microwave amps.
What was that you said about physics?

Neither of those affects the relevant laws of physics.

Heat, pressure, carbon, and time. Really all you need to make diamonds. Using amps he can create the pressure and heat, and he could probably have enough of it (heat/pressure) to make it go much faster.

It takes a bit more than that. Since he's proposing the use of charcoal, a good place to start would be avoiding turning it into water and carbon dioxide.

I really don't know how you'd safely prevent someone from using a vector manip to mash your brain- constantly using a vector automanip to set your brain's velocity to zero... seems like a really bad idea.  It might work for something like an avatar pilot, where there's no real movement, but how would you use it in a battlesuit, let alone an MK?

Lethally.

A military that doesn't make sure they can defend against their own weapons is a military that will soon cease to exist when, not if, their enemies get their weapons. That's my opinion on the situation.

The UWM has no enemies. There are no rival political entities, no outside threats (save the Altered, who are more beast than man and don't use manipulators). All they have to worry about is civil war, which they figure they can prevent and crush when needed. Especially since few revolutionary groups can get their hands on space magic.
Besides, as noted, that stuff is expensive. It would be roughly akin to the US spending trillions of dollars on making sure no one could nuke our cities, in an alternate universe where the Cold War left Russia depopulated and the entire world under US hegemony.

Why aren't they bombing you then, nor sending in more troops? Because they lack the resources currently and don't wish to blow up their own resources? I can hardly consider that a unique situation.

They don't understand the threat that's present here. They think we're just a bunch of rebel workers, and so haven't sent any big guns.
Plus, they've barely had any time to react. Space is big. Really, really big. Even with jump nodes, we're talking war on medieval timescales here.

Lots of parallels could be drawn to Xcom here, old or new although the lifelock is particularly of the new one, it seems.

Nah, Newcom has it.

@Paris: A smart plan, very guerrilla warfare.

Amusing, since it only works because of the kind of permanent defensive emplacements that would be the death of traditional guerilla warriors. How times change, huh?

I'm wondering, are their any mass sized amps? Such that allows for mass scape changes?

...I'll answer that question once I understand it.

[Xanmyral]

Phone. Basically, amps that can affect very large areas. More for ship vs ship usage than anything else.

[Toaster]

EDIT: Hmmm... What if piecewise has some hidden counter in his notes and every time someone uses an amp or manipulator he increments that counter and then throws something at us when that counter reaches a certain number? Or maybe a future succeed-or-TPK/succeed-or-you-loose-the-game mission becomes much more difficult every time that number gets incremented. Kinda like Zentol in Perplexicon.

I rather doubt that, given the scale of our usage versus other usage.  The big guns on the Sword use manips to launch shells- and anything a ghost ship does- is way more than anything we do... except maybe Ice-9 and China-9.

[Caellath]

Phone. Basically, amps that can affect very large areas. More for ship vs ship usage than anything else.

Theoretically, any amp could affect a very large area depending on the user but I doubt any amp-user we know short of the AM is currently at the "one-man-army" point. Ghost ships are basically a collection of human brain matter and consciences used as a weapon of mass destruction via amp firepower.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Phone. Basically, amps that can affect very large areas. More for ship vs ship usage than anything else.

Ah.
Well, the way ship-to-ship combat works, either the automanips would need to be recalculated every shot and still probably miss, or they would be very, very expensive missiles.

EDIT: Hmmm... What if piecewise has some hidden counter in his notes and every time someone uses an amp or manipulator he increments that counter and then throws something at us when that counter reaches a certain number? Or maybe a future succeed-or-TPK/succeed-or-you-loose-the-game mission becomes much more difficult every time that number gets incremented. Kinda like Zentol in Perplexicon.

I rather doubt that, given the scale of our usage versus other usage.  The big guns on the Sword use manips to launch shells- and anything a ghost ship does- is way more than anything we do... except maybe Ice-9 and China-9.

I think you forgot something.
*whistles innocently*

[kisame12794]

Oh be quiet. That wasn't a manipulator screwup. That was you being stupid.

[Radio Controlled]

@ empir/GWG discussion: you either both refer to an outside standard as definition for a word (e.g. a dictionary), then use that as a general starting point for intelligent discussion (determining if Grate is immortal or mortal but continually reviving), or you agree to first discuss what certain words mean to you personally (and since that's just personal opinion, that's not as much a discussion as it is stating personal preference).

@myral: remember that while amps/manips are powerful, they have some glaring weaknesses, especially in the context of military usage. For example, you can't use them for long before burning out, while CON weapons only require batteries/magazines to keep going. And often, you can only target a limited amount of enemies with them (unless you have great skill or the circumstances allow it). They're just another tool in the boxset of murder.

So, even if the UWM's enemies have amps, that doesn't mean they'll win, it just means the UWM will need to change tactics to adapt to the new battlefield parameters.

Heat, pressure, carbon, and time. Really all you need to make diamonds. Using amps he can create the pressure and heat, and he could probably have enough of it (heat/pressure) to make it go much faster.

Or you take the easy route and deposit the carbon atoms in the correct position with mass amp/universal manip directly.

With that in mind, I suggest that our boarding teams be careful with who they shoot once they get to the ship bridges.

I concur with this sentiment.

Plus, I think not allowing your body's temperature to change would have some very bad implications. Most chemical reactions that happen in the body give off or absorb heat, so stopping all temperature changes in your body would probably screw its chemistry in some way.

I think one could set up an upper limit and a lower limit for the automanip, so that it won't bother with changes if they occur within this acceptable range.

EDIT: Hmmm... What if piecewise has some hidden counter in his notes and every time someone uses an amp or manipulator he increments that counter and then throws something at us when that counter reaches a certain number? Or maybe a future succeed-or-TPK/succeed-or-you-loose-the-game mission becomes much more difficult every time that number gets incremented. Kinda like Zentol in Perplexicon.

That would be cool, exiting, and utterly horrifying. Can hardly wait!

About the UWM not bombarding us: try to imagine how this looks for the UWM commanding the space fleet. You come back, find that your hails aren't answered. Maybe a technical thing, so you send a ship. It gets taken down, so you think that there's a worker rebellion (since, as far as the UWM commander knows, the planet's autodefenses are so expansive no enemy could just have taken it over. This is true, if we hadn't been able to pose as one of them on our way in we'd all be space dust by now). So you send in your limited (remember, space defense force, not one build for planetary assault or bombardment) ground forces to deal with it (cause bombing a major factory planet when it isn't absolutely necessary is a sure way to get court martialed (executed) when your superiors find out about it), but holy crap it's a trap and all your guys are dead! Shit! And then, before you can decide what to do they shoot at you and holy shit they're on the ship man your battle stations!

That being said, once we leave, if the UWM makes a real push to recapture the planet, Simus and co. are in for an incredibly hard battle. Better bury those facilities deep.

I'm wondering, are their any mass sized amps? Such that allows for mass scape changes?

The big guns on cap ships use amps to help accelerate shells to significant fractions of c. So yes, but in a supporting role, not pure amp-based capship weapons. Except for ghostships.

Oh be quiet. That wasn't a manipulator screwup. That was you being stupid.

If he whistles one more time I swear I'll stuff Grate in a shell, feed him a manip pill and fling him an the enemy fleet, morals be damned!

[Xanmyral]

Hmm, interesting. Best of luck with the rebellion, I'd make a character and help out if it wasn't for me struggling with time as is.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Oh be quiet. That wasn't a manipulator screwup. That was you being stupid.

It involved manipulators, it was a screwup, it qualifies as "something we do" as much as China-9 and Ice-9, and the Doctor said there MIGHT be a problem! MIGHT!

This is true, if we hadn't been able to pose as one of them on our way in we'd all be space dust by now).

Technically, we didn't pose as a UWM ship. The HMRC was a department of the UWM, remember.

If he whistles one more time I swear I'll stuff Grate in a shell, feed him a manip pill and fling him an the enemy fleet, morals be damned!

*whistles defiantly*

[Toaster]

Yeah, I did forget Grate-9, which is in terms of angering Things Man Was Not Meant to Know was probably the worst.  Shame on me.

[Tiruin]

Tiruin for #1 useless person~

:x

I'm so disorganized // RL stuff that I can't catch up to the thread post-defense of Hephaestus. And I didn't even get through reading its defense. >_>

[Parisbre56]

Ship Beta?: Team F: Grate

Quietly enter the hallway, then realize that there's no way I'll blend in and take point normally.
...Well, as normally as possible, given the situation.
Survey the hallway.

If you pressurize that part of the ship, you can take off your spacesuit and pretend to be a creepy ghost child.
"I'm lost. Have you seen my mommy?"
"Come hear little fella. Let me help you... Oh god, oh g-" *throat slice noise*
"I want to play!"
"Shoot it! Shoot it!"
"It won't go down! It won't go-" *wilhelm*
"Why won't you die!"