Sundog

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? I tend to use Frank Herbert's Dune as a guide - that religion will mutate, change and survive as changes to the world around it shape and alter it, possibly including direct and deliberate manipulation by factions.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Gemini - The Alan Parsons Project.

Re: Mars Colony? Let me step into conservative mode once again, and point out that with appropriate 6P planning (Proper Planning Prevents P***-Poor Performance) even the refinery stuff stops being a necessity. Just send unmanned cargo vessels first. You can even wait until you are absolutely certain that they're in position before you launch the manned vessel.

Re: Blasters: why?

Re: Rogues...and Soldiers...and Assassins...and...Gallery (Dark Champions Art) Nice...but the street samurai bothers me. That handgun is just at completely the wrong angle for a rapid draw. It should be angled with the barrel pointing up towards the left shoulder.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? All Over the World - ELO

Re: Mars Colony? As I understand it, if there happen to be perchlorate insensitive (or even perchlorate utilizing) primitive forms on Mars, our biology and their will almost certainly have a "mutual ignore him society" going on. Which pretty much obviates the problem of contamination anyway.

Re: Mars Colony? Contamination of the Martian biosphere isn't really an issue. Every probe we've sent to take a look, from Viking to the mobiles, has come back with "There is no Martian biosphere".

Re: A galaxy of humans Standard reply to that is that SE4 wiped itself out - civil war, aggravated by an aggressive nobility and Noblesse n'oblige plus - Nobility no longer obligates - and you can get the high-tech elite unleashing bioengineered plagues on their own populace and nuking population centres from orbit to "keep order"...

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Children of the Moon - The Alan Parsons Project

Re: Mars Colony? I guess it's up to me to take the conservative view. Mars by Hohmann transfer orbit. Send an unmanned cargo ship first, then a large vessel, small crew - six months there, six months back, one year on site, in addition to scientific research they use that time to build a LARGE base, landing field and beacon. Next, build a large vessel that does nothing but travel in a Hohmann orbit between the Earth-Moon and Mars solar orbits (a cycler), and start up continuous population transfers. Lower initial outlay than Mars Direct (though greater total cost, ameliorated over greater time), no political fallout from using nukes in space.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Silence and I - The Alan Parsons Project

Re: Aliens in Dark Champions Even if you don't want to use aliens per se, absent aliens can be a useful tool. Imagine if your enemy has agents who can walk through walls, turn invisible, or use thought-operated radios - but they're just humans with weird gear. Part of the question in the campaign would be "where do they get these wonderful toys..?"

Re: Thermobaric bomb The correct term is "massive". Inside the distributed mist the temperature hits thousands of degrees, but the real killer is the prsssure. The early FAE weapons they used in Veitnam for clearing landing zones in jungle areas literally liquefied the trees inside the prime zone. However, as I understand it one of the advantages of thermobaric weapons is that the secondary blast zone is relatively small - damage falls off quickly away from the misted area. Thus, they can be used in built up areas with limited collateral damage while guaranteeing the target is utterly destroyed. I would make a suggestion regarding the build: use two AOEs. First, a defined AOE for the Primary blast, and then an Explosive AOE radiating from that. I'm reallty unsure about the right dice, though.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Waiting for the Wolves, by Birds of Tokyo

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

Re: Cool Guns for your Games

Re: Star Hero Command Getting a 404 Not Found error on the link, XO.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: How bad was Oktoberfuss last year? A: Medical malpratice assurance.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Great Divide by Icehouse, off their Code Blue album.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: What's the worst part of Civil War? A: The Atomic Smear.

Re: Bows I'd also have to ask what technology level you're talking about. Recurve doesn't really appear before a certain point; composite construction, earlier, but still past most of the classical period (the Parthian bow being pretty much the earliest one we have good info on. Also, while most longbows had to be used on foot, don't forget that the Japanese longbow (whose name escapes me) was designed to be used from horseback. For every rule, there is an exception...

Re: 300 anti-hydrogen atoms contained for 16 minutes But now that we have anti-Hydrogen, do we need to worry about our enemies making anti-anti-Hydrogen? Please Don't hit me!

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits? Anything goes, to the point where A) I'm still me as I define it and I still have total free will (no override programs, please!). In sci-fi terms, I'd have no problems with being one of McCaferry's Brainships, but if anyone tried to put in the hypnotic override from Haldeman's The Forever War there'd be blood on the floor.