- Location
- Russia
To all who voted for @EarthScorpion's plan, you should change your [X]Yes to [X] Yes.
Last edited:
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
If we're dumping inertia then we're dumping inertia - the quality of being hard to stop going in a particular direction - not conjuring energy from nowhere to add velocity until mv has the value we want. If you have to think of it in mv terms we're not adding real v, we're adding virtual m. The shock wave still hits the tank and surrounding at about the same speed as the Arc II had been (actually slightly less) but instead of bouncing off like a few pounds of air it drives everything into the ground like several tons of air. The only energy we transfer is the KE of the ARC II. This is large but it is nowhere close to even a low yield nuclear weapon (and at higher energies it still wouldn't behave like a nuke, it would behave like a meteor).
Yes, this is impossible. A magic inertialess maneuvering system that lets us stop on a dime without going splat is impossible. If we allow it to work anyway this is what it would do though.
Dumping the inertia though a weapon system rather than the sonic boom would have the same energetics but the effect would be concentrated on one spot - great if we hit the spidertank. The sonic boom has the advantage and disadvantage of being AoE.
Yes, this is impossible. A magic inertialess maneuvering system that lets us stop on a dime without going splat is impossible. If we allow it to work anyway this is what it would do though.
Dumping the inertia though a weapon system rather than the sonic boom would have the same energetics but the effect would be concentrated on one spot - great if we hit the spidertank. The sonic boom has the advantage and disadvantage of being AoE.
- Location
- Spain
Please. It's not like Technocrats actually care about science.
Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Honestly we'd be better served - I think - with a Technocratic version of the Friction Knife rote, because our enemy is an impossibly fast-moving target and Henriette is stupidly good at Forces.
We could achieve this through programmable smartmatter either flash-fabbing entangling slicey-dices wire ripping into the joints of the spodertenk, or through nanomachine warfare that anchors itself against the ground and the other limbs of the spodertenk to cause the machine to rip itself apart from its speed.
We could achieve this through programmable smartmatter either flash-fabbing entangling slicey-dices wire ripping into the joints of the spodertenk, or through nanomachine warfare that anchors itself against the ground and the other limbs of the spodertenk to cause the machine to rip itself apart from its speed.
On that note, we should be careful that whatever method we pick doesn't get used as a focus to turn the tables, because Henriette is also an impossibly fast-moving target.
Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yes.
Frankly, if Ling has a valid focus for Friction Knives we're boned, the ARC II in GIGGLE MURDER ZOOM ZOOM mode is far more vulnerable to it, thematically, than the merely NYOOM NYOOM spodertenk
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Wouldn't she want to win as a pilot, rather than as someone who just put an invisible wall in the way, though?
It should maybe probably possibly be safe.
- Location
- in the trash
Yes.
Frankly, if Ling has a valid focus for Friction Knives we're boned, the ARC II in GIGGLE MURDER ZOOM ZOOM mode is far more vulnerable to it, thematically, than the merely NYOOM NYOOM spodertenk
Maybe we shouldn't give Ling any ideas yeah
I am very sure Henriette would prefer not-being-on-fire to being-on-fire.
Hmm. Okay, so this is a rather silly idea, but what if we could somehow flip the spidertank onto its back, so it's stuck like a helpless insect with its legs dangling in the air? Either with a powerful explosion that tosses the spidertank into the air, or by trailing hooks and dragging it along.
Let's not hit the "enrage the enemy into incoherent madness" button again. I was recently rereading the Last Flight of hte Oppenheimer arc and we don't want to overshoot the rage-out again
I remain unconvinced.
It's a shame we're gonna hafta killShinjiSanjeet, because now I can't make a LRS masturbation joke
I mean, what's stopping you?
Reminder to everyone that both parties are surrounded by thick shells of Primium and can cast countermagic.
Therefore any direct magical attack will take a significant setup period because it needs to fight the latter and gain enough successes to defeat the former.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Hmm.
@EarthScorpion - IIR one of the methods you gave for countering Primium was trollcasting. Maybe we could attack the environment to create maluses to Ling's movement and def, or at the very least force her to devote precious persistent effect slots to dealing with our bullshit?
Woooo, the first time I feel like I have something to add to the discussion here:
So, considering the two are old rivals we probably should figure out some more personal winning move.
The two basic options that immediately come to mind are using something Henriette learned since they parted ways, though we didnt take the Nwo-ish upgrades which would have made that one easier, or something using the contrast between the proper Ling and our looser pilot.
Given the Inertial Shift thingy already has "non-approved purposes" right in its description we can probably stunt up something like Henriette having been a three time Unofficial Drunken Inertial Shift Boxing academy champion to then cast fist on the tank while making some joke about how Harlans instructions were so vague they are applicable even when one lacks any limbs.
Well, that option probably counts as attacking which was just mentioned as a bad approach, but we should probably as least integrate the whole former rivals thing into our plan.
So, considering the two are old rivals we probably should figure out some more personal winning move.
The two basic options that immediately come to mind are using something Henriette learned since they parted ways, though we didnt take the Nwo-ish upgrades which would have made that one easier, or something using the contrast between the proper Ling and our looser pilot.
Given the Inertial Shift thingy already has "non-approved purposes" right in its description we can probably stunt up something like Henriette having been a three time Unofficial Drunken Inertial Shift Boxing academy champion to then cast fist on the tank while making some joke about how Harlans instructions were so vague they are applicable even when one lacks any limbs.
Well, that option probably counts as attacking which was just mentioned as a bad approach, but we should probably as least integrate the whole former rivals thing into our plan.
So, I had one idea that I discussed over with @Cornuthaum on Discord a bit. Well, actually, I had more than one, but the other ones ran into Primium or taking too long.
We know this much about her multiped from the option vote.
Now, yes, that bolded bit was just put in there to explain Paradox from being a wall-walking spider-tank. However, gravity comes under Forces 4.
So one way of doing this may be Henriette forcing Ling to jump and move around and keep off the ground (jumping onto buildings and roofs and the like where she has to use the gravitic control system to avoid falling through the roof), all the time building up Forces 4 successes for a critical malfunction in the gravitic control systems that tears off the legs of the mech, warps the railgun barrel into a pretzel, and basically leaves Ling inside the fluid-filled capsule, unable to move until the reactor in her mech scrams and shuts down.
All through the power of "learnin' from Jams and Kessler about low tech solutions to high tech problems". Plus, also many hours of lectures from Harlan which were really more rants about how Iterators don't like getting their high tech gear muddy and how high tech solutions always shut down if pushed outside their preferred operating conditions.
(Malfunctions are known to be aggravated by forcing her to field-repair components, which have lower tolerances than repairs done in the shop. Also, waste heat bleed-through from being shot by a plasma cannon. That doesn't help either.)
We know this much about her multiped from the option vote.
Now, yes, that bolded bit was just put in there to explain Paradox from being a wall-walking spider-tank. However, gravity comes under Forces 4.
So one way of doing this may be Henriette forcing Ling to jump and move around and keep off the ground (jumping onto buildings and roofs and the like where she has to use the gravitic control system to avoid falling through the roof), all the time building up Forces 4 successes for a critical malfunction in the gravitic control systems that tears off the legs of the mech, warps the railgun barrel into a pretzel, and basically leaves Ling inside the fluid-filled capsule, unable to move until the reactor in her mech scrams and shuts down.
All through the power of "learnin' from Jams and Kessler about low tech solutions to high tech problems". Plus, also many hours of lectures from Harlan which were really more rants about how Iterators don't like getting their high tech gear muddy and how high tech solutions always shut down if pushed outside their preferred operating conditions.
(Malfunctions are known to be aggravated by forcing her to field-repair components, which have lower tolerances than repairs done in the shop. Also, waste heat bleed-through from being shot by a plasma cannon. That doesn't help either.)
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
I like this one better than your previous plan. While reading the previous one, while I thought it was suitably epic, at the same time a small voice in the back of my head was muttering something about grasshopper^10.
Hmm. I've been also thinking about another possible solution. Could Henriette use a laser designator to provide accurate coordinates for artillery / orbital fire support? Not sure how it would work as an mechanical effect, but maybe something about using one of her extra actions to aim once per turn while dodging to pile up success for extra damage?
...That was really vague. Maybe I should try reading through those MtA books again...
Would the tank being covered in crazy mutant goo and monster swarm debris also be like an applicable bonus to that?
Having the whole "ProgenitorsGoneWild" atmosphere make the old school Iteration tanks life harder sounds sort of fitting and "make Ling run through mutated mooks and icky insects" sounds like a simple way to attach an approach to your end goal beyond the "make her jump" part.
Well, let's put it this way.
If she's being shot full of holes and some icky biowaste happens to get in the holes before they get auto-repaired, that's not going to help things.
I think, having turned down direct aid from the VEs and Ragnarok Command, we probably can't justify ortillery support. A whole load of 155mm howitzer has a certain crude charm and we can certainly have it available. Even the masses version will hurt. The problem is time to target with such a mobile target. And if Henriette is in a position to laser designate she could be using her own direct fire weapons in the brief window before Ling lines up her shot.
I'm actually using the Mage 2E definition here where gravity and other non-EM non-kinetic energy forms can be created or manipulated via Forces 2, but you need Forces 4 to do very large scale shit with them. If you want to run up a wall Matrix-style or scale a wall Spiderman-style, you can do that with Forces 2 just fine. The spidertank has a Forces 2 effect which allows it to shift the direction of gravity and treat various surfaces as the floor, or reduce its pull slightly on the tank itself. Its Forces 4 effects are the molecular bonding fields reinforcing its armor and its heavy railgun's surface-to-orbit/Max-Power firing mode.
BTW: Henriette knows that Ling Clarent had these spheres at the time of the Autochthonia mission a year ago:
Correspondence 2, Entropy 1, Forces 4 (Heavy Weapons), Matter 3, Prime 1, Time 2. She was capable of repairing and maintaining but not building hypertech, had quite a bit of skill with vehicle weapons, and could target things at extreme range or through obstructions. She was also near-precognitive. She was, unfortunately, possibly a bit too willing to self-destruct if the odds were against her, rather than trying to fight to the bitter end.
I mean, Ling is basically a Rei, and Rei blows herself up how many times during the course of all of Evangelion?
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Maybe that's how we go, then? Have Henriette steer Ling through the worst of the hazardous biomatter (living and dead) while hammering at those weak-spots so her self-repair goes haywire? Drive Ling crazy while forcing her to drive through crazy.
Ah, okay, but what I meant with that is that the gravitic control systems are a gravity-based focus for Henriette's Forces 4, if she can just push it into malfunctioning catastrophically (using the lessons she's learned from Jams, Harlan and Kessler each providing their own personal viewpoint on being old people who know how imperfectly ItX technology can work in field conditions).
As it turns out, the real magical power she got was in the friends she made along the way. Hypertech isn't magic, you see. But friendship is.
(I mean, the other alternative is they wind up wrecking both their vehicles and it turns into a fist fight on top of a building a la the end of MGS2)
- Location
- in the trash
FRIENDSHIP IS REALITY DEVIANCY, ITERATOR. THE ONLY FRIEND YOU REQUIRE IS FRIEND COMPUTER.
The best worst cripple fight
Ling has the higher-spec body but no CQC skills or equipment
Henriette has the equipment and the CQC skills but is squishy and made of meat
Sanjeet: "... I should probably stop this. But on the other hand, two attractive women I know are fighting possibly over me, wearing skin-tight and damaged piloting suits. Maybe I should see how this works out."
*the two girls fall into a shallow pool of leaking motor oil. He does nothing to help, though does make sure he's recording it*
Sanjeet: "I'm so fucked up."