Moderator: LadyTevar
The bolded part is where you lost me.Swindle1984 wrote:Wouldn't it be hilarious if most of the rest of DROP 47 was relatively intact and populated by fairly civilized people who were waiting for rescue and got bitterly disappointed every time a ship went to the North arm to dock?
I think I resent that....D. Turtle wrote:You don't know Bladed Crescent very well, do you?
Everyone dieing is a happy ending.
True. But that's not the extent of the changes that these poor souls go through...Lady Tevar wrote:oh dear. At least we finally know what's wrong with her fingers....
Glad you're enjoying the story.xt828 wrote:Sweet. I like this place. Interesting happenings and personalities abound.
Shhh.... just smile and nod... and back slowly towards the door.White Haven wrote:XT, that statement fills me with deep doubts about your mental health.
Thank you.The Vortex Empire wrote:Another excellent chapter. Though I think I've played too much Left 4 Dead, as I couldn't picture that woman as anything but a Witch.
I like a good bit of escapist literature, especially relatively dark scifi like this. No need to read anything more into it than that.White Haven wrote:XT, that statement fills me with deep doubts about your mental health.
Think of the hilarious dark irony of such a situation.Bladed_Crescent wrote:The bolded part is where you lost me.
You have great taste in source material.There is a definite Witch influence here, but the original concept I had for this type of entity pre-dates Left 4 Dead. It was actually inspired by the movie Screamers (which, coincidentally was just recently playing on TV as I was writing this chapter) and the 'Wounded Soldier' killform, which cried out in pain to lure in people to kill. It made me think of different luring behaviours an intelligent human predator might come up with and led into something I came up with for a proto-"Rabbits"* universe.
Without giving too much away, North Arm is probably the "best" place to dock, since unlike West and South arms, it was noticeably under power. In the long run, South Arm is probably the best place to take up residence, given certain... benefits of the area. You don't want to dock there, mind you...Junghalli wrote:There's more kinds of horror than sheer unpleasantness. Like all those people suffering and dying just because they picked the one bad quarter of the station to dock with. In its own way, that could be considered be even more horrible. Because all that could have been easily avoided.
Considering Calvin's reaction to another Crying Girl, that was pretty much a given.Good job on the scene with Fingers Girl, it was beautifully creepy (PS the instant she started making references to having been pretty I called that she was pretty much bound to have some kind of disfiguring mutation).
Thank you.Lady Tevar wrote:You have great taste in source material.
Huh; never knew it was a based on a story (shows how attentive I can be, yes?). Just read the synopsis on wikipedia. I never did much care for the movie's ending.The Screamers movie was fairly well-done, but the story is still better, imho. The "Wounded Soldier" was quickly recognized by the survivors and ignored. So was the "Barking Dog". A lot harder to ignore the "Lost Child", until the TeddyBear started moving, and even then they shot the bear more than the child. But the final model was the best, and the reveal was as perfect as Boomer on neoBSG. Nothing like seeing dozens of that model attacking you, just as you sent the first one off to Earth in the only escape rocket.
Never played the PC version, but I liked the controls on the 360, for whatever that's worth. It's also kind of funny. Isaac's death on two feet with all this repurposed mining/engineering equipment, but when it comes to close combat attacks, he - literally - just flails one arm back and forth. Yeah, that never works out too well.xt828 wrote:I got a mate of mine to loan me Dead Space to have a look at, and while it's got oodles of atmosphere, it also has an absolutely godawful control setup on PC - I found myself spending more time fighting the controls than the monsters, which eroded my interest in playing to roughly zero.
Not certain that that's something we'll see. I'm sure there's been some experimentation of that sort (possibly even ongoing), but despite a wide variety of genetic backgrounds and modifications, the people here are human, not ork.Something I don't recall you having put in yet, would be drawing on "improved" people in the Borg/Strogg/Fabius Bile's Superior Man mould. Love a bit of nightmarish cybernetic and biological enhancement with less than voluntary subjects.
As we've seen, a fair amount of DROP 47 is still operational and the people who live here have some knowledge of systems and services, but there's a world of difference between this medical knowledge (i.e. sterilizing wounds) and the expertise it would take to get mechanical parts (especially the wide variety of technology levels and quality that trickle in to the station) working with meaty bits.Let's see how well I can answer whilst spoiling as little as possible...A question I have is, how much conflict is there on the station between its more permanent inhabitants? The settlement sounded reasonably established, which suggests that it's not particularly vulnerable to other tribes or to any of the beasties.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking of when I put that last line in. That and the other hints of a more organized enemy we get throughout the story.Darth Nostril wrote:Um did you miss the bit where an unknown vessel destroys the Kerrigan?
Being outside is a very bad idea.
This would qualify as a major undertaking - you wouldn't be knocking out some drywall with a sledgehammer, and a lot of those bulkheads would be heavy (necessitating powerful weapons and industrial tools that would be better used elsewhere), and they'd also possess a lot of circuitry, piping and systems that you'd have to re-route (requiring advanced technical knowledge), or simply destroy - and messing with DROP 47's systems would severely piss off at least two factions, one with a army of mechs at his disposal. Plus, there's a very good chance that you'd be compromising the structural integrity of the station over a very large area. In addition to all the noise and commotion drawing LOTS of attention.Second to that I imagine the best thing if you could do it would probably be to knock down a bunch of the walls around your habitat, so instead of a maze of corridors that is difficult to effectively secure you have a large open area that any enemies have to cross to get to it.
Currently? Yes. Normally? Not in any large numbers, but they have ways of keeping an eye on things, just in case...[R_H] wrote:Aren't the unknowns (eyes in the dark?) also present inside the DROP?
Personally I would move the tribe to the main industrial site. Especially if there is a source of food nearby or if you could take your own with you (as in seedling/sprouts/whathaveyou), as you would then reduce the need to leave the colony while still maintaining your colony's needs. As they do have some tech capabilities, I could see them sealing off some corridors and vents as needed with industrial plates or just simply welding doors shut to reduce the number of possible attack routes. Add in the potential to add various defenses to the open routes needed (improved barracades as well as booby traps from deadfalls to mines to firebombs) holding an industrial area could easily be a major advantage. Especially if you can set it up for enemies to have to funnel into a killing ground to try to get to you. As they do have the capacity to make ammo and (at least) crude grenades, simple traps can be quite effective, perticularly against the less intellegent (if more dagerous) inhabitants such as the Turned as they are more likely to stumble into them and potentailly be slowed/stopped by having a large wieght drop on them long enough for the defenders to douse it with something flammable and ignite it. Molotov Cocktails are extreamely simple to make and use and as fire is one of mankind's best weapons against virtually everything.....Bladed_Crescent wrote:If you want to survive long-term on DROP 47, you need a secure facility that can hold off infiltrations and attacks, including short-term assaults and long sieges. However, these places can't 'turtle' indefinitely - the inhabitants will need to leave at some point. i.e. as we saw, the Masks' main industrial site (North Arm's subsidiary engineering) is a fair distance from the colony - and anyone going to or coming from that facility is vulnerable to ambush. It's too great a distance to totally secure, but the manufacture of weapons, tools and replacement parts isn't something that can be done "locally", as it were. So work crews need to leave the far more defensible colony and travel, which makes them vulnerable to attack.A question I have is, how much conflict is there on the station between its more permanent inhabitants? The settlement sounded reasonably established, which suggests that it's not particularly vulnerable to other tribes or to any of the beasties.
Launching a large-scale attack on another tribe's main base, a garden, heavily infested area or [deleted] is beyond the capability of most of the station's inhabitants, limiting them to these small raids. It takes something special for a tribe to mobilize its defenders en masse.
Fair enough - it just seems to me that you've tapped pretty much every other variant of stuff likely to send a shiver down the spine, with the possible exception of parasitic infection by botfly-esque bugs. I can't think of any particular reason that you'd want to try merging machine and flesh, but reason is skewed on the Drop.Bladed_Crescent wrote:Not certain that that's something we'll see. I'm sure there's been some experimentation of that sort (possibly even ongoing), but despite a wide variety of genetic backgrounds and modifications, the people here are human, not ork.
That's not to say it can't happen, though. There are plenty of crazies left on DROP 47.
Interesting. What about conflict with other groups - like the monsters and zombie-esque things we saw earlier on, or the various creeping dooms and implied horrors? Are the tribes and their kin just able to work around them, or are the monsters more territorial than they are interested in killing things, or what?Let's see how well I can answer whilst spoiling as little as possible...
Quite a bit (which we'll get into later), though most of it is centered around raiding other tribes for food, supplies or people (for breeding stock or technical knowledge) rather than open warfare. There are the three large tribes that the Watcher described: Masks, Whitefaces and Red Hands as well as many smaller groups - family units that fled/were driven out of larger clans, groups of survivors trying to make it on their own, a handful of lone (or very small groups) of psychopaths preying on the rest, people with their own agenda/delusions. Most of these small aggregations don't last very long.
If you want to survive long-term on DROP 47, you need a secure facility that can hold off infiltrations and attacks, including short-term assaults and long sieges. However, these places can't 'turtle' indefinitely - the inhabitants will need to leave at some point. i.e. as we saw, the Masks' main industrial site (North Arm's subsidiary engineering) is a fair distance from the colony - and anyone going to or coming from that facility is vulnerable to ambush. It's too great a distance to totally secure, but the manufacture of weapons, tools and replacement parts isn't something that can be done "locally", as it were. So work crews need to leave the far more defensible colony and travel, which makes them vulnerable to attack.
Launching a large-scale attack on another tribe's main base, a garden, heavily infested area or [deleted] is beyond the capability of most of the station's inhabitants, limiting them to these small raids. It takes something special for a tribe to mobilize its defenders en masse.
Currently? Yes. Normally? Not in any large numbers, but they have ways of keeping an eye on things, just in case...[/quote][R_H] wrote:Aren't the unknowns (eyes in the dark?) also present inside the DROP?
A lot.Junghalli wrote:Like let's assume you had a place like that and you wanted to take over it, say it is an STL universe so your expedition cannot count on reinforcements and you have a competent generic space military, what would you need to take with you and how much to be able to pacify the place.
Automated would be much better than remote-controlled. Remember that your control links would have to deal with: i) the influence of the Mists themselves (though abated by DROP 47's hull), ii) the station's own bulk and dense superstructure and iii) in-house jamming. While the mercenaries were able to (partially) communicate after Abigail knocked out just one jammer, recall that their sensors are a lot worse off. If you're intending to control a drone with any degree of precision or reaction time, you've got an uphill battle ahead of you. Even automated ones would have problems with the sensor-scattering of the DROP's own structure - humans can rely on the Mk. I eyeball and that's what your combat units would be reduced to. Or something in a similar vein - night vision, infrared, etc.The Vortex Empire wrote:I imagine a metric shitton of automated or remotely controlled combat drones would be a good start for the ground troops in the station.
Aye, and there's the rub. The Masks didn't choose their colony site at random; it's convenient to several areas throughout the arm and it has plenty of living space (in addition to other benefits; perhaps it's near a source of clean water - which also means food). The engineering section does not and will not have those benefits. In fact, as a habitat, it has several downsides.Grimtosh wrote:Personally I would move the tribe to the main industrial site. Especially if there is a source of food nearby or if you could take your own with you (as in seedling/sprouts/whathaveyou), as you would then reduce the need to leave the colony while still maintaining your colony's needs.
Which is pretty much what I've mentioned being done in multiple places.As they do have some tech capabilities, I could see them sealing off some corridors and vents as needed with industrial plates or just simply welding doors shut to reduce the number of possible attack routes.
You want to be really careful how much fire you use in a confined space. Even on something the size of DROP 47.Molotov Cocktails are extremely simple to make and use and as fire is one of mankind's best weapons against virtually everything.....
I'm not sure what you mean by 'zombie-esque' things. If you're referring to Primal's crew, I'd assumed it was clear that that was the earlier stage of a Turned (recall the Watcher's video diary of what happened to his love).xt828 wrote:What about conflict with other groups - like the monsters and zombie-esque things we saw earlier on, or the various creeping dooms and implied horrors? Are the tribes and their kin just able to work around them, or are the monsters more territorial than they are interested in killing things, or what?
In order: there's more than one currently on the DROP, yes, no, you'll find out.[R_H] wrote:Was the one on the DROP in power armour? Was it alone? What is their connection to the Imperium?
