the Schlock Mercenary thread

[Formless]

In the spirit of the Order of the Stick thread, I wanted to see at the least how many people here read Schlock Mercenary and what people think of it. I know from at least a few threads that there are people who are familiar with it, but otherwise it gets very little discussion, not even much use in VS debates. So this thread is to get the discussion rolling, shall we?

[Sheridan]

Ominous Hummmmm...all that need be said...

[The Yosemite Bear]

ok, where can I get the habits of highly effective pirates in 21st century dead tree format?



I think this is what the burna bots are playing...

[RecklessPrudence]

Schlock Mercenary remains the only webcomic that I have bought the dead-tree versions of (although that may change soon, with some OotS purchases).

Plus, it's one of the few webcomics out there that an update being late (forget about missing one altogether - just doesn't happen!) is cause for concern, and not just another time it's happened (when does that comic update again? Oh, it hasn't since '07?).

[Lord of the Abyss]

It's one of my three favorite web comics; Order of the Stick and Girl Genius being the other two. I'm not surpsirsed it gets little use in vrs debates; there don't seem to be too many these days here, and Schlocktech is overpowered against too many opponents. Teraport---> *BOOM*. Is how most debates would likely end up.

[Ford Prefect]

I enjoy it. As far as military science fiction goes its far better than the usual drivel which dominates the market, like stuff by David Weber or John Ringo. I like the art and I think the setting itself is pleasantly dysfunctional, and I've never managed to pick up any sort of 'agenda' like you often find in military sci-fi. Tayler's dedication to his update schedule is very impressive and for the most part I think his writing is solid. While some story decisions seem unecessary (for example the time travel arc, which Tayler seemingly did just because he felt like it), I find the characters fun and reasonably engaging.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I'm a schlock- fan, although I find the fact that the character Howard himself claims to identify with most being Hugo Levaughn Matsui Xinchub somewhat disturbing.

There are Schlock-specific forums easily findable from the current page, and some discussion does go on there, mainly internal though.

Versus, yes- Teraport is one of those cool things, like effectors, that isn't really brute force, it's subtlety and sophistication (and this comment would be recieved extremely poorly in universe), it just bypasses so much of what's available as possible defences that very few people could deal with it effectively.

Petey, also. How do you outguess the Fleetmind?

I do enjoy it, I referenced it once, I read it regularly, although the archives are the best place- they reward re- reading now and then, just to trace the larger arcs and see how it all fits together. The time travel thing fitted with the gatekeepers,, with the Pa'anuri wars, with the big plot- Howard is really good at building on his onw old stuff to make everything fit together.

[Vendetta]

Versus, yes- Teraport is one of those cool things, like effectors, that isn't really brute force, it's subtlety and sophistication (and this comment would be recieved extremely poorly in universe)

Well, really it's just a sophisticated way to deliver brute force.

[Formless]

But on the other hand, the teraport has always been fairly easy to interdict, hasn't it? All it takes is the ability to generate gravity waves, which means that anyone who has the ability to generate artificial gravity (even the Star Trek powers) should be able to figure out some sort of interdiction. Schlocktech isn't the highest on firepower since they are limited to anti-matter as their highest yield weaponry, which means the Empire strictly speaking outguns them. The only question is does the power Schlockverse is fighting have enough time to develop anti-teraport tech, or do they get blitzkrieged while they are still defenseless?

[Dahak]

I religiously follow it, it makes my mornings a lot more fun together with Dilbert.
I was a bit sad when I went through the archives and suddenly couldn't read dozens of stripes at a day

[Ford Prefect]

Schlocktech isn't the highest on firepower since they are limited to anti-matter as their highest yield weaponry

They have teraton range conversion bombs the size of watermelons and the Fleetmind controls power equivalent to the output of millions of supergiant stars. Their highest yield weaponry is powered by practically magic direct conversion of neutronium into energy, and your average plate-class ship like the Tunguska can dismantle a smallish moon with implied triviality, and we know there are more powerful battleplates than the Tunguska - apart from the fact that we've seen a larger human navy, there is a discussion which refers to O'benn battleplates being monstrous in comparison to the rest of the galaxy, and there are the Fleetmind vessels with the massive annie plants.

However, I am somewhat disappointed that it took less than ten posts to devolve into this sort of nonsense.

[Formless]

However, I am somewhat disappointed that it took less than ten posts to devolve into this sort of nonsense.

Sorry, with a comic as long running as Schlock and with the way they always treat anti-matter as serious shit, it can be easy to forget the higher energy events that have happened. Its literally blink-and-you-miss-it, but anti-matter is more recurring and more memorable.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Blink and miss it? Did you forget the part where the dark matter beings from andromeda conned the gatekeepers into a 'zero point energy project' that would have destroyed the galaxy- the catastrophe the whole time travel thing was about making unhappen?

Seriously, show me a bigger bomb than an active galactic nucleus liberating it's mass as gravitic wormholes and I will- well, first attempt disbelief then boggle appropriately, but you know what I mean.

On the other hand, that's not necessarily the scary part. The big explosions frequently are special events, non- routine things, infantry/light armour level firepower really does top out at antimatter charges.

The scary part is that they figured it out and managed to stop it. Who is there who can out-think Petey in a battle of misinformation and misdirection? He started out around Culture Mind- level before he went massively multiple.

All right, perhaps a little lower because of the lesser complexity of the systems he had to manage- but not after the teraport wars. Now that he's the central intelligence of a million- ship collective AI, I'm not sure I'd be perpared to bet on anybody against him. Maybe the Xeelee, but they have special advantages of their own.

[Formless]

Blink and miss it? Did you forget the part where the dark matter beings from andromeda conned the gatekeepers into a 'zero point energy project' that would have destroyed the galaxy- the catastrophe the whole time travel thing was about making unhappen?

I didn't miss that, but the only power in Shlock verse that has access to zero point energy is the Fleetmind, who we have already established has other advantages anyway that WOULD make it fairly hard to fight. All the other powers (esp. the folks we actually follow) use considerably weaker weaponry than that.

But to be fair, perhaps I could be more specific-- seems I'm drawing all kinds of flak today for very little effort or stupidity on my part.

[NecronLord]

The scary part is that they figured it out and managed to stop it. Who is there who can out-think Petey in a battle of misinformation and misdirection? He started out around Culture Mind- level before he went massively multiple.

Don't throw terms like that out, there's no way to quantify such things.

All right, perhaps a little lower because of the lesser complexity of the systems he had to manage- but not after the teraport wars. Now that he's the central intelligence of a million- ship collective AI, I'm not sure I'd be perpared to bet on anybody against him. Maybe the Xeelee, but they have special advantages of their own.

Off the top of my head; The Time Lords could deal with him. Without even leaving their weird sixties plastic chairs on Gallifrey. Just splatter the Toughs when he's with them, and hey presto, no fleetmind.

[Coalition]

However, I am somewhat disappointed that it took less than ten posts to devolve into this sort of nonsense.

Sorry, with a comic as long running as Schlock and with the way they always treat anti-matter as serious shit, it can be easy to forget the higher energy events that have happened. Its literally blink-and-you-miss-it, but anti-matter is more recurring and more memorable.

Too true. Antimatter epaulets anyone?

[Darth Hoth]

Blink and miss it? Did you forget the part where the dark matter beings from andromeda conned the gatekeepers into a 'zero point energy project' that would have destroyed the galaxy- the catastrophe the whole time travel thing was about making unhappen?

Seriously, show me a bigger bomb than an active galactic nucleus liberating it's mass as gravitic wormholes and I will- well, first attempt disbelief then boggle appropriately, but you know what I mean.

On the other hand, that's not necessarily the scary part. The big explosions frequently are special events, non- routine things, infantry/light armour level firepower really does top out at antimatter charges.

The scary part is that they figured it out and managed to stop it. Who is there who can out-think Petey in a battle of misinformation and misdirection? He started out around Culture Mind- level before he went massively multiple.

All right, perhaps a little lower because of the lesser complexity of the systems he had to manage- but not after the teraport wars. Now that he's the central intelligence of a million- ship collective AI, I'm not sure I'd be perpared to bet on anybody against him. Maybe the Xeelee, but they have special advantages of their own.

Good old Lensman and Skylark were written back when automatic electronic computers were the dernier cri, but have proved to have surprising staying power in Vs.

Big explosions - Lensman's final superweapon was planetary masses travelling at multiple-c speeds in "real" space-time, thus accruing imaginary masses. They were theoretically capable of causing accelerated "Big Crunch" events in "zero time".

Single Skylark-class ships were capable of teleporting millions of stellar masses over intergalactic distances in order to drop them on top of their enemies' planets.

As for "super intelligence," I have yet to see a computer that could outthink the Arisians in Lensman. Even Culture Minds do not usually predict with perfect accuracy and by sheer mathematical derivation in which shop a given woman who has yet to be born in a thousand years will buy her wedding dress.

[Hawkwings]

If your model is good enough and your data accurate enough, I'm sure you can make a case for predicting stuff an arbitrary amount of time in the future. Uncertainty still gets you at some point though. How do you define "think" in this context anyways?

[Simon_Jester]

However, I am somewhat disappointed that it took less than ten posts to devolve into this sort of nonsense.

Sorry, with a comic as long running as Schlock and with the way they always treat anti-matter as serious shit, it can be easy to forget the higher energy events that have happened. Its literally blink-and-you-miss-it, but anti-matter is more recurring and more memorable.

Formless, antimatter is not to be sneered at, and routine use of it implies a fairly high level of technology by science fiction standards. In Schlock they use the stuff as if it were just another type of explosive, to the point where no one is surprised to see antimatter grenades being thrown around... except for the obvious surprise at seeing someone suicidal enough to use a kiloton-range hand grenade in the first place.

Compare this to our local touchstone of high-tech science fiction settings, Star Wars. How much simpler would the commando raid against the shield bunker on Endor have been if the Rebels had been carrying a few backpacks full of Schlock-style fullerened antimatter?

So of course they treat antimatter as serious shit. It is serious shit on the scale of ground actions, people operating inside a city, that sort of thing... and since the strip follows the actions of a mercenary company, we see a lot of that.

[Vendetta]

Compare this to our local touchstone of high-tech science fiction settings, Star Wars. How much simpler would the commando raid against the shield bunker on Endor have been if the Rebels had been carrying a few backpacks full of Schlock?

Fixed that for you

[Simon_Jester]

That might well have worked too, though I'm not sure Schlock would be able to get past the door more effectively than his weight in fullerened antimatter.

Or did you mean "Schlock" in the non-comic sense of the word, meaning something along the lines of "cheap rubbish?"

[Formless]

I think it should be obvious what he means from the smiley.

[Swindle1984]

*ominous hummmmmmm*

Stormtrooper: "What the f-"

*THOOOOOOOOM!*

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Strange footnote, I think I might have found an applicable number. Might as in, yes I've found it, but it's going to be a bastard making it apply.

Now, this is remembered from a source I haven't yet been able to track down, but i'm reasonably confident it's not total gibberish- linguistic complexity.

New Scientist (yes, I know, but bear with me) article on SETI and the difficulty of recognising an alien signal, roughly late 2007, and one of the methods proposed was seing how intricately self- referential the signal was.

Most current human languages are ninth order, from what I remember from the article, which is to say meanings built on meanings built on meanings and so on, through a chain of development nine steps long.

An advanced alien civiisation may have developed through further stages of linguistic reference and construction, and if this is so would be distinctively different- a tenth or eleventh order communication would be easily distinguishable as not being the product of man made noise or interference.

The interesting bit from the science- fiction point of view is that Iain M. Banks actually uses something very like this in parts of The Player of Games, minds talking to each other in higher levels of the culture's common language- he refers at one point to Maraiin [Culturese]-32.

Stanislaw Lem in the anthology Imaginary Magnitudes gives a good if physically far- out science fictional treatment of the idea of language levels, from the point of view of a late- generation AI trying to explain to the confused humans exactly what is going on. Worth a look.

The idea is that that might be a useful index number, an order-of-magnitude guide to the rough intellectual level of a supermind. Particularly as it measures performance on a current basis and not with unlimited prep time.


The problem here is that deciding, on the basis of the evidence, what level of complexity a fictional superintelligence actually displays, looks to be impossible verging on flamebait. Particularly as, for obvious literary reasons, we only see most of them when they're deliberately coming down to our level or have their interactions between each other translated for us. It's only a theory.


Teraporting isn't easily scramblable; it has to be something that functions in the same way as the teraport itself, nanoscopic gravitic wormholes. In the strip ships under gravitic fire, and with gravitic shields raised, can and do teraport out of (and, of course, into) trouble- and terapedoes have materialised aboard shielded ships to take them from the inside. That would make the bunker scene easy. Port in, drop backpacks, port out. Boom.

[Alerik the Fortunate]

As far as Petey & AI's go, they are definitely not the equal of Culture Minds. They are frequently surprised by, outsmarted by, or dependent on the aid of organic beings (in Petey's case, he has very strict built-in limits placed by his Ob'enn creators, so he is artificially hamstrung). Iain M. Banks repeatedly points out that an organic never gets the better of a true AI in the Culture setting.

Unrelated note: I am highly amused every time an unsuspecting lawyer drone from the Partnership Collective gets blown away in a new setting.