Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: ↑Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:25 pm
YESS> YES YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES>
you have NO FLIPPING IDEA how much the un-bendable "platinum" robots bugged me. It's super rare/expensive, soft as butter and heavy as fuck. It is the least fucking practical material for building giant robots ever.
To be fair, they kind of wrote themselves into a corner once Toph developed metalbending (which is kind of a gamebreaking power when you think about it). They had to cheat to give the qi-blockers superhuman agility and the ability to punch through steel in S1 of Korra; even then, it is completely neutralized by the obvious countermeasure (form spikes over all the main qi nodes, wait for them to punch you, then try not to fall over laughing until after you shatter their spines). The only way to consistently stop a metalbender is with electricity.
Seriously, Beifong's metalbending heavies should have been able to steamroll pretty much anything - even more so with proper combined arms tactics utilizing the other benders at their disposal. It pretty much had to be a giant mecha with an unstoppable energy cannon.
But to go back to my original point, I just wish they had said it was a titanium alloy, and not platinum.
Independent George wrote: ↑Fri Jul 13, 2018 5:00 am
To be fair, they kind of wrote themselves into a corner once Toph developed metalbending (which is kind of a gamebreaking power when you think about it).
Yes and no. It's really only a problem if you write that sort of escalation into your story. They had the power to put a cap on things, but they didn't. It could have worked for the extended metaphor about benders and non-benders and the continuous expansion of that gap between them, but so much time was wasted in Season 1 that it was left unexamined, and then dropped (and resolved in Season 2's previously-on segment!).
I really want to headcanon an entire rewrite to that season which goes after the initial premise without swerving away someday.
1. The Alliance is actually closer to the Confederacy than the Browncoats as slavery was one of the issues that they supported. In this case, it was debt slavery and the fact people can and would spend the rest of their lives as the property of others or corporations with little to no rights. It's also controlled by an elite of wealthy landowners who control 99.99% of the wealth in the territories. The rulers of the Outer Planets are also a faux-aristocracy created by their supporters.
2. Mal's opinion of the Browncoats is not exactly accurate and they were an alliance of some pretty terrible people along with some decent ones. The only thing they had in common was independence and plenty of the population was eager to get Alliance support (like 55 to 45% on most planets for Pro vs. Against Independence). The Browncoats winning the war was always impossible to begin with.
3. The Alliance gives up most of the direct rule of the planets in the next 10-15 years because the Outer Planets are incredibly expensive to run. This irony is not lost on the survivors of the war in much the same way the British Empire lost its territories for financial reasons.
4. The Parliament which ordered the atrocities on Miranda gets mostly replaced with the Alliance not losing any of its grip. Quite a lot of them suffer mysterious "accidents" or medical conditions that result in them being confined to medical facilities in the months that follow. The political machine moves on.
Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: ↑Thu Jul 12, 2018 7:25 pm
YESS> YES YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES>
you have NO FLIPPING IDEA how much the un-bendable "platinum" robots bugged me. It's super rare/expensive, soft as butter and heavy as fuck. It is the least fucking practical material for building giant robots ever.
To be fair, they kind of wrote themselves into a corner once Toph developed metalbending (which is kind of a gamebreaking power when you think about it). They had to cheat to give the qi-blockers superhuman agility and the ability to punch through steel in S1 of Korra; even then, it is completely neutralized by the obvious countermeasure (form spikes over all the main qi nodes, wait for them to punch you, then try not to fall over laughing until after you shatter their spines). The only way to consistently stop a metalbender is with electricity.
Seriously, Beifong's metalbending heavies should have been able to steamroll pretty much anything - even more so with proper combined arms tactics utilizing the other benders at their disposal. It pretty much had to be a giant mecha with an unstoppable energy cannon.
But to go back to my original point, I just wish they had said it was a titanium alloy, and not platinum.
I wonder if plastic would be anachronistic since the technology is supposed to be diesel-punk. Still, they should have foreshadowed it before they suddenly sprung it on the audience. Like Korra sees a robber get away from a metal bender by throwing a gold bar right at his face with knocks him flat. When asked why he didn't stop it he explains that metal bending doesn't actually work if the metal is pure enough, and usually the only metals that are pure enough are gold, silver and platinum.
Genetic engineering explains (maybe) his having spider introns in his DNA, as it hitched a ride with some spider gene the geneticists wanted for his ancestor. It also explains the failure of Dr. Crusher's cure in the episode "Genesis" since she hadn't expected that his DNA wouldn't be typical for a human. It's maybe given him some vague emotional instability, along with a feeling that he doesn't fit in, and that he could be more.
Dr. Crusher probably realized this after the failure of her cure in "Genesis," but she respected medical confidentiality enough not to tell anyone we saw her talking to. It's anyone's guess as to whether she told Barclay; he should know but it's not like the guy doesn't have enough issues already.
My headcanon for Star Wars is the original three movies plus the books up until Timothy Zhan's "Hand of Thrawn" duology. Visions of the Future, to me, is the definitive ending to the story of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo and Mara Jade.
I get the feeling that when Zahn wrote the book he knew they were coming to the end of an era. Phantom Menace would be coming out soon and I think he was very aware of the fact that Star Wars would never be the same after that, for better or for worse. After Visions various authors would begin retroactively incorporating elements from the Prequels into the EU, even if it wasn't really contiguous with what they'd previously established.
And don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed many, MANY Star Wars works since 1999. Hell, I'm one of the few who's been genuinely enjoying the Sequel films. And Solo. Not Rogue One though... Wanted to, but it just bored me to tears. But for me? MY Star Wars ended in 1998.
Last edited by KashyBoy101 on Mon Aug 20, 2018 4:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
Mass Effect 3 ends with Shepard leading a massed assault on the Citadel, with Wrex, their companions, and an army of krogan, turians, humans, geth, asari, quarians, and others by their side. Shepard is forced to go it alone amid a pitched battle between armed holdouts on the Citadel + Shep's forces and Reaper ground troops; Shep makes it to the core, activates Vendetta as the Catalyst, and nukes the Reapers. Shep is badly injured but saved by their companions and limps off into the sunset.
Knight Rider/Battlestar Galactica: Knight Industries is built on technology reverse engineered from the two cylons that landed on earth in Galactica 1980.
phantom000 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 27, 2018 12:52 amKnight Rider/Battlestar Galactica: Knight Industries is built on technology reverse engineered from the two cylons that landed on earth in Galactica 1980.
Are you talking about the old-school Battlestar Galactica or BSG?
