Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[StoneSlinger88]

This is my reaction to this thread at the moment.

[Kippershy]

I think feeling a sense of responsibility for your ancestors wrong doings is important for society.

Just look at Germany.

West Germans are dour motherfuckers that are by and large taught they need to live to make up for their grandfathers sins.

East Germans were taught they were good little communists that were victims.

Take a guess where all the neo-nazis came from.

I'm pretty sure that's an outright quote from a book I've read. 

But...no. Call me crazy, but I'm rather a fan of personal responsibility. I don't claim credit for inventing the light bulb because an American did. I don't claim to have cured Polio because an American did. I don't claim to have stormed Utah beach because my grandfather did. I am a grown-ass man. My accomplishments, my failings, and my mistakes are mine and no one else's. I will not shoulder centuries-old crimes, bear guilt and punishment for actions I never even considered doing.

Max Brooks - World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
It was a direct word for word quote, yeah. Popped in again because Camu is a big ol' bag of bones and I needed to pick one with him about his abandoning me.

[Stringtheory]

I think feeling a sense of responsibility for your ancestors wrong doings is important for society.

Just look at Germany.

West Germans are dour motherfuckers that are by and large taught they need to live to make up for their grandfathers sins.

East Germans were taught they were good little communists that were victims.

Take a guess where all the neo-nazis came from.

I'm pretty sure that's an outright quote from a book I've read. 

But...no. Call me crazy, but I'm rather a fan of personal responsibility. I don't claim credit for inventing the light bulb because an American did. I don't claim to have cured Polio because an American did. I don't claim to have stormed Utah beach because my grandfather did. I am a grown-ass man. My accomplishments, my failings, and my mistakes are mine and no one else's. I will not shoulder centuries-old crimes, bear guilt and punishment for actions I never even considered doing.

Max Brooks - World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Ugh, that book...

[Ironmonger]

@Stone

What came to mind upon seeing that was someone shouting "The power of your ass will propel you!", followed by them chucking a gigantic bean burrito at him. This thought may be the result of too much coffee and not enough sleep.

[Scienza]

@Frost
I guess. In the end, it's all about finding a balance of one sort or another.

@Stone

What came to mind upon seeing that was someone shouting "The power of your ass will propel you!", followed by them chucking a gigantic bean burrito at him. This thought may be the result of too much coffee and not enough sleep.

"The power of your ass propels me" is going to be my next pick-up line.

[Vinylshadow]

As Calvin's dad once said: "I just live here."

I'm not taking sides in a conflict that I have no stakes in


Besides, more time to refine my plans

[Ironmonger]

"The power of your ass propels me" is going to be my next pick-up line.

Most successful line ever.

[Tytan]

I think feeling a sense of responsibility for your ancestors wrong doings is important for society.

Just look at Germany.

West Germans are dour motherfuckers that are by and large taught they need to live to make up for their grandfathers sins.

East Germans were taught they were good little communists that were victims.

Take a guess where all the neo-nazis came from.

I'm pretty sure that's an outright quote from a book I've read. 

But...no. Call me crazy, but I'm rather a fan of personal responsibility. I don't claim credit for inventing the light bulb because an American did. I don't claim to have cured Polio because an American did. I don't claim to have stormed Utah beach because my grandfather did. I am a grown-ass man. My accomplishments, my failings, and my mistakes are mine and no one else's. I will not shoulder centuries-old crimes, bear guilt and punishment for actions I never even considered doing.

Max Brooks - World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
It was a direct word for word quote, yeah. Popped in again because Camu is a big ol' bag of bones and I needed to pick one with him about his abandoning me.

I will admit I got the basic idea from World War Z, but shut up Kip it wasn't word for word.

I deliberately made it not word for word, but fuck me if Mr. Brooks didn't perfectly word it. So rewording it without making it sounding dumb was hard without making it sound like the original.

Also, you know Camo's computer has been broken right?

[Frost]

That book was full to the fucking brim of logical flaws and factual errors (despite its fans claiming it's how a zombie apocalypse would "really happen") and I'm quite positive that's one of them.

[Stringtheory]

That book was full to the fucking brim of logical flaws and factual errors (despite its fans claiming it's how a zombie apocalypse would "really happen") and I'm quite positive that's one of them.

Agreed, I probably be willing to overlook a lot of those errors if the prose didn't come across as being so smug about itself, as if Mr. Brooks actually believed what he was writing was factually correct when it obviously wasn't.

On a unrelated note:

Da Fuck?:

[Frost]

Quasi-related:

[Vinylshadow]

Zombie apocalypse scenarios can never really agree 'how' it starts

I prefer Brooks' or Romero's slow zombies over fast or superpowered zombies

And then there's Left 4 Dead...

Yeah, they may seem like laughably easy to kill, but they somehow manage to sneak around and nom a lot of people...

Although, realistically,  would a halfway competent military have a hard time clearing up an outbreak?

[Stringtheory]

Zombie apocalypse scenarios can never really agree 'how' it starts

I prefer Brooks' or Romero's slow zombies over fast or superpowered zombies

And then there's Left 4 Dead...

Yeah, they may seem like laughably easy to kill, but they somehow manage to sneak around and nom a lot of people...

Although, realistically,  would a halfway competent military have a hard time clearing up an outbreak?

I have to admit Brook's zombies are probably my favorite kind, too bad he can't write political 'satire' (if you can even call it that), that's why I prefer his earlier book 'Zombie survival guide'.

I'll let the actual military people weigh in on your question of military vs. zombie battle before contributing my opinion and probably embarrassing myself.

[Scienza]

That book was full to the fucking brim of logical flaws and factual errors (despite its fans claiming it's how a zombie apocalypse would "really happen") and I'm quite positive that's one of them.

The military parts were ridiculous but the civilian bits were alright, especially the ones that dealt with exactly how far an average person would go when things really fell to shit. I found the characters and their attitudes very interesting. The format of the book as a documentation of the war rather than a straight novel was rather inventive as well.

I think Brooks' main flaw was that he tried too hard to explain how the apocalypse happens. A zombie apocalypse should be a vehicle to put the characters in a no-holds barred civilization-breaking situation rather than the absolute main focus, since when you try and get too technical, it only shows how ridiculous the scenario is. So stuff like "the whole goddamn US army lost because they didn't bring more than three shells" is just insane. A simple "most of the military was deployed overseas when the Panic started" would have worked better, but nooo, it has to be explicitly shown.

I feel like the Walking Dead took a better tact when it just did a "fuck it, it doesn't matter how it happened, it just did and that's how things are," since it focuses less on the zombies (because they're boring) and more on the state of humanity post-everything.

[Tytan]

How about we change the subject to something with a little less hate.

Turns out the ball droid from the new Star Wars trailer wasn't CGI. It was a live prop.

[Scienza]

That's actually kinda impressive, even if Ball-R2 hurts me.

Also, they revealed the names of the characters shown in the trailer. I'm desperately pretending that "Rey" is short for Jaina.

Also, named Stormtrooper means that we might finally see them in all their EU-skill-level asskicking glory!

[Tytan]

Sci, you can't deny that plot line went to some terrible places. I'm kinda glad they're going in fresh. (Even if it did ruin most of my favorite canon)

[Scienza]

Aye, but I'd still like the old canon to get a nod or at least have some of its better bits carry over. Jaina was one of my favorite characters in the EU after Thrawn and Mara, and I'd love to see her get promoted to G-canon (Jacen and Anakin are optional). The reboot doesn't necessarily have to be a complete wipe, it just means that any time a prior source conflicts with anything new, the new wins.

Also, the Legacy comics were awesome.

[Frost]

I'll let the actual military people weigh in on your question of military vs. zombie battle before contributing my opinion and probably embarrassing myself.

Imagine a matchup between an undead chihuahua and a cokehead velociraptor painted red, white and blue. That's about how it would go.

A horde of approaching zombies is what we in the business call a "target-rich environment". Worst-case scenario--say, for some reason, all the guys on the line ran out of ammo; all the close-air support got fucked up due to weather, all the tank shells and autocannon fire was insufficient to completely stop the horde--well, they're still sitting there with hundreds of tanks, IFV's, and support vehicles, and, well there's a reason crewmen refer to dismounts as "crunchies"

In any other scenario, you've got thousands of rifles' worth of precision fire, thousands of machine guns going full-cyclic, thousands of grenade launchers and shoulder-fired launchers, hundreds of tanks and IFV's with main weapons, coaxial machine guns, and grenade launchers, several batteries' worth of artillery, and entire airbases' worth of close air support craft like the A-10, the Apache, the AC-130 series, numerous saturation bombers, and cruise missiles; And all that fear and near-panic you see in the book? Yeah, no. That is every combat-arms soldier's fucking wet dream. A target-rich environment, no IED's to worry about, not even return fire, no nagging doubts about shooting down someone's son, or husband, or father, or whatever, hell, no real need even to aim, 'cause you're hittin' something in front of you with every trigger squeeze--No ROE's, no whining armchair generals, nothing but orders to rain hate and paint the whole town red. 

The "Battle" of Jonkers would have lasted about twelve fucking seconds.

[Frost]

Related: On an Army buddy of mine's Facebook:

"My alarm scared me more this morning than ISIS has their whole existence."

Spoiler:

[Scienza]

I'll let the actual military people weigh in on your question of military vs. zombie battle before contributing my opinion and probably embarrassing myself.

Imagine a matchup between an undead chihuahua and a cokehead velociraptor painted red, white and blue. That's about how it would go.

A horde of approaching zombies is what we in the business call a "target-rich environment". Worst-case scenario--say, for some reason, all the guys on the line ran out of ammo; all the close-air support got fucked up due to weather, all the tank shells and autocannon fire was insufficient to completely stop the horde--well, they're still sitting there with hundreds of tanks, IFV's, and support vehicles, and, well there's a reason crewmen refer to dismounts as "crunchies"

In any other scenario, you've got thousands of rifles' worth of precision fire, thousands of machine guns going full-cyclic, thousands of grenade launchers and shoulder-fired launchers, hundreds of tanks and IFV's with main weapons, coaxial machine guns, and grenade launchers, several batteries' worth of artillery, and entire airbases' worth of close air support craft like the A-10, the Apache, the AC-130 series, numerous saturation bombers, and cruise missiles; And all that fear and near-panic you see in the book? Yeah, no. That is every combat-arms soldier's fucking wet dream. A target-rich environment, no IED's to worry about, not even return fire, no nagging doubts about shooting down someone's son, or husband, or father, or whatever, hell, no real need even to aim, 'cause you're hittin' something in front of you with every trigger squeeze--No ROE's, no whining armchair generals, nothing but orders to rain hate and paint the whole town red. 

The "Battle" of Jonkers would have lasted about twelve fucking seconds.

Would numbers be a problem eventually? The only defense I can think of for the outcome was that they said it was like two-thirds of the population of New York City, which means they'd be dealing with like five million zombies.

[Frost]

Would numbers be a problem eventually? The only defense I can think of for the outcome was that they said it was like two-thirds of the population of New York City, which means they'd be dealing with like five million zombies.

Hell, maybe, eventually, they run low on ammunition (Though the vast bulk of the horde would be soup at that point) but it's not like they'd "lose" at that point. A fighting retreat while resupply is en route would be a casual walk at a not-particularly-brisk pace.

[Scienza]

That's actually kinda impressive, even if Ball-R2 hurts me.

Why are people upset about that droid, anyway?

Because it's ridiculous and silly. I mean, sure, the original R2 design had flaws, but who said "I know, let's take one of the two most beloved robots in cinematic history and turn him into a soccer ball!"

I guess it makes sense for toy and licensing purposes (can you imagine the frenzy if the ball they used in the World Cup was him?), but it's just pointlessly silly. I can only shudder to think of what the new version of C-3PO is.

@Frost
Aye, the whole "Army is physically incapable of doing a competent retreat" bit was just ridiculous. Because if a bunch of civilians in a sedan can escape the zombie hordes, surely the most powerful military in the world should be able to do the same.

[Frost]

The fucking ridiculous thing was HE shells, JDAMs, and other massive-yield ordinance doing jack shit against clusters of squishy targets. I don't care if, for some magical reason, that human body is utterly immune to damage except precisely to the head (which is how the book treats it), if a tank shoots its main gun, the concussive force alone can kill every non-hardened target within a 90-degree cone of the muzzle for about fifty meters, and one within a 45-degree cone for about two hundred. Nevermind what happens when the shell impacts. The zombies would have been tripping and drowning in the soup of liquefied bodies of their predecessors.

[Scienza]

It's obviously because you should check your privileges, cis-alive scum. Stop repressing these poor maligned undead.

On an unrelated note, I've been listening to a lot of Cut, Paste, and Kill, and it works a whole lot more than I ever would have expected.

[Frost]

Hey, some of my best friends are undead

[Vinylshadow]

Droids come in all shapes and sizes

A R2-Ball is rather tame, although I bet it has a seething hatred for stairs

[Stringtheory]

I only watched the trailer once. Is that really R2D2 in a different body? I had just figured it for a random droid.

Probably just a random droid, R2-D2's too iconic to change.

[Vinylshadow]

Nope, VII is a completely original story (with some familiar faces)
They also built a new Threepio suit for Daniels

No EU concepts, although there is probably an accidental fanfiction reference or three somewhere

At least Williams is making the music

[Epsilon]

I only watched the trailer once. Is that really R2D2 in a different body? I had just figured it for a random droid.

Probably just a random droid, R2-D2's too iconic to change.

It's apparently called BB-8. The names of the rest of the revealed characters can also be found there.

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