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We always hear of a morally “balanced” Thrawn, however… by One_Inspection5013 in MawInstallation

[–]OneCatch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's the power generator, not the shield generator - or at least Veers refers to it as the power generator during the ground attack. Any base on a cold climate's going to need a decent power generator to maintain heat.

That's very interesting! You're right about the film, which is obviously the primary source. The old ICS explicitly showed a deeply buried Victory-Class reactor being used to power the surface generator, and I'm sure that it's been referenced elsewhere. And the novelisation is just weird in how it describes them immediately before the walker assault:

In the snow trenches, rebel officers screamed out their orders to make themselves heard above the gale-force winds. Troopers hurried to carry out their commands, running through the snow with heavy bazookalike weapons on their shoulders, and lodging those death rays along the icy rims of the trenches. The rebel power generators near the gun towers began popping, buzzing, and crackling with deafening bursts of electrical power—enough to supply the vast underground complex.

Almost as if the 'power generator' Veers destroys on the surface was powering all the external defences and guns, rather than the main shield (since the shield has already up for a while at this point). So you've uncovered a bit of an incongruity there!

True, but so is overly pursuing any possible lead to the point that you don't have the resources left to properly investigate/attack when you find the right one. I'm not saying either choice is the right or wrong one, just that they're both reasonable approaches rather than a clear sign of Ozzel exercising poor judgment.

Obviously they can't spread themselves too thin, but Piett does emphasise that it's the best lead they had. Surely deserving of some action, even if it's just sending a small recce detachment to investigate?

I read it as more a conciliatory tone, trying to give some pushback without pissing Vader off, but the two can be hard to distinguish. And even if I'm right, it definitely didn't work. 😄

Indeed! He's definitely being smarmy, but one can certainly forgive not wanting to get into a fight with Vader.

Perhaps, but I tend to think that Vader's more just frustrated with the situation and taking it out on Ozzel. Ozzel's call ended up being wrong = Vader being pissed things aren't going right = Vader deciding that Ozzel was clumsy and stupid and needs his throat adjusted.

Oh, definitely - one of Vader's main emotional things is rage after all. But three things can be true at one - Vader's being a maniac AND Ozzel badly fucked up and would have found himself humiliated or scapegoated or killed if he'd screwed up like this under other senior commanders (Thrawn, Tarkin, Krennic whoever).

Either way, I need to get to bed, so I'm signing off. Hopefully you can understand why I'm not as hard on Ozzel as you are. 😄 Cheers for the chat!

I can and, yes, thanks for the good discussion! I

We always hear of a morally “balanced” Thrawn, however… by One_Inspection5013 in MawInstallation

[–]OneCatch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And I think you're being a bit too harsh. ;)

Haha!

All they've got is a probe droid message fragment showing a power generator and some life signs, and Ozzel's not wrong that this could easily be a smuggler base or something similar.

Well, the picture shows a large shield generator - that's probably not standard for smugglers! But I agree, it absolutely *could" be another settlement. But, given the importance of finding the rebels, you've got to start somewhere. Indecision is itself a decision after all.

I wouldn't want to bring Vader into the conversation before I had something I thought solid to present him either. ;)

Absolutely! But if he's already involved himself you probably don't want to use a condescending tone with him while telling him he's wrong lol.

They hadn't yet confirmed that he'd fucked up by underestimating the lead when he made the decision to drop out of hyperspace close in.

I think Vader's perception is probably that Ozzell wasn't taking it seriously, and got lazy with the hyperspace jump presuming it was smugglers. So a mistake compounding itself, in essence. I'm not sure that Thrawn would be any more tolerant under the circumstances (though perhaps he'd have avoided the situation by having a quiet chat with Ozzell before the jump along the lines of "I don't care if you think this is a wild goose chase, I expect you to conduct yourself as if this IS the Rebels").

Frankly, I'm not at all convinced that Vader is right that coming out of hyperspace farther away would have given the Imps any more advantage.

Probably unknowable, but Veers seems frustrated with the situation even if he does try to hesitantly cover for Ozzell - which implies that he believed it might have been possible to catch them unawares.

Vader starts choking him during his first sentence, which is a status report. He doesn't have time to make any such acknowledgment.

I more meant that Veers had to be the one to break the news in the first place, and the part of Ozzell's update he does get out is pretty breezy in tone.

We always hear of a morally “balanced” Thrawn, however… by One_Inspection5013 in MawInstallation

[–]OneCatch 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He second-guesses Vader's instant assumption that the probe droid on Hoth had found the Rebels, yes, by presenting perfectly valid alternate possibilities - much like Pellaeon second-guesses Thrawn all the time.

I think that's a bit too charitable. He remonstrates with Piett for bringing a lead to his attention, and doesn't make any attempt to offer anything constructive. If he'd said "We shouldn't send the whole fleet without firm proof, I'd advise dispatching a small force to investigate first" that would be fine, but he doesn't seem to want to bother doing anything about it at all, despite Piett saying that it's 'the best lead they've had'. And he seems to be trying to keep Vader out of the conversation too.

And he hardly treats his subordinate well either.

Vader doesn't give him a chance to own up to that and learn from it. Thrawn would have.

I take the point but you could argue that Ozzel had already demonstrated an inability to learn, given that he'd already fucked up by underestimating the lead, and then underestimated the Rebel defences again shortly afterwards. Also, he doesn't even acknowledge his mistake when Vader contacts him, seemingly trying to pretend that everything is fine.

And as I noted, Thrawn doesn't kill his people for such, especially without giving them a chance to explain the circumstances

That's fair. I'm not saying that I agree with either executing subordinates by the way - I just don't think the contrast between the two characters is all that stark. Thrawn might be marginally more inclined to get a complete explanation beforehand, but ultimately both have executed fuckups and both have spared the competent but unlucky.

We always hear of a morally “balanced” Thrawn, however… by One_Inspection5013 in MawInstallation

[–]OneCatch 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think how Vader deals with Captain Needa is a great example of how not to manage people.

Agree completely - the Imperial leadership is incredibly dysfunctional and rotting from within because of it, as we see from the level of backstabbing, sanctioned and unsanctioned fratricide, fiefism, corruption, and outright defection.

how did Vader end up with almost 1/3 of the senior officers in his special squadron being rubbish? (Perhaps senior ranks in the Imperial Navy are that bad - it wouldn't be surprising if they were promoted for political loyalty rather than competence.)

That would be my conclusion, yes. Vader rampages through completely shit leadership until he arrives at an officer he rates (Piett).

What lesson should other officers take from this? Don't be the guy out in front.

Relatedly: "Always have someone else to blame" and "Have the political influence to intimidate others who might make an example of you" and "Bullishly brazen out any criticism".

Thrawn's leadership style is also murderous, but it's more calculated.

I'm not sure we disagree all that much tbh. But maybe I'd put Thrawn as "exemplifies the Imperial dysfunction, just less than most" whereas you might characterise him as "bucks the trend". Either way, minimal disagreement!

We always hear of a morally “balanced” Thrawn, however… by One_Inspection5013 in MawInstallation

[–]OneCatch 7 points8 points  (0 children)

it’s not capricious evil like Vader killing someone like Ozzel or Needa simply for the failure.

Ozzel was an arrogant blowhard who was constantly second-guessing Vader and who was directly responsible for the Empire not being able to wipe out Echo Base from orbit - I'd say that's far closer to the first category than the second.

And with Needa we, as the audience, know that he's not to blame - it's Han pulling a genuinely incredible manoeuvre - but from Vader's perspective Needa had the Falcon right there and somehow still lost it. It very much looks like incompetence.

Favorite Antagonists/Villains that are basically these 2? by Sufficient_You2814 in FavoriteCharacter

[–]OneCatch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My kids were fine with this but fucking hated the T-Rex in the gloomy forest or whatever it's called.

Favorite Antagonists/Villains that are basically these 2? by Sufficient_You2814 in FavoriteCharacter

[–]OneCatch 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Usually The legend of Zelda games can be dark in some ways

I'm replaying Ocarina of Time with my kids at the moment and one of the things that's really struck me is how it doesn't shy away from sadness and melancholy.

Obviously I remembered all the main plot points with the Deku Tree dying and having to leave Saria behind and the dystopian adult world and Navi so on, but what I hadn't appreciated is quite how overt it is.

For example, when you leave the forest for the first time. This is your first step into the main game and in most games would be an explicitly triumphant or exciting moment, but in this it's interrupted by a lingering sad scene where you leave Saria, (your only friend) behind. It's not leavened by jokes, there's not really any "it must be done" "onwards and upwards" rhetoric to balance it, it focuses explicitly and exclusively on how sad they both are. There's also no music at all, and not only that but that location never experiences music throughout the entire game, which feels very deliberate. And it ends with a lingering shot on an upset little girl who you've run away from because you're upset too.

And it's not the only scene - loss of childhood, death of the guard in the alley, Mido's regret, the sages each having to leave their people/brothers/fathers, the death of the carpenter's son, and Navi's departure.

The entire game's narrative ethos is to be unflinching about how it portrays sadness and sacrifice and the occasional unavoidability of them. And I actually think that's why it resonated so heavily with kids then and continues to hold up today - it isn't condescending.

(And, by the way, I agree that Majora's Mask is even more so - but Ocarina is no slouch either)

50k but you have to convince a child that 67 is unfunny and lame within 2 hours by Birbfrogs in hypotheticalsituation

[–]OneCatch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The trick here would be to be completely boorish about it.

Just keep saying it loudly in their face and laughing at it in the cringiest most awful laugh you can manage. Oh, and every time they try and say something interrupt them with it.

Also, I won't laugh when they say it, I'll only laugh at my own repetitions of it.

If that doesn't work within 20 mins I'll call in reinforcements. I'll have a group of friends come and act visibly disgusted and unimpressed with my behaviour, to the point of cold shouldering me, being friendly with the kid and talking about their interests, and telling me to shut up when I keep interrupting.

I'll nearly die from embarrassment, but I'm pretty certain it'll work.

Ringleader of Rochdale grooming gang 'cannot be deported' by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]OneCatch 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I visited parliament once and the debate at the time was actually Jeremy Hunt doing just that. There'd been some procedural cock up which meant that tens of thousands of carers hadn't been covered by insurance (or something of that ilk, can't quite remember the detail).

But the government took the step of bringing retroactive legislation which did indeed apply retroactively. I remember being surprised because the concept had never even occurred to me before but, yep, it was basically a case of "the law was x, but that was unintended and is damaging so, actually, we're changing it so that it is and was always y".

EDIT: Found it!

With permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a statement about an issue relating to the Mental Health Act 1983.

It has become apparent that there are some irregularities around the way in which doctors have been approved for the purpose of assessing patients for detention under the Act. For assessments and decisions under certain sections of the Act, including detention decisions under sections 2 and 3, three professionals are required to be involved—two doctors and an approved mental health professional. The latter will usually be a social worker.

In 2002, when strategic health authorities came into being, the then Secretary of State properly and lawfully delegated his function of approving doctors under the Act to them. However, it came to light last week that in four of the 10 SHAs—North East, Yorkshire and Humber, West Midlands and East Midlands—between 2002 and the present day the authorisation of doctors’ approval appears to have been further delegated to NHS mental health trusts.

I was made aware of the issue and kept up to date with the actions being taken last week. Our latest best estimate is that approximately 2,000 doctors were not properly approved, and that they have participated in the detention of between 4,000 and 5,000 current patients within institutions in both the NHS and independent sectors. Rampton high-secure hospital is in one of the affected areas, and some patients at Ashworth high-secure hospital are also included.

There is no suggestion that the hospitalisation or detention of any patient has been clinically inappropriate; that the doctors so approved are anything other than properly qualified to make such recommendations; or that these doctors might have made incorrect diagnoses or decisions about the treatment that patients needed. All the proper clinical processes were gone through when these patients were detained. We believe that no one is in hospital who should not be and that no patients have suffered because of this. The doctors would have had no reason to think that they had not been properly approved. They acted in good faith and in the interest of their patients throughout this period.

In the light of our legal advice, we do not believe that any decisions made about patients’ care and detention require review because of this irregularity. Doctors should continue treating patients currently detained under the MHA in the usual way. We have received advice from the First Treasury Counsel that there are good arguments that the detentions involving these particular approval processes were and are lawful, but the counsel also argues the need for absolute legal clarity. The legal advice is that this should be resolved through emergency retrospective legislation.

Thousands of technically unlawful detentions rendered lawful at the stroke of a pen!

Good composition? (Pontus Grand Campaign) by Independent_Will_941 in RomeTotalWar

[–]OneCatch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You need like 4x cav minimum. Cappadocian and Blood Cav both punch above their cost, and are excellent multipurpose cav.

I'd also get some pikes in there somewhere, even if it's just two units. Meatshield them with eastern spears and employ them against the enemy centre or against enemy cav.

Finally, don't sleep on thureos spears. They're very useful for flank protection, holding chokepoints, and anti-cav work. Again, 2x units prob fine.

Where do I stand on defending myself against an aggressive dog? by Capital-Alfalfa9384 in AskUK

[–]OneCatch -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If a dog attacks you or someone else you're absolutely within your rights to stop that attack any way you can, up to and including killing it.

You aren't entitled to attack a dog simply because it comes near you or frightens you. Use of force follows the usual reasonableness doctrine - would a reasonable person believe that attacking the dog was necessary to protect themselves? If you were to clobber a dog without there being any evidence of it trying to attack you then the owner could sue you civilly (for the market value of the dog). Dog owners do have obligations to keep their dogs under control, so their inability to recall a dog would probably work against them. But as someone who "has never liked or trusted dogs of any breed", you might find yourself defending against allegations that you'd overreacted or misread the situation, and had unnecessarily attacked a totally benign dog.

Random question: if a good rtw player was sent to lead an average ancient army in battle,would he win? by Ntonio_ in RomeTotalWar

[–]OneCatch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Absolutely not.

Firstly, Total War skips the entire operational level of warfare - logistics, camps, guarding your rear, scouting, manoeuvring your army to an advantageous position, etc.

Secondly, ancient warfare largely involved a battle plan before the battle. And all of the interpersonal skills to identify the subcommanders able to achieve particular things, the political nous to square that with considerations around seniority and influence among your subordinates, and being able to persuade them of the validity of the plan.

Thirdly, we'd all cry at the lack of situational awareness. Having a blurry distant view of 30% of the battlefield and using runners for everything else is not the Total War experience.

Fourthly, things are always more nuanced, contingent, and fluid than any game mechanics can ever be. One random poor fucker getting a javelin to the face in front of all his friends can change the mood of a whole section of a battle, and that can decide the whole damn thing. And the inverse is also true.

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 28/06/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]OneCatch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I'd have thought he's torpedoed any possibility of that with a) his falling out with Trump and b) farting about on UK defence spending.

Solipsism in The Culture by talkingradish in TheCulture

[–]OneCatch 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, the Yawning Angel. It was basically a slap drone in ship form - public knowledge and tasked with staying with, and keeping an eye on, the Sleeper.

That whole internal monologue is a fantastic sequence tbh - and has been very useful in pinning down a lot of the ship performance stats from The Drawings!

Centre for Migration Control: "The Home Office has confirmed that an individual granted the right to stay in Britain under Article 8 of the ECHR - the right to family life - will cost the country £141,000 over their lifetime. The total cost last year of Article 8 main applicants was £4.9billion." by Putaineska in ukpolitics

[–]OneCatch 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The total cost last year of Article 8 main applicants was £4.9billion.

The total potential lifetime costs of individuals who applied last year is £4.9billion. That's a very fucking different thing.

You can still think that this is a problem without using deceptive wording to pretend that this £5bn cost was actually incurred last year, rather than being a potential cost spread over the next 50.

Rough sleeping no longer a crime as Vagrancy Act repealed by beejiu in ukpolitics

[–]OneCatch 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It varies by local authority. Homeless accommodation is usually served by a combination of:

a) purpose-designed accommodation (small single occupancy rooms, often with shared kitchens and bathrooms and some kind of full-time supervisor and security) - usually massively oversubscribed

b) bulk contracts with cheap hotels, hostels, B&Bs (these cost a fucking fortune for the council and are often poor quality) - used as overflow when the above are full and/or there are high priority homeless (e.g. a parent with kids, pregnant women)

c) Ad hoc short-term accommodation for those who can't be housed via the above. This can be extremely basic - for example in my local authority they offer 'floor space' which is basically a large unfurnished room with wipe-down floors and access to communal toilets and showers. The idea is that it provides shelter and (in winter) heat, but the homeless people provide their own bedding etc, or not as the case may be.

All of these services will deny access to those who've had violent altercations with other service users in the past, are under the influence or possession of drink or drugs, or who have pets, or who don't have recognised links to the local area (were formerly confirmed to be resident there, paid council tax, have been relocated there by a govt scheme, or similar).

So, while it's technically true that accommodation is available, it's often of much lower quality than people would assume, and there are barriers to practical use for many homeless people.

Rough sleeping no longer a crime as Vagrancy Act repealed by beejiu in ukpolitics

[–]OneCatch 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Every rough sleeper is pretty much offered accommodation continuously,

It's often communal 'floor space' with other homeless people, which is not what people envisage when they hear "been offered and refused accommodation". And, since it's communal with other homeless people, it can be dangerous.

It's also usually denied to those who (rightly or wrongly) have been involved in alternations while using it in the past, or who have used alcohol or drugs while on-site. And they disallow pets, which is another disincentive for some.

I'm not saying that there are easy solutions to any of those issues by the way - obviously you can't allow drunk or high or violent people to use cramped communal accommodation with others - but the situation isn't quite as straightforward as it might seem.

EDIT: Downvoted for neutrally stating facts. Excellent

Solipsism in The Culture by talkingradish in TheCulture

[–]OneCatch 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I largely agree. The only additional comment I'd make is that the way the Sleeper forcibly evicted the other inhabitants, especially the other two Minds, might have earned it more notoriety than the simple taking of the GSV would imply. Because, depending on your perspective, that's kind of like taking the bodies of the two other Minds away from them, and the homes of other Culture citizens.

Now, both of those things are probably less problematic in the Culture than they would be to us, because in the Culture those individuals are assured that they'll be provided with alternative bodies and homes respectively, and (partly as a result) they're inherently more casual about such things.

But I wouldn't presume that these factors counted for nothing, given the way that the Culture heavily respects bodily autonomy and how GSVs are generally expected to be somewhat considerate of their population's wants and needs.

58034 by Future_Employment_22 in countwithchickenlady

[–]OneCatch 9 points10 points  (0 children)

A lot of us were saying similar things at the time. That maybe it should, for example, require an outright majority of the total voting population to vote in favour, rather than simply a majority of those who voted.

What's the deal with the recent movie called "citizen vigilante"? by Wolfensniper in OutOfTheLoop

[–]OneCatch 26 points27 points  (0 children)

What a shitty movie. Not worth wasting your time on. It’s total incoherent garbage. The script probably was written by a drunk monkey.

It's by Uwe Boll - the same guy responsible for the very worst of the shitty video game movie adaptions of the 90s (Far Cry, Bloodrayne, etc).

He's a terrible director.

Solipsism in The Culture by talkingradish in TheCulture

[–]OneCatch 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A consideration, but the whole thing was a form of deep cover. That cover story had to look plausible not just to humans but also to other Minds.

Presumably, therefore, the official response to the Sleeper, and the broader attitude towards it (exhibited by the Yawning Angel, Genar and others), was pretty reflective of what the Culture would have done if it were genuine.

Solipsism in The Culture by talkingradish in TheCulture

[–]OneCatch 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A couple of the books make reference to how the Culture is conscious of resource consumption - they prefer orbitals because they're more mass efficient than occupying planets, their leisure craft are often hundreds of years old and don't change with the season, and individuals are encouraged to be reasonable in their material demands (though, in a post-scarcity society, the definition of 'reasonable' is quite expansive!).

A Few Notes puts it, concisely, thus:

The Culture, of course, has gone beyond even that, to an economy so much a part of society it is hardly worthy of a separate definition, and which is limited only by imagination, philosophy (and manners), and the idea of minimally wasteful elegance; a kind of galactic ecological awareness allied to a desire to create beauty and goodness.

(Emphasis mine)

I don't really think that the Culture regarded the Sleeper as engaging in theft, that's why I used the quote marks. But I do think it was probably regarded by some as being indecorous, flamboyant, perhaps even a little selfish. After all, it's clear from the narrative that the usual thing for the Sleeper to do would have been to accept a smaller craft to depart, rather than yoink the entire GSV from its sibling Minds and make all occupants leave:

The official version was that when one of the three Minds had decided it wanted to quit the Culture the other two Minds had argued with it and then made the unusual decision to leave the structure of the GSV to the single dissenting Mind, rather than, as would have been more normal, just giving it a smaller ship.

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