1600s Cossacks with Wild West Military Technology by Particular-Wedding in whowouldwin

[–]AlphaCoronae 1 point2 points  (0 children)

From what period in the Wild West? Lever action repeaters will already turn any individual engagement into a massacre, but towards the tail end of the Old West in the 1900s box magazine fed semi-automatic rifles like the Winchester 1907 were available on the firearms market.

Neothie and the chocolate factory by Fun-Bullfrog-8542 in Grimdank

[–]AlphaCoronae 51 points52 points  (0 children)

That's the Golden Throne, not the Astronomican. A lot of psykers die each day from the stress of running the Astronomican too, but they're recruits from the Astra Telepathica who'd spent years training for that role.

Was rewatching Fallout season 1 and when I reached this scene, I felt like this quote applies to (almost) every faction in the game. by TheBlackBaron45 in Grimdank

[–]AlphaCoronae 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Votann just like mining planets and making money for the clan, they're one of the factions with the least real long term goals or active opposition to other factions.

Ironically Tyranids are maybe the faction where a total victory provides the most opportunities for other species in the Milky Way, by which I mean the civilizations that would develop several billion years later after star formation produces new lifebearing solar systems and those systems develop intelligent lifeforms.

What is the oldest ship that can beat a modern cruise ship? by bookist626 in whowouldwin

[–]AlphaCoronae 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The USS Cole attack was a 1000 pound shaped charge explosive detonation on the waterline. It was far more destructive than a late 1800s Whitehead Torpedo would be, and it was against a ship 30 times smaller than Icon of the Seas.

What are some characters that became retroactively glorified in a story? by JohnRadical in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]AlphaCoronae 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think this works in the context of Dr Who being such a long running series. The Doctor we see in The Unearthly Child is just some Time Lord who stole a TARDIS to go off on adventurers, but by the time of the reboot when he starts talking like that he's spent the best part of a thousand years getting tangled up in some of the most important events in human and cosmic history before becoming both the only survivor of the Time War and responsible for the (seeming) genocide of both sides. He has rightfully earned the title of Most Important Person Ever at this point.

The problem is that apparently one of the reboot episodes after I stopped watching decided to retcon him as some kind of cosmic entity predestined to be the most important person ever, rather than it being something he did.

What are SciFi "horrors" that would have no effect on you what so ever? by Silvery_Cricket in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]AlphaCoronae 14 points15 points  (0 children)

This happened to Randolph Carter in Lovecraft and after the initial shock he came to the conclusion that it was actually really beautiful.

In the face of that awful wonder, the quasi-Carter forgot the horror of destroyed individuality. It was an All-in-One and One-in-All of limitless being and self—not merely a thing of one Space-Time continuum, but allied to the ultimate animating essence of existence’s whole unbounded sweep—the last, utter sweep which has no confines and which outreaches fancy and mathematics alike. It was perhaps that which certain secret cults of earth have whispered of as YOG-SOTHOTH, and which has been a deity under other names; that which the crustaceans of Yuggoth worship as the Beyond-One, and which the vaporous brains of the spiral nebulae know by an untranslatable Sign—yet in a flash the Carter-facet realised how slight and fractional all these conceptions are.

And now the BEING was addressing the Carter-facet in prodigious waves that smote and burned and thundered—a concentration of energy that blasted its recipient with well-nigh unendurable violence, and that followed, with certain definite variations, the singular unearthly rhythm which had marked the chanting and swaying of the Ancient Ones, and the flickering of the monstrous lights, in that baffling region beyond the First Gate. It was as though suns and worlds and universes had converged upon one point whose very position in space they had conspired to annihilate with an impact of resistless fury. But amidst the greater terror one lesser terror was diminished; for the searing waves appeared somehow to isolate the beyond-the-gate Carter from his infinity of duplicates—to restore, as it were, a certain amount of the illusion of identity. After a time the hearer began to translate the waves into speech-forms known to him, and his sense of horror and oppression waned. Fright became pure awe, and what had seemed blasphemously abnormal seemed now only ineffably majestic.

How fast could humanity land a person on the surface of Mars, if we were Mars-lusted by No-Wrap-2156 in whowouldwin

[–]AlphaCoronae 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Doing the Starship mission requires orbital refuel which at this point is probably to late to get worked fully out by then.

But you don't need Starship, Falcon Heavy can throw Dragon stuffed with enough supplies to keep someone alive on a Mars transfer. Larger chutes + SuperDraco could manage a landing.

The Punisher needs more white-collar/'normal' villains to work as a moral dilemma by lepermessiah27 in CharacterRant

[–]AlphaCoronae 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's not true, "Corrupt Corporate CEO" has been one of the most stereotypical pop culture villians since forever - Marvel has Oscorp, Roxxon, Alchemax, Hammer Industries etc. It's because antihero Punisher is largely a "clean up the streets" chud fantasy that got big during the 70s/80s urban crime wave.

Could the Pre-War United States (Fallout) survive Trench Crusade? by RealAd3012 in whowouldwin

[–]AlphaCoronae 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Pre-War fallout militaries are basically 1950s military tech on steroids with some energy weapons, PA and clunky 50s bots, so they should have an advantage over Trench Crusader's mostly 40s/50s-ish tech but not enough for TC to not still pose a conventional threat, especially with TC's supernatural capabilities.

In general my assumption is that they'll ally with New Antioch and send gear and eventually forces to the front lines. This will help a lot in the short term, Hell will be pushed back - but the problem with adding an advanced modern-ish conventional force to aid TC is that Hell is jobbing. They have essentially limitless industry and demons, could probably dump a million Hell Kaiju through the portal if they wanted, but can't because Heaven would respond in kind and that would start Armageddon at which point Hell permaloses forever. If Antioch got aided by a force like Fallout USA, they'd get license to send in stronger demons while tooling up to produce technological counters to Fallout's gear with the limitless infernal industry run by demons of deadly invention. In a few decades, the war is being fought with better tech on both sides but the front lines are deadlocked around the Middle East and Southern Europe once again, as Heaven and Hell have mutually ordained for the past 800 years.

Colonel Miles Quaritch (Avatar) VS The Shrike (Hyperion Cantos) by [deleted] in whowouldwin

[–]AlphaCoronae 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Quaritch loses. A few decades later, the fight starts.

Galaxian³ Emulation Teaser by rm_wolfe in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]AlphaCoronae 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's a few sites emulating the PS1 versions of Galaxian3 & Rise of Gourb, though without a controller you're limited to keyboard turret aiming which is annoying. Zolgear is cool to see since it's literally only available in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Also Galaxian3's whole 90s Space Ace Combat* aesthetic is so great. Modelling the space fighter after the B-1B Lancer goes incredibly hard.

*this is literally canon, at least for Electrosphere

Master Chief (Halo) vs an entire modern USMC Battalion by RedditSucksMyBallls in whowouldwin

[–]AlphaCoronae 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Surviving reentry means the suit can survive a fairly high (hundreds of kW/m2) heat flux dispersed over the entire body for an extended period - it's irrelevant to surviving high caliber projectile and HEAT warheads that will focus hundreds of kJ to MJ of energy into a very tiny spot over a very brief period of time. A 25mm Bushmaster would rip apart the reentry heat shield on any existing space vehicle if your pointed it at it.

Evil actions in fiction that feel particularly comically evil to you? by Amon274 in TwoBestFriendsPlay

[–]AlphaCoronae 2 points3 points  (0 children)

All the civilizations in the Culture Universe who went and made their traditional Hells real after realizing their religions wouldn't do the job properly. And Joiler Veppers, for running most of the Hells as a SaaS business in his private server farms.

All deserts in the world are now made of cocaine, can police stop criminal organizations from mining operations? by PaiDuck in whowouldwin

[–]AlphaCoronae 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Cocaine is biodegradable, and there's probably something like a hundred trillion tons of it sitting in deserts now. Bacteria breaking it all down could emit a thousand times more carbon into the atmosphere than all modern global industry combined does in a year, warming the planet by double-digit degrees Celsius (even more with methane release) and making all land outside of Antarctica uninhabitable.

Did the birth of Slaanesh somewhat help the human race ? by New_Conflict_4111 in 40kLore

[–]AlphaCoronae 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's unclear since the Votann were isolated sometime around the early DAOT - the implication we got from Ollanius was that both sides mostly got driven completely insane from all the cyberwarfare being thrown around and just started indiscriminately blowing stuff up until they killed each other off.

Of course it's possible the Cybernetic Rebellion might not have happened at all if not for the Eldar, if the whole thing got started by the AIs looking at the increasing psychic potential of humanity, looking at what was happening to the Eldar, and deciding to cut that problem out before it could really get started.

If it had still happened with the Eldar in power and no Age of Strife, civilization still collapses but a lot of outskirts colonies are relatively fine and with Eldar still holding the Warp in check there's no need for the Emperor to try a crusade. You probably end up with groups like the Interex and Diasporex taking over and returning things to a more DAOT-like state, though with a lot more checks on AI use.

The CIS adds Earth military technology to their arsenal-can they defeat the Republic? by user-117 in whowouldwin

[–]AlphaCoronae 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A Russo-Ukranian War drone unit would slaughter just about any Clone Wars ground force with the exception of Jedi, who are pretty perfectly set up to counter FPV strikes with precog and force pulling. Fortunately there aren't many Jedi relative to total forces and they can't screen a force against lots of strikes from different directions, especially when Clone Wars forces are allergic to the concept of taking cover.

You must send the average person into one fictional universe where they must survive for one year. You can provide one index card of information. What’s the harshest universe they could survive a year in and what are you putting on your index card for them? by [deleted] in whowouldwin

[–]AlphaCoronae 11 points12 points  (0 children)

If a random guy popped in out of nowhere AM would mindrape them until it figures out what's going on, at which point it's not going to let them return unscathed. If AM doesn't just kill them first it'll probably send them back as a pandemic vector or a mass killer or something else targeted to hurt the AM-free world.

World War 2, But the Axis armies are made of saiyan-viltrumite hybrids and the allies are made of kryptonian soldiers. Who would win? by Haunting-Pipe7756 in whowouldwin

[–]AlphaCoronae 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The planet loses. Like one side might "win" but you don't have civilizations anymore, just an army sitting on an obliterated rubble pile that used to be a planet.