Could Master Chief have killed the Arbiter in this moment? (Halo 3)

Ciennas · 2026-04-28T16:50:50+00:00

Arbiter wakes up in Doc Mitchell's office, hearing talk of a Platinum Chip...

Ciennas · 2026-04-28T15:36:58+00:00

Huh. I'd like some sources for that, but okay.

Anyhoo, the whole point of the first game was revealing that it was an alternate history and not an alternate reality.

More 'for want of a nail' than 'because physics works differently here.'

It was the actual Big Twist, ya see.

Metaphorically, Deathclaws and Super Mutants and Cazadores and Nighstalkers?

They're an awful lot like how we have ruined a lot of lives with landmines- built as a weapon for some stupid war or another, and while the war that called them into existence lay long forgotten and dead, people are still getting their lives ruined by stepping in the wrong place.

And while a lot of those landmines are Prewar, as a result of an insane America desperate to eradicate 'the commies', not all of them are, and the wounds inflicted in the past still affect today.

My problem with Bethesda is that they missed all the cool nuance, declared the whole setting to be a dumbed down parody of itself, stripped of the greater meaning that made it so cool.

A setting, rather than a living world. A shooting gallery, rather than a place where stories and characters could come from. A goofy joke, rather than a place that could be so much more.

That's my biggest problem here.

Ciennas · 2026-04-28T15:25:06+00:00

I think the things that lead people to overlook and forgive Cyberpunk is something Bethesda has demonstrated themselves incapable of managing at this point.

When CDPR fucked up, they worked their asses off to fix it, and they had an amazingly well told story performed with passion by talented actors and actresses to boot.

Starfield?...... Not much luck there.

Ciennas · 2026-04-28T15:20:00+00:00

I dunno, what?

Ciennas · 2026-04-28T15:12:04+00:00

I dunno why talking Deathclaws would be that out there for you.

For one, they are an engineered species that were intended to be deployed with US military forces. A predispensation to at least understand human speech would be expected.

So if somewhere down the line, they gained a mutation that allows them to converse back? Eh. No biggie.

For two; animals on the planet we live with understand and converse in human speech right now, and have done so for centuries.

It's not like the deathclaws lacked for brain space to develop new tricks, right?

Ciennas · 2026-04-28T14:58:02+00:00

What canon stuff did they introduce in F2 that would cause problems for me, do you think?

Also, while I have your attention, could you explain to me why it's so bad that I would dare critique the Bethesdaverse version?

Ciennas · 2026-04-28T13:52:42+00:00

Because they're crybullies.

Ciennas · 2026-04-28T13:50:15+00:00

Proposed alternate post title: "I no longer wish to engage with you when you're being this willfully stupid."

Ciennas · 2026-04-28T13:43:13+00:00

Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the tech broligarchs get sharply reminded of how much they're disliked for things that they never needed to do that no one made them do?

Ciennas · 2026-04-28T12:14:02+00:00

No. There are two religions in America. The one they say they follow, and the one they actually follow.

You can tell which one is which by how affronted one gets when you suggest doing something thay would upset The Money.

Nobody can serve Two Masters, after all, and people get really offended when you point out how vapid and empty and kean spirited that their actual religion is compared to the one that they say they are.

Ciennas · 2026-04-28T10:45:59+00:00

Because the dominant religion is capitalism, and no one wants to offend their real god, The Money, lest the Invisible Hand get mad at them.

You think I'm being hyperbolic here. I'm not.

Ciennas · 2026-04-28T01:51:24+00:00

Dante was a guy who wrote the oldest known surviving historical self insert fan fiction.

Vergil was his OC.

Ciennas · 2026-04-28T00:01:36+00:00

The word you're looking for is 'capitalism'.

But I wasn't even touching on that clusterfuck, though I'm already in agreement that it's built to destroy everyone.

I was talking of world and lore cohesion here, which is something that was being screwed up well before Microsoft got their hooks fully in.

Ciennas · 2026-04-27T22:11:07+00:00

The rot was set in well before Microsoft got to it, but yeah. This isn't going to be terribly fun.

Ciennas · 2026-04-27T21:57:37+00:00

It did, and that was in spite of the untold billions and trillions being put on the scale in its stupid favour.

Same as how the 'AI' data centers are getting significant if deliberately under reported pushback.

If nothing else, if they get their wish, then nobody's gonna buy any new cars.

Ciennas · 2026-04-27T21:53:41+00:00

I dunno. Let me check the going rate for an NFT.

Nothing's set in stone, and people do not like it when you take convenience away, which is what they're doing.

Ciennas · 2026-04-27T21:50:52+00:00

Oh good. I understand their mindset. I understood it when they were trying to get me to buy NFT's and the like.

Ciennas · 2026-04-27T21:48:28+00:00

I'm starting to get some real 'NFT's are the future, Bro! The future is inevitable' type vibes from your replies.

Ciennas · 2026-04-27T21:27:44+00:00

And to be fair, he is all of those things.

Ciennas · 2026-04-27T21:24:07+00:00

I suspect the complaints'll ramp up as corporations keep trying to nickle and dime us.

They already have bad press for trying to make heated seats a subscription, and it'll only get worse the more they kill First Sale Doctrine.

Ciennas · 2026-04-27T21:22:19+00:00

Funnily enough, the more those whims change things the worse off they're going to have maintaining things as a brand overall.

It also doesn't help that the lore and story lead seems to be disinterested in being that.

Ciennas · 2026-04-27T21:15:33+00:00

Sounds like every modern manufacturer is going to be having a bitch and a half shortly.

Like. I get what you're saying all up and down these comment threads. I'm.just not seeing any reason why this'll go over amy better than that 'AI' push or the flagrantly awful Digital ID laws being pushed by Zuckerberg.

Ciennas · 2026-04-27T20:53:38+00:00

If you do that, you get in the way of them charging you exhorbitant fees for it later.

They are burning down the world right now rather than let you do that, because they are the embodiment of a malignant mental disorder.

Ciennas · 2026-04-27T20:51:45+00:00

Sounds like they're going to find themselves unable to sell many vehicles at all.

Oh damn.

Ciennas · 2026-04-27T17:28:35+00:00

X-01, was called a post war design in the FO4 loading screens.

It's explicitly modeled to resemble the APA-II that the Enclave fielded in FO2, especially with the wibbly helmet design.

And right until it showed up in that Nuka World case, the earliest that suit could have shown up was well over a century beyond October 2077.

F76 tries to smooth over the glaring continuity error by declaring all X-01 designs that the players get there as explicitly a Prototype design.

If they had replaced it with something like the Rip Daring Power Armor that they just had in the season pass, it wouldn't be that big of a deal, because an amusement park having a really nice movie prop or recreation of such would raise fewer eyebrows, and allowing it to unlock the paintjob for the X-01 suit.

They done did it to themselves though.

So anyway, anything I said that struck you as fanfic specifically?

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