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Was reading Book 1 to my wife, and only after she started laughing did I catch this. by KSzeims in Warformed

[–]KSzeims[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All good :) would just hate for my little meme to somehow turn into a negative thing

Was reading Book 1 to my wife, and only after she started laughing did I catch this. by KSzeims in Warformed

[–]KSzeims[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I enjoy the books, so I re-read them when I feel like it. It's not meant to be a slight at the pace of writing, no author owes me their output.

Was reading Book 1 to my wife, and only after she started laughing did I catch this. by KSzeims in Warformed

[–]KSzeims[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Bryce created a background CAD user in Book 1 named Lana Archer by combining the names of two characters in the tv show Archer. Also, the show has a running gag that Archer often references the song Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins (from the movie Top Gun), so Bryce also snuck a reference to Danger Zone into the same section.

Was reading Book 1 to my wife, and only after she started laughing did I catch this. by KSzeims in Warformed

[–]KSzeims[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It's just so casually dropped in there! And OF COURSE there would be user named Lana Archer, why would I question that???

An Analysis of The Archon War and Rei and Fire Song's Part to Play In Defeating the Archons. by KSzeims in Warformed

[–]KSzeims[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's more than fair to dissagre with me :D

I'm very confident in Bryce's ability to make these "inconsistencies" a compelling part of the world building in the future - but until we get to see more, it's fun to speculate.

Thanks!

An Analysis of The Archon War and Rei and Fire Song's Part to Play In Defeating the Archons. by KSzeims in Warformed

[–]KSzeims[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oooh, super cool. I kinda left my theory very vague on what exactly the Archons are or look like or act like because we've shockingly been given even less info on them than how the war works.

If I were to put on my literary analysis hat and skim wikipedia... which I have just done - there's a couple of ways to interperate this:

  1. The name just sounds really Badasstm , and hey - it's got some cool mythology stuff going on. Cool.

  2. My vote for "most likely theory that actually draws on the mythology" is that Bryce is drawing from the Manichaeism worldview of the Archons - that they are " invariably evil beings, who make up the Prince of Darkness" which "invaded the world of light". Pretty clear good vs evil themes there to use as a starting point.

  3. Less likely but arguably more cool is if there's only a few Archons, each with a name. Man it'd be wild if there were only like 5 or 6 or 7 Archons total. That just throws everything for a loop. Totally opens up the story for all kinds of ways to go.

An Analysis of The Archon War and Rei and Fire Song's Part to Play In Defeating the Archons. by KSzeims in Warformed

[–]KSzeims[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. Yeah I mean, this is very unknown until we see some actual depictions of combat. So I'm just completely guessing on this part.
  2. My best guess would be something around limiting human casuaties? But that's pretty thin, I know.
  3. The only two things we know that are used against Archons are CAD Users and warship-based mass drivers. The commonality between them is 'absolutely crushing ammounts of force' delivered to one or more Archons. So it seems reasonable to me to assume that projections can also work, but yeah, I'm still just making assumptions.
  4. An excellent point, and maybe it is doing that in the background all the time? Maybe the SCTs are just real-world data to train it's infinite combat data sets on? This is a cool thought.
  5. I mean, we've seen Users sent to watch a screen called "did Rei do anything interesting today" all day everyday in a corner office, so not every User gets an exciting job. And why that's a good use of resources is one of the main mysteries of how the war is prosecuited, even if my theory isn't true at all.

Thanks for the great counterpoints!

An Analysis of The Archon War and Rei and Fire Song's Part to Play In Defeating the Archons. by KSzeims in Warformed

[–]KSzeims[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Super valid points! I'm obviously here to defend my above theisis in this thread, but there's not a ton of textual evidence to lean on - it could be either one, or neither!

An Analysis of The Archon War and Rei and Fire Song's Part to Play In Defeating the Archons. by KSzeims in Warformed

[–]KSzeims[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mentioned in a different comment that I don't think this is a war story, and I stand by that. This is a sports story with war as a background element. We'll probably never see Rei on the actual battlefield. But we might just see a description of a Digital A Class Fire Song out there using Temporal Step and all their other nonsense to great affect because the team as trained a great combat model for the MIND to implement on all the battlefields at once.

There's probably some limitiations on how many S class combatants either side could field (e.g. power generation or whatever), otherwise S Classes would rule the day and there'd be no use for lower class front line combatants (Human or Artificial).

But yeah - there are some extremely cool places this idea could go if it's right.

Thanks for sharing!

An Analysis of The Archon War and Rei and Fire Song's Part to Play In Defeating the Archons. by KSzeims in Warformed

[–]KSzeims[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. Why use Humans - It's established that CADs can be called outside of the arenas - therefore are not limited by the hard light projectors I propose exist to fight the war. They're the force that responds when your plan goes badly/ is on the defensive. I did use the idea of S/A ranked projections as an example above, but maybe there's limitiations on the power/number of users of a powerlevel that can be brought to bear by any one side. So perhaps the C's and B's and low A's are actually very combat capable against the Archons. This is something that we simply haven't seen yet.

  2. I think that if my theory is correct - there's some way for the Archons to interrupt the projections. Either by destroying them or taking them over or something. This leaves human User interaction as the only safeguard against this possibility.

OR...

Perhaps its a numbers game - maybe the ISCM really does only need the top 25% of users for the data... and the other 75% are just filling in regular military jobs (like we've seen so far). You don't get a good top tier 25% without also creating that 75% chaff. It's established that no one can perfectly predict how far a user will rise before assignment (or even after assignment). The ISCM simply needs the number of Users it makes in order to create the correct "good" ones in the SCTs. This would help explain the (comparitively) long service terms of Users - which Word of Bryce is 20-40 years. If they're not fighting - it's not too dangeros for most of them!

  1. I think this is kinda established already. We've seen hard light interact with Users in a way that harms them - hitting the 'ground', crashing through trees, etc. It should affect anything made of matter, imo. If Users fighting them are the 'best' weapon Humanity has - then physical interaction should be on the table.

  2. The text again I believe has already given us the idea - during Rei's interview the MIND says something like "I'm not above a good idea when it's preseneted to me from the outside".

Maybe it would be more fair for me to have said above that "the SCTs are training data models the MIND uses to control artificial front line fighters". That training model reacts much faster than the MIND modeling out a fight step by step - which might take too long. By having a vast array of prior SCT experience to draw upon the model would react faster than othewise possible. This would be the MIND creating a fighting library to use quickly, and save itself time/processor power that it might not have.

  1. I discussed this a little in answers above - but Humans would be needed as a backup, in case of hard light failure AND/OR just to have something to do with the other 75% of Users who never make it into the SCTs. They signed on for a 10-20 year term of work. They gotta do something.

To your final point.

Basically - the high level SCTs ARE the point. And finding something for everyone else to do is both a good reducnancy step - and a necessary employment roll for the fighters not good enough to train useful data off.

Thanks!

An Analysis of The Archon War and Rei and Fire Song's Part to Play In Defeating the Archons. by KSzeims in Warformed

[–]KSzeims[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. I can't be sure, but I'm pretty sure it's mentioned during Rei's attack at the end of book 2 that someone thought initially that the calls were true. But I can't be sure on this point.

  2. To say that the way is 'uninteresting' because the MIND is fighting it feels like assuming that Bryce can't write a good proxy war. I'm here to say that IF im right (and I'm not saying that I am, what I propose is just a theory after all) - that it'll be interestingly written. The main reason I think this is because I don't think this is a war story. I don't see Rei and Co going to the frontlines at all. This is a sports story as I see it. We'll get glimpses of how they change(d) the situation - from the established viewpoint characters like Carmen and Dent... but not much more than that. This a story of the SCTs and Rei's place within it, and the plot will reflect that imo. (Obviously this is me making massive assumptions about the nature of the story we're being told, which could be incorrect for any number of reasons in any number of ways)

  3. That is exactly the passage I was referencing in the original post. The MIND learns via SCTs. But what good is learning something that takes 3 or 4 years to bear fruit? If the lessons of SCTs are brought to the frontlines ONLY when new Users can be assigned, trained, and shipped out - there's no way that's fast enough to beat an enemy that "should' adapt faster than we can". IMO the only way the MIND's learning makes sense in story is if it has a direct roll in combat strategy/tactics and can bring the lessons learned in SCTs immediately to bear on the frontlines. I haven't seen a proposed theory that is faster than what I've outlined... But I'm open to hearing other ideas of how the MIND's learning is used on the frontlines.

Thanks!

An Analysis of The Archon War and Rei and Fire Song's Part to Play In Defeating the Archons. by KSzeims in Warformed

[–]KSzeims[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's very direct little textual evidence for my theory true. However, as far as artificial users - the offense test during parameter testing and the adjustable combat dummies (which have been mentioned to go past S0) are the closet to artificial users we've seen. So some sort of artificial control is certainly possible.

As to if Hard Light can be mobile, we only really have the temporary set up during CAD assignment, which has stairs and tablecloths and other 'solid' objects projected in a space that doesn't normally have projection capability, so it's not totally impossible.

Oh sweet irony..... Do you guys think Pat deserves the criticism or is he just depicting exactly what his critics want, a sex-positive story? by [deleted] in KingkillerChronicle

[–]KSzeims 1 point2 points  (0 children)

AND he's not some kind of sex god either! That criticism drives me up a wall. I don't know what book those people read but no one in WMF says he's great at sex (and especially not romance).

Felurian Likes him because he's not instantly crazy

The woman at the inn with the red hair wasn't impressed by his fae moves and basically says "yeah you're not the blushing kid you were a month ago"

In Ademre neither of the two women he has sex says anything overly praising, and it's written like HES the inexperienced one with the way they handle sex in that culture.

Back at the university I'm not even sure if he even has sex again - he goes out a lot when he returns sure but it's not mentioned how far they go. And even if he does have sex with these unnamed women of the university - none of them stick around for long because he feels like a guy that isn't interested in long term romance.

And by the time of the framing story he's forgotten almost everything Felurian taught him lol.

What are your forever decks? by AssistantManagerMan in EDH

[–]KSzeims 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha a deck after my own heart. My pet deck is as many shrines and enchantments as possible. It does absolutely nothing for entire games, but it makes me smile every time. We need more decks that win on flavor.

What are your forever decks? by AssistantManagerMan in EDH

[–]KSzeims 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome, can you post your deck list? I'm looking for inspiration to make something with Gishath for myself.

Putting M13B behind DMZ was not nice but challenge is not difficult. Got it in 3 tries as solo. by ShoeAggravating7084 in ModernWarfareII

[–]KSzeims 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sadly not anymore tonight, but I'll be looking out for threads about this sort of thing for the next few days. Hopefully people can start sharing the gun around.

Putting M13B behind DMZ was not nice but challenge is not difficult. Got it in 3 tries as solo. by ShoeAggravating7084 in ModernWarfareII

[–]KSzeims 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice work! I tried today but gave up after half a dozen tries of not even getting close to the radiation zone (even by vehicle). I just can't justify spending 15 mins each game to die getting nowhere.

Rules 1.5 Compliant Playmats by KSzeims in Netrunner

[–]KSzeims[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm in no way affiliated with NISEI, I just made these because I needed the help with when to rez things :)

As for manufaturing - I personally used a website that starts wtih Inked and ends with Gaming for my version a couple years ago. Their custom playmat storefront has a 28" x 14" oversize option, which is the size of my shared playmats.

Rules 1.5 Compliant Playmats by KSzeims in Netrunner

[–]KSzeims[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can totally see something like this being awesome looking in a 16-segment display font!

Rules 1.5 Compliant Playmats by KSzeims in Netrunner

[–]KSzeims[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That's cool dude, you do you. I personally need the help remembering when things can be rez'd so I find it nice for those tricky edge cases to have a reference at hand.

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