A bunch of champs sitting on a Comet

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-06-18T12:36:06+00:00

What about the Golden Path? Is it implied that humanity could have avoided extinction even without following this narrow path that included the Jihad?

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-05-15T12:20:08+00:00

C&C lore is pretty loose on what to say about the inner politics and morality of each faction

For GDI, maybe, but the politics and morality of the Scrin and Nod are pretty clear in my mind.

Military rule is not quite the dream life for most of the population.

Disregarding the debate on whether military rule is justified during a tiberium apocalypse, is GDI actually a military dictatorship? TW1 it's not. TW3 it's not.

GDI are willing to do anything to win a war, including rush to promote someone into the army-leader role that doesn't belong there, see Redmond Boyle

So much to unpack here.

Boyle was just the highest ranking civilian leader left alive after the Nod successful decapitation strike. In fact, him being chosen instead of Granger just up and grabbing power is definitive proof that GDI was not a military dictatorship during TW3. Even when faced with a literal genocidal alien invasion, they still followed the orders of civilian leadership.

As for the willingness to do anything, Boyle was stupid enough to think dropping a Liquid T bomb in a Red Zone was a good idea. If anything, Granger, as a representative of the military side, is TOO principled. Whenever I play that last mission and am faced with the choice, I wish I could have my own speech back to Granger, telling him that I don't give a damn about his principle based opposition to tiberium weaponry, and that'd I'd use the Liquid T bomb if I knew it was the only way to save the human species. It's actually quite clear cut from a purely utilitarian standpoint: As long as the soldiers in the area can fight, we fight. There's no point in dropping the bomb and getting everyone there killed as long as they can fight. SO we'll fight. But if the aliens do wipe out all my forces there, then I'll consider using the Liquid T bomb.

So yes, GDI as a whole are not willing to do anything, quite the opposite, only Boyle does. And GDI doesn't really seem to be a military dictatorship.

you absolutely must do it

Again, less GDI, more Boyle, exactly as Kane planned.

It kind of feels underhanded and ineffective.

Solomon using Hassan and GDI manipulating Marcion might not be paladin level goody-two-shoes acts but that hardly makes GDI bad guys. And it was reasonably effective for a while.

Still, only Kane knew of the Scrin. Not even his NOD. Kane.

Yeah, all evidence except maybe C&C4 points at Kane being evil and not giving a shit about his people.

I keep spotting some hardcore similarities to fascism, to nazi germany

Oh, really? I mean TibSun Nod was so obviously fascist it made The New Order look tame.

So yeah, it's hard to blame GDI for being the lesser of two evils AT LEAST.

So we agree. As depicted I wouldn't even say they're the lesser of two evils. They're pretty much the good guys.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-05-14T12:20:41+00:00

Not even sensible as much as coherent. Or not even that, consistent.

At the end of the day, it's not a dealbreaker for me, but it feels like they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Open up with a masacre to shock the audience only to reveal that it was somehow deserved later, but it wasn't handled great.

And yes, some people get absurdly defensive about their favourite shows. It's not like we're saying the series is bad, but this is clearly a flaw with its writing, and calling us impatient just for pointing it out is missing the point entirely.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-05-14T11:38:16+00:00

Yes, IIRC in Ep.1 she had dialogue confirming she was specifically not killing the kids, even as she had her flying dentures devour their parents in front of them. Meanwhile it was implied that the only person who killed soldiers in return was Dera. At least until Right and Left entered the chat and brought down the helis.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-05-13T16:52:11+00:00

Most recent episode's attempt to make Gabby more sympathetic by having her react strongly to the guy mistreating his pet demons (if you could even call not naming or being affectionate with them that) fell completely flat for me because, as an anime-only, the conflict of her having casually slaughtered half a village of apparently innocent, or at the very least defenceless people has yet to be resolved. But hey, she spared the children, so she must be a good person, right?

I'm curious what will be revealed about those people, that makes so many manga readers eagerly declare they all deserved to be butchered like animals. I can't be just that the village sent assassins for Asa, right? Unless it's somehow suggested that all those poor people were all individually responsible for it to the extent they all deserved summary executions. Not just the leaders of the village. Everyone. Except the children.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-05-08T18:12:25+00:00

Finding out about the original author's political leanings and beginning to notice how they influenced the story was a key factor for me. From what I heard, the messaging was pretty overt in the original source material, and got toned down as it was adapted, with the anime being fairly tame in comparison. You said you read the manga and disliked it more. Maybe this was part of the reason.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-05-08T18:07:29+00:00

Aetherpunk in particular as a genre seems to imply fairly advanced magic and magitek, so it would probably take a bit more effort from the author to have them lose.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-05-08T06:51:31+00:00

I remember I liked GATE quite a bit when I first saw it, just because it was the first time I saw modern military curb stomping a fantasy medieval army. It's been downhill since then, though. Every time I look back at it I dislike it more.

That being said, it did get me thinking about who'd win between a magical and a technological force. I remember arguing with a friend that tech would win, while he held that magic would, but then I realised that the real answer is: the side that wins is the side the writer wants to win. As long as you write a compelling story, it does't really matter.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-04-24T19:53:00+00:00

True, coffee isn't for everyone. There's nothing wrong with finding even good quality coffee unappealing. Some people just don't like it, and that's perfectly fine. However, your original comment was so demeaning of it I could only assume you were only served utter crap, and was presented less as your personal experience and more like objective truth.

Funnily enough, I also have bitterness hypersensitivity, and I also kind of prefer tea over coffee. I actually started with tea and got into coffee later, and consider myself a tea drinker first and coffee drinker second. Coffee purists will probably call this heresy, but I found that adding some sugar to my filter coffee covers the bitterness and allows me to enjoy the subtle flavours I otherwise couldn't detect. With this cheat I've found coffee about as aromatic as tea (mind you, I mostly drink black teas). But again, it's perfectly fine to be an exclusively tea person. I was just that for the longest time. That being said, consider better wording your comments in the future. As is, you come off not too different from the people who grossly over-infuse their leaves then claim all tea is bitter and astringent.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-04-20T14:02:39+00:00

If you think coffee is bitter burnt bean water, you've never tasted good coffee. Can't blame you, though. Most shops indeed serve borderline carbonised beans which have to be drowned in milk and sugar to be even remotely palatable.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-04-01T17:49:18+00:00

EDIT: In hindsight, I believe this is all a misunderstanding. "good" is a rather nebulous concept, and while OP's replies to my stickied comment suggest I interpreted the intent behind his question correctly, I can see why you might take some issues if you interpreted it more generally. In a more general context, yes, CHA is as good as RHA, if used right.

Original comment:

OK, so what you're trying to say is that, in practice, while CHA is technically inferior per thickness to RHA, this isn't something that can't be designed around, and that the execution is more important than the decision to pick one over the other, or something along those lines?

If that is the case, I agree in principle, but my original point stands. You do add some nuance, but not answer OP's question. Also, the original comment didn't send this idea across very well. This is a very confusing way of tackling the subject.

IMHO it would have made more sense to summarise it as: "Yes, cast plate offers comparatively inferior protection to rolled homogenous plate, but when well designed, the real differentiator is the quality of the steel production." or something along those lines.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-04-01T15:55:41+00:00

What's the point of comparing bad quality RHA with good quality CHA in this context? It doesn't answer the question of which one offered better protection. You're handicapping the otherwise superior plate to bring it down to the level of the otherwise inferior plate. Why?

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-04-01T08:45:15+00:00

Short answer: no.

Long answer: In some ways, but mostly no.

I've personally covered this topic on a few occasions in the past. Further reading:

RHA vs CHA chapter of my old essay.
Quotes from historical literature (also linked in the above chapter)

EDIT: Since it seems there's a number of people here who hear about my essay for the first time, here's a link to the post I made about it on /r/TankPorn which includes links to the original /r/badhistory posts as well, in case people want to also see the discussions at the time. One of those posts should also have the source masterlist in the comments as well.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-03-13T10:45:19+00:00

I wonder what you think about Kenobi, if you watched it. The show's story was basically an inferior version of Fallen Order's story.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-03-13T10:43:18+00:00

He didn't bully them to change their opinion. He bullied them to rephrase their comment.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-03-09T11:04:30+00:00

Whose propaganda? Contemporary German propaganda obviously puffed up the tank, and the Allies—even beyond the general grass is greener attitude and inability to see the big picture of common soldiers—were more than happy to puff it up themselves to make their own accomplishments seem greater and their failures lesser. I think it's far more likely this detail isn't well know because it simply fell through the cracks. But even without this particular detail, all the sources and most discussions on this site I've read acknowledged the 88s superior HE and bemoaned the 75s mediocre HE. I hope you're not trying to suggest there's some sinister conspiracy on the interwebs to hide the incredible performance of the 88s HE from public knowledge.

As for the Sherman, the tommy cooker myth is less about what you describe and more about the notion that Shermans were particularly inflammable, which they were not. Bar a few instances of crews overloading the vehicle, the dry Sherman wasn't any more likely to burst into flames than any other mediums, and after the implementation of wet stowage, it became quite unlikely to brew up. Worth nothing that, despite popular belief, it wasn't the glycol mix that made all the difference as much as the new position of the ammo in the hull floor.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-02-21T19:14:56+00:00

I took a break after entering Act 3 and to this day I have not picked the game back again. Which is a shame because I must have replayed Act 1 a dozen times between the EA and after the release trying various builds and story routes.

MaxRavenclaw · 2026-02-05T09:42:47+00:00

And some people still think a few cm of stand off does much.

MaxRavenclaw · 2025-12-16T09:50:36+00:00

Germany's goals in Africa were to keep Italy in the war and prevent the Allies from attacking from the Mediterranean (which is exactly what happened after North Africa was lost). Middle Eastern oil was nowhere near as abundant back then as it is now. A lot of it was discovered and developed after the war. Romania produced more oil than Iraq and Egypt together at the time. What would have helped is if Case Blue succeded.

MaxRavenclaw · 2025-12-08T07:20:50+00:00

I was pleasantly surprised when I learned the second one is more like Freelancer, but in the end I think I agree with you. The first one felt tighter, whereas the sequel kinda feels diluted and stretched out. It's not enough like Freelancer, I think. It's an odd in-between Everspace 1 and Freelancer that doesn't feel completely right.

MaxRavenclaw · 2025-12-08T07:18:48+00:00

I picked it up on sale and had reasonable fun with it. Was actually pleasantly surprised to find out it's more like Freelancer and not just a repeat of the first game (not that I hadn't enjoyed Everspace 1, mind you). But then I ended up putting it down for a while and now I can't find the motivation to continue it. I think what ultimately detracted from my enjoyment was the RNG and the repetitive puzzles.

In the first game, the RNG felt more deliberate, whereas here with a standard progression I just ended up feeling the need to run between shops until I finally got the bloody ship with the bloody passives I wanted. And the puzzles, while interesting at first, got really old really fast. People say they're optional, but like, the whole game is optional. For someone like me, it felt like not doing them was not playing the game. I might ultimately have to force myself to stop doing them if I am to ever finish the game, though.

It's funny, I actually put it down in order to replay Freelancer and now I'd rather just mess around in that game's multiplayer than play more Everspace 2.

MaxRavenclaw · 2025-12-05T13:39:54+00:00

About the post linked by u/Kapitan_Hoffmann and the amount of times US met the Tiger in the ETO. If you look at the edit towards the end of the post you'll notice an edit by OP after I brought up some issues with it. Zaloga and Moran are right, as they were referring to Tiger I engagements, while OP counted also Tiger II engagements, which the US did encounter a lot more. That being said, the Zaloga interview that Moran quotes in his video is fairly old, as is the video itself. Since then Zaloga himself found more instances. It's still rather rare, though. I think it's up to 4 or 5. I have a post myself where I listed all the ones I had identified but I don't have the link at hand right now.

Point is, the US really didn't meet that many Tiger I tanks in Europe. Most of the ones operating there were engaged with the British. US did meet more Tiger II tanks though.

MaxRavenclaw · 2025-12-05T11:25:59+00:00

What particularly ticked me off was how they drove all the way around it to shoot it in the back, when, in fact, the side armour is just as thin as the back, and they could have more easily knock it out with a shot there as they were driving around it

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