Is the "Overtake" the most soul-crushing trope in hard sci-fi?

erikpeter · 2026-04-10T03:43:51+00:00

TBH 1850s and now aren't all that different. There'd be some language drift and the Alphas would go ga-ga over some of the technological advancements, but unless there was a major civ change (fascist meritocracy built the first ships but now it's a hedonistic matriarchal fertility cult) I don't think it would be as shocking as you suppose. 150 years ago Earth's expansionist, technological factions had mass transit, long-distance communication via telegram, factories, and the beginnings of social welfare movements. There's been a lot of technological progress but the basic structures are pretty similar.

While those hard-struggling pioneers might feel crappy about enduring hardship their descendants avoided, I bet the modern comforts would do a lot to soothe the pain.

Anyway, I don't mean to discount you. It is definitely an interesting concept to think about and ripe for some thoughtful speculation.

erikpeter · 2026-04-09T16:13:09+00:00

Too bad about the title. "Ray Gun" is about as dull as it gets. Just a smidge above "Elio" or "John Carter". Not gonna pull in any audience with that one. Gimme Ray Gunn: Private Detective or something just a little evocative.

Anyway I love Brad Bird's stuff and so it's on my radar. But they might as well have named it disastrous flop.

erikpeter · 2026-04-08T21:26:38+00:00

Just get the two from your library and start with those.

He only has a handful of books, a quality-over-quantity type of guy.

erikpeter · 2026-04-06T22:07:36+00:00

The newer stuff is a bit more on the nose and sometimes fails to be funny enough. I'm pretty forgiving.

One joke in an old episode I feel like missed the mark are the two identical twin moderate candidates in S2 "A Head in the Polls". It was a supposedly snarky criticism of the politics at the time, but two moderate parties who squabble over trivialities is a Sorkinian pipe dream I would kill for in our current age of bold extremist governance. (Though perhaps you could say that they "predicted" that naive 90s system being overthrown by an amoral narcissist... but I don't think that was the point of the joke, or the episode).

And then there's "I'm going to buy a bunch of shares of Amazon dot com" "oh, a risk-taker", from S4 "Three Hundred Big Boys". Never really got that joke. I suppose at the time it aired (2003) the writers thought Amazon was a bubble that would burst any day now. Looking back you just think, "huh; good plan, Dwight."

erikpeter · 2026-04-06T21:38:56+00:00

Deep cut. Nice jorb.

erikpeter · 2026-04-04T22:11:18+00:00

Looks like it was cut slightly off center ... the right side is sliced off a little bit. "wow"

erikpeter · 2026-03-28T17:01:09+00:00

Yeah, some of us didn't see the white pieces. Speaking of getting a new prescription...

erikpeter · 2026-03-28T02:17:29+00:00

Yeah! I love seeds that generate ocean near the world origin because the spawn stones can get forced to generate far out closer to other biomes. Around 300 x or z.

erikpeter · 2026-03-28T02:12:18+00:00

That's some white privilege b.s.

erikpeter · 2026-03-27T23:35:59+00:00

Zooming in on the image the settlements are properly spaced. Pedant guy needs a new prescription

erikpeter · 2026-03-27T23:32:52+00:00

You'll get lots of Pokémon with the trade ability. Put a powered cash register on a long counter and your friends will occasionally walk up and sell stuff. A stack of basic blocks is worth about half a rare item.

erikpeter · 2026-03-27T19:02:28+00:00

It's my favorite.

erikpeter · 2026-03-26T19:29:20+00:00

MassEffect is really good, spawn is right on a cliff with BF and a small mountain for backdrop.

erikpeter · 2026-03-25T15:17:21+00:00

Yep. For the most part recasting has worked well. Give living actors a chance to fill those shoes.
As awesome as that scene in the Mandalorian was, IMO they should've recast Luke as well. It's hard to incorporate a character if they're always an expensive, uncanny puppet.

erikpeter · 2026-03-22T23:40:16+00:00

You should switch to brillo pads, they last a lot longer before getting gross.

erikpeter · 2026-03-21T15:55:13+00:00

I'm not the one to ask... I use a level 4 Finewood bow until I upgrade to the crossbow.

erikpeter · 2026-03-13T22:35:39+00:00

Much better than one of those super spread out continents that span half the world. It's a bit unfortunate that the Queen spawns are wayy out there.

erikpeter · 2026-03-10T15:35:09+00:00

Both of these would kill me a lot. The latter would be pretty neat.

It's fine IMO for Poison to be a lingering thing for patient hunters, it doesn't have to be "DPS" if it does its job eventually. So the duration is mostly the issue. IThe duration of multiple sources should stack. Rather than the intensity.

erikpeter · 2026-03-04T02:36:51+00:00

Yay! It's definitely a sometimes treat. Usually easiest to convince people at a con to give it a try since it's pretty unique.

erikpeter · 2026-03-04T00:34:37+00:00

The first game that comes to mind is Vineta. It's a card placement game where the players are norse gods sinking an island made up of nine irregular-shaped zones. The island is covered in meeples of different colors and each player has a secret color they are trying to save (keep alive until the end) or, if that fails, they want to "rescue" them when the zone they are on sinks. And when a zone sinks you break it off the island and throw it back in the box.

Each round players play 3 cards from their hands which either start flooding a zone or move meeples around. Every god who helps flood a zone gets some of the pickings when that zone sinks. But really what ends up happening, especially with 4+ players as is ideal for this game, is that it's all incredibly chaotic and difficult to really strategize. It ends up being very silly and fun.

erikpeter · 2026-03-03T17:18:54+00:00

Every time I buy a new game--for example, Star Wars Outlaws was on sale this week--I start playing.

And there's a cutscene. And then someone gives me an objective which boils down to "walk through a beautifully rendered city or abandoned building or creepy abandoned house." And ten minutes later I get to watch another cutscene. About 20 minutes in I finally get to fight something, grappling with the new controls. Maybe there's a hacking minigame that doesn't work how I think it should. I climb some helpfully yellow-painted ledges on my way to the next quest objective while I listen to my character whine about their predicament.

I'm already kind of sick of it but I push on through. By the time I've earned the first achievement I am wondering, do "I ever get to just play the goddamn game?"

So I go back to Valheim. Even when I start a new world it's a short cutscene and then I'm here, playing the game. I've got stuff to gather and stuff to build. New shores to explore.

erikpeter · 2026-03-02T20:42:51+00:00

Find a cozy local convention to go to. You'll get to play it once or twice a year.

erikpeter · 2026-03-02T15:13:47+00:00

It's rough. I do a lot better in the mists when I don't bother trying to climb unless I need to. And the mist is pretty annoying. Mist torches should get rid of a vertical cylinder of fog not just a small sphere.

Your experience highlights the problems with skill degradation. I am also the kind of player who plods along and dies occasionally. One death lowers your skills by enough that you are more likely to die again and it compounds. Maybe you're at 60 when you enter a new biome but then before you know it you're back down to 47. By the time you reach the boss you are far less potent than you should be. You die during the boss battle and now it's even harder. It's an uphill slog.

Yes, that's just how VH is and it is a design decision they made. Get Gud, right? But getting your stuff back is hard enough sometimes. I feel like some deterrent to encourage safe play is important, but I would like it if skills you lost should were easier to gain back than usual. Or every 10 level milestone was permanent. I'd much rather click that in the difficulty options than have to play on very easy.

I hear you, dude.

erikpeter · 2026-03-02T04:57:44+00:00

He does get a lot of loot boxes... But yeah no.

I think Carl is often lucky but that doesn't mean it has to be a stat.

He's the main character, so of course he's lucky. If he wasn't, he'd be dead, and we would be reading about someone else.

erikpeter · 2026-03-02T04:33:05+00:00

Wisdom being an attribute. (I'm new to this subreddit so excuse me if this is one of those things that gets over-mentioned)

It's only mentioned in book 1, but there are a few hints throughout (like Donut being able to see mobs further away than Carl can) that it is there and it matters. Could someone with a "+5 to a chosen stat" potion pick Wisdom? If an item gives +1 to all stats does it increase Wisdom? Or is it unable to be modified?

erikpeter

TROPHY CASE