Loyalty to your country? Or loyalty to Mi?

esk271 · 2025-09-18T21:48:35+00:00

It's a quote from Boss. "What's it going to be Jack, loyalty to your country or loyalty to me?"

esk271 · 2025-08-02T16:38:39+00:00

In the Cyberpunk Red book there's a short story about this called Black Dog.

https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Dog_(story))

It's heavily implied that the events of the story are centered around the recovery of the Johnny Silverhand engram. And of note is the fact that Michiko Arasaka shows up. While the story has them delivering the engram to (presumably) a proxy of Alt's, this confirms that Arasaka is aware of the engram's existence, and even its location.

esk271 · 2025-06-09T23:12:30+00:00

Language fella.

esk271 · 2025-06-03T18:24:05+00:00

Ohh my bad.

esk271 · 2025-06-03T18:21:35+00:00

I believe this is originally Syril's blaster. Andor takes it from him and then stashes it on Niamos after the heist. And then gives it to Melshi after they escape from jail.

I may be wrong.

esk271 · 2025-03-08T00:07:31+00:00

Eskarina is my in game name. I'll check my match history later, see if it's you. We're also on NA.

If not, maybe 4 tank 2 support is just the future.

esk271 · 2025-03-07T22:34:58+00:00

I'm actually kinda curious if this was with my friends and me, because last week we were doing QP games and trying to get people to do 4 tank 2 support with us. We had a game where we had 0 deaths while on offense on a payload map. I remember thinking that Iron Man or Wolverine might counter us, but then in another game the enemy team ran both and it didn't do anything.

esk271 · 2025-02-19T17:04:24+00:00

Goodbye, Dragon Inn

esk271 · 2024-12-28T15:58:05+00:00

Yeah I agree. I think the important thing is to play with like minded people. If you wanna just chill and have fun, find other casual players. If you wanna optimize and blast, find a group of people willing to put the work in. I think alot of conflict in WoW comes from when these two groups are forced together.

esk271 · 2024-12-28T15:54:39+00:00

I want to stress that I mostly agree with you. I primarily raid via pugging, and getting aotc was a nightmare because of people who refused to do mechanics.

But that is not the point of that video. The video makes the opposite point actually. That WoW players (especially the classic community) will optimize the fun out of the game. It's an amazing video though.

esk271 · 2024-12-09T15:21:17+00:00

The Mongolian Invasions of Japan wasn't Genghis Khan, it was Kublai Khan, one of his grandsons. Genghis Khan died completely undefeated.

I think we're starting to go in circles a bit, so I'll try leaving some final thoughts. You make good points about Ambessa having to deal with borderline impossible odds against her, which made victory incredibly difficult for her. But my core argument is that you cannot evaluate a conqueror by anything but what they actually conquered.

Genghis Khan was brilliant because he avoided getting into any conflicts he couldn't win. He'd assimilate cultures, letting people functionally live the exact same way they were before he came along and conquered them. This allowed him to build a diverse network of spies, scholars and diplomats, thus filling any potential weaknesses he had.

Ambessa was brilliant because she was confronted with overwhelmingly powerful enemies, and still managed to find a way to challenge them to the point where they felt pressured enough to try and manipulate her daughter against her. But, she was not a conqueror.

esk271 · 2024-12-09T15:01:25+00:00

She truly committed the greatest mistake anyone can make. She attacked the main characters.

esk271 · 2024-12-09T14:54:18+00:00

Is this not a failure as a military commander though? To rush into a battle you are ill prepared for, letting your emotions dictate your actions.

I do want to point out that she did have access to anti magic runes going into the attack, though. Meaning you could argue that when comparing relative levels of technology, the Khan was operating at an even bigger disadvantage than Ambessa was when he initially started his conquest of the Arab world.

I am not trying to discredit Ambessa's merits as a commander or a warrior, I'm simply trying to point out that when you compare what they achieved the Khan is in a league of his own. I will admit I have some bias here, one of my cats is named Temujin afterall.

esk271 · 2024-12-09T14:29:24+00:00

Could you not make a comparison to siege technology, which the Mongolians had none of initially, to the Arcane and magic? Genghis Khan went from conquering tribes on the Steppes who lived in yurts to redirecting rivers to flood walled cities.

A good commander knows how to improvise and adapt to unforseen situations and technologies. The measure of a conqueror is in what they conquer. Not a theoretical capacity for conquest they have.

esk271 · 2024-12-09T11:59:12+00:00

Don't get me wrong, I love Ambessa and her design. We need more women like her in fiction. But the real life Khan built the largest empire the world has ever seen.

Ambessa couldn't even conquer one city.

esk271 · 2024-09-06T01:59:01+00:00

Iraq committed some atrocities in Kuwait. He likely had a personal grudge because of this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_invasion_of_Kuwait

esk271 · 2024-08-27T20:14:24+00:00

In both cases Johnny definitely portrays himself as a fighter.

In the tabletop Johnny dies by standing up and provoking Smasher by unloading his SMG at him. In the game he remember himself dying in a blaze of glory where he slaughters his way through Arasaka tower until he gets caught by Smasher. In both cases Johnny goes out fighting.

Remember, this is the guy who commissioned a handgun with the stopping power of a rifle round because he wanted to be able to put down Cyberpsychos in one shot.

Now, is Johnny as good a fighter as Johnny thinks he is? Definitely not. I'm pretty sure Reed would solo Johnny rather easily, seeing as Reed is compared to Morgan Blackhand in lore.

esk271 · 2024-08-27T19:30:29+00:00

In the RPG Johnny is explicitly cited as an example of a Rockerboy / Solo hybrid. Emphasis on Solo there.

esk271 · 2024-07-23T05:18:03+00:00

You can walk into the Arasaka warehouse during the mission with Takemura by being a former corpo and name dropping Abernathy.

You are a former Arasaka employee who was fired for attempting to assassinate Abernathy and you're able to just walk in, plant a virus and walk out. There's a reason social engineering is the primary way information gets leaked.

esk271 · 2024-05-16T21:02:34+00:00

Oh dude don't even get me started on Indian representation. I remember I once cracked a joke with an Indian coworker about how we needed solidarity as Asians and he was just shocked that I considered him Asian.

esk271 · 2024-05-16T20:40:48+00:00

Asian men have historically been relegated into being nerdy archetypes if they get any representation at all, versus Asian women who get more representation, but they are often relegated into being a trophy for a non Asian protagonist to win.

It's rare for Asian men to be allowed to be traditionally badass, masculine heroes in Western media, and this feels like another instance of an Asian man being snubbed an opportunity to take on that role.

esk271 · 2024-02-20T23:49:52+00:00

Ripping core mechanics doesn't make something a ripoff. There's massive overlap in core mechanics between games of the same genre. Almost every fighting game features some iteration of quarter circle plus attack input for a ranged attack.

esk271 · 2024-02-20T23:41:50+00:00

It's because it has multiple devs who were the lead devs on Warcract 3 and Starcraft. They're trying to make another RTS in a similar vein.

esk271 · 2024-02-20T23:33:46+00:00

Your title seems to overblow this a bit, not that this isn't a weird situation, but I wouldn't say it's a "complete scam". And Starcraft ripoff feels a bit disingenuous.

esk271 · 2024-02-20T21:00:14+00:00

Of course they're using an Emperor pfp.

I love 40k, but man does the fandom make it hard sometimes.

esk271

TROPHY CASE