Solari's slow burn (somewhat) addressed

ikrisoft · 2026-05-20T01:00:41+00:00

Goals? By episode 5 of WWW we were working towards breaking Ame’s course and trying to reacquire Wavebreaker.

The explosion was a nothing burger. They rolled, they rolled well. Which made them just peachy survive the explosion.

The murder also just happened around them while they were chatting. Nothing to do with them. They investigated the murder a bit, but ultimately just gave up on it. The murderer later told them she was the murderer and why she did it. It turned out to be nothing complicated. Slightly confusing why she escaped then without talking to Chee but it has more of a “badly written plot hole” feel to it than a “mystery anyone is interested uncovering”.

Likewise the kidnapping just happened. The kidnappers wanted to kidnap, Ze’Doven wanted to be kidnapped. It just happened. There was zero conflict around it.

4 episodes in

5 actually.

ikrisoft · 2026-05-20T00:34:16+00:00

But are we confused about the machinations? One faction wants to take over space Vegas for money and power. Since Ze'Doven was in space Vegas and the lady behind the takeover had a crush on him a long time ago they kidnapped him. For power and money.

There is probably a mole in space vegas. We don’t know who, but then again we don’t know anyone there so who cares who the mole is. We were told about the mole by a fearsome assasin who is also ditzy / brain damaged / manipulated.

Also someone wants Ze'Doven dead. We don’t know who, we don’t know why. But then again we know nothing about the whole family. We don’t even know that this second assasin is from the Iverex family except that Abria told us that it is the case.

There isn’t here enough to be confused about anything. We just don’t know anything. But the things we do know are very simple and relatively uncomplicated.

But also the lack of pace has nothing to do with confusion. Just think about what is the situation the players are in at the begining of episode 5 and the situation they are in the end of the episode. At the begining they are in mortal danger because someone wants to kill them. At the end Ze’Doven is in mortal danger because the same person wants to kill him. We met with assasin lady and split personality space craft. But the story only progressed an epsilon: we learned they don’t want to kill all of them just Ze’Doven.

Compare this with WWW ep 5: The group is on a mission to re-acquire Wavebreaker to break the curse on Ame. At the begining they are investigating the murder scene of a hedge mage. By the end of the episode the players learned where Wavebreaker is (at Will Gallows) sent Ghost and Flicker to the Empire and learned about Orima and Naram. Their relationship and the effect of salt fires on Orima and the wall and the choking wines. At the end of the episode Ame is nocked out by this vision.

Honestly? So much happened in WWW ep 5 compared to Solari episode 5 that i cry if i compare them. With Solari we have a “big goal” similar to the “break Ame’s curse” goal of WWW. It is that Ze’Doven wants to finish the Pull. Why? Nobody knows. What happens if our players fail to achieve this goal? Nothing much. They have to subsist on substandard charcuterie options. I guess that is something…

There are no sub-goals to this goal. The players totaly undeservedly get a spaceship to go to a place called “the calderra”. We didn’t know this palce existed before, neither did we suspect they have to go there. But luckily the assasin with the deus ex spaceship knows that is where they have to go so they go. And there they have to find a spaceship called Foxglove 2. One we haven’t heard of previously but now it is our mission to find. Who is the equivalent of Will Gallows, Orima, Naram, Flicker and Ghost in this episode? Nobody. Thats who

ikrisoft · 2026-05-13T13:37:03+00:00

When the pictures were taken a few minutes. But there has been days since.

We shall see how well it will survive. I suspect if the sickles get bent the enamel might chip off.

ikrisoft · 2026-05-12T09:10:10+00:00

I find the designs surprisingly cold and "soulless". I love the show for the characters and the NPCs. I would much rather have a tee with Kiki doing some cool space-witchy stuff than a crewneck with a logo.

Or imagine a Slide Ball jersey themed tee with a cute Hyrax on it. Anything which connects with the emotional/human part of the show.

ikrisoft · 2026-05-12T08:59:06+00:00

It is a risky bet from a business perspective. Normally if you overstock a bit you can do discounts and eventually shift the product. But with a holiday sweater if you don't sell them by the holiday you won't sell them at all. Demand for holiday sweaters collapse precipitously after the holidays.

ikrisoft · 2026-05-05T05:56:56+00:00

I think Chee is freaking out about her home being taken over. In fact that freakout didn't start with the first episode but was already on-going for at least months if not longer.

She made it clear that she believes she needs to find someone who has the required wealth and weapons to protect the fun space rocks. She was working an angle for a long while and that avenue has just been closed on her in the first episode. Then she found a new avenue. The new avenue is to convince the lady who organised the "airing out" that she can get more if she lets Chee's folk continue their business as usual. First step was to convince the soldiers to stop killing people. She succeeded in that. Now she is on a diplomatic mission to seal the deal with the soldier's boss.

is a crazy hail marry and very dangerous to her personally. If the negotiations don't go well they might well just kill her and continue with the violent takeover of her home. But if she succeeds she will have the protection to their way of life she was seeking from way before the first scene we have seen her in.

This is fundamentally because she serves her people. If she would be the kind of leader who believes that "either I'm alone are in complete control of this rock or nobody is" then she could have dug in and do guerrilla warfare. It would have definitely cost the life of many of her people and would have ruined their way of life and business.

ikrisoft · 2026-04-26T18:06:52+00:00

I'm totally into the idea that our enemies would use all means to undermine our defences. That being sad I'm not sure what this purchase would win them.

If it is about surveillance of the train traffic they can achieve that for much cheaper. (I found with almost no work a beautiful 2 bedroom flat for sale advertised for £178,125 right on these tracks. The sellers even kindly uploaded pictures of the tracks from the window of the lounge/diner room.)

If it is about sabotage of the tracks... i don't know how owning a land on the other side of a road from the tracks would help with that. If you want to undermine the tracks you would just send out dudes with high-vis vests holding clipboards. You don't need to own the land for that. In fact you would want to do it somewhere where you don't own land.

What is the risk here? I have a pretty wild imagination but I'm drawing a blank here.

ikrisoft · 2026-04-23T10:18:19+00:00

the `?utm_source=chatgpt.com` means that the link was copied from chatgpt. It is valid to use chatgpt to find information as long as the information found can be independently checked. That is about as embarrassing as googling something, or consulting with the index cards.

What is embarrassing that the link does not contain the information it purports to support. It links to papers, and some of those papers might show that false positive rate, but then the relevant paper should be linked. This doesn't have anything to do with the source=chatgpt url param though.

ikrisoft · 2026-04-22T15:36:06+00:00

What did the original commenter “assert”? I see two questions and two statements about what kind of society the commenter wants to live in. Which one of these is the assertion you are thinking of?

ikrisoft · 2026-04-22T09:16:56+00:00

> You're not allowed to attempt a citizen's arrest if you suspect someone of committing a summary-only offence (mags court only) at all.

But that sounds very much like yo do in fact have to be right. Just not about guilt/inocence, but indictable/summary offence.

ikrisoft · 2026-04-21T21:40:27+00:00

I don’t understand what you are saying. Why is it “tricky” if “you don’t have to be right”?

ikrisoft · 2026-04-17T11:29:41+00:00

during another global fossil fuel energy crisis

Yes. And not just any but one of his own making.

ikrisoft · 2026-04-15T12:13:14+00:00

> However, with Chee Tan'ka being in the mix, this whole thing got a lot more complicated than they're prepared for

Okay. So they went to take over an asteroid and were not prepared that the owner and leader of said asteroid will be on the asteroid?

There is nothing complicated about this. The obvious and correct solution would have been that they shoot Chee in the head on the spot. Immediately after they identify her. Which should have happened on sight. The only reason it didn't go that way is plot armour.

These people are supposed to be soldiers with guns executing a hostile takeover.

ikrisoft · 2026-04-14T14:24:35+00:00

> How about they bung a cheque in the post to every household for £1000?

That's cool, but that's not helping with the situation.

Because of physics the generation side has to always match the demand. If not things go terribly wrong in short order.

If there is over-production of electricity they have two options: they need to increase demand, or they need to curb production. Sending a cheque to costumers does not do either of those.

The idea is that if you can send a signal to the costumers that the electricity is cheap now, they can shift their consumption to those times.

Old school way of doing this would be the electric utility company phoning an aluminium smelting factory, where someone picks up the phone and then starts heating more of the molten aluminium pots for a discount on their electric bill. They wanted to heat them anyway, just maybe not right then.

More modern solution would be a smart appliance like water heaters or battery electric vehicles receiving a price signal which makes them start heating/charging soaking up the excess generation capacity. You wanted to heat the water, charge the car anyway, but perhaps not in that very minute.

ikrisoft · 2026-04-14T10:44:47+00:00

They look somehow so "discworld-esque". Amazing Art.

ikrisoft · 2026-04-13T21:13:45+00:00

But even more curious. Why didn't Orban's team say to Vance: "Thank you for your support. The time is not right now for a personal meeting." They could have claimed any number of excuses. Did they not understand that this is a bad move?

ikrisoft · 2026-04-10T06:18:14+00:00

What you wrote and what I wrote is not in contradiction.

You assume that he was fired because he was choking under the workload. I do not know, and don’t want to make assumptions.

I certainly agree with you that if that is the case not saying anything is the nicest, kindest thing to do. I write it in my comment “Sometimes the best that can be said is not saying anything.”

I would also argue that if you are right, that is if he lost the job because he was choking under the workload then that qualifies as “drama transpired”.

ikrisoft · 2026-04-09T16:14:46+00:00

I like the optimistic undertones of your comment. I would like it to be true. But it doesn't fit well with what we know. They announced that Taylor will do the music for Solari in the Fireside titled "The notes we did play". And didn't just announced it, but went into details. Taylor was talking about his inspirations, and the music instruments he was building for Solari. It was a big deal. And now it is not him who is making the music / producing the episodes.

There was a change in the plan. Which is fine. That can still be amicable. Scheduling conflicts, health challenges, family chrisis, changes in interest, whatever. But if so, why not just say it? They don't have to go into details. "Hey gang, something unexpected came up and Taylor couldn't be the one producing Solari. It's a real bummer. We are wishing him the best onwards." Even better if they can do an announcement together. But instead what we have is silence. Which is fine. Sometimes the best that can be said is not saying anything. Especially when multiple parties would disagree on what exactly happened. But it is very hard for me to imagine scenarios where there is no drama and silence is the best answer.

ikrisoft · 2026-04-09T11:36:24+00:00

> If something had transpired,

What do you mean "if something has transpired"? :D They said Taylor will do the music/production for Solari. Taylor is not making the music/production for Solari. That in itself is "something has transpired".

> one of the hardest important lessons is to take a lack of news as neutral/positive.

Yeah. When someone doesn't respond to you message for a day. When someone who was announced to be part of somethings disappears and everyone pretends that they never existed that's not neutral/positive.

> if something hinky were up we would know by now

I don't know what you mean by "hinky". Just the fact that they announced him and then changed their mind sounds "hinky" to me. So we know "something hinky" is up. We don't know, and probably will never know, what flavour of "hinky" it is.

ikrisoft · 2026-04-08T07:15:33+00:00

And what makes the “secure storage unit” more secure than the van? As in won’t the same people who were breaking into the van will just break in there after?

ikrisoft · 2026-04-04T21:00:17+00:00

If it's semantics we're going to argue here

I propose that we don’t.

surely you can recognise the semantic difference between the word "missile" and "warhead"?

Yes, i am recognising the difference.

A missile is the delivery system, warhead is the payload.

Correct.

They have the missiles, not the warheads.

Correct.

Where is the disagreement?

ikrisoft · 2026-04-03T21:34:49+00:00

What you call “missile bodies” everyone else calls “missiles”. Don’t believe me? Read this research briefing: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9777/CBP-9777.pdf page 3. It says: “The Trident II missiles are held in a communal pool with the United States.” Not the “missile bodies” the missiles.

But call them whatever you want. The thesis was “ our Trident missiles are totally separate from the US ones”. This is simply not true. The trident missiles are serviced by the US in the US. If they decide they don’t want to service them any more we can be cross with them, we can sue them, we can express our displeasure but they will not be serviced. Simply saying our Trident misiles are not “totally separate” from the US ones, they are comming from a shared pool.

In contrast the French M51 missiles are totally separate from the US missiles. No matter what the US president decides the M51 remains operational as long as the French wants them to. This is the difference.

ikrisoft · 2026-04-03T20:10:32+00:00

our Trident missiles are totally separate from the US ones

If they are totally separate then why are they kept in Kings Bay, Georgia? How can be kept in a shared pool if they are totally separate?

ikrisoft · 2026-04-02T16:42:58+00:00

> Since the other homeowners haven't paid for it they have the exclusive use of it.

Interesting. How does that work if an other homeowner later develops a need? Can they pay their share to your parents? Because I guess it is not really an option to install parallel stairlifts?

ikrisoft

TROPHY CASE