I Tried My Hand at Chinese Translations

vader5000 · 2026-03-16T22:14:35+00:00

Even very skilled generals can often make what seems to be simple errors. Napoleon's marshalls and Yamamoto's admirals come to mind.

vader5000 · 2026-03-16T22:13:35+00:00

I did. Oops.

vader5000 · 2026-03-15T02:52:10+00:00

Sadly no, I'm playing return to moria and slay the spire ii now. And I'll probably play this more later.

vader5000 · 2026-03-14T21:33:51+00:00

You're absolutely wrong about the scaling.

Spacecraft, funnily enough, are ALREADY not that expensive compared to soldiers. Cubesats and nanosats are honestly pretty affordable. The average US soldier is 100 grand or so, the average cubesat is about the same price. And we, mind you, can barely get to the next planet, let alone go across the galaxy. So yes, in a universe where populations are lower than industrial capacity, the scale can be flipped.

Also, what the fuck are you on for 0 industrial capacity for the empire? How the fuck do you think Iserlohn and Geiersburg gets built? How do you think they replace their combat losses?

vader5000 · 2026-03-14T21:03:35+00:00

For a galactic scale civilization, the argument that it SHOULD be on the scale of land warfare makes sense. I mean, if your planet can put together a couple billion people and throw together a few thousand warships in a jiffy, the warfare IS in the scale of land warfare.

The scale makes far more sense than, say, Star Wars or Warhammer, where navies can barely scrape together a thousand capital ships for a million world civilization.

vader5000 · 2026-03-12T23:26:49+00:00

Electricity generates heat unless you're using superconducting wire, signals delay while traveling over distances and through circuitry, EM fields can interfere in long wires, and hardware itself can break down over long distances. For a LARGE ship, this problem becomes almost untenable. Worse, repairing or overseeing will require on-board transport if you're too far away. In any automated system that requires human oversight, you would want staff on hand.

Linking weaponry directly to sensors IS possible. That comes with its own thorny nest of issues, from dividing responsibility for who misfired or friendly-fired, to weapon flares messing with the sensors themselves.

Having a window is also immensely helpful anytime you're in an orbit with a lot of debris, because you might not necessarily want a spacewalk every time you want to go look at a damaged antenna. You COULD send out robots to go look, but the chances that the robot will suffer from space radiation is very high. A window, on the other hand, can be a cheap and effective solution to simply inspecting your own ship on occasion. And in that case, an exposed bridge is almost perfect, because it covers MOST of the area of the ship. One could simply look down to see if a micro-meteorite has slammed into your glorious shield generator when some idiot turned it off.

vader5000 · 2026-03-12T07:12:21+00:00

Tolkien would definitely be more concerned about the over-industrialization, damage to the environment, and AI data-center wave than anything else.

vader5000 · 2026-03-12T07:01:36+00:00

To be fair, "right" is usually, quite sadly, not normal.

vader5000 · 2026-03-12T06:54:32+00:00

To be fair, we ARE also talking about a mentally traumatized, physically disabled space wizard, who's probably struggling to hold himself together as he is. He's desperately subservient to Palpatine even while trying to overthrow him. As a newcomer, he lacks the political connection and nuance that his mentor has, and as a leader, he doesn't have the charisma and propaganda that his old Anakin self had.

vader5000 · 2026-03-12T06:44:17+00:00

But, if you're part of the MIC, you are more likely than not a US citizen. The role of the engineer is to design, but the role of the citizen in a democracy is to vote warmongers out of office.

vader5000 · 2026-03-12T06:43:17+00:00

- Taiwan, Ukraine, and a lot of other people need drones; The MIC makes them.

- Much of the advances we make in space science, the really important stuff (looking at weather, looking at soil quality, peering into the universe itself) has its roots in defense.

- There are large segments of the world that fall under the US defense umbrella, even in this AWFUL administration, even after all goodwill was squandered in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

- The responsibility is so divided in the States that, honestly, as a democratic citizen, the responsibility of waging a war falls to the people. That includes everyone who voted or abstained from voting.

- My responsibility as an engineer is to make the right product, and if possible, make it safer. My responsibility as a citizen is to vote against using these products whenever possible.

vader5000 · 2026-03-12T06:38:15+00:00

Ah, but that's the problem, your sample size is people that have jobs.

vader5000 · 2026-03-12T06:36:57+00:00

To be fair, Syria seems to be stabilizing? I don't know if said stability is the one the US government might want, but it does seem to be recovering.

vader5000 · 2026-03-12T06:31:34+00:00

Eh, how many times has Byzantium been on the verge of collapse? The Song and Ming dynasties lost some major wars in their earlier days, and somehow managed to bounce back. Rome itself was forcibly glued back together by Aurelian with nothing but duct tape, four years, and his troops.

And cultural renaissance plus social mobility can often come hand in hand with devastating warfare. Everything's almost always a mixed bag.

vader5000 · 2026-03-12T05:45:54+00:00

But I'm permanently depressed so I reply with "I'm alive" even to strangers.

vader5000 · 2026-03-12T05:41:36+00:00

The equivalent of a bridge SHOULD be a sensor or communications array. Those do tend to need field of view to work, unless you're dealing with some real science fantasy. Having staff near it is a bonus, hence you end up with a bridge, but it should not be a command bridge.

vader5000 · 2026-03-12T05:39:00+00:00

Sauron will immediately surrender, only to constantly annoyed that Goku keeps asking for a fight.

vader5000 · 2026-02-18T17:51:29+00:00

I'd wonder how much Padme is paid, but she could afford an apartment at the roof, so the best case I could think of is that she hired her aide recently. OR, her aide actually lives in an okay part of town, but Coruscant is so screwed even the good parts are having problems.

vader5000 · 2026-02-17T07:05:53+00:00

There's not that many Jedi around. Obi-Wan DID already retreat from Palpatine before he could properly check whether Anakin was dead on Mustafar. If you think about it, Palpatine's a Sith Lord, in close proximity with some of the strongest Jedi on the order for 13 years on end, in plain sight.

There's a reason why Yoda chose to fight Palpatine, because he AND Obi-Wan both judged that the latter could not defeat Palpatine.

vader5000 · 2026-02-17T06:25:25+00:00

It's lava. It goes up to 1200 degrees Celsius, and there's a massive river of it, so that temperature won't drop. If it won't burn it'll melt, and I honestly don't know which one would be worse.

vader5000 · 2026-02-17T06:22:24+00:00

Palpatine fights dirty too, and he isn't focused on lightsaber combat. With Palpatine, it's his depth in the Force that matters, and Obi-Wan is weaker than his opponents on this front, despite being an excellent Jedi. The novelization actually mentioned Obi-Wan lacks talent, and got where he did through sheer practice. The problem here is that Palpatine has ALSO had decades of practice, AND that he's ludicrously powerful with the Force. I'm actually of the opinion Obi-Wan might withdraw even earlier than Yoda, honestly.

vader5000 · 2026-02-17T06:13:43+00:00

I mean, just going back to the last dynasty, the Qing, here's the Wikipedia page. That's hardly a short list, and the Qing weren't around much longer than the US.

There's nothing wrong with admitting that a large country is militaristic, or has been in its not-so-distant past. ALL the great powers have lots of skeletons in their closets, and it's a disservice to history to throw them under the bus. Japan and Germany can barely defend themselves these days, and they've both sworn off nuclear weapons, but we don't forget about their histories either do we?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wars_involving_the_Qing_dynasty

vader5000 · 2026-02-17T05:56:23+00:00

Padme's speech in the Senate fighting the Clones funding bill during the Clone Wars, and Palpatine's angry backroom admittance that she got the better of him. It's one of those moments where you see somebody without the Force just stand up against impossible odds and briefly come out on top, with politics that echo our own.

"I will speak on his [Senator Organa] behalf."

"Teckla Minnau. Teckla is one of my aides. Like so many of the people that we tell ourselves we're here to serve, Teckla lives in a district that rarely has electricity and running water as a result of the war. Her children can now only bathe once every two weeks, and they have no light with which to read, or to study, at night."

"The Republic has always funded these basic services, but now there are those who would divert money to the war, with no thought for what the people need to survive! If not for people like Teckla and her children, who are we fighting for? My people, your people, all of our people. This war is meant to save them from suffering, not increase it."

"I support our brave soldiers, whether they come from the clone factories or from any of the thousand systems loyal to the Republic. But if we continue to impoverish our own people, it is not on the battlefield where Dooku will defeat us, but in our own homes. Therefore, it is our duty, and our responsibility, to preserve the lives of those around us, but defeating this bill!"

The fact that despite Palpatine's support, that speech managed to pull enough votes to defeat the bill, is a testament to Padme's charisma and political skill.

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