Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: Sir Pseudonymous on December 17, 2010, 01:59:43 pm

Quote from: ToonyMan on December 17, 2010, 12:35:14 pm

1984 is a horrible book.  Why is this turning into a romance novel.  I already know there isn't going to be some badass war against Big Brother now since I'm like half way done with the freakin thing.  That really sucks.

:|

The hell's wrong with you? It's a great book. The Black Dossier version is better, though. :3

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Tijuana-bible-esque "Pornsec" pamphlet in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, produced by the INGSOC regime, and included in the titular "Black Dossier" because O'Brien found it funny (because now the LoEG includes some form of every piece of fiction ever written in its cannon, including 1984 and Shakespeare ):

(Takes place on an assembly line; Caption: "COMPULSORY ENJOY! YOU READ NOW! WORKBELT CRIMEPOKE!")
Winston-analogue: "Damn them Jane, I must non-proc you now!"
Jane: "Waste-crime! Make do and mend!"
W: "Aah! Ahh! Yes! In this moment of timeless animal lust we cast off our shackles!"
J: "Info-req: is it in?"
W: "Oh! Our sacred, shameless act of desire defeats them! Their oppression is meaningless before out lust! Oooough. Jesus..."
W: "Unngh! Unngh! Unngh! See how we... HURRRGH... See how we celebrate life! This sweet defiance shows that they can't take away our dignity!"
W: "We are free, Jane! Free! Oourrngh! Oh god, yes, take it, you dirty, blank-faced robotic bitch..."
J: "We are the dead."
J: "Thinkpol! He non-procked me in worktime! Long live Big Brother!"
O'Brien: "Doubleplusgood work, informant Jane."
O: "Take him to miniluv for re-ed."
(Takes place in room 101; Caption: "YOU NOT DO THIS!")
W: "AAYEEEEEGH! MY EYES!"
O: "Imagine a patent leather boot grinding on a human tongue forever."
J: "Mmn."

It makes more sense if you remember that Alan Moore wrote it.

Yeah what the hell is wrong with me.  I'll start liking the book now thank you.

I'd have actually argued in favor of the book, but I don't really care. It was just an opportunity to reference the Black Dossier in a relevant fashion.

I recommend watching Brazil instead. It's basically 1984, but better.

1984 is a horrible book.  Why is this turning into a romance novel.  I already know there isn't going to be some badass war against Big Brother now since I'm like half way done with the freakin thing.  That really sucks.

:|

The hell's wrong with you? It's a great book. The Black Dossier version is better, though. :3
It makes more sense if you remember that Alan Moore wrote it.

Hmmm... While giant blocks of absolute zero deuterium seem to work just as well, plutonium doesn't... Adding a thicker (metal, as always) shell just ate up more of the reaction strength.

(despite the few things, like why were the Collectors making a human-Reaper(considering how Reapers are supposed to be ABOVE THE MENTAL CAPACITIES OF INSECTS, UNCOMPREHENSIBLE and all that, I wouldn't mind if it never was explained, just left up to speculation), are there even any other Collector ships but the one you keep seeing(they implied that it's odd for one ship to follow Shepard, but no-one brings up if there even are any other Collector ships), why didn't the Collectors just kill off the Normandy's crew or at least captured them after they blew up the original Normandy).

Why and how they're doing it is explained rather well, actually. The collectors are the Protheans, genetically modified to be thralls for the reapers (from when you board the collector ship). The making a new reaper thing had something to do with never-explained genetic suitability, which was apparently very demanding (it's outright stated, I believe, that the Protheans didn't meet it, so they were just eliminated/enslaved to prevent them from becoming a threat), and considering all the reapers are (as far as we can see) identical, it can be assumed that they were all produced from the same species.

It's mentioned that the ship you keep running into is the same one. That doesn't imply there are more, however, since it's based on simply identifying that the ships that keep showing up are identical, and thus a single ship. It's never mentioned whether or not they have any other ships.

I presume that escape pods have sufficient systems to actually get their passengers out of the general area, while the collector ship would be ill-equipped to mop up all the fleeing pods after blasting the Normandy SR1 to pieces (and it probably didn't want to stick around too long trying to, considering the normandy probably sent out a distress call, and the collector ship seemed rather keen on avoiding encountering actual resistance (remember its reaction to the defense batteries powering up: abandon everything that was on the ground and flee)).

The first could be explained as "wow, that gun tore shit up, let's see if we can't figure out how it works!", though I don't have any of the DLC on account of my internet being shit.

I think by "used" it means "under the table", more or less. Private transactions between individuals that don't get reported or taxed. But I could be wrong there.

Quote

excessive use of alcohol is a pretty major problem in the uk, legalising canabis could potentially, but not necessarily, add another problem.

Actually, it's somewhat more likely to decrease alcoholism.

Unless a large number of people are only drinking because pot is illegal, probably not to any noticeable degree. But "it might add another social ill, because, like, obviously it doesn't cause any problems being illegal, because that means it totally doesn't exist and stuff" is a terrible argument for keeping something that's known to be significantly less harmful illegal.

I seem to recall most of the lower level nazis put on trial getting away with the argument that they were just following orders, and to refuse would have left them dead. It was only those who were of either political importance or behind the orders in the first place who didn't get away with it. Which is as it should be.

Soldiers are pieces of a machine, and they cannot question what the machine is doing. As much as you like arguing "The machine is evil and bottom-rung soldiers are obviously better equipped to deal with the complex moral clusterfuck that is war than officers because... uh... they're not part of the machine, man... or something...", what about when the soldiers come to conclusions you don't like? Think of the squad that made a game of killing civilians that wound up court marshaled when someone else in the platoon ratted them out to a higher officer (note that if they must break normal procedure to reveal blatant wrongdoing, going up their own damn ladder is the way to do it; still frowned upon, but not, you know, treason). That was also a case of soldiers thinking for themselves, and drawing their own conclusions. How about the soldiers that snap and start shooting their comrades? Thinking for themselves. While the Manning case is rather mild, especially compared to those, it is only so because of the general unimportance of everything leaked; he accomplished nothing of value, and left his head on the chopping block.


Doctors are a special case, being highly educated individuals whose very job requires them to draw conclusions in radically varying situations, and who are oathbound to a specific code of ethics. A doctor endangering the life of a patient over a petty grudge is a dire offense. A soldier (well, specifically a low-level grunt) is, by virtue of not being an officer, not in possession of the skills to make such sweeping decisions about what is right or wrong in regards to their orders, and privy to only the smallest part of the overall picture to boot. They're entitled to their opinions, they're not entitled to act upon them. You're trying to hold up one individual as why soldiers should think for themselves, and ignoring all the cases where that leads to them committing crimes and atrocities, because that's what they decide is best.