May 9, 2024: The May '24 Report is up.
News: April 23, 2024: Dwarf Fortress 50.13 has been released.
News: February 4, 2021: Dwarf Fortress Talk #28 has been posted.
News: November 21, 2018: A new Threetoe story has been posted.
Forum Guidelines
"How do I look girls?" Conny giggles happily.Angel stares at Conny and sighs. She was now by far the shortest person in the group. And Conny didn't even look much like Conny anymore!
Anyana unsheathes her two oddly shaped, glowing Katanas and looks ready.((Katana.))
Uhh, demon's run was it? You use blood magic?, I am pretty sure my blood is highly magical ((And also a higly potent contact toxin, but she does not know that yet))Will nods at this.
((And how many minutes have they had to move, act, plan, and execute these plans? I haven't gotten the feeling that there have been more than 5-10, which seems a bit short to do all of that. Hence my suspicion.((Again, how log would it take for them to decide that it is an acceptable risk for a sufficient benefit, then round up the civilians and tying-to-shields equipment--which had to be improvised--and finally tie them to shields and distribute them. All without communications. Somewhere along the line, something is...off.))In terms of time spans, remember: It's not like the defense team is sitting around and waiting until they see you. Every turn, they're moving, acting, planing and executing actions as well. Even if you just stood still, they'd still be preparing and acting.
((Mind control amp basically. They aren't ordering the sods, they're outright controlling the sods. It also allows them to take sensory information form them.))((...New, remember?
((Urban Executors weren't really supposed to be here, no. We found out that they're here.((I mean, weren't those the ones Steve mentioned were here, while Shadow Walkers were the ones that might be here?))
And no, I think regular communications had nothing to do with Sods and their commanders.))((Then how did they communicate?))
((Like I said, decisions and actions made at the speed of thought. That's the worst case scenario, but ultimately all a Shadow Walker would need is one civilian in our midst and he would be able to tap into pretty much anyone - though not without us noticing, we hope - and he'd know everything he needed. If he achieves full control, as he tried to do with Auron there, he has access to thoughts as well. Between that and the defenders having backup communications, the speed of organization is not surprising at all. And civilians likely let themselves be tied up.))((Again, they would need to come to the conclusion that we aren't harming civilians and decide that all the risks are worth the very marginal benefit of forcing the forces to use amps and other precise weapons, if we're not bluffing or something. And, really, that's the core of the thing--somehow, they knew we wouldn't be willing to harm civilians.))
((We disabled the main base communications, but apparently the defenders have the same kind of tech that allows the HMRC to keep contact with Steve - meaning that while we cut off the defenses, anything else that was set up is still functioning.))((...What was the purpose of what we did, then?))
((2: "Know your enemy", finding out the enemy's goals is the first step to defense. Plus the organochem overrider allows reading of thoughts - no need to interrogate.((2. And this thought-reading doesn't detract from the time or attention of the user? And somehow the civvie would have vital or even accurate information?
3: That would just be observation of our action - like how we went out of our way to keep civilians unharmed, and carted injured ones off the gangway to be treated in the ship. They probably have tiny spy cams set up to watch for this kind of thing.
4: Again, mind control provides ample evidence, and they likely don't care about PR, since they control the media.))
((5: So we thought, but we were proven wrong.((I automatically feel a bit...suspicious of any hypothesis based in large part on "We don't know X wasn't so!"))
6: Again, mind control. An untrained civilian is a mindless sheep to a Shadow Walker. During that mission I mentioned, he got a whole village to zerg-rush some perimeter defense turrets to get them offline and get out. Getting a crowd of civvies to tie themselves to tower shields would be similarly easy, and he only needs line of sight - even through someone else's eyes.))((Yeah, mind control is one thing I hadn't realized was possible. Incidentally, are these organic amps available from the AM?))
((They don't have to be bound with rope in the first place, plus do recall that this is an industrial complex. They could have cable or chain just lying around in stockpiles.))((I had thought they were. Also important: These are combat specialists, not industrial or bondage specialists; I'm not sure how the mind control works, or where the supplies are, but that is an additional time sink that reduces the time it took to decide "Okay, these mass murderers are actively avoiding civilian casualties, and it isn't a bluff or anything...probably not going to be negative disciplinary/political/media/whatever fallout...screw it, I'll have the civvies tied to the sods' shields, that should slow 'em down."))
((One correction: I think the guy from Mission 5 wasn't a Shadow Walker. For one, he didn't have a LESHO rifle. I think piecewise said that the guy in Mission 5 was an Urban Executor. Which makes the fact that there's a whole mess of them (and their bigger, meaner Shadow Walker cousins) in this mission all the more alarming.((Oh. Okay, one obstacle removed.))
((1. What is an organochemistry overrider?((Again, how log would it take for them to decide that it is an acceptable risk for a sufficient benefit, then round up the civilians and tying-to-shields equipment--which had to be improvised--and finally tie them to shields and distribute them. All without communications. Somewhere along the line, something is...off.))((What do you mean, without communications? Didn't we recently become aware of a potential Shadow Walker presence? An organochemistry overrider (I think that's what it was called) is a ways beyond the conventional radio and landline communications that we've severed.
Plus, I am fairly certain that Sod Commanders don't command the sods by radio. Issue instructions, maybe, but not boost their intelligence. Same space magic at work. Decisions and actions made at the speed of thought.))((And this thing somehow lets the commanders know all about our orders and actions, and organize a group to pick up civilians, tying equipment, and shields before arranging them into civilian shields, all in the space of mere minutes? Still seems pretty darn fishy.))
((Problem 1: Didn't we do something to radio? Or am I remembering wrong?))((Again, how log would it take for them to decide that it is an acceptable risk for a sufficient benefit, then round up the civilians and tying-to-shields equipment--which had to be improvised--and finally tie them to shields and distribute them. All without communications. Somewhere along the line, something is...off.))((Let's look at this from the commander's perspective.
First, let's do some background:
You are a ruthless UWM bastard trained in all forms of combat, espionage and unconventional warfare. You were sent here with a Shadow Ship along with what was described as a guerrilla warfare kit which includes things such asdemolition charges, long range sensors and microphones, cameras, some weapons, the general guerrilla warfare kit. Over all, it's strange. They can't have been expecting us to do anything, so either these were just improvements made at a time very unhelpful to us, or they were expecting something else...Not sure what though.Your mission is to protect this planet from attack by a superior force or from a worker uprising, when said workers could have knowledge about the workings of the base and its weaknesses. For that, you've distributed new equipment, installed several new traps and security measures and trained Sods as well as civilians to suit your needs.
Now, what has happened so far:
You were probably sitting around in your command center or maybe doing your rounds around the command section, training sods or inspecting equipment or secretly crying about how much your life sucks or whatever a UWM bastard would do during his day. Suddenly, all security systems and communications across the compound are shut down. Luckily, this is just the kind of thing you were trained for. So you get your radio out, contact your other UWM shadow buddies with your radio, organize yourselves and make a crude battle plan.
From the civilians running away from the gangway, you learn where the source of the problem is and maybe also learn some things about their goals, their probable equipment and that they want to try to minimize civilian casualties, assuming you interrogated the right civvie.((Problem 2: How and why would they interrogate random civilians near the scene of the attack, instead of organizing the counterattack?
You are lucky enough to be asked to defend the bridge to the Command Section. You are standing there when you see an avatar of war crossing the bridge. "No problem" you say. "I'll just use my reasonable pre-installed defensive measure to destroy the bridge." Then that avatar of war comes crashing into the building. "No problem." you say. "I have those handy civilians around to provide cover for me while i retreat." However while retreating you notice that the avatar stops because it doesn't want to hurt civilians. So while the avatar of war is standing around waiting for its friends to fly across and then seemingly standing around doing nothing (actually talking to Steve) you consider what you've learned: a. The Avatar is an unstoppable death machine. b. They don't like to hurt civilians. c. The avatar has squishy allies. d. You're a ruthless UWM bastard surrounded by civvies you just used as cover, probably by mind controlling them and destroying their brain.((Problem 5: Weren't there only the sods and civilians in the area?))
So by using that info and ordering each of your newly arrived batch of sods that conveniently carry shields to tie one completely obedient civilian up to their shield, you've managed to stall your enemy or maybe even hurt those squishy guys if you're lucky. Tying them up shouldn't take more than a minute or two. And carrying an exosuit across a bridge and then debating which way to go should have taken at least two minutes.((Problem 6: The tying isn't the big time-sink. The big one would be either rounding up the civilians or getting the tying equipment, assuming of course that the plan of action was decided on.))
And about the rope: rope is one of the most useful things to carry around. Flint is always carrying lots of rope and he has a shield. Does that make him a sod?((Rope has virtually no combat applications unless you are Pecos Bill or fighting an AT-AT. Why would sods have rope? And rope isn't even a very good way to secure civilians; tape would probably be better. But it has even less in the way of combat applications! There is no reason for sods to be carrying around stuff for binding civilians to shields.))
If those shadow guys know what they're doing,((Shadow guys who are not the sods and have no influence over them?))
