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Author Topic: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)  (Read 44634 times)

Egan_BW

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #60 on: March 20, 2017, 08:48:25 pm »

New hypothetical: you've discovered a godless, forsaken continent to the south with strange and hostile wildlife. Can you imagine any reason to colonize this barren landmass that isn't an extended form of mass-suicide? And if so, how?
Send all the criminals and let them set up a colony for the empire.
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Hanslanda

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #61 on: March 20, 2017, 08:49:16 pm »

New hypothetical: you've discovered a godless, forsaken continent to the south with strange and hostile wildlife. Can you imagine any reason to colonize this barren landmass that isn't an extended form of mass-suicide? And if so, how?


Prison continent.

I'd send political prisoners there, because I am PURE FUCKING EVIL.
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FallacyofUrist

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #62 on: March 20, 2017, 08:57:28 pm »

New hypothetical: you've discovered a godless, forsaken continent to the south with strange and hostile wildlife. Can you imagine any reason to colonize this barren landmass that isn't an extended form of mass-suicide? And if so, how?
GOLD! OIL! Other underground natural resources! Also, a place to live. Overpopulation isn't a concern anymore.
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Frumple

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #63 on: March 21, 2017, 02:15:34 am »

Plot twist, freakish arboreal monstrosities inhabiting the continent perpetually manufacture clones of the nearest intelligent lifeform once one comes close enough to them. By the time your colonists land on the shore, each one has a dozen confused copies waiting for them, casually excreting upon your attempts to solve overpopulation concerns. In trying to exploit the abominable hellscape, you have magnified your problem twelvefold and rising.

In short order starvation and overexploitation by desperate cast off mimics leaves the land barren of useful materials, hosting several new and horrifyingly deadly plagues, and flooding the continents of the rest of the world with an unending stream of confused replications of your expeditionary population.

BAD END
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Egan_BW

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #64 on: March 21, 2017, 02:18:21 am »

In reaction to above, send in marines to torch the whole ecosystem, then exploit resources.
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Frumple

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #65 on: March 21, 2017, 02:27:01 am »

You'd probably rather it or something. You need something a ways off, offshore artillery just makes them launch giant balls of clones at the ships. Sending in marines would just get you an unending stream of marines running back at you and/or being used as counter artillery projectiles. Don't ask how the tree creatures copy their equipment, too.

You might be better off just cutting your losses, really.
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FallacyofUrist

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #66 on: March 21, 2017, 09:39:04 am »

No. NUKES. Wait a few thousand years after that, then get mining.
Alternatively, napalm.
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Egan_BW

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #67 on: March 21, 2017, 12:41:13 pm »

They can copy the equipment, but they can't copy good old spess mreen discipline! Equip everyone with flamethrowers, so when the clones try to shoot back they just help burn the foliage. They can't counter-shell our ships because we came in on ICBMs.
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Frumple

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #68 on: March 21, 2017, 12:50:19 pm »

Eventually the flamethrowers run out of fuel. The biological improbabilities just keep coming.

... also they totally copy the discipline, too. These are near perfect current state copies. Don't ask how the tree critters work. The clones probably wouldn't even be hostile if not for everyone trying to shoot them or let them die of starvation and neglect. and maybe just a little bit of brain chemistry alteration, who can say
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Egan_BW

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #69 on: March 21, 2017, 02:05:31 pm »

Run out of fuel? There is more fuel being cloned constantl  for marines to Loot like videogame protagonists. And screw ye, PATRIOTISM can't be cloned by alien scum.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2017, 03:14:54 pm by Egan_BW »
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helmacon

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #70 on: March 21, 2017, 02:54:19 pm »

Hire the clones in logging operations. Their own creations will destroy them.

alternatively, exploit this as a source of renewable and quickly produced cattle/fish.
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FallacyofUrist

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #71 on: March 22, 2017, 09:38:17 am »

New hypothetical!
You find a spell book on your bed, and as you touch it, you feel it bind to you.
Choose any one D&D 3.5e or Pathfinder spell, 6th spell level or less, and you can now use it once per day, ignoring material cost. What class the spell belongs to doesn't matter. What is your choice, if any?
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do?
« Reply #72 on: March 22, 2017, 11:17:29 am »

The psionic bends space around itself, making it's ship invisible to all automated defenses.
Then assuming all manned vehicles also fail to stop the alien, we have learned the alien invaders manipulate space itself and are potent psionics.

10% more psionic power allows it to sense lesser psionics anywhere in the galaxy, while hiding it's own presence from detection by the weaker psionics.
If we hold this to be true. I argue the contrary, given that more power makes things more visible, but ey, reality warping ayy lmaos are dangerous so let's assume the worse. My proposition proposes that the vials be divided between 5 people, which gives the maximum psionic potential over the longest period of time - literally only limited by the lifespan of the psionic humans in question. Assuming that the psionic ayy lmao is capable of infiltrating planet Earth without any of the 5 psionics from noticing that something more powerful than them has arrived, how on Earth (or indeed, out of Earth) would your proposal be better?

Analyzing this, we can have two scenarios. One wherein the five psionics have prepared for the full 5 years to mobilize all of mankind into a giant war state with screening and bureaucratic surveillance. I don't care if the psionic ayy lmao can make itself invisible, I want to know where its papers are, otherwise all glory to Arstoska, the ayy lmao has been found :P
Moreover, let us assume that psionic power is not additive and that contrary to human naturte, cooperation does not drastically multiply the power of weaker individuals. How is holding vials in reserve going to help at all? If we have simply one person holding onto the vials waiting for an invisible psionic material warping alien to show up only to use the vials then, that alien is just going to kill the human who cannot have any chance of sensing the psionc whatsoever, with that ayy lmao then taking control of all the vials. Also hell, even if each individual psionic cannot sense the one alien psionc, they will know when one of their own goes silent.

Let us assume this ordinary human is somehow capable of sensing the psionic and drinking two vials before the ayy lmao kills him. This human becomes a one man army, and is capable of killing the ayy lmao before it runs away. The increased psionic potential runs out, as it is only temporary. We're now down to 3 vials, and one psionic at standard strength, having killed only ONE alien. The aliens will now know that there is a human capable of outmatching their psionic potential on a temporary basis. There is absolutely nothing stopping them from wiping out all of humanity around this one human, there's no way in hell this human can stop the aliens from wiping out every human centre across the globe where this one psionic is. As soon as they realize this one psionic is only more powerful than them temporarily, they are going to launch their full assault, all of mankind's conventional communications will be wiped out, the psionic will be killed and all of mankind will be at the mercy of this extragalactic invader.

It makes zero sense whatsoever to be competing with an alien invader on their strengths when the aliens are objectively superior to you in every capacity. You need to compete on the strengths of humans.

Conventional human reinforcements are incapable of perceiving the psionic as a threat or anything out of the ordinary. Psionics basically trump all non-psionic defenses.
Then the alternative is having one human who is capable of perceiving the psionic threat for four temporary instances. If there are more than four aliens, of if the aliens attack outside of those four instances when one human is overpowered, mankind is defenceless and will certainly perish defenceless. On the contrary, having five psionics direct the defence, it doesn't matter if the humans cannot perceive the alien - the psionics can, and can direct the reinforcements to kill the aliens.

The alien does not kill it's victims immediately. Upon overwhelming their inferior minds, it takes control of them and forces them to act normally until it has finished neutralizing all potential threats.
The problem is that this then creates a very visible blackspot upon the already established illuminati network - it would be akin to a city full of lights, with one district suddenly having a blackout, a blackout visibly spreading in a certain direction. Normal human information analysis would be able to reveal the geographic locale of the alien, especially with the five psionics spread around the Earth - even if each individual psionic cannot sense where the alien is, because its magic psionic powers means it is more powerful than Sonic OCs, they can see where the humans formerly under their control have blacked out of the grid.

Psionic powers are not additive in that fashion. It would be like 4 guys with guns against 1 guy with a tank. Those 4 guys are going to be wishing they had that temporary army.
Whose to say that they are not? This alien has 110% the power relative to one individual with one vial at 100%. Someone who is 10% stronger than me and 10% tougher than me cannot help but be overwhelmed if there are five of me. It is like a beetle that is 10% larger than and vastly tougher and stronger than any individual ant. Yet two ants is enough to kill the beetle in safety, five ants is overkill. This is again assuming that all of humankind is ineffectual against the enemy, which is a big assumption to make - the note explicitly commanded us to mobilize humanity, one of the foremost details is that humanity will be of paramount importance to the defence of humankind.

Put another way, I am not at all interested in wasting a limited resource merely defeating one tank, when I am mobilizing the entire species and sum total of human civilization against an enemy that probably has multiple tanks and must be defeated asymmetrically.

So, you're handed a weapon and presented with an overwhelming enemy, and you refuse to use the weapon on the grounds that it might be what the enemy wants you to do? You're definitely screwed if you don't use the weapon, so you gotta take that risk.
No, I'm handed a weapon and presented with an enemy I don't know. I don't know what they want, what their capabilities are, whether they exist, what form they exist in, are they psionic, are they a swarm of critters, a mechanized borg, an extragalactic colony of long lost humans, a bunch of FTL pacifists etc.

I'm given five tools. Taken together, these tools can either provide an invaluable and permanent benefit to the defence of mankind, providing a communications network that cannot be destroyed in the high likelihood our satelites are wiped out and power grid is compromised. Moreover the actual consolidation of humanity and mobilization of humanity is a daunting task in of itself, having five full-time psionics working on all the corners of the globe's most powerful leaders would allow for the quickest consolidation and mobilization in the meagre five years provided.

Thus I can choose. Provide an invaluable utility to mankind which will keep it united through the apocalypse, or I can create a weapon which will last a few days against a threat which is a planetary invasion, which suggests an incredibly protracted campaign - how can you be thinking of creating temporary supermen out of a limited resource when the enemy can simply wait in space for your ability to run out? Rofl
« Last Edit: March 22, 2017, 11:20:46 am by Loud Whispers »
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Dunamisdeos

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #73 on: March 22, 2017, 06:00:13 pm »

I'm from the USA, so I would keep it all to myself and pretend that it is super expensive to make and produce/sell it sparingly so I can live on a yacht for the rest of my life. I would practice my indignant tone for whenever someone tries to point out what I'm doing.

Then I would receive some kind of national award and go down in USA history as a good guy.
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Egan_BW

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Re: Hypothetical: What do you do? (What if you had the cure for cancer)
« Reply #74 on: March 22, 2017, 06:11:26 pm »

I know the above answer is for the cure to cancer, but it's amusing to me to imagine it's for the psy-vials instead.
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