StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Even in the absence of a militarization plan, expecting your average wizard to meet a high level of competence in self-defense makes sense. I got the impression that what little wizarding law enforcement exists is concerned primarily with enforcing regulations and tracking down fugitives. Which is t...

I do not see a huge improvement over the 1980s in personal safety, for example. Maybe it is counter-intuitive, dunno. You, personally? I possibly couldn't say. It wouldn't mean anything, anyway, since you're just one person. There are, of course, local variations (e.g. I imagine it would be safer t...

Whether or not your house costs more in relative terms than your grandfather's, you are substantially less likely to die violently than your grandfather, allowing for some local variation (as far as I've read).

(Note: I do not necessarily endorse keeping the existence of the supernatural a secret) If you live in a world that has real monsters and you happen to learn things about the monsters nobody previously has ever learned, you are obligated to share that knowledge to give someone else encountering thos...

Unknown Armies posits that magicians and other people involved with the Masquerade aren't really that scary head to head, and the supernatural tends to provoke aggressive actions in people not clued it, so tilting the hole arrangement to a bunch of Muggles with guns is considered ill-advised. The Dr...

God damn, why has the world gone insane? Improvements in media and communications technology has made crazy people more aware than ever that they are not alone. Improvements in media and communications technology has made you more aware than ever that you're stuck on a planet with crazy people, eve...

Apologize. Even if it is completely on them and you did nothing wrong, apologize anyway. Occasionally your family/friends will be unreasonable, but I don't think it's ever worth dropping someone over that alone. Tossing away a relationship because everyone involved was too stubborn to try and sort t...

The Romulan Republic wrote:Me, I'm just wondering why a western is in the Fantasy forum. Does it have wizards or something in the remake?

Eli Wallach is playing the villain again.

Broomstick wrote:Unfortunately, there seems to a recent trend of nutcases unconnected to but in some way identifying with ISIS going out and killing people, or trying to.

The modern miracle of stochastic terrorism.

Obviously it's a little hard to say from just a trailer, but they don't appear to be taking much in the way of thematic or character cues from either the original Magnificent Seven or from the Seven Samurai. Sounds pretty much like a remake in name only.

Thrawn's character concept can easily be salvaged without needing to reproduce the exact storylines he was involved in before. And yeah, Zahn was one of the best parts of the EU, so bringing him back in is a smart move (IMO, he had a hand in almost all of the good post-ROTJ stuff in some way, even i...

I'm got a sneaking suspicion that it's gone tits up. Gunships strafing police stations, and tanks shots booming around parliament sounds less of a coup and more the birthing sounds of a bouncing baby civil war. I hope for the sake of both continents that my pridictive abilities continue to be shock...

Why are you assuming the least charitable possible explanantion?

Golden Galleons, however, have intrinsic value, because they're made of, well, gold. Value (of the economic kind) isn't intrinsic. Metallic currency has the same problems as fiat currency; it's just harder under realistic circumstances to rapidly expand the supply. Not impossible, mind you If you d...

I then spend the rest of my life walking past beaches where people are drowning, and I do nothing for any of them. Am I a good man, or a bad man? You do do that , unless you are some kind of altruistic robot. So does nearly everyone. there is no evidence for that in the actual canon. There's no evi...

We're left with no option other than to assume that they're way ahead of the curve when it comes to food storage, in this setting. Otherwise there's no way they could survive a literal five year winter. Unless winter in the setting has periods where it gets less horribly cold, at least enough to ha...

I just do not think the losses of the war against the starks were that severe. Canonically, they lost almost half their army when Robb relieved Riverrun (turns out Jamie Lannister isn't actually a very good general). So that's 30,000 troops right there (this was apparently such a catastrophic loss ...

A hundred thousand Dothraki are a liability simply because that means at least one hundred thousand horses. Considering they are nomadic and rely heavily on horse, probably several times that. That's probably more cavalry than everyone in Westeros combined can field, and all those horses have to be ...

I think sheer size would overwhelm the Lannister armies, who have been depleted by years of warfare. Dorne has been untouched, and while the Reach has suffered losses, it's only been due to one battle, really (the Blackwater). And sure, the Lannisters can raise levies from the Westerlands and the C...

It seems a decent film for those who like sci fi / fantasy. I'd put it on roughly the same tier as Chronicles of Riddick or the 2010 Clash of the Titans (maybe a bit worse, but mostly in a good way). Riddick was entertaining and had its moments, but it was not good. CotT was much the same (though i...

I have an idea that would be a technical nightmare to implement, and that's even before you start to worry about voter intimidation or fraud or security, but I think is interesting conceptually: You have an open voting period where people can change their vote at any time until the voting period end...

Wouldn't this give disproportionate impact to diehards and overconfident people (or incentivize people to vote as if they were the same)?

I presume that if Northern Ireland heads for the exits, it will be to join the rest of Ireland, so I wouldn't think it would need to reapply. For Scotland, I'd expect the same considerations would apply as the first time around, though Spain might be less opposed this time around.

When you look at gun ownership at a more granular (state) level, it is interesting to see that the wealthiest and most-educated states have the lowest rate of gun ownership. Combine that with the other data in this article, and the demographics of gun ownership become much more vivid: most guns are...

I was almost rooting for the Boltons to fucking slaughter them all just for being the first ones with actual infantry tactics Even that was pretty silly. "Send in the cavalry head on, and have the pikemen circle around to trap them." "Sire, wouldn't it make more sense to have pikemen...