What would YOU do in these hypothetical scenarios?

[Archinist]

The hell of it is, the really stupid part of Archinist's hypothetical scenario is totally irrelevant to the setup. There's no obvious reason WHY everyone has to be flying out to the remote site in a military helicopter, as opposed to, say, a business jet. There's no reason why the pilot should be drinking. There's no reason why anyone would tolerate the aircraft being armed with machine guns. There's no reason why the flight that takes me to this wilderness chateau should be flown by a drunk, or why all the people with me act like a bunch of chavs.

None of this actually contributes to the story. Since the point of the story is "you're stranded, apparently alone, in an isolated wilderness with limited means of communication and travel."

Sure, eventually Archinist actually "gives" the reader some freedom of action, after literally a day and a night of following the rails of the story full of stupidity. But by that time, the reader already thinks "there is no way I would ever be in this hypothetical situation because I would have to be dumber than a parrot to end up in this situation in the first place." They've quit.

This makes it all the more silly that Archinist keeps piling on ridiculous, unlikely, and insanely reckless actions that are all part of the setup to the real action. All this other stupidity does is distract from the point. It gives people more things to laugh at.

And as I explicitly mentioned in my first response post, because of all this, I stopped paying attention to the scenario long before Archinist even got around to the "what do you do" part. Because things had gotten so ridiculous and stupid that there was no way I could actually imagine myself in the scenario. I can't even bring myself to think "what do you do if you wake up the next morning and everyone's dead or missing," the question Archinist meant to ask, because I can't bring myself to believe I would ever end up there in a helicopter flown by a drunk, while voluntarily seeking out the company of a bunch of chavs, one of whom is inexplicably wealthy and somehow hasn't lost all their money to lawsuits and crappy business decisions made because loldrunk.

Okay, so let's say that the pilot is NOT drunk, and is a verys sensible and responsible man. Let's also say that the stereo system is much quieter than the engines, and cannot be heard at all. The air force base was actually a rebel/criminal base in disguise. There are still some people walking around the helicopter in-flight since I've never been on a helicopter before, and it doesn't sound too far-off for a very large helicopter. If it's still impossible, let's say that mysterious sentient alien space bats gave them anti-gravity shoes but they look like normal shoes.

The reason why the battery was taken away from the satellite is because Ben required it to power the shack near the mines and it wasn't connected to the electricity for some reason. The machine guns are still on the chopper, but the mates are not idiots that fire them off in the forest for no reason. Instead, they are packed away somewhere where they're still visible, but mostly locked and safe.

The reason for a large military helicopter and not a business plane is because Chad loves guns and military hardware, AND, a more practical reason of Chad wanting his exit vehicle to be close by and easier to access, in case of an emergency. Let's also say that out of all 35 mates and 20 guards, there were also another 4 people other than the main pilot that could pilot rotorcrafts.

[Broomstick]

Okay, so let's say that the pilot is NOT drunk, and is a verys sensible and responsible man. Let's also say that the stereo system is much quieter than the engines, and cannot be heard at all.

Just drop the stereo system.

The air force base was actually a rebel/criminal base in disguise. There are still some people walking around the helicopter in-flight since I've never been on a helicopter before, and it doesn't sound too far-off for a very large helicopter. If it's still impossible, let's say that mysterious sentient alien space bats gave them anti-gravity shoes but they look like normal shoes.

It's not that it's impossible, it's that it would be very uncomfortable and you'd probably fall down a lot (make sure the doors are closed!) Any helicopter has an enormous amount of vibration in it. They shake. A lot.

The reason why the battery was taken away from the satellite is because Ben required it to power the shack near the mines and it wasn't connected to the electricity for some reason.

No one was complaining about the battery and actually that statement is one of the more sensible things in your current scenario.

The machine guns are still on the chopper, but the mates are not idiots that fire them off in the forest for no reason. Instead, they are packed away somewhere where they're still visible, but mostly locked and safe.

I don't think you understand just how tightly controlled machine guns are in the US. It's tens of thousands of dollars just to get the license to hold one, much less the actual gun. This gets back to rich people are generally well behaved because badly behaving people seldom get or remain rich.

Even drug cartels with literal truck-loads of money usually stick with semi-automatic guns because they are so much more available and usually more than sufficient for any purpose requiring a gun. I could literally walk down the street where I live and purchase a semi-auto gun and then pick it up a few days later after the paperwork goes through. There have been, if I recall, all of TWO incidents with actual automatic/machine guns in the US since 1934. Even when people are issued full automatic guns in the military they usually don't fire them on automatic, they use a semi-auto setting or a "burst" setting.

Just go with semi-auto weapons, m'kay? Much, much, much more plausible.

Let's also say that out of all 35 mates and 20 guards, there were also another 4 people other than the main pilot that could pilot rotorcrafts.

Well, OK, if we're assuming people with more money than sense it is possible that there could be several other people with rotorcraft licenses in the group. It's "only" about $20,000 to get the basic license needed for flying a helicopter. They'd need a little further training to handle a Pave-Low, so add another $10k on top. Yeah, $30k apiece. If some of your guards are former Army it's possible they were trained to fly helicopters in the service and then converted their military licenses to civilian.

Would you like to start over with a revised scenario? I would also suggest you minimize extra details. Normally people just give the basics and if further detail is needed it can be supplied in a follow up post.

[Simon_Jester]

Wow. The scenario just got... quite a lot less stupid. It's pretty much up into normal territory. Mostly.

Okay, so let's say that the pilot is NOT drunk, and is a verys sensible and responsible man. Let's also say that the stereo system is much quieter than the engines, and cannot be heard at all. The air force base was actually a rebel/criminal base in disguise.

Much better. Except rebel and criminal bases are not things you get in the United States. Developed countries do not normally have armies of 'rebels' running around, and whenever anything that even looks like it might be a rebellion happens, the military is brought out to squash it in overwhelming force.

The last time an organized, armed rebellion lasted long enough to have "bases" in the US was in 1861. And that was back when transportation and communication were so limited that Army forces couldn't be brought in in time to do anything about the Confederates' actions before they assembled powerful forces.

Whenever a large group of criminals gather in one place, there is a very high probability of the FBI and other such enforcement organizations showing up to arrest them all.

If this were happening in some random country with very little money and an unstable government, there being "rebels" who can build their own "bases" and not just get squashed by the army is more believable.

There are still some people walking around the helicopter in-flight since I've never been on a helicopter before, and it doesn't sound too far-off for a very large helicopter. If it's still impossible, let's say that mysterious sentient alien space bats gave them anti-gravity shoes but they look like normal shoes.

The reason why the battery was taken away from the satellite is because Ben required it to power the shack near the mines and it wasn't connected to the electricity for some reason. The machine guns are still on the chopper, but the mates are not idiots that fire them off in the forest for no reason. Instead, they are packed away somewhere where they're still visible, but mostly locked and safe.

As noted, machine guns are nearly impossible to get in the US, and semi-automatic weapons are easier to get. That is, weapons that fire one bullet every time you pull the trigger, and which automatically load the next bullet for the next shot, so don't have you do anything (like twist a lever or move a slide) between shots. But you still have to pull the trigger four times to get four shots.

That's the only difference.

[TimothyC]

I don't think you understand just how tightly controlled machine guns are in the US. It's tens of thousands of dollars just to get the license to hold one, much less the actual gun.

Uh, no.

1986 (Hughes Amendment to the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act) saw the ban on the production of new automatic weapons for citizens. Existing weapons were grandfathered in, and can be bought by anyone who meets the background check requirements and pays the $200 transfer tax to the ATF. You also need your local LEO to sign off, which is problematic in areas where they like to pretend the right to keep and bear arms doesn't exist. It is because of this lack of new supply that the weapons have climbed in price over the last 30 years.

There have been, if I recall, all of TWO incidents with actual automatic/machine guns in the US since 1934. Even when people are issued full automatic guns in the military they usually don't fire them on automatic, they use a semi-auto setting or a "burst" setting.

Just to be clear, it's two instances of registered automatic weapons used in crimes since '34, and all legal automatics are registered with the ATF. Also, a 3 round burst is an automatic setting (because you get more than one round for a trigger pull). This does exclude instances were legal weapons generated a crime due to unreported interstate transport, which brings the reported total to something less than 10.

[Broomstick]

It is because of this lack of new supply that the weapons have climbed in price over the last 30 years.

OK, it's 10's of thousands for the weapon - it's still a bar to ownership that will exclude the less than wealthy.

There have been, if I recall, all of TWO incidents with actual automatic/machine guns in the US since 1934. Even when people are issued full automatic guns in the military they usually don't fire them on automatic, they use a semi-auto setting or a "burst" setting.

Just to be clear, it's two instances of registered automatic weapons used in crimes since '34, and all legal automatics are registered with the ATF. Also, a 3 round burst is an automatic setting (because you get more than one round for a trigger pull). This does exclude instances were legal weapons generated a crime due to unreported interstate transport, which brings the reported total to something less than 10.

I meant actual crimes. While technically the interstate transporting was a crime it wasn't a crime in the same sense as robbing a bank would have been and I think most people understand the distinction. Although we are talking about Archinist so thanks for the clarification.

[Ralin]

Is it just me or are some of you focusing on kinda the wrong things when ripping up Archinist's scenarios? I mean, I gotta think that stuff like the pilot being a drunk Russian or the part about you and your billionaire friends randomly shooting stuff up from the helicopter is intended as humor and not a serious element of the scenario.

[Bernkastel]

Given the stuff he has said seriously, it's understandably hard to give him the the benefit of the doubt like that.

[Ralin]

Admittedly true, but still. It's ultimately just window dressing.

[Bernkastel]

I agree, but I understand why people aren't willing to give him even that much. He's been at this long enough without improvement to not deserve it and there are people at this point who are just pissed off with him and want to rip him apart.

[Tribble]

Is it just me or are some of you focusing on kinda the wrong things when ripping up Archinist's scenarios? I mean, I gotta think that stuff like the pilot being a drunk Russian or the part about you and your billionaire friends randomly shooting stuff up from the helicopter is intended as humor and not a serious element of the scenario.

If you have read his other posts you'll know that these are not window dressings and that they are intended to help explain his railroading. If you are stuck in an Archinist Scenario, some group of people are almost certainly going to be too mentally crippled to function. Having everyone drunk including the pilot is acutally kind of tame compared to some of his other scenarios.

[Elheru Aran]

Is it me or does he derive his scenarios from games for the most part? or anime? I get the impression he's some kid in a basement who runs a game trailer for a new game, goes 'ooh cool' and posts it on SDN as a versus without actually thinking it through...

[bilateralrope]

Is it just me or are some of you focusing on kinda the wrong things when ripping up Archinist's scenarios? I mean, I gotta think that stuff like the pilot being a drunk Russian or the part about you and your billionaire friends randomly shooting stuff up from the helicopter is intended as humor and not a serious element of the scenario.

Context is important. His context is so stupid that it insults the intelligence of us, our partners and our friends by claiming that we/they do really stupid things just to set up the scenario.

Is it me or does he derive his scenarios from games for the most part? or anime? I get the impression he's some kid in a basement who runs a game trailer for a new game, goes 'ooh cool' and posts it on SDN as a versus without actually thinking it through...

The only one I recognise as being from an anime is the Orc invasion one.

This threads starting scenarios feel like they started after someone taught him about the dangers of carbon monoxide.

The wanking of the main character in a movie he hadn't watched wasn't an anime movie.

[Elheru Aran]

Someone earlier pointed out that this thread is, in fact, from a game on Steam.

So was the one with the cannibals on an island with a huge oil lake.

[Khaat]

Most of his scenarios have been "I saw this really cool game and I thought up a reason to be in it..."

I'll be disappointed if it turns out he's in marketing, and getting a vibe for just how stupid in-game rationale can get before reasonable people balk.

[Ralin]

If you have read his other posts you'll know that these are not window dressings and that they are intended to help explain his railroading. If you are stuck in an Archinist Scenario, some group of people are almost certainly going to be too mentally crippled to function. Having everyone drunk including the pilot is acutally kind of tame compared to some of his other scenarios.

Oh, I've been following him since at least the "Blankets and jacket make you colder" thread, trust me.

[Elheru Aran]

Most of his scenarios have been "I saw this really cool game and I thought up a reason to be in it..."

I'll be disappointed if it turns out he's in marketing, and getting a vibe for just how stupid in-game rationale can get before reasonable people balk.

Nah. Game companies don't give people enough credit. You want them to make games actually *harder*?

[Lord Revan]

Most of his scenarios have been "I saw this really cool game and I thought up a reason to be in it..."

I'll be disappointed if it turns out he's in marketing, and getting a vibe for just how stupid in-game rationale can get before reasonable people balk.

As I said before, his use of "game/movie" logic seems more like someone inexperienced on how the real world works, people in marketing wouldn't seem this clueless (at least I'm pretty sure they're not good enough actors to pull it off convincingly) Anarchist is either a clueless child, someone with mental capacity of a child or a very good actor pretending to be one of the first 2.

[Enigma]

First one. You are doing nothing, posting useless and also useful things on an internet forum, when suddenly your phones beeps and upon checking it, you discover your best mate has texted you, telling that he had broken down in the middle of the bush. You quickly drive out to his GPS position and see a trashed Holden Accord, rolled several times down a hill, 20 beer bottles smashed everywhere, a laptop and tablet are dangling from the trees by metal cables. A strange red inky liquid is splashed on the ground is trailing deeper into the forest with small splashes.

My wife does not drive some knock off Honda. If you mean my mate as in best friend other than my wife, well he lives 500 miles away and in another country, so, oops too bad, can't get to him. I'd let his wife know and let her take care of it.

Second scenario. You are in bed, resting and humming, but then your neighbors drive up and down the road revving their V8 cars to their maximum extents and doing wheelies and burnouts on the street, while crowds of drunken mates yell "OI OI OI" over and over again at the top of their lungs, throwing beer bottles everywhere, some even at houses. You have a major exam the next day.

I work at night and sleep during the day.

If this happens, it would not bother me as I use a cochlear implant. Before going to bed I remove the sound processor rendering me virtually deaf. But my wife and her parents would be calling the cops.

Third scenario. Your mate is mounting a generator in his shed, and tells you how quiet it is through a text on your phone. He then says he will put it under his staircase, in his house, since it is so quiet, and won't disturb his sleep. He reports back his success and tells you he will shut off his power for this day and rely on the generator only for today. Then he leaves a text saying that he is tired, and will rest on his couch watching TV for half an hour or so. 10 minutes later, you text back asking if it's okay to join him, but he never replies. Several hours and 14 texts pass, but still no response.

*Hagrid pops in and slams a dunce cap on your head.* "Yer an idiot, Archinist."

Fourth scenario. You are at work, doing things in an office, when your wife rings and tells you that she will clean the house up, and get rid of all those terrible moldy things on the bathroom walls. She says a nice lad on 4chan told her to mix two powerful cleaning solutions together in great quantities in a small, enclosed room to create a super-chemical that will erase any mold in microseconds! She is very excited and hangs up to do the cleaning, saying that she will call you back soon, but strangely she never calls you back nor picks up the phone when you call her. How mysterious.

I work at night and my wife goes to bed during that time. No cleaning bathrooms. End of scenario.

Fifth scenario: You are visiting your best friend's house, and parking your car in the garage, making sure the automatic door doesn't crush your car upon closing, when all of a sudden your girlfriend calls you and begins making a massive argument over a major issue. You argue and argue over the phone, until the arguments are so awful you feel physically unwell and lacking proper judgement, smash the phone into small bits on the ground. Your mate's garage connects to his house, and is normally locked, but you have the key inside your car. However, you feel quite ill at this point, so you close and lock your car doors with both garage and car keys still inside, while the car is still running. If you yell a lot, your mate might hear you, but maybe you could rest to clear your head for a little while, there is a comfortable bed in the garage..?

*Hagrid pops in and slams a dunce cap on your head.* "Yer an idiot, Archinist."

6th scenario: You are eating some dodgey fish with your mates, who joke about accidentally getting SALMONella. That night, you awaken with a terrible pain in your right abdomen, but decide to ignore it and call a doctor later. You are planning to go camping with your wife that day, and even the pain has increased dramatically by that time, and you have some vomiting, but you go anyway, thinking you just have some minor food poisoning. But when you arrive at the campsite and there is no cellphone coverage in the area, and the nearest town is 100 miles away and you can hardly walk. You quickly get a book of common diseases and injuries, but have barely started reading when the appendix of the book ruptures, (hahaha) spilling rotten paper and stuff everywhere, so you drop it into a deep lake underneath you. You are now in so much pain that you pass out every 5 minutes and physically cannot move, but your wife thinks you just have a slight cold and ignores you.

*Hagrid pops in and slams a dunce cap on your head.* "Yer an idiot, Archinist."

[Broomstick]

Admittedly true, but still. It's ultimately just window dressing.

Not all window dressing, arguably, some of it actually detracts from the scenario. If a significant majority of your audience are focusing on the "wrong" thing then the author has failed to communicate effectively.

That said - I think he is improving. It's slow, but that's often how progress is, and he's persisting in his attempts while improving so I'm thinking he actually does want to get better at these scenarios.

[Simon_Jester]

Not all window dressing, arguably, some of it actually detracts from the scenario. If a significant majority of your audience are focusing on the "wrong" thing then the author has failed to communicate effectively.

Yeah, I agree. It's kind of like I pointed out to him in another scenario where he said this stuff was 'seasoning.'

It's like he's using a pile of burning dog poop as seasoning. That's just plain a bad idea, and you can't expect anyone to "just scrape off the dog poop" and enjoy the steak underneath.

The first step in making good food is to not cover it in loathsome and useless matter.

That said - I think he is improving. It's slow, but that's often how progress is, and he's persisting in his attempts while improving so I'm thinking he actually does want to get better at these scenarios.

Sure.

[Archinist]

Not all window dressing, arguably, some of it actually detracts from the scenario. If a significant majority of your audience are focusing on the "wrong" thing then the author has failed to communicate effectively.

Yeah, I agree. It's kind of like I pointed out to him in another scenario where he said this stuff was 'seasoning.'

It's like he's using a pile of burning dog poop as seasoning. That's just plain a bad idea, and you can't expect anyone to "just scrape off the dog poop" and enjoy the steak underneath.

The first step in making good food is to not cover it in loathsome and useless matter.

That said - I think he is improving. It's slow, but that's often how progress is, and he's persisting in his attempts while improving so I'm thinking he actually does want to get better at these scenarios.

Sure.

But plenty of food is coated in useless matter (for consumption). Expensive food is usually coated in fancy wines, gold, gems, etc.

[Elheru Aran]

...where the hell have you been eating, kiddo?

That kind of food you're talking about is the stuff they serve in the restaurants that the ultra-super-mega-rich go to, and even *they* think that's going overboard a bit.

Also, you don't use 'fancy wines' to cook with. You use a cheap-to-modestly priced wine.

[Simon_Jester]

But plenty of food is coated in useless matter (for consumption). Expensive food is usually coated in fancy wines, gold, gems, etc.

Does this mean you don't understand my point?

Straight-up. Answer the question.

Do you understand my point, that I made in the post you quoted?

Yes or no?

[Archinist]

But plenty of food is coated in useless matter (for consumption). Expensive food is usually coated in fancy wines, gold, gems, etc.

Does this mean you don't understand my point?

Straight-up. Answer the question.

Do you understand my point, that I made in the post you quoted?

Yes or no?

Of course I understand the point. I'm just saying that many foods are coated with unnecessary materials. Also, some people might enjoy eating dog feces, or any feces for that matter.

[Simon_Jester]

[snip double post]