ZOMBIE FORUMS

It's a stinking, shambling corpse grotesquely parodying life.
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 7:04 pm

All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]




Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 34 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next
Author Message
 Post subject: 4/2 It's Always About You, Isn't It, Big Brother?
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 12:35 am 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2004 7:47 pm
Posts: 1168
Sare always acted quietly cynical and blunt in her monkish world. Will she be contrary or practical here? I'm going for coldly practical.

_________________
"We are not going to die! And do you know why? Because Thomas is too pretty to die. And because I'm too stubborn to die. And most of all because tomorrow is Oktoberfest, Butters, and <i>polka will never die!</i>"


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 1:19 am 
Offline
Expatriate
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2005 2:25 am
Posts: 144
Location: Out playing CalvinBall.
Huh such harsh tutelage.

She assumes that when someone screws up that much, that they'd better have the good sense to 'stay lost.'

Although it's a little more likely that she's extending a 'wait and see' policy as a veiled excuse to see her big bro. Of whom she's learned to live without.

_________________
Rar.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 2:48 am 
Offline
Local
User avatar

Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2007 3:47 am
Posts: 270
Location: 3rd rock from the Sun
I bet Poe will change the script just to be 'unpredictable' now that you titled this thread like this.

_________________
Polly: I'm not going to die, am I? I mean right now?
DEATH: NO. BUT YOU WERE TOLD YOU WOULD WALK WITH DEATH EVERY DAY.
Polly: Oh...Yes, Corporal Scallot said that.
DEATH: HE IS AN OLD FRIEND. YOU MIGHT SAY HE IS ON THE INSTALMENT PLAN.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:45 am 
Offline
Local

Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 9:28 am
Posts: 179
Location: I'm Canadian, eh?
What I find interesting is that Jon says he could figure out any number of ways of getting those cuffs off. Considering Sarine's surprise at just about getting p0wnzed by Sara's mentor, I think that the elves have a dangerous weakness in that they assume that what they have achieved is the pinacle of technological and magical evolution - Their civilization has stagnated to the point where they can't come up with new ways of looking at things.

I have a feeling that the Elves will be extinct within the next millenia in this timeline as the Humans overwhelm them by sheer numbers and innovations that elves seem incapable of imagining.

It looks like Sarine and her kind are going to go the way of the dwarves...


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 6:33 am 
Offline
Local

Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 10:01 pm
Posts: 188
Location: A strange, high place
Another possibility is that Jon is underestimating the manacles (and Sarine). Remember, Sarine talked about "several other little tricks" that may not be as obvious as the locking mechanism. Jon can figure out the lock, but since Sarine didn't say what the "tricks" are, he may overlook them.

This leads to a possible plot line: Jon disables the lock, releasing Sara, who tries to disembowel Sarine. The other "tricks" stop her and cost her a body part or two, which Sarine may or may not heal. And the group dynamics get even more interesting than they already are...

_________________
"If you sit down at a poker game and can't see the sucker, get up. You're the sucker."


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 6:34 am 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2005 8:40 am
Posts: 1090
Location: Nyon, CH, near Geneve, on the shores of the Lac Leman. The heart of Suisse Romande.
This holds true to one of the scenerios posted ages ago. Sara's assuming a reasonable path for the Ensigerum. She's right, given Anita's statement, she isn't guaranteed a warm welcome if she does make it back home. Guess what, Jon's not even going to dream of talking her out of that analysis because that's exactly the way that the Wraiths would treat their own in similar circumstances.

"Oh, we see that you've escaped, good for you. What did you manage to not tell them? ... BLAM! ... No hard feelings dude but we can't risk you telling them shit in the future either."

Sara's known to be under the control of not only her brother, but an Elf that can erase/create memories at will. They have to be seriously convinced that she *hasn't* had her brains run through the carwash.

From Sara's POV, there is no way to know before putting herself at their mercy and then it'll be too late to save herself. Game theory says that she not even try. From a personal survival perspective, Sara's out in the cold. Since Anita's not going to ever try to recover her, she's going to stay out in the cold. Sara now has to consider what to do with the rest of her life, factoring what she knows about what happened to Chris' father.

This means that she has to reinvent herself, hiding from her former buddies in the process.

_________________
Image


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:08 am 
Offline
Expatriate
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2005 2:25 am
Posts: 144
Location: Out playing CalvinBall.
Anita did state the she would take her back.

I think this is from a degree of foresight on her part. She's taking the Ensergium off the back burners and bringing them up to the big-leagues of political/military power plays.

She's going to need more people. Now if Sara would know that, she'd be more inclined to go back... Oh wells!

_________________
Rar.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:40 am 
Offline
n00b

Joined: Wed Mar 28, 2007 10:23 pm
Posts: 2
All of those are really good takes on the situation. I'm unable to add anything aside from just how close Jon is coming to being very self pitying. True, he normally bitches about stuff regularly, but this seems a little too close to home for his cynicism to hide it away behind logical complaints. His last line is really self revealing. He does care about his sister, that much we know, and he was hoping that she would have that same sort of regard for him.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:46 am 
Offline
Local

Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2004 2:22 pm
Posts: 362
Location: MA, USA
Graybeard wrote:
Another possibility is that Jon is underestimating the manacles (and Sarine). Remember, Sarine talked about "several other little tricks" that may not be as obvious as the locking mechanism. Jon can figure out the lock, but since Sarine didn't say what the "tricks" are, he may overlook them.

This leads to a possible plot line: Jon disables the lock, releasing Sara, who tries to disembowel Sarine. The other "tricks" stop her and cost her a body part or two, which Sarine may or may not heal. And the group dynamics get even more interesting than they already are...


Plausible as that is and be that as it may, Jon still is the monkey that broke into the Tomb of Anilis (sic), with an elf. And got out after fatally pissing off the ancient sacred tomb-gaurdians. I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, here.

_________________
Initiated by, adopted evil minion of: Insane_Megalamanic.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 11:14 am 
Offline
Local
User avatar

Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2004 1:26 am
Posts: 190
Location: Yes.
normalphil wrote:
Plausible as that is and be that as it may, Jon still is the monkey that broke into the Tomb of Anilis (sic), with an elf. And got out after fatally pissing off the ancient sacred tomb-gaurdians. I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, here.


And given that Sara at least has mage-type ability, such things may run in the family - Jon might unconciously be leaking a bit of mage luck himself.

_________________
[url=http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?Mista_B]Beer is so much more than just a breakfast drink.
§§§
Necrophilia: The uncontrollable urge to crack open a cold one.[/url]


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 1:27 pm 
Offline
Native
User avatar

Joined: Sat Mar 22, 2003 5:58 pm
Posts: 647
Location: Deins Drawers
SHE HAS NO EYES!

_________________
RMG wrote:
Orks are green and the Soviet flag is red.


Arms too short to box with God.
Initiated by Themadthinker


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 1:40 pm 
Offline
Local
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jul 19, 2006 3:40 pm
Posts: 315
Location: Somewhere In The Space-Time Continuum
Mista_B wrote:
normalphil wrote:
Plausible as that is and be that as it may, Jon still is the monkey that broke into the Tomb of Anilis (sic), with an elf. And got out after fatally pissing off the ancient sacred tomb-gaurdians. I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, here.


And given that Sara at least has mage-type ability, such things may run in the family - Jon might unconciously be leaking a bit of mage luck himself.


I was thinking this recently myself. Remember right after Jon met Meji, he was practice-shooting small leaves out of the air from quite a distance away? That's Jedi-like precision there; almost like Jon could see the leaves in slow motion or something. For exhibit B, he shot Nookie out of the air mere inches from Meji's face from a distance of, what, 20-30 feet? Also witness, aside from his gunsmanship, his highly improbable feat of successfully grappling a time monk (Sara), and his surprisingly successful resistance of Warrel's attacks. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Jon himself was subconsciously using some sort of time magic or other preternatural ability. He may not be moving at super speeds, but his perception at least (as in his ability to take in and react to information in the world around him) seems far, far faster than that of a normal human being.

In fact, this makes me wonder. In the flashback of Sara's training, she exhibited a sort of Jedi-style precognition. But the time monks' magic seems to be rather Matrix-like time dilation; they should just see everything happening more slowly and thus be able to react to it better (appearing, to the rest of the world, like they're moving at super speeds). I've been wondering for a while how to reconcile these two things, and I think this may be it: the regular old time monks don't use Jedi-style powers of precognition. That power is a peculiar adept ability of Jon and Sara's family. If so, Sara ought to be a particularly badass time monk, having both sorts of powers.

_________________
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of All Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:04 pm 
Offline
Local

Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2006 12:23 am
Posts: 490
Location: none
I think chalking Jon's skills up to latent magical ability and Jedi powers is just a way of underestimating humans. There are actual human sharpshooters who have been able to shoot cigars out of people's mouths (and were sufficiently confident in that ability that they were willing to make the attempt). Meanwhile, Jon's success in fighting both Sara and Warrel could easily be explained simply by the fact that Warrel severely underestimated him, and Sara is relatively inexperienced, plus the fact that Jon may have expected to run into time ninjas for a while and has had time to plan on how to deal with them..

In short, I'd rather believe that Jon is just that badass (and I feel justified in doing so).


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:29 pm 
Offline
Local
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jul 19, 2006 3:40 pm
Posts: 315
Location: Somewhere In The Space-Time Continuum
BloodHenge wrote:
I think chalking Jon's skills up to latent magical ability and Jedi powers is just a way of underestimating humans. There are actual human sharpshooters who have been able to shoot cigars out of people's mouths (and were sufficiently confident in that ability that they were willing to make the attempt).


Yeah, but could those sharpshooters shoot, say, a flipped coin out of the air at 30 yards? Even that's easier than Jon's leaf trick (the coin moves more predictably than leaves, and there's only one coin). It's one thing to have really good aim given a still target. It's another thing to be able to acquire a tiny moving target, amongst a group of equally tiny moving targets, at a good distance, and aim quickly enough, and predict it's movement well enough to hit it even with bullet lag time.

_________________
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of All Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:40 pm 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2004 7:47 pm
Posts: 1168
BloodHenge wrote:
In short, I'd rather believe that Jon is just that badass (and I feel justified in doing so).

Best take on that idea isn't your spaghetti westerns, where the freakish marksmanship is usually just silly, but Support Your Local Sherriff with James Garner as the most laid back western hero ever. Great comedy supporting cast including the inimitable Jack Elam:

Elam (muttering): "Ain't natural, a man being able to shoot like that."

Garner (dismissive): "Oh, its just a matter of practice."

_________________
"We are not going to die! And do you know why? Because Thomas is too pretty to die. And because I'm too stubborn to die. And most of all because tomorrow is Oktoberfest, Butters, and <i>polka will never die!</i>"


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:30 pm 
Offline
Expatriate
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2005 2:25 am
Posts: 144
Location: Out playing CalvinBall.
INSIGHT!

Jon acts like the 'dumb ape' who doesn't really want anything past the stupid explanation to placate Sarine.

He's smart, he could probably understand the workings if he wanted to, but he doesn't need to.

But, he might need Sarine to completely underestimate him.

_________________
Rar.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:53 pm 
Offline
Local

Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 10:01 pm
Posts: 188
Location: A strange, high place
Slamlander wrote:
This holds true to one of the scenerios posted ages ago. Sara's assuming a reasonable path for the Ensigerum. She's right, given Anita's statement, she isn't guaranteed a warm welcome if she does make it back home. Guess what, Jon's not even going to dream of talking her out of that analysis because that's exactly the way that the Wraiths would treat their own in similar circumstances.

"Oh, we see that you've escaped, good for you. What did you manage to not tell them? ... BLAM! ... No hard feelings dude but we can't risk you telling them shit in the future either."


Interestingly, this is just what the Soviets did during World War II. Any flyer who was shot down behind enemy lines but managed to survive and escape was viewed as suspect, to the point of being sent to Siberia or worse. And there are enough resemblances between Stalin and Anita for the same thing to be in play here. Egotistical, paranoid, bent on world domination, but still highly intelligent ... yeah, that's the ticket.

KurtDunn wrote:
Anita did state the she would take her back.


Ah, but Sara doesn't know that.

_________________
"If you sit down at a poker game and can't see the sucker, get up. You're the sucker."


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 8:02 pm 
Offline
n00b

Joined: Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:12 pm
Posts: 3
KurtDunn wrote:
Anita did state the she would take her back.

I think this is from a degree of foresight on her part. She's taking the Ensergium off the back burners and bringing them up to the big-leagues of political/military power plays.

She's going to need more people. Now if Sara would know that, she'd be more inclined to go back... Oh wells!


thats the equivalent of metagaming in an RPG for a perspective. think on the other side of the glass ceiling. does sara know anita will take her back? of course not. that might weigh heavily into her plans, if any short of going catatonic...

_________________
Those who live by the sword are shot by those who live by the gun...


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:34 pm 
Offline
Expatriate
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2005 2:25 am
Posts: 144
Location: Out playing CalvinBall.
I meant from our perspective, altho the evaluation that I was replying to seems to be perfectly sound, it doesn't hold up to the events already in motion.

_________________
Rar.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 12:24 am 
Offline
n00b

Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2005 1:16 am
Posts: 10
Graybeard wrote:
KurtDunn wrote:
Anita did state the she would take her back.

Ah, but Sara doesn't know that.

Nor do we, really. Anita doesn't seem to be the kind to tolerate failure in her subordinates, even if they can't reasonably be expected to succeed. The best I think Sara could hope for would be for Anita to demote her all the way back to first level novice, and essentially keeping her there forever. That's essentially what they did to Chris, after all, and he has shown nothing but loyalty from the beginning.

It's more likely though that they'll still just kill her, after a lengthy... debriefing. At this point Anita pretty much dismissed the whole matter of Sara once she found out she was captured; I sincerely doubt she'd be reasonable enough to keep her on as a monk or even as a novice in the village now that there is even the remotest reason to suspect a rat.


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 34 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next

All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 25 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group