Book 2 – Text Updates 041

[bug]

I stand by my prediction that Pierce is doomed.

This. This! Please G ... I mean, Rob, this!

I can think of nothing better than to see that self-righteous twerp decrypted into a loyal follower of Wanda. It would dramatically improve his attitude. Even better, if he retained his self-important snobbery yet it turned out that decrypted casters can't cast, he'd be completely and totally useless! He'd stand around with the casters because that's what he was, but eventually Sylvia'd dust him for being a waste of space, if he didn't dust himself first.

Amazing job with this update. You nailed Pierce. To my mind he was merely being the leader of the bandwagon, and anyone who isn't on Pierce's bandwagon is always wrong and can have absolutely nothing of value to contribute. True to form.

Pierce might turn if he thought that Parson might end war, and he might even stay with him as the carnage mounts, but as the goal of ending war began to appear actually doable, he'd eventually realize that his only value is as a healomancer, and a healomancer in an Erfworld without war is pretty much useless, so he'd betray Parson to continue justify his own existence.

Aaah, that felt good. Nothing much better than releasing 30 year old venom.

[Lamech]

And it was produced in a single turn, without linking. I could see jetstones's whole army getting equipped with jetpack in the future (if jetstone survive the battle (and Ace doesn't turn to GK)).

Naw. While ace and cubbins are above half juice it still probably took a decent chunk of power to make. Assuming that Ace could have gotten the materials with out using cubbins its still only a few jetpacks for a turn worth of juice. And jetstone can produce 8 units a turn from a single city. And apparently their main siege is battle bears. (Indeed even siege towers are moved by battle bears.) And it seems their main heavies are cloth golems too. Not only can Ace not produce anywhere near enough Jetpacks, he needs to be making other things.

I totally see an awesome air division. Flying battle bears, sourmanders ect. Top units in one elite strike force.

[Dante]

Pierce is doomed.

Indeed. Having the jetpack in his inventory pretty much just sealed his fate. The only question is, will he hit level 8 before Parson personally slays him, to maximize the XP gain?

[atalex]

2. After we've spent months speculating on Chekhov's jetpack, this update now raises the possibility that it won't be used at all! Slately, Trem and everyone else will just ignore its utility in the confusion, and it will just be another example of Fate kicking poor Ace once again.

You kidding? Its likelihood of being used has been expertly played down, and we know the exact character holding it.

That thing will be used for something - and succeed dramatically at it, too.

Oh, I think it probably will be. I'm just saying that I can imagine scenarios playing out so that the jetpack could be the thing that saves the day, but it goes unused because everyone around Ace either ignores him or is condescending and dismissive towards him. Imagine Ace paralyzed because Slately has been croaked. Now imagine the thoughts going through his head as a GK soldier comes along to coup de grace him. "Why wouldn't anyone ever listen to me?" It's comedy and tragedy.

If you follow Order of the Stick, I'm thinking of Tsukiko ranting about how she would create the most powerful zombie ever and then immediately coming across Miko's fresh corpse ... only to reject it and wander off, leaving the body of a high level fallen paladin and a major antagonist just lying there to rot. That sort of subversion.

[TheTuna]

Parson directing Ace's creativity would just be downright awesome; I can only imagine what crazy stuff they'd come up with. Power armor would definitely be a possibility.

[multilis]

And it was produced in a single turn, without linking. I could see jetstones's whole army getting equipped with jetpack in the future (if jetstone survive the battle (and Ace doesn't turn to GK)).

Naw. While ace and cubbins are above half juice it still probably took a decent chunk of power to make. Assuming that Ace could have gotten the materials with out using cubbins its still only a few jetpacks for a turn worth of juice. And jetstone can produce 8 units a turn from a single city. And apparently their main siege is battle bears. (Indeed even siege towers are moved by battle bears.) And it seems their main heavies are cloth golems too. Not only can Ace not produce anywhere near enough Jetpacks, he needs to be making other things.

I totally see an awesome air division. Flying battle bears, sourmanders ect. Top units in one elite strike force.

Jetpack only works on a "commander", only ones who can lead/command a stack are warlords and casters.

A common piker can be promoted to warlord (eg stanley), but Jetstone needs more shmuckers. That means an archer probably can be promoted.

Jetstone is in a race against time, if the garrison falls, then everyone in the city is captured, including flying units in airspace. (Eg earlier story of Jill capturing a city). Taking control of airspace takes time.

Charlie offer to reward death of Archons and now Jetpack and this explaination of airspace details, hint that the battle for airspace may become important.

[BakaGrappler]

Parson directing Ace's creativity would just be downright awesome; I can only imagine what crazy stuff they'd come up with. Power armor would definitely be a possibility.

I know what I would be hoping for. Ace and Sizemore coming together to make Cyber-Golems! With spring loaded Fist Rockets!

[Dante]

Ace is perfectly capable of creating his own golems, though. I guess Sizemore could help with the fabrication, assuming Dirtamancy has anything to do with metallurgy, but otherwise he'd be redundant, and I kinda doubt he'd work with Ace anyway, given how they're oil-and-water, personality-wise. Much more likely to see cyber-zombie hordes out of an Ace/Wanda collaboration. I think Parson would be all about the golems/mecha, though. Then Jack would want to make them Transformers.

Of course this is all assuming Ace ends up with GK, but it would be quite sad for him if he didn't. After all, in this very update it out-and-out says the only unit Ace has ever gotten along with is Ossomer -- who is a GK unit now, leaving Ace in an entire side of units who passively-aggressively tolerate him and lack the natural Predictamancy to appreciate his genius. Besides that, as others have mentioned "Ace, Lord of Hardware" is very strong natural Signamancy in favor of a turn to Toolism.

[Beeskee]

I'm hoping Parson finds out about Slately turning down the jetpack, and tells them it would have turned the battle right back around for Jetstone. "Holy boop, with this you could have taken a stack of flying units up and croaked Wanda in mid-air while everyone was falling."

[pSycHOtic chICkeN]

I think it had already been explained a few times that Jetstone, with the archers and the tower defenses, had enough firepower to take down all of the Gobwin Knob units in their airfield. It was also speculated that by using Jack and the Archon's Foolamancy Gobwin Knob (Wanda especially) may have survived the fight by outlasting their attack power and they could then flee at the start of their next turn.

Or, why not, fall down along with the survivors (off-turn) after the ranged Jetstonians were exhausted; or do anything else, it does not matter any more. Just what did the vaunted Jetstone AA defenses accomplish anyway? Downing a few yellows, maybe (without any attempt from GK of screening, Foolamancy or the like). Definitely not the surefire win we were told they were capable of. If this update were an honest and correct tactical assessment, then it just does not fit the previous setup of drama.

As I understand it, difficulty is not in killing a specific unit in the airspace (casters didn't say they can't take down Ossomer, they said it was not so easy), but in killing all of the enemy units in the airspace to evacuate one extremely valuable (and perhaps vulnerable, since Slately has seen only one battle) unit. How can they be sure, that there's no any veiled Archons left? Perhaps even one could kill Slately, much like Bogroll has killed Ansom.
If Wanda was still in the airspace, they could spend all of their resources to bring her down - that would mean winning the war. Now, when enemy forces are split, they just can't afford spending all all of their resources to take down Ossomer.
As to screening Wanda with units first to exaust enemy archers and casters, and harvesting the units later: don't forget, they had to break the glass roof, so that corpses would fall to the atrium.

PS: first post on the forum, hi all! =)

Sorry if this was already pointed out, haven't read all the way through yet:

The casters do not necessarily know much of anything about topics outside their fields [Wanda and Jack are odd because they came from FAQ, a philosophy bubble]. They are casters not warlords. They do not need to track the number of arrows in the inventory nor do they need to know the number of arrows needed to kill an archon or Ossomer. Pierce saw archons in combat and assumed that the veil was cast by them. The veil was actually cast by a master-class foolamancer which could make his assessment of the archon capability grossly exaggerated. It is possible that all of the shackamancy specialized archons drained all of their fluids on Ossomer and Tremenis it may only work at point blank range and maybe only in groups. Also the shag effect appeared to be short term. Decrypted archons might get a bonus from a croakamancer and/or from the presence of the arkenpliers both bonuses would now be unavailable. The casters in the discussion have no idea what the GK's capabilities are.

The point that Peirce and others made is that Ace also does not know what he is talking about. Ace is trying to find a way to save the day using his new untested toy. The other casters are unwilling to stick their necks out and claim that the king should modify the chief warlords plans because of the existence of Ace's new toy. Another dollamancer might point out the possibility of the jetpack exploding. Then there is the possibility that Slately does not know how to fly. Slately zipping around the tower three times, smacking into the stone wall and then dropping into the atrium would look funny to us. Not so funny for Jetstone. If Ace is confident in his work then he should be willing to take the risk of presenting it forcefully to the chief warlord. Peirce's instincts are correct. There are serious risks involved.

[gameboy1234]

I don't think Wanda will leave Stanley's side (would she consider a permanently allied side to still be "keeping the tools together"? I don't know.)

I think Wanda will be chastised for her interpretation of the prediction. "Brought together" does not implied that the tools will be brought together by those attuned to the tools. Anyone could bring the tools together. Wanda will be dressed-down for taking stupid risks with her own life based on her faulty interpretation. Then she'll say "Hey, we could totally ditch Stanley now."

[atalex]

It is possible that all of the shackamancy specialized archons drained all of their fluids on Ossomer and Tremenis.

Ewwww.

[Sylvan]

The casters do not necessarily know much of anything about topics outside their fields [Wanda and Jack are odd because they came from FAQ, a philosophy bubble]. They are casters not warlords. They do not need to track the number of arrows in the inventory nor do they need to know the number of arrows needed to kill an archon or Ossomer. Pierce saw archons in combat and assumed that the veil was cast by them.

Except that casters are commanders too. They are rarely used to lead stacks, because they are so rare and valuable, but that doesn't mean they don't know about tactics/can't.

Also, Pierce doesn't specify where and when he has fought against archons, and the update makes it sound as though he has had a fair amount of miscellaneous field experience.

Saying that a caster, who rarely leads a stack, knows nothing about leading stacks is like saying that Prince Tramennis, who rarely commands a battle, knows nothing about commanding battles.

Obviously, YMMV.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Ya know, once, for one minute, I thought that if ever a background character in Erfworld were based on yours truly, it would be a mathmancer. Now I'm pretty sure there's a twoll with my name somewheres. Which will be unceremoniously croaked on first appearance.

[DevilDan]

If this is mentioned earlier, sorry. I missed a different M*A*S*H reference: "bucking for an eight." As in bucking for a Section 8:

The term Section 8 refers to a category of discharge from the United States military for reason of being mentally unfit for service. It also came to mean any serviceperson given such a discharge or behaving as if deserving such a discharge. The term comes from Section VIII of the World War II-era United States Army Regulation 615-360, which provided for the discharge of those deemed unfit for military service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_%28military%29

[Oberon]

"Aces Wild". I've never read any of it, but I did love George RR Martin's other work, Song of Ice and Fire. Or is this a reference to something else?

The Aces Wild books were excellent, in my opinion. An interesting take on the superhero genre. These were edited by GRRM, but contributed to by many authors, including my own favorite Zelazny. The Song of Fire and Ice is as of yet unfinished, and I am bitter about the many year lapse between the published books and the finalizing publications.

[fehler]

Cubbins sucks. You'd think that if there was an entire magic specialty devoted to hats, someone would have magiced-up a hat large enough to transport a non-caster unit (ie ruler) from one city to another between linked hats. Thus no need for escape.

[the_tick_rules]

Yeah so far we haven't seen much from hat magic have we?

[Raza]

Yeah so far we haven't seen much from hat magic have we?

Yeah, Cubbins is a wildcard here. Other than 'small object conjuration' there's no telling what a hat magician can do.

Presumably not anything that'd contribute to a field army holding a chokepoint hex - not under Ossomer's guidance, anyway - but the discipline has got to have some hidden gems to it.

[Angband]

Yeah, Cubbins is a wildcard here. Other than 'small object conjuration' there's no telling what a hat magician can do.

Presumably not anything that'd contribute to a field army holding a chokepoint hex - not under Ossomer's guidance, anyway - but the discipline has got to have some hidden gems to it.

We already know that Hat Magicians are a workable (if less flexible) substitute for communication via Thinkamancer. Plus, those hats are apparently permanent, allowing point-to-point communication without the expenditure of juice. That alone is a pretty powerful ability.

Personally, I hope Rob is able to work in some Team Fortress 2 references for Cubbins. It is, after all, America's #1 war-themed hat simulator.