Falling Skies: In our Final Hour

[Reaper]

While all that is true... ask a medic if they're willing to treat people on the battlefield without a weapon.

That's assuming the Geneva Convention even holds true in this universe, that the Coalition forces ratify this treaty and are willing to abide by it. (Ask any medic who's been in the Middle East if the Taliban avoided shooting medics)

[Whoami]

Taliban isn't a national military though, so they don't need to abide by international law. That's what makes them terrorists.

[vietmyke]

CUTTING IN.

I will be taking a short break from providing character reviews/feedback for today and tomorrow, It is my birthday, and I'm already drunk off my ass and in no state to speak logically.

See you all when I'm sober.

[Whoami]

Happy birthday, Myke! I'll see what I can do about getting you limited edition Captain Marquis plushie as a present! :D

[Reaper]

Taliban isn't a national military though, so they don't need to abide by international law. That's what makes them terrorists.

@Whoami

No, that's beside the point. If your country didn't sign the treaty, Geneva doesn't apply to you.

[Whoami]

Well regardless, I thought it'd be an interesting point to bring into the RP. It'd make the Coalition seem a lot less evil as well as make everything seem more human overall.

[Reaper]

Well regardless, I thought it'd be an interesting point to bring into the RP. It'd make the Coalition seem a lot less evil as well as make everything seem more human overall.

@Whoami

Sure, but it's not like we can have a character that gets a free pass from enemy fire just because she's the medic.

[Whoami]

@Vietmyke, just making sure you aren't dead because of too much blood in your alcohol system. Also, it would seem the limited edition Captain Marquis plushie was intercepted by a Ghost fanboy.

[vietmyke]

I am indeed alive, and recovering from my extremely irresponsible few days out... Regular schedule will begin soon.

[vietmyke]

@Vor

The things

I have not much to say about Illyan, again, like I mentioned to Reign, Illyan was likely born into a generation of warfare, and while he may not have been drafted, the only reason why he would not have been put back on the line as fast as possible would be medical/logistical limitations, as opposed to bureaucratic talk about ethics. And as far as explosives technology go, yes we have futuristic C4- Det-Plast, which is essentially a block of mold-able plastic explosive. Like C4 it is very stable, and can be molded easily and has high explosive power, and is activated by a charge and detonator combo. Another favorite of the UEE is the Vapo-Disc, a disk shaped explosive charge that cleanly vaporizes everything within an adjustable (1-3 meter) diameter, with little to no shockwave for 'clean' destruction.

@Hexaflexagon

Moar things

A mouthy rookie, that'll be a fun thing to work with lol. Background is nice and fleshy as well. I have no problem with her using a STAKEN, but I wouldn't call the STAKEN a right of passage for rookies. Other then that, there's not much for me to say about this character, very solid.

[Naril]

I'm expecting my review to say "All the things, Naril. All the things. We'll start with thing one and go until thing infinity."

[Hexaflexagon]

Other then that, there's not much for me to say about this character, very solid.

@vietmyke

He likes me. He really likes me!

[Whoami]

*gets all giddy and nervous*

[Vor]

I have not much to say about Illyan...

@vietmyke

Yep, that was the idea for the character. He's just an average Joe that doesn't stand out with anything specific and is about to find out that he's way in over his head. I'll tweak the background when I get back home to make it more in line with what you're saying.

[Kimiyosis]

Alright, finally found time to start full scale writing again.
Are there any roles needing to be filled still?

[vietmyke]

@Naril

The things that are only 297 words long

Okay, so I've been putting this one off for as long as I could because holy fucking shit god damn thats a lot of text. Okay, so is Lara more of a cyborg than an AI? Because that is primarily the vibe I'm getting from her. Also, is she more human or machine?

So I know the idea is for her to be an AI in a body as fragile as the rest of the team, but the main question is why? Other than preserving what precious little is left of her humanity, it would've made more sense for them to just deploy a full on AI and just assign her to other tasks. The main reason for having a combat AI is to serve as yet another force multiplier, much like their MAS unit- the AI's shell is durable and more easily replaced than a human soldier, and with superior reaction times serves as an excellent multipurpose spotter-combatant, as well as interfacing with advanced electronics in the field.

Also, since the majority of Lara's body is cybernetic prosthesis, it'd be understandable if she was a bit stronger than the average human. If you replace your arm with a cyberarm, there's no reason why you wouldn't make it stronger than the average human, thats why people do that regularly anyway.

Right now, the vibe I'm getting from Lara to make this work is- UEE is short on AI- because lets face it, AI is expensive so its understandable that not every single squad in the UEE has a combat VI/AI and there's enough money being slung around on the most random R&D programs that this could feasibly make sense.

This review is not really a review but me slinging around thoughts because holy shit my head hurts.

[vietmyke]

@Whoami

The Things

So for this character, you wanted her to start outside the squad and link up with them early on correct? I dont see why that wouldnt work out. She's still part of the 8118th so it should be fine. Why did she join enlisted instead of officer Corps like her parents?

Also, the Ulysses station has not as of yet been destroyed- the fleet fight is still well underway when the invasion begins.

[Whoami]

@Whoami

The Things

So for this character, you wanted her to start outside the squad and link up with them early on correct? I dont see why that wouldnt work out. She's still part of the 8118th so it should be fine. Why did she join enlisted instead of officer Corps like her parents?

Also, the Ulysses station has not as of yet been destroyed- the fleet fight is still well underway when the invasion begins.

@vietmyke

Gotcha! I'll add the reason for enlisting in the history soon, just about to head out. But to answer the question here, since her father is a complete hardass, he had taught his children that if they were to rise up the ranks, they'd do it from the bottom to earn the respect through service.

As for the Ulysses, I'll touch that up as well.

[Naril]

Hiya!

Well, that was less painful than I expected. All right so, in order:

- You can probably think of her more like a cyborg than anything else - her intelligence is, at the moment, composed of a complicated and difficult-to-replicate interconnection between an AI core and part of human brain. There was an example here but it was really bad.

- Originally, I'd written her to be more machine than human, but our MAS pilot got there first. :) Lara/Corona/whatever is more human than machine generally speaking. Most of the contents of her skull, her eyes, a considerable portion of only her brain and spine along with her right arm prosthesis are, however, artificial.

- I'm bad at following directions and I thought an AI that still had to protect itself in a meaningful way would make for some interesting narrative. I think her intelligence could live on even if her "body" died, although the experience would be breathtakingly traumatic. The idea is that she's still entirely capable of doing "AI stuff," including remote-piloting equipment, electronic warfare, rapid information analysis, and all that, but also has a reason to care about getting shot. I can still write her as a force multiplier both personally and with the ability to control hardware with her mind, but I had thought you'd prefer for that to not be the case. Mea culpa, if so. :3

- I'm fine with her being stronger than a standard-issue human, if that's the "normal" thing. The original narrative would have been for Lara wanting to just have her body back, and at that point she very much would have cared more about being made whole rather than becoming a superhuman. Since Lara "died," changing the prosthesis to serve other purposes is fine with me.

- Like I mentioned earlier, she's still mostly human.

- I'm not picky as to how she gets assigned - in my mind, I've figured that the UEE would have no real idea what to do with her, but since she's demonstrated that she still has all the "abilities" of a UEE artificial intelligence, that she's been redeployed as one, with the unit commander receiving a set of caveats prior to her arrival. I can't believe that the UEE would be trying to recreate what happened, though.

Does any of that help?

[Whoami]

I'm so excited! *dances*