Shienvien

From Downfall ReRisen

The Lone Survivor

'Fair that you know if you’re going to stay there,' indeed, "Enn" (who was still not quite used to thinking of himself as as having that name) repeated in his mind... After he had barely a minute ago told her that a notable part of his role up until this point had specifically been not to know no more than he absolutely needed to know. Overhear a bit too much, and it could very easily become very unhealthy, should anyone find out. But here he was, being freely informed that he would have an inanimate neighbor that could effectively evaporate him if something went wrong, should he decide to stick around. Because it was fair.
There was some grim irony in that, he figured.
"Here," insisted one of the seemingly many invisible birds.
A momentary instinctive twitch went through his body as the woman shifted her arms to cross those over her chest, but he managed to suppress it before it could propagate into something that was externally visible as her intent became obvious. One effect - intentional or unintentional - of these armors was dehumanizing the wearer ... male, female, afraid, angry, gleeful, who knew. Probably also made it less likely for anyone taking aim at you less likely to suddenly develop a consciousness, or at least made it harder for someone whose friend you killed to remember your face or find out your name. Not everyone they were attacking donned as obscuring armor, if any, after all.
In any case, if he is going to be going with her, he should probably stop assuming she was just waiting for her chance and would try and draw her gun to shoot him in the face as soon as he lowered his guard. Admittedly, it would have been the perfect moment for it, now that he was no longer pointing his own gun at her, or even holding it in a firing-ready fashion. Granted, her's was a "mere" handgun, but it looked fairly bulky, and at such a short distance, he did not exactly want to firsthand find out how good a shot the woman was, or how well his visor or neck armor would fare against whatever ammunition her gun used.
His armor was designed more with guns like his in mind, but at medium-to-close range, it did not really have stopping power against military-grade long gun bullets, more it just mitigated the damage ... made the difference between having a shattered bone and a gaping wound and simply having a limb torn clear off. Head or neck, and it did not make much of a difference. You were almost as likely to be dead either way.
A distinct image from just last night crept back into his mind, that of one of his companions almost next to him trying to recover from one hit, only for his head to snap back from a shot and the man to collapse - but moreso the instant, final, and somehow absolute knowledge that the other was dead, and there was no point in even checking. That that was it. Over. Done. He would have known even without any prior knowledge. As surely as he had known, by the end, that 'his' side was going to lose.
- It was always easier to make a weapon than protection against it. If defensive technology were to ever be distinctly ahead of offensive technology, it would probably lead to some spectacularly pointless wars...

Not willing to dwell any longer on his own grim ponderings, he focused once more on what the woman was saying.
"Here," thought a bird.
What use is a weapon of mass destruction if do not have the means to deliver it, he wondered. Take it apart, bury it far away, don't risk some random flyover bombing or someone's mishap setting it off...
Kay-Gee stared at him, wide-eyed, “Eh, do you understand?"
To that, he could only shake his head. Slowly. Deliberately. Just by turning his head thrice. It could perhaps be assumed that he kept his sights on the woman from the range of the motion, but the meaning he wanted to convey was unmistakable.
Sure, they did not have to tell their opponents they had no functional means of delivery, but they were hardly going to let them a go at probing the thing to make sure it was real, either, were they? And past that, anyone could say anything. If you fielded something and demonstrated its might, it could be reported back about, but claims were just that: claims. It was easy to say you were bigger and scarier than you appeared, hard to prove so without causing appropriate destruction. Thus, no, he did not really understand.
As she continued on, however, his brain shifted gears again, and confusion turned into bewildered anger. You lot are lunatics. Not only did they have no adequate means to counter an assault, their last line of defense was to simply blow themselves up... To prematurely finish the job. It seemed petty, almost. 'If I can't keep my stuff, then no one shall have it, ever.' They were hardly going to let anyone who wanted flee beforehand, were they? No deserters from Eighfour...
It seemed at least as uncaring towards the individual as his old faction had been. He guessed he was used to a heartless system, so in the end, it made little difference. One thing was clear, though: they had not a bloody clue how a faction like his actually thought. The lives of their own soldiers were cheap now that humans were no longer supposedly near-extinct, worth only as much as their gear and actions. The lives of some small cult of lunatics who threatened to blow themselves up when they came too close ... were worth effectively nothing. Incinerate most of this damn forest...
"How much is eighty-four kilotons exactly?" he inquired, seemingly ignoring her last question for the time being. He had hardly moved, which meant that by appearances, he had been just looking at her for the duration of her explanations. "That forest is about a hundred kilometers across, isn't it?"
So you don't want everyone to die... I did not, either. Did not exactly help with anyone but me not dying, did it? Another, perhaps more serious question was what on earth did she think he could potentially do... Be her renegade soldier in shining armor and save the day? There were no such things as heroes, only more powerful units. And he was an infantryman, not a tactician, not an air force. Just a notch up from a literal nobody. Now, he essentially was a literal nobody.
Or should he consider himself part of Eighfour's forces now? All of their forces? He supposed it was a more familiar frame of mind, at least. Quit being concerned over his own belonging and start trying to figure out how he would keep Eighfour alive against overwhelming odds. ...Despite the fact that he was and had always been just a gun, and his designated way of keeping people alive was to shoot others before they could shoot them. And to hide behind rocks to keep himself alive.
He sighed, deeply.
"What do Anderekians have to fear from your lot blowing themselves up? We... They do not have any bases or stations down here. Only up there -" he motioned his left, free hand roughly towards where he knew the cliffdrop to be "- and the one closest to the edge is still over half a dozen kilometers farther. If what I suspect is correct and it's gone now, it'd be over a dozen kilometers farther still. But unless the Trenian party has retracted, they are still there, right by the edge. If you told Anderekians you have a nuke, what do you think would happen?
If they have any units here, those would be called back. But a supersonic bomber would be sent out. Or a few of those. These usually fly high, even during strikes. Raze your - or our, I guess - place with their own bombs or deliberately set the nuke off with a direct hit, it does not matter. No Eighfour, no problem, and if they're lucky, it'd either have the Trenians scurry off or have them drop dead, too. All people like me would know is that the amount of anti-radiation pills has been doubled up, and they can probably chalk it up to a solar flare or something.
Whatever you do, don't make them think it might be optimal to just wipe everything out. Do not set ultimatums to those bigger and perhaps even more ruthless than you. It'll just make them act more decisively."
There was a longer pause. Well, fuck. It was also always easier to point out that a plan was a terrible one than to come up with a halfway decent one.
"Here," offered a bird.
"If you had a couple of those damned hell-lasers, it would a different matter. Doubt the Trenians are going to lend theirs, wherever they pulled those out from. Or anything that could substitute. Or the favor of any equally powerful but less offensive faction, I suppose. Those will probably assimilate you, but at least people will live. Most of them, anyway. Or you could pack your things and leave..."
He tilted his head back.
"There is probably some amount of time during which they'll reel back and reorganize before they reach this way... I know something about how my old faction operates, but everything I did not need to know was withheld, and if I know it, then I shouldn't. If you see scouts or scourers, then it's getting close... The longer they have a reason to believe you're a piece of something larger, or at least don't know how formidable you are, the better. Others ... I don't know. I've only faced Trenians, and then not exactly on conversational terms. There were others, before we mostly fought Trenians, but those were before my time. Older soldiers talked about them. Some manner of machine-humans."
He refrained from glancing at the woman.
"Look, I ... we would have to think. And I'd probably at least want to eat. I've not eaten since I set out before last night, you know. Perhaps find some dry clothes and stop looking distinctly like an Anderekian soldier. And go somewhere else. Those birds unnerve me. Someone else might get the same idea you did."

Mahz's Dev Journal

I was completely blocked out of the site for a handful of hours, so it wasn't even 1/10 for me...

@Mention Notification Error

Is it perhaps feasible that the poster had first accidentally tagged you, then edited to include the second part of the user's username?

Mahz's Dev Journal

That's why the proper use of capital and non-capital letters is fundamental. Helps you tell a BIOS from bios, species from nations, the speaker referring to oneself from imaginary number or iterator counter, model names from random nouns, classes from functions...

Mahz's Dev Journal

Block user in the sense of "user can no longer send PMs or leave VMs to me" - yes.
Hiding all posts by said user - preferably not, that leads to some threads being horrible mangled messes (just imagine you two accidentally joining the same RP...). If someone is being disruptive on public forums, mods.

On another note - did this new forum ever have e-mail notifications? It appears some people in a RP I'm in appear to be missing those, which occasionally leads to some goose-hunts.

The Prophecy

@cthulu: ...Did the new forum ever send e-mail notifications? I thought it was a feature that died with the old vBulletin site, and hasn't been reimplemented yet (might remind the site owner about it, since I tend to feature in the dev thread anyway).
Good to know life hasn't completely eaten you yet, in any case!

(What are you studying, by the way, if you don't mind me asking?)

From Downfall ReRisen

The Lone Survivor

Initially, it had been hard to rationalize his own physical reaction to this confrontation, encounter, whatever one wished to term it. There were no guns pointing at him, no shells or shrapnel to tear through flesh and bone, no scorching plasma or mechanized monstrosities that could crush you under their treads. Just one lone woman with equipment that was no match against his, and she was not even trying to come across as being capable of meaningful retaliation. Not willing to endanger her faction, yes, but they both knew she would have had no chance against him if he went on offense. Never mind that he had had a gun pointed at him by guards of his own faction more times than he cared to count. Why, then?
The stakes were not functionally all that different, were they? If he could not convince this woman he was not a threat, that he did not intend to undermine what she stood for, if she decided to eliminate him, he would most likely die the same he would if he took a bullet, no? If she decided he was a threat, and he let her go, her whole faction would turn hostile, yes? And not only was it likely that she was one of the very few who would as much to care to listen, but finding another faction within walking distance which also had someone who would listen... What were the chances? If he failed now, it would be a death sentence after all, after he had lived (deserted) to see this day, albeit a much slower one.
Never mind that he had trained for war, had been in multiple skirmishes, and hearings had protocol, things he was supposed to say and how. No protocol for circumstances like this. Stakes were similar to what they would have been in battle, but he did not have a bloody clue what he was doing, and thus he had panicked.
Even as he finished his - what was it, an explanation? Justification? Plea? - he remained uncertain, watching the woman's - Kay-Gee's - face. She did not appear as defiant anymore, more ... regretful, was that it? In the end she merely sighed, finally offering him a smile.
“So you need a place to hide,” she stated, opting to gaze at the ground rather than him. If anything, it at least signified that she no longer expected him to attack. Did not feel the need to follow his every movement and be prepared to counter his actions. Somewhat awkwardly, he shifted his gun fully onto his hip, removing his hand from the trigger and placing it on the middle of the barrel - seemingly more to keep it pointed harmlessly at the ground but also far enough away from his feet than anything else. His other arm fell uselessly to the side.
"I guess," he noted, tone somewhat uncertain. 'To hide' seemed to imply that it was only a temporary setup, something one did until the circumstances changed. But they were hardly liable to change - being unlisted was permanent. "A place to be would perhaps be more apt way of putting it. To serve and live in."
He was silent again, listening as the woman described her faction's defenses. It seemed bizarre, not having any military. Sure, he was aware that Trenians had "civilian" settlements, but those, too, were generally guarded by at least a few units. And only manning anti-air when you expected trouble? It was not like they handed out warnings... It did not seem like it would be safe, or even remotely enough to have any kind of effect on the outcome of a flyover bombing. They - his old faction - had known to expect an attack last night, since they had picked up a part of the convoy moving out, but planes were much faster... Wherever the anti-air the Trenians had fielded the last night was from, it was not from Eighfour. And if someone did decide to target them, they would have barely anything to put up serious fight with.
"People are afraid of the fog, mostly," he muttered. "And they don't want to spread their forces out, risk running into something that can take them out, or being left beyond contact-range. Or having forces out of response-range, should they be needed somewhere else. Things like that."
"Here," insisted a bird. Maybe they were getting tired - bored? - of the interaction taking so long.
Clutching the barrel of his gun harder than was perhaps necessary, he listened in silence as the woman continued - not about the situation he had gotten himself into, but ... naming conventions? When the woman looked up at him again, she found him standing almost unchanged from before.
84-kiloton nuclear bomb. Nukes we a bit out of his expertise, but that was probably enough to level her entire faction if it went off, given that Eighfour really was as small as he had been led to believe... Still, he was confused. Was it a test of some sort?
"Why are you telling me this?"

Mahz's Dev Journal

I get too many superfluous notifications as is...

It takes five to fifteen seconds for a VM. If you care enough to want to say hi, it isn't too much of an additional effort. A generic hello button is a bit too impersonal, and will probably end up being a typical annoy feature more than anything.

Mahz's Dev Journal

Perhaps a listing of preferred pronouns would be better rather than just strictly gender? Just so we don't run into the issue of sex/gender/identity and the discussion that often follows them. Like she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/their and others like those. It may be less aesthetically pleasing than the current system now, but perhaps it would be a little bit more sensitive to non-cisgendered people.

@Undine

I agree that being able to choose between the pronouns she/he/they, and having an "other" option with a little insert field (codewise functioning not unlike user titles?) would be the most inclusive, least likely to incite any debates, and probably the most relevant (as people most likely would be most interested in knowing what to refer to someone as - with nb/fluid, you won't exactly know). The "other" option would probably net you a few joke answers, but it's entirely your fault if people decide to take your joke answer seriously.

Mahz's Dev Journal

So... "For women" means it's pink and inexplicably breaks or wears down thrice as fast. (Or perhaps I'm confusing sex icons with razor blades. But it's still pink.)

I personally also use female/male/intersex/hermaphrodite/nondistinct to strictly denote sex (physical) and man/woman/non-binary/genderfluid/bigender/agender/attack helicopter/other to strictly denote gender (identity).