Well of Souls Forums

TrashMan wrote:You had to do it, didn't you?

Yes

Wintermute wrote:

TrashMan wrote:Now, I'm not the one to diss the concept itself (love in WH40K...scandalous, I know!)...even the writing is passable...but the pacing of that thing was AWFULL.

I'm confused. It's a 4-panel comic.

I think it's the more indepth story that /tg/ ended up writing for the illustrations that were made. I'm not sure the artist wrote that.

I fear that the Assassin can't fire on the Farseer because he is in lust with her far out-of-scale hooters. [ahem]

There's been some great speculation as to why the Umiak haven't just come in and clobbered the Loroi yet, but it's all exactly that -- speculation. The most likely explanation is that the Umiak want to examine the derelict Bellarmine for whatever reason.

By the way, even sitting still the Umiak fleet could wipe the floor with the 51st, seeing as how they could arrange their capital ships into pincushion and slick any attacking forces. The Umiak aren't afraid of the Loroi for any reason.

The Loroi, on the other hand, can't allow any trace of the Bellarmine or its occupants (read, "Alex") to fall into Umiak hands. The ability of the Loroi to detect the Umiak from range is the only thing keeping the bugs from stomping the elves into the dirt as it is. If the Umiak were to figure out how to stealth their craft from Loroi detection the war would be over in a week and the Loroi an extinct species in a year.

Rosen_Ritter_1 wrote:I think it's the more indepth story that /tg/ ended up writing for the illustrations that were made. I'm not sure the artist wrote that.

Ok, I was assuming he was responding to the comic. The artist of the comic did not write the story, which was a spin-off. The comic came well before the story and was drawn by Ironshrinemaiden. The author nobody knows.

Some Useless Geek wrote:I fear that the Assassin can't fire on the Farseer because he is in lust with her far out-of-scale hooters. [ahem]

You know nothing of Eldar physiology, breast size equates to psychic potential in females since their breasts serve as collecting point for psychic energy. I'm fairly certain that in the new codex they are going to have rules where you can get add-on breasts to improve the psychic power of specific units.

And the best part is that that wouldn't be half as ridiculous as half of the fluff already is.

fredgiblet wrote:And the best part is that that wouldn't be half as ridiculous as half of the fluff already is.

A friend of mine used to do a lot of war gaming using various miniature systems. He was well into the assembling, painting, customizing, all that jazz. I watched a couple of "engagements" of the miniature type and quickly lost interest when I found out how much it cost to get into the models, the rule books, and everything needed to support war gaming under anybody's system.

RTCS games on a PC are cheap, fun, and quick. You don't have to buy add-ons just to play the game. You can play with or against other players online, or single player mission/campaign games, or player-versus-[n] computer scenarios. All for the original $40 or so for the game. That kinda money wouldn't cover one miniature set and a codex book.

But none of this comes close to good storytelling. The Outsider storyline is compelling fable at its best, with subtle and deep backstory on all the participants. Plenty of mystery to be solved and fights to be won or lost. I wear out my F5 key way too soon just waiting for updates.

Some Useless Geek wrote:The Loroi, on the other hand, can't allow any trace of the Bellarmine or its occupants (read, "Alex") to fall into Umiak hands. The ability of the Loroi to detect the Umiak from range is the only thing keeping the bugs from stomping the elves into the dirt as it is. If the Umiak were to figure out how to stealth their craft from Loroi detection the war would be over in a week and the Loroi an extinct species in a year.

The Loroi have no such need...the only human who has any idea that the Loroi might have difficulty sensing humans is Alex, who is quite adequately contained for the moment. A few human corpses and fragments of wreckage won't change anything. This doesn't mean they won't destroy what they can to keep it from the enemy, they just don't have any sort of overwhelming imperative to get it all.

And even if the Umiak discovered humans couldn't be telepathically sensed (which is not yet known to be true of all or even many humans), their greatest desire as a species seems to be control over other civilizations to ensure that they are not a threat. Giving a bunch of shockingly Loroi-like humans fleets of heavily armed warships on a bet that they'll be able to defeat the Loroi who have been such a problem for the Umiak is...rather unlikely.

I love the ending to Love Can Bloom.

Trantor wrote:

Karst45 wrote:well maybe the human were actually a "reference species" so now that they are in contact with Loroi/umiak their experimentation is at risk.

Nice paraphrase for "early discarded prototype".

i prefer the term: original Pure (unmodified) species

A scientific control; a species that remains unmodified and left to its own devices (or humanity is the harbinger of destruction and the Historians know it...).

Alright, so this thread has officially run off the rails and into the ditch, right? We're not even pretending any more, is that it?

Hmm.

I was kinda hoping to talk about Outsider some.

Some Useless Geek wrote:Alright, so this thread has officially run off the rails and into the ditch, right? We're not even pretending any more, is that it?

How long have you been here? Go back to the old forum and read the page threads, there's 2 types, the ones that ended after 2-3 pages and the ones that spawned 30 page tangential arguments, that's the way it's been since before I got here.

I was kinda hoping to talk about Outsider some.

Say something interesting, other people will join in.

Some Useless Geek wrote:I was kinda hoping to talk about Outsider some.

If you have a question, ask! People will be more than happy to jump in with their opinion. Just be sure to read the Insider first, since a lot of the details on the setting can be found there.

Trantor wrote:

Ktrain wrote:

Voitan wrote: paraphrase What's up with the Historians yo! /paraphrase

Okay here's the relevant deal on the historians, most of this is in the insider, but still it was plastered all over the old forums.

Historian used to be called eaters of wisdom. Super seclusive race using only AI to communicate with other races. Very intelligent, high tech.

Umiak steamrolled over the Loroi and the historians (their supposed ally) only aided them when it was *clear* the Loroi would lose in short order without help. (Umiak also invaded their systems, but rather than fight they just retreated for years). Then the Historians helped the Loroi make a bastardized copy of their plasma focus weapon (super long range and high damage low fire rate OR less damage higher fire rate pick one? [check the attack vector PDF for those details I think there were at least 2 firing modes]). which resulted in the pulse cannon. Only at that point did the historians actually engage the Umiak in combat.

These actions seemed very weird. Given their technological advantage and the fact that the historian fleets should be able to mow through umiak given their guns make them look like they're better than the umiak at close range and better than the loroi at long range their trepedation and willlingness to cede territory to the Umiak almost uncontested while their allies the Loroi are fighting tooth and nail to drive off a deeply penetrating Umiak advance did not seem like the actions of a reliable ally.

As a result, a lot of speculation went around, with such theories as the Historians are trying to use the Loroi to soften up the Umiak, providing them with just enough support to give them the time to amass a big enough fleet to steam roller over both of them. There were some that factored the Historians somehow into this combat, usually with them having some nefarious reason for shooting down the Bellarmine. Most of them gave the historians a distinctly crafty, underhanded spin (as any good conspiracy is want to have).

This was mostly done before the thoroughly *greasy* historian AI was introduced. Those two together (i.e. the AI's actions and the historian's previous inaction in the war) lead me to believe that at best the historians are just complete and total ass-hat cowards and at worst they are conniving bastards and up to something.

Obviously read up on the timeline and such, there might be some useful quotes in the "thus spake arioch" file that is up somewhere culled from the old forums and I didn't go back a reread anything so some of the facts may have slightly skewed towards my opinions, so for anything that requires 100% accuracy, such as some reasoning for why their sudden interesting in fighting coincided with giving the Loroi technology things like precise timing of events, or exactly who fought in which territory when they were pushing the Umiak back (did the historians get into Loroi space or did they only reclaim their own?) will require further reading in the insider etc.

-O

Wintermute wrote:

TrashMan wrote:Now, I'm not the one to diss the concept itself (love in WH40K...scandalous, I know!)...even the writing is passable...but the pacing of that thing was AWFULL.

I'm confused. It's a 4-panel comic.

There's actually a whole fanfic written about it.
It suffers from the same *BAMF - instant love* syndrome and a lot of "WTF", but the way it's written is ok.
A friend of mine liked it to me and told me to read it....the jerk.

And that's what I mean by pacing. There's no natural buildup. Heck, you could have a Space Marine forced trough circumstances to work with a farseer, first developeing begruding respect and later, AFTER MUCH TIME even admiration, then love - even that would make more sense than this "instant-love-in-a-can".

Now, while I love talking about 40K, let's not derail this thread further...ok?...filthy xeno.


EDTI: Prehaps a thread split?

TrashMan wrote:Now, while I love talking about 40K, let's not derail this thread further...ok?...filthy xeno.

This is pretty much the way things go around here. Don't worry too much about it.

osmium wrote:

Voitan wrote: paraphrase What's up with the Historians yo! /paraphrase <---WTF?

[Explanation given without need]

Not sure if you misunderstood us, but we're, or at least myself, already know there is to know, about the Historians through the Insider.

Voitan wrote:

osmium wrote:

Voitan wrote: paraphrase What's up with the Historians yo! /paraphrase <---WTF?

[Explanation given without need]

Not sure if you misunderstood us, but we're, or at least myself, already know there is to know, about the Historians through the Insider.

I felt it cogent to put the background into filtered form to accentuate the background that lead to the various conspiracy theories. Perhaps I scanned too quickly but I noticed that various people were somewhat confused on things, in part because perhaps they hadn't read the insider and in part because they likely had not read the original scattered posts on the various theories about who shot the Bellarmine that occurred before Alex was even picked up by the Loroi.

Trantor wrote:

Ktrain wrote:

Voitan wrote:I always have to keep in mind that something out there Historians just doesn't want humanity poking its nose into the conflict. I'm guessing they're going to say that they have seen similar wrecks that the Loroi have in their possession.

Voitan, what your the basis for this conspiracy plot because it sounds quite interesting?

That was fathomed in one of the early threads in the old forum. The historians role is obscure and questionable (Why no full tech support for the spaceelves?), but my memory lacks the finer details, sorry.

Ktrain wrote:Furthermore, why would the Historians want to keep man out of the conflict if the conflict is eventually going to reach their borders?

Hm, cannot remember...
Can anyone here help out?

I didn't want to plaster the huge quote so I just gutted it, perhaps it was a bit hasty and confusion inducing...

-O

Some Useless Geek wrote:Alright, so this thread has officially run off the rails and into the ditch, right? We're not even pretending any more, is that it?

Hmm.

I was kinda hoping to talk about Outsider some.

yeah i know how you fell, i skipped about 10 page of text. but if you start with question/comment about the page 86 people may get back on the subject

TrashMan wrote: And that's what I mean by pacing. There's no natural buildup. Heck, you could have a Space Marine forced trough circumstances to work with a farseer, first developeing begruding respect and later, AFTER MUCH TIME even admiration, then love - even that would make more sense than this "instant-love-in-a-can".

In a normal series it'd work. But this is Warhammer 40k. where everyone is grim dark, and full of hate and violence.

Irrational and preposterous love at first sight is the antithesis of everything that is 40k. That's why it works so well.

TrashMan wrote:Heck, you could have a Space Marine forced through circumstances to work with a Farseer...

You mean, like in the last mission of the first DoW campaign game? Actually, the SM weren't being forced to work with the Eldar; the Biel-Tan were just the enemy of the Blood Ravens' enemy, so they ended up working together. Whatever.

[ahem]

I am still very much interested in why the Umiak haven't swept into the Charred Steppes and brushed the Loroi 51st Strike Group aside like so much paper blowing in the wind.