fredgiblet wrote:sunphoenix wrote:or some other inflammatory rhetoric like our Gorbachev's famously mistranslated "We Will Bury you!"
FTFY
Khrushchev. It was Khrushchev. You fix one thing and leave such a glaring
wrongness?
I still question the "mistranslation" bit; it took them, what? 50, 60 years to correct it? (Yes I read that Cracked.com article too.
) Meh, not important, I guess.
And yes I created an account just to correct that. It affected my pedantic node
that badly.
How many more italics will I use?
Anyway, if I recall correctly (and if no one else has mentioned it - I only skimmed the last half of posts) please remember that the Umiak were
not undetected in the proplyd, they were just reported at numbers and dispositions significantly off from the "Farseeing Device"'s usual impeccable accuracy. If the Umiak are deploying a jamming device of some sort it doesn't seem to be 100% effective, and the Loroi would still see any fleet coming at them. I would think a fleet large enough to take a fortress system/planet/space station/coffee shop would be harder yet to hide from any sensor, telepathy-based or not. Knowing that, would the Umiak deploy as Kikitik-27 suggests? Knowing your enemy would still see you coming, regardless of how much you hide your numbers, wouldn't that place you at square one? Since after all they can still pick you up as you make your approach, which is exactly the same condition the war's been in for some time now.
The only way what he's saying would make sense is if they deliberately lured the Loroi fleets there by operating their jammer on a selective 'low power' setting. But as I recall, Tempo mentioned that their fleet is merely an interceptor and raider, not meant for defense, that they have separate fleets for that. Waylaying the raider fleets will draw off opponent strength by reducing reinforcements, yes, but if you can't get the normal defenders out of position you're still slamming against the same brick wall you were at before. Maybe you'll make more headway, but is that really going to be enough? Furthermore, is it really to your strategic advantage to throw away a surprise in an attack method that history has shown to be ineffective?
Then again, I have not poured over the supplemental material as thoroughly as I might have, so I do not know exactly how viciously effective the interceptor fleets have been in blunting attack thrusts. In my mind I can't see them doing much since the sense I've gotten from the story and the extra fluff I
have read indicate the Loroi favor quick slashing attacks that either end decisively or result in their forces pulling away before the Umiak can pound them into submission. I admit that is helpful, but in a raiding group configured specifically for speed and firepower, I can't see them being that significant as a defending force. When you're protecting an objective that can't move, you don't run and slash, you stand toe to toe with your foe and beat the snot out of each other until the first one cries "uncle." As we saw when the 51st stood and made the Umiak pay with blood and steel. Or ichor and tri-layered titanium, whatever.
So, either Krikkit boy is bluffing, or the Umiak have been building up for years for a full court press.
...Given the story line and what Arioch's done so far, I'd say something like the latter, which will make the 51st retreat- er, "tactically withdraw" to threatened systems and also to carry away information about the Umiak. Alex will be additional baggage who will no doubt become central to the dire events as the Loroi face obliteration. How? Lord and Arioch only know (unless the latter's confided in some others), but overall it's starting to shape up nicely. We have a clear apocalyptic threat, the titular "outsider", and some mysterious connection if not directly between humanity and the Loroi, then at least something in our common physiological structures that has been hinted at.
So yeah. Good comic, dude. Keep it up.
Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umiak Related? Coincidence?
There is no such thing as "overkill." There is only "open fire" and "time to reload."
"When angry, count 10. When very angry, swear." -Mark Twain