u/GlowingSeaDiver

Ever since 2008, there is one question that every Sins of a Solar Empire player has asked himself at some point:

>If the mysterious force chasing the Vasari has destroyed the ancient Vasari Empire without their mighty Dark Armada even slowing them down, how do we stop this?

With the revelation of the Eidolon, we are a lot closer to an answer. The answer lays in one of the most basic rules of strategy:

>If you are in a disadvantageous situation, change the situation before you engage the enemy.

Or as the Sith Lord Scourge from Star Wars put it:

>Fighting a battle I can’t win isn’t brave, it’s stupid

We know that the Eidolon live in some kind of other dimension, parallel universe, phase space, or some other kind of alternate reality, called “corruption”. As long as they are in that state, they are likely untouchable, perhaps even undetectable. That’s likely how they managed to kill the Vasari Empire so fast, without ever loosing a fight, without ever failing in taking an objective, only once leaving a ship full of survivors that had been driven to madness. Their weapons simply didn’t work. It was like fighting ghosts that can kill you while your own weapons just go trough them without any effect.

That’s the battle we cannot win. That’s the battle we need to change. Before we can engage the Eidolon, we need to figure out a way to draw them out of their “corruption” into real space. I think its very likely that once we achieve that, they die just like anyone else. It would be like the undead pirate crew in the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie: Once the curse of the Aztec Gold is lifted, the undead, undying pirates are utterly vulnerable.

Skyrim obviously has the death penalty. The Player himself almost gets executed in Helgen. Then there is an execution in Solutude right as we arrive. And from the context of a few character interactions, it is safe to say that executions aren’t super rare events.

There is also a random horse thief on the wagon to Helgen, so it is unlikely that Skyrim only executes traitors like the Stormcloaks.

On the other hand, the player can literally walk up to some random npc, murder him in brought daylight, pay a fine of 1.000 gold to the nearest guard, and walk away free.

And we also see criminals being put in jail instead of being taken to the next chopping block.

Something doesn’t add up here. What crimes in Skyrim are met with fines, what crimes get someone thrown to jail, and what crimes are punished by death?

From what little we know about them in the Lore, the Eidolon are the absolute Vasari Killers. Everything we know about them indicates that Vasari stand absolutely zero chance against the Eidolon. These guys annihilated the ancient Vasari Empire, wiped out their Dark Armada, and made the few survivors run for their lives.

There might be ways for TEC and Advent to fight them. But how can the game possibly balance them fighting against Vasari?

While my mother was in labor, my father received a message ordering all soldiers and reserves to report to their bases. He thought it was a pirate attack on our world, and he left in a hurry, promising to return to her side as soon as he was able to. It wasn’t a pirate attack. And I was five years old when I first met him. The Vasari had come to human space. My dad was one of the first generation. A brave war hero who stopped their advance and bought the Trade order time to form into the TEC. When he was sent home, we had a short illusion of hope, before the Advent attacked and he was forced to get back out into the galaxy to fight for us.

When I was seventeen, I joined the fight myself. For almost twenty years, I fought the Advent. While these weak cowards of the Enclave hid behind their starbases, the true Trader Emergency Coalition, now calling ourselves the TEC Primacy, kept bringing the fight to the Deviants. Deviants. Even that name sounds strange now.

Five years ago, I met Magnolia. She was one of the new colonists we brought to Kalaria, a barren planet we had driven the Advent from not too long before. She was a farmer, and her family managed to sustain a small farm with the limited water the atmospheric condensers produced. One more step in reclaiming a world rightfully belonging to our people. That’s what we thought at the time. There was something between the two of us almost from the beginning. Two years later, we were married. It has never been easy, her being on the farm back on Kalaria and me coming by only every few weeks, sometimes rarer if our war against the Advent demanded me to be elsewhere. But we managed.

It was while I was home that everything changed. In a brilliant strategic diversion plan, the Advent drew our fleet far from Kalaria and attacked our world with a force containing multiple capital ships, lead by an Eradica class Titan. The starbase fell within minutes, and within the hour, they landed on our world.

I know I was supposed to report to the nearest unit to join the defense, but it was clear that we had no chance. All I could think of was keeping Magnolia and the girls safe. Even though I didn’t knew why at the time, I did know that the Advent fleets containing Oblivia Dreadnoughts and Coronata Titans always targeted our cities with heavy bombardment while the fleets including Justicia Dreadnoughts and Eradica Titans targeted military installations, leaving the cities mostly intact. Therefore, I figured Magnolia and the girls would be safest right here in our farmhouse, neither in the blast radius of any military installation nor close to any of the major population centers.

Two days after the initial invasion, they came to our house. A tall, light skinned woman in a white robe, her eyes glowing unnaturally. She was escorted by five men in metal armor, covering their faces completely. I aimed my plasma rifle and yelled for her not to come any closer. She barely moved two fingers, and her enormous telekinetic powers ripped the weapon from my hands. They went into our house and grabbed Magnolia and the girls, and me too. I tried fighting them, but I couldn’t move under the woman’s powerful telekinetic force keeping me down. I helplessly watched as they escorted us away into different directions, and I heard Magnolia scream as they took our girls from her.

The Advent woman looked at me, offering a warm smile, despite what was happening right then and there. “Do not be afraid” she said to me. And as the armored men led me away, she added “you will see them again, and you will be closer to them than you ever where, once we opened your eyes.”

I was led into one of their improvised buildings they set up on our world. A clean, metallic structure made of metallic floors and walls. It didn’t look like a prison or a torture chamber, but more like a hospital. There were stories about the horrific, devious experiments the Advent did. I should have been freaking out the moment I realized they were about to do some of their deranged experiments on me, and probably did the same to my wife and my little girls at the moment, but I felt a strange calm being around the telepaths. Almost like being sedated. I simply lay down on their operating table and closed my eyes.

When I woke up, the world was no longer the same. I could hear the Advent talking to me, but not with their tongues. I could hear their thoughts, and they could hear mine. It was strange and intimidating at first, but also beautiful. We always thought them to be twisted deviants, but it turned out they actually seek harmony in all things. A corrupting influence had caused the Unity to attack the Traders in hatred, but we would soon restore the harmony that was the Unity’s true purpose. We. Not they. That’s right. They had changed my brain and mind, opening my soul to a reality far greater than anything I ever experienced. As the woman back on our house had promised, my wife and my children were fine. I hadn’t met them yet, but I just knew. I could feel their calm thoughts. They had been given the same gift as I. When I was first liked to the hive mind, that was an experience I simply cannot put into words.

We were no longer what the Primacy considered human tough. My former brothers in arms would kill me on sight. It has been six months since my family and I joined the Unity. Our understanding of what really matters has grown more in six months than in the thirty-five years I have lived before. Even the girls are already learning to do basic things with their new powers. As for me, I am trained in the arts of telekinesis, to join the damage control team on a new radiance battleship as soon as its construction is finished. Soon, I will join the crusade of enlightenment. I hope we find my father. I hope we can show him the light, just as it was shown to me.

When the Dragonborn is infiltrating the Thalmor Embassy, there is one minor detail I never paid much attention to before:

Elenwen greets the Dragonborn when he enters
the Embassy, and as he introduces himself, she recognizes his name from the
guest list.

I never thought much about it. Normal formalities at a formal event. Nothing special. But since I am currently roleplaying a High-Elf noble who was marked a traitor by the Thalmor and was forced to flee to Skyrim, it was just impossible to ignore what huge blunder Delphine did here:

She got the Dragonborn an invitation to a formal Thalmor event USING HIS ACTUAL NAME!

I always found that the Thalmor realize what’s going on far too fast during this quest. But this time, when a known traitor from their wanted list introduced himself by name, it made perfect sense that it took Elenwen like two minutes to figure out what’s going on.

I have watched both new parts two times, and I look forwards to the third one. Dune is one of these many hidden gems of sci-fi that most people have never heard of until someone turns them into a great piece of media.

But there are some things I still haven’t figured out after watching the movies twice.

For me personally, one of the most important things in a great story is a believable motivation for every character. Each character should behave in a way that the story would still make sense if it was written from his perspective. But I don’t understand the motivation of the Bene Gesserit for creating the Kwisatz Haderach, Paul Atreides. They crossed bloodlines and manipulated events for centuries (or even millennia?) in order to create a mind as powerful as Paul’s. They even created an entire religion on Arrakis for Paul to eventually become their messiah. To what end? Why did they want to create the Kwisatz Haderach? Obviously, him becoming Emperor of the Known Universe was only the first step. What is the Bene Gesserit’s eventual goal for Paul?

Don’t get me wrong, they are still an oppressive dictatorship and they committed possibly the worst genocide in Star Trek history on Cardassia Prime, but if your world obeys the Dominion, life doesn’t seem so bad.

From what we have seen, their subjects like the Karemma, the Dosi and for a few weeks during the war the Bajorans, seem to be treated quite well. The Dominion doesn’t seem to demand extreme tributes from its subjects. They don’t draft the natives into military service, because they have the Jem’Hadar for that. As we have seen with the Karemma, they even allow their subjects to make their own trade with foreign powers, as long as they obey Dominion orders doing it. The Dominions policy about ruling their subjects seems to be perfectly summed up as: “Obey us and prosper, disobey and die”.

That observation is, admittedly, based on the very limited evidence we get in DS9. But it actually makes perfect sense for the Founders. They don’t want extermination, they want control. And subjects that prosper tend to be far easier to control than subjects that suffer, because the latter tend to rebel. Quark even spelled it out quite plainly in S6E1:

>"I never expected to say this, but as occupations go, this one's not so bad."
"No, I suppose that's true if all you're worried about is a monthly balance sheet."
"I'm not just concerned with profit, Major. Look around. Do you see any ghetto fences dividing the Promenade? Or exhausted Bajoran slave laborers sprawled on the ground after a grueling day in the ore processing center? Do you hear the cries of starving children? I don't. Now don't get me wrong, I miss the Federation, too. All I'm saying is, things could be a lot worse.

I’m running into a little problem with my current character:

My Shieldmaiden is a real “Lawful Good” type of character, but also a devote follower of Hircine. She goes out into the wilderness of Skyrim, both honoring Hircine and protecting ordinary people by hunting the most dangerous monsters Skyrim has to offer. She protects the defenseless and never raises her war axe against the innocent. Even when she decided that Grelod the Kind was just another monster to be slain, she fought Grelod hand to hand without weapons, armor or magic, as cutting down an old woman in full battle gear was beneath her.

She gladly accepted the gift of lycanthropy, using it to slay many powerful enemies in Hircine’s name and in Skyrim’s defense. Her primary skills are one-handed, block and archery, as well as smiting which I power-leveled to dress her in the scales of the dragons she slew. But in terms of gameplay, I’m slowly running into a problem at level 39:

Simply put, using her war axe and shield is more effective and more fun than transforming into a werewolf. But because she is a devote follower of Hircine, I want to keep using his gift of lycanthropy.

Do you have any Ideas how I can keep her werewolf form relevant while her war axe and shield become her primary combat style?

Ich war kürzlich mal wieder beim Einkaufen, und wie das jeder kennt war da ein Kleinkind am ausrasten. Geheule, Geschrei, das ganze Programm. Und natürlich ging es mal wieder um irgendeinen Schokoriegel.

Soweit so normal. Was mir in dieser Situation aber aufgefallen war, das war die Reaktion der anderen Kunden. Alle haben der jungen Mutter böse Blicke zugeworfen, die sie unausgesprochen aufforderten, doch endlich das schreiende Kind ruhig zu kriegen. Dabei ist genau das eine absolut essentielle Phase in der kindlichen Entwicklung. Es ist unfassbar wichtig, dass dieses Kind genau jetzt lernt, dass es mit diesem Verhalten keinen Zentimeter weiterkommt. Ich finde, dass es absolut nicht zu viel verlangt ist, dass wir als Gesellschaft mal eben an der Discounter Kasse für zwei Minuten dieses Geschrei aushalten und keinen zusätzlichen Druck auf die Mutter aufbauen.

So ähnlich verhält es sich im Bus, wenn dieser völlig überfüllt ist und Eltern mit Kinderwagen einsteigen. Natürlich wird es jetzt noch enger, aber was sollen die denn machen? Die sind auch nicht schuld daran, dass hier kein Platz ist.

Wenn die Kinder dann etwas älter sind kommen weitere Aspekte dazu. Die Alten fragen: „Warum hängen die Kinder alle am Smartphone und sind nicht mehr draußen“, worauf Kinder antworten würden: „Was soll ich ‚draußen‘ denn machen? Photosynthese?!“, weil alle Spielplätze verrotten und man froh sein kann, wenn die Kinder es dank der Autoverkehrssituation überhaupt lebend dorthin schaffen.

Wenn man als Gesellschaft so mit Kindern und ihren Eltern umgeht, dann braucht man sich auch nicht über niedrige Geburtenraten wundern.

The Paradox of House Atreides’ vigilance.

Hey guys, I wrote the title as vague as possible to avoid spoilers, because this is about a major plot point in the 2021 movie. Spoilers ahead.

Before House Atreides even moved to Arrakis, there is the famous combat training scene between Paul and Gurney, where Gurney clearly spells it out that he doesn’t expect the Harkonnen to just leave Arrakis without a fight, and that he anticipates a situation where Paul will face them in direct combat. In other words, Gurney knew quite well what was coming.

But if the Warmaster of House Atreides expected to face the Harkonnen in battle, why was House Atreides so badly prepared? Why were there no satellites placed in orbit? Why weren’t the surface-to-air guns ready for battle before a Harkonnen fleet was able to move into position above the castle?

We heard Leto and Gurney talk about the impending danger, but we didn’t see them prepare for it.

Auf deutschen Straßen sind unzählige tickende Zeitbomben unterwegs. Fahrer, die absolut nicht fahrtauglich sind, und bei denen es nur eine Frage der Zeit ist, bis sie einen Brückenpfeiler rammen, ein Kind überfahren, oder ähnliche Unfälle verursachen.

Und die meisten von diesen Fahrern haben eine gültige Fahrerlaubnis.

Das ist auch wenig überraschend. Schließlich erhält in Deutschland jeder die Fahrerlaubnis, der es einmal eine Dreiviertelstunde lang geschafft hat, gegen keine Verkehrsregel zu verstoßen. Danach werden selbst in der Probezeit Verstöße ohne Fahrverbot geahndet, die in der Prüfung zum sofortigen Nichtbestehen führen.

Die Fahrtauglichkeit verändert sich mit der Zeit. Im Alter oder mit fortschreitenden Krankheiten werden die Reaktionszeiten schlechter, die Sicht wird schwächer, und das allgemeine Umgebungs- und Situationsbewusstsein lässt nach. Mein Großvater ist bis vor einiger Zeit noch mit über 90 Jahren Auto gefahren, und zwar miserabel, bis er eingesehen hat, dass es besser wäre, nicht mehr zu fahren. Zwar können Behörden Führerscheine bei bekannter Fahruntauglichkeit auch heute schon entziehen, mangels systematischer Kontrollen erfährt davon in der Praxis aber kaum jemand. Hätte mein Großvater also uneinsichtig mit seinem Sportwagen weiterfahren wollen, wäre er im Alltag durch kein Raster gefallen. Ich schlage für dieses Problem eine einfache Lösung vor:

Verpflichtende Seh- und Reaktionstests alle drei Jahre, und zwar für jeden Autofahrer, unabhängig vom Alter. Ich fange auch gerne an und lasse mich als erster testen, wenn wir das einführen.

Ein halbstündiger Arzttermin alle drei Jahre ist nun wirklich keine schwere Zumutung, und wenn der Achtzehnjährige genauso wie der Hundertjährige zum Test muss, dann kann auch niemand wegen Altersdiskriminierung jammern. Dafür würde ein solcher Test aber viele tickende Zeitbomben von der Straße fernhalten.

Ich fange diese möglicherweise unbeliebte Meinung einfach mal mit einem Satz an, welcher das Grundproblem erklärt, auf dem meine Meinung hierzu basiert:

Deutschland im Jahr 2026 ist eine Gesellschaft, in welcher die größte Gefahr im Leben vieler Kinder nicht von Fremden Personen ausgeht, denen sie draußen begegnen könnten, sondern von der eigenen Familie.

Das ist die Realität in diesem Land.

Kinder werden nicht von dem komischen Typen im Park blutig geschlagen, wenn sie eine schlechte Note nach Hause bringen, sondern von den Eltern.

Kinder werden, obwohl es diese Fälle ebenfalls gibt und ich die in keiner Hinsicht verharmlosen will, meist nicht von Fremden auf dem Schulweg vergewaltigt, sondern zuhause von Mitgliedern der eigenen Familie oder anderen nahen vertrauten wie Lehrern oder Sporttrainern.

Und Kinder werden auch nicht von den Fremden vernachlässigt bis sie krank und gefährlich unterernährt sind, sondern von den Erziehungsberechtigten, meist den Eltern.

Und wenn das Jugendamt dann in so einem Fall durchgreift, und Kinder aus einer gefährlichen Umgebung rettet, dann ist bei den Erziehungsberechtigten das Geheule groß. Dann heißt es „Das Jugendamt hat mir meine Kinder weggenommen!“.

Dabei sind es aber gar nicht „deine“ Kinder, und sie werden dir auch nicht „weggenommen“. Sie gehören dir nicht. Du bist einfach nur derjenige, der die Verantwortung hat, sich um diese Kinder zu kümmern, sie zu beschützen, und sie zu erziehen. Und wenn durch dein Verhalten offensichtlich ist, dass du nicht geeignet bist, dieser extrem wichtigen, geradezu heiligen Aufgabe in angemessener Art und Weise nachzukommen, dann wird diese Aufgabe an jemanden übertragen, der ihr eher gewachsen ist.

An dieser Stelle sollte mal erwähnt werden, was „Erziehungsberechtigter“ eigentlich für ein schlechtes Wort ist. Es sollte „Erziehungsverantwortlicher“ heißen. Denn es ist kein Recht, das dir gegeben wurde, sondern eine unfassbar große Verantwortung, die du übernommen hast.

Es geht nicht darum, dich zu bestrafen. Es geht um das Wohl der Kinder. Und wenn du deine Aufgabe als Erziehungsverantwortlicher wirklich verinnerlicht hättest, dann würdest du das verstehen.

I am currently watching the series for the third time (I think), and each time I rewatch it, I realize something I missed before. That is part of the beauty of Breaking Bad. The series is so filled with small details that you just keep finding something new every time. But there is one thing in the first season that didn’t made sense to me the first time, and it still doesn’t make sense the third time.

There are many close calls throughout the series, but there one in particular, right at the start of the series, where I still do not understand how Hank could possibly not pick up on that. I know I am biased in this, because I know for a fact who Heisenberg is, but the pure, logical reasoning doesn’t require me to know. Every other close call is excusable in one way or another. But this one is not:

I’m talking about the mask that the DEA found in the desert. Let’s block out all we know about Walt and Jesse, and only focus on what the DEA knows:

They found a gas mask with a sticker that marks it as property of a specific school. They later investigated this specific school and found out that two masks and a few other items were missing. They also found no signs of a break-in. And the mask they found had traces of the purest meth the DEA had ever seen. These facts give us two very important pieces of information about the person they are looking for.

1.       They are looking for someone who is absolutely brilliant at Chemistry. Not some drug addict, not the janitor they later arrested, a true chemical genius.

2.       They are looking for someone who had access to this school’s chemical equipment.

Each of these two on their own is not very helpful. There are a few people who are this good at chemistry. Any professional chemist would fit the description. And there are lots of people who had access to the school’s chemical equipment. Any random student could have stolen the mask during class, most teachers would have had access, and then some people like the janitor. But the combination of these two factors narrows it down a lot more. There is only one person, perhaps two if there is another chemistry teacher, who fits both requirements. And that one is Walter White.

This is not enough to convict him, but it is enough to get a warrant to search his house, tap his phone, shadow him, etc. As soon as the DEA did that, it would be only a few days until they found proof.

There is the aspect that Hank sees Walt as very smart but ultimately a loser who doesn’t have it in him. But Hank is not the only one in this investigation. Even if Hank couldn’t connect the dots because of the way he looks at Walt, Gomez or one of the other guys working on the investigation would have talked to Hank about the fact that Walt perfectly fits the profile of the person they’re looking for.

For a civilization like the 24st century Federation, that is so strongly focused on acting ethically and doing everything the right way, something that always bugged me was how Patient Confidentiality is handled.

It is a principle not only strongly required by law, but actually considered sacred by most doctors in our time. Most would not violate it even if the law allowed it, because it’s a massive ethical violation.

But in Star Trek, this red line seems far less drastic. We see even the Doctor from Voyager, who is literally programmed to follow his ethical principles no matter what, give in to tell Janeway about a crewmember’s pregnancy after she pressured him for like five seconds.

Bashir is even worse, talking about his patients with friends like one would talk about how the day at work was.

The only instance I recall where this problem was handled somewhat professionally was during Tuvoc’s pon farr, when Paris made up another explanation to give to the Captain. But even that leaves the question why the Captain needs to know. The ethical way to handle this would be to report to her something like: “Captain, Commander Tuvoc is currently medically unfit for duty, there is no danger to the ship and its crew, and he will likely be fit for active duty next week”, and she wouldn’t ask what his condition is, because its not her business to know.

What happened between the 21^(st) and 24^(th) century? When did people stop caring about Patient Confidentiality, and why?

Hey guys, I just want to hear some of your opinions on the factions of the SoSE universe. What is your favorite faction, both in lore and in gameplay. I’ll go first.

In the lore, my favorites are the Vasari Alliance. An ancient race, used to everyone kneeling before them, but times have changed and they need to work together with the other races. At the same time, they don’t really respect the “lesser races”, seeing them as tools to be used in order to archive the alliance’s goals.

In gameplay, I think it’s the Advent Reborn. They are like the ultimate neutralizer. Whatever the enemy brings to the fight, the Advent Reborn have a way to neutralize it. The enemy can’t hurt you if you take away all of his weapons.

My Vasari Alliance fleet worth around 1900 points faced a TEC Primacy fleet of equal fleet size.

Mostly composed of Gauss Frigates and Orgov Torpedo cruisers, they absolutely destroyed my fleet. My Junsurak Wardens can defend against the Orgov's torpedos, but there is no way to intercept that hailstorm of Gauss projectiles. They can just delete any major target they want, starbases, titans, command ships, you name it, in a matter of seconds. And I can't bring their numbers down fast enough.

My question is: How do I stop this? What is the Vasari way to counter this fleet?

Do any of you play the Vasari Exodus without turning them into a nomadic fleet without planets? This kind of is their greatest strenght as far as I see them, so I wonder if there is another way to play them.

The Vasari didn’t come to Trader Space with the goal to enslave mankind. That is just a means to an end for them. They are here to gather resources and continue their great exodus. But to archive that goal, their tactics in the lore don’t make sense. The logical thing to do would be this:

1.       Invade Trader Space with full force (as they did)

2.       Bring the Trade Order to the brink of collapse (as they did)

3.       Once the TEC formed and the Traders showed some real resistance, stop advancing completely. Fortify the conquered worlds and focus resources on building massive industrial systems instead of burning resources to fuel a war against a strong opponent.

4.       If possible, negotiate a truce with the TEC.

5.       Now, with the TEC being busy with the vengeful Advent and the Vasari being dug in deep, spend the next 25 years extracting ludicrous amounts of resources from the chunk of Trader Space you conquered.

6.       Once you have enough resources, leave.

Why aren’t the Vasari following this Idea?