<div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=163921.msg7740671#msg7740671">Quote from: CarnivalOfTheGoat on 18-02-2013, 00:31:22</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">You're conflating two different scenarios I described. Scenario 1, my character in a Fury got taken out by double-fisting a pair of plasma grenades while engaging a xenomorph so the rest of the party could get away. <em>Totally not heroic</em>. The party managed (I was kind of surprised, honestly) to retrieve her stack, and the GM actually allowed that given how hardened they are, and the exact circumstances, it would be recoverable. But no morph was available to sleeve into. Instead of saying 'Well, I'm a physical combat monster and now I'm stuck as an infomorph,' she was able with the help of the hacker to get hold of one of the habitat's bots and use it as an infiltrator/combatant.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>The detail of<em>how</em>you ended up in a Roomba was<em>not</em>in the original description, or provided to me at any point before this one.  I'm not a Watts-MacLeod infectee, don't be sarcastic just because I didn't have all the information.  If I had known that you'd Caboose'd yourself so that the rest of your party could escape, I would not have stated, explicitly or implicitly, that what you did to end up there wasn't heroic.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=163921.msg7740671#msg7740671">Quote from: CarnivalOfTheGoat on 18-02-2013, 00:31:22</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Scenario 2: A group of Firewall agents infiltrated a ship in midflight, deep space, by simply being 'thrown' at it over a distance of a tenth of an AU, as a swarm of Spares, because anything larger would trigger the ship's meteor defense system and pop up alerts on the ship's monitors. If the ship had changed course, those Spares would've gone sailing off into the void, never to return...but due to Firewall's informant they were reasonably sure it wasn't about to change its prescheduled course. It was, in the situation, the Only Way to get a team on board. It would have been NICE to throw a dozen Reapers at the ship, but it also wouldn't have worked. So it was Spares or nothing, and the habitat targeted was an unfriendly bunch of insular, isolationist xenophobic types who were expecting a shipment of supplies to help bootstrap up their ailing (salvaged) habitat and wouldn't be able to stop the ship on their own...And nobody else in the vicinity would give two figs if 'those people' were nuked. So. Possible suicide mission with a bunch of Spares, to save a bunch of people who a lot of the system wouldn't have lifted a finger for. Totally not heroic.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>And why did Firewall feel it necessary to use resources saving these brinkers out on the edge of the asscrack of the the solar system?  Firewall was obviously there, and I assume the org doesn't just willy-nilly send off Sentinels to their possible deaths, so there has to be some reason.  And don't tell me it was to contain the Exsurgent virus.  The station inhabitants were rabid xenophobes, as you said, so they weren't going places.  The Exsurgents themselves were going to die in the explosion of their space torpedo, so they weren't going to be alive to spread the virus.  And the ship that was coming to give supplies would have found the destroyed station, if there was anything left, and promptly turned around to go home.<br/><br/>I'm not doubting the heroic-ness of the mission.  I'm doubting of whether it was necessary for Firewall to risk people doing this to begin with.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=163921.msg7740671#msg7740671">Quote from: CarnivalOfTheGoat on 18-02-2013, 00:31:22</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Which was not information available to John or anyone else he had contact with when he began to take action. And while they were there as bank robbers, they did intend to kill everyone in the rooftop detonation so as to confuse the investigation into believing that they, themselves, were dead. So...Not terrorists, just planning to kill everyone. Important distinction. &lt;_&lt; If John had played along and let things happen, his wife and everyone else would've played a part in a massive fireball on the roof of the building. <em>Unacceptable.</em></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>And this is why I shouldn't reference movies I haven't seen in 10 years.  You forget things.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=163921.msg7740671#msg7740671">Quote from: CarnivalOfTheGoat on 18-02-2013, 00:31:22</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Yes. I'm well aware of what I said, and it doesn't change the threats they face. They're not 'normal transhumans', but they're still individuals or a small team going up against governmental and corporate institutions (disadvantaged by sheer weight of resources/manpower/connections) and X-threats (disadvantaged because these things are entirely capable, unchecked, of wiping out all Solar life...That's what an X-threat IS).</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>And maybe transhumanity wouldn't be in such a goddamn pickle if they'd decided to do the Resistance and unite against the big bad Skynet, but<em>noooooo</em>, humanity during the Fall had to be a bunch of powermongering dicks that was just as responsible for the worldwide devastation as the TITANs were.<br/><br/>I have no idea how that connects to the statement above, other than maybe T-humanity wouldn't be so goddamn fearful of an X-threat if they'd managed to beat back one.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=163921.msg7740671#msg7740671">Quote from: CarnivalOfTheGoat on 18-02-2013, 00:31:22</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote"><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Non-EP stuff about ideas of heroism that probably only concerns me and Reiji</div><div class="spoiler_body">If you really look, almost all heroes are disadvantaged and tested terribly along the way, often to the point of trauma/death/social or emotional fate worse than death...And then they struggle on and overcome that disadvantage. It's part of being a hero. Conan the <del>Blockhead</del> Barbarian even has his moment on the Tree of Woe. The fading trust of King Arthur, and the fall of Launcelot before Launcelot returns to sacrifice himself so others may live. Disarmed (literally) Skywalker committing suicide (failed, but through no fault of his own...He was saved by friends he didn't know could save him) rather than admitting to his parentage and his ties to the enemy. The latest comic-book heroes-turned-movie-heroes, facing unsurmountable odds that require acts of self-sacrifice and have no certainty of success...Except that things DO work out alright, one group manages to close the dimensional gateway and the self-sacrificial goat falls back through the shrinking hole just before it closes. The hero who is unchallenged, who does not descend into the depths and then recover, is no hero. There are some really amazing studies about how this relates to world mythologies and storytelling.<br/><br/>The difference between the hero and the ordinary man is, the hero doesn't give in, doesn't surrender to inevitable defeat, but goes on beyond it somehow and reconstructs himself to take on the new task, drawing strength from the knowledge of both how outmatched he is, and how necessary it is that he succeed. Firewall Sentinels routinely take on tasks which amount to suicide, not because they will be restored from backup (just because you have a save game doesn't mean falling into the lava would be any less painful or horrible a way to die), but because if they don't, who will?<br/><br/>I would suggest that heroes are defined by their behavior when they are at their most helpless and defeated but still must go on. Rocky's comeback means NOTHING if he doesn't have the crap beat out of him first so he can MAKE a comeback. John McClane is captured and disarmed by the very terrorists/thieves he seeks to oppose. Frodo has to abandon all of his friends and struggle with the Ring's power over himself, or overcoming it's allure has no meaning, without those elements, his mission is as easy as sneaking into Mordor and dropping it down a hole. Ripley loses her entire crew and her ship before defeating the (final? not) Alien. Deckard is almost beaten to death by the immensely faster and stronger Leon before being saved by the other replicant, Rachel...And he's injured and knows he's dead meat when he goes up against Roy Baty...But "the old Blade Runner" goes anyway - he cannot reject the call. Jen cannot seize the sword and become the warrior until Lo sacrifices his life to save her...And then when she loses the sword later, she is helpless against Jade Fox. Maximus loses his family and home, and is made a slave. Later, he tries to flee Rome, but is recaptured by Commodus, imprisoned, and forced back into the arena...Where he defeats Commodus in single combat, even knowing, as he makes the final stroke against Commodus, that he will die from his own wounds. The Man With No Name is captured and beaten nearly to death by the Rojos, but finally returns to singly face them to free the people of San Miguel.<br/><br/>It's a pretty constant thing for heroes. The villain has to kick the dog to prove he's evil. The hero has to suffer to demonstrate that the villain is powerful enough that the hero's determination is necessary to defeat him.</div></div></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Rebuttal</div><div class="spoiler_body"><br/>Except each of the heroes you listed wasn’t in the situation that so traumatized them purely by choice.  Conan was set on the Tree of Woe and required Valeria’s sacrifice because he was unable to let go of the fact that Thulsa Doom killed his father.  His need for vengeance overrode his intellect and a price had to be paid.  Yes, Osric hired him to free his daughter, but it was Conan’s hatred of Doom’s cult that made him go on alone, against the advice of his friends.  King Arthur was bound by the codes of chivalry, and the fall of Camelot was not his fault but that of Lancelot and Guinevere who decided to betray their king behind his back.  Skywalker wouldn’t have been in such a pickle if Ben Kenobi or Yoda had been honest with Luke about what had happened to his father and where Vader came from.  Especially Obi-Wan.  “Certain point of view” my ass, they just didn’t want to admit that they had screwed up.<br/><br/>And part of your bit here implies that ordinary men can’t become heroes, that somehow herodom is beyond people.  One of the most uplifting types of stories ever is about how an ordinary man can become a hero, given the situation.  Look at Army of Darkness.  Ash is a nobody.  He’s a clerk at the fictional equivalent of Wal-Mart.  And yet, despite his modest roots, he’s able to become the hero that the day needs.  Firewall should be about saving humanity from the really big threats, not about running around being Robin Hood &amp; his Merry Men correcting injustice everywhere.<br/><br/>In the recent movie Dredd, starring Karl Urban as Dredd, he gives a statistic: Judges in Mega-City One can only respond to about 6% of the crimes committed.  “If we don’t, who will?” is the question.  “Nobody, because the universe doesn’t care,” is the answer.  That’s part of the horror of EP – the universe is a big, nasty place, full of extrasolar life that we do not or cannot understand (such as the ETI), and you could easily be dead tomorrow.  Transhuman tech allows man to come back from the dead, but that doesn’t change the fact that there is something that killed you out there, and that humanity is far from being alone in the universe.  Transhumanity is just starting to learn how unbiased the universe is, because the universe doesn’t care if you die tomorrow, because it still goes on.<br/><br/>Yes, Rocky’s comeback is emotionally deprived if there’s nothing to come back from, but Rocky wasn’t there by choice.  Rocky was there because Apollo Creed needed someone to fight and the Italian Stallion sounded like an interesting nickname.  John McClane could have told his ex-wife to piss off, he wasn’t coming out to see her for Christmas because she’d been a bitch (whether true or not).  McClane was outnumbered, outgunned, and limited in his choices because he had to be the good guy, he couldn’t think like a terrorist because he was a cop.  Frodo doesn’t leave all his friends, Sam stays with him to the end, and it’s because of Sam that Frodo manages the strength to go on.  And Frodo volunteered to take the ring, partly because he saw how the rest of the races of Middle Earth were quarreling over it, and he knew with clarity that it had to be destroyed.  Ripley lost her crew not to the Alien but to Ash, who was trying to protect the goddamn thing because the company decided a sentient lifeform was something they wanted to foolishly weaponize.  Something they still don’t understand in the expanded universe, which occurs post-movies.  Ripley suffers because a bunch of bespoke suited turd monkeys are greedy, not because of anything she did.  Hell, if they had listened to her in the first movie, the only real casualty would have been Kane.  Jen I can’t speak of because I haven’t seen Tiger-Dragon since high school, but if I watched it again I’m sure I could point out something.  And Maximus loses everything not because of a choice he made, but because Marcus Aurelius decided that his favorite general would be a better leader for the Roman people than his own bastard on, and said son is a greedy little shite that cares more for himself than for his people.  Manco/Blondie suffered at the hands of the Rojos because The Man With No Name is supposed to be an immoral git who only cares about money, and he decided to, for once, go against his usual modus operandi and code.  If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have suffered.<br/><br/>And yes, heroes have to go through a bunch of bullcrap to prove that they are heroes, so that we can know what good and evil is.  It’s fucked up.<br/><br/><br/></div></div>