<div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=163921.msg7740992#msg7740992">Quote from: ReijiTabibito on 18-02-2013, 01:33:15</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">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.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>Wasn't being sarcastic so much as mildly silly about the circumstances, because the characters weren't trying to be heroic, just trying to do what needed doing in the situation (funny how that often ends up similarly), tone on the internet is a tricky thing. That redline up there? That's sarcasm. I didn't ask you to make assumptions in order to belittle what I was talking about, you chose to do so on your own, lacking information, rather than assuming the situation had validity and ceding the point.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=163921.msg7740992#msg7740992">Quote from: ReijiTabibito on 18-02-2013, 01:33:15</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">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/></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>Because just like in the real world, religiously-isolated communities that make a point of loudly being "isolated" often employ smugglers to get things from and to places they don't want to have open contact with. That was the case here, they maintained themselves by being an out-of-the-way smuggling hub. A very central smuggling hub which was in the Belt (not your assumed "asscrack of the solar system"), so not as isolated as all that. You seem to make an awful lot of assumptions. And you've gone from 'was this really heroic' to 'was this really necessary' in an attempt to divert attention from them. You've shifted the discussion from 'what is heroism' to 'your story sounds silly and foolish, I doubt its verity'.<br/><br/>As a side note, quite a few of the exsurgent viruses affect the way infectees think. Allowing such to spread in an "isolated" community is likely to cause that "isolated" community to suddenly try to communicate it to as many people as possible, because the virus makes them do so. They aren't the common cold and they aren't zombie plagues. Exsurgent viruses can mutate people into all manner of different things, modify their mental processes, and even cause groups of them to work together on projects to further spread the virus. That's RAW.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=163921.msg7740992#msg7740992">Quote from: ReijiTabibito on 18-02-2013, 01:33:15</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">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.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>And now it's my turn to go 'was this really necessary'?<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Re-Butts &lt; humor</div><div class="spoiler_body"><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=163921.msg7740992#msg7740992">Quote from: ReijiTabibito on 18-02-2013, 01:33:15</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Except each of the heroes you listed wasn’t in the situation that so traumatized them purely by choice.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>You seem to believe that Firewall sentinels end up in the situations they end up in by choice. An awful lot of operatives for almost any covertly operational organization are there because they have few or no choices, and an awful lot of heroism comes from unintentional situations. So much so that there is a popular quote that uses those exact words: "They were in the wrong place at the wrong time; naturally, they became heroes." My favorite recent example is <em>Three Kings</em> ("<em>We're gonna rob a bank in a war zone! We're gonna rob a bank in a war zone! Aw, shit, look at all these refugees. We can't leave these people here, they'll be killed...We're escorting refugees in a war zone!"</em>). <br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=163921.msg7740992#msg7740992">Quote from: ReijiTabibito on 18-02-2013, 01:33:15</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">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.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>Really. I was rebutting your own attitude that heroes had to be like-unto-gods, never to be reduced to the depths of despair and agony, and have repeatedly stated from the very beginning that some of the best hero stories are the ordinary people who are out of their depth but who hang on through sheer determination because of what <em>must be done</em>. At this point you seem to be picking and choosing things to jab at in the dark. <em>Army of Darkness</em> is a hero story? Okay! (Psst. It's a comedy.) And I don't see where I suggested Firewall was either a police force or a bunch of do-gooders. Is my currently submitted character a benevolent <em>merry </em>orca? Do you think he volunteered for Firewall out of his love for transhumanity, or was 'drafted', bribed or coerced?<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=163921.msg7740992#msg7740992">Quote from: ReijiTabibito on 18-02-2013, 01:33:15</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">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.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>File under "Choir: preaching to."<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=163921.msg7740992#msg7740992">Quote from: ReijiTabibito on 18-02-2013, 01:33:15</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">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.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>I'm afraid not. McClane's relationship in <em>Die Hard</em> is kind of a pivotal element, Frodo DID leave Sam with the rest, but Sam followed him and refused to be left behind...Frodo DID make and act on the decision to leave him, but failed. The Man with No Name is not immortal, it is never suggested that he is immortal, and he always comes in with a self-serving mercenary attitude, and he always leaves having gone soft-hearted and done what was best for the people around him because he couldn't stand their suffering. It's also relevant that the hero doesn't have to get into the shit because they want to be there, what makes them a hero is how they behave AFTER they get into the shit, when weaker people would give up. And I'm sure you "could point out something" too, because this conversation has reached a level where you seem to be eager to disprove every example I present, even if you have to make up things that weren't there, reinterpret things that were there in order to suit yourself, use conjecture about 'possible' relationships or motivations outside of the purview of the film in question or divert incoherently into non-related topics. <br/><br/>You make assumptions, then accuse me of sarcasm when I attempt to explain that the circumstances were unlike your assumptions. We don't agree on what is apparently an <em>extremely</em> deep level, and your memory for movies is apparently terrible. I believe we're done with this discussion. <br/><br/>Let's put it aside and simply get on with the game, you play as you like, and I expect so will everyone.<br/></div></div>