Schlock Mercenary

Grievous Harm With A Body Politic you mean

No, that was another book.

(page topper context added)

edited 30th Jan '15 8:34:06 AM by MisterNoh

And here comes the incarnation of grievous harm, and he's found something much more lethal than a political body.

edited 31st Jan '15 11:07:28 PM by MattII

The only thing missing in the last panel is the Ride of the Valkyries.

"You can reply to this Message!"

Where's the Burana-bots when you need hem?

LOTA is a bit overpowered (and by 'overpowered' I mean, 'will render the whole city uninhabitable') for this.

Edit: Aw, we miss the battle.

edited 1st Feb '15 10:38:55 PM by MattII

Hey, did anyone notice the chainsaw is actually cutting the panel border?!

Yeah, that's one of the first things I caught, Breaking the Fourth Wall.

Not for LOTA, I meant where are they to provide the epic Ride of the Valkyries background music for them.

I think you mean Painting the Medium

It happens all the time in the comic.

^^ Nope. PTM and its subtropes has to do with formatting as part of the storytelling process. Shredding the frame with the chainsaw tip doesn't do anything for the story.

Not sure that's really an adequate compensation, even for Schlock.

Its already distracted collateral property damage from schlock? ^^

"You can reply to this Message!"

Sounds like there could be another crap-dropper on the way. Of, course, the good thing is, you could probably still total a JSC bus with a scooter if you hit it hard enough, and weren't worried about the scooter.

Edit: Yep that's a crap-dropper right enough, and one big enough to make a bus of armed JSC agents into no more than an unsightly scratch on the bumper of an oncoming semi.

edited 11th Feb '15 9:33:11 PM by MattII

The burden of the hard choice...

"You can reply to this Message!"

Yep, although I'm not sure why Chu thinks his name is going to be used as a curse-word, after all, it's not just his fault that this wasn't spotted surely?

Because he's about to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians and people with the bonus of Hindsight will go on for centuries on how there should have been a "better" way to deal with it.

edited 12th Feb '15 12:19:03 AM by 3of4

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I am glad that Howard didn't try to come up with some implausible way for the Toughs to solve the entire problem by themselves.

As noted over on the strip's official forum, as many suborned police as they're dealing with, it's still a miniscule force for a metropolis of four billion people.

edited 12th Feb '15 12:39:20 AM by Geoduck

I don't see why, I mean we don't blame Clifton Sprague for the losses his command took of Samar, precisely because it wasn't his damned fault he got into that position. Likewise, Chu shouldn't take the blame for this, because it wasn't his fault. And you know what, given that Bala-Amin's probably going to survive this, I'm pretty sure she's going to do everything in her power in just that defence.

I don't think that the guy is in a frame of mind to assess how well his colleagues will fight the blame wars against an army of amateur historians. He's about to kill (a) several hundred thousand people, (b) his entire command, and (c) himself.

Though actually, I wonder if the Toughs may be able to preempt that. They have a ship nearer, and while it isn't a battleplate, it is functionally almost indestructible. It counts as a fair kinetic penetrator on its own account.

= Spindriver =

I would hope there'd be time to evacuate at least some of the Chicxulug's crew. Considering the size of it, probably not a huge portion, but I wouldn't think literally every soul on the ship would have to go down with it.

edited 12th Feb '15 4:01:17 AM by Gaunt88

He's probably going to announce that everyone make for the escape pods as he charges, but he can't afford to wait. Every second he's not down there is a second they might destroy the planet. Only a small fraction of the people on that ship are likely to escape.

Unless of course, the Toughs throw their super-durable ship into the breach like someone said. All the pieces are in place to get the knowledge that it's needed over to them.

It's possible I suppose, although exactly how Elf and the rest of the crew would feel about that is up for debate, although I suppose it would help save Xeno Team, so yeah, okay. If nothing else, they're a flying arsenal.

Now I'm not sure how well the JSC is armed and armoured, but I'm bettering not well enough to just shrug off this level of firepower, or something like this, but scaled up due to Schlock (potentially) multi-wielding, and having Elizabeth and Chiluso on hand.

edited 12th Feb '15 11:30:58 AM by MattII

Even if Chu does have enough time to evacuate civilians from the 'plate^* I don't remember where, offhand, but an author's note mentions that a lot of what's inside a battleplate can be teraported out of harm's way, particularly the civilian support services he still needs to keep sufficient personnel around to operate the various systems.

I think on-board A.I.s can run most of the systems on their own.

Also, it doesn't look like they'll need the Toughs after all.

Edit: They're not thinking this through properly, the information went Mako -> Sorlie -> Bala-Amin -> Chu, so even if Mako and Sorlie die, Bala-Amin has the records to prove that Chu is innocent.

edited 13th Feb '15 9:55:46 PM by MattII