Discussion Main / NoSell

Had a Stargate marathon (slow weekend) and noticed that the missiles fired at the goa'uld ships hit the shields, there is a small explosion but the actual warheads dont detonate. Should a change be made in the stargate section of this trope?

Andrew Jackson needs to be added to the real life list section.

In 1806 he fought a duel with Charles Dickinson; an absolute master marksman and duelist. Jackson knew that he wouldn't win the duel if he tried to beat Dickinson to the first shot, so he purposely let Dickinson fire first because he hoped that Dickinson's aim would be off from shooting quickly. This is what happened, however Dickinson's bullet didn't miss completely. It struck Jackson in the chest just inches away from his heart, and broke multiple ribs.

Jackson no sold that shit, calmly took aim and fired. His bullet struck Dickenson's chest, and Dickenson bled to death soon after. Doctors were not able to remove the bullet from Jackson's chest due to it's proximity to his heart, and so it stayed in him for the rest of his life (which probably contributed to his lead poisoning).

I've been doing some editing of the historical example involving USS Constitution, expanding it and adding a few other cases where she and her sister ships have no-sold things that would have severely damaged a more typical wooden ship.

However, there was one thing I wanted to address for posterity, in case it comes up again. I removed this bit that was added earlier this year by AFP—

6th May '15 6:45:02 AM AFP

Changed line(s) 738 (click to see context) to:

Note that during the War of 1812, Constitution (a 48 gun Heavy Frigate) primarily fought against lighter British frigates (with armament typically in the range of about 30 cannons). Had the British not otherwise been distracted with the Napoleonic Wars, the American frigates would likely find themselves overwhelmed by the much heavier Ships of the Line that the Royal Navy could bring into the fight.

This leads the reader to believe that the Royal Navy had no Ships of the Line involved in the War of 1812 whatsoever. In actual fact, Constitution encountered HMS Africa (a 64-gun ship of the line) during the "Great Chase," which is why I replaced his revision with a statement pointing this out. I'm a bit slow to trust Wikpedia on this (this bit is unsourced), but it says that 11 British ships of the line were involved in the War of 1812 overall.

Also, I think AFP's sting-in-the-tail overlooks another important fact: Constitution was designed to overmatch any ship that was a frigate or lighter, while still having the speed and agility to escape from heavier ships. (And the Great Chase proves that: in spite of Africa having a whole squadron of lighter supporting ships, Constitution escaped capture.) Constitution and her sisters were built for escaping from ships of the line, not fighting them. If Humphreys intended that, he would have designed them as two or three-deckers—which he didn't, because in the 1790's America had neither the infrastructure, the manpower, nor the government support to maintain sufficient numbers of ships of the line.

It's also important to keep in mind that the Royal Navy was much as the United States Navy is today—they had hundreds of ships and bases everywhere, and the naval aspect of the War of 1812 reached quite far. USS United States fought HMS Macedonian off the Portuguese islands of Madeira, Java intercepted Constitution outside of Brazilian territorial waters, the sloops of war Wasp and Reindeer duked it out in the English channel. It wouldn't have made sense for the Royal Navy to send their entire fleet at the continental U.S., no more than it would have for them to recall all their ships to fight in a single theater during World War Two.

Even so, they did send more ships and soldiers to North America after Napoleon's defeat—at least 15,000 soldiers alone were sent to Canada as reinforcements, and plenty of ships would have come with them. Nevertheless, their added presence didn't exactly result in a crushing defeat for the Americans.

So—hopefully this'll clarify any issues before they come up in editing.

Why is the Laconic for this page locked? I have a decent Laconic for it: Character is unaffected by an attack or ability.