Schlock Mercenary

Murtaugh's scary theory.

Do cookies support the former or latter theory?

Depends on how they were made.

I'm pretty sure even modern cookies from a pre-made roll can be prepared pretty quickly. Isn't the baking time normally 12 minutes or so?

10-14 minutes. You spend longer heating up the oven.

And future ovens can probably reach 177 degrees Celsius in literally seconds, so yeah, this is an impressive show of culinary speed, but it's hardly impossible. Tagon shouldn't be particularly surprised.

I think he's not surprised so much as he is disappointed that they aren't real fresh-baked cookies.

IMHO, cookies are cookies.

Tagon is just being ornery.

But you see, if they were in some sort of virtual reality or drug-induced hallucination, those would have been real fresh-baked cookies.

Counting.

And Sorlie could stand to have a few of those cookies, judging from that last frame. If not for UNS soldier boosts she looks like she would snap in half at the first strong breeze.

Edited by Nohbody on Oct 23rd 2018 at 11:03:47 AM

Also, how long you bake your cookies depends on how big you make them. I actually prefer to make them on the smaller side for various reasons (not least of which, easier to fit them in the cookie jar), so I usually only need about 7-8 minutes of baking time for chocolate chip cookies once the oven is to temperature. Given that they're using premade dough and Discar's point about more efficient ovens in the future (as in, getting to temperature faster), I agree, the cookies are baking at a perfectly ordinary rate. I don't even agree that it's a particularly impressive culinary feat - it seems perfectly ordinary to me.

Also, I have faith in the future that the ready-made stuff (which I assume rapidough is) is much closer to homemade than it is today. Of course, Commodore Tagon being ornery for the sake of being ornery is to be expected.

As for today... I take "dripping wet ursumari" to lean closer to the "reality" hypothesis. Mind you, it's not much safer than "drugged out and imprisoned" given the level of uncertainty, but at least they're more in control of their fate than they would be in the other scenario.

Mustering. It took me a while to figure out why Murtaugh was confused. Of course she knew Sorlie and the others came onboard her ship before they were captured by the battleplate. But then the battleplate separated them, since they are UNS personnel. Apparently they were in the pool when the mercenaries were teraported back onto their ship, and the Admiral decided to get rid of some annoying employees at the same time.

Not sure why the Oafans haven't shown up yet. Maybe they just really don't care.

An unrattled maraca.

I think he's got a point.

Uh oh, things have gotten serious.

Commodore Tagon don't just want cookies any more... Damn, y'all!

https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2018-10-27

Scene change.

Accidental Innuendo is not apparently limited to just meatbags.

Edited by Nohbody on Oct 27th 2018 at 9:18:50 AM

Last we checked, Para was angry with nothing to do. All things considered, this is probably the least terrible result.

So that's why the castle is flying.

https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2018-10-29

Honestly, "why" wasn't one of the questions I was really wondering in that regard. Unless, of course, you meant "which of these really entertaining reasons is the real one".

The actually meaningful question is "how".

They're in a virtual reality world while they're waiting for their meat bodies to be finished. "How" is not really that relevant either.

"How the hell did they manage to hack something Petey made" is a question he'd dearly like to find out.

I don't even think it's hacking. The simulation probably provides for whatever they want in order to keep them entertained and occupied while they wait to be resurrected. It's a simulation after all. No need to deny anything except to keep the occupants sane and alive.

Nope.

It is hacking.

https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2018-10-30

That brings up all sorts of questions of how a gestalt consciousness would interact with the simulation it is being contained in in order to hack it. Also I want that physics engine.