On the one hand, to me, “mobile suits” should feel titanic and weighty, larger than life. So yet another Gundam zipping around like a demented chimpanzee on crack is… I dunno. Fighting space robot aliens is also a choice, since the man-vs-man and political background is a key part of what distinguishes Gundam.

On the other hand, a Gundam game in 2027, by Bandai-Namco, scored by Mick Gordon? That is such incredible levels of hype and I really, really hope that this is good.

Torties, man. They never stop looking gorgeous.

I think the life cycle of collaborative projects - small circle to big blowup, drifting from the original spirit or ethos for better or worse - will be accelerated by algorithmically-driven social media. Hell, it’s already happening.

When I look at older collaborative fiction, it’s much more likely to remain centered around a few core creators and their guidelines or approaches. The more content in a project is owned by them, the more they’re able to influence others to not diverge too far from it.

When things blow up massively, that can all change in a heartbeat. Whoever is running the project frequently struggle to maintain those guidelines: Either because they don’t want to seem like controlling jerks, or because the flood of new content genuinely overwhelms their ability to moderate.

The problem is, this accelerated lifecycle can also burn out projects far more rapidly as people become disconnected from what appealed to them in the first place.

A lot of this was built around a world prior to surveillance video being everywhere all the time

Even in a world with surveillance, digital footprints, and advanced forensic evidence techniques, defense attorneys still help keep the system honest: Does the video actually show what the prosecution alleges? Was this digital data obtained with a proper warrant? Is there chain of custody for the forensic evidence, or could it have been tampered?

Demanding integrity is still a key part of the system. The only thing that’s changed is what you’re demanding it of.

I was of the camp that said that even millions was far too small. This is a war spread out over thousands, if not tens of thousands of star systems. Hell, Venators have crews of ~10,000, and we see multiples go down in a single battle. I wouldn’t be surprised if a million clones died on some bad days alone.

Also someone who played through that: I agree.

Nostalgia Rorquals Online have a very rose-tinted view of the time. Sure, there were more ships in space… but a lot of those “ships in space” came in the form of an entire cap fleet landing on your cruiser roam the second you tackled a Rorqual. Fatigue timers and diminishing returns were absolutely needed.

I think the current crop of issues wouldn’t be fixed by just going back; they can be traced to other factors, like Citadels encouraging players crowding together.

Have a couple different ones:

Star Wars:: How many Clones were actually in the Clone Army (and, by extension, how large are the setting’s armies in general)?

The original wording used in 2003’s Attack of the Clones is (perhaps deliberately) ambiguous, so from that point on fans have forever debated this. On the one hand, there’s arguments that the visible cloning facilities and formations on-screen suggest literal interpretations of “unit” as “soldier”, and armies of a few million at most. On the other hand, fans have also pointed out that a galaxy-spanning conflict being fought by fewer troops than fought in World War 2 is ridiculous, and the casualty figures given would mean the entire clone army had been wiped out many times over - unless “units” can be taken to mean a much larger formation of troops.

Expanded Universe materials (both pre- and post-Disney) have given figures supporting both sides.

Eve Online: Was the game better or worse in the era of “Rorquals online”?

Context is, at that point in the game’s history, much of the game’s economy was driven by very large mining capital ships - Rorquals - systematically stripping in-universe resources at high speed.

Proponents suggest that the presence of vulnerable ships out in space doing things promoted conflict, and that this induced conflicting player groups to raid each others’ territory, creating game content. Detractors argue that Rorquals inevitably existed under the protective umbrella of existing large player groups, meaning only those groups could effectively harvest resources, creating a positive feedback loop where strong alliances got stronger and everyone else got wiped out.

(Personally, my answer is ‘both’ - but most of it has to do with other game changes besides Rorquals.)

Railfanning: Is coal-fired steam locomotives going away a good or bad thing?

Coal-fired steam is undoubtedly cool. you get the authentic sensations and smoke clouds that oil-firing really doesn’t provide. Many who favor it bemoan old coal-fired locomotives being converted to run on oil, sometimes also arguing the locomotives should be preserved as historically used.

On the hand, other fans point out that coal firing creates a very real fire hazard; there have been multiple brush- and forest-fires started or thought to be started by coal-fired locomotives. There’s also issues with coal becoming harder to get as use in power generation dwindles, and these fans would prefer to convert to oil rather than not run at all.

Most people just see a steam locomotive and go “Cool!”

Instant Dopamine Machines cause withdrawal when taken away.

Wow. I’m shocked, I tell you. Absolutely shocked and stunned.

I’d be more curious if restricting students to using screens as actual tools - i.e., for specific purposes and tasks, not for broad entertainment - causes similar effects.

I don’t think we’re the last generation of PC builders. But I do agree with /u/kahjtheundedicated 's comment that it is increasingly going to skew towards very high-end builds.

I think there’s a couple reasons for this. The first, of course, is the strangulation of supply causing sharp, sharp price increases. When the entry point for making a “decent” machine starts to sit around $1200+, it’s obviously going to turn people away (especially when one of the big points of Build Your Own was once ‘it is actually financially better’).

But the other is that there is far less of a growing market. People in the ‘young-teenager’ to ‘young adult range’ - the point at which they’d once start getting excited over punchy new specs and customizing their computer - are increasingly attached to handheld devices and even the instant gratification of consoles rather than high-spec PC games or the custom built machines to run them.

I saw it much later on. Originally dropped out after Eva 01 straightup graphically eats the one Angel; that was too much even for me. Later on I picked it up and finished it.

In retrospect, it’s not my favorite. I was introduced to Gundam before Evangelion, and that ticked all the right boxes for what I enjoy in a Mecha show (less symbolism and weirdness, more grittiness and politics). But I still admire Evangelion for the qualities it has: Its characterization, its message(s), and for doing its unique thing - to say nothing of the raw value of the animation.

Rebuild was decent. It went from a mild retread of Evangelion, to once again completely bonkers off the rails, to somehow wrapping around again to picking up similar positive themes Evangelion had.

The opening is one of those things that just sticks with you. Minimalist artwork with just the studio’s name and a couple of lines sung gently… then this sick trumpet beat drops and the title flashes in the most 90s way possible.

I’ve been looking for a decent one, mostly to potentially run a fan in the event of a summer outage. I’ve actually been surprised how hard it is to find one that will support it at a reasonable price.

This. If Kirk has any actual positive quality, I’d say that he’s highly adaptable and skilled at ‘thinking on his feet’. This gets him out of a whole lot of trouble and lets him play fast and loose with his actions as Captain, but it also means he gets himself into a lot of trouble that a more strategic, less impulsive officer would have avoided in the first place.

It’s telling, in my opinion, that the very first thing Starfleet does as soon as the Enterprise gets back home is rotate him off of starship command and give him an administrative position where his decisions can be reviewed, rather than assigning him on a new mission. He only manages to get himself back in command when V’ger is heading straight for Earth, and Starfleet is in “throw the kitchen sink at it” mode.

In 2002, there was a game called Naval Ops: Commander. It’s a warship simulator game, with the tweak that you could build your own warships out of an assortment of parts. I don’t think I’ve played it in 20ish years. Definitely more than 15.

Yeah, the Main Hangar (essentially, your ‘home screen’ once you’d selected a playthrough) Theme is on loop right now. The ending ~10 seconds of it, to be specific.

For clarity, when you say “anti-gun”, what is that position? Like, “average people should not have them, period”?

Not trying to knock on you - it’s that there’s so many positions which get lumped under “pro-” or “anti-”, it helps to actually understand where someone is coming from.

Yes and no. I think I was overly optimistic that people would make use of the possibilities of social media. I have thoughts on why I was mistaken, but ultimately I failed to recognize that a lot of people like their views affirmed and will seek out circles which do so.

At the same time, you’re 100% right: Companies saw an opportunity to drive engagement and reap huge profits with the teeeeensy little side effects of further siloizing viewpoints, distorting reality, and elevating the most extreme positions. It turbocharged everything awful and repeatedly turned sites into cancerous shitholes.

At one point I really, truly believed that the internet and social media would be a turning point in human interconnectivity and cultural understanding. The ability to just… talk to someone on the other side of the planet, at will? When we know that exposure to other beliefs and cultures is superb at punching holes in hatred and misunderstanding? Surely this would lead to great things!

Yeah, that was a miss.

Exposure to other is still a fantastic way to grow understanding. But the internet and social media were not a highway to it, and as the “wild west” era of the internet faded and we instead got corporate-governed, algorithm-driven siloization of views, my views on the value of social media changed sharply.

For me it’s the ‘Can you hear me now?’ animations. Every once in a while, when I see someone having issues with their phone/earbuds/whatever, those pop into my head unbidden.

Killfrog.com

Shit, that just awoke some memories in me. Back from ye olden days when people would just fire up their own website to host their stuff.

It is unacceptable that Babylon 5 is not on this list. It was rare, at the time, for shows to have a multi-season story arc with character development planned from the start. JMS got his seasons, though, and used them beautifully. Every single episode, even those that don’t contribute to the main storyline advancing, either show a character developing or build the foundations for that development.