Extrospective

So I had some competing theories pre Kanji kidnapping. 1a) Mayumi Yamano (first victim) had some unknown connection two Yukiko and Saki. 1b) This was just a random misogynistic serial kidnapper who hates women.

Post Kanji I had to exclude 1b) so I moved on to theory 2a) Kidnapper is targeting prominent people in Inaba, possibly with a connection to Junes moving into the local economy (though Mayumi and Saki were somewhat mutually exclusive in either case). Theory 2b) was a refinement on 1b - the kidnapper is targeting women AND gay/bi men. Mitsuo I knew was a red herring but that was meta knowledge from knowing that other persona games don't end in the summer.

Rise and Nauto's kidnappings

So about a year ago I played Persona 5 and ever since then I've been slowly indoctrinating myself in the Church of ATLUS. I've played persona 5, 4, and 3, P5 strikers, Tactica, Episode Aigis, Metaphor, Cathrine, and I'm currently juggling between Arena ultimax and Persona 2 on an emulator. So it's not surprising that I was very excited for PSX, since P5 is probably my favorite game in the series and a high watermark for video games in general.

So going into this game I was riding so high at 110% energy, but that feeling faded pretty fast. I was willing to give the introduction of the metaverse/mementos/shadows/personas/velvet room a pass because it's all stuff I've seen before and I'm not

So I've completed the game, so spoilers for me personally are fine.

So the very beginning of the game starts the framing device of Sae's interrogation. Now, obviously, the Japanese justice system is highly biased towards the prosecution, but what is the actual crime were being charged with? Unless we're dealing with an AU Japan where the existence of the metaverse is not only known but legally codified, at best all I can see Sae filing charges on the state's behalf for blackmail, and since we're conflating the mental shutdowns not caused by phantom thieves, the state likely has 1st or 2nd degree murder charges as well.

I'm not a legal expert, much less a Japanese legal expert, but I can

Apologies for the question but it's hard for me to even find a good source of information on this. So as I understand it the events of P5X are contemporary with P5, but P5X is a live service game that's not even available in English w/o mods. If it's a live service does that mean I've already missed out on some content? Or maybe there's a plan to release it in english when the content is finished?

I wrote a big long post about a month ago where I speculated as to what this series was going to be. In there I said that Mike had chosen "Unobtanium Sci fi" as a genre, and I wondered how well he was going to fare without a technical background. I would link it but I don't think it's worth reading because after 5 episodes, I think I can safely say: Mars: Revolutions isn't really Sci Fi. It's not even really speculative fiction either. It's a conglomerate of the American/Hatian/Colonial revolutions set IN SPACE, but space is a passive partner in this story.

In Mars Revolutions, space isnt a fundamentally different environment that changes or influences how a revolution unfolds, space is ju

So Mike Duncan wants to take a stab at fiction, he's probably a fan of sci fi like The Expanse or Red Mars. So he's doing this "Martian Revolution" series to do some speculative fiction on how a hypothetical Martian revolution might go. So far so good. But how important is technical knowledge to speculative fiction? If youre writing sci fi, how "hard" do you want your sci fi to be?

Mike seems to have chosen what I'll just call "Unobtanium Hard Sci Fi". In Unobtatium Hard Sci fi, you have a cake of real worth physics frosted on top with something that will allow you to get the story where it needs to be. In Mass Effect it's element zero. In Dune it's Spice. In this series it's Phos-5.

So he

So I haven't played out the game yet in full, Im currently in a hot war around jupiter, so probably just hitting the start of the late game now.

It really seems to me that, once the aliens have reason to believe that their "primary objective" (being vague here to avoid spoilers) has failed, an acceptable alternative to them would be to commit to total war and start strapping engines on small rocky bodies and en mass throwing them at earth and to a lesser extent static space infrastructure like mines.

When I look at my current arsenal. I don't see much that could damage a big dumb rock. I've got phasers, particle beams and plasma which would probably be ineffective. Coilguns might be good

3 Scooty-Puff Jr. Class escorts, loaded to the teeth with missles, engaged a lone enemy destroyer and won. Using the advanced strategy of "dump all your missles and try not to die afterwards" I overwhelmed the enemy PD and had about a dozen missles to spare afterwards. I did have a couple of questions I wanted to ask you guys if you have a chance to respond.

1. Is there a worth it/not worth it guide to engines/drives? I feel like this game has about 3x the amount of engines/drives that it actually needs and it's pretty overwhelming.

2. When I loaded ships to test in skirmish mode to test in fought a destroyer (?) That had only 1 PD laser and a lot of missles. In the actual fight in game I

I just started playing this game a few days ago after picking it up on sale. Absolutely love it, and 100% have zero clue what I'm doing. I'm like a dog trying to fly an F-35. Immediately set difficulty to cinematic and fired up the resistance tutorial campaign.

So I read on here that doing a Kazakhstan->Canada/Mexico control point run was a good idea so I opened with that. I also grabbed executive control in France before migrating to the USA, and here's the important part - before I left I disarmed France into a non-nuclear power. No idea if this was a good strategy or not, like I said, dog in the F-35.

So now I have full control over USA/Canada and the Glorious Republic of Kazakhstan

SEELE's motivation is really incomprehensible to me. So as I understand it, SEELE's plan is essentially enact instrumentality to turn humanity into a sort of shared global consciousness w/ no barriers, no more "hedgehoging" between people. In an an arraignment like that you'd have a sort of true equality, a "oneness" between all people.

But SEELE is clearly made up of some of the most powerful people in the post 2nd impact world. This would be incredibly altruistic of them, they'd be essentially surrendering voluntarily all their power and privilege in at the end of instrumentality.

Why? I could understand if they wanted to live forever, or enact world domination, but a massive effort to

Has anyone seen this before? I'm alt+F12 ing to the moon's surface to test out ships, but when I launch, I get about a few meters up and then bounce back down off an invisible surface. Happens with and without landing legs.

Inspired by one of Dan Carlin's older episodes where he talks about the relatively slow evolution of pre-industrial revolution armies. Obviously without some heavy modifications to the fight, the Phalanx is doomed. So for the scenario we'll make some assumptions. 1) No artillery on the Napoleonic side. 2) The Phalanx knows about gunpowder weapons and isn't frightened by them. Can the Phalanx close to melee range fast enough before they're mowed down? What if the Phalanx has (ancient Era) calvary support? What it both sides have calvary?

Let's say you're walking around one of these major japanese cities as an Eva fan. Would you have to go out of your way to find something Eva related? Or would it find you? I've heard the only thing comparable in America is Star Wars, but if I was to walk around NYC I wouldn't expect to see a giant statue of an X-wing or go to a cafe Luke Skywalker impersonator.

I knew S6 was going to be bad on rewatch, but it just feels so un-needed. Especially after S5, where after about a dozen filler "Glory tries to find the Key" plots, a three episode arc about Joyce's death and Buffy's trauma, the stupid incel-sexbot storyline, everything about Riley, the continued atomization of the core Xander/Willow/Buffy friendship...I was just done. So was Buffy. In season S5 they really get into the the idea that the Slayer eventually is going to get worn out and ready to die.

At the end of S5, the writers gave Buffy a heroic death, probably the best one she could have hoped for. In S6 seeing a depressed, broken Buffy, with no money having to play Mom, watching ASH b

Finally got to the first few Dawn episodes. So, just to be clear, I'm not saying I hate the character or that I hate the actress. I'm just wondering what the thought process was behind trying to retcon a character into the show after 4 seasons.

I know that UPN picked up S6-S7, was this just an attempt to boost S5 ratings on the WB?