(vaguely continued from this musing)

I love that Jeremy Renner keeps playing characters who can pretty much effortlessly be folded together into a single UF character. "Clint Barton" is clearly an alias that former Earthforce explosive ordnance disposal technician William James adopted when he discovered that he was a Treadstone sleeper agent, went rogue, and then found the solace his tortured spirit craved in the esoteric, nearly-lost art of the Ignatine archer-Cleric. :)

(This thought prompted by getting the Bourne Legacy trailer before The Avengers, and then noticing during the film that Hawkeye's robot arrowhead-selection quiver thing was like the archery equivalent of Brother Geoff's automatic-revolver-reloading robo-holster.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>I love that Jeremy Renner keeps playing characters who can pretty much
>effortlessly be folded together into a single UF character.

Tumblr agrees with you there!

>I love that Jeremy Renner keeps playing characters who can pretty much
>effortlessly be folded together into a single UF character. "Clint
>Barton" is clearly an alias that former Earthforce explosive ordnance
>disposal technician William James adopted when he discovered that he
>was a Treadstone sleeper agent, went rogue, and then found the solace
>his tortured spirit craved in the esoteric, nearly-lost art of the
>Ignatine archer-Cleric. :)

I sense a BPGD bio coming. :)

But I don't see any problem with the Ignatine "gun-kata" having archery forms. After all, ancient martial arts (at least the wuxia-flavored types) have archery styles, and the "gun-kata" did not evolve form nothing.

Or "Clint" ran into Jackie Chan, who invented his archery style on a rainy afternoon when he was forced to stop an entire clan of Big Fire ninja with nothing more than a bamboo stick, a piece of twine, and some wooden dowels. :)

>>I love that Jeremy Renner keeps playing characters who can pretty much
>>effortlessly be folded together into a single UF character. "Clint
>>Barton" is clearly an alias that former Earthforce explosive ordnance
>>disposal technician William James adopted when he discovered that he
>>was a Treadstone sleeper agent, went rogue, and then found the solace
>>his tortured spirit craved in the esoteric, nearly-lost art of the
>>Ignatine archer-Cleric. :)
>
>I sense a BPGD bio coming. :)

Not really necessary, though, is it? I mean, that's pretty much it right there...

>But I don't see any problem with the Ignatine "gun-kata" having
>archery forms.

No indeed. After all, the Order was born out of a war that was fought long before the adventure of rapid-fire firearms. Archery was presumably a part of the mix from the start. As I said, I expect it's a near-dead art by the 25th century, but there's got to be someone keeping the flame alive, however fitfully.

Tangentially, I've often thought it odd that the Jedi don't have some equivalent to an in-house archery style, involving some ranged weapon that's more ancient and harder to use than blasters. It's strongly implied in the films that they sneer at ranged weapons in general - although if you look more closely, it's really only Obi-Wan saying that, so it might just be his personal bias - but they're essentially space samurai, and they were archers. Cavalry archers, in fact, which is pretty badass.

>Or "Clint" ran into Jackie Chan, who invented his archery style on a
>rainy afternoon when he was forced to stop an entire clan of Big Fire
>ninja with nothing more than a bamboo stick, a piece of twine, and
>some wooden dowels. :)

That's more the Ollie Queen approach, I think. Hawkeye's a little more high-tech. :)

Although even if he is a Cleric, I doubt he wears the flappy overcoat, so people probably mistake him for some kind of secular commando most of the time. The coat is very stylish, but it'd be a bit of a liability to an archer, I should think.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>No indeed. After all, the Order was born out of a war that was fought
>long before the adventure of rapid-fire firearms. Archery was
>presumably a part of the mix from the start. As I said, I expect it's
>a near-dead art by the 25th century, but there's got to be
>someone keeping the flame alive, however fitfully.
>
>Tangentially, I've often thought it odd that the Jedi don't have some
>equivalent to an in-house archery style, involving some ranged weapon
>that's more ancient and harder to use than blasters. It's strongly
>implied in the films that they sneer at ranged weapons in general -
>although if you look more closely, it's really only Obi-Wan saying
>that, so it might just be his personal bias - but they're
>essentially space samurai, and they were archers.
>Cavalry archers, in fact, which is pretty badass.

That would be something to see, Jedi Archers. Though I think Obi-Wan has his thing against just guns. After the end of the fight with Gerivious, he looks at the blaster with an irritated look and tosses it aside with the comment 'So uncivilized'. Though given that blasters are about the only option for ranged combat (do Wookie bowcasters count as blasters?) in the Star Wars universe we may never get a solid answer.

Well, unless it's in some EU book.

LAST EDITED ON Jun-26-12 AT 07:57 PM (EDT)
 
>(do Wookie bowcasters count as blasters?)

I think they're more aptly described as the illegitimate lovechild of a railgun and a crossbow. The only thing that makes them blaster-like is the so-called 'plasmoid shell' the bolts are coated in upon firing.

That does beg the question though - exactly how useful is a bowcaster? From what I understand, they can only fire a single shot at a time, before they need to be recocked in a manner similar to a crossbow. Are they more accurate than a standard blaster? Better able to pierce certain kinds of armor? Less likely to cause a fire that, among the wookies' ancestral trees, could prove disastrous? Just plain cool-looking, and thus more a matter of personal style than of utility?

...I'm leaning towards that last one, personally.

IIRC from the various tabletop games, the bowcaster uses actual quarrels, but yes, there's a kind of energy effect the bolts use once they're fired. In general, they were slow, unwieldy, you couldn't hold much ammo, but they were very, very powerful. In other words, don't miss.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu

I want to say that there is something in the Corporate Sector novels to the effect that bowcasters punch through body armor a lot more effectively than blasters. That may be an author invention, or even my own misremembering; it's been the better part of two decades since I've read those stories.

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

>That does beg the question though - exactly how useful is a bowcaster?
> From what I understand, they can only fire a single shot at a time,
>before they need to be recocked in a manner similar to a crossbow.

Though the firing mechanism itself (with the obvious sticky-out moment arms and whatnot) is crossbow-like, the action is usually described as more like that of a pump-action shotgun or repeating rifle - it has to be worked for each shot, but there's an ammunition feed, so bolts don't have to be fitted individually as in a traditional crossbow. Mind you, on screen I've never noticed Chewbacca doing anything other than point and shoot, like anybody else with a blaster. I suspect in 1977 nobody cared enough to design stage directions and whatnot to justify it - it was just a cool-looking prop that made Chewie still more distinctive from the other characters.

>Are they more accurate than a standard blaster? Better able to pierce
>certain kinds of armor? Less likely to cause a fire that, among the
>wookies' ancestral trees, could prove disastrous? Just plain
>cool-looking, and thus more a matter of personal style than of
>utility?
>
>...I'm leaning towards that last one, personally.

Out-of-band, I think that's almost certainly the case (see above). In-story, there's probably an explanation in one of the 152 million licensed storyline expansions, but I've spent the last 20-odd years staying away from those, for the most part.

One exception that comes to mind is Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, in which one of the player-acquirable weapons is a Tusken bowcaster. ISTR this was described in either the manual or somewhere in the game itself as a knockoff of the Wookiee weapon scaled for use by humans and beings like them, and particularly popular with the non-"Sand Person" Tusken Raiders who are inexplicably to be found on the moons of Sullust. You can score one off the first Tusken you kill, and it's actually quite a handy weapon - much more accurate than the infamous stormtrooper carbine, considerably more powerful than the game's most accurate weapon (your pistol), and with an interesting secondary-fire mode where the rounds ricochet off inanimate objects but kill people. (I think there was also a charge-fire mode that released a short-range cone of shots, however that can be justified in terms of a plasma-jacketed solid projectile. :)

Mind you, I am not for a moment suggesting that Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II should be viewed as in any way definitive in Star Wars terms - but most of what turns up in it is in UF somewhere, and I suspect the Un-Wookiee Bowcaster is on that list.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Tangentially, I've often thought it odd that the Jedi don't have some
>equivalent to an in-house archery style, involving some ranged weapon
>that's more ancient and harder to use than blasters. It's strongly
>implied in the films that they sneer at ranged weapons in general -
>although if you look more closely, it's really only Obi-Wan saying
>that, so it might just be his personal bias - but they're
>essentially space samurai, and they were archers.
>Cavalry archers, in fact, which is pretty badass.

Given your taste for adapting comic-book characters in better ways, may I suggest Jedi Master Yondu Udonta?

Nice! I haven't thought about the Whistling Archer since Guardians of the Galaxy was cancelled.

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

I practically memorized the old Marvel Handbooks (and DC's equivalent: Who's Who), back in the day. Every once in a while, something bubbles up.

>That's more the Ollie Queen approach, I think. Hawkeye's a little
>more high-tech. :)

The moment I saw his quiver in the movie, I knew I was stealing the concept for my CoH character. That thing was awesome.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

Made me think of a Judge's Lawgiver.

"Incendiary."
"SELECTED."

>
>Although even if he is a Cleric, I doubt he wears the flappy overcoat,
>so people probably mistake him for some kind of secular commando most
>of the time. The coat is very stylish, but it'd be a bit of a
>liability to an archer, I should think.
>
>--G.
>

*watches F/SN's movie again*
Dunno about that. Some Archers, for a certain (warped) definition of 'Archer', tend to do quite well with longcoats/overcoats. While I don't think that Archer...err...archetype (sorry), would go well in UF, you have to admit, he had style.

LAST EDITED ON Jun-29-12 AT 01:40 AM (EDT)
 
>
>I love that Jeremy Renner keeps playing characters who can pretty much
>effortlessly be folded together into a single UF character. "Clint
>Barton" is clearly an alias that former Earthforce explosive ordnance
>disposal technician William James adopted when he discovered that he
>was a Treadstone sleeper agent, went rogue, and then found the solace
>his tortured spirit craved in the esoteric, nearly-lost art of the
>Ignatine archer-Cleric. :)
>

I'm not sure how Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters would fit into this, but I wouldn't bet against your being able to fold that in as well.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

>I'm not sure how Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters would fit
>into this, but I wouldn't bet against your being able to fold that in
>as well.

The whole 'crusading against evil' part, I suspect.

Not every witch is Anthy (who is more neutral good than lawful good, I suspect) or Raven, and some of them probably fall into the situation referred to in Texas law somewhat apocryphally as "needs killin'". Might be he ran into one and the whole archery thing was one part preparation and one part recuperation.

--
Geoff Depew - Darth Mephron
Haberdasher to Androids, Dark Lord of Sith Tech Support.
"And Remember! Google is your Friend!!"

>>I'm not sure how Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters would fit
>>into this, but I wouldn't bet against your being able to fold that in
>>as well.
>
>The whole 'crusading against evil' part, I suspect.
>
>Not every witch is Anthy (who is more neutral good than lawful good, I
>suspect) or Raven, and some of them probably fall into the situation
>referred to in Texas law somewhat apocryphally as "needs killin'".
>Might be he ran into one and the whole archery thing was one part
>preparation and one part recuperation.
>

As a former carnie, I'm sure Mr. Barton would tell you there's a lot of things out on the road that most city folks don't know about, and that not all carnival fortune tellers are hustlers.

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

>Not every witch is Anthy (who is more neutral good than lawful good, I
>suspect)

Anthy's definitely Neutral Good (albeit with at least some Lawful tendencies), as evidenced by her wicked sense of humor (it's almost impossible to be both Lawful Good and devious at the same time :)). Not to mention the fact that most Lawful Good characters have trouble being highly adaptable to paradigm shifts regarding what those Laws are (assuming they can even get their heads wrapped around those changes), which Anthy has proven she can handle quite easily...

Offsides

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>

>>Not every witch is Anthy (who is more neutral good than lawful good, I
>>suspect)
>
>Anthy's definitely Neutral Good (albeit with at least some Lawful
>tendencies), as evidenced by her wicked sense of humor (it's almost
>impossible to be both Lawful Good and devious at the same time :)).
>Not to mention the fact that most Lawful Good characters have trouble
>being highly adaptable to paradigm shifts regarding what those Laws
>are (assuming they can even get their heads wrapped around those
>changes), which Anthy has proven she can handle quite easily...

Well, Lawful Good does not equal Lawful Stiff or Lawful Humorless. But, yes, Anthy is very adept at lying and always has been. Her quiet and understated nature makes lies by omission very easy to pull off, and she doesn't even need that circumstance to deceive almost anyone.

As for paradigm shifts, remember that the only laws that are really important in a Lawful person's life are the ones they make for themselves. Lawful people have their own moral codes, and they follow them religiously, but they may or may not be related to temporal, on-the-books law. Even the most righteous paladin of Tyr (in Forgotten Realms) -can- work against the local tyrannical laws if there is absolutely no way to do what is right within those laws. Of course, it rarely gets to that point.

Anyway, back to Anthy. I have a feeling the only reason she is Neutral Good is because Utena is Lawful Good. The corrupted Tournament is a perfect example of what happens when laws are twisted to evil, and she was the victim for so long I have a feeling she'd easily be Chaotic Good, or even Chaotic Neutral without Utena's influence to balance her.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu