Well, there's something to be said for quiet dignity. But the Duelist's are a crowd of people who exist in a universe where people regularly go into combat wrapped in a kinetic barrier, a combat skin, and a subdermal weave, armed with weapons that consider things like boiling hot plasma to be a standard munition.

And they've said "No, you know what? We're going to stick with edged weapons mostly, thank you. Backed up by sheer bloody-mindedness. We feel this is still a worthwhile combat discipline." And have made it work.

At that point, you grab all the ostentation you can get. You shouldn't be smug about it, of course. Not in the way that, say, Genom used to be, building their giant metal penises all over the galaxy. But go big, or go home. :)

>In this case (I did that bit) I particularly wanted to put people in
>mind of that parka Han Solo's wearing in the "I thought these things
>smelled bad on the outside" scene, so, Hoth. :)

Did he have those ridiculous glasses as well? :)

>>I question just how well his company briefed Sosuke on this assignment
>>before inserting him. Sergei's presence on campus was the subject of
>>significant legal wrangling, and he has a paper trail that's part of
>>the public record that is a mile long.
>
>True; on the other hand he hasn't lived there since 2407. How far
>back do you want these files to go?

Hmm, that's a good question. I suppose it's not a matter of depth, but breadth. The prominent alumni of the Duelist's Society are... people of interest, and they show up back at their alma mater semi-regularly.

I was tempted to actually go look up what real-life military contractors do in terms of diligence when assigned to guard VIPs, but that's not something found on a casual Google search, and making sure the family of some temporarily important minister in Iraq doesn't get blowed up doesn't bear much resemblance to Sosuke's mission here.

>The Rhodos Group does seem to have been a bit slack about their due
>diligence, though. This might be expected of an organization that,
>until recently, specialized in providing a sort of "mallcop SWAT"
>service, but... well, like I said before, wait for it. You're not
>completely off the reservation with these reservations.

I always feel validated to know I'm at least within sniffing distance of being correct, of course. :)

>>Although I'll also note that part of me has been wondering for awhile
>>now if Sosuke is a total decoy and Melissa and Kurz, the ACTUAL
>>bodyguarding team, are hanging out in the background doing a much,
>>much better job at the whole 'covert' thing than he is.
>
>I can't speak to the first part, but I can tell you that if he
>does have More Covert Backup in place, it isn't Mao and Weber.
>In UF, they're with WDF Mars Division, same as Kaname's parents, and
>have since long before Kaname (or Sosuke, for that matter) was born.

I think I may have known that at some point. Your universe is really huge.

>>Let's be fair, Kaname. You probably know more than a few ladies who
>>also turn into crazy people when their body decides "today is a great
>>day to flood myself with natively-made chemicals!" One of your fellow
>>RA's is Natsuki Kruger, for heaven's sake. :)
>
>True, although in this instance she's thinking particularly of the
>whole "hundred-handed giants of gropitude" thing. ... though, I
>suppose, if we're being fair, Natsuki might be like that too when the
>moon is full. Awoooooooo.

I respect you for not going for the easy tentacle monster joke and instead taking time to come up with a hundred-handed giant metaphor.

>>"So who won the pool?"
>>
>>"Kozue and Chip split. You'd think other people would have had money
>>on 'harem', but no, it was just them. Hell of a payout, too."
>
>Two thoughts on this:

Yeah, I just sort of apologize for everything after this. I'm kind of an idiot sometimes, and it was just DUMB.

>Also, technically that's Nall's job. And he didn't even do it. He's
>such a little slacker.

Well, I doubt anything he came up with would've been more fun for Corwin than what he actually ended up doing.

>>I know that, at the meta-level, a big part of why Kaname is still in
>>the dark about this is because it also leaves the readers in the dark
>>until a huge, awesome reveal comes along.
>
>Then why make an issue of it? Seriously, what purpose does it serve?
>It's like complaining that you know why suspension bridges have
>to have those upright bits in the middle, but man, they break up the
>view something awful.

Well, serious response to a serious question: it's a little bit like seeing the stage crew at a performance, or being able to actually see the magician palm a coin; you're not supposed to see the strings.

At the meta level (the Doylist level, if we're being fancy about things) everything that happens happens because without it, there wouldn't be a story. But aesthetically speaking, I like for there to be solid in-universe (Watsonian) explanations and logic underpinning everything. It's aggravating to see the machinery, as it were. So I point it out.

Now, that is, of course, my own damage, and not your problem. And you are of course a much more accomplished writer than myself, and I'm also kind of the FNG around here. So I might be out of line. I don't try and be deliberately arrogant, relentlessly negative, or bust peoples balls about things. But, well, the forums seem to here to discuss things, and I do love (and I mean love) me some good arguin'. So here I am.

>So, you know, consider easing up a little. We're gettin' to it. :)

Message received. :)

>>(cr10 says that her penmanship is EXQUISITE.)
>
>But probably in kind of an irritating font. Lots of curlicues.
>Little hearts instead of dots on the dotted lowercase letters. ...
>well, maybe not that last part.

Depending on what sort of culture she hails from (like Natsuki, her name rather Niogi-ish) she may have gone whole hog and broken out the calligraphy brushes for something this important. :)

>>What's running through Sosuke's head right now is probably something
>>like "Survive the initial swing. Once inside her guard, secure the
>>weapon and proceed with CQC. She's taller than me; this limits my
>>takedown options. Sweep the legs."
>
>I like the ambitious nature of step 1. That's like starting a
>business plan with "1) Make $1,000,000." :)

Sosuke seems like the kind of guy who, if no other options are available, considers "Jump out the fifty-story window" as an acceptable first step to solving the problem "the building is on fire." :)

I like that about him.

>>(Second best kind of sledding: drunk sledding. Best kind of sledding:
>>drunk, night sledding.)
>
>The year before I got to WPI, someone got very seriously hurt doing
>that - drunk nighttime sledding down Institute Hill, over near the
>library, using the old-fashioned fiberglass DĀKA trays.

You know, speaking as someone who has happily careened down hills in the center of a giant rubber innertube in the dead of night while very, very buzzed on artisan hard cider (yeah, I'm a liquor snob, we all have our vices) that is something I wouldn't want to try even stone cold sober at high noon.

I've SEEN people go down hills on cafeteria trays and other, less stable devices, and my opinion has always been "You guys are fuckin' insane." I don't even like old-style sleds and toboggans; I look at a sled with actual runners and think "if you flip over on that thing or hit bad bump and go flying it's going to take your head off." I'd almost rather literally throw myself physically down a hill than ride one.

Give me something that's more properly used as a pool toy to go downhill in any day. On the right slope it isn't appreciably slower, and you can run into all manner of things or flip the thing entirely over onto yourself and it'll just bounce off.

-Merc
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