Zonorhc

I'm glad someone picked up the broad reference. It was originally "Epsilon semi-morons", but that wouldn't have worked so well. Nice spot, though. Thanks for the comments. As I've said before, I enjoyed writing it, and I'm sure oddfaery2 enjoyed editing out the fun parts. :P

Thanks, people. I enjoyed writing it very much. I did notice some edits, but they weren't very major. Probably to make it more community-friendly. :P The unedited version is on my deviantART page, linked in my sig.

When (if) she becomes available, just ask her out. If you haven't got the balls to do that, what do you think you're doing looking for a relationship? Don't do it straight away, though. Give it maybe a week or two. That's usually how long it takes to get over a high school relationship.

Anthro? Vile stuff, that. Purple wolves with pants and catgirls. Stuff people think is really original.

As if! Battletech brought us the entire Mechwarrior franchise!

Both wrong! Battletech.

Don't remind me. :P

Doesn't anyone read section 17A of the Space Marines' Guide to Personal Safety? "In case of armed robbery in the vicinity, follow these steps: 1) Fetch your Holy Bolter 2) Attach a Consecrated Magazine of Blessed Bolter Shells 3) Slay the enemies of the Emperor with great prejudice If your bolter is unavailable for any reason, contact your local Imperial Navy relay to arrange for orbital bombardment." That's why I never have trouble with upstart criminals. The Emperor protects.

That's a very nice cloud. I'm going to have to figure out how to do that properly with a pencil.

Well, alright. I guess I might as well post it here as well, seeing as how nobody on DeviantART really looks at anything other than anthro. http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/28628704/ Comments, please. Either here or there.

If I die, I shall be cremated. People shall mourn. Thousands upon thousands of firstborns shall be sacrificed each day for three days to appease my vengeful soul. My urn shall be placed within a grand temple of white marble inlaid with black, twenty-seven storeys high and overlooking a pit of sacrifices ringed with the impaled bodies of my enemies, for my Legions of Terror shall hunt and bring retribution upon any man who is so much as accused of causing my death in any way, direct or indirect. There will be cake, but only for bears.

Hold it. Stop the idiocy. Learn to read. He said to make the wander zones bigger, not to make the map bigger. There is a difference. He didn't say that all NPCs would be able to run. He essentially said that NPCs would have varying speeds.

Please find a suitably large anthill and insert your head into it.

Well, you know, I was going to say you could improve on your spelling, but I noticed that you might actually need some serious help with, ah... art. The only piece of advice I think would remotely benefit you is to take a good long gander at what real people actually look like.

I can guarantee you that I type much faster than a lot of people. That isn't the point. You have all the time in the world to make a post on a forum. You don't need to "save time" by shortening words or ignoring spelling altogether. Nobody is standing behind you with a gun pointed at your head ready to shoot if you don't finish typing in five seconds.

Yeah, I took a couple of those shots, but really. You can get those anywhere.

Actually, I took this photo while I was in India around the beginning of last month, and it's been sitting more or less neglected in DeviantART like everything else I have. http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/27449545/ So there. Have fun.

Um? I don't think any of them actually count as photomanipulation, owing to the fact that all you seemed to do was slap a filter on. Try something different, play with the curves, levels, what have you. And would it kill you to type properly for once?

Scimitars. My god they're so poorly designed. They look like bent rectangles of metal with a stupidly huge notch on the end.

Advertising is usually more effective when people don't have to see "gangsta spk". Learn to type.

You do, of course, realise that I have spent the past three months researching pre-Meiji Japan as part of an Extension History project? Cut back your ignorance. One: The Japanese most certainly did NOT have "strong and heavy armour" as far as it goes by European standards. It may have been "strong and heavy" by JAPANESE standards, but by European standards it was barely above light-classed armours. Two: The whole katana was NOT folded steel. Such a construction would make it FAR too brittle, hence only the EDGE was folded. If you want, you can have a look at a book called Giving up the Gun, Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879 (Noel Perrin, 1979, D.R. Gadine, Boston). He has done his research and has noted that the majority of a katana's construction was soft steel. Also, the curve on the katana is NOT to increase its aerodynamic ability. A slight curve simply cannot do that in any measure worth noting. It IS, however, a fact that the curve allows kinetic energy to be focused on the point of impact, much as it is with other weapons of similar type, like a scimitar - which was also developed in a low-armour environment. Quoted in Perrin's book is an account of St. Francis Xavier on a visit to Japan, where he actually calls katanas "scimiters" (sic) in reference to the weapon they resemble - the scimitar of Middle-Eastern origin. Three: Folded steel plate mail. Right. Absurdly hard plates that would NOT dent the way armour should, rather resisting all the force of an impact and shattering. Armour is meant to ABSORB blows, hence it cannot be too hard. Strong steel must still be slightly soft so that some of the kinetic energy behind a blow can be absorbed with a little bending. If it is all hard and brittle as folding it would cause it to be, it would SHATTER INWARDS on impact, injuring the wearer far more than the sword blow ever could. On the matter of armour usage, only the top-class samurai used any of the heavier stuff. Lower-class samurai, those only entitled to wear swords and bear a family name but not ride horses, would be stuck with light equipment such as brigandine. On dual-wielding: There are virtually no accounts of samurai dual-wielding on the field of battle. Miyamoto Musashi along with his very few pupils is quite possibly the only known exception. Traditionally, a samurai would use his katana in two hands, if he bothered using it in battle at all in favour of the spear or bow.

The ignorance boggles the mind. Dual-wielding was an exceptional case with Miyamoto Musashi. The practice of using both the katana and wakizashi (NOTE SPELLING) was something that never found its way into the mainstream. Katanas were designed to be effective in two hands, hence they WERE used in two hands. The quality of metal and design of the katana is only superior AT THE EDGE, and at that, ONLY FOR CUTTING FLESH. The curve allows kinetic energy to be focused more effectively, and the edge contains absurd amounts of folded steel to strengthen it, but EVERYTHING ELSE IS WEAK. They can't use strong folded steel for the entire blade because that would make it shatter. Hence, they used softer steel for the blade besides the edge, which is ALSO easy to shatter, but isn't half as time-consuming and skill-intensive as folded steel. Next, the katana WAS NOT DESIGNED TO GO THROUGH ARMOUR. I don't know WHERE you get your "facts" from, but Japanese armour is LIGHT compared to European equipment. Your standard fare would be brigandine armour or lacquered steel plates in the case of samurai. They need mobility because of their katana, which requires speed as much as strength. Hence, they could not wear heavy armour, and thus the katana was not made to go through armour. A European sword would destroy a katana on a strike purely for the fact that it IS designed to go through heavy plate, using a tremendous weight advantage. Don't get started on speed, because a heavy sword can be used as quickly as a lighter one - only how long you can do this for is the issue. By the time the knight with his broadsword or the highlander with his claymore is tired, your precious samurai's katana would be lying on the ground in pieces, and the honourable man preparing to commit sepukku. Now on to armour. By the time Japanese cavalry armour (which, coincidentally, is the same as foot samurai armour except in the case of levies) was even halfway at the standard of European armour, the Japanese had acquired the tanegashima or arquebus from Portuguese adventurers, and had produced it in absurd quantities - more than any country in Europe. Oda Nobunaga, a firm believer in spear-based tactics was disdainful of the weapon at first, but after suffering several defeats dropped the spear's importance in his doctrine in favour of the gun. It would TEAR through Japanese armour. It literally changed the face of Japanese combat - no more ritual introductions before a battle, no more individual combat on the battlefield between samurai. By the time Japan regressed its technology and went back to using swords and spears, armour had not improved because it DIDN'T HAVE A REASON TO. Armour was still expensive, and cheap musketmen (low-ranked samurai) were all the rage.

Katanas are designed to be wielded in two hands. You would run into balance and speed issues if you wielded it in one hand, and fighting a la Miyamoto Musashi isn't exactly a conventional way of using a katana. The wakizashi was simply not intended to be a main combat weapon. The "true power" of katanas is something that is overexaggerated by anime fans and Japanophiles in general. The things are on par with European weapons, with only their edge being superior and the rest of them being easy to damage. They weren't designed to cut through heavy armour, so they lack the weight advantage of European weapons. For cutting flesh and light armour, katanas are wicked.

I think the weapons certain people need more are spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Hey, who let you out of your cage? Get back in there before you start a flamewar. That's a good boy. Now don't start these topics anymore, or you're going to the vet.