Hey, guys, I owe you all an apology for not being able to keep up with comments last week – it was a really, really long week for me, with a lot of commitments in a lot of different places. But thanks everyone for the conversation! I did take it all in, even if I didn’t really end up with the time to keep up with replies.
I actually have begun to feel a little sorry for Colonel Haulley here. It’s his turn to go through the wringer, and Mike is being so matter-of-fact about it all. But that’s how the story goes.
Anyway, I don’t really have a ton to say this week. But it was a good week overall, for me, and I’m just going to leave it at that and turn in, now. So, all the best, folks!
A memory TRANSFER?
Indeed so. 😉
Holy [CENSORED]- he can do a direct memory transfer? Wonder if that’s part of his “wetware”? Sorry, I don’t recall the exact terminology from back in the beginning.
Wetware is correct. His CPU is a synthetic gel protein called 2-4 Desoxypolyribotransistorase. He’s a biochemical computer, and stores memory in chemical engrams.
“I’m sorry, Haulley, I’m affraid I can’t do that”
😀
That was my first thought too!
😀
I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Hehehehe We all knew Mike’s middle name was Hal 😛
No “In the pipe, five by five”-reference yet?
Hah! I considered it, but thought it a little too obvious.
I have about as much direct military expereince as a flying squirrel, but even I know that landing right in the middle of a city, with tall buildings on all side, is a boneheaded idea, as you expose yourself to plunging sniper fire, from which you have no cover.
And of course, with the troubles brewing in Ukrane, I’m being rather forcfully reminded of the poem, Charge of the Light Brigade.
“There’s was not to reason why, there’s was but to do and die…”
I do have some military experience. Sniper fire is not your big worry if you are in an airborne assault. You are moving fast and pumping out some fire of your own and the bad guys have to get into position first They usually have to be damn lucky to pick the right building, elevation etc. The first waves should not have a problem.
Dangers are wires, antenna and weird winds. A guy on a rooftop could just throw a brick or a sofa into the rotor blades. Rotor blades don’t eat sofa. Also you are very restricted in approach and take-off which is never good. Standard tactic if you realy have to do this, is to put teams down on top of the buildings first around your LZ’s. They secure them. Then you land.
On the plus side the buildings also screen and shelter you from direct fire (notably AA guns and missiles) and prevent spotters having a good look.
So, can be done but only if you have to.
Attacking Singapore in this fashion is not a good idea, but the thought in the UN planners’ minds is, I suppose, that surprise outweighs the risks of an airmobile assault into an urban area. There may be simultaneous amphibious landings underway elsewhere not he island, but still, you make good points on all counts, and reveal a lot of what’s making Haulley so nervous, even if it is “all in his head,” so to speak.
Oh, dear God, I really hope and pray this doesn’t come to war. I have friends in both Kiev and Moscow, and I fear for them all. More killing won’t solve any of the world’s problems in any way I can see.
As to the scene, you’re quite right – their mission does seem foolhardy and poorly planned. As many military missions are.
Indeed. Sometimes it seems that as soon as a dress uniform replaces the field uniform, all the field experience is thrown out the window (not too rarely with dire consequences for the ones still in the field).
Fortunately there are exceptions, but at times they seem few and far between… :-\
It seems the quote from Charge of the Light Brigade is apt to the scene too then.
“Forwards the Light Brigade, Charge for the Guns”
Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do… And DIE…
Oh, Tennyson. What the man couldn’t tell you about false idealism, even though he was actually lionizing their hopeless and wasteful sacrifice for zero tactical and strategic gain. Another pointless war in another time.
To quote another poetic genius:
“Wherever you go, there you are.”
Although the Crimean War did give me one of my personal heros. Not a soldier, but a self employed nurse and hotelier, Mary Seacol. A Half-Scottish Afrocaribean woman, who set up her own hotel/resteraunt/store, which she built herself from scrap wood, ran by herself, to fund her work providing free health care for British soldiers on the frontlines, whom she would actually put herself in harms way to help.
Now *that* is a real hero.
She’s also my heroine, because she never took crap off of anyone. Before she worked in Crimea, she had a similar establishment, caring for workers building the Panama canal, which was absolutely rife with malaria and typhoid. After the canal was finished, several of the workers threw a dinner for her, to thank her, where an American gave a speech about how great she was and it was only a shame she was black… Tow which she very politely told them all to go f*** themselves, she was proud to be half-scottish, but even more proud to be Jamaican.
When the Crimean war broke out, she presented herself to the British War Office in London to volunteer her services at the Army hospital in Sevastapol. They told her they had no need of her services, so she pretty much said ‘screw them’ and bought her own ticket to Crimea.
There is also a story, that while bringing couldrons of hot food up to troops on the front lines, there was a Russian artillery barrage, at which soldiers shouted to her “Quick mother, get down”, to whoch she replied “I will not throw myself on the muddy ground for the satisfaction of some impertinant Russian.”
It doesn’t help that Putin is 1) seemingly disconnected from reality and 2) entirely willing to ignore international law. Hmmm, that just reminded me of Pres. Bush; not a good sign. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. 🙁
Or worse, Hitler, who annexed Chekoslovakia, under the pretense of ‘Rescuing Ethic Germans, from foreign oppression’ much as Putin has claimed that they are ‘Protecting Ethic Russians from a potentially extremist and terrorist regim’
Hmmm I wonder what Mike will get out of a transfer like this. More emotional experiences to internalize and make part of him(?) self? Or merely more experiences to analyze?
We’ll have to see. 😉
Leads me to wonder just how “real” this is. Like would Hualley’s body respond to, say, a gunshot wound which happened during events in this memory transfer the same way it would to real ones?
Does this sim have Safeties?
As in, “Your Mind Makes It real?” Well, we’ll see, I suppose. But even so, you can have memories of painful things that feel awfully real, and I hasten to add that emotional and mental pain is a big part of the mix as well, especially for soldiers who have been through the experience of war and combat.
Perhaps Haulley was recalling this sub-consciously while thinking that he was in a hopeless situation similar to his experience in Singapore. When M1KE taps into his mind, the ‘memory transfer’ started. Now Haulley has to relive it.
You might very well think that, but I couldn’t possibly comment. 🙂
I love the amount of detail you put into your work. To me its more like this is half a web comic and half an impressive work of art. that fact it is one of the few military based web comics out there is just a great bonus.
Keep up the great work.
Wow, thank you so much! That’s extraordinarily high praise, and I’m really at a loss. I’m glad that you’re enjoying this comic, and I hope you’ll continue to do so!
I do believe you’ve misspelled “Canadian” on the side of the chopper.
Aww, dammit. Give me a second, I’ll fix that. Thanks for the spot!
Detail is so important in such things whether real or made up. Whether from actual events or ones that could have been. It adds the all important aspect of verisimilitude to the narrative. Well done on all this series. Keeps me coming back for the next installment.
When the super-smart machine says “What do you mean where are we going? I’m not driving, You are!”, then it’s TIME to Be Afraid, Very afraid.
Unfortunately the worst thing in the world to do in such a situation is panic…
Thoughs packs look more Russian than any thing was that intentional or a acident?