Ado Mortumee

Hold on, I’m dropping out because a very amusing challenger has arrived!

I win. I always win.

Newly created Bungie spin-off company Bungie Aerospace has trademarked the word "crimson" in connection with "Computer game software for use on mobile and cellular phones," as well as "Downloadable computer game software via a global computer network and wireless devices." What could it mean?

 

 

 

The incorporation of of Bungie Aerospace was revealed earlier this week, with Bungie president Harold Ryan listed as the new company's director, but we don't have a lot of clues as to what the spin-off is actually working on or even what it really is. We know that Bungie itself has signed a 10-year publishing deal with Activision, but no information has been released as to what the plan is there.

 

 

 

Considering some recent employment ads from the company, and reading between the lines of a quote from Bungie writer and designer Joseph Staten at GDC 2010 ("Wouldn't it be great if we could make a world that was always there for you, with lots of stories to tell, like a big, infinite storytelling horizon? Man, that would be great.") could suggest some kind of mobile phone MMO... but that's totally speculation. Another theory: Bungie Aerospace is working on a unique game engine. Another speculation, it's actually an aerospace company, that will create a game that launches you into space.

 

 

 

Sadly, I can't tell you: "Just wait for E3, where Bungie will reveal all these theories as ridiculous!" because Bungie won't be showing up at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. More info as we get it, obviously. Stay tuned.

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/712579/bungie-aerospace-tradmarks-crimson/

Looks like their going the MMO route after all. This angers me because of my horrible internet connection.

Yeah. I think it's time we finally accepted Jason as one of us. Sure, Prophet will probably laugh at this statement, Skooj will most likely make some snarky comeback, and Enigma (or should I say "Cockmonger", thanks to Paul) will huff and puff and ask to keep on bashing, but ultimately, all that this continued Jason-bashing does is drive away more potential members, and make us look like total fuckwads.

Meh, I’ve lost enough braincells due to RL stupidity now that he no longer phases. He may do as he pleases as long as it doesn’t interfere with my world domination plan.

Originally posted by the Galactic Empire Times

 

 

 

CORUSCANT — Obi-Wan Kenobi, the mastermind of some of the most devastating attacks on the Galactic Empire and the most hunted man in the galaxy, was killed in a firefight with Imperial forces near Alderaan, Darth Vader announced on Sunday.

 

 

 

In a late-night appearance in the East Room of the Imperial Palace, Lord Vader declared that “justice has been done†as he disclosed that agents of the Imperial Army and stormtroopers of the 501st Legion had finally cornered Kenobi, one of the leaders of the Jedi rebellion, who had eluded the Empire for nearly two decades. Imperial officials said Kenobi resisted and was cut down by Lord Vader's own lightsaber. He was later dumped out of an airlock.

 

 

 

The news touched off an extraordinary outpouring of emotion as crowds gathered in the Senate District and outside the Imperial Palace, waving imperial flags, cheering, shouting, laughing and chanting, “Hail to the Emperor! Hail Lord Vader!†In the alien protection zone, crowds sang “The Ten Thousand Year Empire.†Throughout the Sah'c district, airspeeder drivers honked horns deep into the night.

 

 

 

“For over two decades, Kenobi has been the Jedi rebellion’s leader and symbol,†the Lord of the Sith said in a statement broadcast across the galaxy via HoloNet. “The death of Kenobi marks the most significant achievement to date in our empire’s effort to defeat the rebel alliance. But his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that the rebellion will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad.â€

 

 

 

Obi-Wan Kenobi ’s demise is a defining moment in the stormtrooper-led fight against terrorism, a symbolic stroke affirming the relentlessness of the pursuit of those who turned against the Empire at the end of the Clone Wars. What remains to be seen, however, is whether it galvanizes Kenobi’s followers by turning him into a martyr or serves as a turning of the page in the war against the Rebel Alliance and gives further impetus to Emperor Palpatine to step up Stormtrooper recruitment.

 

 

 

In an earlier statement issued to the press, Kenobi boasted that striking him down could make him "more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

 

 

 

How much his death will affect the rebel alliance itself remains unclear. For years, as they failed to find him, Imperial leaders have said that he was more symbolically important than operationally significant because he was on the run and hindered in any meaningful leadership role. Yet he remained the most potent face of terrorism in the Empire, and some of those who played down his role in recent years nonetheless celebrated his death.

 

 

 

Given Kenobi’s status among radicals, the Imperial Galactic government braced for possible retaliation. A Grand Moff of the Imperial Starfleet said late Sunday that military bases in the core worlds and around the galaxy were ordered to a higher state of readiness. The Imperial Security Bureau issued a galactic travel warning, urging citizens in volatile areas “to limit their travel outside of their local star systems and avoid mass gatherings and demonstrations.â€

 

 

 

The strike could deepen tensions within the Outer Rim, which has periodically bristled at Imperial counterterrorism efforts even as Kenobi evidently found safe refuge it its territories for nearly two decades. Since taking over as Supreme Commander of the Imperial Navy, Lord Vader has ordered significantly more strikes on suspected terrorist targets in the Outer Rim, stirring public anger there and leading to increased criminal activity.

 

 

 

When the end came for Kenobi, he was found not in the remote uncharted areas of Wild Space and the Unknown Regions, where he has long been presumed to be sheltered, but in a massive compound about an hour’s drive west from the Tatooine capital of Bestine. He had been living under the alias "Ben" Kenobi for some time.

 

 

 

The compound, only about 50 miles from the base of operations for the Imperial Storm Squadron, is at the end of a narrow dirt road and is roughly eight times larger than other homes in the area, which were largely occupied by Tusken Raiders. When Imperial operatives converged on the planet on Saturday, following up on recent intelligence, two local moisture farmers “resisted the assault force†and were killed in the middle of an intense gun battle, a senior Stormtrooper said, but details were still sketchy early Monday morning.

 

A representative of the Imperial Starfleet said that military and intelligence officials first learned last summer that a “high-value target†was hiding somewhere on the desert world and began working on a plan for going in to get him. Beginning in March, Lord Vader worked closely with a series of several different Admirals serving onboard the Death Star to go over plans for the operation, and on Friday morning gave the final order for members of the 501st Legion (known commonly as "Vader's Fist") to strike.

 

 

 

Kenobi and a group of his followers were eventually captured while fleeing the system, and taken aboard the Death Star, which was in the midst of surveying the recent environmental disaster on Alderaan. Darth Vader called it a “targeted operation,†although officials said four tie fighters were lost because of "mechanical failures" and had to be destroyed to keep them from falling into hostile hands.

 

 

 

In addition to Kenobi, two men and one wookiee were killed, one believed to be his young apprentice and the other two his couriers, according to an admiral who briefed reporters under Imperial ground rules forbidding further identification. A woman was killed when she was used as a shield by a male combatant, the Admiral said. Two droids were also reported missing.

 

 

 

“No Stormtroopers were seriously harmed,†Lord Vader said. “They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, I defeated my former master and took custody of his body.†Jedi tradition requires burial within 24 hours, but by doing it in deep space, Imperial authorities presumably were trying to avoid creating a shrine for his followers.

 

 

 

Lord Vader has denied requests to present photographs of the body, describing them as "too gruesome" for the general public.

http://www.galacticempiretimes.com/2011/05/09/galaxy/outer-rim/obi-wan-kenobi-is-killed.html#

Good job Vader! You and the boys and white did a great job!

Tentatively titled, Call of Duty: Space Warfare, Bungie and Activision have revealed an abundance of information on the previously unknown title.

 

 

 

The game will takes place 1000 years in the future, where a war between the United States and Russia is taking part both on Earth and in Space. The story of the game involves the United States in belief that the Russians are planning to pull of a full force attack on the US Space Port “Friday†where the President is due to for arrival. The game will actually run in real time, similar to what was seen in the Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, over the period of 2 days you will be putting the stop on many attempted attacks the Russian’s are trying to get down on “Fridayâ€.

 

 

 

A Bungie spokesman stated that the multiplayer is set to be a “winning†formula, and with its bi-console matchmaking this is a very exciting time to be a developing at the company.

 

 

 

Activision has realised, many Bungie fans may find it difficult that their favourite developer; Bungie is to be working on a Call of Duty title, so to soften the blow, several multiplayer maps that appeared in Halo Reach will actually make an appearance in Space Warfare.

 

 

 

Call of Duty: Space Warfare is being developed by Bungie Studios and will be published by Activision.

http://www.gamer-uk.co.uk/archives/1894#

The Official Press Release

FANS were right to be sceptical about the planned release date for the most elusive video game ever.

 

 

 

In the least surprising news of the week, Duke Nukem Forever will not arrive on May 6, having already taken a comical 14 years to develop.

 

Gearbox Software said overnight it had to push the launch date back to June 14.

 

 

 

In typically enthusiastic fashion, Gearbox Software president Randy Pitchford took to YouTube to announce the bad news. You can see the video below.

 

 

 

“I know it’s hard to believe but it’s comingâ€, Mr Pitchford said.

 

 

 

“Nothing can stop us now. Not even Duke Nukem himself can get in our way.â€

 

 

 

We’ll believe it when we see it, Pitchford.

 

 

 

The interwebs didn’t even have the energy for outrage. Fans took to Twitter to vent about the news, but the tone was largely sarcastic .

 

 

 

 

 

“Duke Nukem Forever has been delayed againâ€, tweeted @IGN. “In other news, water is wetâ€.

 

 

 

@nicklohr wrote: “I’m guessing the Duke Nukem sector of the market dropped todayâ€.

 

 

 

As a small consolation, US gamers will now not be the first to get their hands on the new Duke.

 

 

 

America was originally scheduled to receive the game three days before the rest of the world, but thanks to the delay, Duke Nukem Forever will hit the international market four days before it goes on American shelves.

 

 

 

Haha.

 

 

 

Fans will have to tolerate the delay, but what's another month when you've already waited a decade and a half?

http://www.news.com.au/technology/gaming/duke-nukem-delayed-again/story-e6frfrt9-1226028013474

Goddamnit!

I'm so tough that Super Honey Badgers run from me. I of course hunt them down and devour them for being wimps.

THE STUPID! IT BURNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did hell freeze over when I wasn’t looking?

Finally found the quotes on Imperial military personnel numbers:

Rebellion Era Sourcebook, Saga Edition:

 

 

 

The Imperial military is a massive organization, with tens of trillions of regular army soldiers, trillions of fleet crew, and a vast force of stormtroopers both cloned and conditioned. The sheer weight of numbers enables the Empire to simply overwhelm opponents in head-to-head battle.

Heir to the Empire Sourcebook:

 

 

 

At the Empire’s height, the core Stormtrooper forces were said to outnumber the regular army and navy personnel combined.

Remind me to drop a few asteroids on Fox News later:

Pharyngula]

 

Did scientists discover bacteria in meteorites?

 

 

 

No.

 

 

 

No, no, no. No no no no no no no no.

 

 

 

No, no.

 

 

 

No.

 

 

 

Fox News broke the story, which ought to make one immediately suspicious — it's not an organization noted for scientific acumen. But even worse, the paper claiming the discovery of bacteria fossils in carbonaceous chondrites was published in … the Journal of Cosmology. I've mentioned Cosmology before — it isn't a real science journal at all, but is the ginned-up website of a small group of crank academics obsessed with the idea of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe that life originated in outer space and simply rained down on Earth. It doesn't exist in print, consists entirely of a crude and ugly website that looks like it was sucked through a wormhole from the 1990s, and publishes lots of empty noise with no substantial editorial restraint. For a while, it seemed to be entirely the domain of a crackpot named Rhawn Joseph who called himself the emeritus professor of something mysteriously called the Brain Research Laboratory, based in the general neighborhood of Northern California (seriously, that was the address: "Northern California"), and self-published all of his pseudo-scientific "publications" on this web site.

 

 

 

It is not an auspicious beginning. Finding credible evidence of extraterrestrial microbes is the kind of thing you'd expect to see published in Science or Nature, but the fact that it found a home on a fringe website that pretends to be a legitimate science journal ought to set off alarms right there.

 

 

 

But could it be that by some clumsy accident of the author, a fabulously insightful, meticulously researched paper could have fallen into the hands of single-minded lunatics who rushed it into 'print'? Sure. And David Icke might someday publish the working plans for a perpetual motion machine in his lizardoid-infested newsletter. We've actually got to look at the claims and not dismiss them because of their location.

 

 

 

So let's look at the paper, Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites: Implications to Life on Comets, Europa, and Enceladus. I think that link will work; I'm not certain, because the "Journal of Cosmology" seems to randomly redirect links to its site to whatever article the editors think is hot right now, and while the article title is given a link on the page, it's to an Amazon page that's flogging a $94 book by the author. Who needs a DOI when you've got a book to sell?

 

 

 

Reading the text, my impression is one of excessive padding. It's a dump of miscellaneous facts about carbonaceous chondrites, not well-honed arguments edited to promote concision or cogency. The figures are annoying; when you skim through them, several will jump out at you as very provocative and looking an awful lot like real bacteria, but then without exception they all turn out to be photos of terrestrial organisms thrown in for reference. The extraterrestrial 'bacteria' all look like random mineral squiggles and bumps on a field full of random squiggles and bumps, and apparently, the authors thought some particular squiggle looked sort of like some photo of a bug. This isn't science, it's pareidolia. They might as well be analyzing Martian satellite photos for pictures that sorta kinda look like artifacts.

 

 

 

The data consists almost entirely of SEM photos of odd globules and filaments on the complex surfaces of crumbled up meteorites, with interspersed SEMs of miscellaneous real bacteria taken from various sources — they seem to be proud of having analyzed flakes of mummy skin and hair from frozen mammoths, but I couldn't see the point at all — do they have cause to think the substrate of a chondrite might have some correspondence to a Siberian Pleistocene mammoth guard hair? I'd be more impressed if they'd surveyed the population of weird little lumps in their rocks and found the kind of consistent morphology in a subset that you'd find in a population of bacteria. Instead, it's a wild collection of one-offs.

 

 

 

There is one other kind of datum in the article: they also analyzed the mineral content of the 'bacteria', and report detailed breakdowns of the constitution of the blobs: there's lots of carbon, magnesium, silicon, and sulfur in there, and virtually no nitrogen. The profiles don't look anything like what you'd expect from organic life on Earth, but then, these are supposedly fossilized specimens from chondrites that congealed out of the gases of the solar nebula billions of years ago. Why would you expect any kind of correspondence?

 

 

 

The extraterrestrial 'bacteria' photos are a pain to browse through, as well, because they are published at a range of different magnifications, and even when they are directly comparing an SEM of one to an SEM of a real bacterium, they can't be bothered to put them at the same scale. Peering at them and mentally tweaking the size, though, one surprising result is that all of their boojums are relatively huge — these would be big critters, more similar in size to eukaryotic cells than E. coli. And all of them preserved so well, not crushed into a smear of carbon, not ruptured and evaporated away, all just sitting there, posing, like a few billion years in a vacuum was a day in the park. Who knew that milling about in a comet for the lifetime of a solar system was such a great preservative?

 

 

 

I'm looking forward to the publication next year of the discovery of an extraterrestrial rabbit in a meteor. While they're at it, they might as well throw in a bigfoot print on the surface and chupacabra coprolite from space. All will be about as convincing as this story.

 

 

 

While they're at it, maybe they should try publishing it in a journal with some reputation for rigorous peer review and expectation that the data will meet certain minimal standards of evidence and professionalism.

 

 

 

Otherwise, this work is garbage. I'm surprised anyone is granting it any credibility at all.

 

 

 

Want more dismissive reviews? Read David Dobbs and Rosie Redfield. We have concensus!

Is it too much to ask of fans to get a life and stop getting their panties in a bunch when their favorite franchise canon changes?

I don’t mind retcons if their done right - which Halo: Reach was not, and TCW also destroyed some interesting SW stories. If their planning on retconing decade(s) old canon material I expect it to be replaced with material of at least equal quality, not a giant steaming pile of shit.

First Halo: Reach and now this? Is it too much to ask for these people to keep things consistent? *Urge to kill idiots at Bungie and LFL rising*

So who else has read Aratech’s Halo: Reach Review?

Also, do they really have trillions? Remember, the cost of 5 million clones nearly bankrupted the Republic).

IIRC the Imperial Sourcebook puts the Army in the billions and the Stormtroopers in the trillions. And since when did 5 million clones nearly bankrupt the Republic? I find that hard to believe given a single Jedi master placed the order and it was kept secret for a decade. And then of course there’s ships that were also ordered in addition to the initial five million clones.

And now I have to ask that even if true, what does that have to do with the Empire since they built two Death Stars in secret and 25,000 ISD and at least a dozen Super Star Destroyers...

Also, how the hell did the Empire go from having 10,000 worlds at the end of the Clone Wars to 69.5 million in only 20 years? Please tell me how in God's name that makes sense.

Since when did the Republic only have 10,000 worlds? If they only had that many then that means the entire Old Republic joined the CIS if I recall AToC correctly.

And on the galactic population IIRC the RoTS novel mentions that there are "countless quadrillions" of sentient beings in the Republic (or the known galaxy in general, I'll see if I can find the quote later).

Anyways, 1 goes to the Terrans in a Curbstomp. And on 2, didn't the Terran Dominion, after only four years, turn a glassed over hellhole into a Courscant size city planet? So they might have the industry to stand up the Empire for a short time.

Preemptive post:

[nelson] HA HA! [/nelson]

*Presses button marked “UNLEASH THE MONKEY!†and puts a checkmark next to "Random Evil Act of the Day" on Evil Overlord to do List. Goes back to playing Mass Effect 2*

“Ok, now I just have to finish off that last Collector D - â€

“ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL!â€

“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU - “ *Dies again*

What I want to know, is why [you] is such a faggot. I mean, srsly. Cut it out.