Raithe

Um, did we miss the whole.. it was uninhabited islands a couple of centuries ago? That the English colony was there before Argentina existed as a country?.. That the majority of the population are descended from the various UK families that have moved out there? The key reason we protected them is because.. gee, the people there are British, say they're British, have been organised along British laws and systems of governance (well, apart from that short period that they were occupied by the forces of an Argentine military junta) and strangely enough, say they want to remain with the country of their choice... which just surprisingly enough.. is the UK..

So the fact that the islands were originally uninhabited.. that 70% of the population are descended from English, Scots, Welsh... and that nearly 90% of the entire population (including the non-UK descended residents) want to stay as British citizens and do not want to even discuss the idea of Argentina taking sovereignity of the islands have nothing to do with the situation? That's not imperialism, or colonialism. If the people there follow a specific culture, and believe they're a part of it, and they act that way.. and say "hey, this is my flag of choice".. then yeah, I'd say they're fairly joined in spirit. And hey, in two millenia we were invaded by the Romans, the Saxons, the Vikings, the Normans... you can't exactly say we didn't suffer incursions. We're just good at absorbing them into the culture..

I seem to be bouncing between having a nice solid chunk of gaming one day, then a couple of days without, then back again. I haven't done any end-game content as such, my SI has plugged away at some left over missions on Corellia and as I said, tried out the pvp Warzones on monday. Need to get around to poking at some of the Operations and hardmode flashpoints... and take a gander at Illum at some point.. My smuggler has hit 42 and is on his way to Hoth.. and my Jedi Knight and Bounty Hunter are still on their prologues..

Didn't actually manage to fall asleep in bed till around 5am'ish. And currently ploddign along with a dull headache. I think I'll chalk most of the day up to as vaguely lost and just drink tea....

I've seen a fair few Knights and Scoundrels when I've played today. I also heard a few complaints from people in full pvp gear complaining about the upsurge of "newcomers".. so maybe things are starting to balance out now.

Yup, it's happened a few times like that without partial premade. Although have run into a premade on the other side and they totally kicked our asses. I did some PvP with my Sith Inquisitor today, and as long as someone points out some general coordination like that, folks seem happy to make the attempt. I've had one bad experience, and that's when on the Alderaan warzone, about 30 seconds after the Republic side had grabbed two of the turrets, about half of the Imperial side stomped off to the left Turret and basically did a "we can't win now, so we'll get points for defending here, but there's no point in going for the middle and dying, which will lower our point total." Just.. yeah, that was kind of annoying. And I'll say this, attempting Voidstar when the opposing team is pretty much ONLY Troopers and Sages.. is freaking impossible. Between the amount of stuns / area attacks / healing that they can do....

You mean all the time ? Welcome to MMORPG PVP Surprisingly, I've joined a few where people talked about it right at the start and figured out rough stategy and organised. People volunteering to stay on one turret in Alderaan once it was taken to guard it and call out if the enemy tried to take it.. Everyone sorting out who was guarding the healer, the main focus of attacks and generally being coordinated. Those times are actually quite fun. Heh, and now I've even seen similar approaches used during Hutball matches.

Finally got around to my first batch of PvP yesterday. Went in with my Smuggler on the Republic side, and it wasn't too bad. Although, I will say the amount of Sith Sorcerer's and the rather large number of assorted Lightning stuns/interrupts is a serious pain on some of the warzones. If you've got a group of people willing to coordinate to some extent you can have a fair bit of fun. It's those couple of times no-one wants to try any strategy and just rush around killing folks that it really falls apart.

Hm, I wouldn't say the sci-fi genre in literature has declined. There are still plenty of damn good authors writing sci-fi across the whole spectrum - from Military sci-fi to space opera to hard sci-fi and in between. Look at Baen publishing for one collection of damn good authors. Weber, Ringo, Drake, Flint and the like... For the non-Baen authors, the like of L E Modesitt is still producing some in-depth sci-fi, same with Mike Resnick and Mike Shepherd who tend to cover the military/exploration sci-fi more then anything else.

Its pretty much a couple of pages of Vega getting into a bar fight, then a page of Anderson arriving to put a stop to it, then a page of Anderson telling Vega to get over it, soldier on, and oh, by the way, you're going to be the guy guarding the prisoner known as Shephard. Then it ends. Not much of a tie in, or even any real explanation of other events.

We have a knack for absorbing folks into the cultural mish-mash that is England and the UK.. After all, they lived in England, there were.. 15 kings I believe of the line. With the amount of bloodlines mixing in with the aristocracy, you don't think there's still a chunk of the family around?.. Actually I think one of the current Dukes is supposed to be descended from the Plantagenets on the wrong side of the blankets.

On the offhand side of things.. the ratings of "mentally ill people" are probably higher in America then elsewhere.. due to several important factors. Notably, they have a whole lot more shrinks at work, who "identify" these various neuroses and wotnot as mental illness. And the customer base in America is more likely to go see a shrink and get analysed and therapy... Compared to a lot of other countries.. who don't tend to try recognising personal issues as mental illness. So they don't build statistics up about them...

Well, historically speaking we did have a big claim to the north of France in the last millenia...

Ah, I think the censor has cut out a section of that url. Just look for Kuznetsov Hijacking, and recognise the Dym**** that the forums here censor.

I have to admit, I'm tempted to try getting in a quick play through of ME2 just to have another potential save game with different decisions on it... But I'll have to see how the next couple of weeks progress and how much time I have available...

The one that I'm finding a wee bit amusing is that in-game, apparently Jack Actually, has anyone figured out the time frame between ME2 - Arrival - ME3? Are we talking days, weeks, months, or a year+ ?

The islanders are about 70% decended from UK citizens, there's just over 3,000 people living on the island, and they've been firmly saying they're part of the UK for a loooong time. The oil is something that's cropped up since the 80's. In fact, Argentina suddenly withdrew from a treaty between the UK and Argentina over how the oil should be exploited a few years back. Hell, in the Argentine-inspired poll back in the 90's, around 87% of the islanders were not in favour of even any discussion with Argentina over the question of sovereignity.

The Prothean VI you talk to in ME1, actually talks about the Reapers targeting "advanced organic life" if I recall. Which, when combined with the whole.. leaving the Mass Relays around as it helps guide species into developing specific technologies..which the Reapers know how to deal with, makes more sense of the theory they only bother with species at a specific stage of evolution/advancement. And since they are supposed to be somewhat smart, I'm pretty sure they'd figure in the whole "don't eat your feed stock" concept that most competent farmers/ranchers know...

Not a movie.. but they had the final ever episode of Hustle tonight. A nicely done episode with a couple of returning faces, and a con that came down to a redone version of the Sting once more.. It's always quirky to have a show that every now and then breaks the 4th wall by having cast talk directly to the camera.

For the potential Spoiler...

If you're smuggling pot in a Cessna.. don't fly in front of Air Force One... http://www.latimes.c...7,0,82682.story

I have to admit, the recent spate of news over the Falklands is being a tad irksome. http://www.dailymail...tick-views.html http://www.huffingto..._n_1281143.html http://www.bbc.co.uk...gazine-17045169 - What are the Competing Claims? The fact that the islands have been under UK rule since before Argentina existed as a country, and the majority of the population there want to remain under UK rule.. seems to me a good reason to question why they should suddenly get turned over to another country. Sean Penn has done that wonderful thing, saying that the UK is showing old-school colonialism by keeping the islands.. I have to wonder does that mean he also thinks Hawaii should be handed off ? Or that all of his homes across America should be returned to the Native Americans who used to have possession of the land several centuries ago? Instead he's happy spouting off that "The world today is not going to tolerate any ludicrous and archaic commitment to colonialist ideology," - Which pretty much seems to be what the Argentines are doing. The UK is supporting the right of the people living on the Islands to choose who they want. Maybe it's my cynical nature, but I do get the feeling that the Argentine President is using the hot button of the Falklands to help distract folks from domestic issues...

Gibbed's Save Game Editor. Doesn't have any plot flags from ME2. Looks like he quit pretty early. I can't find anything to say if the save did a romance or what happened to Collector Base. There's an updated version as well I believe, one of the other bioware community members added some functionality. Look for "modified gibbed" or some such. I'm not sure exactly how it got expanded though, or whether it just cleans up what was already there. Edit: http://social.bioware.com/project/4373/

Something from the Art of the Mass Effect Universe book - The "Reaper Destroyers" that are actually doing most of the "landing on planets" in ME3 are actually only around 160 meters tall/long. As compared to Sovereign's 2km.... So there's possibilities on just how Reapers are divided into what sort of categories/purpose, and how powerful or not. I would imagine that Sovereign might be an ultra-powerful Reaper because of the role he was supposed to play in regards to the Reaper-Plans... We don't know how Harbringer relates to Sovereign, since he was only around as a presence possessing Collectors..

The question of whether its an action movie or a romance one.. Either way, it is quite good.