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   Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 02:41:14 JST Charlie Stross

   I can't help wanting JUST ONCE to read a novel whereby the dragon riders are sent to invade a kingdom in another universe only there's been a fuck-up and the locals have got NASAMS-3 air defense missile batteries https://c.im/@puf/113515885912141411

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     zip (zip@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 03:06:32 JST zip

     in reply to

     @cstross that's be the rather cursed anime GATE, which is about how awesome the JSDF would be at war and also about this one guy who just constantly picks up girls from long-lived species who look like they're fourteen

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 03:18:15 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • cpm

     @cpm No NASAMS-3, only Eurofighter

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     cpm (cpm@spore.social)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 03:18:16 JST cpm

     in reply to

     @cstross
     wait
     didn't you write that?

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     Cadbury Moose (cadbury_moose@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 03:21:44 JST Cadbury Moose

     in reply to

     @cstross You did it with Starstreak though... 3:O)>

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     Ergative Absolutive (ergative@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 05:44:47 JST Ergative Absolutive

     in reply to

     @cstross This is kinda what Rick Cook did in The Wizardry Cursed.

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 09:09:01 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Lady of Mystery and Science

     @demi I had to research this a decade ago (for a novel with dragons v. Eurofighters): turns out modern IR seekers aren't simple heat seekers, they're actually IR cameras with image recognition firmware and enough brains to know where to detonate the warhead for maximum impact.

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     Lady of Mystery and Science (demi@xeno.glyphpress.com)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 09:09:03 JST Lady of Mystery and Science

     in reply to

     @cstross
     Air defense systems are usually radar or thermal guided, and I suspect dragons+rider doesn’t carry enough metal to trigger the radar, and doesn’t have a high enough heat sig to be considered a missile.

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 09:12:35 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • cerement

     @cerement Sounds like a straight rip-off of Black Friday/The Day After Judgement by James Blish, which date to the 1960s …

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     cerement (cerement@social.targaryen.house)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 09:12:39 JST cerement

     in reply to

     @cstross

     there’s Stuart Slade’s *Salvation War* series (LiveJournal plus US-military-fuck-yeah writing) – God declares Armageddon, Hell invades Earth, but technology has advanced just a little in the last couple millennia

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     blades (blades@mastodon.online)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 09:18:19 JST blades

     in reply to

     @cstross there's something along those lines in Mary Gentle's 'Grunts': https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunts!
     In that one, a troop of orcs steal weapons from a cursed dragon's hoard - the curse is that they turn into whatever they steal. Unfortunately for their high fantasy world, the dragon was pan-dimensional and hoarded a bunch of US Army weaponry... So think high elves vs orcs armed with rocket launchers and attack helicopters acting like Marines.

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 09:18:19 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • blades

     @blades You don't need to point me at the wikipedia article for a book I own a signed first-edition hardcover of (bought at time of publication).

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     Rob Landley (landley@mstdn.jp)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 09:22:24 JST Rob Landley

     in reply to

     @cstross It's an anime called "Gate" from 2017. It's on hulu in the states. Quite good actually, if you don't mind the barely sublimated cultural assertions bobbing just below the surface.

     https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4958580/

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 09:22:24 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Rob Landley

     @landley On a related WTF note, there's the (current-ish) Anime series coming out of Japan, "Suicide Squad Isekai". Which contains EXACTLY what it says on the tin ...

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     Dr Andrew A. Adams #FBPE 🔶 (a_cubed@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 20:59:55 JST Dr Andrew A. Adams #FBPE 🔶

     in reply to

     • blades

     @cstross @blades Hmm, I still remember a conversation with you and Mary at a con sometime in the 90s about sysadmining as the basis of a fantasy quest. I definitely get the feeling that some of those concepts worked their way into the Laundry Files.

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 20:59:55 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Dr Andrew A. Adams #FBPE 🔶
     • blades

     @a_cubed @blades Probably! But I don't remember that conversation, so it's probably just part of the background sensibility.