2 Jun 2013

Miura Bull's Guide to the Galaxy #1 Scrams

Miura Bull's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of scrams.





(The Guide assumes you have fully read and understood the section titled: Subject of PvP Jargon Busting, Slang Words, Acronyms and other such Terminology. If not, go read it, or alternatively, let it be known that a scram is a Warp Scrambler.)

A scram, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar combat pilot can have. Partly it has great practical value — you can overheat it for warmth as you bound across the cold stargates of the Great Wildlands region; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble‐polished hangar floors of Sendaya V, inhaling the heady fuel vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the barren world of Egbinger I; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy rivers of Black Rise; snap bits off of it for use in hand‐to‐hand‐combat; jump inside it to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Smartbomblaster Beasts of Rancer and Amamake (a mindbogglingly stupid bunch, they assume that if you can't see them, they can't see you — daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can burn out your scram in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course use it as a radiator to dry yourself off with if it still seems to be hot enough.


More importantly, a scram has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a non-capsuleer (non-capsuleer: the mortals, the squishy kind of you and me) discovers that an interstellar combat pilot has his scram with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of an afterburner, washcloth, soap, tin of standard exile boosters, flask, directional scanner, map, ball of string, space gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc, etc. Furthermore, the non-capsuleer will then happily lend the interstellar combat pilot any of these or a dozen other items that the pilot might have accidentally "lost". What the non-capsuleer will think is that any man that can fly the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible gatecamps, win through and still know where his scram is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Furthermore, when traversing the warp core stabilizer infested lands of faction warfare, the canny interstellar combat pilot will always carry extra scrams in his cargohold for emergency uses. Such as in this example shown here.



MB.




1 comment:

  1. Why do people still bother fitting 2 WCS to their ship...
    Everyone knows you need at least 3 WCS to warp off against a faction scram or when pointed and scrammed.

    ReplyDelete