Recent content by chulbert

You're not missing anything, you're just not considering just how easily word of mouth can spread or how easily someone might become suspicious. Someone doesn't always need Detect Telepathy to recognize a telepath using their abilities. Perhaps a nearby telepath hears a commotion and goes to...

You're right. I didn't pay close enough attention. I don't have my book with me (here at work, hehe) so I can't comment on the class's specific weaknesses but a high-profile telepath that would rather fry you than look at you will gain some notoriety. There's always the chance someone...

You are absolutely correct. In Crusade it was the Psionic Monitoring Commission that conducted the audits. I'm not sure if the Corps performed anything comparable. I think the general comment still stands, however. Strong telepaths have a lot of individual weaknesses as well as strong...

If your telepath is a member of Psi Corp, they are subject to periodic reviews during which they must submit completely to full scans from a superior officer to determine if they have breached the Corp's code of conduct. The penalties for those breaches are severe and not to be taken lightly...

You have to account for size and scope. The Vorlons and Shadows, both ancient races with galactic influence, probably have very loose definitions of inactive. The shadows were "laying low" but they weren't hibernating, and from our perspective even "laying low" leaves a lot of room for major...

Yes and no. You're right that things aren't so simple. It's not as if the outer 10 cm are peeled off and the 11th cm looks like nothing happens and remains cool to the touch. Some of the heat will be conducted by the metal to greater depts. However, the radiation only lasts about a...

Sure, we can haggle over the temperature of the metal, but in the end it doesn't matter very much. The energy absorbed heating the metal is peanuts compared to the energy absorbed vaporizing it.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. I don't think I've ever tried to change the laws of physics.

First, some physical and mathematical constants and formulas that you can look up anywhere. a) 1 megaton releases 4.184 x 10^15 joules of energy. b) Specific heat of iron is 0.44 joules per gram degree Kelvin. c) Atomic volume of iron is 7.1 cubic centimeters per mole. d) Surface area of a...

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that nukes do nothing in space. They, in fact, release the same amount of energy as you stated. However, instead of creating a shockwave and fireball, nukes in space shower everything in radiation directly. This changes the scenario in several ways. While...

That's fair, though I could rebut with the fact that B5 is supposed to be grounded in reality to a far greater degree than most science fiction. Anyways, hopefully people will at least find it marginally interesting to learn that nukes behave so differently in space. Be well.

Unfortunately, the characteristics of nuclear weapons change drastically in the vacuum of space. This is one of the things the show got Very Wrong. First, blast disappears completely without an atmosphere. This means there's no shockwave, which typically accounts for 40%-60% of a weapon's...

Natxomann, In regard to Minbari, JMS has stated on the record that, "Minbari can easily live to about 140 or so." An upper bound of 100+2d10 therefore sounds a bit conservative.

Shadow energy beams "...always deal 1d3 critical hits in addition to normal damage." As I read it it, it's 1d3 * 2 + 1 damage rolls per hit, which ranges, on average, from about 1650 to 3850 points. I'm not saying that it sounds high or low, I just want to know if that's correct.