Giled Pallaeon

15 May 2025

Reposting so I can pin this. Below is part of a thread I wrote including my Watsonian redefinition of the term “Star Destroyer”

Giled Pallaeon@giledpallaeon.bsky.social

Previous type entries have made note of the appropriate deployment of a particular type, with special regard to campaign operations. Star Destroyer as defined here overrides those generalized parameters. It is the assessment of [Redacted] to append the designation “Star Destroyer”…

This is my reflexive answer and everything else on the short list is from the same game.

Micah@rincewind.run

had to be me someone else might have gotten it wrong

And to be clear, it probably doesn’t land nearly as hard without the work ME2 does to set it up. But now when ME3 goes for the swing, it’s got a smooth straight fastball practically aimed at the bat.

I have said this before and I will gladly die on this hill: FemShep is *wildly superior* to MaleShep. There’s like one line in ME2, *out of the whole trilogy*, he does better.

Ash vs the Evil Dead@ashflanagan.bsky.social

I feel like all the Bioware retrospectives have not yet dwelt enough on what an absolute watershed Femshep was in terms of female playable protagonists

I don’t know if it’s benign neglect (I don’t think it is by the end, certainly), but you could write essays about the evolution from Bastilla of KotOR to FemShep and eventually Miranda bsky.app/profile/ashf...

Ash vs the Evil Dead@ashflanagan.bsky.social

They didn't give Femshep different dialogue or animations from the ones designed for male Shepard, so she talks like someone who expects to be listened to and moves like someone unafraid to take up space.

Bastilla is treated as powerful but unstable due to her inexperience (and isn’t POV). Then Shepard wanders in as Space Delta Force, kicking incredible amounts of ass just because she can. And Miranda, arguably the closer comparison, while sexualized is portrayed just as competent & nearly as deadly

Additional ideas and/or requirements: - Have an actual list of how you’re going to staff the Building. There are ~4000 politicals; if you think any job is stupid, have a plan to disestablish it and move its responsibilities rather than leave a hole.

Mike Black@mikeblack114.bsky.social

To-do list for SD Mayor Pete and DSD Uncle Frank (and the transition team): - at 1201 rip down the stupid fucking sign, regardless of whether Congress has officially changed the name (not looking good for the 27 NDAA lol) - at 1202 issue orders to rename all the confederate bases back*

- Probably rip out this “wargame” component of O-7 selection assessments. It’s almost certainly garbage, but this can also be an opportunity to figure out how to rework that process entirely to disincentivize picks prone to the “Tactical General” phenomenon.

- Have a plan for what to do about Golden Dome, other than but including a better fucking name. There are parts of that program that need to die, but the threat to CONUS from non-nuclear threats is real and growing.

Mike Black@mikeblack114.bsky.social

- It should go without saying but doesn’t, your staff needs to know ball, know how to work a bureaucracy, and know how to row together. This OSD is hilariously disconnected and that has been a key factor in their ineffectiveness. - Rescind the (AIUI illegal) restrictions on civ professors…

@binyizdabbalah.bsky.social

At the Service Academies, while simultaneously looking into accountability for not protecting the academic integrity of their courses and measures to strengthen those defenses in the future. If this has extended to the SSCs, rinse and repeat.

Giled Pallaeon reposted

Binyizdabbalah

Replying to @shawnt.bsky.social

I had no idea Ukrainian toddlers were his enemies.

I am self-redacting my comments on EA on the advice of counsel. To BioWare, you did good. My hat’s off to you.

Wario64@wario64.bsky.social

BioWare statement

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Lazare

@lazare.bsky.social

Bioware forever.

@abeardedpanda.bsky.social

*reviews other letters home* *numerous letters from Federal soldiers home mid-conflict suddenly expressing a desire to annihilate the Confederacy for its crimes against humanity after encountering chattel slavery in person* Abstractions my ass

Adam Serwer@adamserwer.bsky.social

"armies don't fight for abstractions." -- The losing army

Giled Pallaeon reposted

Sam (ABeardedPanda)

Replying to @abeardedpanda.bsky.social

What's even funnier is Russian intellectuals and leadership extremely specifically believe the history of the Russian state is an unbroken continuity that goes all the way back to the 800s where the main problem with that whole Soviet Union detour was the part where it collapsed

Something I don’t advertise much is that among other things I was a Russia guy in undergrad. I can’t claim any special expertise in Russia to match a PhD, but I’m going to try my best to explain something about that culture. Russia as a culture is a badly damaged. The tale of Russian history…

Yen-han Chen 陳彥翰 🇹🇼🇺🇸🇺🇦@chen-yenhan.bsky.social

gonna drop some geopolitics inside baseball: a dictator of a nuclear power is not an “uwu smol bean”

The world cannot allow the possession of nuclear weapons, or any WMD, or any fear, historically founded or otherwise, to be the excuse under which a great power may unilaterally impose its will on anyone else. This is (one of) the reason I stand with Taiwan, the reason I stand with Ukraine,…

And the reason I wish the United States would do even anything more in its power to ensure Ukrainian victory in their War of Independence. I can’t promise that defeat will break the disease gripping Russian national security thought. But I see no reason to let that disease destroy Ukraine.

Yen-han Chen 陳彥翰 🇹🇼🇺🇸🇺🇦@chen-yenhan.bsky.social

gonna drop some geopolitics inside baseball: a dictator of a nuclear power is not an “uwu smol bean”

The Russian fear of invasion has repeatedly turned into lashing outward, creating ever-larger buffers of Russian territory and vassal states that answer to Moscow to protect it. This is where the obsession with Ukrainian and Georgian NATO membership originates.

Unfortunately for them, it is in both America’s and Europe’s strategic interest and our moral interest that Russia not be allowed to trample neighboring powers’ right to self-determination because of their fear. Nuclear weapons do not change that fact, on either side.

Yen-han Chen 陳彥翰 🇹🇼🇺🇸🇺🇦@chen-yenhan.bsky.social

gonna drop some geopolitics inside baseball: a dictator of a nuclear power is not an “uwu smol bean”

This is why, among many other examples, the highest priority of the Soviet Navy was the creation and protection of a survivable second strike capability. Russian governments are obsessed with security because so many of them have been destroyed. This is why they fear NATO.

From a Russian POV, NATO looks like another force with the strength to topple Russia again. Unfortunately for the Russians, I don’t *fucking* care. Their fear should not be allowed to dictate what someone else has the right to, including the right to association *with someone else.*

Yen-han Chen 陳彥翰 🇹🇼🇺🇸🇺🇦@chen-yenhan.bsky.social

gonna drop some geopolitics inside baseball: a dictator of a nuclear power is not an “uwu smol bean”

Is two intertwining threads of suffering from their own government and from foreign powers’ invasions, against a backdrop of continental imperialism, both on tremendous scale. That scale of suffering is why from the outside the Russians can appear fatalistic or nihilistic as a bloc.

What their geography tells you is that they’re devastatingly easy to invade. Vast flat plains with little meaningful geographic defense. Only its sheer size can be weaponized, as it was with the Russian winter against Napoleon. But the French (& Cossacks) still destroyed huge swathes of the country.

Exceptions can be made for those who grow out of realism. I know people who have. On the opposite we have Mearsheimer, a worthy creator of the dumb person’s idea of a smart idea as a dumb person’s idea of a smart person.

Yen-han Chen 陳彥翰 🇹🇼🇺🇸🇺🇦@chen-yenhan.bsky.social

Realism is a dumb person’s idea of a smart person’s idea.

Giled Pallaeon reposted

Yen-han Chen 陳彥翰 🇹🇼🇺🇸🇺🇦

@chen-yenhan.bsky.social

Replying to @philadelphiensis.bsky.social

Realism is a dumb person’s idea of a smart person’s idea.

washingtonpost.comArmy finalizes plans to return Confederate statue to Arlington National CemeteryThe Confederate Memorial was removed from the military burial grounds in 2023.

The Federal Government, the one that raised, funded, and sent into battle the armies that killed the traitorous defenders of slavery this object memorializes should be the last line of defense *preventing* this horseshit

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com

The Trump administration has moved forward with its effort to return the Confederate Memorial to the Arlington National Cemetery next year.

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Jill Sargent Russell, PhD

@jsargentr.bsky.social

"Harm"? No. A minor price to pay to support Ukraine's self defense? Well below the least we should be doing. We could bear so much more in support of Ukraine, and that we aren't will be a political and strategic error for the ages.

MAKS 26 👀🇺🇦@maks23.bsky.social

🇺🇸🫠 Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev: More and more Americans, including within the administration, understand that sanctions harm the US itself. I can confirm today's news that the U.S. Treasury Department asked the Russian Direct Investment Fund to help with the diesel deal…

I want to be clear: there are no processes within the Building for transferring OSC funds to other parts of the Department. That’s not how any of this works, under the law or in practice either. Any use of this *nominal* pathway will leave an auditable trail of illegality.

This post is unavailable.

That is an all time great community note to a post of all time. No I didn’t miss a second adjective.

brasidas@brasidas.bsky.social

"Well, 'MacArthurian Übermensch,' I wonder why you are a moron...

share.googleAnduril Unveils Steelfin Family Of Modular Surface-To-Air MissilesAnduril aims to produce Steelfin interceptors at scale by leveraging common components that can be configured for different threats.

I want to emphasize Mike’s points: this isn’t going to work. The missile itself might work. But this list of common bits is all the expensive bits other than the seeker. And if your plan is to build one missile capable of PD against a YJ-83 and terminal against a DF-26B, you’re nuts.

Mike Black@mikeblack114.bsky.social

like this is straight up impossible, but anduril legit doesn't think that, they think this is something they can actually do (with appropriate graft built in ofc) Anduril Unveils Steelfin Family Of Modular Surface-To-Air Missiles share.google/h2Z9JmS9Xu5j...

Either one is wild overkill. Or the other has near zero Pk. GP, is that their claimed range? Sure is. (They’ll probably hedge on the -26, but tbh if you can’t hit that, I’m not sure how much I care about you as a BMD effector.)

Creating a new thread: his point about using car factories (which AFAIK he doesn’t understand either) is usually the “logical” follow up to the assertion “You can’t build [exquisite] fast enough”. And that’s probably true. But here’s my question: did the conditions that demanded esquire change?

Giled Pallaeon@giledpallaeon.bsky.social

Still waiting for anyone to explain how the energy density of subterranean vehicles works, or how I can use the Nissan factory in the South to build a cruise missile that can hit anything at all. (He’s got the causality backwards AIUI.)

I’m pretty sure the answer here is somewhere between “No” and “Not enough”. And if that’s the case, the strategy question is now “How can I build near-exquisite faster/cheaper?” And my question is how the hell is Honda supposed to help? Because we all know the actual limfac is probably subcomponente

bit.lyAnduril’s Palmer Luckey envisions missiles made in car factories, underground battlesAnduril founder and co-leader of the newly formed Project Meridian gave a sneak peek into what he sees as the future of war.

Military Times@militarytimes.bsky.social

bit.ly/4yIHAYF

I’d be interested in evidence of these alleged Soviet experiments (mostly because I don’t believe they exist), but “The Soviets tried it” is a terrible reason to do anything. They threw more money longer at psychics than we did.

Giled Pallaeon reposted

Dan Ryan

@danryan17.bsky.social

Replying to @sodrock.bsky.social

kyivpost.comZelensky Says Ukraine Got No Partner Warning Before 5 Russian Ballistic Missiles Hit Kyiv CiviliansHe also accused Moscow of ignoring a US-backed energy ceasefire appeal, saying 19 regions came under attack in two days.

This is fundamentally the same problem as getting NATO states to buy AEW and aerial refueling, which only some have, and at very limited scales. There are a bunch of capes in the U.S. toolkit because we can afford that multiplier Are we seriously suggesting a Ukrainian OPIR?

Joerg Lau@joerglau.bsky.social

The big issue for European (Asian, Middle Eastern) security policy for the years to come: derisking from the US. The experience of vulnerabiliy (not just by the enemy, but the ally), unites the Ukrainian experience with Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. www.kyivpost.com/post/86904

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Micah

@rincewind.run

as a card carrying nerd I don’t think there is any single individual who makes me want to say “shut up, nerd” more often than palmer luckey

Mother Jones@motherjones.com

To "revel in the death of those who truly deserve it...is normal, good, and aligned with our natural and national order," Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey wrote on X.

motherjones.comPete Hegseth's firing squad livestream has fans in the defense industryCo-founders of Palantir and defense tech firm Anduril are defending "public and brutal" executions.

My extremely hot take is that this is closer to Starfleet than a lot of people are ready to hear.

Noah Weinberger@noahweinberger2003.bsky.social

“Hey Noah explain your politics” Noah:

My related petty take is that A Quality of Mercy is an all-time ST episode, but it’s a meditation on this fact, that Starfleet is a military for a reason. The fact that it made Those People^ Very Mad only made it better in my eyes.

@badsocialism.bsky.social

This is why at this point I firmly of the belief the appropriate WMD/arms control shorthand for AI is bioweapons. These things are proving uncontrollable, unpredictable, and possessed of a nasty boomerang habit.

Micah@rincewind.run

if your agents are going to commit crimes, you are legally responsible if you cannot figure out how to prevent your agents from doing crimes, you’re going to have to choose between releasing them and protecting yourself from criminal liability imo this would do more for “ai safety” than a sex cult

Giled Pallaeon reposted

Roman Sheremeta

@rshereme.bsky.social

“Russians changed my mind about russia.” An emotional video of a Canadian volunteer. Warring: there is profanity in the video.

Giled Pallaeon reposted

John C

I do find that many of my progressive and leftist friends are, in fact, kind of incapable of considering that my research on war doesn't mean I think it was fun

Dan Kaszeta FRHistS@dankaszeta.bsky.social

You can be an expert on things you are opposed to. Just because you have knowledge of something and can explain it in detail, it does not necessarily follow that you are a proponent of them