The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Better Guns for Dresden and Co.
Sully:
But anyway, the real reason I'm against all this is because I don't want to pick up a Dresden book and have to skip paragraphs of gun porn.
groinkick:
I don't mind seeing firepower from wizards. I think Jim has a pretty good balance throughout the books. I could maybe see Harry meeting a special ops group who specialize in guns because their role is to target creatures where guns are actually a preferred weapon to magic. Some sort of close quarters combat where speed is preferred to magic.
Kincaid has shown that guns are effective, even if not as "powerful" as magic.
Shift8:
--- Quote from: Sully on July 19, 2017, 05:48:46 AM ---I don't really agree-people who learn multiple skills to a professional or elite level are exceedingly rare.
In the US military, you probably not going to be pursuing an engineering degree while serving in a combat unit. If you're in med school as active duty-THAT is your job, not preparing for/fighting war.
Some NBA players pursue degrees in summer, but not during the season. And being in the playoffs wouldn't allow summer classes either. For NCAA players in major sports, actually getting a good education is an aberration, not the norm.
Sure a bit of versatility is always welcome. But your average wizard is likely better served by becoming a better wizard, rather than worrying about 'muggle' skills.
I'll offer a real world example as a rebuttal: the minimum salary in the NBA is over $400000. Is an NBA player better served by finishing that accounting degree, or becoming a better basketball player and chasing a max contract(20 million+ a season).
--- End quote ---
Ill counter with my own real world example.
Its not really rare at all. I dont know the exact percentage, but a large portion of military members pursue degrees in STEM fields while also being in combat units. When it comes to officers, this is actually the norm, since they must have a college degree in almost all cases. Officers with combat MOS specialties have degrees in just about everything. It is pretty common if not the majority case that Army officer's degrees have nothing to do with their military job. I myself am a Combat Engineer and I am currently pursuing a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Many many military personnel in combat jobs pursue college degrees, often in difficult fields. An Infantryman I knew on deployment had a PhD, another was a Lawyer. An officer I knew who ran our Operations section (planning and controlling all our missions) was a Navy helicopter pilot who had a degree in Mechanical engineering. Hows that for multi-specialty? Its fairly common.
The wizards we are talking about live for centuries, and have money out the wazoo. They pretty much have nothing but time and cash to blow. They have many times the capacity of a normal mortal to obtain many different skills.
Not to mention that acquiring low level tactical competency is not that difficult, especially since most of the people you will ever go up against will also be in that category of skill. And given all the time the wizards have, not to mention all the combat experience, they could/should be operator as all get out.
Quantus:
--- Quote from: Shift8 on July 19, 2017, 08:15:25 AM ---Ill counter with my own real world example.
Its not really rare at all. I dont know the exact percentage, but a large portion of military members pursue degrees in STEM fields while also being in combat units. When it comes to officers, this is actually the norm, since they must have a college degree in almost all cases. Officers with combat MOS specialties have degrees in just about everything. It is pretty common if not the majority case that Army officer's degrees have nothing to do with their military job. I myself am a Combat Engineer and I am currently pursuing a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Many many military personnel in combat jobs pursue college degrees, often in difficult fields. An Infantryman I knew on deployment had a PhD, another was a Lawyer. An officer I knew who ran our Operations section (planning and controlling all our missions) was a Navy helicopter pilot who had a degree in Mechanical engineering. Hows that for multi-specialty? Its fairly common.
The wizards we are talking about live for centuries, and have money out the wazoo. They pretty much have nothing but time and cash to blow. They have many times the capacity of a normal mortal to obtain many different skills.
Not to mention that acquiring low level tactical competency is not that difficult, especially since most of the people you will ever go up against will also be in that category of skill. And given all the time the wizards have, not to mention all the combat experience, they could/should be operator as all get out.
--- End quote ---
Thank you! I /felt/ like this should be the case, but I dont have enough personal exposure to actual military life (or anything reasonably comparable) enough to articulate it.
PS Am I the only one seeing a huge block of empty space at the end of your post?
Shift8:
--- Quote from: Quantus on July 19, 2017, 12:01:25 PM ---Thank you! I /felt/ like this should be the case, but I dont have enough personal exposure to actual military life (or anything reasonably comparable) enough to articulate it.
PS Am I the only one seeing a huge block of empty space at the end of your post?
--- End quote ---
np, and yeah I was wondering about that too. No idea what happened. I did lose internet connection while I was typing that so maybe that did it.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version