#bridge nerds

[contentment-of-cats]

WIP bit 18

"Agral! Pyro!" Lomar bellows across the room. "We ordered - come eat!"

Yindan's is an old haunt of academy days. Platters of food and pitchers of premises-brewed ale beckon those who've had only mess-hall food for an entire deployment. The midshipmen scurry out of the way of actual officers and Ilyana asks when they started making the cadets this damn young.

"They all look... twelve," Jashin says, breaking the crowd in front of them while Ilyana picks up four pitchers from the counter and follows.

Half the Chimaera's bridge is tucked into a round corner table piled high with platters of finger foods and emptied pitchers of brew. They are made welcome, plates filled, and ale poured. The Ascension Games have come and gone, leaving the Chimaerans much to celebrate, but little time to do it in. Tonight might be the only night out as Thrawn and Faro are tucked up with Colonel Yularen at ISB headquarters instead of the usual amount of voluntold socializing at the Allisandre, the Diplomat, and the Admiralty Tower.

The crew is jammed hip to hip and in some places in each other's laps. Yissa wraps an arm over and gives her a kiss. "What kept?"

"A bunch of Royal and Skystrike fucknuts who wanted to know how a 'girl' managed to beat the boots off them in an undergunned Arquetiens instead of an ISD." Ilyana rolls her eyes. "With men, it's always about size."

"Oi. Some of us get by on skill." On Coruscant, Ilyana was Jashin's beard to his family - who all but disowned him when he reupped his commission last time. "Lots and lots of skill. Loads of it."

"And modesty, too." Major Quach leaned over and swiped some bokbok wings. "Got room for the other side of things, bridge ladies?"

"He's jealous that we've got the best looking and deadliest fems in the district," Yve sniffed. "Help me unfold the rest of this table if you want to sit."

The table went from a half-round to a full circle, and benches extended to make more seating. Ilyana was too busy eating as she always got the whimwhams before an engagement.

"Pyro, you did great." Quach loaded his own plate. "But why an Arquetiens? The ISDs got roasted and cracked, so why go smaller?"

"Like I said, bigger isn't better. You have to have someone focused on getting the job done instead of swanking around." Thrawn would get it. "If you can't get it done with a big ship, you're not going to get it done with a bigger ship."

"Oh? How very interesting. I do enjoy a ripping exchange of ideas with my former students." That soft, querulous voice shot a bolt of freezing cold down her spine. "Pyrondi - thesis, please."

Oh. Fuck. Me.

The entire naval section of the table looked fit to piss themselves as Pyrondi turned to behold Professor Partagaz in the white tunic and black trousers of the ISB. "Major Partagaz, sir."

The man stood, relocated himself to an empty chair, and sat with a smile. "You were a quiet one back then, Senior Lieutenant, and I read your promotion board thesis. It was quite impressive. I expect no less of you now. Thesis, please."

[fr4nc1sss]

Vulpes doodle

[lacebird]

okay time to do another character battle

reblog for larger sample size!

[novafire-is-thinking]

Something ive realised while rewatching tfp clips

Soundwave is only able to open portals willy nilly cus the mechanism for space bridge technology is on the nemesis, not him. he can only connect to it and make it open portals (which makes me wish Astrotrain was in the show cus I wonder if he would have this tech as well to help with travelling)

My source? When Soundwave is sent out to get a relic of Iacon and alserbeak gets hurt. Once Laserbeak sends his distress signal Soudnwave even forgoes taking out Wheeljack and just leaves immediately to get his partner, but he didn't use a spacebridge, despite the alternative being much quicker and immediate to retrieve Laserbeak. The best answer we have is that he couldn't create a bridge between their two locations because the nemesis was too far to recieve his commands to make one

In Shockwave's hunt for a predacon bone Soundwave arrives at the scene and is able to summon another bridge to let the falling bone piece fall into Megatron's hand. This scene shows bridges are made by commands through him, and there's a limited but large range distance Soundwave is able to make bridges outside the ship

And perhaps bridges can be timed or just made to hold open? because the first bridge remained for quite some time till both mecha ran back in

How dare you question Soundwave’s abilities /lh

When I first watched TFP, I assumed that was indeed the case, but I happen to have an interesting personal take on this.

Why Soundwave Wouldn’t Take a Ground Bridge Directly to Laserbeak

In reality, the writers went that way for the purpose of suspense. They needed to give Ratchet and Raf time to load Laserbeak. Also, the badass shot of Soundwave landing in the dark lol

For plot reasons that still bug me, Laserbeak wasn’t able to tell Soundwave that Ratchet was keeping him captive and had literally violated his body.*

Soundwave only received a generic distress call. He didn’t know if Wheeljack had come alone. For all he knew, the Wrecker could have called for backup in the form of the entirety of Team Prime, who may have set up a trap for him. Soundwave’s a tactical genius—he knows what others know about him. He would have known Team Prime would be expecting him to come via ground bridge.

Yes, Soundwave knew Laserbeak was in danger, but he also knew the Mini-Con was alive. He would have calculated the odds and selected the route at the intersection of the least risk and best potential outcome.

Overall, arriving via direct ground bridge would have been riskier than flying in. At least from the air, he could assess the situation before walking into a potential trap. He’s good, but not take-on-all-of-Team-Prime-at-once good.

Also…

Wheeljack: “I’m sorry.”

Ratchet: “What’s wrong? Where are you?”

Wheeljack: “Uh. Figure you got maybe…two minutes.”

Ratchet: *sees Soundwave flying in*

Ratchet: “Or less…”

Maybe Wheeljack’s estimate really was that bad.

Maybe Soundwave is faster than he looks.

OR

Maybe Soundwave used a ground bridge sometime during the flight, but far enough away from Laserbeak’s location so that he could still assess potential danger from the air.

*This plot hole still bugs me. If Laserbeak had just told Soundwave he’d been loaded up with a grenade and infected with a virus, the Autobots would have lost the race for the relics. You had ONE job Laserbeak! 😡 /lh

Ground Bridge Limitations

I present this glorious clip:

Based on Fix-It’s reaction and everything we’ve seen about ground and space bridges, only one portal at a time can be opened from a single bridge mechanism.

It’s reasonable to assume that when Prowl and Bluestreak engineered the first space and ground bridges (The Covenant of Primus), they found out very quickly that more than one portal per bridge was a bad idea. They would have then ensured that all bridge apparatuses were engineered with these limitations in mind.

However, nothing prevents two separate bridges from opening two different portals near each other, as we see in TFP and RiD15.

All this to say, in the clip above, there’s no way the second portal could have been opened from the junkyard’s bridge. It had to have originated from another bridge apparatus (assumed to be built into Soundwave’s body).

But couldn’t Soundwave have just tapped into the junkyard’s bridge from the Shadowzone and hijacked it that way?

Highly unlikely.

Even taking into account inter-dimensional radio waves, nothing would have happened because, like I mentioned earlier, all bridges are likely designed to prevent two portals from opening at once. (Signal blockers, limited power capacity, etc.)

Soundwave would’ve had to have been physically there to restructure the physical ground bridge mechanism, in order to increase its power capacity (among other things). Even so, the implied physics of portal “streams” prevents this.

And anyway, Soundwave is later seen at the controls, linking himself to the junkyard’s ground bridge. This tells me he wasn’t connected to it before, so the portal he originally opened was all him.

Back to TFP

In the Predacon bone scene, at one point, both portals were open at the same time. This means one of them probably originated with Soundwave, unless the Decepticons figured out a way to build a bridge that supports more than one portal.

But even if they had, it would be considered an exception, since many years after the events of Prime, Fix-It and the others still believe two portals from the same bridge mechanism isn’t possible.

So, can Soundwave open bridges on his own or not?

I think it’s likely that the writers intended for him to be limited in his ability to open bridges, lest he be a little too OP. (As if he wasn’t already. lol)

However, what all of those limitations are isn’t 100% clear. The most common take is that he can only open them when linked to a control mechanism, but there’s at least one exception to that in RiD15.

All things considered, I think Soundwave can open bridge portals on his own.

Things to consider when opening portals without a link to an external bridge control:

Energy consumption

If at all possible, Soundwave would avoid opening his own portals when fighting because it uses up a lot of energy—energy that may be needed in unexpected combat. He’s an excellent fighter, but he has limits that he knows very well. Tapping into an existing control mechanism would eliminate the energy drain that comes with opening portals with a personal apparatus built into his body.

Size limitations

Soundwave wouldn’t be able to open massive ground bridges or even space bridges on his own because of his personal energy (energon) reserves and the limited capacity of the smaller apparatus installed in his body.

One at a time

Like all other bridges, Soundwave would only be able to open one portal at a time—hence why he wasn't able to escape from the Shadowzone by himself.

TL;DR Soundwave can probably open ground bridges on his own, but there are limitations.

[onejellyfishplease]

happy birthday to my younger brother who really needs to stop growing for his own good.

people are gonna think hes older than me and thats just... no. stop that. ill kill you.

[winged-wheel]

what is this, a crossover episode?

[radioves]

its quite shrimple actually

[ruth-t]

The most profound connections are those that bridge the gap between two souls, unspoken yet deeply felt.

[queenlua]

my father (basketball strategy autist) is in town & damn this dude could really make some fucking bank as some kind of "basketball commentary for nerds" podcaster or whatever. whenever he commentates a game i feel like i'm watching the most pulse-pounding high-stakes chess game of my life, he is just SEEIN' EVERYTHING in the thirteenth dimension of Strategy And Trickery, it fuckin rules

[lovelydrusilla]

help, another niche ship just dropped

[brooklynbridgebirds]

Bird Nerd Book Club podcast!

Had so much on the Bird Nerd Book Club podcast! Hannah had the most awesome questions to ask me about my latest book, "Find More Birds!"

[yukichouji]

What can I say, this ship basically sails itself.

[secondlifep]

Me playing in black and white ...

[nerds-yearbook]

Solo: A Star Wars Story premiered on May 25th, 2018. The screenplay was by Jonathon and Lawrence Kasdan. Lawrence Kasden had previously scripted the Star Wars films Episode V: The Empire Strikes back, Episode VI The Return of the Jedi, and Episode VII The Force Awakens. There was some debate over who was going to be listed officially as director. Ultimately, Ron Howard, who reshot 80% of the original footage, was given credit and the original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were given executive producer credits. The movie took place between Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story/Episode IV: A New Hope. The movie told how Han Solo (originally played by Harrison Ford, but in this version played by Alden Ehrenreich) left Corellia, joined the Emperial Infantry, met Chewbacca (originally played by Peter Mayhew, but in this version by Joonas Suotamo), became a smuggler, met Lando Calrissian (originally played by Billy Dee Williams, but in this version by Donald Glover), made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, got his hand blaster, got the disguise that Lando would use in Jobba's palace, got the Millinium Falcon, and why the Millinium Falcon had a unique dialogue pattern. The film kept it as a surprise that it also had the first cinematic appearance of Darth Maul (still protrayed by Ray Park and voiced by Sam Witwer) since his supposed death in Episode I: A Phantom Menace. The movie also introduced new characters to the Star Wars cinematic universe such as Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson), Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke), Val (Thandiwe Newton), L3-37 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), Rio Durant (Jon Favreau), Enfys Nest (Erin Kellyman), Lady Proxima (Linda Hunt), Rebolt (Ian Kenny), Korso (John Tui), Weazel (Warwick Davis), Margo (Charlotte Louise), Chanteuse (Sema-Tawi Smart), Ralakili (Clint Howard), Quay Tolsite (Dee Tails), Sagwa (Attila Vajda), Tak (Anthony Daniels), Karjj (Kiran Shah), Eager Scrumrat (Fraser Kelly), Lexi (Lily Newmark), Ottilie (Samantha Colley), and Argus Panox (Derek Arnold). The reaction to the film did not meet expectations and delayed and changed the plans for further theatrical Star Wars Story films. ("Solo: A Star Wars Story", flm, event)

[weeb-cheese]

born to be an anime youtuber, hyper fixated my way into being a dnd youtuber

[blueskyscribe]

Regardless of whether he's called Pablo or Wheeljack or whatever, his face is just awful. Like I'm sorry but the lips looked just as bad on the big screen.

The glasses were extremely unsexy and stupid looking, which is wild b/c how do you do that? How do you make robot glasses unsexy? Any artist here could have done better.