Captain America Falling

[Crakkerjakk]

Alternatively, it operates off of "what would be coolest for Cap to do with his shield right now?"

[lachimba]

Subtitiles in a marvel movie? Brave, I dont recall that before. The germans in the first one had the german as accented english.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by lachimba

Subtitiles in a marvel movie? Brave, I dont recall that before. The germans in the first one had the german as accented english.

X-Men: First Class had German, French, and Russian with subtitles in the early scenes with Magneto and Shaw, in the bank, in Argentina, and Russia.

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

X-Men: First Class had German, French, and Russian with subtitles in the early scenes with Magneto and Shaw, in the bank, in Argentina, and Russia.

Not a Marvel movie. Rather a Fox movie. And with a very dark first half. I dont even remember if the latest batman version pulled off subtitles.

To partially move back toward the original post I would say the marvel movies occupy a Battlefield 2 type of realism. They kind of look authentic, but the enphasis is on fun rather than realism.

So modelling in GURPS should be done on his basis. If a character falls out of an airplane (intentionally or otherwise), well if its fun then there better be a way to land safely. So skill roll sounds right. I think cap has wildcard skills Move! and Shield! at ridiculous levels.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

With a Hollywood costuming department, Batroc could be a believable threat and not look stupid while doing it.

Pity; that misses the point of Batroc, at least the version I grew accustomed to in the late 90s/early 00s. The goofy costume and accent are supposed to make you underestimate him... especially when you run into him and he isn't in costume. For example, in prison (he tends to be near the top of the pecking order as he basically loses nothing compared to those with Powers or equipment focused) or if you're unfortunate enough to run afoul of him in his "civilian" life.

I don't recall if it was his main thing or just him enjoying himself, but in an issue of Deadpool (first regular series), Deadpool kidnapped a precognitive acquaintance (Monty) to show said acquaintance a good time (while making the vacation pay for itself) by hitting up a casino/resort (that apparently was unable to defend itself from such shenanigans, even though such super powers are reasonably common in the Marvel Universe). Before they arrived, Batroc (not in costume) had been cleaning up (guessing to imply he was either good at Gambling, Sleight of Hand, some level of Luck, or perhaps all three). Batroc's winning streak was ended after he insulted Monty (motivating Monty to actually go along with Deadpool's plan), costing Batroc a lot of money.

Deadpool (having been in disguise this whole time) flipped him a chip as a pseudo-apology/taunt; Batroc waited until it had nearly hit the ground to kick it back at Deadpool's face. Deadpool blocked it with his hand; the coin had imbedded itself halfway into his palm.

Yeah, recovering comic book geek here; I also read the issue of Agent X where Taskmaster made the comment about being surprised that Batroc had a daughter.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by lachimba

To partially move back toward the original post I would say the marvel movies occupy a Battlefield 2 type of realism. They kind of look authentic, but the enphasis is on fun rather than realism.

So modelling in GURPS should be done on his basis. If a character falls out of an airplane (intentionally or otherwise), well if its fun then there better be a way to land safely. So skill roll sounds right. I think cap has wildcard skills Move! and Shield! at ridiculous levels.

Probably; I mean the shield alone has the issue we were just discussing; how can it be so good defensively when it is so often used offensively in a matter that its energy absorbing/reflecting properties would contradict? The least convoluted "hand wave" is what lachimba said; apparently the shield can "direct" how it reflects energy, allowing it to bounce off of objects (and enemies) instead of absorbing/reflecting the energy outward (such as when Thor slams it and Cap does not make like a tent peg).

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Otaku

how can it be so good defensively when it is so often used offensively

As one handwave, make the shield a little smarter than a passive lump of metal. Perhaps it has an embedded control mechanism; for extra fun, let's say it's controlled by thought (anywhere on the scale from biofeedback to telepathy that you like). So, it can alter its energy-management properties to respond to the needs of its user without a lot of switches and buttons.

Also, this helps make the shield less useful in the wrong hands. Cap's spent time training to think the right things while he's fighting, just before he throws the shield, after he catches it and so on. But not just any random person that picks it up knows how to do that.

Maybe that's one step along the path to Asgardian technology. The shield is then somewhat like Mjolnir, sufficiently advanced to start to seem magical.

I don't really know the canon, so I'm probably trampling all over it.

[Phantasm]

I forget who said it, but the "the shape of the vibranium directing the energy flow" suggestion mentioned earlier seems (to me) to be the least implausible explanation.

Fact is, we really don't know the full properties of cinema-verse vibranium. All we really know is that it can substitute for palladium in a miniaturized arc reactor (the Iron Man 2 novelization indicated that the "impossible to synthesize" element that Tony cooked up in his garage (!) was vibranium), and that (possibly only in the right shape) it can redirect energy outward, possibly magnifying the energy output (bullets bounce harmlessly off, while Thor smashing Mjolner down on it full strength causes a shockwave without turning Steve into a tent-peg or breaking his legs).

From the former, we can guess vibranium may be chemically similar to palladium, sharing properties with nickel, palladium, and platinum. Quite possibly it may be a stable isotope of darmstadtium (Ds, atomic number 110), though that last is pure conjecture on my part. (In real life, the most stable Ds isotopes observed have a half-life measured in seconds, 11 seconds recorded, although the as-yet-unsynthesized Ds293 would theoretically have a half-life of ~3500 years, and the also as-yet as-yet-unsynthesized Ds294 is predicted to have a half-life of 311 years.)

Beyond that, we're approaching the realms of handwavium and unobtanium. The shape of the shield itself is suited to throwing, which may have been the point of using that specific shape in the first place. With practice, the shape could be used to bounce off things edge-first in just the right way, but in the comics and animated movies Cap's shield and similar (pure vibranium) shields have been shown to embed itself edge-first in walls and other things as often as bouncing off.

Getting back to the original question, Cap does not really need a super-high ST to survive the fall; a combination of high HP, DR, and IT:DR are more appropriate for surviving such a fall. A high ST will lend itself to a high HP, of course, but the super-soldier serum is an easy explanation for DR and IT:DR.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

although the as-yet-unsynthesized Ds293 would theoretically have a half-life of ~3500 years,

and the also as-yet as-yet-unsynthesized Ds293 is predicted to have a half-life of 311 years.)

Why are they so different?

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

Why are they so different?

Not sure of the math myself, but it appears it has something to do with the theoretical metastability of heavy transactinide elements. I had to do research when writing that post, and a lot of it was over my head. The "why" is Ph.D. or at least Master's degree stuff that I don't know much about.

Also, it seems I typoed. The second line should have been Ds294, not Ds293.