How powerful are Tantalus rays?

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Are Tantalus Rays...

World-killers?
15
58%
City-killers?
11
42%
 
Total votes: 26

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ckguy
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Post by ckguy »

KeenEmpire wrote:Anyone up for emailing Tom Hall? :crazy
LOL, that reminds me of the scene at the beginning of Galaxy Quest when Tim Allen is accosted by this nerd about the inconsistencies in his show.

(Which is of course a spoof of trekkies.)

(And trekkies are a spoof of keeners.)
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entropicdecay
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Post by entropicdecay »

KeenEmpire wrote:
Although if I recall it correctly the game over sequence does look very simplified in a way, it seems more like a burst of energy is fired towards the Earth.
For all we know, though, the Tauntalus ray could look exactly like that. =/
True. I guess I assumed a ray would look more like a laser beam, but now that I think of it, the shots from the weapon which I believe is referred to as a ray gun in Keen 1 look similar.
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ckguy
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Post by ckguy »

Ah! Found the quote (a little delayed) on imdb:
Jason Nesmith wrote:There is no "quantum flux". There's no "auxiliary". THERE'S NO GODDAMNED SHIP. You got it?
Tom Hall wrote:There is no "tantalus ray". There's no "big purple space amoeba". THERE'S NO GODDAMNED SHIP. You got it?
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Lava89
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Post by Lava89 »

CK Guy wrote: (Which is of course a spoof of trekkies.)

(And trekkies are a spoof of keeners.)
They are?? :eek No wonder I am both!
Sciz CT
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Post by Sciz CT »

Tantalus Rays fire at the power of plot.
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Post by ckguy »

Sciz CT wrote:Tantalus Rays fire at the power of plot.
:confused I read this ten times, and it still makes no sense ...

[Not really an edit, but something that was not going to originally be in the post, but was added just before I clicked submit] ... unless you mean plot as in story--then there's a faint glimmering of something that could make sense.
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Post by Anti-Gary »

I think the rays have energy levels, a low one for just destroying citys, and a high one for vaporising the earth. When keen screwed up and fired it, it was at max.
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KeenEmpire
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Post by KeenEmpire »

However, the normal game over sequence (where Keen doesn't set any off, but just dies) contains the earth exploding as well.
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Post by KeenRush »

Hmmm, good point. Perhaps it's Mortimer's plot (of course it is) which he uses just to buy more time, making it look like individual cities are at target and it takes longer for Keen to disable eight targets instead of disabling the whole ship somehow. Although why didn't he just disable whole ship... :crazy

Or then they just didn't think about this, thinking nobody would question it. 8)
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Post by Freeyorp101 »

Or maybe the vorticons were fans of overkill, and only ever needed one ray to destroy the planet.
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Post by Djaser »

You're all missing the point. The ray's were pointing at different cities. Now assuming that only one ray was left firing at one city, not only destroying it but blowing a gigantic hole in the upper surface, probably the ray goes right trough it and comes out at the opposite site of the earth. The damage blew the earth out of balance with hot lava going every where, making it spin at rapid speed and blow in pieces. This is also why all rays can fire at once at every city, the rays come out at the opposite side of the earth and destroying the cities on the other side.

So yes it a paradox to say that rays are city destroyers, what they are, while they also destroy the earth at the same time.
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Post by Commander Spleen »

Aye, this question had crossed my mind at one point, but I managed to ignore it. I offer three possibilities:

a) The city levels are a security feature in the same vein as a graphical captcha.

b) The city levels actually just contain power systems, not individual rays, and only one is required to operate the single Tantalus ray.

c) The levers in the city levels are an emergency option, in case the plan needs to be set in motion swiftly.

I imagine Mort took pride in giving his enemy the option of destroying the very thing he was trying to save.

Though one must wonder just how badly Mort wanted to destroy the Earth. At any one time, destruction of the Earth was easily a matter of seconds away, yet even after Keen has infiltrated 7 ray centres, the Tantalus Ray is not activated.
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Post by KeenRush »

Commander Spleen wrote:c) The levers in the city levels are an emergency option, in case the plan needs to be set in motion swiftly.
That makes sense, it's probably so.
Commander Spleen wrote:I imagine Mort took pride in giving his enemy the option of destroying the very thing he was trying to save.
Definitely Mortimerish thinking. What could be more fun to him than Captain Clown screwing up and destroying the Earth by accident? ("Oops.")
Commander Spleen wrote:Though one must wonder just how badly Mort wanted to destroy the Earth. At any one time, destruction of the Earth was easily a matter of seconds away, yet even after Keen has infiltrated 7 ray centres, the Tantalus Ray is not activated.
Indeed... It seems it wasn't really what he had in mind afterall. The point was, or one aspect of it if we assume Mort's plots are complex, was to get the Vorticons defeated (likely fun for him to see) and return to Vorticon VI -- where Keen would follow them and be lured to face the Mangling Machine.
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Post by KeenEmpire »

Spleen: b) is definitely out, the storyline explicitly mentions "eight X-14 Tantalus rays". That would be too glaring an inconsistency.

You're probably right in that destroying the earth wasn't Mortimer's actual goal (either that or he decided to wait until the morning, and suddenly found the mothership inactive).
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Post by XkyRauh »

I've got to agree with Sciz; the Rays fire at the power of Plot. :)
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