Part 49

Tynam has recently fallen into a coma. Unlike what has happened with our recent brainsucked soldiers, we expect Tynam to awaken sometime soon. The damage that we thought was being repaired is actually getting worse. We had to use the holo-imager to grab the following images out of Tynam's mind to understand why exactly he is now comatose. The answer is shocking and appalling. Fortunately, he was able to update his personal journal somewhat before the 'incident'.


Last time I was complaining about the aliens getting better ships than we had.

That's no longer the case. We now have the specs to buy "Super Avenger" ships.

I can't wait to get one.

But it needs a better weapon than the plasma cannon. A few tracer cannons should do the trick!

Hell yeah, the Avenger has four weapon hardpoints and four missile hardpoints. I can put on two tracer cannons, and two tachyon pulsars. Who needs gravitas when you've got this much firepower? That's why I named this new ship "What Gravitas?"

Time to test this ship out!

I love the sleek lines. Plus it has left and right side mirrors for watching shit blow up behind me!

The tracer cannon's pretty cool too. It fires in a straight line instantaneously zapping anything in front of it.

Well that's what lasers are supposed to do!

Unfortunately, What Gravitas? has a big problem. With afterburners on, and full power to the engines, it has a top speed of about 180. More Gravitas can go faster than that at half power with the tractor beam on. Until I get a better engine, I'm going to keep What Gravitas? under a sheet in the hanger.

Tynam's once again confusing acceleration with top speed. The Super Avenger class ship is much heavier than the Lightning class ship, and thus accelerates slower. Tynam seems to think this limits the Avenger's "top speed" somehow. What's curious is that X-COM did actually have to delay the introduction of the Avenger due to it's poor acceleration with the standard conversion drive. He at least got that part right.

God, this stupid joke of Tynam's already has such an obvious conclusion that it's barely worth reading. Imagine being able to laugh at OS jokes and software delay nonsense - you can't help but pity those who do.

We have recovered what seems to be a gigantic laser over three hundred kilometers long from the aliens.

They have something called a doomsday project.

As it states in the end of the report, GSC scientists have no idea what the laser could be used for.

I wish I had a clue. Maybe it's a mining laser?

Oh sweet Lord. Perhaps it's a weapon to bring doom to earth one day? Please Tynam, get it together!

Great, we have AATS now! It's an even better targeting system than the emission guidance system, so you know what that means!

We equipped the entire fleet with AATS including the bases. This allowed me to mount...

FUSION BASED DEATH.

It's time to take down the alien base. Super Avengers are much slower and have less fuel than More Gravitas and can't reach the alien base with fuel to return, so I'm going to have to do it all by myself. Wish me luck!

The above was the last journal entry made by Tynam before his breakdown that led to his temporary coma. The following images were pulled from him, and the comments made were what Tynam was thinking at the time.

Man, I'm not going to waste my time destroying subsystems and modules! I can blast this whole thing in two shots. It's going down!

Yikes, there's a lot of enemy craft! Putting full power into engines, engaging afterburners!

Missile lock acquired...

UP............YOURS!!!!!

Tynam's ship, More Gravitas, was somehow destroyed in the course of its assault. We believe that when Tynam "died" his mind shut down and he fell into a coma. Determining why he believes his ship exploded was a bit of a mystery, until we discovered just how mentally retarded Tynam has become.

Here's More Gravitas. It has a "top speed" of four hundred units. Tynam never states exactly what kind of units, but just rest assured that bigger equals faster top speeds. There seems to be a correlation between Tynam's "top speed" and the real life acceleration value of objects. Meaning objects that can accelerate fast in real life have a higher top speed in Tynam's world. Missiles such as the X-Winder accelerate extremely rapidly to catch up to enemy craft, and thus have high top speeds in Tynam's mind.

Here's Tynam's fusion missile. Fusion missles are larger than typical missiles, and accelerate slower. Thus when fired it has a "top speed" of two hundred forty. When Tynam believes he fires a missile, it instantly begins traveling at this top speed without having to accelerate.

Thus from a stationary observer's point of view, when Tynam is traveling at his top speed and fires a fusion missile, the missile travels at a speed of six hundred forty.




WRONG.



SO VERY VERY WRONG.



SO VERY AMAZINGLY FANTASTICALLY RETARDEDLY WRONG YOU WON'T BELIEVE IT.



Here's what actually happens:

Velocities are somehow non-cumulative, so the fusion missile remains traveling at two hundred forty units. Or, from the perspective of Tynam's ship:

He fires a fusion missile designed to destroy alien bases backwards into his own ship. This is what caused More Gravitas to explode; destroyed by its own missile. Any ship that Tynam believes can travel faster than a fusion missile will be destroyed if it attempes to fire.

When this poor boy wakes up and continues to hallucinate the Frontier war there will be nothing left of his brain by the time he's done. It's so sad.