Jack’s eyes creaked open as the elevator doors shut. “Danny?”
“Shh!”
They dropped a floor, and Jack suddenly stood straight, all traces of sleep gone. “What happened?”
“I’m… not exactly sure.” Daniel hesitated. “We were hiding from those guys-”
“Taking cover, Daniel. Taking cover. And?”
“Things just went fuzzy,” Daniel admitted. “I woke up, and you were out, and they were out, but everybody was beginning to wake up, and I just thought maybe we should get out of there.”
“Good idea,” Jack said darkly. “What else?”
Daniel wet his lips. “What makes you think there’s an else?”
“Daniel….”
“I – wasn’t awake, but I wasn’t completely out, either,” the archaeologist said reluctantly. He wanted to trust that voice so badly. Why? “And someone told me to sleep, I was safe.”
“And this is a bad thing.”
“Sedjer-ek, sesh. An kher-ek embah aa khefta-ek.”
“Gotcha.”
“No, I can’t tell you any more. Check your email, daily.” Seto’s concentration never wavered as Joey shut and locked the suite door behind them. “I’ve left the pertinent information in your data cache, with a backup copy to Logan. You have what we know. I would advise you speak with Logan. And inform the Professor at your discretion.” Long fingers tightened on the phone. “So he will. But so far as we know, the situation will require our particular expertise. I’d prefer not to deal with that and your fellow students.”
Kitty, Tea thought, trading a smile with Mokuba as the younger Kaiba set up his brother’s laptop on a low table. That’s right, part of the plan was to make sure Ishizu had someone else to go to for help, in case- she swallowed. Oh boy. I really, really hope that doesn’t happen.
Kaiba’s tone went dry. “If I didn’t have confidence in your judgment, Pryde, I wouldn’t have sent the files.”
Tea sighed. “Clueless,” she muttered.
“He’s trying,” Yugi shrugged. A faintly sad smile touched his face. “No one ever taught him to be gentle, Tea. He really is trying.”
“Yeah. Kinda like a sledgehammer on a fly,” Joey pointed out. “Hey, Serenity.”
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
“Taking cover, Daniel. Taking cover. And?”
Which IS hiding. It’s just strategic hiding.
“And this is a bad thing.”
It could be if Yami wanted to hurt you.
“Sedjer-ek, sesh. An kher-ek embah aa khefta-ek.”
Which is probably going to make them think Gao’uld.
Through maybe some hesitation on Daniel’s part simply because he wants trust that voice and he has yet to encounter a Gao’uld that inspired that kind of feeling / thought (maybe because Gao’uld want your obedience rather than your trust?).
And maybe Daniel’s own magic – especially if it is Shadow Magic – recognizes that Yami can be trusted?
Or maybe that Daniel was wearing the Eye of Ra and Yami is the Living Horus.
Or some combination thereof.
But so far as we know, the situation will require our particular expertise. I’d prefer not to deal with that and your fellow students.”
Yeah, adding in the X-Men would make this mess even messier.
“No one ever taught him to be gentle, Tea.
No, they taught him the exact opposite.
And the only one he could SAFELY practice gentleness with was Mokuba.
“Yeah. Kinda like a sledgehammer on a fly,” Joey pointed out.
Seto does have a tendency towards overkill . . . or just enough kill given some of the stuff the kids have encountered.
Plus that whole thing about how if all you have is hammer, everything starts to look like nails . . .
Plus didn’t Bakura mention that sorcerers, on a good day, have a tendency to blast first, ask questions later provided they didn’t disintegrate whoever they were blasting at . . . and this ISN’T a good day already.
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Gotta use the military-flavored words, or the Zoomies will forget the Air Force is military.
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The important Air Force words are “No shit, there I was,” and hands making descriptive motions .
The survival words are all about surviving the bureaucracy.
The secret dangerous words are admitting to knowledge of Col. Boyd and all his works.
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“Shooting down wristwatches”, I’ve heard it put. 😉
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“Wait. The Air Force is military? I thought they were the NASA police?”
“What did you think that A-10, the B-52, and the AC-130 were used for?”
“Riot control.”
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Depends on the size of your riot?
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*G*
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You know what they say at the Strategic Air Command Police Academy. “One riot, one Air Marshal cast from the same mold as Harris and LeMay.”
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Modified from “One riot, one Ranger”?
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Yeah.
Though I am rereading Sic Semper Morituri, so some things are fresher in my mind. And I owe a shout out to Kerberos Panzer Cop, Dominion Tank Police, Judge Dredd, Gunslinger Girl and various other properties for prioritizing Rule of Cool over serious analysis of whether the equipment and tactics are really the most practical and cost effective.
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It occurred to me, after this comment, that Col. Boyd didn’t pass away until just about the year when Stargate: SG1 started.
So yeah, if you wanted to theorize that Jack was one of the less-subtle disciples, or disciples of disciples, of the Gospel of Boyd, you could.
(And Special Forces do spend a lot of time training with all the other Special Forces, so it would be hard to avoid knowing Boyd on warfighting, even if you didn’t previously know his thoughts about winning every single air combat in which one ever engages. And of course it never would come up in open conversation in the series, because Boyd is still a sore subject in the AF hierarchy.)
Certainly, Jack imbibed his spirit, because he’s exactly the kind of guy who, if challenged by Boyd to decide between making a career and making a difference — he would think Door #2 was the obvious choice, and wonder if there was some kind of trick.
OTOH, Jack obviously has problems with utilizing the OODA Loop in personal matters… as lots of people do.
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Thing is, Jack was infantry, and per Kratman, OODA loop does not have great applicability to infantry problems. Sorta like how there are apparently subtleties that prevent one from simply transposing ground combat to naval combat and vice versa.
My memory of Kratman’s explanation is very vague. I think it may have been some thing about how two bunches of men spread out on the ground aren’t exactly the same information space as some planes in the air.
I have some suspicions about Boyd and the future of the Air Force, but they are vague suspicions, and at this point in my career it is probably wiser to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut.
Thinking about it, I’d estimate that there are about a hundred authors that my professional reading is criminally deficient for lacking. I almost certainly do not really know who most of them are. Boyd is probably one of them.
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Boyd was an interesting guy. He was a great reader himself, but he believed in teaching person to person, or with lectures and/or Powerpoint. So catching up on your reading is difficult…..
His big point was that all theory was insufficiently flexible, which was why it was important to observe and keep ahead of events, to keep acting and forcing the other person to react. He wanted to instill principles that would not wall people in. He also believed that honorable and moral behavior was a force multiplier, especially if the other side is being wicked; and thus other people were encouraged to help you, and the enemy would realize on some level that they were not on the high ground.
So anyway… The ground version of his idea is the Marines’ warfighting thing. (Because they adopted him when the Air Force was still hating his guts over his Pentagon photocopier games.) The OODA loop is only one of many principles he taught (and is more associated with his early career), but it is the one that is most popularly known.
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Strategic hiding is a thing. *G* Ask any stealth player or sniper….
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Strategic hiding is a thing.
Fair point.
Ask any stealth player or sniper….
So Kirito?
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He’s been known to take crippling advantage of it, yes. 😉
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He’s been known to take crippling advantage of it, yes.
Considering how often he runs solo . . . he probably didn’t have much an option but to booster his Stealth if he didn’t want to die.
And given that Beater nonsense – especially some people could be rather violent about expressing their anger toward them – being able to avoid said angry people would be useful. As would turning their attempt to PK him back on them.
Plus strike from the shadows fits his whole Black Swordsman persona.
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Well, yes. Although apparently a barefoot Asuna was pretty good at sneaking herself. 😉
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*Snrk*
My friends and I were reading through the newest edition of Dungeons & Dragons recently – most of us have preferred Pathfinder in recent years, but one of us really wants to run a 5th Ed. campaign – familiarizing ourselves with new rules, and one of my buddies read the description of the Rogue and went off on a rant.
He’s a good friend, but he’s also one of those people who’s always looking for something to complain about. In this case it was a sentence in the class description “A Rogue is at their best striking from stealth, with the element of surprise.” My friend’s rant was basically that ‘Of course the Rogue is at their best when striking from stealth, everyone is at their best striking from stealth!’ he followed this up with complaints about how the Fighter and the Sorcerer both enjoy sneak attacking an unprepared target just as much as the Rogue, even if they don’t get the specific bonuses of the Sneak Attack class feature, because striking from stealth always makes it harder for an enemy to defend and the attacker less likely to be hit or injured before they strike.
Honestly, in tabletop and co-op videogames I like to play party tanks, while my friends tend to fight over who exactly gets Rogue/Sniper. My friend is right, because even not being as sneaky as the rest of the party I usually put enough points into it that I don’t ruin stealth for the rest of but them, so we usually initiate combat from surprise and it is very useful – but speaking as the guy in the fight who draws all comers and makes himself a great big target to soak the damage my friends can’t, I found his whole rant hysterical.
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So you guys basically play something like the second new xcom?
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>> So you guys basically play something like the second new xcom?
Imean- I haven’t actually played any of the X-COM games? So I can’t say for certain?
…But from everything I’ve heard? Yes.
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Thank you. Very much.
And the NID doesn’t quite know enough to place Xavier’s merry band of fools yet.
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