No, it did NOT kill 90% of the population! It -did- kill 90% of those exposed to it. In its initial form, anyway.

Ah, the Montgomery Scott Gambit. That I understand ;)

Isn’t it funny how so many of these spacecraft seem to operate well outside their expected lifespans? Everybody’s here—we’ve got a few, now the Chinese, I’m sure the Russians have some stuff a decade past expiration date...

It has to duck down through South America, swing through Antarctica, and work its way back up and around to us again. I figure Canada will one day outsource to us.

Too late. Mexico is outsourcing to Guatemala.

Dum-Dum Dugan’s (grand)kid?

With it wireless enabled? You bet it is. (Actually most such items are. Or even anything that can be plugged into a machine. The people who snoop into other people’s electronic presence are pretty serious about guarding their own.)

Ah. Yeah, I knew that was an issue in that region, I just didn’t realize the lack of competition was so stark. In which case, I withdraw my objections and hope they can pull this off.

Having done a bit of research, I can see that now. Still got a bad feeling about it...are those original predators in any position to resume their role? Or are we going to get an imbalance the other way now?

Yeah, this struck me before even the assertion that there are no native predators and never were any—which sounds fishy, but that’s going to take some research to rebut properly—how will populations that are used to those predators now be controlled? (Or were they not used to them and that’s the issue?)

While a ban on predators may sound cruel, unusual, and ripped straight out of popular kid’s movie Zootopia, it’s important to keep in mind that before the arrival of humans, New Zealand’s terrestrial ecosystems had no significant predation.

You’re not fooling anybody, you know.

Search on YouTube. I just watched that the other day.

There are probably still people donating to save the Pacific Northwest tree octopus. I gave up long ago.

...because the armor there is designed in a way that will channel and concentrate force to maximize damage? Yeah, no.

And by “protect” you clearly mean “channels attacks towards vitals”.

You know that. I know that. Presumably everyone reading this knows that. But give a pseudoscience hack scamster even half a fact and they’ll weave an entire volume of bullshit.

Does this mean we’re going to hear more of that “Jupiter Effect” bullshit?

Anything that channels belief and obedience can be intimidating, moreso when bent to ill intent. Just remember, you don’t get anything out you didn’t go in with—refined and intensified perhaps, but it was there to begin with.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say those poor decision making skills would have manifested in other ways regardless.