In my understanding, the Americans were unarmed so they must have fought off the pirates with kung fu. I guess that proves who would win in a fight between pirates and ninjas.
Nah. They probably hit them with a lawsuit, and promised to downgrade their credit rating. The final threat was a session of ‘talks’ with an Obama team of advisors…which finally broke their flinty, piratical resolve. It would certainly make me run for terror…
Generic Pirates < Generic Ninjas < Named Ninjas < Named Pirates
So as you can clearly see GPs are the lowest rung of the pirate-ninja continuum and similarly GNs are fairly low but not as low. What the pirate-ninja continuum clearly shows that best way to gain awesomeness is to have a name but ninjas are supposed to be silent killers so having a name and being known is detrimental so while the ninja gains great power from being named they lose out on some of their essential ninjary. Where as pirates actually gain power from being named. A great example of this is the Dread Pirate Roberts. The PNC also only measures unadulterated ninjas and pirates. The naming ceiling for ninjas can be broken if they branch off into other fields such as being of an unconventional ethnicity or having a second profession. Dr. McNinja is a great example of this and it also adds to his repertoire of powers (ex: http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=17&issue=1). Thank you for listening to my discourse on the phenomenon of the pirate-ninja continuum.
Lechteron: thank you for your incisive insights into the relative strengths of pirates and ninjas. In my own research, I had not previously considered the effects of having a name. My study in the field has been in the area of the Inverse Ninja Effectiveness principle, and the Pirate Effectiveness corollary. That is, the more ninjas there are, the less effective they are. One lone ninja can take out an entire fortress full of goons, while an army of ninjas can be taken out by a single action hero. Likewise, if you find one lone pirate in a back alley somewhere, you can easily kill him. However, a ship full of pirates is a formidable foe, and a whole fleet of pirates is virtually unstoppable.
However, this name phenomenon would clearly affect these equations. For example, a lone unnamed pirate can easily be killed just by shooting him or hitting him on the head with a cast iron frying pan, but a lone pirate with a name (Captain Jack Sparrow, for example) is almost impossible to kill, especially if he’s a captain.
The study of pirates and ninjas in their natural habitats is an exciting field which is only beginning to be scientifically explored.
What if an infinite number of pirates battled an infinitesimal number of ninjas? Black hole would form? Blue Screen of Death? Stalemate? I lack the philosophy and math skills to figger’ this one out. Same thing with the old “irresistible force vs. Michael Moore” – I never can reach a satisfying solution.
To D-Rock: That’s clearly a case of multiclassing awesomeness and is covered under the “second profession” clause of my theorem.
To Kris: I hadn’t really thought of that but that is an extremely interesting theory. So what would happen if you had a crew that consisted entirely of named pirates with super powers? My theory is that you’d be nearly unstoppable. Also, an interesting thing to note is that having a disability increases the level of one’s awesomeness (Blind swordsmen, one armed fighters, idiot savants, etc.). Thus it can be theorized that a named blind, deaf, mute pirate captain with one arm, who’s also a werebadger is made of pure awesome. This brings me to another point: Strange properly used is awesome. A sword is just a sword but a sword that become an elephant with swords for tusks and trunk or extend and whip at enemies like an elephant trunk is awesome. So in the above example the pirates awesome levels would be raised by being say a werewolf but due to the cliche nature of lycanthropy there would be a cap to the levels of awesome it would give him but as a werebadger it’s new, unique, and you know if you run into him you’re going to get messed up. Now if he were say a were-house-cat he would be underestimated but when you saw him in action and he ripped an army of ninjas to shreds his awesome levels would be off the chart. Now lets use an example from One Piece to illustrate this: Tony Tony Chopper (Awesomeness gained from being a named pirate and even more from having a strange name).
Chopper is a pirate, a doctor, has a strange name, is a werehuman as he is actually a reindeer (Both a strange power and a strange origin), has a unique fighting style using his powers to transform into various combinations of reindeer and human, he also uses his medical knowledge to increase his powers. Chopper also has a disability in that when ever he’s complimented he goes into a fit of anger saying how he doesn’t care but his body language clearly shows his appreciation and love of being complimented. So as you can see Tony Tony Chopper has 9 points of awesomeness in his favor ranking him as a 9 on the Lechteron Scale of Awesomeness putting him a full 8 ranks higher than a generic pirate. Now this scale is exponential so we can see that Chopper should be able to take on an army of 256 generic pirates and 128 generic ninjas with out breaking a sweat.
What if an infinite number of pirates battled an infinitesimal number of ninjas? Black hole would form? Blue Screen of Death? Stalemate? I lack the philosophy and math skills to figger’ this one out. Same thing with the old “irresistible force vs. Michael Moore” – I never can reach a satisfying solution.
Should this happen, it would generate a Viking Ship that would be packed with the finest Valahalla had to offer. After the smiting of Both Pirates and Ninjas, We’d all sprout horns,Become immediately tanked on Mead, and grow full bushy beards (chicks included).
Pray this never happens. I fear the Viking Apocalypse more than I fear the Robot, Zombie or Mayan Apocalypses combined. Not sufficiently afraid? Imagine Jessica Alba, or Summer Glau, or Eliza Dushku with huge chins full of unruly ginger whiskers. Scary, huh?
Thanks. Just about the time I regain my composure I start laughing again. Especially when I read it in that old SNL news guy’s voice. “You guessed it… Frank Stallone“
See? These are the important questions. In the coming year, when global worming evaporates all our water into outer space, we’ll need Ice Pirates to save the day.
So, who wins in a fight between Ice Pirates and robots?
Kinda, but with enough mead in my belly it might not be so bad. Ride of the Valkyries is my ringtone, so maybe I have a built-in bias. Plus, it is Krig’s fault ‘cuz it would have never crossed my mind until I read his post, which I must say was both very interesting and thoughtful. But now you tell me it could trigger the apocalyptic Scandi Berserker Menace. Hey. Wait a sec. Krig THE VIKING. I smell a conspiracy! We need to keep an eye on that guy…
…and Lechteron (#2), are you trying to tell us that the named Ninja Palin is lesser awesome than the Named Pirate HusseinObama, who robs from the productive to give to the freeloaders?
To NunyaB: No, I must invoke two rules to show the awesome of Sarah Palin.
1. The multiclassing rules come in to play here.
2. God tends to impart a portion of His awesomeness to lesser beings that choose him which is why Sarah Palin, Chuck Norris (Also follows the multiclassing rules), and Mr. T are so awesome.
Steven Segal single-handedly( though not one-armed ) saved the U.S.S. Missouri from rogue CIA group( piratical by nature ) in ‘Under Siege'( which America is currently enduring by The Effete Kenyan Pirate O-bah-muhh ). I think Steven Segal gets downgraded on the pantheon of awesomeness due to his devotion to the Dolly Llama. I mean, It’s hard to repect a guy who’s tough, but follows a wimp camelid-type. But he’ll have total consciousness at his death, so he’s got that going for him.
NunyaB: Obama a pirate? Obama would barely qualify as cabin boy, never mind pirate! His sissiness levels are way too high for that kind of thing.
On Vikings: Vikings are basically pirates with an extra six levels of awesome. The Vikings were the only people in history to settle in France, learn French, and then overcome this impediment by conquering England. They’re old school, though — a Viking fighting a pirate would be like Paul Bunyan fighting Chuck Norris. You would risk an awesome overload and causing the universe to blow up. Throw a single named ninja into that mix, and who knows what would happen?
Uhoh Frank… looks like “someone” is questioning your Ninja followin’!
“….Granted, Ninjas use their stealthy, catlike skills brilliantly on land. But like their feline brethren, get them near water and they couldn’t fight off a asthmatic girl scout.”
The Effete Pirate O-bah-muhh learned his trade as a cabin boy( that’s raaacist!) to The Effete Terrorist Bill Ayers, at That Effete Pirate School, Columbia University.
So here is a view of how the Named Ninja to Named Pirate correlation may be construed when the numeric effect is also taken into affect.
Example:
Named Ninja vs Pirate Flotilla [One Lead Named Pirate supported by a large number of Unnamed Pirates]
Now from the first look the Named Ninja would have no chance, however this is a ninja. A named ninja. So there must be some level of sneakiness held inside the ninja form. This ninja would in ninja fashion most likely go against the untold numbers of unnamed pirates, which of course stand no chance against the level of ninja cool that is brought to the table by being named. Now there ends up to be the final fight between the named ninja and the named pirate. Looking at the handy dandy reference chart the named ninja would stand no chance against a named pirate who is also a captain/admiral of a fleet.
However I put this up for concern, the pirate community would not stand for any of their named pirates to be regarded in any kind of esteem, he lost the entirety of his crew against one puny ‘ninja.’ The respect that must be held up by the pirate to maintain the name and rank would be lost. Perhaps this would not be readily apparent in the fight but I propose that the Ninja would win the fight for the Named Pirate would be no more and perhaps would be destroyed by his own pirate brethren when/if he returned to port. The question of course relates to the outcome of the actual fight. Which the tentatively Named Pirate may overcome the Named Ninja, who even though vanquished still accomplished the task of destroying the Named Pirate and as such is the victor even in death.
So I propose that even this rule can be bent or circumvented by a sufficiently skilled ninja willing to risk all. Which of course would/should be any Named Ninja.
Of course upon further consideration. The outcome of the fight, if the Pirate did fall, would be unknown. For the Named Ninja could be construed as being defeated and hence losing his name. However what if the Ninja wasn’t defeated but instead of broadcasting allowed his name to fade under the assumption of being defeated. Now wouldn’t this Ninja have an added morale effect the next time he came into a fight with a Named Pirate?
Named Pirate: Silly Ninja now you must Die.
Unnamed Named Ninja: Hah Named Pirate I have dealt with your kind before for I am -Name-
Named Pirate: Oh Crap its you, Named Ninja. I thought you had been beaten all this time but now I know that you have defeated even the famous Named Pirate, what will I do.
The Stun effect from the ‘reveal’ could be enough to destroy the Named Pirates Confidence and as such increase the Unnamed Named Ninjas level of Awesome to greater than the Named Pirate with a cycle that could repeat indefinitely. As such perhaps a revision to the original handy-dandy chart should be made.
Unnamed Pirate < Unnamed Ninja < Pirate Flotilla < Named Ninja < Named Pirate < Unnamed Named Ninja
The Red Chinese have been gunning for the Dali Lama for 50 years, but he’s still around, still smiling his inscrutable little smile.
That’s gotta be some kind of transcendental awesome he’s got going for him.
The real challenge for him will begin when he dies, since the Commies running Tibet have forbidden him to re-incarnate without permission.
Pirates rarely have these problems.
We need to send an “air mail message” to Somalia.
Muslim pirates need a reminder or what “… to the shores of Tripoli” lyric means.
Nah. They probably hit them with a lawsuit, and promised to downgrade their credit rating. The final threat was a session of ‘talks’ with an Obama team of advisors…which finally broke their flinty, piratical resolve. It would certainly make me run for terror…
Here’s how the pirate-ninja continuum works:
Generic Pirates < Generic Ninjas < Named Ninjas < Named Pirates
So as you can clearly see GPs are the lowest rung of the pirate-ninja continuum and similarly GNs are fairly low but not as low. What the pirate-ninja continuum clearly shows that best way to gain awesomeness is to have a name but ninjas are supposed to be silent killers so having a name and being known is detrimental so while the ninja gains great power from being named they lose out on some of their essential ninjary. Where as pirates actually gain power from being named. A great example of this is the Dread Pirate Roberts. The PNC also only measures unadulterated ninjas and pirates. The naming ceiling for ninjas can be broken if they branch off into other fields such as being of an unconventional ethnicity or having a second profession. Dr. McNinja is a great example of this and it also adds to his repertoire of powers (ex: http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=17&issue=1). Thank you for listening to my discourse on the phenomenon of the pirate-ninja continuum.
Can they truly be counted as American if they aren’t carrying plenty of guns with which to shoot stupid for’ners?
Lechteron-
Where do you fit if you were raised as a pirate and trained as a ninja? Where does nature vs nurture (or lack there of) fit?
Lechteron: thank you for your incisive insights into the relative strengths of pirates and ninjas. In my own research, I had not previously considered the effects of having a name. My study in the field has been in the area of the Inverse Ninja Effectiveness principle, and the Pirate Effectiveness corollary. That is, the more ninjas there are, the less effective they are. One lone ninja can take out an entire fortress full of goons, while an army of ninjas can be taken out by a single action hero. Likewise, if you find one lone pirate in a back alley somewhere, you can easily kill him. However, a ship full of pirates is a formidable foe, and a whole fleet of pirates is virtually unstoppable.
However, this name phenomenon would clearly affect these equations. For example, a lone unnamed pirate can easily be killed just by shooting him or hitting him on the head with a cast iron frying pan, but a lone pirate with a name (Captain Jack Sparrow, for example) is almost impossible to kill, especially if he’s a captain.
The study of pirates and ninjas in their natural habitats is an exciting field which is only beginning to be scientifically explored.
You know, its debates like these that make me really enjoy this site.
Oh God!!! That explains everything. I can rest now.
What if an infinite number of pirates battled an infinitesimal number of ninjas? Black hole would form? Blue Screen of Death? Stalemate? I lack the philosophy and math skills to figger’ this one out. Same thing with the old “irresistible force vs. Michael Moore” – I never can reach a satisfying solution.
To D-Rock: That’s clearly a case of multiclassing awesomeness and is covered under the “second profession” clause of my theorem.
To Kris: I hadn’t really thought of that but that is an extremely interesting theory. So what would happen if you had a crew that consisted entirely of named pirates with super powers? My theory is that you’d be nearly unstoppable. Also, an interesting thing to note is that having a disability increases the level of one’s awesomeness (Blind swordsmen, one armed fighters, idiot savants, etc.). Thus it can be theorized that a named blind, deaf, mute pirate captain with one arm, who’s also a werebadger is made of pure awesome. This brings me to another point: Strange properly used is awesome. A sword is just a sword but a sword that become an elephant with swords for tusks and trunk or extend and whip at enemies like an elephant trunk is awesome. So in the above example the pirates awesome levels would be raised by being say a werewolf but due to the cliche nature of lycanthropy there would be a cap to the levels of awesome it would give him but as a werebadger it’s new, unique, and you know if you run into him you’re going to get messed up. Now if he were say a were-house-cat he would be underestimated but when you saw him in action and he ripped an army of ninjas to shreds his awesome levels would be off the chart. Now lets use an example from One Piece to illustrate this: Tony Tony Chopper (Awesomeness gained from being a named pirate and even more from having a strange name).
Chopper is a pirate, a doctor, has a strange name, is a werehuman as he is actually a reindeer (Both a strange power and a strange origin), has a unique fighting style using his powers to transform into various combinations of reindeer and human, he also uses his medical knowledge to increase his powers. Chopper also has a disability in that when ever he’s complimented he goes into a fit of anger saying how he doesn’t care but his body language clearly shows his appreciation and love of being complimented. So as you can see Tony Tony Chopper has 9 points of awesomeness in his favor ranking him as a 9 on the Lechteron Scale of Awesomeness putting him a full 8 ranks higher than a generic pirate. Now this scale is exponential so we can see that Chopper should be able to take on an army of 256 generic pirates and 128 generic ninjas with out breaking a sweat.
To innominatus: It clearly depends on the rank of the ninjas and pirates. But eventually what would happen is the Second Coming and Jesus wins.
inominatus said:
Fred Thompson. Duh.
Innomatus,
Should this happen, it would generate a Viking Ship that would be packed with the finest Valahalla had to offer. After the smiting of Both Pirates and Ninjas, We’d all sprout horns,Become immediately tanked on Mead, and grow full bushy beards (chicks included).
Pray this never happens. I fear the Viking Apocalypse more than I fear the Robot, Zombie or Mayan Apocalypses combined. Not sufficiently afraid? Imagine Jessica Alba, or Summer Glau, or Eliza Dushku with huge chins full of unruly ginger whiskers. Scary, huh?
Or, apparently, what Marko said.
We all know that Fred Thompson is a Viking boxer which has it’s own level of awesome.
Marko –
Thanks. Just about the time I regain my composure I start laughing again. Especially when I read it in that old SNL news guy’s voice. “You guessed it… Frank Stallone“
See? These are the important questions. In the coming year, when global worming evaporates all our water into outer space, we’ll need Ice Pirates to save the day.
So, who wins in a fight between Ice Pirates and robots?
Desert Elephant says –
>>>Scary, huh?
Kinda, but with enough mead in my belly it might not be so bad. Ride of the Valkyries is my ringtone, so maybe I have a built-in bias. Plus, it is Krig’s fault ‘cuz it would have never crossed my mind until I read his post, which I must say was both very interesting and thoughtful. But now you tell me it could trigger the apocalyptic Scandi Berserker Menace. Hey. Wait a sec. Krig THE VIKING. I smell a conspiracy! We need to keep an eye on that guy…
…and Lechteron (#2), are you trying to tell us that the named Ninja Palin is lesser awesome than the Named Pirate HusseinObama, who robs from the productive to give to the freeloaders?
Say it’s not so! Sacrilege!
Barney Frank and the Butt Pirates
To NunyaB: No, I must invoke two rules to show the awesome of Sarah Palin.
1. The multiclassing rules come in to play here.
2. God tends to impart a portion of His awesomeness to lesser beings that choose him which is why Sarah Palin, Chuck Norris (Also follows the multiclassing rules), and Mr. T are so awesome.
Didn’t Steven Segal make this movie already?
Steven Segal single-handedly( though not one-armed ) saved the U.S.S. Missouri from rogue CIA group( piratical by nature ) in ‘Under Siege'( which America is currently enduring by The Effete Kenyan Pirate O-bah-muhh ). I think Steven Segal gets downgraded on the pantheon of awesomeness due to his devotion to the Dolly Llama. I mean, It’s hard to repect a guy who’s tough, but follows a wimp camelid-type. But he’ll have total consciousness at his death, so he’s got that going for him.
NunyaB: Obama a pirate? Obama would barely qualify as cabin boy, never mind pirate! His sissiness levels are way too high for that kind of thing.
On Vikings: Vikings are basically pirates with an extra six levels of awesome. The Vikings were the only people in history to settle in France, learn French, and then overcome this impediment by conquering England. They’re old school, though — a Viking fighting a pirate would be like Paul Bunyan fighting Chuck Norris. You would risk an awesome overload and causing the universe to blow up. Throw a single named ninja into that mix, and who knows what would happen?
Umm. Ok. Not sure why it didn’t post but ok.
This happens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Nqguav6nE
All I have to say is Sho Kusugi would beat the hell out of Johnny Depp.
I’ve seen the pictures of these guys. They don’t look like real pirates. These guys are to pirates what Avril Lavigne is to punk.
Uhoh Frank… looks like “someone” is questioning your Ninja followin’!
“….Granted, Ninjas use their stealthy, catlike skills brilliantly on land. But like their feline brethren, get them near water and they couldn’t fight off a asthmatic girl scout.”
The Effete Pirate O-bah-muhh learned his trade as a cabin boy( that’s raaacist!) to The Effete Terrorist Bill Ayers, at That Effete Pirate School, Columbia University.
So here is a view of how the Named Ninja to Named Pirate correlation may be construed when the numeric effect is also taken into affect.
Example:
Named Ninja vs Pirate Flotilla [One Lead Named Pirate supported by a large number of Unnamed Pirates]
Now from the first look the Named Ninja would have no chance, however this is a ninja. A named ninja. So there must be some level of sneakiness held inside the ninja form. This ninja would in ninja fashion most likely go against the untold numbers of unnamed pirates, which of course stand no chance against the level of ninja cool that is brought to the table by being named. Now there ends up to be the final fight between the named ninja and the named pirate. Looking at the handy dandy reference chart the named ninja would stand no chance against a named pirate who is also a captain/admiral of a fleet.
However I put this up for concern, the pirate community would not stand for any of their named pirates to be regarded in any kind of esteem, he lost the entirety of his crew against one puny ‘ninja.’ The respect that must be held up by the pirate to maintain the name and rank would be lost. Perhaps this would not be readily apparent in the fight but I propose that the Ninja would win the fight for the Named Pirate would be no more and perhaps would be destroyed by his own pirate brethren when/if he returned to port. The question of course relates to the outcome of the actual fight. Which the tentatively Named Pirate may overcome the Named Ninja, who even though vanquished still accomplished the task of destroying the Named Pirate and as such is the victor even in death.
So I propose that even this rule can be bent or circumvented by a sufficiently skilled ninja willing to risk all. Which of course would/should be any Named Ninja.
Of course upon further consideration. The outcome of the fight, if the Pirate did fall, would be unknown. For the Named Ninja could be construed as being defeated and hence losing his name. However what if the Ninja wasn’t defeated but instead of broadcasting allowed his name to fade under the assumption of being defeated. Now wouldn’t this Ninja have an added morale effect the next time he came into a fight with a Named Pirate?
Named Pirate: Silly Ninja now you must Die.
Unnamed Named Ninja: Hah Named Pirate I have dealt with your kind before for I am -Name-
Named Pirate: Oh Crap its you, Named Ninja. I thought you had been beaten all this time but now I know that you have defeated even the famous Named Pirate, what will I do.
The Stun effect from the ‘reveal’ could be enough to destroy the Named Pirates Confidence and as such increase the Unnamed Named Ninjas level of Awesome to greater than the Named Pirate with a cycle that could repeat indefinitely. As such perhaps a revision to the original handy-dandy chart should be made.
Unnamed Pirate < Unnamed Ninja < Pirate Flotilla < Named Ninja < Named Pirate < Unnamed Named Ninja
…Indeed.
The Red Chinese have been gunning for the Dali Lama for 50 years, but he’s still around, still smiling his inscrutable little smile.
That’s gotta be some kind of transcendental awesome he’s got going for him.
The real challenge for him will begin when he dies, since the Commies running Tibet have forbidden him to re-incarnate without permission.
Pirates rarely have these problems.