It makes your tolerance to pain go through the roof. If you do that you have nothing to fear and without fear you will always perform at your peak.
Printable View
My point is: if they really do get beaten next to death, they have to be cured for a long time afterwards.
Ghost has the advantage in that s/he can read minds, and therefore know what the Marine is going to do before he does it; although it's obviously not foolproof, as Ghosts have be surprised in the past. If the Ghost can utilize this ability effectively, it has the better chance of winning. Other abilities are either so rare they're not even worth discussing (telekinesis) or have no utility in this situation (psychometry).
And hand-to-hand training is pretty bog standard in just about every military's boot camp, it's one of those skills that's always handy to know when you're in a situation where you can't use your weapons properly. The Marine might not be specifically taught how to take on a Ghost, but an armlock works on any human, whether they're psychic or not.
Brain commands body.
Yeah, but:
"Ghosts epitomize the height of terran evolution and physical conditioning. Born with incredible psionic potential, these individuals are recruited and quarantined for government training from childhood. Ghosts channel their psionic energies to augment their natural physical strength and endurance. This process is enhanced by specialized skin-suits worn by ghosts that are laced with a form of psi-sensitive artificial muscle fiber. Thus, a typical ghost is tougher, stronger, and faster than even a well-trained but otherwise average terran.
Exceptional ghosts exist that can tear through walls, run at remarkable speeds, and leap tall obstacles. Excitable media rumors of long-range telepathy, telekinesis, and even mind control or other exotic powers have all added to the grisly reputation of ghosts cultivated by their masters.
As a precautionary measure, neural inhibitors are surgically implanted in all ghosts to prevent such deadly individuals from going rogue. The effectiveness of this measure is questionable, however, for there are whispered tales of ghosts working outside governmental authority. Most infamously the current leader of the zerg Swarm, Sarah Kerrigan, was originally a ghost loyal to Arcturus Mengsk prior to her capture and infestation with the zerg hyperevolutionary virus."
True, but unless we're talking about a walking wank-fest like Nova, the Ghost is most likely going to be limited to reading minds and increasing physical attributes. And they're not going to have their suits to further boost those attributes. I believe one of the War Pigs gets into a hand-to-hand confrontation with a suited Ghost in one of the comics; the Ghost has the edge and is winning most of the time, but she does get surprised once or twice as I recall, nor does she exhibit any truly stupendous feats of strength or speed, like snapping bones and such. It is within the realm of possibility for the Marine to win this fight.
I have to agree with Lupino. Without his suit a Ghost is almost the same as a regular human.
Except for the fact that Ghosts train their entire lives for physical fitness while a Marine is a convict who sits in prison all day long and does what, lift weights?Quote:
I have to agree with Lupino. Without his suit a Ghost is almost the same as a regular human.
This is not the War Pigs we are talking about. This is not a named War Pig vs Unknown Ghost. Since when is that a fair debate?
This is an unknown Ghost vs unknown marine, who does not happen to be a mercenary with specialized skills.
So that whole debate that Lupino brought up? Useless.
A Ghost would crush a marine easily armoured OR unarmoured. We don't have to even bring armour into it because a Ghost would just cloak (not to mention that he can crush someone's face just with his hand).
Unarmoured, a Ghost could destroy Bruce Lee. Did you see how hard they trained Colin Phash? They put him in LIFE threatening situations. Hey Colin, one marine is loaded, if you pick wrong, you dead. That's what his training consists of. What else? Oh Colin, it doesn't matter if you're like 6 years old, we're going to unleash a bunch of Zerg on you and see if you can use your quiet voice to escape, if not? Well, too bad I guess.
That's the training a Ghost goes through, every day of his life. We also have no evidence suggesting that marines learn much if any close combat at all. What's the point? They're fighting other armoured marines with guns most of the time, or the Zerg or the Protoss. Since when does having close combat come in handy against any of those? You're better off running away to find a gun.
Colin is far, very far from an average or "unknown" Ghost. His telepathy/telekinesis is more developed as a child than most Ghosts' at their peak. It is only reasonable to assume that the training he is subjected to is much more stringent as a result.
You don't throw a toddler into the water to teach him how to swim, you throw an adolescent into the water to teach him how to swim. The same principle applies. Just because Nova (or whoever) can take having the crap beaten out of them on a daily basis as part of their training doesn't mean that everyone can -- or does. Take Devon Starke, for instance. Just a year out of the Ghost Program, he is described as physically unassuming. Hard to imagine that he got Bruce Lee training (or better, as you suggest) just months ago.
Frankly, I think the average Ghost is a lot less bad-ass than you imagine. I think he's more likely to be an accountant with mind control powers than a front-line Spartan.
Speaking on average, in terms of unknowns, I'd say the Ghost would win 6 or 7 out of 10 fights. He does have SOME powers, however slight an advantage they might give in a pitched fight, and he did receive daily training at some point in his career (however distant that point may be). But for the most part, as Lupino said, I think it's more or less a fight between 2 completely random guys.