User blog:Thunder Luigi/The Letter "T"

Warning: This post is attempting to understand a certain part of the game from a realistic point of view.

Alongside the Trollface in Ginoya and "knos" on the Kinzer RS and nukes in Gof2 SD, two mysteries surround the letter "T".

As he himself states, he doesn't know what the "T" stands for in "Keith T. Maxwell" as he jokingly states his other (?) middle name is "Dangerous". Players are left to wonder why it exists then, besides the fact it flows nicely between the first and last names.

[Regarding the flow of his name, I actually did try inserting other letters in place of "T", but it turns out that the "th" sound in "Keith" sets up the shape of your mouth quite nicely to pronounce a "T" ("tee") immediately, without that sort of "readjustment" that may result in mispronuncations, stuttering, and the like. For example, try saying "Keith F. Maxwell" and then "Keith T. Maxwell"; the "F" sounds kinda awkward, no?]

However, Keith's middle name isn't quite what this post is about.

No, I'm posting to talk about the cargo measurement known as "t": the Groza's 130t cargo space, the 31t of Energy Cells needed to build 1t of an MD 10.

It's perfectly understandable for players to assume that the "t" in the cargo measurement stands for "tons", as it has always been in the real world. However, large inconsistencies come up when every item in the game is measured in these assumed tons.

On one side, you have the "t"s that make sense. For example, jumping with the Khador Drive needs at least one ton of energy cells (or two on Extreme) because portable jump drives are assumed to consume a lot of energy to travel large distances. Also, the 20 tons needed for a batch of AMR Extinctors makes sense because their explosions are incredibly huge. Other examples that make sense include:

On the other hand, there are the "t"s that don't make sense at all (more evident when "ton" is written out). For example, how can 3668 tons of plasma fit into a sodil container that is part of a Phoenix SIS? How does a scanner know that eight tons of AMR wristwatches have been salvaged (unless one of those weighs one ton) from a pirate? Also, isn't it really, really dumb to carry one ton of material certain to destroy a ship if jostled too much? Other examples that don't make sense include:
 * The weight of weapons being fitted onto a ship
 * The amount of commodities needed to craft advanced weaponry
 * Cargo compressors, whose visual representations don't quite do their job
 * Passenger cabins, where their different sizes are all one ton
 * Scanners, the total weight of any model shouldn't be a ton
 * Basic food that runs $5 at its cheapest (maybe?)

I'm pretty sure everyone was at least slightly puzzled at the end of the Void conflict when it's said that 1t of S'kolptorr Rum "was left" for Keith. Are the greatest minds in the galaxy also the greatest drinkers?

While it does seem that I'm suggesting for some kind of reform, I'm not. It's just something interesting to think about that hasn't been addressed by this Wikia community, and also just wanting to expand on the basic question "What the hell does this 't' stand for in the hangar?!"

Thunder Luigi (talk) 08:15, March 3, 2013 (UTC)