@Shalvenay an excellent question. My guess is that it would be brittle.

@Geo Agility is the ability to accelerate one's body. Acceleration is a function of power. As Andy and other have noted, genetics plays a significant role in this.

Power comes from nervous system capacity and muscle fiber diameter. This leads to big guys being able to accelerate light things a lot or really heavy things a bit.

Another perspective is that agility is an endurance game. The lower the load, the more someone can repeat that motion/action. An advanced powerlifter may be able to only lift their max weight once. Conversely, runners may repeat a running motion 50k times or more when completing a marathon.

That's the eternal trade-off. Do some thing huge a few times or do a tiny thing many times.

@Green What can we learn from that about how heavy armor impacts agility?

As strength depends on nerves and muscle diameter, the load a person can carry is dependent on the size of their muscles. While specific numbers such as 50kg are often quoted, the real answer is "it depends on the soldier". A 120kg monster of a man won't worry about 10kg of weight, while a 75kg man will struggle more.

@Geo Heavy armor demands great strength to make it useful.

@Green So we should view the question of how load impacts agility as being relative to the weight of the solder's body, so it's a percentage, not an absolute number?

@Geo Correct.

@Geo Take this table on bench press standards.

exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/BenchStandards

We note that as body weight goes up, the possible max weight also goes up.

@Green I was thinking you'd get a polycrystalline corundum if you will (if you did it with gem or optical grade starting materials, you'd get something like a milky appearance, perhaps useful as sort of an alternative-gemstone?)

The ratio of body weight to max weight will depend on the motion and the training of the soldier/lifter.

@Shalvenay You'd have to be really careful with precipitation of the aluminum crystals.

@Green from what I've seen of folks maneuvering in armor, it does take a fair bit of strength, but sustained strength, which tilts the balance towards cardio even?

@Green Just because bigger people can lift heavy weights doesn't necessarily make them more agile. All that bulk might actually slow them down even if it does make them a better weight lifter.

@Shalvenay I have learned from my own experience that it's possible to have aerobic and anaerobic capabilities be very different in one individual. I powerlift so my strength is high but my cardio is weaker.

@Geo The greater bulk enables heavier lifts. The scenario I have in my head as we talk about this is a big guy with a standard sword vs a smaller guy with the same standard sword. The bigger guy will be able to accelerate the blade faster because he's bigger.

@Green That makes a lot of sense. I wonder. Clearly bigger people can lift heavier weights, but do they actually move those weights more quickly? I guess they probably do, but I don't have any numbers for that.

@Geo I'm brushing up on the difference between work and power. I found this: physicsclassroom.com/class/energy/Lesson-1/Power

Big guys can do more work, clearly. They can lift bigger things. However, between a small guy who does a unit-work in 1 second, a big guy who does that same unit-work in 0.25 seconds if far more powerful.

@Green There's also a question of how quickly a guy can bring all his available power together onto his target. I think that's sometimes called "jerk".

@Geo True. The "clean and jerk" tests that exact characteristic of a lifter.

@Geo Jerk is how fast a change in acceleration occurs.

At least that's what it is in physics.

@Gryphon My understanding as well.

@Gryphon So as I figure it, strength is about how much force you can apply, and force is proportional to acceleration, and acceleration is proportional to power, but when you're being agile you need fast changes in acceleration, so that's about jerk rather than acceleration, which might not have much to do with strength.

@Geo I feel like agility is less about fast in acceleration, and more about fast changes in velocity (e.g., dodging back and forth, zig-zagging). Which would be acceleration, rather than jerk.

I don't feel like fast changes in acceleration are much of a problem for your normal human. If you're swinging your arm around, it doesn't take a noticeable amount of time to start trying to stop.

@Gryphon But all the acceleration in the world isn't going to do you any good if it takes you a minute to apply the acceleration. One often pictures a weight lifter perform their feats of strength only after a long, careful setup.

@Gryphon But there might be some delay if your arm is wrapped in heavy plates of steel.

@Geo A delay in how fast your velocity changes, yes (it takes a while to slow down). But to start slowing down takes pretty much no time.

@Gryphon Of course, if someone is shooting at you, pretty much no time is the maximum amount of time that you've got to take cover.

@Geo in some circles (American football, for one), you hear the term "athletic burst" mentioned -- the ability for someone with quite a bit of bulk on them to move very quickly, "explosively" even, for short periods of time -- take a good pass-rusher for instance

I wish there were a weight-lifting competition where people would load up with heavy weights and then play dodge ball. Those numbers would be so useful.

@Geo hahahaha XD

dodgeball, Armored +P division

@Geo it's not completely pertinent, but maybe discussion by folks running 2-gun matches in armor might help?

Perhaps some paintball statistics might help. The armor is pretty light, but it could give you some numbers for light armor.

@Gryphon I'm guessing that light armor has pretty much no effect.

@Geo Probably a very slight one, yes. Just a thought.

@PavelJanicek Hey, got a confirmation from someone in chat over at travel.se that US citizens don't get fingerprinted when reentering the country. Means that the whole emergency passport probably isn't needed

@James seen the GOT season 8 pitch meeting yet?

@AndyD273 Yeah, pretty solid.

"you can have more episodes"

Like, I'm all for letting a show/story end when it's gotten to a good ending point. It's the one ring problem; After a while it begins to get really thin, like not enough butter over too much bread.

But trying to compress all that story into not enough time for it to really mature is just cruel.

@AndyD273 I wasn't upset with what the characters did for the most part, some minor complaints here and there...but it would have been a far better conclusion if they had taken more time and allow those events to be built up to better.

And how freaking hard is it to throw in a travelling montage or two so it doesn't seem like everyone is teleporting around instantly.

Also, apparently not forget all the things that they set up from one episode to the next

@James From what I gathered, teleporting is kind of their thing. Arya teleporting to kill the night king for instance...

Sure beats horses

@AndyD273 Yeah if they had just been better at showing that time has passed those problems wouldn't have existed.

@James But they didn't have enough time to add filler like that.

Right eyeroll

I really am curious why they didn't milk extend the series a little more. It's almost like they hate money. What else do they have going for them at the moment?

Their on demand catalog is kinda pathetic compared to all the competition they have, none of their other shows seem to have a rabid following... at least not that anyone cares enough to talk about. Maybe they are running out of money and can't afford to keep the series going...

@AndyD273 There are a few good shows on HBO, nothing that compares to GoT though.

hey there @James