plasmid

Donning crown of white Three sabers with two to a scabbard Armed for any fight Exposed to assault looking backward Should attack I see Retaliate sans hesitation Fate would hinge on me Though tethered I am to my station

With that guess, Dudley defeats this riddle Though there were certainly a number of quite good alternate answers

One-word answers aren't really my style if I think I've got it

Back for a moment. As a matter of fact, not only am I hoomin fud, but I'm also a famous kitteh fud.

I'd next guess

Sorry, been busy with work for a bit. A little more in the way of clues to narrow this one down...

I had not a glimmer on this one until moonthirsty and MissKitten got me pointed in the right direction, so regardless of the number of guesses, this is definitely a tough riddle requiring a team effort.

I kind of like the pinata answer as a whole different direction that this one could be interpreted. But at this point I think this one may have been too vague or not included enough specific clues. I suppose the next hint after enumerating the clues would be to give an idea of what's meant to be taken literally versus figuratively.

They're on the right track. I didn't have champagne in mind; I'm not sure what the ruffled garb would be referring to (although I'm admittedly not terribly familiar with the stuff.) Pie a la mode could definitely have a ruffled crust and fits the clue about getting into armor and having a component that will run for a bit (although once it's melted it doesn't really permanently stop running), but the bloody rain I would have some trouble fitting. I typically make my pies by dumping a bunch of apples (or whatever the filling may be) into the crust with a ton of sugar mixed in... I'd have to look up how the instant mix types are made and see if maybe a cherry pie would involve pouring a thick red liquidy mixture into the crust.

I can't get a palm tree to fit all the clues, which I'll get into a bit more detail about below. Maybe it's time for a hint, and breaking it down to a list of the main intended clues seems like a good way to go.

Guesses from some of the senior solvers are getting parts of it but not quite all. The ruffled garb would work against fireworks, falling to the sword goes against a grape related answer since they're usually plucked, and I can't figure out how the part about the rest running and not staying in formation would fit with wedding flowers. I'm having trouble fitting the fourth stanza with coffee brewed from freshly ground beans -- the third stanza's bloody rain would have referred to the brewed coffee so it seems like maybe the fourth would have to refer to grounds being poured into the filter, but then it would come out of order and not have a great reason why it's being referred to as "the rest". I think that actually covers most of the clues in the riddle, aside from the one about carcasses.

After reading duke2cool's answer more closely, I see that it's actually a correct proof of impossibility as well. I just didn't completely follow it on the first readthrough.

Not a video game reference. Perhaps there's one out there that will fit this description, but it's not what I had in mind. I tend to avoid such topics as my answers if it seems like something that a fair fraction of the population wouldn't be familiar with. I consider clues to be fair game to be pretty obscure, but not the answer to the riddle. And for similar reasons, I wouldn't dare to write a riddle about a chess maneuver that's completely impossible.

Sry if the colors came out blah

Sniffing around the right territory. The ruffled garb could potentially point to the little fancy foot coverings you occasionally see on a turkey. Gravy could be the runny stuff, although the bit about "now they evermore shall sleep" wouldn't make as much sense with that interpretation. A bunch of the other clues would require invoking other components of a dinner to make them fit, like red wine to account for a bloody rain... a holiday dinner could be made to fit, but I'm looking for something that's not quite so broad.

Thanks for the kind words, Xavie, and welcome to Brainden. I didn't have football in mind when writing this one, but going back and looking over it with that answer in mind I see how the clues could be interpreted in a completely different way to make it work rather nicely, refering to running backs then linemen getting blitzed and then receivers. Surprising to find an alternate answer with a riddle this long. (Well, maybe not since I wasn't expecting one given the length and therefore didn't bother planting things to rule out alternates.) I'll accept it and of course leave the riddle open to look for the answer I had in mind.

With ruffled garb I stood adorned Preparing to suit up in armor Alert the troops we've been forewarned It's time now to earn yourselves honor My cherished horde could not advance All fell to the sword by the score Not one among them stood a chance I'm grateful we didn't send more I've never witnessed carnage such With carcasses flung all around The bloody rain streamed down so much So fast that I feared I would drown The rest would not formation keep They ran just as far as they could But now they evermore shall sleep It did them all quite little good In battle thus I had been spurned The odds of a victory zero Perplexing though, I then returned To greetings befit for a hero

Aha, think I've got a rhymeworthy answer with a revamp of what the houses are

Hm, that poem seems to remind me of a riddle. But back to the issue at hand. It's usually not a good sign if I need to wikipediaize my way to an answer,

Also glad to see you drop back in, Shakee Mostly thinking along the same lines as MissKitten and plainglazed, Doesn't feel too right though, will have to chew on this one a bit more.

Well, I thought that this was a thought provoking assertion because it challenges the whole argument that science must be silent on religion because it can neither be scientifically proven or disproven. The example of consciousness I thought was a particularly good one. Consciousness at least seems to be so ill defined in any scientific way that I can't see how you could even propose an experiment that would objectively verify or quantitate or do any other sceintific-y stuff with it. But I still think it would be ridiculous to say that it's therefore an untestable hypothesis and that science must be silent about it. For that matter, even for "testable" hypotheses, just how testable are they in practice, and how much evidence do you need to pile up to call something "proven"? Take everyone's favorite example of evolution, specifically the part about mankind's descent from a common ancestor with great apes. Apparently it's possible to accumulate a ton of archaeological and biochemical evidence supporting the idea, but it would be impossible to go back in time and directly observe the lineage unfold, so is it an unprovable hypothesis? Perhaps a better example would be one where there is still debate among actual scientists, but the ones that I can think of offhand are relatively obscure biochemical questions, and I'm not sure if the molecular mechanism by which cell surface receptors transmit signals across a cell membrane would be a very riveting example for a forum with mostly non-biologists. Suffice it to say that science can accumulate evidence to support or refute a hypothesis, but there is a very blurry line about when anything is ever proven. We just learn to live with that uncertainty. When it comes to religion, why can't this also be treated like a hypothesis that you can accumulate evidence either for or against? I can think of a few possible answers to that question, but it seemed worth bringing this up as a challenge to the current status quo of calling religion unprovable and therefore out of the realm of science.