in_nomine-digest Thursday, April 11 2002 Volume 01 : Number 2597 In this digest: IN> Angel of Rewarding Careers Re: IN> Angel of Rewarding Careers IN> Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty Re: IN> Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty IN> Weird thoughts Re: IN> Weird thoughts Re: IN> Weird thoughts Re: IN> Weird thoughts Re: IN> Weird thoughts Re: IN> Weird thoughts ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 22:02:05 +0100 From: "Stephen McIlvenna" Subject: IN> Angel of Rewarding Careers Josiah, Angel of Rewarding Careers, Kyriotate Friend of the Shareholders CORPOREAL 5 Strength 8 Agility 12 ETHEREAL 4 Intelligence 8 Precision 8 CELESTIAL 5 Will 12 Perception 8 Role: 'Josephene Jones' Web-site Author/2, Status 4 Servants: Maureen Stewart (School Career Advisor)/4, Derek O'Hara (Human Resource Consultant)/4 Skills: Computer Operation/2, Detect Lies/2, Emote/4, Fast Talk/2, Knowledge (Economics)/3, Knowledge (Job Market)/3, Savoir-Faire/2 Songs: Healing (Corporeal/3, Celestial/1), Empathy (Ethereal/3, Celestial/3) Attunements: Kyriotate of Trade, Malakite of Trade, Kyriotate of Destiny, Divine Contract Special Rite: Fairly reward somebody for a service they have performed. Special Attunement: For 1 Essence, the Angel of Rewarding Careers can determine how much money a person earns from their job and what sort of life-style it allows them. "You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God." 2 Corinthians 9:11. "And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Colossians 3:17. Josiah spent most of his early earthly career working with other Servitors of Trade to encourage the fair payment of employees by large corporations in the modern western world. At some point he noticed that many people in these societies earned more than enough to meet their basic needs and were becoming more and more focused on unnecessary luxuries and status symbols. Fearing the influence of Mammon, he began to examine the motivation of people in their careers and to promote less selfish, more heavenly-inspired attitudes. These two themes form the core of the Word he has since received. The Angel believes that anybody can serve God in their job by working honestly and diligently. Everybody from doctors and teachers to waitresses and bank clerks can do something to help others through their work and, in doing so, give honour to the Almighty. While he still strives to see employees rewarded for their efforts, he is aware that financial gain in this life is a passing thing. To those feeling unfairly treated, overlooked or unhappy in their work he would point out that no deed is missed by God and that He will one day reward all those who come to Him. This, of course, does not excuse those who unfairly treat their employees in this world. The Kyriotate prefers hosts who act as career councillors, motivational speakers and management advisors. He enjoys working with Mercurians of Trade (or Destiny) with similar Roles. He likes to remain close to a particular target and use the Songs of Empathy while observing them at work. He will then possess a likely host in order to discuss their attitudes and ambitions, relying on simple persuasion to promote his beliefs. His Role publishes a web-site and occasional magazine article aimed at the management of corporations. He uses it to encourage "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work" and provides a detailed examination of the tax implications, balance sheet effects and morale benefits of more flexible remuneration packages. Josiah has many friends among the angels of Destiny. Indeed one of Yves senior Servitors withdrew his nomination for a similar Word after talking to Josiah and seeing the results of the Kyriotate's work. Josiah's main Word-bound adversary is the Demon of Selfish Ambition (a Habbalite of Greed). He is also aware of a plot jointly initiated by the Demon of Office Politics (a Balseraph of Factions) and an unknown Servitor of Theft, to corrupt the Trade inspired initiatives of Corporate Pension Schemes, Performance Related Pay and Employee Share Rewards. Investigating this threat has brought him into contention with Stone's Angel of Trade Unions. While collective bargaining may be effective against this Malphasean scheme, Josiah feels that threats of industrial action harm the attitudes which he seeks to promote. Stephen http://www.btinternet.com/~s.mci/innomine/inindex.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 14:48:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> Angel of Rewarding Careers Interesting concept, and a nice portrayal of a Word-bound of Trade. ===== Michael Walton, #US2002023848 "In film, the director is God. In documentaries, God is the director." - -- Alfred Hitchcock __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 03:20:35 -0000 From: "Chris Anthony" Subject: IN> Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty Special thanks to Charity for her invaluable assistance in researching this (admittedly short) story. - -EDG - -- Haagenti stepped through the ruin of a wooden door, letting his eyes adjust to the sudden gloom. Although the gaslights down the corridor in front of him were supposed to be eternal, six and a half centuries of neglect had dimmed all but a few, and those sputtered, giving the entire corridor a spooky, otherworldly appearance. The Prince shivered involuntarily - regardless of how many times they'd visited, there was nothing more disturbing to a Superior than an abandoned Principality - and made his way through the wreckage of the hallway's displays and decorations, toward the rear of the building. It was almost frightening to Haagenti to turn his gaze into some of the crumbling doorways. His eyes focused against his will on the remains of demons whose very Forces had rotted from the inside, of souls that had once had human form but were now contorted beyond all recognition, of imps and snots and demonlings forced into bottles, their nutrient drips - no matter how tainted - now more than six hundred years dry. He shivered again. This, more than many other places in Hell, was not a happy place. It is said that the Demon Princes are hundreds of years more advanced than the humans. (The Archangels, as all demons know, are backwards, incompetent fools, but they are hundreds of years beyond the Princes all the same.) Still, the Princes had to rely on the same basic methods that humans did, and as a result, the rooms which Haagenti was passing, even had they been in perfect, working condition, would still have seemed hopelessly antiquated to any modern mortal. Even physicians and psychiatrists might have been baffled by some of the instruments and tools that lay broken and rusted on the tables and floors. Still, there was a grandeur about the place. In isolated spots near the Essence-burning gaslights, the solid mahogany paneling still shone as though it had been recently polished. In some rooms, the decay was halted, and steel-and-glass contraptions still warmed over hissing Bunsen burners. There was a power about the place, as though the countless ideas that had grown in this building had permeated the walls and pulsed still, waiting for another mind to corrupt. Haagenti's was not that mind. He remembered the events which had led to the Grand Laboratory's master's destruction, and he wanted no part of such things. He did want one of that master's last inventions, though. Like his successor, that Prince had not always realized the full detail of his inventions' powers, and had developed a bacteriophagic syrup that would consume any germs it came across and subsume their infectious abilities, resulting in a super-germ that could be kept in a bottle. Its creator hadn't gotten all the way through testing, though; in fact, the syrup was a poison that was alkephagic, devouring Forces instead of bacteria. Haagenti was glad that the elbow-length rubber gloves he'd found in one of the less-ruined rooms were actually more or less untouched, and still he winced as he uncorked the glass bottle that held the venomous syrup. When he was certain that the fumes had cleared, he removed the black dagger from its sheath and slid it, tip-first, into the thick liquid. Almost immediately, beads of syrup began flowing up the blade, toward the hilt of the dagger, but cleverly-worked grooves in the surface and interior of the blade kept the liquid from touching the ornamented grip. Only a few moments passed as the venom worked its way into the dagger, and then Haagenti drew the blade out and re-stoppered the bottle. Its contents frothed and sloshed a little, but the Prince paid that no mind as he stripped the rubber gloves from his arms and resheathed the black dagger. On his way out, Haagenti noticed one of the remaining gaslights sputter and die. He sighed, reached up and let flow a little Essence from his fingertip into the light, which immediately flared back into life. The Prince smiled, sucking idly at the prick that the light's sharp, pointed casing had given him. It was only right, he felt, to give something back to a place from whom he'd taken so much. As he stepped again over the blasted door, he almost thought he could hear a tortured, ragged scream from deep within the facility, and he shivered once more. There was a reason that the master of the Grand Laboratory was almost seven hundred years dead. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 05:44:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty [shudder] Very creepy. I hope there's more to this. ===== Michael Walton, #US2002023848 "In film, the director is God. In documentaries, God is the director." - -- Alfred Hitchcock __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 09:30:12 -0400 From: EDG Subject: IN> Weird thoughts It's amazing the kind of thing you think of while you're re-reading "Bright Dream/Dark Dream". - -EDG A one-sentence rationalization for the Rebellion: If you had spent eons - in fact, your entire life up to the present - creating, forging, building a world from *nothing*, and then your boss decided to implement a new security feature that started alarms going every time you set foot on this world you just built - especially loud ones if you were one of the bigwigs - and gave all the creatures who evolved (from the muck that you'd created) permanent, built-in access cards... ...wouldn't you be just a little pissed off? - -- The Humanists A demonic sect Ages past, a full third of Heaven's population rebelled. They revolted for various reasons, but chief among them was their rage and sorrow that the humans had been given a higher place in Creation than they had. The result was tragic. A full third of Heaven's population cast out, to live in darkness forever, to become demons, the antithesis of every angel every created. Disconnected from the Symphony, frowned upon by God, these new creatures were the lowest of the low. In their fight to regain their supremacy, they had fallen to the bottom of the celestial hierarchy. Some demons remained angry, and fought back. Some sat in sorrow until their Forces were blown away by the dry winds that scour Hell. But some... Some felt that if the humans were the best-loved by God, then the only logical course was to become human. The Humanists are a demon sect that has, for the last twenty thousand years, studied the techniques of assigning Forces, of isolating them from their original body and replacing them elsewhere. They are adept in the art of surgically stripping and grafting Forces, and have developed techniques for the distillation of Forces in order to concentrate the memories and skills of a creature into very limited space. Detractors - those who make it out of the Humanists' lab - scoff, saying that these demons are obviously insane, that their work will never amount to anything. Obviously, the very concept defies known laws of reality - but there have been reports of demons vanishing without a trace, their Hearts shattering, and human souls showing up in Hell who have never passed under the gaze of the Angels of Final Judgment... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 08:11:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> Weird thoughts Heh. I see that I'm not the only one here who reads Niven -- this reeks of Kdaptists. It's well within the tolerances for Punishers' behavior, though. ===== Michael Walton, #US2002023848 "In film, the director is God. In documentaries, God is the director." - -- Alfred Hitchcock __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 12:21:43 -0500 From: "Prodigal" Subject: Re: IN> Weird thoughts From: "EDG" > > Some felt that if the humans were the best-loved by God, then the only > logical course was to become human. The scary part is, I can see an overwhelming number of Haballah doing exactly this. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 13:32:22 -0400 From: "Josh Moger" Subject: Re: IN> Weird thoughts >> Some felt that if the humans were the best-loved by God, then the only >> logical course was to become human. > >The scary part is, I can see an overwhelming number of Haballah doing >exactly this. > I dunno. Habbalah hate humans. They break too easily. And besides, they think they (the Habbalah) are right where they should be. Maybe some balseraphs who have convinced themselves that they are human... Josh ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 13:11:59 -0500 From: "Prodigal" Subject: Re: IN> Weird thoughts From: "Josh Moger" > > > >The scary part is, I can see an overwhelming number of Haballah doing > >exactly this. > > I dunno. Habbalah hate humans. That's the default mindset, true. But all Habbalah believe that they are doing God's work, after all, and if some of them started to reach the conclusion that He loves humans best, and that in order to properly serve Him, they need to become more worthy of His love... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 16:44:11 -0500 From: "Charles Glasgow" Subject: Re: IN> Weird thoughts - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Prodigal" To: Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 1:11 PM Subject: Re: IN> Weird thoughts > That's the default mindset, true. But all Habbalah believe that they are > doing God's work, after all, and if some of them started to reach the > conclusion that He loves humans best, and that in order to properly serve > Him, they need to become more worthy of His love... I thought that a key pillar of the Habbalah mindset was losing your objectivity to the point where you couldn't ever seriously entertain the notion that you were *not* entirely worthy of God's love already, simply by doing what you were doing. The Habbalah capacity for rationalization and self-justification is legendary, after all. - -- Chuckg ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #2597 ********************************