From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Thu Dec 10 18:04:09 1998 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (majordom@lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id SAA01772 for ; Thu, 10 Dec 1998 18:04:09 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.0/8.9.0) id RAA18719 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Thu, 10 Dec 1998 17:25:38 -0600 Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 17:25:38 -0600 Message-Id: <199812102325.RAA18719@lists.io.com> X-Authentication-Warning: lists.io.com: majordom set sender to owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com using -f From: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com (in_nomine-digest) To: in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Subject: in_nomine-digest V1 #1047 Reply-To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com Sender: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Errors-To: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Precedence: bulk in_nomine-digest Thursday, December 10 1998 Volume 01 : Number 1047 In this digest: Re: IN> Malakim of War (Re: Disturbance\Causation) IN> Re: IN- question Re: IN> Lilim and Malakim Re: IN> Archive Search Problem? Re: IN> Re: IN- question Re: IN> Jeans word Re: IN> Jean's word Re: IN> Jean's word Re: IN> Re: IN- question Re: IN> Jeans word Re: IN> Jeans word Re: IN> Jean's word Re: IN> Re: IN- question Re: IN> Jeans word IN> Anaesthesia (was re: Jeans word) Re: IN> Lilim and Malakim Re: IN> Jean's word Re: IN> Re: IN- question Re: IN> Jean's word Re: IN> Quickie Plot Seed: See the Mammalian Constellations Re: IN> Malakim of War (Re: Disturbance\Causation) Re: IN> Malakim of War (Re: Disturbance\Causation) Re: IN> Lilim and Malakim Re: IN> Quickie Plot Seed: See the Mammalian Constellations IN> cleared up arabic djinn Re: IN> Malakim of War (Re: Disturbance\Causation) Re: IN> Jean's word Re: IN> Malakim of War (Re: Disturbance\Causation) IN> Fluff (Re: Malakim of War) Re: IN> Quickie Plot Seed: See the Mammalian Constellations Re: IN> Jean's word ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 06:04:26 -0500 (EST) From: Eslin Subject: Re: IN> Malakim of War (Re: Disturbance\Causation) On Thu, 10 Dec 1998, Steve Jessop wrote: > What happens if a Malak of War decides to wait until he *isn't* getting > the warning, then walk up to someone at random and hit them :-) Michael explains to the Malak that since Malakim don't Fall, he gets next to nothing out of sucking up to the Demon Princess of Nitpicking? :) - Eslin (eslin@buffnet.net // Chephirah@Fiat.Justitia) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 06 Dec 1998 22:39:35 PST From: "Micheal Knight" Subject: IN> Re: IN- question > how many angels can dance on the head of a VCR? This actually reminds me of a goofy question htat came up in my game the other night. What's the bandwith of a Kyriotate of Jean? Situation: Random KoJ is posessing two computers. NEither has modems. He wants to transfer data from one hard drive to the other. Assume there's room. So... how fast can he transfer it? >CAN< he transfer it? Micheal ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 13:21:29 +0100 (CET) From: Anders Gabrielsson Subject: Re: IN> Lilim and Malakim On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, Jo Hart wrote: > At 18:49 08/12/98 +0100, you wrote: > > > >Hm. Well, Malakim can see if you're honorable, and Lilim can make you do > >dishonorable things. OTOH, Shedim are much more about that than are Lilim. > >OTTH (not letting myself be limited by mere anatomy) > > > Not sure. I mean yes, Shedim can make people do dishonorable things but > that's not what I think they are about (probably most have no concept of > honour in the first place so actively being dishonourable is an alien > concept). They're more about pushing people towards their worst sides; > getting them to do the things they secretly wanted to do anyway but would > normally be too restrained either by personal morality or by society. A > Shedite doesn't care about anyone's personal morality -- it just isn't very > interested. It cares about having fun and seeing how far someone can be > pushed (and how easily). You have to get very deep down and personal inside > someone's head to be able to whisper to them with the voice of their own > evil inclination... It feels like you're contradicting yourself here. What is honour but personal morality? How can you get "deep down and personal inside someone's head" without getting a grasp of their sense of honour? Anders Gabrielsson anders@stp.ling.uu.se The contents of this message belong to me and nobody else. So there! May you have the knowledge of a sage, and the wisdom of a child. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 08:20:00 -0500 (EST) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: IN> Archive Search Problem? > > I tried to search the archives of this list for my house firearms rules > which I wrote ages and ages ago and sent in for comment, but for some > reason, the search engine at sjgames won't search any later than May 1998. > > Is anyone else having this problem? Your house rules aren't going to BE in the general Steve Jackson Game archives. It isn't part of the index set, and you will never find them. This is why I built a search engine specifically for the In Nomine Collection - the link is there, under "Search the In Nomine Collection Archives". I did a search, and they came up second, under the Demon of the 2nd Amendment. - - Em Current Quote: I can love, I have loved before, but sometimes, I think, I forget how. - Daimon, NPCLog #5 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 09:02:53 -0500 From: John Karakash - Lucent ASCC Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- question Micheal Knight wrote: > > > how many angels can dance on the head of a VCR? > > This actually reminds me of a goofy question htat came up in my > game the other night. What's the bandwith of a Kyriotate of Jean? > > Situation: Random KoJ is posessing two computers. NEither has > modems. He wants to transfer data from one hard drive to the other. > Assume there's room. So... how fast can he transfer it? >CAN< he > transfer it? GM's call. I, personally, would allow it. KoJ can 'read' themselves pretty quickly, so I'd give it to them at the fastest rate their hard drive allows (the bus speed of the slower of the two is a good choice). - -- ___________________________________________________ / \ | John Karakash - Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs | | (919)388-2665(COOL) MIB2300 | | | | The power to tax involves the power to destroy. | | -Chief Justice Marshall | \___________________________________________________/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 10:33:27 EST From: MarkDEddy@aol.com Subject: Re: IN> Jeans word In a message dated 12/9/98 1:20:12 PM, jhart@btinternet.com writes: >I don't think it is always so easy to tell the difference. Those radium >experiments that eventually killed the Curies were as useful for developing >x-rays as Nuclear weapons. And doing a dangerous experiment after having >assessed the risks and the gains is different from doing stupid things like >going out in a thunderstorm with a kite. > > >jo > Umm... Jo? Have you actually read Franklin's account of how he performed the experiment proving lightning was electricity? He was insulated both from the kite string and the ground by rubber, and he was under cover of a house that had a lightning rod. It was far from a 'stupid thing,' it was a well-thought- out experiment which many other physicists replicated in later years. Mark ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 08:57:13 -0800 (PST) From: Robert Knop Subject: Re: IN> Jean's word > Lightning is also the 'bolt of inspiration,' and may well have held > that metaphorical power way-back-when. The moment of "Eureka!", the > instant where the knowledge comes together and you can *SEE* how > it *MUST* work. Not the intuitive feelings that Gabriel covers, > or the drive and vision of Creation, but that mostly-intellectual > moment when everything comes together in a blinding bolt of > realization. I have a bit of a beef with this, since in my experience (and in the experience of other scientists I've talked to) the "Eureka" moment is *extremely* rare in science. It's certainly a part of popular conception and lore, so in that sense it may well have a place in In Nomine, but in most cases it has very little to do with actual scientific discovery. (Recently, some of my astro group (I work on supernova cosmology) was interviewed by a television crew from the BBC. They kept asking me (and others), "how did you feel in the moment when you discovered that there was a cosmological constant?" (Or, "when you discovered the universe was accelerating?") The problem is, there wasn't a _moment_. It built up over time. When our results first told us that, I didn't believe it. The work lasted over the course of years (and still goes on), and the realization of the results didn't happen in a moment, they happened over the course of months. Indeed, many scientists still don't believe them, and we still have to do more work to convince ourselves that it's right. I've talked to other scientists who feel the same way. Usually science doesn't come as a sudden startling discovery, but as hints that there's something odd, followed by hours/days/months/years of trying to pull the signal out of the noise and understand the systematic effects well enough to find and believe the result.) Here's what I see as a better way to describe the metaphor of Jean's lightning for the inspiration of scientific discovery. Although to the outside observer, lightning is a sudden, unexpected, random event, in reality it isn't so. The weather, motion clouds, wind, etc. slowly work together to builds u static charges in clouds. This slow buildup of charge could be metaphorical for all of the groundwork, unseen and with uncertain results, done by scientists. When it comes to fruition, there's a sudden flash, and it becomes visible to the public; the charge had been building for time, but is released in an instant. (A metaphorical explanation for the public's misconception that all scientific discoveries come in "Eureka" moments.) IMHO (or IMC, as the case may be), Gabriel doesn't really have much to do with the inspiration that comes with scientific discovery. That way, I can keep lightning for that sort of inspiration without requiring a "Eureka" moment. - -Rob ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 98 14:41 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Jean's word >> Lightning is also the 'bolt of inspiration,' and may well have held >> that metaphorical power way-back-when. The moment of "Eureka!", the >> instant where the knowledge comes together and you can *SEE* how >> it *MUST* work. Not the intuitive feelings that Gabriel covers, >> or the drive and vision of Creation, but that mostly-intellectual >> moment when everything comes together in a blinding bolt of >> realization. > >I have a bit of a beef with this, since in my experience (and in the >experience of other scientists I've talked to) the "Eureka" moment is >*extremely* rare in science. It's certainly a part of popular conception >and lore, so in that sense it may well have a place in In Nomine, but in >most cases it has very little to do with actual scientific discovery. That probably is true in science, certainly these days. I'm less certain it is true of the period when the scientific method was first really being applied to understanding the universe. Though the scientific method itself requires a diligent pursuit of fact and evidence through experiment, the hypothesis to be tested *can* come of that sort of inspiration, I suspect. I *am* certain that this sort of inspiration happens in engineering occasionally, since I've experienced it on occasion. There are times when all the pieces of the puzzle fall into such a simple, elegant order.... - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 98 14:48 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- question >> > how many angels can dance on the head of a VCR? >> >> This actually reminds me of a goofy question htat came up in my >> game the other night. What's the bandwith of a Kyriotate of Jean? >> >> Situation: Random KoJ is posessing two computers. NEither has >> modems. He wants to transfer data from one hard drive to the other. >> Assume there's room. So... how fast can he transfer it? >CAN< he >> transfer it? > > GM's call. I, personally, would allow it. KoJ can >'read' themselves pretty quickly, so I'd give it to them at >the fastest rate their hard drive allows (the bus speed of >the slower of the two is a good choice). Bus speeds are much higher than disk transfer rates these days. 5-10 Mbytes/s is typical of current SCSI disk drives, I think the IDEs are a bit slower. I would note that I don't allow Kyriotates to read computer disks or memories any more than one possessing a human knows what the host's current blood chemistry makeup is. I make them work through whatever access programs the computer has -- i.e., they can operate the peripherals. Yes, they could operate the disk drive directly via its low level control lines, but they wouldn't do this for the same reason a human doesn't flip input switches in binary any more -- the computer hardware and software is designed to do it *much* faster and more efficiently. Otherwise, you wind up letting Kyrios take actions at computer speeds, which I think is giving *way* too much power to a Superior/Choir combination that's already one of the more powerful in the game. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 19:56:32 +0000 From: Jo Hart Subject: Re: IN> Jeans word At 10:33 10/12/98 EST, you wrote: > >Umm... Jo? Have you actually read Franklin's account of how he performed the >experiment proving lightning was electricity? OK, my bad. I haven't read much about that one. OTOH, I'm sure there was plenty of unwise types of experimentation going on (I'm sure I read something about Edison electrocuting kittens to try to convince people that Tesla's AC electricity was unsafe) jo ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 15:12:29 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Jeans word I recall a science documentary (an episode of "Nova," I think) showing the pioneers of anethesia at work. One of them got together with his lab assistant on a regular basis and simply sniffed random chemicals. One night, they both woke up on the floor. Ether had been discovered. Another anesthesia pioneer got himself accidentally hooked on cocaine. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 21:23:12 +0100 (CET) From: Anders Gabrielsson Subject: Re: IN> Jean's word On Thu, 10 Dec 1998, Walter Milliken wrote: > I *am* certain that this sort of inspiration happens in engineering > occasionally, since I've experienced it on occasion. There are times > when all the pieces of the puzzle fall into such a simple, elegant > order.... Likewise in programming and maths. I think the flashes of insight are still there, but on a smaller scale. There just isn't much room for more of them on the grand scale, I think. Many of the obvious discoveries ("Wait a minute... what if the -Earth- orbits the -Sun- instead?") have already been made. Anders Gabrielsson anders@stp.ling.uu.se The contents of this message belong to me and nobody else. So there! May you have the knowledge of a sage, and the wisdom of a child. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 20:24:50 +0000 (GMT) From: Steve Jessop Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- question On Thu, 10 Dec 1998, Walter Milliken wrote: > Yes, [Kyrios of Jean] could operate the disk drive directly via its low > level control lines, but they wouldn't do this for the same reason a > human doesn't flip input switches in binary any more -- the computer > hardware and software is designed to do it *much* faster and more > efficiently. So Windows is definitively proven to be an infernal device to slow down the opposition :-) More seriously, apart from game balance reasons, why should a Kyrio find it any easier to manipulate a 32 bit GUI than to compose, compile and run his own assembly code on the fly? Unless his 'possession' of a PC really only amounts to possessing the cathode ray tube, the keyboard, and the mouse. I would be inclined to tell the player 'you have a hard drive', rather than 'you have a window up for c:'. Steve. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 15:34:13 -0500 From: Perestroika Subject: Re: IN> Jeans word Jo Hart wrote: > OK, my bad. I haven't read much about that one. OTOH, I'm sure there was > plenty of unwise types of experimentation going on (I'm sure I read > something about Edison electrocuting kittens to try to convince people that > Tesla's AC electricity was unsafe) It was one H.P. Brown, one of Edison's aides, who performed these "electricides", paying children twenty-five cents for each stray animal they brought in, for the purposes of testing the dangers of alterating current. It can be safely assumed that Edison's motives were behind Brown's actions, though, if not Edison himself. Edison, on a side note, was asked by New York's Commission on Humane Executions for data on "electricide", and refused at first, stating that "he didn't believe in capital punishment". However, he wrote back later strongly backing execution by electrocution, calling it the most humane form of execution. "He was even kind enough to recommend the best generator for the job: "Alternating machines, manufactured principally in this country by George Westinghouse." This was intended to be Edison's masterstroke against Westinghouse, who had started advertising the AC electricity (stolen, incidentally, from Tesla, who worked for Westinghouse until he was no longer profitable); unfortunately, the first execution in which electrocution was used - that of William Kemmler, on August 6, 1890 - was viewed by newspapermen as atrocious, but by the governor as vastly more humane than hanging, "the grandest success of the age," and electrocution was used thereafter. - -EDG, Mercurian of Jean, wondering if perhaps he should go into service of Archives Note: the information here was taken partially from http://www.snopes.com/spoons/fracture/edison.htm. EDG claims no affiliation with the Urban Legends Reference Pages. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 15:50:25 -0500 From: Perestroika Subject: IN> Anaesthesia (was re: Jeans word) Interesting factoid... Horace Wells, one of the pioneers of anaesthesia, became addicted to chloroform, which he invented/discovered in the mid- to late 1840s. In 1848 he was arrested for assaulting two women with sulfuric acid; in a letter which he wrote from jail, he claimed that he'd gotten high on chloroform before the attack. Four days later he was found dead in his cell, having anaesthetized himself and slashed his thigh open with a razor. Yet another example of Vapulan interference, I tell you. :) - -EDG, Mercurian of Jean ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 20:50:02 +0000 From: Jo Hart Subject: Re: IN> Lilim and Malakim At 13:21 10/12/98 +0100, you wrote: > > >It feels like you're contradicting yourself here. What is honour but >personal morality? How can you get "deep down and personal inside >someone's head" without getting a grasp of their sense of honour? > Sorry, I'm not phrasing myself well. You have to imagine being the sort of alien creature that can get right inside someone's head (a Shedite doesn't really become their host, they can just have lengthy and private internal dialogues, I think) but being largely amoral yourself, still have no understanding of why that person has morals. You just know they do. And you don't care -- it's just a game. They're just toys. Like being given a new porsche and told to feel free to break the speed limit and wrap it round a lamp-post because the insurance is all paid for. I also think that it is amazingly hard for a shedite inside a host NOT to corrupt it ;) It's a demon. Pretty much anything it thinks or wants to do is likely to count as a corrupting influence. It can't help it. jo ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 13:03:16 -0800 (PST) From: Robert Knop Subject: Re: IN> Jean's word On Thu, 10 Dec 1998, Anders Gabrielsson wrote: > I think the flashes of insight are still there, but on a smaller scale. > There just isn't much room for more of them on the grand scale, I think. > Many of the obvious discoveries ("Wait a minute... what if the -Earth- > orbits the -Sun- instead?") have already been made. I'm not sure I agree that the big discoveries are left to be made. Purely hypothetically and science ficitionally, postulate the discovery of FTL drive. Two thousand years from now, people may look back and think that hyperspace was an obvious discovery sitting out there just waiting for somebody to think about it the right way. While it might mean years of work and the summation of many incremental discoveries in reality, in retrospect it may seem as obvious and inspirational as having an apple drop on your head to knock the 1/r^2 law of gravity into your brain. While the discover of sun being at the center of the solar system is easy to visualize as an Eureka flash (or, at least, the idea that that might be so), it doesn't have to have come that way. I'm not talking history here, I'm talking a way it could have gone: Somebody could have suggested it, tenatively, not really believeing it himself. Others could have laughed, because it is so far out from the accepted model. Still others could have started looking at the data and the observations in light of that idea, finding numerous problems with the "sun at center" model, but seeing that it explained other things. Over time, the data would have shown that the "sun at center" model was looking more and more attractive. One by one, the community start going over to that model. Eventually, it becomes accepted. Grand discoveries like this _can_ happen without a Eureka moment, certainly. (The guy who came up with the structure of the Benzene ring describes that has happening that way). While "sun at center of solar system" may in fact itself have been conceived in a Eureka moment, I think that most of the scientific dicsoveries (both now and in history ) that we look back on now as brilliant insight probably really occurred via the slower method I describe. Somebody mentioned to me in mail that he gets small Eureka moments when solving problems -- "oh, _that's_ how it's done!" I get those all the time myself, when programming, or working out how to deal with bits of data, and so forth. Most actual scientific results, though, and especially the big paradigm shifting discoveries, usually involve a long drawn-out processing, including a huge amount of work. - -Rob ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 98 16:16 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- question >More seriously, apart from game balance reasons, why should a Kyrio find >it any easier to manipulate a 32 bit GUI than to compose, compile and run >his own assembly code on the fly? Well, I know which one I'd use. (Which depends on the GUI, actually....) > Unless his 'possession' of a PC really >only amounts to possessing the cathode ray tube, the keyboard, and the >mouse. That's sort of what I was implying -- I don't think Kyrios can make conscious decisions at 300MHz.... >I would be inclined to tell the player 'you have a hard drive', rather >than 'you have a window up for c:'. The computer scientist in me rebels at this slightly. Yeah, the Kyrio could possess the drive directly, and make the spindle motor turn on and off, and move the heads back and forth, but that would be out it. Being able to comprehend the rather random way data is indexed and coded in a filesystem is much harder than saying, "I want the directory listing for '/'". In practice, I'd probably allow the Kyrio to use the operating system primitives directly as "reflexes", as well as operate the I/O devices. But no direct reading of the contents of memories, disks, books, or other data storage media -- their minds simply shouldn't be able to move that fast. They're more interesting if they're limited to the merely superhuman, anyway.... - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 21:47:25 +0000 From: Jo Hart Subject: Re: IN> Jean's word At 13:03 10/12/98 -0800, you wrote: > >Somebody mentioned to me in mail that he gets small Eureka moments when >solving problems -- "oh, _that's_ how it's done!" I get those all the >time myself, when programming, or working out how to deal with bits of >data, and so forth. Most actual scientific results, though, and >especially the big paradigm shifting discoveries, usually involve a long >drawn-out processing, including a huge amount of work. Agreed. But there is also a bit of that flash of insight sometimes when you are learning about the way the world works. I'm not talking about cutting edge research so much as 3rd grade physics.. usually when you have good teachers... jo (I know its sad but the only example I can think of was when I grokked complex numbers. That was pretty keen.) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 16:54:19 -0500 (EST) From: Pee Kitty Subject: Re: IN> Quickie Plot Seed: See the Mammalian Constellations On Wed, 9 Dec 1998, Earl Wajenberg wrote: > Is this just zodiacal constellations, or any old mammalian > constellation? E.g. Ursa Major and and Ursa Minor are > two mammals (bears), but not on the zodiac. Only zodiacal > constellations have any particular importance to astrologers. Just the zodiacal ones, in my original concept at least. > Why just mammals? Why not throw in, say, Pisces the Fishes, > or Scorpio. or, for off-zodiac constellations, Cygnus the Swan or > Aquila the Eagle? I didn't say it was just mammals...that was just the title of my little seed, due to the two songs that inspired 'em. I figured it'd be all the animal constellations. > If you didn't want to make the tethers quite so LARGE, you could > fine-tune the definitions. E.g., the material component of the > tether might actually be the starlight of the constellation from > the point that it, say, crosses the orbit of the moon. See, my whole thought on this was that, from a earth-human-centric perspective, the constellations AREN'T large. Heck, you can block 'em out with your hand. :) > I'd guess that Jordi is at least not adverse to the idea. Not > only is it pro-animal, Jordi was one of the Archangels that spoke > up for the Ethereals during Uriel's Crusade. His biggest objection > would probably be that it means relying on human culture, but > that's the Ethereals' business. When I do use Jordi, I play him as rather weird - just because his perspective is even more alien than most AAs. Animalcentric instead of humanocentric. So I could see him going in any direction...but he did seem like the one most likely to help the Ethereals here. - -- Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian Meow! ::: Thinking about a Tampa Bay Devival in the future - email me! ::: Or go to http://www.cris.com/~pkitty (hell, go there anyways!) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 16:47:40 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Malakim of War (Re: Disturbance\Causation) At 1:28 AM +0000 12/10/98, Steve Jessop wrote: >On Wed, 9 Dec 1998, Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > >> I hope that is coherent enough to be useful... > >What happens if a Malak of War decides to wait until he *isn't* getting >the warning, then walk up to someone at random and hit them :-) As soon as he decides it, the GM decides whether the person will hit back or not, and starts up the Danger Music. And/or makes sure the random person is a Prince. - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 16:49:23 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Malakim of War (Re: Disturbance\Causation) At 6:04 AM -0500 12/10/98, Eslin wrote: >On Thu, 10 Dec 1998, Steve Jessop wrote: > >> What happens if a Malak of War decides to wait until he *isn't* getting >> the warning, then walk up to someone at random and hit them :-) > > Michael explains to the Malak that since Malakim don't Fall, he >gets next to nothing out of sucking up to the Demon Princess of >Nitpicking? :) Hey, hey! I can offer a very nice benefits package, including five demonlings a day to slay! - --Beth, Demon Princess of Nitpicking http://www.sjgames.com/in-nomine/articles/INChar/Demons/Prince.Beth.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 22:59:10 +0100 (CET) From: Anders Gabrielsson Subject: Re: IN> Lilim and Malakim On Thu, 10 Dec 1998, Jo Hart wrote: > You have to imagine being the sort of alien creature that can get right > inside someone's head (a Shedite doesn't really become their host, they can > just have lengthy and private internal dialogues, I think) but being > largely amoral yourself, still have no understanding of why that person has > morals. You just know they do. And you don't care -- it's just a game. > They're just toys. Like being given a new porsche and told to feel free to > break the speed limit and wrap it round a lamp-post because the insurance > is all paid for. I still think Shedites' goals are to make their hosts do dishonorable things. I mean, what else are they doing? Whether the Shedite thinks those things are dishonorable doesn't matter - in order to corrupt its host it must understand its morality. > I also think that it is amazingly hard for a shedite inside a host NOT to > corrupt it ;) It's a demon. Pretty much anything it thinks or wants to do > is likely to count as a corrupting influence. It can't help it. True. Also, they get dissonance if they don't do it, which means it's pretty much hard-wired into them. :) Anders Gabrielsson anders@stp.ling.uu.se The contents of this message belong to me and nobody else. So there! May you have the knowledge of a sage, and the wisdom of a child. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 16:59:13 -0500 (EST) From: Pee Kitty Subject: Re: IN> Quickie Plot Seed: See the Mammalian Constellations On Wed, 9 Dec 1998, Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > At 1:31 AM -0500 12/9/98, Pee Kitty wrote: > >By that logic, a constellation isn't really > >that unbelievable as a tether - to the viewpoint of the humans, whose > >belief MAKES the tether work, the tether is just a small group of dots in > >the sky.) > > Entertaining! Thank you! > At 6:14 PM +0000 12/9/98, Steve Jessop wrote: > >On Wed, 9 Dec 1998, Walter Milliken wrote: > > > >> Cute idea, but it's got a major problem, relative to current Tether > >> canon in the forthcoming L.Castellorum. > >> Gabriel's Sun Tether is a relatively small object compared to a > >> "constellation", in its incarnation as a group of physical stars. And > >> *which* stars? There are lots of invisible stars in the regions of the > >> constellations mentioned.... > > > >Doesn't matter. Does a tether location have to be a single, connected > >area? > > Generally, yes. One issue here: Tether canon (which I have read, ya know - I playtested enstuph) is fairly well established for all the tethers on earth, but there are two possibilities for Tethers In Space... (A) They follow pretty much the same rules, because Tethers Is Tethers. (B) They get VERY different, because Tethers (non-elemental ones, at least) are the result of a word being made manifest, in the eyes of humanity. When there's no humanity around, you can't have Tethers. When humanity sees a solar system as being just a small collection of dots, then, for Tether purposes, that's what it is. - -- Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian Meow! ::: Thinking about a Tampa Bay Devival in the future - email me! ::: Or go to http://www.cris.com/~pkitty (hell, go there anyways!) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 16:35:45 EST From: Gruzzle@aol.com Subject: IN> cleared up arabic djinn <> Both would be completely feasable. I guess my throwing in the "million dollar" scenario lost the point of my argument. The original poster I was replying to said he interpreted djinn to be more like the traditional arabic djinn.... they twist people's wishes around. His example, and the example I should have used instead, was that a person who really wanted a chevy would get it, except the djinn would run him over with it. Yes, I agree that djinn can (and should) screw around with people as far as their wishes and desires without getting dissonance, however, I do not think that a djinn could get away with killing someone with a chevy just because they wanted it (the chevy, that is, not the death). But yes, all of the scenarios you sick fucks came up with for the million dollar deal were beautifully demented. - --twitch ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 17:32:49 -0500 From: Perestroika Subject: Re: IN> Malakim of War (Re: Disturbance\Causation) Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > --Beth, Demon Princess of Nitpicking > http://www.sjgames.com/in-nomine/articles/INChar/Demons/Prince.Beth.html You just had to direct me there, didn't you? Now I'm finding myself nitpicking Kevin's nitpicks (last part of the document) - making Will rolls left and right to resist quoting it so I can correct what he's missed... *twitch twitch* - -EDG, Mercurian of Jean (NOT Impudite of Nitpicking! Honest!) who actually had a question to go along with it, but who also has managed to forget what said question was. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 17:44:40 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) From: "Emily K. Dresner" Subject: Re: IN> Jean's word > Grand discoveries like this _can_ happen without a Eureka moment, > certainly. (The guy who came up with the structure of the Benzene ring > describes that has happening that way). While "sun at center of solar > system" may in fact itself have been conceived in a Eureka moment, I think > that most of the scientific dicsoveries (both now and in history ) that we > look back on now as brilliant insight probably really occurred via the > slower method I describe. > > Somebody mentioned to me in mail that he gets small Eureka moments when > solving problems -- "oh, _that's_ how it's done!" I get those all the > time myself, when programming, or working out how to deal with bits of > data, and so forth. Most actual scientific results, though, and > especially the big paradigm shifting discoveries, usually involve a long > drawn-out processing, including a huge amount of work. I believe it's a mix, myself. For example, my mother discovered a genome on the Y Chromosome which allows for detection of childhood leukemia at birth [through foreskins, thankyouverymuch] and developed a procedure to process the cells and get the results. This took over two years of work to make the discovery, develop the procedure, and publish the results. There were lots of little tiny "Eurekas" but many of them were false and misleading. [I wrote some software for HLA Analysis for her for this.] On the other hand, Buckminster Fuller, as legend has it, imagined the Bucky Ball while he was getting ready to commit suicide. Is this true? Who knows. But if it is, zing, there's your example. Most scientific and engineering tasks are amazing amounts of work. I know from programming that, while I might go, "Oh hell, that's how to do it" a dozen times a day, that actually producing a product is hours and hours [and hours and hours] of constant work coupled with a barrage of swearing. Really GOOD products require design, and work, and test, and more work, and more test... yes, the killer algorithm might come to you in a flash, but it might not be in production for another year. - - Em ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 22:46:11 +0000 From: Kevin Walsh Subject: Re: IN> Malakim of War (Re: Disturbance\Causation) On Thu, Dec 10, 1998 at 04:49:23PM -0500, Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > > Michael explains to the Malak that since Malakim don't Fall, he > >gets next to nothing out of sucking up to the Demon Princess of > >Nitpicking? :) > > Hey, hey! I can offer a very nice benefits package, including five > demonlings a day to slay! > (Of course can doesn't necessarily mean will.) Angels of the Host, Nitpicking Needs You! Have you ever been annoyed by misprintings in important documents? Have you ever been frustrated by idiots who can't make coherent arguments but still insist on annoying you with trivialities? Have you ever felt the need to throttle drunkards loudly singing traditional songs while getting all the words wrong? Then Nitpicking has a place for you! Slay the dragons of ignorance! Indulge your contempt for your fellow beings! Reshape the world to your own vision of the Truth! Match your wits with the finest intellects known to Celestialkind! Sign up for Nitpicking today! You won't regret it! Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "Warfare is the Tao of deception. Thus although capable, display incapability to them. When committed to employing your forces, feign inactivity. When [your objective] is nearby, make it appear as if distant; when far away, create the illusion of being nearby." -Sun Tzu, the Art of War. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 17:59:01 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: IN> Fluff (Re: Malakim of War) At 5:32 PM -0500 12/10/98, Perestroika wrote: >> --Beth, Demon Princess of Nitpicking >> http://www.sjgames.com/in-nomine/articles/INChar/Demons/Prince.Beth.html > >You just had to direct me there, didn't you? Now I'm finding myself >nitpicking Kevin's nitpicks (last part of the document) - making Will >rolls left and right to resist quoting it so I can correct what he's >missed... *twitch twitch* Sorry! >-EDG, Mercurian of Jean (NOT Impudite of Nitpicking! Honest!) > who actually had a question to go along with it, but who also has > managed to forget what said question was. Tsk! Oh, well, it will return. It is archived *somewhere*. - --Beth, Archangel of Archives http://www.sjgames.com/in-nomine/articles/INChar/Angels/Arcangel.Beth.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 98 18:16 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Quickie Plot Seed: See the Mammalian Constellations >One issue here: Tether canon (which I have read, ya know - I playtested >enstuph) is fairly well established for all the tethers on earth, but >there are two possibilities for Tethers In Space... > >(A) They follow pretty much the same rules, because Tethers Is Tethers. That's been my intent. The two extra-terrestrial Tethers mentioned (not counting the Great Red Spot) are distinct corporeal regions (the Io flux tube + Io, or maybe just Io itself -- I forgot which, and the Sun). >(B) They get VERY different, because Tethers (non-elemental ones, at >least) are the result of a word being made manifest, in the eyes of >humanity. I agree until you get to "in the eyes of humanity". The perception of the Tether in human consciousness is part of it, granted, but only part. This is why I used the example of "Hamlet" -- it certainly has a distinct presence in the minds of humanity, but it lacks a specific corporeal locus. Also, it's the *actions* of humanity that formed the Tether that are most important for humano-centric Tethers. Public perception of them does influence affinities somewhat, but simple perception of things doesn't necessarily form Tethers. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 98 18:22 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Jean's word >Most scientific and engineering tasks are amazing amounts of work. I know >from programming that, while I might go, "Oh hell, that's how to do it" a >dozen times a day, that actually producing a product is hours and hours >[and hours and hours] of constant work coupled with a barrage of swearing. No question about that. But simply putting in hours and hours and hours of work *without* inspiration is often pointless, or at least *extremely* inefficient. No reasonable number of monkeys is going to write Hamlet in finite time, even if they know English grammar. And I've seen it tried enough times.... - ---Walter ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1047 ******************************** The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.