Dauntless

Re: How to model posthuman godlike entities? Unfortunately, I think some cyberpunk and transhuman series have clouded the issue of what infomorphs are or could be. The idea that infomorphs can be disembodied entities that roam around some huge networked web is akin to saying that consciousness in humans can be detached and seperated from the body as long as it has some "ether" in which to travel. To put it simply, infomorphs as they are defined by science fiction, don't make a whole lot of sense. If what they mean is that AI's can download or transmit the sum of their memories, that's one thing. But ultimately, there needs to be some form of hardware on which the consciousness (whether it be human or AI) acts on. Unless of course you take the subjectivist philosophical route and say that there is only consciousness, and that instead of the brain creating the mind, it's the other way around. But if you do that, then you're truly going down the Matrix route (the "brain in a jar" metaphysical question). Not to say that's a bad thing at all, but it's so alien a concept to non-eastern thinkers, that I believe you'd have great trouble pulling off a game with this ontological viewpoint with your average gamers. But let's assume you stick with the regular objectivist viewpoint, and you want to create some posthuman or AI entity. It will therefore need some physical construct in which the qualia (a neurological term which basically means any form of subjective experience like emotions, sensory data or thoughts) is acted on and by. An infomoph without a "body" is essentially as scientifically feasible as a ghost is today. When you see stories that talk about intelligent entities floating around in some sort of cyberspace, these entities still need physical hardware to be useful. Take even for example viruses that exist today. In some ways they act intelligently by morphing themselves into different forms and they float about from computer to computer. But in and of themselves, they have absolutely no power until they have a machine to use. Moreover, I don't like the idea of these Intelligent Entities (I'll call them IE's from now on) being able to run on any old hardware. For example, let's say you create an AI infomorph that is essentially a program (I'll ignore for now my own hypothesis that true conscious intelligence requires hardware that operates on quantum principles). Just like you have programs that will only run on x86 PC's, and some that will only run on IBM PowerPC's or IBM OS390 mainframes, so too does it seem more likely that these IE's will require specific hardware in order for them to operate correctly. Otherwise, it'd be like assuming that we could jack our brains into another animal like a dolphin, and assume everything will work correctly. One may argue that we have things like Java that work on all platforms, but actually this is a fallacy, as Java requires a virtual machine (an interpreter) installed on the machine to translate all the calls (which is why Java is both a memory hog and slower than natively compiled apps). Unfortunately, doing post-bac work in computer science has made me very picky about my cyberpunk/transhuman genre. So how do you create an IE? First off, in my own humble opinion, it does need a physical body. Now that doesn't mean it needs a permanent physical body. Consciousness and memory are two different things, and they are not even mutually necessary for each other. If you are an objectivist, then you'll believe that consciousness is a state caused by an arrangment of electrons, neural states and chemical reactions in the brain (be it human or artificial). In this case, if you can exactly duplicate this state, then you can download it to another "brain" which will copy that state. Then blammo....you've just downloaded your consciousness into a new body. If you are a subjectivist, then consciousness is the fundamental nature of reality. Consciousness collapses wave functions which in turn creates reality and makes physical objects real. If the brain is a quantum measuring device through which consciousness is made aware of itself, then you can use quantum teleportation to exactly duplicate the quantum states of the brain...allowing the consciousness to be attached to a new physical body. Because an IE should be designed for a specific kind of physical body, I'd suggest a form a Duplication. Remember, the physical abilities of the body have to change, but the physical makeup of the "brain" has to be compatible with the consciousness of the IE. For example, an IE could download/teleport itself into an android body, or a tank, as long as both had compatible "brains". The tricky part here is that the special effect requires a specific kind of "brain". As for the info/cyber world, that too would be a form of Duplication...an avatar. The abilities of the Avatar would have to be limited by the design constructs of the mainframe (which also must be of a compatible "brain" type) as well as the inherent capabilities of the IE. I'd definitely recommend some form of a Virtual Point Pool to be able to duplicate hacking on the fly, although tightly controlled mainframes may make this difficult (hence the GM should give it appropriate limitations...mostly time or activation/skill requirements).

Re: Marvel Second Stringers. Help me out. How about: Machine Man Iron Fist Shang Chi Stick or Stone Longshot Forge As far as I know, Stick and Stone have never had their own series although they were criticial in the training and storyline of Daredevil. Iron Fist had a series awhile back, and a mini-series more recently, but he's still never been a major player. Shang Chi as well hasn't had his own series since the 70's, though he too had a mini-series a few years back. I don't know what became of Longshot after his travails in the Mojo universe. I always thought Forge was one of the coolest mutants around; smart as Tony Stark, mystic abilities like the Shaman, and the ability to neutralize powers. So even though he was a regular for awhile on X-Factor, I don't think he's had much play recently (or has he?). Finally, Machine Man, practically a poster boy for the "guest starring" super hero. He's had a few mini-series, but I don't think he's had his own series since Kirby first introduced him in the 70's. You know, while I'm thinking of 70's, early 80's super heroes that have somewhat faded into obscurity, why not ROM, Kazar or Moon Knight?

Re: Building Power Armor Well, if you're trying to do this realistically, it'd be almost impossible for one man to invent the armor all by himself. The level of skills required would be staggering. For the most part though, I'd boil down the skill set as follows: Physics, Classical- Prerequisite for the design of most of the systems. Covers optics, ballistics, wave equations (sound), aerodynamics and others. Physics, Quantum- Necessary for any nanotechnology on the scale of several molecules or smaller, as well as quantum computation. Comes in handy for developing some energy powers (zero-point energy, new transistors/gates, or lasers) Material Science- To come up with the physical material with the required properties (i.e. carbon nanotubes, metallic glass) Electrical Engineering- to be able to implement and understand the logical circuitry required Mechanical Engineering- To actually design the components together into a cohesive whole. Cognitive Neuroscience- any neural interface technologies will need this Computer Science/Engineer or Systems Analyst- to design the computer system to run the armor as well as the necessary software to run it. High levels of mathematics would be crucial. I'm not just talking Calc 3 and Diff Eq. I'm talking stochastic analysis, number theory, modern algebra (groups, lies, vector spaces), matrix theory, graph theory and others. The cognitive neuroscience also implies a mastery of biology and chemistry as well. Material science technology is a blend of physics and chemistry.

Re: Ten Best Superhero Martial Arts Since I don't drink, I always get to be the designated sober Unfortunately that sometimes meant I had to bail a friend's ass out of trouble (one of my friends was this small 5'6" Japanese guy that decided to pick a fight with this 6'3", about 220-230 athletic looking dude....and the big dude was sober). That's why I put the Awareness skill up in my list. If you can avoid trouble in the first place all the better. To paraphrase Sun Tzu , "100 victories in 100 battles does not make the greatest general, but rather the general that wins without fighting at all". Now one thing I've really been asking myself is whether its better to learn one art very thoroughly, taking 5+ years to study it thoroughly, or to train in several arts for 2+ years. I've done the latter, and it's helped give me insight different approaches to combat. But one of my senseis also often said that it's better to have one PhD than two masters (meaning that it's better to truly master one art before you move on to something else). I can see his logic, but I know for certain that my training has helped me on occasion. A great example of this was while I was learning Choy Lay Fut. Well, one day, the Tai Chi Sifu came early and asked my Sifu if he could spar with the other students (we shared our kwoon with the Tai Chi sifu and his student...they came after us). I saw the two sifus share a somewhat sinister grin at each other, and my sifu allowed the sparring to take place. The Tai Chi Sifu first sparred with our two most senior students and he absolutely humiliated them. It was actually funny as hell to watch because the Choy Lay Fut students had no clue what to do when the Tai Chi sifu would trap their arms or legs (sort of like Jeet Kune Do's sticky hands), and the Tai Chi sifu was throwing these guys all over the place. It got the point where one of the students even literally turned his back to the sifu and started running away When it got to my turn, because I also had some Aikido background, I didn't care when he would trap my arm, because I would just either attempt an escape, or I'd try to do a reversal (which admittedly weren't that successful). Nevertheless, even though I was just a junior Choy Lay Fut student, I fared better than the advanced students because I wasn't afraid to get into grappling range with the Tai Chi sifu (our Choy Lay Fut Sifu kept screaming at the advanced students why they would retreat every time the Tai Chi sifu would attempt an offensive maneuver...so that's exactly what I did, I would do an irimi-style defensive manuever by going into his attacks rather than retreat). But OTOH, I can see that learning an art through and through will give you many benefits too. In game terms I'm not really sure how to reflect this. I suppose you could give the eclectic fighter more techniques and the one art fighter higher CSL's. But it seems to me that there's a synergism involved in all the combat aspects that makes the sum of all those components greater than its sum.

Re: Ten Best Superhero Martial Arts That's why I think the most important qualities are really mental aspects rather than physical ones. I've only been in two real fights myself (though definitely not of the life-or-death kind), not including breaking up a couple more involving some drunken friends, but from those two encounters (as well as my on and off training in various martial arts) I really feel that the mental components are vitally important. I'm 6', 192, and work out with weights too and can still do full front and side splits (I can easily kick someone my height in the head with a side kick or hook kick). But I often get my ass handed to me by smaller guys who're quicker, or older guys (even though somewhat of an old fart at 33 myself) who bide their time and are more patient. In the end, physical prowess isn't as important as proper mental attitude IMHO. Definitely study whatever you think suits you. As Bruce said, you have to find what works for you, and throw out what doesn't work for you. As I said earlier, all arts have the same root. Though I'm not sure about the fun part. Yagyu Muneonori whom I mentioned earlier had no real life experience until one battle, and during that first battle he killed over ten people (Munenori was involved in more actual battles than Musashi, whereas Musashi was mostly a duellist...though Musashi did fight in some battles, such as the Shimabarra revolt). He was able to do this because he treated every training session with the utmost intensity (and it doesn't hurt that his father was the one person whom Musashi actually turned down a duel from). So when people say that if you've never fought before you don't know how to fight, I disagree wholeheartedly with that statement. In fact, in Europe, the nobles who were very well trained were usually better fighters than the common foot soldier who had more real world practical experience. I think that if you do want to train for self-defense, you have to take it very seriously. If you only do it half-heartedly or for fun, then realize that its benefits will only be for health. That being said, as I mentioned earlier, I believe the real training is all psychological and mental. That's why I think you have to a serious frame of mind to learn self-defense.

Re: Ten Best Superhero Martial Arts Rather than list what styles I think are important, I'll list what qualities I think are most important. They're listed in no particular importance: 1) Timing The Japanese would call this Ma-ai (space time). Some Japanese masters went so far as to say that if you mastered this, you couldn't be hit no matter how quick your opponent. Bruce Lee said that all dancers can become martial artists because they have a sense of timing, but not all martial artists can be dancers (because not all of them do). As an aside, Bruce was a former Cha-cha champion in Hong Kong, David Carradine got his role in Kung Fu because he was a dancer, as did Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi. 2) Sensitivity/Harmony Chinese call this Ting Jing ('listening energy'), and the Japanese might call it Musubi. Sensitivity is the ability to "feel" what your opponent is going to do. It can be based on sight...by observing your opponents stance, foot position, muscle tension, where his eyes are looking, his breathing, etc, or it can be based on touch (chi sao helps develop this skill as do many aikido drills). It can even be quasi-mystical (in aikido, the idea ultimately is to receive your opponent's intention, his "will to attack", and it is the intention itself as opposed to the physical attack which is intercepted and redirected). 3) Pain Tolerance This is where western arts excel. In eastern styles, it is often taught to avoid blows at all costs. The rationale for this tactic is that either a) attacks are so powerful that one hit can kill, or to get you used to the idea that if your opponent has a weapon, you better get used to not getting hit at all. Western arts on the hand train the pugilist's pain tolerance. This is IMHO a good thing since you never know when you're going to get hit. 4) No Mind The classic mushin of Japanese combat theory. Soho Takuan, the famous Buddhist monk who was friends with Japan's two greatest swordsmen ever, Miyamoto Musashi and Yagyu Munenori) often said that "the mind should be nowhere in particular". The mind should never be fixated on anything. It shouldn't be thinking about the opponent's move, or how to counter respond. It shouldn't be thinking of victory or defeat. Nor should it be concentrating on anything. It simply must be left alone and not allowed to abide on anything. 5) No Emotion The corollary to No Mind is No Emotion. One should not be fearful or angry, vengeful or egotistic. The Chinese believe in two minds, Hsin, the emotional mind, and Yi, the Wisdom mind. They believe that Yi must always dominate Hsin and keep it under control. The samurai also had an old maxim, "Control your emotions, or they will control you". 6) Calmness Going hand in hand with the above two is being calm, or without tension. Only when you are relaxed will you perform at your peak power and speed. Muscle tension slows you down and also makes getting hit worse. The only time you want to tense up is when you brace your body at the point of impact. 7) Endurance This is the great equalizer. If your opponent is better than you are, but you have the better endurance, just wear him out. If you have good Timing as above, then this should be easy. However if you lack good timing, and your opponent is good at it, he'll be able to get in his licks before he tires out. 8) Minimalism Don't be flashy and use up energy. Why throw a high kick to kick someone in the head if it's not necessary (many jumping kicks were originally designed to unhorse a rider)? While Eight Pieces Brocade (a Chinese euphemism for all flash and no substance) may be good for a PRE attack, all it's going to do is wear you out. Economy of motion is the key, and much of Bruce Lee's combat training (Jeet Kune Do) was about this. 9) Diversity Know kicks, punches, grappling, joint locks, holds, submission work, weapon work and everything else that you can. The more tools in your arsenal, the better your chance of finding the tool that fits. Plus, what're you going to do if you only know TKD, and a guy does a shoot for your legs, takes you down, and puts you in an ankle lock? If you don't know how to escape, you're screwed. 10) Awareness Not sensitivity, but a situational awareness. Fights in real life aren't arena duels. They happen in bars where your adversaries buddies might gang up on you, or in the battlefield where the enemy could be anywhere. Going hand in hand with No Mind, you shouldn't focus your attention solely on your opponent. Use the terrain to your advantage. 11) Internal is External, External is Internal This is the realization that the internal powers the external, and the external realizes the internal. In other words, all things start with an internal intention. From this, an external event is generated. External force without internal foundation will be brittle, and internal strength without a strong framework is futile.

Re: Ten Best Superhero Martial Arts Not sure if Aikido would belong here or not in the superhero sense. Aikido is as much a way of life as anything else. Aikido is an amazing and beautiful art, and one that requires scores of years of practice to truly understand. One time, Morihei Ueshiba saw some advanced students trying to execute a technique and they were quibbling over how to properly do the technique, at which point O-sensei said, "I'm not training you to move your body, I'm training you to move your mind!". Aikido is at its core entirely non-violent (some offshoots notwithstanding). When I say non-violent, it is within the mindset of an Aikidoka that he must not harm or even have intention of harming anyone. If one is not mindful of this, one is not truly practicing Aikido and is really just doing the outer form of aikijiujitsu (the ancient styles which samurai learned, and from which Morihei Ueshiba learned to derive Takemusubi Aikido) However, outside of Japan (and even within Japan unless you visit authentic bujutsu ryu), you probably won't find more authentic feudal era swordsmanship (Iaido concentrates on cutting rather than duelling, and kendo has become sportified), albeit only with a bokken instead of a live shinken. Not quite the same thing. Jigoro Kano took some of the ancient aikijujitsu techniques from the samurai and made them a bit safer (for example, some of the throws in Judo were, in their aikijiujitsu counterpart, intended to break joints). It also for the most part took out any atemi (striking techniques) that jiujitsu had. So it sounds like Judo is a watered-down jiujitsu? Not really. It just has a different concentration. The key is in looking at the difference between -do arts, versus -justu arts. The 'do' is literally 'the way', and 'jutsu' is 'art of' or 'technique of'. Do is a way of life and its intended to be taken outside of the dojo. In a sense, it's more spiritual. That's not to say that jutsu forms can't be spiritual, but rather, the individual himself must discern the key principles himself. Chin Na is in and of itself not a martial style, but rather a class of techniques. Classical Chinese arts have three categories of techniques: kicking/punching, chin na (grasping/seizing), shuai jiao (wrestling/throwing). All wuyi (kung fu means 'hard work', wushu means martial art, wuyi means war art) will have elements of all three categories in them. For a style that concentrates on Chin Na, I'd suggest either Eagle Claw (which also has a lot of aerial acrobatics) or Tai Chi Chuan. Hung Gar was made famous by one of the Ten Tigers of Canton...of which western audiences may be aware of from Jet Li's movies, "Once Upon a Time in China" series. Despite the famous "no shadow" kick, Hung Gar is a southern style and concentrates mostly on hand techniques (as the old saying goes; "Southern fist, northern leg"). It's an all around good art, as is Choy Lay Fut, both of which are relatively more recent arts. As Bruce Lee once pointed out, ultimately, you have to forget the style to master the style. As he put it, if you concentrate on the techniques too much, then you see only the flowery branches and not the root itself. All martial arts ultimately share a common root, but you have to get past the idea of technique itself. Ironically, you have to master a technique in order to forget the technique. Once you've done that, you've made it a part of yourself. As Bruce was a genius in trying to show us, we have something to learn from all arts, because ultimately, all arts share this same root.

Re: Robotic Constructs This is one of those things that's bothered me as well. Afterall, if we can construct a truly sapient AI, and we reason that if it has freewill, it is no longer an automata, then we run into some logical consistency issues. The reason may be that STUN represents a facet of consciousness, but what's to stop an android from having expert (non-sapient) AI system take over if the "main" logical control unit (ie, it's brain) is knocked out or stunned? In essence, it could be programmed with "autopilot" functionality to respond to certain events (like being stunned or knocked unconscious). From a purely academic standpoint, an automata is simply a function machine. It takes in input and returns some form of output. Automata don't have to be robots per se, but logical functionality implemented as hardware logic circuitry. A Turing Machine is a form of an automata (a deterministic finite automata to be more precise). And most computers are Turing Machines, and hence, Deterministic Finite Automata. Computers take input, and depending on both the hardware (the instruction set and logic functionality) and the software (the program), the computer will take that input and give back some kind of output. Current AI is pretty pathetic in many regards. Neural nets used in pattern recognition is very susceptible to keying in on wrong features, for example. On the other hand, we've used some AI algorithms to solve heretofore unsolveable problems. If we assume that sci-fi computers will be ever more powerful (quantum computers will be orders of magnitude more powerful...as a quick example, a quantum computer with approximately 200 qubits, which are quantum computational equivalent of a binary bit, will be roughly as powerful as every computer on earth today), there's no reason to think that the non-freewilled AI won't be spectacularly intelligent and creative. Getting back to the game distinction, I realize that it's supposed to be about game balance. But this whole "balancing" thing in the Hero system is really starting to irk me. It's nice as a rough guesstimate of the power of something, but I think it's too easy to abuse as a literal definition of capability and worth. In lots of ways, I think the whole point-cost system is antithetical to good roleplaying precisely because people tend to focus on the gamism of the rules. I prefer to see the point cost as a guideline to help me gauge what the odds are when facing off with something. So in the end, any artificial construct which displayed true sapience, should be capable of also using all the rules for automata. In other words, it's not an either/or situation. If the technology is advanced enough to create sapience, then the heuristics and AI algorithms it could use in a purely automata sense should display near human-level ability for insight and creativity. Therefore even should the android (or sapient AI system) be stunned or knocked unconscious, there's no reason non-sapient AI systems couldn't takeover. The catch is this....deterministic (ie., non freewilled systems) are predictable. If the enemy was somehow able to detect the pattern of the AI, then it should also be able to deduce what kind of heuristic or algorithm its using. The problem with this is it will often take a bit of obversation to realize what the AI is trying to accomplish. Realize also that another AI system would be better at this prediction than a human would, since they "think" the same. The way humans solve problems and the way computers solve problems are actually somewhat different, because they "see" the world in different ways. One last quibble, technically speaking, automata should be able to be "stunned" too. Anyone who's done assembly programming has probably come across a situation where the micro opcode can become malformed, and the CPU doesn't recognize what instruction it's supposed to execute. This can cause the microprocessor to change states...more than likely a halt state. This is something that happens at the hardware level, not just the software level. Another way to mess up a system is that all the logic gates which operate digitally, have an analog base. For example, when a NAND gate gets an input signal, what it really detects is what kind of voltage it received. Is it 5v? Maybe the signal was weak and it only got 2.7v. Will the input to the NAND gate properly get the input signal? It depends (for example, you can have error checking circuitry, and CRC validations for incoming data packets)but it goes to show that hardware is susceptible to electromagnetic variations (which is why strong EMP signals can mess things up too)

Re: In Real World Terms... You're absolutely right. I was envisioning two spheres of equal size, but one weighing more than the other (in essence, being more dense). The heavier sphere would carry more kinetic energy when it hit the ground. But perhaps more important than even density is the aerodynamic factor. The aerodynamics actually determines the terminal velocity V = sqrt(2W/Cd*R*a) Where V = Terminal Velocity W = weight (mass) Cd = coefficient of drag r = density a = acceleration (earth gravity of 9.8m/s^2) So mass, volume, and drag (aerodynamics) are all factors. So obviously, Terminal Velocity can not be a static damage class. Assuming the rules meant a man sized object does 30d6 of damage, then you can extrapolate with the above formula.

Re: In Real World Terms... I think the Hero System faces the problem of damage abstraction. What I mean by that is that there is not a direct correlate between the amount of energy (kinetic or otherwise) and how much damage something does. This problem is exacerbated because the damage of different damage objects does not scale properly with each other (for example, terminal velocity should not be an absolute DC, it should be related to the objects mass). In my own hobby game system, I define damage as the total state change in an object. In living beings, this is tissue damage. In inorganic things, it is the degradation of the state of the object (the object's integrity). So damage is therefore based on the work available to change from the initial working state of an object, into another state. In other words, energy is the basis for determining damage. But that's not the end of the story. You also have to consider things like penetration (Force/Area), the amount (mass) of matter that is affected, as well as how deep or wide the damaged area is (getting impaled by an icepick doesn't damage alot of tissue, but it gets to very critical tissue). But getting back to the amount of energy done in an attack, energy is energy. Energy has the capability to do work. Work has the capability of changing the state of an object. Ergo, the more energy a damage object has, the greater the Delta of the State Change. In layman's terms, more energy = more damage. However, this is only the base damage...you then have to think about all the other factors I mentioned earlier (for example, if all the energy is dispersed over a large area, then you get a massive superficial wound like a road rash....but if you concentrate all of it at one point, then it gets to internal organs). Energy calculations are based purely on physics. However, quantifying the other aspects is open to debate. For example, it was thought for awhile by many experts that bullets did their damage through hydrostatic shock..,but this theory is now doubtful and the main indicator of terminal ballistics is the size of the wound channel the bullet makes. The hydrostatic shock people argued that high velocity bullets with a higher kinetic energy than a slower but heavier bullet would do more damage thanks to the hydrostatic shock (hydrostatic shock is a temporary cavity that swells up inside the target, much like dropping a pebble in a pond creates wave ripples). However, further studies showed that the larger diameter bullet caused greater tissue damage because it destroyed a greater volume of tissue as it traveled through the body. In physical damage, we deal with kinetic energy, and the simple formula is .5*mass*velocity^2. As you can see, as velocity goes up, we have an exponential factor. A semi-truck going 60mph has 4 times the energy as a same mass truck going 30mph. If our target is a simple object, then we can easily use physics to determine damage by calculating how much of the material can be penetrated and ablated. But once the complexity of the object increases, then figuring out the damage gets difficult. What I'm basically trying to say is that "damage" is a combination of several factors. The total energy of the damage object gives us a base to work with. From this, we can derive penetration. Depending on other factors of the damage object (like whether its a cutting, impaling, crushing, tearing, heat, radiation, form of damage), then we can further define how the damage object changes the state of the target. Maybe after this explanation, people will better understand why I say that the Hero System is not as detailed and concrete as it could be (which is why I don't like Hero for settings that require uber realism). The Hero System definitely abstracts a lot of its concepts of damage. I'd say since you're playing a superhero game, don't worry too much about trying to get it too realistic. The Superhero genre isn't supposed to be realistic. When you start doing that, you'll run into inconsistencies.

Re: Immunity to Mental Powers? I see a slight problem here when you say that these machines will be totally immune to all mental powers. Really, you should define it as being immune to mental powers with a side effect of psionics of some sort. However, with the rules, you could create a "hacker" kind of character that had Mind Control, but with the limitation "Only vs. Machines" -1, and "Only when interfaced with Machine" -1. To simulate a more cyberpunkish feeling, it could require a skill roll too, and perhaps an activation time representing the time spent to reprogram the machine. You could even have super powers which could "hack" machines without a direct interface however. Machines still have a central processing unit which can be thought of as a brain. Assuming current models of computing, Automata generally have some kind of memory to hold previous states (though not always...Acceptors are Automata without memory), and some kind of processing function to translate inputs into outputs (and these inputs and outputs get stored in memory). Again, given current technology, all logic functionality is implemented though different kinds of logic gates....transistors (for example NAND, XOR, NOR, J-K Flip Flops, etc etc). If you can manipulate the voltage going to the gates, then you can manipulate the binary logical representation. Ditto for the memory storage devices which in current technology, are usually chains of flip-flop gates (which may or may not be volatile...volatile meaning they need periodic charges of energy to make up for any lost leakage of energy in the gates). If you can alter electricity, and if you have an intuitive grasp of how machine logic works...then you can reprogram the "mind" of any finite deterministic or non-deterministic automata (or even any Turing Machine based on conventional logic gates). The only tech that may be immune to this are quantum computers. Due to the nature of non-locality and quantum coherence, it may be impossible to manipulate the qubits. Then again, who knows since there's still so many interpretations on how quantum wave functions break down (quantum decoherence).

Re: A Psionic "Computer"? And how to build it... The brilliant physicist David Bohm came up with an alternative interpretation to Quantum Mechanics which some have dubbed "the holographic universe". Bohm's interpretation says that what we think of the real world (the classical macro world) is an explicate order that is really just something of an illusion (or as the Hindus would say, maya). There are also implicate orders to reality. In our way of thinking, we think that space and time are fundamental and therefore necessary aspects of reality...without space and time, independently existing objects can't exist. However quantum mechanics has thrown some major monkey wrenches by causing all sorts of paradoxes. Bohm's holographic interpretation does away with many of the paradoxes by saying there is no space or time....just this one big interconnected "oneness" which has the appearance of space and time. Holograms have a pretty cool property...unlike a regular picture which if you cut into two will give you a left half and a right half, a hologram when cut in two will give you two complete pictures (albeit smaller). In other words, in a hologram, every "piece" contains information for every other "piece". I say "piece" because what does it mean when there is only one "thing"? Seperation and material existence are only illusions created by our flawed perspective of the situation. BTW, this non-seperation and interconnectedness is the hallmark of eastern philosophies, and is the reason why so many of the brilliant physicists greatly respected eastern philosophies. In fact, some physicists believe in a metaphysical viewpoint that is diametrically opposed to material objectivity, the traditional ontological foundations of scientific methodology. Instead of believing that Matter/energy is the fundamental stuff of nature, they believe that consciousness is the fundamental essence of reality (again, this is precisely what Hindu jnanis and Buddhists preach). Moreover, some believe that there is in fact, only one consciousness (you can relate this to Bohm's hologram) that is shared, and that our perception that we have seperate self-consciousness is also an illusion (I analogize as the great Consciousness is a mainframe, and all us sentient beings are terminals that tap into this mainframe. It may seem like we have the processing power, but really, it's all done by the mainframe). That's why there are theories that the universe itself is conscious(ness) and self-aware. In this point of view, in a way, we sentient beings are reality's way of perceiving itself. Or as Plato said, "God is thought thinking of itself". So to get back to your question, if Bohm (or several other quantum interpretations) is right, then a psionicist could in essence simply access whatever point in space/time that he wanted, since every point in space/time is a nexus to every other point in space/time. This in turn means that time is not really a direction, but simply a point or an idea or a concept, and ditto for space. The trick here in game balancing is making psionic powers incredibly rare or expensive. Because reality is subjective rather than objective, those who have the powr to control their awareness and understanding (the psionicists) would have godlike powers. This near solipsistic viewpoint could be very unbalancing, but if you just handwave this stuff and turn it into technobable (or rather, sophistbabble) to explain how the psionics work, then you shouldn't have any problems.

Re: DEX is used too much I pretty much agree with taxboy here. In my own home grown system, I've created Attributes with sub-attributes. For those that want simplicity, they can just use the base Attribute. But if they want to be more precise, they can use the more specific sub-attributes. For example, I've divided Dexterity and Speed into two main Attributes; Kinesthetics, and Neuromotor Control (or NMC for short). In turn, Kinesthetics is divided into Agility (whole body balance and awareness), and Coordination (the ability to control the limbs). NMC in turn is divided into Force (how much force your muscles can generate...what most games solely consider as Strength) and Power (how quickly you can fire your muscle fibers). Speed and Strength in my game are actually derived secondary attributes based on NMC and the character's Size (height and weight), and Fitness (Health and Constitution). All in all, my game has 8 primary Attributes, and therefore 16 sub-attributes, and there are also 5 derived secondary attributes. Not to mention 5 Psyche traits and at least 3 Principles. Why so many attributes? I personally happen to feel my system is the most well-defined of any game system out there in that it tends to mitigate the problem where one attribute dominates a game system (which is unfortunately common in too many game systems). It also allows for the creation of characters which are otherwise impossible or require some odd kludges to create (such as the Hero system). For example, in my system, it's very easy and totally self-contained to create a character like Bruce Lee who isn't strong in the sense that he can lift a lot of weight through having a low Force sub-attribute, but he can do a lot of damage by having a high Power. Conversely, you can model a bodybuilder who can lift a lot of weight, but who can't generate the same amount of Force over the same amount of time (pound for pound, a gymnast will do more damage than a bodybuilder because, in physics terms, even though a bodybuilder can do more work, how much force you can generate per unit time, which is my definition of power, is the most important factor in determining blunt damage). Or you can create a magician with amazing hand-eye coordination, but who's no faster than a runner, or you can create an acrobat that can't pick a lock. I can hear some say that you can do the same by having combat skill levels or lightning reflexes do the same, but really, these things only modify a more limited set of circumstances. Maybe I can make my weaker STR martial artist do more damage by giving him combat skill levels to add to DC, but then you confine yourself to only addressing the combat side of things. The Hero method still doesn't solve the SPD vs. Reflexes problem (there's a difference between how quickly you can react to an event versus how quickly you can physically move). If you want your martial artist to jump really high....well in Hero, that's a STR based thing (which in real life, is based on a number of factors, the most important being how much Power you can generate in relation to your bodyweight). In my system, all this stuff is handled elegantly and without needing the overhead burden of stuff like CSL's or advantages like Lightning Reflexes. So what at first may appear to be a system overly burdened with attributes is in the long run more simple and elegant. Moreover, it does away with the attribute overuse problem. My suggestion is to do what I did, and tinker around with the Attribute system for Hero. You bought the game, so it's yours to play around with in whatever way you want It's not like a holy book that's inviolate, and I've never understood people who feel like it's sacrilege to adapt, modify and tinker around with an established game system to make it play the way you want it to.

Re: Something Star Hero needs, but hasn't. I've said before that one of the problems with the Hero System is that it uses what I call a Descriptive system to model all things. A Descriptive system simply asks, "what are the qualities and attributes of a system so that I can describe its affects?". Basically, you look at the end result of a product, and then reverse engineer it to figure out the quantification of its attributes. The advantage of a Descriptive system is that it can model just about anything you can imagine. The disadvantage is that it quite often doesn't jibe with reality very well. On the other hand, you can have a Procedural system. A Procedural system starts by having parts or attributes and rules that deal with how (and if) these facets interact with each other. From this, you join the parts together according to the rules and you end up with a finished object that has abilities according to the various parts. The advantage to this system is that you can model the attributes very closely to reality and have a very realistic system. The disadvantage is that these facets are very contextually based (say for example technological) which means that it is difficult to model a wide-ranging set of things (and when I mean things, I mean physical objects or characters). For example, suppose I create a character that has the skill WS:Heavy Weapons (which allows him to use military heavy weapons like anti-tank guided missles). And yet, the player does not want the character to have either a military background or a terrorist background. How is this possible? It is possible in the Hero System because you simply have a Descriptive system ("I want a character that can use heavy weapons"). And the rules allow for such a creation, although the GM may raise his eyes at such a loophole. So if the GM doesn't care or doesn't catch this, it could lead to problems. This ultimately means more babysitting for the GM to do. On the other hand, you could have a Procedural system that limits what a character can learn based on his education, social class, career or cultural background. Similarly, in a procedural system, instead of creating a gun by first asking, "How much damage do I want it to do?", you instead have to think of many factors; "How big is the gun? What is the mass and diameter of the bullet? How long is the barrel? What kind of action system does it use?". A Descriptive system is good for games which span genres or genres which can't really be modeled on "reality" (superheroes or fantasy for example). However, the universality of such a system is also its weakness in games that require more of a realistic or gritty edge. Personally, I don't use the Hero System for realistic and gritty games. I think it's for this reason that neither of the campaign settings have attempted to explain starship technology in great detail...simply because trying to model the technology may wind up with the anomalies like you mention. It's the price a system has to pay for being universal. Although I've never tried to build a starship with the rules system, maybe you might want to take a look at BTRC's CORPS VDS. As a warning, you must have a calculator and preferably a spreadsheet to really use it. This will only allow you to create the vessel though. If you want weapons, take a look at their other product, Guns! Guns! Guns!

I'm working on a pseudo Earth setting set somewhere within this timeframe (not sure when precisely). It's basically a East meets west storyline not dissimilar to the Last Samurai. I want to show a clash of cultures but the trick here is that the setting is only loosely earth-like. In other words you'll be able to think, "aha, I think this is his 'mythical India', and this must be his 'mythical Japan'". I guess the closest game would be something like the world of Rokugan and the Legend of the 5 rings. While the geography will change and the names of the countries will change, it has to have some recognizable metaphoric anchors to our own world. I definitely want to evoke two central themes for the campaign. The first is the upheaval of western modernization and its concurrent materialistic and dualistic paradigms inflicted on the intuitive and idealistic cultures of the east. The second theme I want to get across is, though highly controversial and my main motivation to do it in the first place, is the contrast of religious and spiritual ideals. I'm already fairly knowledgeable about eastern religions (I'm a Chan Buddhist myself) though I could always learn more about Advaitic Hinduism, Shintoism and Taoism (of which I know some of all of them but it never hurts to have more info). Hell, I might even throw in some mystic Sufis too in case the adventuring goes off into the Middle East (along maybe with some Kabbalahist and Gnostic mystics too). Hmm, now that I think about, having a campaign set where the characters come across Sir Gordon as he holds in Khartoum with some Sufi mystics would be pretty cool. What I'm more interested in is technology of the time period. References about how industrialism was changing western society would be nice. Anything on any of the following wars would be great too: Sepoy Rebellion The Opium Wars Meiji Restoration Any of the American Indian wars The Boxer Rebellion Filipino Insurrection Russo-Japanese War

Re: Light or Dark Future? What's the matter with a game in which you can't "win"? I find the idea of a "Kobayashi Maru" test fascinating because it puts players in the very unfamiliar role of having to deal with loss. I think this is something that games avoid like the plague, when in fact, I think it is something it should face head on. Ultimately, as real human beings, we are going to die. We have to face this fact. We don't like to think about death because it just seems so pessimistic and morbid. But almost all religions agree that only by accepting death can you accept (and value) life in it's most pure form. From the code of Bushido, to the martyrdom of Christianity, to the loss of attachment of Buddhism, to the existential living at the edge of death, almost all religions and philosophies embrace the idea of coming to terms with one's mortality. But it is not just the avoidance of death the religions speak of, but that life's actions must be pursued for the right reasons. In most religions it is also taught that your actions should not be based on the thought that you can enjoy the fruits of your labor. Whether you look at God testing Job, or at Krishna explaining to Arjuna that karma is based upon your means and not the end, this is something we should keep in mind. Hence, victory (the fruits of our labor) should not be the goal, but rather the actions that we chose in spite of the world around us, even if it means we perish and "lose". If we only ever think about victory then we lose a chance to grow and we become spoiled. We feel that if we can't win then what's the point? The point ultimately is that we have to live our lives by our beliefs, accepting everything that happens to us with grace. This is the truest test of steel for anyone. Is it any less of a victory to hold onto one's ideals despite his struggles being in vain than it is to overcome your adversary and let "good triumph"? Finding meaning in the middle of seeming loss and despair is I think a far greater triumph than finding it when the world is going your way. Call me a tragedian, but I see nothing wrong with playing in a setting in which the only way to win....is to lose.

Re: Light or Dark Future? I think an interesting tack to take with sci-fi is to pose the question: "Will science and technology solve more problems than it creates?". In the west, we tend to see science and technology as a panacea for all ills, but I for one do not. I think that while it can solve problems, it often replaces it with another, or it only treats the symptoms, and not the disease. As a simple example, are we devolving? Because of medical science, people are living and breeding who would have perished before. Evolution relies on the principle that "that which does not kill us makes us stronger" (sorry Nietzsche). Many diseases or ailments in the past that would have weeded out the weaker are allowed to continue. As an example, eyesight is getting poorer (though it may be correctable, we're still passing on the genes to the next generation). In the past, we needed to rely on our eyesight to spot danger. Some will argue of course that our technology makes evolution obsolete, because instead of us adapting to the environment, we adapt the environment to ourselves. And yet this is the very reason why our environment is threatened by us human beings. We don't need a nuclear war to cause massive disruption....just pull the plug on your power and watch first world countries descend into chaos. Our dependence on technology has not made us stronger, it has in fact made society more fragile. Moreover, our technological and industrial dependency has introduced diseases that were unheard of 100 years ago. We have forms of cancer that never existed before. Will technology be able to provide enough natrual resources to provide for the growing human population (human growth is exponential....is our technological capabilites going to be exponentially growing as well?)? And perhaps most insidiously western reliance and dependency on science and technology has made us become extremely materialist. It has become the de facto religion for many. But science follows a cold hard objective materialist metaphysical viewpoint which leaves little room for spirituality and humanity. Even accounting to secular humanism, the material objectivism that science is built upon (material objectivism is the belief that things are individual and seperate matter or energy that exist within space-time....and yes, it is a belief, it is not fact...it is a proposed axiom, and axioms are unprovable) stresses the importance of material things. In essence, it leads us away from that which is not empirically observable...things like consciousness or spirit. I personally feel the future will be darker and I like my sci-fi games darker. Now, when I say darker, I don't mean necessarily full of war and famine and riots and such. I mean more in the sense that people will lose sight of the ephemeral and the nebulous. People will want only power, wealth, and material comfort, for these are the things they are told will make them happy. They will have machines do the hard work for them, and perhaps even a lot of the thinking. For some, this may be utopia. Take a look at tranhumanist or extopian ideas. For some, the idea of transhumanism and extopianism is paradise, and for others it is just the grasping of the ego for more power, or the rejection of death. I'm a comp. sci major, and to be honest, I really worry about the future because of our technological progress. Even though my interest is in AI research, I worry that we will use technology not as a supplement to help us understand our quest for who and what we are....it will instead be a replacement for hard work and will only fuel the ego's desires.

Re: Guns, guns and more guns If you really want to know the why's of gun stats, then I suggest using Greg Porter's excellent Guns! Guns! Guns!. It is logically consistent and because you engineer the weapons, you know exactly why its performance characteristics are the way they are. That's an issue I've had with the Hero system when it comes to realistic genres. It models descriptive effects to simulate powers rather than causal (or procedural) reasons. In other words, you simply describe what effects the power has, but there is no rationale or logic needed to explain how such a combination or end result is achieved. This descriptive-based system works great for stuff that isn't explainable like super-powers or magic. But for real world based powers, it leaves a somewhat bitter taste in the mouth. It can model real-world effects, but often you have to double check what you've come up with against real world capabilities. And if you want to play a hard sci-fi campaign with plausible near-future items that make sense, then you have no real-world items to compare to. And for an old gamer used to games like Battletech or even Car Wars where technological components took up space and weight, this lack of either in Hero is disconcerting. How much DOES my particle accelerator weight compared with your Fusion gun? Can my Mk. 3 OGRE cross that damaged bridge? If you'd like more real world stats on ballistics, here some useful stuff I've gleaned during my research into my own game: http://www.fortliberty.org/military-library/ballistics-ammunition.shtml http://www.steyrscout.org/ballisti.htm http://medlib.med.utah.edu/WebPath/TUTORIAL/GUNS/GUNBLST.html http://www.mindspring.com/~ulfhere/ballistics/wounding.html

Re: Hero HERO True, there's no line you can find that draws the division between the classical elements of Wuxia stories and the modern versions. But I still think it's good to bring up the point that there are differences lest people think that Wuxia means this or means that. It's precisely because there are variations of Wuxia that I think it's good to point them out so people who only have one concept in their minds of what Wuxia means knows that there differences.

Re: Hero HERO Well, the meaning of wuxia has unfortunately become distorted over time. Wuxia literature has evolved over time, and much of modern wuxia stories are indeed not much different than DragonBall Z with secret societies added in. Wuxia literature also evolved from a perspective of the hero trying to uphold Confucian values (which most of the jianghu values are derived from) with his own human frailties. They were often about a hero trying to remain virtuous while reconciling the ideas of humility, or about the desire for revenge against the needs of duty or sacrifice for the greater good. The Chinese love playing these competing values against one other to highlight the suffering. Later on, it evolved as a counter-Confucian culture and actually went against those very same values. But it's quite often that people confuse genre, setting and atmosphere. For example, MASH was a series set in a war, however, it (usually) had a comedic and light-hearted atmosphere to it (though it's genius lay in contrasting light-hearted comedy with deathly serious human issues). The same can be said of Hogan's Heroes...while the setting was a prison war camp in WWII, it was all comedy and light-hearted humor. Therefore it would be misleading to say both TV series were War series. Yes, they both took place in wars and had some elements and backgrounds that required war as plot devices, but it would generate in someone's mind a different set of ideas of what the series would be about since War doesn't often conjure images of comedy. Wuxia itself literally is composed of Wu, which means war or martial, and xia, which is something akin to a wandering knight. So indeed, this can encompass a broad range of atmospheres and settings. But traditional Wuxia does have a distinct meaning as compared to modern Wuxia. Most western audiences are actually probably more familiar with traditional wuxia. Most gamers have heard of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and have probably seen CTHD as well as Hero. These are all examples of traditional Wuxia. They all have very serious atmospheres and tones that reflect confucian and/or Taoist viewpoints. But gamers have also been flooded with modern Wuxia elements, like Feng Shui and Exalted. Modern wuxia has blurred the lines between traditional wuxia, your average chop-socky, and quentin-tarantino bloodbaths.

Re: Hero HERO I actually bough the import of it a couple of months ago so I have the DVD to it. The only fight scene that impressed me was between the two legends, Donnie Yen and Jet Li (the first fight scene....). But the cinemaphotography is amazing, and so is the story. I guess I'm not a big fan of the whole leaping and flying Wuxia element of storytelling, because I think its far too "loud" and screams "this so so f$%*ing cool isn't it?", but I very much admire the core of wuxia stories, that of finding the heart of a warrior and usually about finding peace amidst war. To me, what makes Hero so great isn't the fights, but the amazing storytelling. It is heads and shoulders above Crouching Tiger hidden Dragon, which is quite a feat in itself. I'd be reluctant to do a Hero type campaign setting because to truly capture the grandeur of Hero requires the ability of the player to sacrifice. Almost all chinese stories usually have unhappy endings, as the chinese philosophy of storytelling would agree quite readily with the Greek saying, "wisdom comes from suffering". But if your players are mostly of the Tragedian sort, then i think a campaign like this would be great, but otherwise, I see too many people claiming to run Wuxia campaigns that are really nothing more than Dragonball Z martial-arts fests. Hero is most definitely not suited for players who want this style of campaign

Re: Computers In Star Hero I agree with bblackmoor. The level of automation that computers already have is pretty staggering. While it's true that the computers we type those posts on are what's called pre-emptive multi-tasking computers, meaning that it can only work on one process or thread at a time, we're already entering an era in which SMT (symmetric multi threading) processors will be available for home desktops in the next year or two. As SMT implies, it means it can process more than one thread at a time....meaning that it will truly be multi-tasking (rather than the pseudo multi-tasking that occurs now). And for the curious, Hyperthreading isn't SMT (though Intel would like you to think so). When you think about how government agencies like NASA, the various militaries, the NOAA and other large groups have these huge super clusters of literally thousands of processors, the amount of work they can do is incredible (and these super computers can work on multiple tasks simultaneously). If we have these supercomputers available now, imagine what even just 50 years in the future will bring. And that's not even considering any advances in AI or quantum computers (or for that matter biological based computers that use RNA proteins to encode data...much like our genes do). Given this, the rules in Star Hero are actually pretty antiquated and have much more of a "retro" feel to them. I'd design the computers much like an NPC (or automaton) but only with mental stats. It would have an Ego of 0 as it couldn't make spontaneous creative choices. It could however learn from its input, and also react to certain events. So even without AI, computers in a hard sci-fi realistic setting should be able to do far more than Star Hero suggests. But if you have a more Space Opera type campaign, then I think your idea should work alright without being too abusive (personally, I think computers should be able to do even more than that). To be frank, within the next 50 years, our processing power will be staggering. Computers will be able to do some amazing things by then, though I don't believe we'll have true AI until we develop quantum computers.

Re: Anybody remember Space Opera? Totally OT Toadmaster, where'd you see those reprints of the FGU games? Man, talk about nostalgia. I was about 9 through 11 when I started playing most of those games...and learning them ( I don't think I fully got Aftermath until I was maybe 13 or 14). Believe it or not, FGU was my introduction to the roleplaying world, not that other fantasy game system. I got Space Opera around 82, Bushido in 83, Aftermath in 83, Villains & Vigilantes about 83 (right before I knew of the existence of Champions), Freedom Fighters around 85 or 86, and a friend of mine bought Year of the Phoenix which I wound up having to learn the rules. I only have Aftermath now, and I have to say, I think it was years ahead of its time crunchiness-wise (it and the original pre-Avalon Hill Runequest which I also wish I still had....NOT Hero Wars). The author of Space Opera still frequents The Forge from time to time. I'd love to see Space Opera again, mostly for nostalgia, but also just to check out its game design.

Re: Modern Hero? Cyber/Transhuman Hero? should they publish these? I agree with Arcady. It would be interesting to see a Transhuman genre book, although a setting wouldn't be too bad. While I agree that competing with Transhuman Space would be a daunting task, I think that a genre book would help allow users to convert TS into Hero terms. After discovering the Transhuman/Extopian genre, I can't really play regular sci-fi anymore since it just seems so....well, like fantasy in disguise. What always attracted me to sci-fi was that it seemed plausible and possible. It was something that could happen in the future. After reading about these new views of how society could evolve in Transhumanism, I see regular sci-fi as pretty much like any other story but with starships, laser guns and big eyed drooling monsters (instead of swords, horses and big eyed drooling monsters). The potential for some powerful introspection about one's self-identity, and about the direction technology is taking us is very powerful in the Transhuman genre. In fact, it was so intriguing that it got me worried because this potentially really could happen. In our lifetimes even. The idea of a singularity (or asymptote as its sometimes called) is a real possibility. If you think I'm being melodramatic, go to Ray Kurzweil's Site and look it over. The genre even got me reinterested in metaphysics and epistemology over the concerns and possibility of Artificial Intelligence (although I am a Comp Sci major, so it's always been of interest). If there is one disadvantage to the Transhumanist genre, it's that it is a very sophisticated genre that requires a subtle blend of philosophy, political science, psychology, and the necessary human conflict that drives all adventures. But if conflict is solely about augmented (genetically or otherwise) humans duking it out vs. androids(cybershells), bioroids(replicants), nanite swarms, or even virtual life(web life forms) then I think the genre would be misused. It's not like a White Wolf game where you get to play some kind of super-powered being for the sheer sake of having a super-powered character with angst. Rather it's a genre that requires a lot of looking within and trying to figure what direction you want things to go for society as a whole. In other words, it's a difficult genre to play in, and it requires players with open minds, and a GM who is sophisticated and can pull off all those subtleties. Check out Greg Porter's NeoTerra for an unusual take on a (sort of)Transhumanist setting.

Re: Modern Hero? Cyber/Transhuman Hero? should they publish these? Thing is, transhumanism is quite a bit different than cyberpunk. In the 20 years since cyberpunk became popular, the possibilities of how humans would augment themselves has changed drastically. More importantly, the reason why people would augment themselves has changed. Cyberpunk was basically punk with cyborgs (augmented humans). Transhumanism and Extopianism is more about how society has been impacted by technology to the point that we have to question, "what does it mean to be human?". Very different atmospheres. Whereas cyberpunk was mostly about bionic augmentation, transhumanism deals with artificial intelligences, genetically modified beings, and nanotechnology. Hacking into the net takes on a new meaning in transhumanism when the virtual world is inhabited by other lifeforms, and that the net is everywhere (just think how rapidly wireless technology has popped up...imagine what it will be like 20 years from now). I think the greater difference though really is in handling how society itself has changed. Cyberpunk was about fighting "the man" (corporations). Transhumanism is about grappling with the idea of how the self fits into society, especially when its hard to define what exactly the self is. Transhumanism is much more ripe for roleplaying ideas than cyberpunk. It is a very sophisticated genre that requires a lot of forethought and planning to pull off, but the reward is some very deep roleplaying possibilities. I for one would love to see a Transhuman genre book. If GURPs can do it, then Hero should definitely be able to do it.