Mutant for Hire

Re: Artificial gravity produced.

 

Among other things, I'm waiting for some other independent research facility to duplicate the results first. Repeatability is the key. Then I'll get excited.

Re: Space elevators

 

Time? Time isn't the issue. Think of moving freight by ship versus moving by plane. And most satellites aren't in a hurry to move into orbit. In fact the space elevator is actually going to be a boon to those who want to put satellites and space probes into orbit because they don't have to be designed to survive the rigors of a current launch cycle.

 

The space elevator is the key towards economical space travel, all the more so because as soon as one nation builds one, everyone else is going to want one as well and pretty soon we'll have a dozen or so elevators routinely doing traffic between here and orbit. This is when the Space Age really begins.

 

Something to bear in mind is that historically there was a gap between the expeditions to reach the South Pole and setting up permanent stations there. People did the South Pole and once it was done, no one bothered going down there for a while because it just wasn't practical to set up an outpost down there. After a while, things improved to where it could be done, and we've been down there steadily ever since.

 

This is what I see here. The Space Elevator, first for the Earth is a good staging ground for a permanent space presence and as a launching ground for expeditions elsewhere, such as the construction of a Lunar Space Elevator, which opens up lunar development.

Re: Presidential Package?

 

I want to see the NGD Presidential Package.

Re: What if the M.U. was consistent?

 

Actually, the one consistancy I'd really like in the Marvel Universe above all else is consistancy of characters and a consistancy of aging in the Marvel Universe, with characters growing old normally and there being a normal amount of retirement, settling down and spawning in the Marvel Universe. And a certain consistancy of concept and theme.

 

By this point, Peter Parker has been retired for a very long time, his son, Ben Parker, is Spider-man and carrying on the family tradition. Over in the X-Men the original New Mutants are starting to drop off the team roster and retire and the generation after the original X-Men are starting to take their place. Captain America may well have retired by now and is the mentor of his successor. Ditto for Tony Stark.

 

Over in the Fantastic Four, the core concept has always been a family of explorers, with a strong emphasis on family. As such the Fantastic Four has always been more of an extended family than a superhero team. All the founding members settled down, though Ben probably adopted unwanted kids with strange appearances or power issues (or both) to give them a healthy home. Doom has had a number of offspring by a number of concubines, not all of them human and has a brooding and scheming family of his own.

Re: What if the M.U. was consistent?

 

Actually, I'd reboot the Marvel Universe into two separate continuities, Marvel X and Marvel M.

 

Marvel X would be the x-factor universe, where everything there was based around the x-factor gene complex. Almost all of the elements save magic would be reintroduced, but everything would be reintroduced and reoriented around the x-factor.

 

For example, the Eternals and the Deviants, the two original subspecies created alongside of humanity would not be indifferent to mutants. In fact they would be just as opposed to mutants if not more so than ordinary people. They see this species of humanity that will outevolve them and leave them in the dust. The Eternals, who manipulate humanity from behind the scenes Illuminati style (when you're that immortal and that powerful, playing games with humanity is just a way to pass the time), are really the ones pushing anti-mutant prejudice.

 

Aliens either want the human race wiped out or they want the x-factor for themselves and then they want to wipe the human race out. Or they'd like to find a way to make sure that humanity doesn't Ascend to whatever its evolving to before they do. This is a very science fictiony universe in theme and consequence.

 

Then there's Marvel M, which is where all superpowers come from magic, and all supertech is in effect technomancy. This does not mean that folks like Reed Richards and Tony Stark are unwitting using magic. Physics is the field of science which describes the fundamental forces of the universe. Magic therefore is just an extension of physics in the same way that the laws of physics were extended when nuclear forces were discovered.

 

That universe is a lot more classically superheroic as costumes and codenames carry mystic power and there are reasons that heroes and villains deliberately use a motif in all of their tools. Spiderman becomes one of the archetypical totem warriors of Marvel M. Captain America didn't have the Supersoldier Serum but was touched by the Spirit of America.

Re: Supernatural Special Forces

 

I think it would be reasonable to assume that in a world where vampires and other supernatural beasties are common enough to actually rate specialized military units to combat them there would be very few atheists (Being an atheist in such a world would not be a survival trait; on the contrary it would be like wearing a "Vampires and other Ghoulies: Eat Me!" T-shirt and wandering the streets after dark). And I think it would go without saying that the military would only recruit devout believers into such units.

If any religious symbol works so long as it is believed in fervently enough, then an atheist would say it is a matter of focusing one's willpower versus the supernatural creature in some fashion. In which case atheistic scientists will work out some sort of focusing system based on some artificially created symbol to allow one to channel belief in certain concepts that even secular humanists believe in against supernatural forces.

 

If there is a higher power and there is solid evidence that said power can be drawn upon and channeled, then that answers the objections of most atheists, who are not so much rabidly against the existance of God so much as being asked to believe in such a power without anything resembling hard proof.

Re: Your personal comic book origins

 

Ironically, I didn't really get hooked until the mid eighties, and that started with the X-Men. Which is why I've always had a fondness for the mutant titles.

Re: characters from the "nightside"

 

SHotgun Suzie would probably be a "normal" with lots of combat skill levels, and lightning reflexes, WFs, street wise and related skills.

She also has a Multipower with a huge number of different slots of ammunition. That's what makes Suzie so dangerous, she's got shells that can take out just about anything.

Walker could be an experienced burueacrat with an Atrocious Mind Control, contacts, resources, reputation.

He's also got a VPP which means that he can do just about anything he needs to. Don't forget that he was able to spot someone spying on him when the succubus in question didn't think he could.

 

What I like about the Nightside novels is that there's a heirarchy of powers and the most powerful Powers and Dominions often have vast limits to go along with their vast powers. The lower level beings have greater freedom as well as an easier time avoiding notice.

Re: DC versus Marvel: different styles

 

That power level difference is mostly Marvel propaganda trying to suggest that their characters are more human. While they may be officially weaker in a panel by panel comparison Marvel characters do pretty much everything DC characters do. the main difference is that DC has more characters at the top level of power and Marvel has more mid-range and low-powered supers. But at the top of the power level there ain't a frog's whisker of difference in power.

On a cosmic scale, yes. When you restrict it to Earth-bound heroes, Marvel has fewer heroes who are at the same power level as the top heroes of Earth. Marvel tends to be a little better at not having cosmic-level heroes stopping bank robbers and one trick wonders.

Re: "Sleeper" Genres

 

Cheesecake Champions or Champions: The Swimsuit Edition would also sell well.

Actually, it would do better as an Ultimate book, explaining all the uses of COM, PRE and beauty-based powers.

Re: Re-Imaged X-men

 

Artistic License

 

The above link is to a site where a guy goes around and redesigns costumes for superheroes. Some of them are good, some of them are a bit ehh, but at least he puts effort into it.

Re: Some thoughts on River Tam (Firefly)

 

One of the reasons I liked Xena was that Lucy Lawless actually looked more like what I would imagine a warrior woman would look like. As a woman I knew described them "wide, child-bearing shoulders". She looked like her punch would carry some power behind it.

Re: Comics "Ages" sound bites

 

Actually, the thing is that there was a lot of good and bad in each of the ages, including the much maligned Iron Age.

 

Golden Age (best): Fighting the Nazis and corrupt officials for the good of the common man.

Golden Age (worst): Beating the criminals up or threatening to kill them until they coughed up information or agreed to change their ways.

 

Silver Age (best): Travel to strange worlds, other times, encountering fantastic creatures and seeing fantastic transformations, with a very strict moral code about what would happen.

Silver Age (worst): Stories that were just plain ridiculous and didn't make any sense, as well as pretending ugly subjects didn't exist.

 

Bronze Age (best): Exploring some serious concepts such as drug abuse, racism and other topics that were unexplored during the Silver Age

Bronze Age (worst): Characters having excessive amounts of angst and abuse heaped on them.

 

Iron Age (best): Exploration of the concept of what would really happen if people with superhuman powers actually existed.

Iron Age (worst): Men with big guns and women in fetish clothing.

Re: Medieval Farming Villages

 

I would like to emphasize that Tolkien's Middle Earth was in no way meant to be any sort of medieval world. It is an eclectic blend of a lot of different cultures, dating from nineteenth century rural England all the way back to Charlemagne, and possibly older elements than that. Another thing to point out is that the economics of Middle Earth were incredibly ill defined. Tolkien didn't particularly want to tell a realistic story, he wanted to tell a myth the way he liked to.

 

There is very little indication of how Bilbo and Frodo made their living, though the implication is that they rented out land to lower class hobbits, but it's never explicitly said that Bilbo or Frodo ever owned anything other than Bag End. He just made the two of them hobbit gentry and how they supported themselves was left rather vague.

 

Yes, you can make Middle Earth work, but you really have to work at filling in all the gaps that Tolkien left blank and trying to figure out how to keep those elements from getting in the way of what Tolkien already established.

 

Frankly, Discworld does a far better job at creating a fantasy world that actually feels plausible, and the main reason for that is that Pratchett has been increasingly hitting the history books to flesh out his world.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

 

See, now you've gone and done it. Folks are going to jump in and try to convince you to read other books in the series because the other books are better or whatever.

 

Admittedly, seeing the RMN get it's *** handed to it was...interesting.

Unfortunately the series lost me. The author's political bent comes out a little too strongly in the series. You can tell who the good guys are and who are the bad guys by what political views they have. Also the lead has too many Mary Sue tendencies for my tastes.

 

Just finished "Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth", the latest of the Nightside novels by Simon Green. I'm rather curious as to whether there will be any new Nightside books. He's certainly left things open. Still, it was a nice conclusion to the primary story arc.

Re: Anita Blake Vampire hunter

 

It's a classic case of SAS- Successful Author Syndrome. An author sells well, the author starts to believe their own hype and genius, the editors stop editing them even when they clearly need someone to tell them their work is crap. Anne Rice is another example of that. There are countless others.

 

Every writer needs a group of proof readers who need to go over their work with a critical eye and to be brutally honest. And you need an editor who is willing to do the same. Actually, a few writers don't need it, but sadly few writers have that level of self-discipline and even they aren't hurt by having a critical list of proof readers.

 

There are a number of flaws in the Anita Blake series that have been so well covered by others. In a franchise series you need to watch out for certain things and the editors of the series didn't stop the writer from making a good number of them. At least with her newer series she's set the theme up clearly from the start, even if she's going in directions I prefer not to.

Re: Anita Blake Vampire hunter

 

I don't like redheads. It doesn't mean that everyone that likes redheads is going to hell. We are just people. Isn't there room for all of us in this world?

Please ignore the red X the Redhead Brigade has scrawled on your door. Just please make sure your will is in order.

Re: Medieval Farming Villages

 

I would recommend picking up a book called "Life in a Medieval Village" by Gies.http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?TTL=Life+in+a+Medieval+Village&z=y It should be available at your local Barnes and Noble (which is where I got my copy) it is chock full of information and an easy read as well. I also recommend "Life in a Medieval Castle" and "Life in a Medieval City" by the same author. Great books to read for anyone running a fantasy campaign.

"Life in a Medieval City" is one of the books listed in the bibliography of "Medieval Demographics Made Easy", but yes, I do like the books.

 

I do like confounding people who don't quite realize that things were very different in pre-industrial time. I like people who want to go to a weapon shop to buy a weapon. You don't have weapon shops. Crafted items were not manufactured in standardized models. You went to a blacksmith or preferably a swordsmith who was a specialist in such things and got one made to specification.

 

There's no Hackmaster 2000 model sword. Instead, like the infamous Stradavarius violins, you had weapons made by someone, and a few craftsmen became so famous for their skill, their weapons were very prized. The Muramasa swords of Japan, for example, were very (in)famous.

 

On the bright side, no one ever had anything "off the rack". It was all more or less custom made.

Re: Anita Blake Vampire hunter

 

Bad analogy. Takahashi has done thing in everything she writes -- UY' date=' Ranma, Inuyasha.... It's either marketing, or an unwillingness to bring anything to a conclusion.[/quote']

Maisson Ikkoku is a classic counter example. Classic soap opera brought to a sense of conclusion. Characters get married, settle down, etc.

Re: Medieval Farming Villages

 

Oh, here's a bonus perk. A rather large PNG of medieval Nottinghamshire. I've lost the original source reference link but it's apparently a fairly ordinary English county back in the middle ages. Look at the number of villages and then look at the map scale to see exactly how densely packed these places are.

 

And yes, realistically, passing through most villages, a travelling group of adventurers would be forced to get their meals and sleeping quarters from whatever local farmer was willing to put them up. Note that this could be very simple assuming the group looked fairly reputable and was free with their coin.

 

Adventurers would themselves be forced to get most of their gear from a town at least, and the traditional linkage of adventurers to cities is in fact to some extent justified by the historical record. Cities existed to support professions that could not be afforded by villages or even towns. People went to the cities for exotic goods and services, and that would include adventurers as well. And the sorts of gear that adventurers need often would only be found in cities themselves.

Re: Medieval Farming Villages

 

Did you take a look at the support values chart? I'm not sure I agree with all of the numbers. 1 tavern/pub for a town of 400? That seems awfully low to me. Maybe that's just me and my fiction. Every town has some kind of tavern/pub and a town of 400 would certainly be able to support more than one considering the role a pub played in town society.

Look at the terminology used. Towns are a thousand and above. We're talking villages below a thousand. Villages did not necessarily have taverns. Among other things, farmers tended to do their own brewing.

Similar with blacksmiths. You are not guaranteed a blacksmith until the town reaches 1500 in population?

The big question to ask is: how often did the average person (read: farmer) go to the blacksmith and how much work did they need done? The numbers here are rules of thumb about how many people you need until you get a steady business.

 

Also, I would think that you would also end up looking at regions. In a collection of villages with a population adding up to 1500, you'd find a single blacksmith. Given how the villages were densely arrayed, that isn't that crazy a concept.

I'm not saying that *I* have done any research that disproves any of this. I'm just saying that the numbers seem to be a little off to me. Maybe I just read too much and authors tend to paint things in a rosey tone.

If you can find any numbers to contradict that, be my guest. So far I have not been able to find any major criticisms of the work.

Re: CU question: See through super material?

 

What sort of superhero would want a costume made of see through material? *scritches head*

Re: Anita Blake Vampire hunter

 

Now for the plug. Go forth and read Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden books.

Seconded. Harry is far from a Mary Sue. He's taken some damage over the course of the book, and I have no idea of how Butcher plans to resolve some of his more hellish problems.

 

In a similar vein, there's Simon Green's Nightside books. A very similar character, though there are some serious differences. The protagonist is a lot more powerful though he avoids being a Mary Sue mainly because he's got even more powerful enemies.

Re: Medieval Farming Villages

 

Medieval Demographics Made Easy

 

This is a must-read for anyone putting together an agrarian society.

Re: The Chronicles of Counter Harn

 

My take on fantasy is that if you have people able to harness magic, then magic becomes a tool by which the world is interacted with and manipulated, and that in turn shapes society, which is ultimately shaped by what power it has over nature.

 

I like to start with fundamental metaphysics and then figure out how a fantasy society evolves out of that. Which is not to say that you can't end up with a medieval society, but what sort of medieval society evolves where magic and strange beings are part of the commonly accepted fabric of society?