Lord Liaden

I apologize if you thought I was misrepresenting you. I was making an assertion about a particular element of this incident other than the points you listed, which I believe needs to be taken into account when determining culpability in this case.

The officer used the strobe as the instructions explicitly say one should not. That's fair to say. That's not excusable.

Indeed. But if the police department issued strobe lights for weapons without training officers in their use, the department may also be culpable in this tragedy. If said officer acquired a cool toy on his own, without learning how to use it, and that contributed to the shooting, then he was negligent regardless of other circumstances. As Beau and Unclevlad point out, instructions on how to use strobes are readily available. A further question of concern is how many of the department's officers carry strobe lights on their weapons without training?

I always wanted to ask Steve about the Vornakkian city-state of Kurum-Sathiri. In its main entry in TA it's described as a mageocracy, with social status and influence directly tied to skill with magic, and its ruler, the Ar-King, being the state's strongest mage, having proven that through "duel arcane" with any challenger. Yet the Religion chapter of TA asserts the Sithians are monotheistic, worshiping a supreme deity called Mahin, and its priesthood following a strict hierarchy topped by the Mahinturi, literally "the voice of God." I've long wondered how this dynamic played out in Steve's games, or how he imagined it playing out if he never actually gamed Kurum-Sathiri. For one thing, where do priests of Mahin fit in the social hierarchy? Does divinely-granted magic count the same as wizardly spellcraft in determining status? For another, the Ar-King and the Mahinturi sound like two very powerful poles of authority sharing the same space. Does one traditionally defer to the other? Do church and state have clearly defined spheres of control which never overlap? Or are they like the Pope and the Emperor in the Holy Roman Empire, constantly jockeying for control over various issues? (FWIW for my own games I moved the Mahinist religion and priesthood to another city-state, which I made a true theocracy. I don't like focusing too much Vornakkian weirdness in one place, I'd rather spread it around.)

Since we're getting into the mechanical details of the shooting, there's one element involved that I haven't seen raised anywhere but here:

That would explain a lot, wouldn't it.

If there were real fairy forests, these would be their trees.

Considering how poorly we're designed compared to other animals, it's amazing we survived this long, let alone became apex predators. We might not have made it if there were tyrannosaurs around.

I could see purple for the Chief Justice.

Just color-coordinate their robes.

These protestors may view any institutional organization as, to borrow an old term, "the man."

Speaker Pelosi throws cold water on a progressive bill that would expand the Supreme Court to 13 seats Pelosi says there are higher-priority bills Congress needs to deal with first, and won't bring this one to the floor. However, she notes that President Biden has established a blue-ribbon panel studying this and other issues, which is due to report in six months.

One of the things I like about the Champions Universe is that, while the top-tier technology remains in the hands of superheroes and supervillains, quite a bit of "supertech" has filtered out into the wider world and made a substantive difference to that world compared to our real one. In particular, Champions Universe, Champions Beyond, and Millennium City detail those differences. I summarized that info for the Champions Online community, which the curious can read here.

What a beautiful, innocent world that was. I'd have loved to hang out there. I still would.

"That makes perfect sense and is appropriate." When do the anti-vaxxers ever make perfect sense? The issue isn't the reason why this is happening. The issue, which Beau concludes in his video, is that many, many people have already died from COVID-19, and there's an overwhelming demand for government compensation for the disposition of their bodies. That compensation is therefore very time-consuming and stressful to obtain at a time when family members someone left behind because they weren't protected, are already dealing with grief and unexpected expense. OTOH there's lots of easily and relatively quickly obtained vaccine to save your loved ones from going through that. Beau is formulating an argument to persuade the reluctant to get vaccinated by engaging them on the emotional level, the same as the anti-vax movement does.

Bottom line, between 4E and 5E I have more villains, NPCs, monsters, gadgets, weapons, spells, optional rules than I could ever possibly need. I wouldn't mind more in the way of adventures and maps, but 4E did better with that than 5E, and 3E and earlier adventures aren't hard to adapt, so I'm not hurting. TA in particular could really benefit from both, regarding specific locales in the world.

So, I got my first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Tuesday morning. Other people have been sharing their vaccine experiences here, and maybe that helps everyone get a better sense of what to expect, so I might as well join in. No pain, swelling or redness at the injection site or the rest of my arm. No discomfort at all for about twelve hours. Then I started to get the 'flu-like symptoms I'd been told to expect that indicate the vaccine is working: low-grade fever, chills, muscle aches all over, fatigue, mild headache. They peaked over two hours, although never severely, then gradually subsided. Now about thirty hours after the vaccination and eighteen hours after symptoms started, they seem to be pretty much gone. I will probably have to wait three to four months for my second dose. Here in Ontario they're trying to stretch out the followup vaccination to make sure they have enough vaccine to give everyone at least one dose. (Vaccine supply in Canada has not been as initially advertised.) The pharmacist who gave me the shot claimed that delay actually works to my benefit, because research suggests the AstraZeneca is more effective with a few months' delay between doses. I haven't found that research online yet, but I haven't had the time to really search for it. If it is just a line, at least it's a comforting one.

That's because it's not really about the eventual infinite benefit. That's just the justification to brag and gloat and lord it over the heathens.

[From "epelesker" on the Champions Online forums] Late with this one, sorry! Apparently we're not 100% out of the woods yet. I just caught an update from his sister on April 11th that 'Drax had a fall at home and ended up back in the hospital. So keep those fingers crossed and thoughts positive, please!

You really have to ask yourself what that bear was trying to accomplish.

One thing that Champions mystic lore repeatedly stresses is that occultists build whenever possible on sites of mystic significance and power, or else attempt to create such a site where other types of power exist or will exist. The occult history of Washington DC described in The Mystic World pp. 69-70 provides a very salient example: "The nascent Trismegistus Council and Circle of the Scarlet Moon each saw that the fledgling United States of America carried the potential for great mystical and temporal power. Both organizations set out to shape the new nation into their vision of an ideal state to dominate the world. The Trismegistans want to build a republic of the wise, where power defers to law and prosperity comes to all. The Scarlet Moon seeks a tyrannical Occult Empire, ruled by itself through magic and conspiracy, and ruling the rest of the world through armed terror and economic exploitation. The Circle always thinks it’s about to win, but never quite succeeds." "The nation’s capital became one of the chief battlegrounds. Not only do both conspiracies seek to influence government officials, they try to shape destiny itself by creating mystic power sites in alignment with the streets, utilities, and public buildings. As usual with magic of time and destiny, this involves calendar sites — from the star map of the Einstein Monument to the cut-glass zodiacs that surround light fixtures in the Federal Reserve Building. Each new site alters the city’s ley lines of power, focusing them to the advantage of one side or the other." "America’s prophecied mystical hegemony takes an unexpected form. In most parts of the world, the local mythology ordains (or was ordained by) a limited range of spirits and supernatural creatures. Djinn visit the deserts of the Middle East and Central Asia — not Australia. Satyrs stalk the forests of Greece — not Japan. Rakshasas stay in India; wereleopards stick to Africa. But any and all of them can appear in the USA (or nearby parts of Canada and Mexico), and some of them take up permanent residence. The Occult Republic attracted mortals from every culture in the world, and their spirits, gods, demons, and monsters came with them." I would submit that despite the brief reference to Australia above, that country's large and diverse immigrant population has created a dynamic similar to that of the United States, although still on a smaller scale. But if the Circle of the Scarlet Moon started the process (it dates from the late Eighteenth Century), the mystic sites of Canberra could have been seized from them by DEMON, which has a history of such "power grabs."

Big whoop... 😴

"White Lives Matter" is an attempt to start a movement with nothing to justify it but hurt feelings. This demographic don't experience any oppression remotely close to what others in American society have faced for generations. They're finally starting to be treated like everyone else instead of the normative, privileged group everyone is supposed to act like. When a privileged group loses those privileges, to them it feels like oppression. But when you ask them why they're upset, all they can give you is vague platitudes, or outright lies they've been fed by those who want to exploit them. The difference in what BLM and WLM stand for is -- yes, I'm going to go there -- like night and day.

Well, I think of Batman. He acts with a latitude that officers of the government don't have. But when he captures a villain, and has evidence of their wrongdoing, he turns them over to the authorities for disposition. No judge/jury/executioner, he accepts that society as a whole has to choose what penalties are appropriate to impose on a given criminal, and he can't set himself above it in that process. Same with Superman, Spider-Man, and many other heroes. There have also been multiple extended comic runs in which major superheroes, particularly teams, acted as agents of national or world governments. Avengers. Justice League. X-Force.