Dr. Anomaly

Re: The Champion Protocols (ie how to take down your character)

Re: Real World Stuff That Only Sounds Like A Comic Book

Re: Real World Stuff That Only Sounds Like A Comic Book This sounds a lot like the Lake Nyos area.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question? I suggested that a bit earlier in the thread, but there are some things that I'm not sure could be made to fit that idea.

Re: Battletech Mecha First Loves, Favourites, and just plain silly. I played in a Mechwarrior campaign for several years, and we used Battletech for our mech fights, of course. My character hated combat, and had initially opted to be a scout because scouts are, by and large, supposed to run away from danger. Fate seemed to have other plans for Marissa Duvall, though, and she kept getting pushed into situations where she couldn't run away from combat, and her piloting and gunnery skills kept on inching higher and higher. One extended adventure found us doing some undercover work on Solaris 7 as part of one of the big name gladiatorial stables there. Marissa's prefered mechs were lights (very mobile, very agile, very good at running away fast). For the arena fights she was in, she was forced (partly by the stable owner, partly by circumstances) to use an lumbering assault-class mech... and a Goliath at that! During her tenure in the stable, Marissa won every single one of her arena duels with one salvo. Let me repeat that: Every. Single. One. while she was fighting for that stable (and she only had one arena duel where she wasn't fighting for that stable). I had an unbelievable penchant for "Center Torso: Possible Critical" and "Head" shots. The GM switched dice on me frequently. His dice, my dice, my fellow player's dice... it didn't matter. Marissa entered every arena duel for that stable scared stiff, and fought by playing hide-and-seek, and avoiding her opponent, until they got frustrated, did something stupid that gave her an opening... then she went for it, guns blazing. The only arena duel she didn't win with one salvo was AFTER she'd retired from the circuit as #1 of the Top Twenty, and was getting set to leave Solaris. At the press conference where she'd announced her retirement, a woman she didn't know stood up and challenged her to a duel. Marissa replied (rather sarcastically) that she was retired, and told the stranger (in somewhat... less than polite language) what she could go do with herself. The woman then informed her that if Marissa didn't accept her challenge, she'd hunt Marissa down and shoot her in the back. (The newsfeeds were, of course, following all this with glee.) Marissa lost her temper and told the stranger that she'd meet her at the time and place of the stranger's choosing, and who the [censored] was she, anyway? The daughter of the Bounty Hunter, the stranger said. Marissa got one of those horrible stomach-leaving-on-vacation-now feelings, but it was too late to back out... and besides, if she didn't show, she fully expected the woman to follow through on her threat of hunting down, etc. The Bounty Hunter's daughter chose a small second-rate arena called "The Pit" for the challenge. It was nothing but an open square of bare earth with thick earthwork embankments around it. In other words... no place to run, no place to hide, no place to avoid the enemy until they made a mistake Marissa could capitalize upon. But it got worse. The Bounty Hunter's daughter was piloting a Marauder II that had been largely rebuilt with Clan tech. We were also using the optional initiative rules and the arena dueling rules and manuevers, so I kept using the Evade action, waiting for a time when I manged to beat the GM on the initiative roll, so I could take a shot. When the time came that I rolled the maximum I possibly could for initiative and at the same time the GM rolled the lowest possible... and I still lost initiative... I began to get the idea of what was going on here... he was bound and determined that by God I'd lose at least ONE arena duel, and this had been set up specifically so I couldn't win. I decided at that point I'd have to stop dodging and take a shot, and hope the shot the Bounty Hunter's daughter got off first (because of her higher initiative) wouldn't be instantly fatal, and would leave me in a state to be able to return fire. She pivoted around, brought up one of those massive forearms... I asked the GM what she was firing and, grinning, he replied "The ultra AC/20". And then he added "And with her gunnery skill, there is NO WAY that I can miss. Rolling the dice is just a formality." That was the first time I've had the weird experience of playing a character and literally having their life flash before their eyes. Chortling, he rolled... and the dice came up double 1's. On an ultra autocannon... that's a weapon jam. He stared at the dice in stunned disbelief... and so did I. Then I grabbed for my dice and told him I was, for my shot, taking a called shot to a specific weapon location (by this point, Marissa was a good enough gunner that, under the expanded dueling rules, I had a CHANCE of pulling that off). I aimed for the ultra AC/20, fired... and hit, putting that weapon permanently out of commission so she couldn't clear the jam and fire again. Her return shot shredded a lot of armor and one medium laser, but that was all. My second shot... gauss rifle slug... center torso, possible critical... 3 criticals... engine, engine, engine. Given the dueling rules, I now owned her mech. But I graciously decided to let her ransom it back... for an astronomical sum, of course. So the only arena duel Marissa fought that wasn't while employed by a stable she won, but took two shots to do it. And it was a situation that was blatantly set up for me to be impossible to win. Marissa then shook the dust of Solaris off her feet and got the [censored] out of there, along with the rest of her lancemates... ----- I have NEVER had a run of luck like that, before or since, with that character or any other, or in any other game. (In fact, I tend to be mildly imfamous for how low my rolls for my own characters tend to be, or during playing games like the Mechwarrior click-based game.)

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question? Yes, and there's some speculation it may in fact be the oldest of all gates. I know the episode in question, having watched it several times, but I've not gone back to check the dialoge and watch for any mention of the point of origin symbol. I assumed at the the time I first watched it that it must have a different symbol, otherwise you'd think that Carter would have recognized something was fishy right from the beginning.

Re: The Champion Protocols (ie how to take down your character) Dr. Anomaly is a gadgeteer-sorcerer, and without his spells, potions, and tech... he's just an incredibly intelligent normal. Catch him without a chance to summon his guardian spirit, activate his neural booster band, put up any of his defenses, etc. and he's toast from even a low-to-mediocre attack. If he has a chance to get his stuff up and working... wait him out / wear him down. ALL of his prepared-in-advanced gadgets and magical creations have a limited time span before they run out of juice (typically 1 Turn to 5 minutes, depending on the item in question -- this isn't something I have to do, but it is the flavor I like for the character.) After those things he has on him are exhausted, he's down to his 35 point Magic VPP. And while that's still potent in the hands of someone creative (and he is) 35 active points isn't a heck of a lot of wiggle-room to work in. And at that point, practically ANY level of magic supression field will render him effectively powerless in very short order (as he has learned on at least on occasion, much to his horror). For the rest of the team... I, ah, hate to admit this, but... early on, Dr. Anomaly DID do the "Batman" thing, and create devices specially designed to take out two of his three team mates -- because both were, in essence, alien beings and he wasn't really sure just how things might end up going. Thankfully, he's never had to use those devices, and has since destroyed one of them. But still... he DID do it... Sentinel is a powered armor wearer... and like most, catch him out of his armor, and he'll fold easily. In his armor, though... he's well-nigh impregnable to pretty much everything if all the armor's systems are switched over to "defense" mode... about your only hope would be some weird NND to which he did not have the defense... and that's not a good bet, considering the variety and strengths of the defenses he has. Balrog is a piece of sentient, animate stone literally older than the dinosaurs, currently in the form of a massive demonic gargoyle. He's one of the two that are essentially "alien" in nature. He ALSO does NOT have any kind of "code against killing" and not even a "code against mangling." He does seem to respect the laws of the land in regards to things like this, though I often get the impression that's mainly for Solomon's benefit (he doesn't want to upset Solomon [Dr. Anomaly], or cause problems for him since he's seen by the public, the authorities, etc. as the leader of the team). His defenses are also extremely tough as he is, in essence, made of rock... but Dr. Anomaly designed a neural scrambler specifically to take down Balrog in one shot. He's never had to use it, but it's still in one of the vaults should the day ever come... Scarab is a colony-creature... a nanite colony that ATE its creator, Dr. Kathleen Hawkins, a scientist of Solomon's acquaintance... and its personality seemed VERY alien to him when they first met. He designed a very high-intensity EMP device that would fry every single nanite at the same time, literally causing the Scarab entity to disintegrate -- bluntly, to kill it. Early on he wasn't sure that it wouldn't start eating other people or things, or reach some (to us bizarre) "logical" conclusion about life, the world, or mankind that would lead it to decide to wipe out mankind, or "fix" mankind or something else equally antisocial. Eventually he realized that not only had the nanite colony eaten Dr. Kathleen Hawkins' body and absorbed her memories, but it had fully absorbed her sense of morals and ethics as well, and that kind of behavior was well-nigh impossible for it. After Kathleen was recently restored fully to life, Solomon destroyed the EMP device by putting it into the "input" hopper of his autofactory and setting the output to "Velveta cheese block"... and the nanoassemblers in the autofactory pulled the device apart at the subatomic level, recreated the appropriate types of atoms from the source material, and built and then extruded a block of Velveta cheese...

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... A former Morbane of Demon, who is currently getting protection from U.N.T.I.L. in exchange for information about his organization, on having to get up early enough to make an 8:00 a.m. meeting: "In Demon, you didn't get up this early... if you were up this early, it's because you were beheading someone who displeased you during the night. Why'd I have to choose U.N.T.I.L.? I wonder what PRIMUS is like? I'll bet they don't get up early in PRIMUS! Unless they want to kill someone, of course... after all, that's what PRIMUS is all about, isn't it? 'Captain! Have you killed anyone yet today?' 'No, General!' 'Well, why not? It's 8:05 a.m., soldier!' And I'll bet PRIMUS doesn't try to make someone of my importance eat meals prepared the same as the meals prepared for the rank and file, like U.N.T.I.L. does. I wonder what their reaction would be if I summoned something right into the kitchen? No, they'd probably react poorly... that's the way U.N.T.I.L. is, you know..." ...this went on for some time.

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question? Okay, I see that... and I'll accept that, and agree with you!

Re: Battletech Mecha First Loves, Favourites, and just plain silly. Yeah... those Locust legs are spindly!

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question? Reminds me of when Tim Allen's character in Galaxy Quest blew up at the group of geek kids who wanted to talk to him about inconsistencies between a couple of episodes. (On a side note, since the Thermians actually built the ship to work and act the way it was depicted on the show... once has to wonder what kind of backflips they had to go through to get inconsitences to give them a working ship, and still work they way things said they did in conflicting episodes.... since they were taking the "historical documents" as fact. Man those guys must be SOME engineers!) bigdamnhero, did you mean perhaps consistent rather than plausible? I don't know how plausible a lot of this stuff is, but internal consistency matters to me a lot, when discussing shows like this.

Re: Musings on Random Musings Watch out for termites.

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

Re: Honey, where's my supersuit?

Re: Musings on Random Musings

Re: Building an Evolving Sentience True, but you can define the return condition as an all-or-nothing of your choosing. Normally you'd have to get it past the GM, but in this case... So you could define the return condition as "exposed to a tailored retrovirus that removes all information acquired via the ingestion of a sentient" and just apply that to include information it picked up from the Flood that actually did the ingesting. Now, one thing to consider with Multiform... you can be forced back into your base form there, too, so that's not necessarily a protection. However, in the example of the Hydra, they use Duplication with a "Cannot Recombine" Limitation to represent the multiple heads (and there being no way to make it spontaneously revert to a single head). If you want to go that route, do something similar with Multiform with "Cannot Revert To Base State (-0)". Then make the form it becomes more powerful than the base form, leaving some of the points defined only as skills, just not WHICH skills, and define them as appropriate when it changes into its Multiform. Just make sure THAT form ALSO has a Multiform into a bigger, more powerful (more skilled) state, ALSO with "Cannot Revert" as a Limitation, and so on. Normally "nesting" things like that is a no-no, or only with GM permission... but again, why would that be a problem in this case?

Re: Building an Evolving Sentience 1) Leave a block of unspent points during creature creation, then spend them on an as-needed basis for the new skills it learns. You may want to consider also purachsing all the Skill Enhancers for the creature to make the block of unspent points go further. 2) A VPP for Skills (usually NOT reccomended) 3) Cramming bought multiple times. 4) A Transform on self into self with the new Skill. (Normally Transform is not supposed to be able to give a skill the entity doing the transform doesn't have, but in this case you'd only be doing skills that are possessed by a Flood to which Gravemind is Mindlinked, so I suspect you could get away with it.) ...off the top of my head.

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question?

Re: Ok, this is a Stargate question? Since the actual gate address is only 6 characters, and the point of origin glyph differs with each gate (and presumably then with each matching DHD) I don't see a problem as far as being limited to only 39 gates. This does raise the issue, though, of mixing & matching gates and DHDs which has in fact been done in the series, and I don't offhand recall them saying anything about altering the DHD for the unique symbol on it to match the unique symbol on the gate. Then again, if the symbol that differs is always in the same place on the DHD... that may not matter. I'm a programmer, too, and I've been wondering about this a bit. (Why need a "point of origin" glyph to be entered in at all?) One thought that came to me was this: So far, it's been "one gate per world"... and we've been told that's the way it has to work, that if there's more than one gate, one will end up "primary" and the other off-line... as was the case with the Giza gate being used at the SGC being the primary even though the Antarctic gate was on Earth at the same time. Apparently this that while the Antarctic gate had a DHD (which is supposed to make a gate primary over one that doesn't, like the SGC's Giza gate), it's DHD wasn't working correctly. Now... we know the Ancients (and some of the other races still around, like the Asgard) can do things with gates that we 21st century humans can't (yet). So... that got me to wondering... What if the Ancients COULD have more than one functioning gate on a world at a time if they wanted to? In that case... when you're dialing using a DHD (as the two -- gate and DHD -- don't seem to be physically connected)... how does the DHD know WHICH of the gates to send to? (Or to send the 'all coordinates entered, punch it' signal.) Well, if the last coordinate was the 'point of origin' glyph, that would uniquely identify, on a world with more than one active gate, WHICH gate the DHD was supposed to be talking to. As to why it's still required when there's only 1 gate on a world? Um... because the programmers didn't see the need to put in a check and then let a 6-coord address be used if there was only one gate on the world? Second thought as to why: If the 'point of originl glyph says "I'm done entering things" (and then the 'punch it' large red button is pressed) this could be the signal to the gate to let you enter in a longer address (such as for intergalactic transit). What I mean is this: Normally, you enter 6 glyphs for the desitnation, the point of origin glyph, and hit "enter". Now, what if the 7th glyph you enter ISN'T the point of origin glyph? The the gate knows you're dialing "long distance" because you've not yet used the "I'm done dialing from this gate" key symbol (the point of origin glyph). Using the point of origin glyph as the 8th symbol says that you're dialing long distance, have entered the address you want, and are now ready to "punch it". Thoughts?

Re: Musings on Random Musings And, trying to swing the mood with a completely different note:

Re: Musings on Random Musings Thanks, guys... believe it or not, it DOES help.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I never have seen the point, attraction, or "sport" of a "race" where the cars just circle the same (relatively) small track over and over and over again... like, say, the Indy 500...

Re: AIs, automatons, etc. as PCs Ah, someone else who remembers... brings a tear to my eye, it does... [sniff]