DShomshak

And try to establish a precedent for punishing the nonconforming. Or at least virtue-signal your eagerness to punish the nonconforming. Dean Shomshak

One of Kenneth Hite's excellent "Suppressed Transmissions" columns, "Justinian and Arthur: Historical High Fantasy," described a campaign based on bringing these two together, with Justinian as Evil Overlord. Dead tree publication in Suppressed Transmission: the First Broadcast. Dean Shomshak

For many years, my sister and her family celebrated "theme Christmas" -- Polish Christmas, Scandinavian Christmas, South African Christmas, etc. ONe year they did Saturnalia, then Roman precursor to Christmas and found that... a lot got ported over. Including one subtle cultural attitude: that it used to be better, especially before it got so commercial and people forgot the True Meaning of Saturnalia. Our long-established holidays such as Christmas, Tet, or Eid might continue far into the future and on other worlds, even after original contexts are gone and forgotten. I hear Thanksgiving has spread beyond the US. That seems like a good candidate for long-term survival. "Yearly fest to gather with family and be glad for what you have" seems pretty basic and easily ported to future circumstances and other cultures. Dean Shomshak

That's what I assumed in my Ultimate Supermage playtest campaigns, which began before there was any official word on things like Resistant Mental Defense. And since exotic-defense Killing damage can only exist by creating an NND/AVAD, the only reasons to postulate Resistant versions of those defenses are a) to create such an arms race, or b) an obsession with pattern that demands that because PD and ED exist in normal and resistant forms, *all* defenses must exist in normal and resistant forms. I do not consider maintaining a consistent pattern to be a crucial consideration for game design. (OK, Mental Illusions can deal Killing Damage, but the rules for this are idiosyncratic. You defend by having enough Mental Defense to keep the final effect below the +20 threshold. If you don't have that, whether your pitiful insufficient Mental Defense is Double Hardened Impenetrable Resistant or not doesn't matter.) Dean Shomshak

Star Trek: Lower Decks Season One came in at the library. Smarter and funnier than it has any right to be, and some of the best Trek I've seen since Next Gen and DS(. The people who make this aren't just Star Trek fans: They are perceptive Star Trek fans, who aren't afraid to poke fun at the tropes while still loving them. And occasionally calling out places where the franchise genuinely has fallen down, or at least where attitudes have, one hopes, evolved -- such as treating all members of a particular alien species as one-note stereotypes. I look forward to Season Two, on hold at my library. Dean Shomshak

Speaking of ring-shaped structures in space, yesterday's NPR science roundup included a story about Odd Radio Circles (ORCs) found around a few galaxies. There may be an explanation. (Topic begins about 6 minutes into story.) Hint: It involves GREAT BIG EXPLOSIONS. https://www.npr.org/2024/01/12/1198909135/radio-circles-coming-from-the-centers-of-galaxies?ft=nprml&f=1007 dEAN sHOMSHAK

Oh for sure, Seal Team 6 would never obey such an order. But Trump could find people who would. Trump has done and gotten away with (so far) enough things that we thought nobody could or would try that I don't think this hypothetical can be dismissed as pure hysteria. The core issue, I think, is that when presented with such an absurd extension of his argument, Trump's lawyer didn't immediately reply, "No that's ridiculous, it could never happen, the President would be in jail so fast it'd make your head spin." His response at the time seemed to be. "...Maybe?" It can happen here. Dean Shomshak

HERO is so good at representing everything and anything in mechanical terms that I think it's easy to slide into thinking that everything *must* have a mechanical representation, paid for with points on a character sheet. I can unfortunately imagine an exchange something like this: Rubber Band Man's Player: "The Sun Stone could be a source of limitless energy! I need to get it back to my lab to study." GM: "How do you plan on moving it? Like the name says, it's as hot as the surface of the Sun. It isn 't burning anything right now because it's magnetically levitated. If you take it out of the starship engine, it won't be." I'm On Fire Guy's Player: "My costume doesn't burn up when use my Damage Shield, so let's make a bag from my costume. We can carry it that way." GM: <fixes glittering eye on player> "Oh? And did you spend points on your costume being fireproof all the time? If it's not on the character sheet, it doesn't exist." Now, I think The GM is being a jerk. Players should be rewarded for clever use of resources and capabilities. Sketchpad found the phrase I was looking for before: Using the costume this way is a *power stunt,* which is a thing in HERO but mentioned so briefly that it's easy to forget about it. And even that's been "mechanic-ized" by adding the Power skill, with rules for your chance to fail depending on the Active Points of the stunt effect. (One way, and not the only one, in which I think earlier editions were better *because* they were looser.) Dean Shomshak

I'm sorry if I became snarky; I was rewriting my post while you responded. In most cases, yeah, being immune to a character's own Powers is just handwavium. The comics often seem to be fine with that; I am fine with that; many other people seem to be fine with that. One can say "Unstable Molecules," or "Magic," or just dramatic license. May I suggest your question about unstable molecules was perhaps unclear. Would a more precise question be, "How (if at all) do you write up a costume being immune to a character's own Powers? Assuming circumstances in which this goes beyond the mere fact that the costume isn't instantly destroyed by Powers that, in the real world, would destroy ordinary cloth." If I work at it, I'm sure I can think of situations where, say, the Human Torch's non-burning costume could be used for purposes other than not leaving Johnny Storm buck-naked when he turns off his flame aura. Under those circumstances, a GM might want to specify what can and can't be done with a costume when the character isn't wearing it -- even if one isn't charging Character Points for it. (Or it's a campaign where characters are not limited to arbitrary point totals.) Am I getting closer? Dean Shomshak

Re-read post. Emphasis added. If a costume has confers Resistant Defense and can change color or shape, those are additional Powers that can be written up normally. (Though I agree to the extent that I don't recall many, if any, costumes being literally indestructible. Just, hm, "minimally destructible.". Rips or bullet holes when dramatic, but not shredded when someone super-sneezes. Dean Shomshak

Reading the article, I'll say that Ashcroft almost has a point in saying that Democratic efforts to keep Trump off the ballot invite Republican attempts to do the same to Biden, and that a determined person can find (or invent) insurrection to justify the attempt. He is quite correct in that it can result in electoral chaos. He and the Texas lt. gov. are wrong in claiming migrants at the southern border as their grounds for attacking Biden, because the Biden administration seems to be following the law as best it can. It's just that the laws don't accommodate conservatives' cultural and racial paranoia very well. Which is why Ashcroft only almost has a point. But such legal nicety is irrelevant when one is motivated by white-hot cultural grievance. Dean Shomshak

Indeed. A costume is a Focus, even if it's only Power is the 0-point one that you avoid indecent exposure, and whether Foci are breakable or unbreakable does not affect the point cost. Dean Shomshak

A good, focused one from Isaac Arthur this week. He's mentioned statites in passing in several episodes. This time he describes them (and variations) in depth, and why they could be a foundational space technology. (I'm particularly reminded of the solar mirror that helps warm the planet Komarr in Bujold's "Vorkosigan" series. Turns out, it could be a considerably more sophisticated piece of technology... and not nearly as expensive as presented. Komarr alone could probably build as many of these mirrors as they wanted.) Dean Shomshak

Time for another small update. The Monad will receive additional robots, including humans it wired into obedient "hubots" because who doesn't love a cybermen/borg homage? And speaking of Doctor Who villains, dedicated fans of the series might recognize the source of the title for this Story Seed for servobots. Beware even the least of the Monad's robots! Dean Shomshak

"Unstable Molecules" are a Special Effect for powers such as Instant Change, not a thing that needs a write-up in its own right. Dean Shomshak

Well, yes. I should have added, "...And the solution isn't to shoot them in the head or force them somewhere else," but I was in a hurry. Dean Shomshak

A little good news: In the last year, New Jersey has reduced its population of unsheltered homeless people by 23%, and its latgest city Newark has done so by 58%. Here's a brief story on how they're doing it. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/12/20/newark-may-have-found-a-fix-for-chronic-homelessness Evidence that government cansometimes solve social problems if the people in government want to do so. Dean Shomshak

Reports on Maine's secretaty of state ruling Trump ineligible to be on the ballot don't generally say anything beyond that fact -- at least, most of what I've seen in passing hasn't -- which sounds awfully arbitrary. But today she appeared on All Things Considered to explain exactly what she did and how Maine law operates in this respect. Short take: Yes, she acted under the authority of Maine law; but this is only the first step in a long court process to *actually* keep Trump off the ballot. Trump is receiving due process. https://www.npr.org/2024/01/01/1222405966/maine-secretary-of-state-discusses-decision-to-disqualify-trump-from-primary-bal Dean Shomshak

No, it does not. I think you're asking too much from a one-minute story in a nionspecialist medium, intended for lay people. What do you expect, right ascension and declination? But for everyone who wants more information, here's a somewhat more detailed story, and probably the basis for NPR's: Ancient celestial map found at Castelliere di Rupinpiccolo in Italy | Archaeology News Online Magazine (archaeologymag.com) It wasn't hard to find. And here's the original article, with statistical analysis of the chisel marks. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asna.20220108 The final section discusses the extraneous(?) chisel mark. It might represent a known but dim star in the Orion or Scorpio regions of the sky, though one might wonder why it was chosen. (And I'm wondering why the person who made the map did those famously opposing asterisms on the same map.) But since the mystery star might be in the same region as the hot, fast-burning stars of Orion, a supernova is an intriguing possibility that might be confirmed through a telescopic search for such a remnant. That also explains why NPR actually *could not* say where in the sky it was, because it is not yet certain which asterism it is meant to be near. Which is, in turn, more detail than was likely possible given the time budgeted for the story. Fortunately, I have no such limit. We aim to please. Dean Shomshak

Well... From a certain point of view, Haley's first statement was factually correct. The Civil War was fought about the relation between government and individual rights. It's just that the Confederacy's core principle was that government must, above all else, prevent a certain caste of people from enjoying any rights at all. Dean Shomshak

An ancient constellation map that includes a star that's no longer visible? Plug that into your "Stargate: SG-1" campaign. Or maybe your "Call of Cthulhu" campaign, as there could be far more sinister explanations for a missing star than it going supernova. https://www.npr.org/2023/12/28/1222056316/an-ancient-celestial-map-recently-found-in-italy-includes-an-unknown-star Dean Shomshak

An ancient constellation map that includes a star that's no longer visible? Plug that into your "Stargate: SG-1" campaign. Or maybe your "Call of Cthulhu" campaign, as there could be far more sinister explanations for a missing star than it going supernova. https://www.npr.org/2023/12/28/1222056316/an-ancient-celestial-map-recently-found-in-italy-includes-an-unknown-star Dean Shomshak

We're all familiar with Trump as "Crybaby Conqueror." That observation is not why I'm posting this opinion piece. Rather, it's the last part on his plausible influence by a well known pro wrester of his youth. This is not the only connector I've heard of between Trump and pro wrestling, either, though I'd have to search a while to find the specific story. The over-the-top theatricality and braggadicio -- yeah, I can see it. 'Crybaby conqueror': Columnist nails Trump's appeal to MAGA fanatics (msn.com) Dean Shomshak

This one of Mr Arthur's explores some notions of possible aliens that are rather more alien than one usually sees in media SF... and therefore a lot more frightening. Dean Shomshak

Happy Newtonmas, too! Or if you prefer, a Super Saturnalia! And an honorable Feast of the Long Night, for all the Klingons out there. We are well supplied with Christmas cookies, so all is well. ADDENDUM: And lefse! It just isn't Christmas without lefse. No krumkake this year, though. Krumkake must be light, crumbly, and melt-in-your mouth. My niece tried making some, but it has the consistency of jerky. I suspect that to make proper krumkake you must spend decades of apprenticeship. Like becoming a wizard, only with old church ladies. Dean Shomshak