DShomshak

This one of Mr Arthur's could be more coherent, but it's an introduction to one of the less familiar SF tropes: That humans are not the first intelligences to live on Earth. (Best known from Lovecraft, but other writers have used it too.) Could we now detect the presence of such a past civilization? Or conversely, would traces of our civilization be detectable millions of years from now?

As Arthur explains, the title comes from a paper by two actual scientists. I've appended a link to that paper: It's not too technical for someone with basic science literacy.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-astrobiology/article/silurian-hypothesis-would-it-be-possible-to-detect-an-industrial-civilization-in-the-geological-record/77818514AA6907750B8F4339F7C70EC6

Dean Shomshak

There was a good Jason homage in an issue of Adventurer's Club back in the day. I'm not sure I could produce anything different enough that plagiarism could not be suspevted. So, not Jason.

A Freddy Krueger homage, OTOH... I already have one murderous ghost, but the Haunt has significant differences from Freddy. Will consider. (Core idea for the supplement, though, *is* updating previously published characters.)

Dean Shomshak

I don't recall if I mentioned this before... When watching Sailor Moon, I realized that in anime one can haymaker magic. Sailor Moon doesn't actually seem to do this with the activation sequence for her smash-the-daemon Heart Staff attack -- it could just be that it takes Extra Time to activate -- but it reminded me of Lina Inverse in some episodes of the Slayers that I saw many years ago. When Lina casts her Dragon Slave spell, she can sometimes do an extra-long "I pledge myself to the darkness" incantation to upgrade it to an extra-super-kaboomy Giga Slave blast!

So Moonray's enemy Princess Shadira will have this. When she needs to make her Dark Sorcery extra powerful, she intones something like, "Eternal Night, who was here before all things and shall endure after their end, I have given myself to you! Now give yourself to me!! Baleful Black Bolt!!!" And since it sucks to go through all this and miss 'cause the delayed segment gives opponents a chance to Dodge, she has Skill Levels just with Haymakered spells. And maybe a special Presence Attack while Darkness boils around her and an updraft of magic lifts and waves her hair, so everybody stands and gapes like idiots instead of sucker punching her before she can cast the spell...

Dean Shomshak

Just as a further point of confusion, about the same time Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies came out, Steve Jackson Games published GURPS Creatures of the Night, a collection of horror beasties for that game.

A lot of them were darn good horror, too <grumble grumble, not sure that makes it more or less annoying...>

If LL wants to learn more about the grimoire demons I've adapted, the source is A. E. Waite's The Book of Ceremonial Magic. The descriptions are bald, terse, and near quotes from the original sources. Actual grimoires like the Lemegeton and Grimorium Verum are very dull reads. No Necronomicon here: Your problem won't be staying sane, it's staying awake. Consequently, turning the demons into something interesting (let alone gameable) takes a lot of one's own imagination.

Dean Shomshak

7 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

Didn't see it, but...honestly, I can't consider this news.  Not any more.  It's a given...as inevitable as sunrise and as predictable.  And after...how long now?  Rising to the level of reflexive...well, no later than the election fraud BS cases.  Probably before, but I have no desire to dredge back through the cesspool that is Trump's history to try to pinpoint a date.  

 

I think I stole those words...if not from her order, from articles reporting on the order.  Maybe not, but it's not like it's some deep philosophical revelation.

The article was in today's newspaper, so the gag order should be fairly new. OTOH the article mentioned this is the second narrow gag order placed on Trump, so judges may be using a standard phrasing. I'm not looking back to check, either.

Dean Shomshak

Has anyone posted notice of this yet? There's so much news, I lose track but it matters.

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/10/16/judge-pushes-back-against-trumps-claims-that-gag-order-in-election-case-is-unfair/

I was amused that Judge Chutkan used almost the exact words UncleVlad did, that "no other criminal defendant would be allowed" to smear and attack prosecutors and court personnel as Trump has, "And I'm not going to allow it in this case.".

I can only speculate, but I would imagine that to Mr Trump, being told flat-out he isn't special must scald like acid. Assuming his ego even lets him hear the statement.

Dean Shomshak

28 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Here to your North it looks like campaigning by Democrats has been rather lackluster and haphazard so far.

So, same as usual. <eyeroll>

"I belong to no organized political party; I am a Democrat." -- Will Rogers

Dean Shomshak

If there is one bit of news in the Gaza situation that gives me hope it won't spiral into maximum possible bad, it's what the BBC reporter in Israel (I think it was Tim Franks) said yesterday: In his interviews, Mr Franks finds that many Israelis do not hold all Palestinians, or even all Gazans, complicit in the attack by Hamas. They do not want to see collective punishment.

Some commentary I have seen seems to forget that neither Israelis nor Palestinians are hive minds, and I try to resist slipping into this myself.

Dean Shomshak

In the US, at least, SF was developed by a fairly peculiar fraction of society that didn't have much patience for religion. (Heavy on scientists and engineers.) (Though John W. Campbell, who probably did more to shape American SF than anyone else, became an early booster of Scientology, the religion invented by second-rate SF writer L. Ron Hubbard.) Religion sometimes entered obliquely, though. E.g., the benign Arisians and malevolent Eddorians give a God vs Satan cast to E. E. Smith's Lensman series, with a schmear of transcendence/ascension to godhood at the end.

But no, I see no evidence that humanity as a whole has become much less prone to believe in gods with the increase in scientific technology and technological power. Religious fashions have changed over the millennia; the religious impulse has not.

For both Traveller locations and my Star Hero campaign focusing on Sard, Planet of Adventure (Planetary Romance, fun!) I've assumed that humans would carry major contemporary religions out with them to space and new faiths would develop, ranging from seriously philosophical or mystical, to completely nuts.

One of my Traveller characters came from a planet where Neo-Egyptians heavily influenced the founding culture. After centuries of cultural drift, the result was -- among other things -- a tradition of masked vigilantes which he carried off-planet as the jackal-masked vigilante Bloodhound, devotee of Anubis.

Another character came from an iceworld orbiting a red dwarf star, a place where literally *everything* people need to stay alive must be manufactured and carefully maintained. The inhabitants invented the joke religion of Kludgianity, which portrays God as a harried engineer beset by substandard impossible demands, substandard materials and an incompetent labor force. Though there was a point to the joke: Don't expect God to save you from your own carelessness, He can work miracles but even He can't fix stupid.

Sard, Planet of Adventure, had a large contingent of settlers from India so three new strains of Hinduism developed. The country of Vajranagar was dominated by a tiny caste of Avatars who used advanced technology such as holography and bionics to counterfeit divine powers. Religion as pure show biz flim-flam, but contemporary India sees this. The country of Tamilore is caught in civil war between two rival neo-Hindu sects that use technology to induce psi powers in the few people with the natural aptitude, the Rishis who control their powers through ascetic discipline and ritual and the Rakshasas who channel their powers through the induced delusion of being possessed by a demon.

There are a few more, including one or two of (I hope) more philosophical or mystical depth, but this will do fornow.

Dean Shomshak 

I feel like I ought to make a joke about the Roman Catholic Church here, but I can't think of anything actually funny.

Dean Shomshak

I am completely okay with zombie cars. My only question is whether the necromancers are cheaper than the local garage that keeps our ancient car running. Cumulated over the years, it would have been cheaper to buy a new car but we never have that much money at once.

Dean Shomshak

Isaac Arthur's videos are, hm, uneven; some are just incoherent. But this one's pretty good: part of his "Megastructures" series, this time about building artificial planets, why one might wish to do so, and ending with the largest possible artificial habitat -- something that makes a Dyson sphere look puny.

Dean Shomshak

This Sunday I heard the 3rd part of "We Don't Talk About Leonard," an investigative co-report by On the Media and Pro Publica. It's about Leonard Leo, mastermind of the Federalist Society, architect of the current SCOTUS and the Dobbs Decision, and much more. He's the most successful activist in the last 100 years of American history... whom most people have never heard of.

Progressive activists, take note. Stop wasting your time marching in the street and chanting "Hey Hey Ho Ho." This is how you do it. But it takes a lot of time.

This is a link to the first episode but has sub-links to the other two.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-we-dont-talk-about-leonard-episode-1

Dean Shomshak

No, because the President only nominates judges. The Senate confirms them and so is the actual appointing authority.

As for lawyers making lunatic arguments... Even if they're disbarred (or maybe *especially* if), they can make a living as Heroic Victims of the Librul Establishment for years to come. And ithey may hope that if Trump gets back in office, he can appoint them to government jobs where they can cruh the people they feel wronged them. Since Trump seems to like people who are willing to be stupid on his behalf.

Given that Presidential elections and control of Congress seem to be coin tosses, not actually a bad gamble.

Dean Shomshak

19 hours ago, unclevlad said:

This time it's Jim Jordan, but it seems likely this one will never get off the ground either.  The vote was 124-81;  moderate Austin Scott ran against Jordan, to give face to the anti-Jordan wing.  And that's big enough to suggest there's no chance to swing enough votes for Jordan to win on the House floor.  

All Thngs Considered ran a brief clip of Austin Scott, and he used LL's line: Some GOP members aren't in Congress to make law, they're there to make appearances on Fox and collect social media likes. So it's not just our colleague or outside pundits thinking this: Exasperated GOP members think so, too.

(I have no idea what Austin Scott's own policy preferences are, but at least he has some? He He knows and accepts what his job is?)

Dean Shomshak

Good news! Jason Walters tells me he's pretty sure HERO still owns the rights to the artwork in the original CotN, and sees no reason I can't re-use it for the revised book. Woohoo! I think Greg Smith and Storn Cook did *superb* work. (Greg even contacted me to ask for further details about character appearance. Which is when I wrote him, "Make Lamplighter look like Patrick Stewart. He looks and sounds totally like Patrick Stewart.")

Dean Shomshak

On 10/4/2023 at 11:55 PM, Steve said:

I’ve done multiple versions of the kitchen sink CU type of campaigns, like the Avengers, but for my next one I’d like to simplify things and be more focused. I’m drawn to the friendly neighborhood superhero genre or maybe something more like the X-Men or Fantastic Four focus.

 

Each of these provides filters you could use to re-imagine a less "busy" version of the CU.

X-Men is easy. It's all mutants, or nearly all. Super-tech is created by "mutant super-geniuses." It might not even be "real" technology that other people can duplicate, but just a kind of prop for channeling intrinsic powers (an idea used in the Wild Cards series, IIRC). Magic likewise. Even ostensible supernatural creatures such as demons might be psychokinetic constructs created by a particular mutant. This might not be understood by mutant-hunting groups, who would be quite indignant to be told their super-sophisticated mutant-hunting robots are actually powered by the psychic power of the scientist who builds them -- who of course doesn't know he's a mutant.

Fantastic Four offers a subtler filter. One of their big themes is exploration. They gained their powers from an experimental rocket flight. Many of their regular foes operate from strange or distant places -- the Mole Man in Subterranea, Galactus and the Super-Skrull from outer space, Rama-Tut/Scarlet Centurion/Kang a time traveler, Annihilus and Blastaar from the Negative Zone, and so on. An FF-inspired trim-down of the CU could similarly tie heroes and villains to Hidden Lands and Hidden Races such as Lemuria or the Empyreans, aliens, and a limited selection of other dimensions. For instance, Dr. Destroyer would have gotten his start in super-technology from a wrecked alien spaceship; his tendency to place his Bases in exotic locations such as a remote island, a hidden valley in the Himalayas, and an asteroid ties into the theme very well. Though you might prefer to have Xarriel (from Champions Beyond, IIRC) as your top villain, and draw of the aliens in that book for additional foes.

Friendly Neighborhood Hero Team is an even subtler filter, in that it doesn't have to emphasize particular origin types. Actually, there are several ways you could do this. This might be a second-tier city that's a weirdness magnet, drawing in a bit of everything, like Vibora Bay. This could conceivably develop a monster/villain-of-the-week feel a la Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in which the local heroes must deal with the latest threat to be drawn there. Or you could play up the localism by having a cadre of equally local villains who somehow can't be kept in jail for long, the way Batman has his crew of lunatics that cycle through Arkham Asylum. Or the heroes might come from a single shared origin, or closely linked origins, the way the Flash TV series has most characters tied to the Dark Matter eruption from STAR Labs.

OK, that's probably more than enough for one post. I hope you find an approach that you like. I'll just add that the "magic-centric" campaigns I ran to playtest for Ultimate Supermage and Ultimate Mystic were the best Champions campaigns I ever ran. Heh, when it comes to campaign design sometimes Focus is an Advantage instead of a Limitation!

Dean Shomshak

As it happens, today's episode of "Today Explained" went into the roots of Hamas' attack:

One part that sttood out to me, though, is the co-dependency between Netanyhu and Hamas. For years, Netanyahu and his far-right affiliates have resisted a two-state solution with the Palestinians because they want all the territory of ancient Israel, but without the Palestinians who inconveniently live there. Or at least not granting them citizenship, which would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. So every attack from Hamas or similar groups is *very convenient* at forestalling any chance of peace. But conversely -- as Beau points out -- every military crackdown from Israel in response to those attacks is *very convenient* for Hamas, in generating another wave of recruits.

Beau's reminder that Hamas' leaders are certainly *not* in Gaza also makes me realize that I was thinking too small in speculating that Hamas could have made a fatal miscalculation -- that Israel might attempt a, shall we say, "final solution" to the problem of Gaza. Hamas' leaders and backers may well think that sacrificing Gaza would be a good strategic move to re-isolate Israel. Maybe I wasn't paranoid enough.

Or, you know, they really are just lashing out in blind rage and despair. Sometimes that happens, too.

Dean Shomshak

From what the BBC said yesterday, it seems implausible that Israel's intelligence agency -- which watches Gza constantly using drones, has some of the world's best sigint and cyber, plus scads of Palestinian informants in Gaza -- could be taken so completely by surprise by such a massive operation. OTOH it also seems implausible to me that Netanyahu's government could keep secret that it knew and let it happen. Especially given how much of the military supposedly despises him, to the verge of threatening mass mutiny against his power-grabbing reforms.

BBC and ATC reporting also suggests the attack isn't rallying the population behind Netanyahu as much as he might hope. Some of the people interviewed directly blamed his government for this appalling intelligence failure.

As for Hamas: What were they thinking? Are the leaders crazy or fanatical enough to think they can win an actual victory against Israel? Perhaps they were overconfident given the internal strife around Netanyahu, but it takes *monumental* overconfidence not to see how an external attack could quell that dissent. One suggestion I heard: Hamas (or Iran, from which it gets aid) wants to block rapprochement between Israel and ?Saudi Arabia. They've supposedly done it before, but used smaller attacks to do so. Or maybe they think enough outside actors will come to their aid to defeat Israel, but it's been an awful long time since the multi-state alliance of the Six-Day War. I don't see Israel's neighbors allying for, well, anything. They have problems of their own.

And threatening to kill hostages? Perhaps they confuse Israel with a Western government. I cannot imagine many things more likely to goad Israel's government into vowing the total destruction of Gaza. Forget the incredibly difficult and bloody urban warfare, just attempt a replay of the firebombing of Dresden... at least once Israel was sure it couldn't get its hostages back alive. And it's basic military doctrine that you *must not* let an enemy use human shields, even if they are your own people.

All I know for sure is this will reach epic levels of ugliness, which is not exactly an original observation. And I suspect we will see additional brutal aggressions in the coming years, now that Putin broke the taboo against direct attempts to conquer other states.

Dean Shomshak

13 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Dean has pretty much nailed it.

 

Though I am not sure why he ommitted the obvious supremacy of bald guys with large beards.

 

I didn't want to reveal the Secret Masters.

Now, if anyone wants a look at possibilities for the *really* far future vesions of humanity, read Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, which portrays post-humanity through two billion years and three worlds.

Dean Shomshak

My ideal candidate would be  a Democratic analog to George H. W. Bush: Someone whose career in government is so long and diverse that President is nearly the only office they haven't held yet.

Failing that, a governor.

Dean Shomshak

6 hours ago, tkdguy said:

https://www.meidastouch.com/news/blockbuster-jobs-report-nearly-doubles-expectations

 

Yet President Biden's approval rating isn't high. Why is that? I know a few people who said they don't dislike Pres. Biden, but there's nothing that draws them to him. I think his administration needs to showcase his accomplishments more aggressively.

Because the American people don't want a moderately competent (and competently moderate) politician. Biden offers no myth, no glamour (in either the modern or archaic senses of the word). He's neither an amusing entertainer, a rabble-rousing firebrand, nor the anointed prophet of God. There's no great story to "Guy beavers away for decades, finally works his way into the job he sought, and does okay at it."

Donald Trump is supremely skilled at making people care about him, one way or another. He is an entertainer and firebrand, and convinced his cult he is the anointed prophet of God. Even if he is ruined in business and sent to jail for his crimes, the 2024 election may be a coin toss because it's hard to beat exciting with dull... at least for a populace that confuses politics with TV.

Dean Shomshak

Even if differences based on inherited somatic difference ("race") blur away and we all become Niven's "flatlanders," the tribal impulse will make humans create artificial differences in appearance through makeup/dyes, tattoos, clothing, ornament, etc.

And such differences will appear, whether by religion, political identity, or whether you crack open your soft-boiled egg at the big end or little end (as in the Lilliput section of Gulliver's Travels.)

Thgough such visible differences might also be created by genetic engineering, whether for practical purposes (such as adjusting spacer genomes to prevent bone loss from prolonged microgravity -- or the more extreme modifications of quaddies, from Bujold's "Vorkosigan" setting), or various transhuman notions (such as Betan herms -- Bujold again), or if the technology becomes accessible enough, pure whimsy (we want to look like anime characters! With cat ears!). James Blish coined the term "pantropy" for genetic adaptation to new environments, but it doesn't have to be that rational. In a Star Hero setting I made, the ideology that humans should genetically fragment into new species was called "cladism." It had dire consequences because people were still people.

Different approaches to cybernetic/bionic modification might happen, too. Analog to Mac vs PC tribalism, only for brain implants from different companies.

Dean Shomshak

A few Powers already can carry Advantages that they act based on EGO rather than some other Characteristics, such as STR or BODY. Giving such an Advantage to Regeneration seems reasonable to me.

Plus, Regeneration isn't on the Adjustment Power list but it acts like one in most ways. I don't see anything immediately abusive in applying standard Adjustment Power Advantages to it, such as altering which Characteristic it applies to, multiple Characteristics, etc. (Maybe there is, but I don't see it at the moment.)

Dean Shomshak

No. Trump as Speaker would be two bullets away from regaining the White House, and I truly believe that thousands of Americans would like to try making the shot. (Plus an unknown number of Russian and Chinese agents.) And millions would cheer if it happened.

Fortunately, it's hypothetical because I am also persuaded that aq sufficient number of Republican Reps now see Trump as a liability that the scenario could never happen.

Dean Shomshak

I dare say that's what most GMs do in practice. There's too much CU to use in the average campaign; GMs must decide which sections and characters to use, and leave the rest in the background.

But that's how comic books operate, too. (Or did, anyway.) Take the Marvel U, for instance. The Fantastic Four have their stable of regular and semi-regular villains like Dr Doom, Galactus, the Mole Man, assorted aliens, etc. Spider-Man and Daredevil have their street-level villains, which the X-Men seldom if ever encounter because they're fighting Sentinels, other mutant factions, and such ilk. None of them are likely to fight Nightmare, Dormammu, or Dr Strange's other mystical foes. And so on.

Sure, change-of-pace stories happen: The X-Men go into space, Spider-Man fights a demon, or Thor fights robots. But that's the point: Change of pace. Heroes usually stick to their niches.

So pick what style of heroes and team you want for your campaign and pick the set of villains and background to support it. Say the rest doesn't exist or just ignore it. Like, unless you're running a Mystic Masters campaign most of the mystical side of the CU effectively shouldn't exist. Unless you really want to make anti-mutant prejudice a big part of the campaign, you can (and probably should) ignore IHA and the MInuteman robots and, conversely, Kinematik and his mutant supremacists. And unless you want to actually run an alien invasion story arc or out-to-space story arc, the alien races might as well all not exist... jnless one of your players specifically wants to play an alien character.

The same goes for the "thousands of supers around the world" issue. For decades, 90% of Marvel stories happened in the Greater NYC area. Heroes were more likely to visit the Kree Galaxy than, say, Nebraska. Or even major countries like India or France. DC spread things out further by at least giving different home cities to heroes, such as Metropolis, Gotham City, Star City, Central City, yadda yadda. But those heroes tended to have their own favored sets of villains, too.

Dean Shomshak