DShomshak

This sounds very cool. Back in the '80s I read some books by G. Harry Stine, Space Power (centered on solar power satellites) and The Space Enterprise (on profitable businesses that might exploit microgravity and space-based resources). They could supply some inspiration for the early stages of this setting. Dean Shomshak

Various news reports (and an interview on All /things Considered) dealt with a recent study our of Princeton on who was most likely to pass along fake news during the 2016 campaign. Result: By age, people over 65 were most likely, with percentages declining with each age bracket down. And very conservative people were far more likely than the moderate, liberal or very liberal to pass along fake news. Centers and Lefties should not feel too smug, though. In the interview, one of the researchers pointed out a confounding variable: So much more disinformation was put out to benefit Trump than to benefit Clinton. So people in other ideological brackets weren't given as much chance to fall for bushwah. One might suspect that the Russians and other producers of misinformation and disinformation had an idea which cohort would be most susceptible, but that was beyond the scope of the study. And as mentioned above, we can all fall prey to confirmation bias. So, the old adage about splinters and logs in the eye. And another that anyone who wants to change other people's behavior should show the possibility by changing their own. I am not sure I would succeed at that challenge. Dean Shomshak Dean Shomshak

A number of articles in my local paper (mostly from the NY Times) have reminded readers of this background, as have some columns by pundits. So the both-sides-ism isn't absolute. I do wish more stories would remind readers that while Democrats who oppose Trump's wall voted for border walls in the past, they voted for sections of wall, not for a wall along the entire Mexican border. And I haven't heard any Democratic legislator say they oppose funding any sort of border security -- just the coast-to-coast wall. Dean Shomshak

Well, when it comes to making up stuff, what Atoms lack in quantity they make up for in quality. They seem very creative. As a maker-up of stuff myself, I bow to my masters in the art. Dean Shomshak

Mm, if the astrophysicists are right and 95% of the universe consists of dark matter and dark energy, then atoms make up hardly anything. Dean Shomshak

That was the opinion just voiced on The Daily wit Michael Barbaro. As the NY Times reporter Barbaro interviewed put it, the Republicans know they're on a bus headed for a cliff, but they still don't dare to get off. Today, center-right pundit Kathleen Parker points out one group that gains from the shutdown: Identity thieves. She is experiencing this, as someone hacked her file at the Social Security Administration to have her monthly payment sent to something called a "Green Dot" account. But the offices that might correct this fraud are closed. For her, so what? As she said, she has other income. What about an 87-year-old widow with no other income, who doesn't know who to call? I dare say a number of business people are also happy that the FDA and EPA are shuttered. Those pesky regulators are such a hindrance to the pursuit of profit. Dean Shomshak

Today my local paper printed NY Times pundit's column telling Senate Republicans to grow spines and confront Trump. Brooks pointed out that Dems taking the House puts Senate Republicans in quite a good position. Their great fear -- the leverage Trump has over them -- is that an angry tweetstorm from him will result in them being primaried out in their next election. But now they have leverage to use in return: House Dems are almost certain to impeach (their own base will demand nothing less), in which case the Senate Republicans becomes Trump's jury. He can remove them from office, maybe, eventually; they'll be able to remove him from office (and facing prosecution) definitely, right then. So it would be deeply imprudent for him to make threats against them. (A little math to strengthen the point: Assume all 47 Senate Dems vote to convict. They have nothing to lose -- not many red state Dems left. That means only 20 Republicand need to vote to convict. 20 of 53. Senators who face election in 2020 might be queasy, but for those who don't face reelection until 2022 or 2024, what the hell. In politics, three or five years is an eternity.) So they should do their duty by re-passing the funding bills they voted for before, re-open the government, and tell Trump that if he attacks them they can take him down with them. His Orangeness doesn't seem to understand much, but he understands fear and retribution. I can only hope that many senators read Mr. Brooks' column. Dean Shomshak

Watched His Orangeness and, as usual, was impressed by the sheer multi-layeredness of his lies. In his way, Trump (and his writers) are the greatest rhetoricians of our time: Not just simple lies of fact, but manipulating the background of statements to create implicit lies and meta-lies. But Schumer and Pelosi's response was indeed none too great. I was disappointed that they did not stress the point that the core problem with Trump's wall is that it cannot work, as explained so well above. Dean Shomshak

Back when physicists were in a tizzy over experiments that seemed to show neutrinos might travel faster than light, a letter to Science News made a similar point based on the near-simultaneous arrival of light and neutrinos from Supernova 1987A. Given the supposed discrepancy measured by the Italian experimenters, the neutrinos would have been detected some hours before the light. No such difference; therefore, the experimenters were in error. (And sure enough, the source of the error was figured out a few weeks later.) I appreciate the Universe producing such natural experiments. They are excellent rebukes to the idiots who insist that "Oh, scientists just make it all up." Dean Shomshak

Regarding the "Soviets in Afghanistan" item UncleVlad quoted: All Things Considered asked a historian who specializes in th Soviet Union where Trump could be getting such notions. The historian hardly knew where to begin in refuting it, there are so many layers of inaccuracy. But he made the attempt. This is how deep delusion -- or deep deception -- work. Explaining the truth takes 10 times longer than the falsehood. And then you hope people stick around to hear it all. Dean Shomshak

I am reminded of the Wood between the Worlds in C. S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew. Each little pond led to a different world. Dean Shomshak

Just to be clear, the last paragraph is my opinion, not that of the border security expert. But what I've seen about the psychology and sociology of Trump's base convinces me the demand for the wall has no practical basis. Even talk of drugs and crime are psychological proxies for status anxiety and demographic change. And you can't pour enough concrete to wall out those fears. Dean Shomshak

Several days ago, All Things Considered interviewed a real live expert on border security, who'd been in the biz. She explained how border security actually works, and why a coast-to-coast wall would be counterproductive. There are sections of all -- in border pairs of cities, such as San Diego/Tijuana. Hundreds of thousands of Americans and Mexicans cross between such cities daily for work, school, shopping, etc, and so it is highly desirable that such transits happen through a small number of checkpoints where peole can be checked. It's harder for drug mules and other criminals to hide in the crowd. So instead, people who cross the border with criminal intent head out of town. Look at all those wide open spaces! --Where they stand out. No crowd to hide in. That vast open border is a lure and a trap. At least if there are enough cameras and agents to spot them and catch them. And so that's how to increase border security. Building a wall disrupts that schema. It incentivizes criminals to find ways over the wall, or under it, or get better at smuggling, etc. So yeah, the wall is a great big metaphor in concrete to please Trump's base, a physical scream of rage telling those scary brown people from the south that America doesn't want them. But it will do nothing to stop cross-border crime. Dean Shomshak

Duke, you're not alone. I've used my own character sheets for years -- but they're based on those old 2nd/3rd ed sheets. Because those were right. Dean Shomshak

Hey, it could still be two Chthulhu eggs. Spawn of Ghroth. Whatever, Just very cold, as if that meant anything to the Outer Gods. But seriously: As usual, the newly sighted object is like nothing we have seen before.First contact binary in the Solar System. Whee! Dean Shomshak

Every time a probe visits a new celestial object, we find something that makes scientists say, "WTF? We didn't expect that. And there's another batch of theories thrown into the Dumpster." (All said with big grins and occasional mad giggles.) I would be surprised if Ultima Thule did not continue the tradition. Dean Shomshak

A retired four star general takes issue with Trump's claim that Americans were "suckers" before he became president: Former U.S. Commander: ISIS 'Is Not Defeated' : NPR www.npr.org/2018/12/27/680559430/trumps-view-of-u-s... General John R. Allen is with me now. He's a former commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. He was also President Obama's special envoy to counter ISIS.

Mockery of Elric by way of 1980s-90s X-Men, I think -- "heroic outcast alien mutant sorcerers from another dimension." "after much angst," etc. The Cosmic Balance is from Michael Moorcock's "Eternal Champion" books, but I suspect Marvel's Living Tribunal was an homage to it. And X-Men writer Chris Claremot loved that sort of pseudo-mystical claptrap. The Shape's origin story is an excellent bit of parody, and another example of why Scott Bennie is my favorite Champions author. Dean Shomshak

Overthinking, moi? <hand to chest, eyebrows raised> Hey, I'm not the one who saw a "glaring need" for something comics have usually hand-waved. Okay, I'm overthinking. It's what I do, baby, it's part of my brand! So let's overthink some more. I'll skip the discussion of which campaign styles that something like Oversight will fit within. Also the discussion of whether a world in which government pursuit of villains makes Oversight necessary for internal coherence is a world in which governments would allow freelance heroes. I'll stick to how to make Oversight work as a way to patch some of the less believable tropes of the superhero genre, without making it a campaign-defining feature. Here's the big problem I see with Oversight: If there is an apparently impenetrable communications network just for supervillains, governments and heroes will go nuts trying to penetrate it. The longer it lasts, the more it bends the world around it. So Oversight should not seem infallible or impenetrable. The Malvan probe just wants to give supervillains an edge, not a Win Button. So it operates behind blinds, using methods that seem just a little more advanced than state of the art. Back in the '80s, maybe it was behind the shortwve "number stations" (RL: Shortwave enthusiasts found channels with nothing but a woman's voice, saying a number over and over for minutes at a time. At the time, at least, impossible to track to a particular location; meaning unknown. I really should check Wikipedia to find if these were ever explained.) Nowadays it's all on the Dark Web, with encryption that even the best NSA code-breakers can't crack. But really good encryption doesn't scream, "Aliens!" or even, "Super-tech!" Bits of the Overworld seem to fall to law enforcement all the time. A villain gives the location of an underworld bar as part of a plea deal; the Feds raid it, capture a few supervillains; another bar sets up a week later, and Oversight tarts spreading the word about the new location. Ditto for underworld doctors, capture insurance, and other services. Every 5-10 years, a major government or hero team penetrates deeper and shuts down the network, exposes the crime syndicate, corrupt corporation or rogue regime that seems to sponsor it, and there is much rejoicing. (RL analog: The downfall of Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which did business with a lot of shady customers.) But within a year a new Oversight network starts operation, with new communication methods. (Jefferson Gable, from the 4e VIPER book, could reprise his role as the latest front for Oversight.) The prevailing opinion is that Oversight has become a brand name adopted by one party after another. Maybe even multiple groups at once. Onbly paranoid conspiracy nuts think it's all one entity behind many masks. (And paranoid conspiracy nuts usually think in terms of the CIA-Big Oil Axis, or the Illuminati. Though in a superhero setting, paranoid conspiracy nuts do occasionally grasp the truth.) This approach achieves the stated goals: A service network for supervillains that is at once robust enough to function for long periods without interference, but not so obviously impenetrable that governments -- and PCs -- obsess over discovering its secret and taking it down. It also gives the PCs in a campaign the chance to be the first to discover the truth, without imposing arbitrary stupidity on the rest of the campaign setting. And I think that's enough overthinking. For now. ? Dean Shomshak

Hm. If Oversight is obviously unbeatable -- any attempt to trace it quickly dead-ends, with no discernible instrumentality to the communications -- then you've created a campaign-defining feature, even if that wasn't your intent. It's also a feature that players will likely find frustrating. So, you need to define ways that Oversight can be traced or balked. Ways that are difficult enough that it s plausible why governments have not shut it down, but not flat-out impossile. For instance, it uses phased heavy neutrino beams to plant messages in servers, from where they go to their targets over ordinary internet channels. (I'd say it uses tetrions, but that might be a registered trademark of the Star Trek franchise?.) Thus, law-enforcement hackers find messages apparently coming from nowhere. But, a super-scientist who monitors the servers might detect the slight electromagnetic disruption caused by the process and infer, "Aha! Oversight uses phased heavy neutrinos to communicate!" and set out to build an appropriate detector. Tech villains can do this too, but so far Oversight has fooled them with blinds analogous to the Prime Serpent, which criminals would find plausible. Because of their different motivations, heroes might be more skeptical. Which brings up some possible discrepancies between meaqns and ends. Even if a Malvan probe has no capabilities beyond travel, information-gathering, communication and concealment, it is still one of the most powerful entities on Champions Earth. If it wants to drive human progress (earlier I said "to Malvan standards," not "re-create Malva"), it has more ways of doing so than by fostering conflict between heroes and villains, and no obvious reasons to eschew them. Acting exclusively by assisting supervillains sounds to me more like the actions of a God of Crime, or some entity of caprice whose motives are by definition arbitrary (think the changing interests of Mr. Mxyzptlk in, IIRC, "TheLast Superman Story Ever Told.") I'd suggest coming up with some additional reason why Oversight prefers to assist criminals instead of using other channels to drive human progress. One is that it's trying to stay deniable in case the Malvans finally wake up and take notice. As in VIPER 4e, it's just playin' a game, nothing serious going on here... Or it might be a fake-out to impel governments into embracing technological development at a faster and more socially disruptive pace than they might do otherwise. But I also don't think there needs to be such a powerful and untouchable service provider for supervillains. More on this later, when I have time. Dean Shomshak

Thanks be to my local library. This looks like a good one-stop shop for Juno news: Latest News About the Juno Mission to Jupiter | NASA Solar System ... https://www.space.com/topics/nasa-juno-jupiter-mission-news Cached NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno probe will study the gas giant's atmosphere, magnetosphere and gravitational field. Juno will orbit Jupiter for about a year.

Since Oversight wants humanity to advance to Malvan standards, it might invest in diverse high-tech fields, not limiting itself to supervillains. This could add another layer of mystery. One standard plot (thank you, Iron Man/Tony Stark) is the techno-hero whose company is going under, in part because its genius founder spends so much time fighting crime instead of managing the company. Sometimes this is the prelude to a takeover attempt by a villain (Obadiah Stane) or government body that wants to control policy (SHIELD). But maybe instead the company is saved by a surprise "angel" investor... who is just a front for a shell company... and when you try to follow the money further, you hit a brick wall. A hero with business connections might find this sort of thing has happened several times, including funding for various transhumanist/techno-utopian groups. Someone seems interested in pushing human advancement. Though the fringe technologies show a distressing tendency to be stolen or independently(?) be re-invented by villains. Dean Shomshak

They seem a little small to be clubs, though some might be the right size for jojutsu or escrima. I think those tend to use paired weapons, though. A larger instrument might work better for a single-weapon martial art. Dang. Now I want to write up a quarterstaff/bo fighter who wields a bassoon. Dean Shomshak

Last week the BBC aired a short interview with a NASA representative about the Juno spacecraft's discoveries at Jupiter. Interesting but frustrating, as the NASA rep didn't have a lot of time and wasn't very good at explaining, and the BBC presenter didn't know enough to ask clarifying questions. If I understood correctly, though, one unexpected discovery is that Jupiter's magnetic field is asymmetrical in ways that cannot yet be explained. But it may have something to do with evidence that there's something very strange about Jupiter's core. If the planet even has a core (which they aren't sure about), it might be, in the NASA rep's words, lumpy. I'd like to look for an article with better information, but my internet connection is very slow and generally sucks. I hope someone else can post a link to something good. Dean Shomshak

I'll try to dig out former PCs of mine for each proposed city, though I won't post character sheets. For Houston, the hero Solar Max goes well with his fellow extraterrestrial Obsidian. Solar Max is a Solarian, a race of plasma entities living in the Sun. M@x was a Harmonizer, counseling his fellow Solarians when excessive selfhood brings conflict and discontent. He discovered that a Solarian called R0n was forcing energy from other Solarians, even to discorporation. When M@x exposed R0n's crimes, R0n fled the Sun. The Solarian leaders, the Majestrons, told M@x that R0n had taken refuge on a small condensed-matter body by merging with one of its indigenous intelligences. M@x must follow and capture or destroy R0n. Per their instructions, M@x rode a solar flare out into space, to Earth. He was unwilling to steal a life as R0n had done, but he found a congealed-matter being whose life-energy was ebbing toward extinction already, and merged with the dying human, a failed artist who had committed suicide. M@x was fortunate in finding other beings with unusual powers who share his interest in upholding social order. They call him "Solar Max" based on his origin and attempt to express his name in human speech. He found R0n, now a supervillain calling himself Corona, but R0n escaped by incinerating his own human host and reverting to plasma form. While Solar Max continues his hunt for Corona, he assists his new friends in restraining other socially damaging individuals. He also learns about humanity. To his disappointment, humans in Texas do not seem eager to emulate the successful Communist, near hive-mind society of the Solarians. On the other hand, Solar Max finds he enjoys some aspects of human individuality very much. Perhaps he can find some way to harmonize these two modes of existence... He also figured out that the Majestrons must be keeping a lot of information from his fellow Solarians. Solar Max is of course an energy projector. By rousing his Solarian energies, he can surround himself with a protective field of plasma, fly, and evoke bolts and bursts of plasma, laser beams, brilliant light or powerful magnetic fields. Physically he is a human male, mid-20s, fit but slender. His costume is a plain white body-stocking surrounded by the swirling, yellow-green glow of his Solarian energy field. I originally imagined him as Caucasian, but I wouldn't insist on it. Dean Shomshak