Yansuf

Re: Martial Arts in the Pulp era All the martial arts manuevers given under "JuJitsu" on page 401 of 5th ed (rev) would be known to any good wrestler, with the possible exception of the strike (while it would not be part of wrestling, most wrestlers do know how to throw a punch.) The names would be different, (sacrifice throw would be takedown, for instance), but the manuevers would be known. Disarm would only be known to wrestlers who practiced self-defense techniques, but that was not uncommon. Anyone with "self defense" training, police training, or military training (from the Great War?) could reasonably pick any of the boxing, dirty infighting, jujitsu or wrestling maneuvers, and possibly also the karate knifehand strike (called the judo chop back then). BTW, the "legsweep" manuever given for Kung Fu is most definitely part of Ju-Jitsu, it is even legal in sport judo. But it might not be part of wrestling, I cannot decide if that maneuver simulates the single leg pickup. One possible rules problem here is that most wrestling throw/takedowns do not do damage, generally only "slam" type ones do. I will have to try and put together a list of what I think simulates wrestling moves better.

Re: WWYCD: Registration Replying to Lucius: The NRA is the premier body that opposes weapons registration. I will cover all bets that they would be opposed to mandatory registration of paranormals The ACLU might or might not be interrested; in the past generation they have only supported "politically correct" causes. They do not support the 2nd amendment for example, and they do not support "pro-life" groups' right to free speech, just as two examples. From personal knowledge, they were uninterested in giving legal aid to pagans that I knew who were suffering religious discrimination at the hands of a town government. BTW, those Canadians and others feeling superior to the "Yankees", what makes you think that your government wouldn't have required registration before the US did?

Re: WWYCD: Registration All of my characters would refuse to comply with the original reistration, several would bring suit against the government, all would organize letter writing campaigns to congress in their secret IDs, and would enlist the NRA (and the ACLU, if they would join) in the fight against it. In the second case, none of my characters would have a problem with giving a contact number or equivalent.

Re: Martial Arts in the Pulp era Concerning western wrestling vs. Judo, back when I was in the army, I competed on the Fort Belvoir Judo team against other installations. While practicing we discovered that there was a high level greco-roman wrestler on the post, who asked to practice with us. We got him to come and compete with us in several matchs as our first seed, and he was undefeated! Of course greco-roman wrestling is much closer to sport judo than catch wrestling is; like judo you are not allowed any takedowns that are primerally grabing the legs, which are almost all the standard catch wrestling ones. (I did catch wrestling in HS.) Since Judoka are not used to defending their legs, this is a major reason that they have trouble in mixed matches. On the question of mixed martial arts, many years ago a midwestern (US) university set up matches between the boxing and wrestling teams. The wrestlers won 7-1. Also on this note, an expert boxer can usually beat a karate or kung fu expert expert if grappling is not allowed; in full contact karate matches they have to have rules requiring a minimum number of kicks per round to keep it from becoming a pure boxing match. Of course, in a real fight where kicking at the leg and knee were allowed this might be different. On the subject of practical martial arts for real combat, I recall the senior coach of our team (who was also a black belt in Hapkido) commenting that he didn't believe any kick above the belt was feasible for soldiers, because he had never seen anyone who could do them wearing field gear.

Re: Military Size Throughout most of the 1950's and 60's the US has between 1.5% and 2% of the total population on active duty, full mobilization of reserves would have doubled that at least. In the 1970's the numbers went way down.

Re: Victorian Hero (Sorta) Not to quibble, but Lord Darcy was a 2LT in that timeline's version of WWII, the rest of his (published) adventures are after 1960. Good possibility for gaming, though.

Re: Martial Arts in the Pulp era I have seen many references to jui-jitsu and judo instructors in the US in the pulp era. They were not common, but in any major city you could probably find one. How good they would be is another question. Captain (later LtCol) Fairbain also instructed members of the OSS in the Washington DC area in WWII, referrence is made to this in "You're Stepping on my Cloak and Dagger." His book "Get Tough" was available in the 1930's, in fact Wikopedia says the first edition was in 1926 (my copy was from later.) This last I cannot verify right now, but I seem to recall that in Rear Admiral Dan Gallery's autobiography he mentions that the midshipmen at Annapolis did recieve a few classes in jui-jitsu when he was there during World War One.

Re: WWYCD 101:A question of faith Going back to the question of Counselor Troi's no win scenario, in that case the commander (Troi) did not have the engineering skill to do the job. Therefore doing it herself was not an option. She sent the chief engineer, not the most expendable crew member, but the best qualified to do the job. In the original case this thread is about, it is not clear that the lack of a sacrifice will not have seriously bad results. My religion (and personal morality) are competely opposed to human sacrifice, but in a comic book universe, I would not be prepared to state that the natives' beliefs are objectively wrong, even if I think that they are morally wrong. The two characters that I have run most (Mr. Blue and Captain Incredible) would both try to investigate to see if the natives beliefs are correct, that failure to have a sacrifice will have seriously bad results; but unfortunately neither has powers that would make this easy. Hopefully they would have friends along who would have a better chance of learning. Without evidence that the sacrifice is not required for continued paradise, after verifying that the sacrifice is really willing, both of them would stay away from the ceremony. They would both be seriously conflicted about it.

Re: UV vision Yes, I remember Gary putting that in D&D. He basically used it as nightvision. UV is what causes sunburn, it won't help you to see at night unless you are using an artificial UV source, like the old (1950's) metascope did. The answer that we keep it as a tribute to Gary is the best I've heard.

What basis is there for saying that you can see at night by UV from the moon or stars?