Cassiemouse
Market Atheist
I don't really like that interpretation. Feels like it is missing some essential nuance to be satisfying. Not sure what that is specifically though.
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Yeah, that meshes well with my thinking. Life and DSci are the "safe" psychological choices, featuring Rose doing more of what she was before. Mind is the riskier option, but potentially higher payout. Rose has been through a really traumatic experience, and she's having self-everything issues, which is a pretty parallel callback to Serafina's admitting to herself that her own views on neuroplasticity don't hold up in the breach during her seeking.
Rose choosing to have a self-modifying specialty can be a surrendering of self - or it could be assertive, "who I am can change, but I choose to make myself what I am, I and not you."
It's uncomfortable, but so are all chances for growth and development. Rose write ins are a very good idea if we go this route, though.
[X] Correspondence 3->4 (Multitasking), Mind 0->1, Life 0->2
[X] Entropy 1->4 (Narrative Inevitability)
[X] Entropy 0->2
[X] Mind 3->4 (Do You Like The New Me?)
[X] Time 1->3
[X] (0.0x without write-in) Yes, they discussed the nature of man and how it relates to reality, and Enlightenment 6.
Quantumboost
Now with 50% more dots in Dimensional Science
- Location
- Ensemble Space
You'd be correct, that's a verbatim quote from the M20 materials, which doesn't go all the way back to "Technocrats are basically Stasis-Marauders/Stasis-Nephandi" but still regresses to the pre-Revised "mystics start at Arete 2, technomancers at 6, fuck The Man" setup.
Genuine equivalence doesn't seem to have even made its way into an Optional Rule, so I'ma guess it's developer curmudgeonry.
NonSequtur
a body
Well, we know from Word of MJ that the Technocrats and Traditionalists (most notably ItX and the Chorus, though you could probably find examples from every faction) who do that tend towards picking up spirit charms and massive augmentation as opposed to actually reaching Arete 6. So Command might have some pretty nasty tricks they can do, though that makes them less flexible and more paradigm-locked. The Admiral is probably the least in that way, for obvious reasons, and the General much less so than would be expected for an old Master of the Union, for equally obvious reasons.
That sounds like a wonderful incentive to be a Technocrat though. 'Start at Arete 6'!
I bet at least one Ivory Tower or Syndic master turned themselves into a self-sustaining memeplex, government, or corporation.
L'Etat, c'est moi.
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...this isn't that kind of vote. Rose isn't choosing to have anything. She's been doing things, and getting better at them. This is simply a vote for what she's been doing.
The only one here with a major psychological difference from the others is Mind, because that specialty means that it's the only one not developed by fightan gud (or helping others do so.) Instead of learning Mind by taking charge, rallying the defenders and otherwise being leadership material, she's learned Mind by trying to convince people (mostly Donald) that she's fine, really! That means she's been relying on her Vice a lot, and that means that either her Virtue isn't enough to keep her WP up on its own, or that she's fallen into a Donald-like pattern of relying on her Vice first and her Virtue second. (It could be either way - fighting an angry god-machine for a month is a very good way to push your limits, but it also requires a whole lot of WP.)
Of course, Mind does have an upside to go with that downside, which ES covered rather well.
And finally, I'm almost certain that that Mind specialty is based on convincing people to like her, not self-modification. (This also means she'll be able to do certain types of vampire mind control even better than she could with Mind 4 alone.)
--
Also, I figured I'd do another "training analysis" for Donald, because why not. Let's see what he's been doing!
Unlike Rose, whose activities consisted primarily of fighting (except for Life, Mind and possibly Matter,) what Donald has been doing is a bit more up in the air, making it harder for me to guess. Here's what I think:
Entropy: Learning to deal with the unexpected while running the defense. The specialty was picked up mostly from his Seeking, and possibly seeing how the various Demise Denizens act according to their paradigms.
Forces+Mind: There are no noncombatants in the Spy's Demise. Donald has found himself at ground zero of an incursion more than once, and has had to take charge of the situation while stuck in the middle of the fight. His laser watch has been seeing a lot of use.
Correspondence+Mind+Life: With the organization of the defense largely on his shoulders, Donald has far too much to do. He's developed a knack for showing up and taking charge, managing every aspect of a crisis in progress. He's also had to help tend to the wounded from time to time.
Time: Donald has none, or at least it certainly feels that way. He is constantly busy, somehow managing to cram far more than 24 hours of work into a day.
Primal Utility: Donald has had to deal with the brutal calculus of war far too often. Time and again, he's figured out how to use the available resources to best hold off the Anathema... whatever the cost.
Spirit: Maybe hanging around with all these RDs is rubbing off on him. Donald has organized the setup of wards against the Anathema, and maybe even contributed from time to time (when no one was looking.)
Entropy: Learning to deal with the unexpected while running the defense. The specialty was picked up mostly from his Seeking, and possibly seeing how the various Demise Denizens act according to their paradigms.
Forces+Mind: There are no noncombatants in the Spy's Demise. Donald has found himself at ground zero of an incursion more than once, and has had to take charge of the situation while stuck in the middle of the fight. His laser watch has been seeing a lot of use.
Correspondence+Mind+Life: With the organization of the defense largely on his shoulders, Donald has far too much to do. He's developed a knack for showing up and taking charge, managing every aspect of a crisis in progress. He's also had to help tend to the wounded from time to time.
Time: Donald has none, or at least it certainly feels that way. He is constantly busy, somehow managing to cram far more than 24 hours of work into a day.
Primal Utility: Donald has had to deal with the brutal calculus of war far too often. Time and again, he's figured out how to use the available resources to best hold off the Anathema... whatever the cost.
Spirit: Maybe hanging around with all these RDs is rubbing off on him. Donald has organized the setup of wards against the Anathema, and maybe even contributed from time to time (when no one was looking.)
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NonSequtur
a body
This isn't necessarily exclusive. Convincing others to have faith that you know what you're doing and have things under control and are a trustworthy leader they should shut up and listen to is a big part of leadership.
EDIT: Yes, she's basically aping Reina in that scenario.[1] Reina would no doubt be some combination of proud and regretful, had Thorn not beaten her off-stage with a tire iron.
[1] Given their recent talk, Jamelia and Kessler would probably find that... worrisome.
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Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Donald! Duck!
[X] Correspondence 3->4 (Multitasking), Mind 0->1, Life 0->2
[X] Entropy 1->4 (Narrative Inevitability)
Adept of the Fifth Degree and barely thirty years old? Goddamn Donald you are amazing. Like, jesus christ that is Utility spherepower on a ridiculous level. Ridiculous level. Like, so good.
Ruby Rose:
[X] Matter 0->2
[X] Time 1->3
[X] Mind 3->4 (Do You Like The New Me?)
I like @Quantumboost's argument regarding Matter, and Time/Mind is an amazingly useful combination for a frontline fighter.
[X] Correspondence 3->4 (Multitasking), Mind 0->1, Life 0->2
[X] Entropy 1->4 (Narrative Inevitability)
Adept of the Fifth Degree and barely thirty years old? Goddamn Donald you are amazing. Like, jesus christ that is Utility spherepower on a ridiculous level. Ridiculous level. Like, so good.
Ruby Rose:
[X] Matter 0->2
[X] Time 1->3
[X] Mind 3->4 (Do You Like The New Me?)
I like @Quantumboost's argument regarding Matter, and Time/Mind is an amazingly useful combination for a frontline fighter.
... you know, the thought occurs to me that the other inhabitants of the Spy's Demise have gone through a similar, ridiculous nearly-what-the-IBM-did-on-Autochthonia level mage workout. That is to say, git good or git dead. It's not quite IBM-level power-levelling because they weren't being pressed quite as hard, but still.
This may have long term political consequences. Which... hmm. Are mixed from our PoV. It strengthens the Traditions, but it also strengthens the moderate wing of the Traditions because RC-sorts don't hang out at the Spy's Demise. And given that at least as far as we know, Donald, Rose and the other remaining Technocrats in the Demise who didn't get dumped out (who were probably the ones who Control decided it was best rid of, so moderate Technocrats too) have dealt with them honestly, hmm. Donald can probably use this for later contacts as Mr Suave Social Operator.
(Li will not be happy)
Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
It's largely an m20 thing, but I recall it coming up in a PQ conversation with MJ a few months ago over in SVCommand. Not sure on the accuracy of that, but it would fit. Besides the Henriette thing was clearly an incident where you came up with an alt set of rules to allow it, so I don't think that's really good evidence to stand on.
No. Rules as written, I actually didn't need to borrow that mechanic at all and could just have technobabbled that the car fusion reactor was sufficient for the EMP in the first place. I did it specifically to make things easier for MJ to run by reducing the number of active PCs and taking Henriette out of action in a way which didn't leave him tempted to take one of the other characters out of action in a less controlled way.
And yes, MJ did indeed say that some people exceed 5 in their Arete/Enlightenment by "doubling down" rather than "opening up" - but it wasn't just a Technocrat thing. The example he gave, as I recall, was a Choirister who becomes more and more like an angel in human flesh, mages becoming an avatar of their belief system (little a... probably).
Hmm. Actually, I suspect the Inner Circle is going to be the "opening up" sorts, because the Inner Circle's job is to manage the Ascension War by knowing the things that the Union needs to know, but which they can't let the rank and file know. If you can't view reality as it actually is, you can't paradigm engineer properly because you're still part of the system - you can't step outside it and view things objectively. There's going to be silent contempt from the "opening up" sorts directed at the "doubling down" ones, because they're just as blind as the underlings. And because it reinforces the hypocrisy and the doublethink of the Union, which is one of its core tensions.
(and that's probably one of the reasons the NWO and Syndicate have historically held a dominant position - their paradigms are rather friendlier to opening up because the NWO has "truth is socially established, it's what people believe that matters" already and the Syndicate has "things only have value because we ascribe them value, and if tomorrow we decided gold was worthless, it would be worthless".)
Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Whereas in the other hand iterators would have to accept that electrons are just a fabrication of the technocratic union to make casting their magic easier
NonSequtur
a body
Quantumboost
Now with 50% more dots in Dimensional Science
- Location
- Ensemble Space
Another interesting effect is that based on what we saw from before the attacks it'll seriously strengthen the Technomancer Traditions - the Sons of Ether and the Virtual Adepts - disproportionately, though obviously not exclusively. Which may have interesting effects on the political balance in the Traditions councils and shift things even further toward techno-syncretic approaches with the moderates.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah... but you also have to throw into this that a decent number of said moderate types *died* under the attacks, and the Demise itself got shut down hard. So, there will be more Brutally Effective Warriors Of Glorious Moderation, but we've lost a number of moderate folks who were just in there being moderate, keeping the conversations going on both sides. The last major attempt to break them all free, where a whole bunch of VAs died, and the ones that survived stopped being VAs is likely also to have had an effect there.
For that matter, the month or so where this has been going on is a month when a bunch of those backdoor channels weren't running (either because they went through the demise, or because they were being worked by people who were there, or both). We've probably seen somewhat increased friction between the Technocracy and the Trads as a result - not enough to be really noticeable on a grand scale, but enough to start adding up.
That was a very good call-I was planning on rolling randomly on a list of "who gets his or her talents forcibly removed from the scene due to a lot of levels of aggravated damage" when Henriette backlashed herself into incapacitated-land. The lesson is that if you make trouble for yourselves, I am willing to not give you guys as much trouble.
The advantages ItX and the Progenitors managed to leverage into having quite a bit of power is the fact that, well, they Did Vital Things and thus it was politically untenable for them to get Electrodyned out. If you pissed them off enough, well, you'd either not have an army, or start seeing serious personnel issues very, very rapidly. And because ItX and the Progenitors were very staunch allies when it counted even if they bickered with each other like a married couple, driving one out would probably lead to driving the other out as well.
Cassiemouse
Market Atheist
I always thought that saying the consensus model for reality is the real truth was unsatisfying. For the Technocracy to be justified in their position there needs to be at least some hints of an objective external reality that we can learn about. Those hints may be buried deep beneath layers of reality that is shaped by consensus but having some kernels of real non-subjective knowledge to discover is a big hook.
I would assume that every faction had "Discovered" kernels of real non-subjective knowledge that supported their point of view. IRL it is very easy for scientific inquiries to be warped by contemporary socio-political biases and for the perceived validity of discoveries to be as much a matter of politics as off logic. I can only imagine that the situation would much worse in the oWod considering the widespread presence of conspiracies dedicated to shaping the beliefs of humanity.
Cassiemouse
Market Atheist
Indeed, I understand that is a fundamental conceit of the setting. Pursuit of a numinous, ever shifting, capital T truth is just so emotionally satisfying and matches so well with existing Technocratic themes that having the consensus model be absolutely correct is pretty disappointing.
I suspect that placing the consensus model as the absolute "Truth" was largely in response to the perceived need to have the Traditions be the default "Good Guys". Having a "Truth" behind the default protagonist faction was probably seen as a necessity for hooking new players and not alienating people uninterested in the full philosophical complexity offered by the game.
But as the Technocratic Perspective shows, Consensus also makes the Traditions criminally negligent, because you're making things worse for everyone else by allowing for the idea of man-eating monsters in exchange for the ability to set things on fire with just your mind.
Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
Well that's the thing- from the trad-perspective, those monsters either aren't man-eating at all, or there are other just as valid protections against them.
In the Old World, all it took was some Aramanth and Clove put in a cloth bag and work around your neck, and you had a potent ward against all manner of night folk- just as strong as forcefields and primium. In many ways, from the trad perspective, the old world was better, because those defenses were far more reliable than forcefields and primium because they always worked. They didn't run out of battery power, or suffer from scarcity- any grandmother could put them together. She didn't need to be a mage either, it was just an intrinsic power of those plants.
Now, that's all changed. There's still night folk preying on humans on the street, but they can't operate as openly, and while the old measures aren't nearly as strong/now require mages, the proliferation of the technocracy's paradigm means that those enemies of humanity have all these extra tools to use against you, and you're reliant on a human run cabal that is totally victim to funding shortages and politics and personal ideologies to defend you and yours.
Is it any wonder that the grandmother who grew up with stories about the capricious faerie folk and how to ward them off wishes for the days when a a few sprigs of John's Wort was sufficient, while now the faeries are armed with AK-47's and Semtex when they come to steal your children and the defenses that used to work do nothing unless you're a mage/linear sorceror.
The worst part from a trad perspective is, the change in paradigm only affects mages. It doesn't affect any of the night folk- except changelings but that's because they're 'special'- and all the hostile beings that the technocracy claims it wants to protect the world from... are still out there, in the shadows.
Both sides are right, and both sides are wrong, in similar and entirely different ways. That's really what Consensus means- there is no single objective truth. Even fundamental elements that traditionally transcend consensus- like gravity or life 2 (the human body functions), may be changeable. There's no perfect path to ascension just waiting to be discovered- oh no. You've gotta work for your happy endings.
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Well even if fans of oWoD claims that oWoD is a setting with "consensual reality", oWoD actually has a number of objective truths to it.
Like most White Wolf properties, the fundamental conceit of the setting is buggy as all hell.
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NonSequtur
a body
Ascension is oWoD, and if you take it without reference to the other lines, you can mostly eliminate any objective truths.
Unfortunately, you can't eliminate this one.
Personally count it as layers of truth. The deeper you get(and the closer to the game mechanics) the harder it is to change it.
Just because two things are true doesn't make it impossible for one to be more true than the other.