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Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns

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[X] Jamelia and Harlan have the codes and technical know-how, between the two of them, to optimize the defenses of the facility. A low-security museum basement doesn't have much in the way of defenses, but there are some very useful antipersonnel solutions that could be used to defeat a mob.
 
Sirrocco said:
I have a fair bit of confidence in Clock's ability to pretend to be almost anything she might need to pretend to be in order to acquire a manipulable minion and harm a hated foe... and Elissa doesn't know that it was Clock who sent that kill-team, right?
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Elissa may not know but it wouldn't be hard for Jamelia to inform her that Clock is a member of Panopticon.

Which would almost certainly destroy any chance of Ellissa defecting, and if she's sufficiently angry to abandon Jamelia then I doubt she'd willingly choose to join the side of Jamelia's less-nice clone.
 
Actually, Elissa does know that Clock is after her:
EarthScorpion said:
The mind's still out there. In the Panopticon teams hunting her. The lesser one from Miami, the one who felt like the idealist with a cold, metallic edge. But not the older ones - the predatory one or the cold one that reminded her of-

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Alice sinks down, resting her forehead on the cold glass of the mirror. Of course. That's who it was. That's who it had to have been.

Blanc's lackey. Sent after her. Someone trained by him to be the very best who'll do exactly what he says. Someone who was almost a second mother figure to her. Her teacher and instructor, the one who moulded her on his instructions. Cold. Clinical. Precise.

Someone who knows exactly how she thinks and what her limits are.

Miss Clock.
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MJ12 Commando said:
Reminder that Clock attacked Alice/Elissa to hurt Serafina, not Jamelia herself.
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.... Hm.

I ... almost want to use this as a "troll-cast" focus. Or like, I don't want to actually cast on this, because the mechanics would give her a chance to notice and respond...

... but even so, I feel like, as a "statement of genre" or "statement of paradigm," that this feels like a reason to believe that Clock has a blindspot here.

That Clock is just very slightly sloppy in the way that she models Jamelia -- that she models Jamelia the way any other human might model someone so close to her own identity. Starting from herself, and adding on things that she can think of.

And to Clock, a beloved daughter would be absolutely alien.
 
Shard said:
What's Trollcasting? Can't find it.
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"Trollcasting" is an out-of-universe term for "spells" that are entirely passive enforcement of the mage's paradigm. For example, if a Hermetic conjures a white-hot fireball and holds it in her hand, going "Forces 2: even if you could do that, the radiant heat from the fire would give you second degree burns and blind you" would be "trollcasting." You could also define it as "letting the enemy provide the focus, using an enemy's own actions as your focus."

Fourthspartan56 said:
Ah, there you go.

I'd say the odds of Clock getting a defection are incredibly unlikely, if she wasn't going to accept Al-Saud's offer then there is no chance she'd accept the offer of someone much less charming and much more hostile.
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Reminder that Clock has Mind 5. That isn't just a statement of what sort of high-level hyperpsych she can pull it off, it's also an in-universe statement that she is a master of Mind, that she has an utterly absurd understanding of how humans tick and how to convince them to do most anything.

She is, in fact, explicitly better at it than Jamelia -- and half of Jamelia's entire skillset is about turning unlikely targets or at least getting them conveniently out of the way for a while.
 
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linkhyrule5 said:
"Trollcasting" is an out-of-universe term for "spells" that are entirely passive enforcement of the mage's paradigm. For example, if a Hermetic conjures a white-hot fireball and holds it in her hand, going "Forces 2: even if you could do that, the radiant heat from the fire would give you second degree burns and blind you" would be "trollcasting." You could also define it as "letting the enemy provide the focus, using an enemy's own actions as your focus."



Reminder that Clock has Mind 5. That isn't just a statement of what sort of high-level hyperpsych she can pull it off, it's also an in-universe statement that she is a master of Mind, that she has an utterly absurd understanding of how humans tick and how to convince them to do most anything.

She is, in fact, explicitly better at it than Jamelia -- and half of Jamelia's entire skillset is about turning unlikely targets or at least getting them conveniently out of the way for a while.
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Pretty much yeah. I was actually interested in seeing Jamelia and Clock go head to head since they have similar spheres except Clock has Mind 5 while Jamelia has Enthrophy 5. Contrast will be interesting if it ever happens.
 
How does the euthanatos paradigm work in panopticon quest? I have read over several variations of it through a few websites, and it seems that more commonly it is viewed as "Focusing aspects of gods/the wheel to create effects". In Panopticon quest there seems to be quite a few euthanatos who operate without the religious angle and just rely on phenomenal skill and alchemy. How does phenomenal skill work within their paradigm here?
 
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BrassFist said:
How does the euthanatos paradigm work in panopticon quest? I have read over several variations of it through a few websites, and it seems that more commonly it is viewed as "Focusing aspects of gods/the wheel to create effects". In Panopticon quest there seems to be quite a few euthanatos who operate without the religious angle and just rely on phenomenal skill and alchemy. How does phenomenal skill work within their paradigm here?
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I'm fairly sure most of those Euthanatos were also archmages, so the point is a little moot.

There's like maybe two Euthanatos that weren't, and we didn't see much of them
 
FORTHEYOLOZ said:
I'm fairly sure most of those Euthanatos were also archmages, so the point is a little moot.

There's like maybe two Euthanatos that weren't, and we didn't see much of them
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Francesco did not get much in way of paradigm development, and the Knights of Radamanthys did seem to have a paradigm that is more in line with what is to be expected from the euthanatos, but what I don't understand is how the phenomenal skill and hyper tech we see the euthanatos blend with their paradigm. I'm trying to understand how their belief system meshes with hypertech the euthanatos use. What exactly is their paradigm?
 
BrassFist said:
Francesco did not get much in way of paradigm development, and the Knights of Radamanthys did seem to have a paradigm that is more in line with what is to be expected from the euthanatos, but what I don't understand is how the phenomenal skill and hyper tech we see the euthanatos blend with their paradigm. I'm trying to understand how their belief system meshes with hypertech the euthanatos use. What exactly is their paradigm?
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Anyone in particular you're talking about? Christos with his ego? Westin who
EarthScorpion said:
moves like a demigod
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?
 
WarpObscura said:
Anyone in particular you're talking about? Christos with his ego? Westin who ?
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I am referring more so to a trend in the quest that many euthanatos are quite comfortable using hypertech, and their paradigm seems to have many similarities to the operatives of the NWO. The Book of Endings for example:


MJ12 Commando said:
Euthanatos:
The Book of Endings: Despite its almost religious name, The Book of Endings is an eminently practical grimoire, written by a Euthanatos in the mid-20th century. It teaches the paradigm of the Greek Euthanatoi via practical advice for assassinations, terrorism, and a variety of tools of the trade. This grimoire has been faithfully reproduced, rewritten, and updated to keep up to date with modern technologies-a complex Correspondence ritual used to create it means that legitimate updates to the Book of Endings are propagated through all the copies in existence. Readers learn from the tools and their history and significance, as well as from the stories of their users. To understand its lessons, a reader must have a Tactics specialty in Terrorism or Tactics 3, as well as Stealth 2 and a weapons skill (Melee or Firearms) at 2. The Book of Endings teaches Life 3 and Forces 2, and can be used by Greek Euthanatoi, House Thig Hermetics, and the New World Order. The New World Order considers it one of a rare few Reality Deviant grimoires that does not constitute a memetic hazard, as the paradigm it teaches, when stripped of the religious statements, is word-for-word identical to combat Operative training.
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The other instances come from Christos, Sullivan Cromwell, and Westin. All of who either use phenomenal skill and hypertech along with their mystic elements.

MJ12 Commando said:
Should an agent engage Christos in combat, they should be aware that he is an expert in virtually all known forms of armed, unarmed, and vehicular combat and his resources extend to sufficient money and influence to have safehouses and arsenal drops throughout the world. Christos does not seem to have any weapons type preference although he does seem to have a preference for less flashy, deniable weaponry. Like many of his Chalice brethren, he has been spotted using Hermetic-style alchemical methods, phenomenal personal skill, and even twisted parodies of hypertechnology that seem to mock the efforts of Q Division. Furthermore, he has a constant low-level probability distortion field which makes it more difficult for agents to successfully strike him, and is known to have physical strength, dexterity, and endurance exceeding those of even V2 'Vanessa' clones. Finally, he is phenomenally difficult to track, which has made creating this dossier extraordinarily difficult to the point of absurdity.
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MJ12 Commando said:
JB LXXIX: Collision Course

Sullivan Cromwell, bani Euthanatos, Knight of Radymanthys considers two things.

First, he has never abandoned a mission. He has failed a few times, but never by giving up. "Who dares wins", after all. Second, he and his four chantry-mates are very tempted nevertheless. The forest that the witch led them to via her scrying cauldron (a primitive affectation-Cromwell prefers awakening the spirits of his GPS navigator or just outright hypertech) is currently a hellscape. His inhumanly acute sight, a side effect of the divine blood rushing through his veins, sees artillery rain down on the forest, white phosphorous burning trees and producing thick toxic smoke as high-explosives hit. He can see the figures of Technocratic robots and soldiers moving through, engaging Garou.

The five Euthanatos mercenaries move through the forest quietly, with the precision and expertise nearly identical to NWO combat operatives or Syndicate legbreakers. Between their enchantments on their black fatigues and their own personal skill, they are nearly invisible. But nearly doesn't imply fully, even if they penetrate well within the second ring of defenses before the number of eyes, human, cyborg, and microdrone, end up catching them.
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EarthScorpion said:
Janice XXVI - Epilogue I: Autumnal Death

The leader is a man who could have been an Enforcer or an Operative, if you didn't know to look for the unnatural lion fur lining his armour and notice the gleam of the black-painted commando knife he carried. At least he had good enough taste to use a MJOLNIR. "Christopher Westin, I presume," he says.
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The Euthanatos paradigm traditionally states that their mages call upon aspects of the wheel/gods to cause magic, however there is a clear in that system and what has occurred in the quest. These mages all use hypertech and/or phenomenal skill as the focus for their abilities and there are examples all through the quest that make comparisons between the euthanatos and the Union's operatives/enforcers. The euthanatos still do use magical foci and are often said to "move like a demigod" or to have the "blood of the gods" in them, which means they blend hypertech and mysticism together in paradigm without issue.

I am trying to understand what belief system backs up this mix of union hypertech and mystic abilities.
 
BrassFist said:
I am trying to understand what belief system backs up this mix of union hypertech and mystic abilities.
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The Euthanatos in PQ are a political faction, much like the Dreamspeakers, rather than a truly unified Tradition. The Chalice magi you've seen tend to use the Chalice paradigm, which tends to be extremely flexible in the breadth and depth of tools that they use, because their paradigm is about their own personal arete, with tools used to enhance that arete. There is something a bit NWO about the paradigm... but remember that the Chalice and the Operatives are inextricably linked by their history, as both of them are descendants of the Ixoi.

There's a lot of these links in PQ-Iteration X is linked to the Chorus and some of the more religious Hermetics via the Templars, who also link themselves to the Syndicate and the ivory-tower parts of the NWO. The Progenitors link to the Hermetics and Akashics in much the same way. In fact, almost all of the Conventions have pretty strong links to the Hermetics in some way for fairly obvious reasons.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
The Euthanatos in PQ are a political faction, much like the Dreamspeakers, rather than a truly unified Tradition. The Chalice magi you've seen tend to use the Chalice paradigm, which tends to be extremely flexible in the breadth and depth of tools that they use, because their paradigm is about their own personal arete, with tools used to enhance that arete. There is something a bit NWO about the paradigm... but remember that the Chalice and the Operatives are inextricably linked by their history, as both of them are descendants of the Ixoi.

There's a lot of these links in PQ-Iteration X is linked to the Chorus and some of the more religious Hermetics via the Templars, who also link themselves to the Syndicate and the ivory-tower parts of the NWO. The Progenitors link to the Hermetics and Akashics in much the same way. In fact, almost all of the Conventions have pretty strong links to the Hermetics in some way for fairly obvious reasons.
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Or, to put it another reason, the reason that these Euthanatoi can use a Union Mjonir handgun is that they very certainly believe that this is an excellent gun that kills people dead. And people die when they are killed.
 
[X] Jamelia and Harlan have the codes and technical know-how, between the two of them, to optimize the defenses of the facility. A low-security museum basement doesn't have much in the way of defenses, but there are some very useful antipersonnel solutions that could be used to defeat a mob.
 
[X] Jamelia and Harlan have the codes and technical know-how, between the two of them, to optimize the defenses of the facility. A low-security museum basement doesn't have much in the way of defenses, but there are some very useful antipersonnel solutions that could be used to defeat a mob.

You can put a lot of damage out when you're an old spy and have time. Hope to see some nice resolution. First read this thread 2 years ago. Keep doing amazing stuff MJ.
 
[X] Jamelia and Harlan have the codes and technical know-how, between the two of them, to optimize the defenses of the facility. A low-security museum basement doesn't have much in the way of defenses, but there are some very useful antipersonnel solutions that could be used to defeat a mob.
 
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