fictionfan
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In 2006 there were only 50 defunct satellites in orbit. I doubt he was just lucky. Still it's not hard information to find even if you personally can't use a computer.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
It will be fine. Cat and dog videos will balance out the depravity.I fear this more than the idea of a full on Hollywood level genocidal AI.
The depths of depravity in that thing's soul would make the Yama Kings pray for an intervention.
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Yeah, getting 15 successes by stacking up dozens of Skill 1 mortals sounds like a misuse of rules meant for groups of 3-6 PCs.
A possible fix: teamwork assistance is limited to doubling the leader's dicepool, or a number of assistants equal to the leader's skill rating, whichever is higher.
I'll support that, yes. Initial example wasn't using skill 1 mortals, but the point stands - you shouldn't be capable of producing arbitrarily large dice pools by throwing infinite amount of mortals at them.
It makes sense for, idk, construction works or large projects, but it certainly shouldn't work for overroll quality increases and such. Many chefs, one kitchen, etecetera.
E2 actually had a system for large-scale crafting and using huge quantities of mortals/demons/golems to build huge structures, IIRC.
It makes sense for, idk, construction works or large projects, but it certainly shouldn't work for overroll quality increases and such. Many chefs, one kitchen, etecetera.
E2 actually had a system for large-scale crafting and using huge quantities of mortals/demons/golems to build huge structures, IIRC.
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I think it makes sense to separate projects into two categories:
1) Total success accumulating ones, where you need to roll a total sum of many successes to accomplish the project, and can roll many times. Stuff like large scale construction, societal reforms, investigation into old lore, etc.
2) Success equals quality ones, where you roll once, and the amount of the successes determines the quality of the product. Diamond making, weapon crafting (where you go for masterpieces instead of bulk orders), Ancient sorcery.
The first type of projects can probably benefit from infinite amount of skill 1 mortals, albeit non-lineraly (you can't build a nuclear power plant in a day even if you have a billion laborers and a truly unlimited budget without special exalted magic). The second one has sharp limitations in how adding additional low skill mortals would be helping it.
The fixes for this issue run into fairly complex math, sadly. One needs to account for the leader's leadership score somehow, and for amount of people involved, and for their total dicepool (i.e. the average quality of the worker involved). In case of the second type of porject one needs to introduce soft and hard limits to the total successes, etc. I'll have to workshop some math here, I feel. Or, if this is too complex (I feel it is), this should be left to the discretion of the author.
And the rules would probably need to be different for exalted-led projects and mortal-led projects. Exalted were created as leaders and generals. Mortals working for an exalt add value to the exalt's endeavors, and a sufficient amount of mortals working together can be better than an exalt, but that number measures in millions and billions, not tens.
The saying "nine women can't give birth to one child in one month" definitely applies here.
[x] uju32
Huh, I remembered that better than I thought. And even if he wasn't informed of the particulars the people who were didn't say he was wrong when he asserted the warlock had acted out of ignorance.
And I think you need to reread the bit with Murphy if you think that contradicts my point, it's basically Harry saying the same thing we are.
Who said anything about ghosts? Talk about a non sequitur, they'd probably be less likely to try raising their family if they did have the ghosts for company.
That scenario would be a lonely grieving kid who wants their family back and doesn't realize necromancy doesn't work like that.
There is no self defense clause. Dresden was slated for execution till grampa put his own neck on the line taking responsibility for Dresden's future actions.
Actually, it's both.
It's not enough by itself to get one exonerated, but gives them a chance.
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
@uju32 I've got some concerns about your current plan. Basically, I'm under the impression this is what Murphy's here for.
[]You're here because you need to know what I was thinking during the fight, why I let them go. There's two reasons, one of which I can share freely and the other more explosive one, if I share that one with you, I would hope the Library of Congress can provide you with a Mind Shield, or they are working with some kind of being outside White Council jurisdiction who can erase it from your memory after you get the knowledge someplace safer. I'm happy to provide an explanation of what I know about the Thousand Hells and a sizable chunk of my logic. Let's discuss whether or not you want the rest afterwards.
from here I'd segue into the rest of your plan with the videos and the chess metaphors and the geopolitics.
The whole Lady Eiko is running a scheme to try and unfall the Lord of Kakuri.
[]You're here because you need to know what I was thinking during the fight, why I let them go. There's two reasons, one of which I can share freely and the other more explosive one, if I share that one with you, I would hope the Library of Congress can provide you with a Mind Shield, or they are working with some kind of being outside White Council jurisdiction who can erase it from your memory after you get the knowledge someplace safer. I'm happy to provide an explanation of what I know about the Thousand Hells and a sizable chunk of my logic. Let's discuss whether or not you want the rest afterwards.
from here I'd segue into the rest of your plan with the videos and the chess metaphors and the geopolitics.
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It might be easier to equate things to WWII Cold War Era espionage where her knowing a thing could explicitly cause things to explode in people's faces.
This is similar to plotting with Soviet officials to subvert Stalin or the Valkyrie plot to assassinate Hitler.
This is similar to plotting with Soviet officials to subvert Stalin or the Valkyrie plot to assassinate Hitler.
The argument was that Ebenezar was ignorant of electronics.
My point is that his choice of modality suggests otherwise.
=I didnt say he knew about the electronics of this particular satellite, at least not in detail.
I did say he had to know a fair bit about satellite electronics in general. At the very least he has to be sure that the satellite he's messing with doesnt have an onboard nuclear reactor, like a lot of Soviet RORSATs.
Its been pointed out previously that the easiest way to deorbit a satellite is to make use of its own maneuvering thrusters.
This is in line with his previous history of using existing elements to work destruction.
=Its nowhere that simple.
He had to deorbit it without running into the space station, any of the other thousands of satellite or large pieces of debris up there, and not have it break up in the atmosphere on the way down, and still have enough impact energy to do a guaranteed kill on everything at the target site.
And he had to do all that plausibly, because mortals are looking, and a satellite that dropped out of the sky like a powered missile would draw significant scrutiny.
In this AU, he did this around three years ago.
It is explicitly stated to work like that in the WoD part of this crossover; thats the point of the bigger Amalgalms and Chantries in Mage.
Every splat appears to have its own set of Teamwork rules.
In V20 you have all the participants rolling their own dice pools and pooling successes, but in Sorcery you stack assistants to reduce DC and get threshold successes(or failures).
Some Sorcery rituals, like Conveyance 5: Teleportal, explicitly mention tnat you should stack assistants.
Teleportal ( • • • • • )
Master sorcerers can build permanent gateways between locations. These gateways through space allow anyone who knows the opening phrase or command to travel swiftly from one end of the passage to the other. This ritual takes days of preparation, some of which must be spent at both sites (making this unsuitable for stealthy infiltration of a location... most of the time). Once these preparations are done, the sorcerer makes an extended Stamina + Occult roll against a difficulty of 8; each success adds either 10 miles to the range (the total distance between the two gateways of the portal must be gathered before the ritual can be completed), five uses to the portal or some kind of specification to the gateway (at either or both ends; for example, a gateway could be designated as one-way, could be restricted to women only, only the sorcerer who created the gate or only those who have a special code word or amulet). Assistants can (and should) be used for this ritual. A Teleportal costs one permanent point of Willpower to create.It certainly works that way in the Dresdenverse.
Its explicitly established in the books White Night and Ghost Story that lesser talents raise wards around a home as a teamwork project. Which is something Dresden, or a similar Council wizard, can do on his own. Its explicitly something the Ordo Lebes does.
And Chitchen Itza was also a very big teamwork ritual. Dozens, if not hundreds of participants in preparing it.
Senior Council wizards dont rely on luck for assassinating senior enemy figures.
Thats how you accidentally a population center because your impactor split up in the atmosphere.
Or create radioactive contamination because you yanked a nuclear-powered satellite instead of something running off solar.
It isnt. See the fluff for Teleportal.
Sorcerer appears to sometimes use a different mechanical system from V20, but its clear about how master sorcerers often have lots of assistants.
That is kinda how the mage factions (Technocracy AND Traditions)in the WoD portion of this crossover do a lot of things?
You need a lead with the qualifications to perform the project/spell/whatever, compatible Paradigms, qualified assistants and the like, so its not exactly trivial, but if you've gone to the significant trouble of gathering all the human and material requirements, and can justify their applicability, you get to roll.
Its not like wrangling qualified assistants is supposed to be easy. Or cheap.
You cant stack infinite numbers of mortals, but something like a Forces/Correspondence Procedure: Drone Strike/Orbital Strike can plausibly involve 30+ mages and their assistants.
Chitchen Itza in the Dresdenverse involved dozens of Red Court sorcerers and hundreds of human sacrifices iirc.
And, according to Odin, its supposed to have been the same ritual that Victor Sells used in Storm Front, just with less power and no assistants. Thats very much for the QM/Storyteller to adjudicate, based on the scenario.
In the particular case I was comparing it to, which is bookwriting, its well established that major writing projects IRL can involve multiple authors, span years and dozens of researchers. Even your successful fiction writer has a writing/research assistant, betas, editors, typesetters and proofreaders, and cover illustrators before their book makes it to a bookshelf.
They didnt say he was wrong because it was irrelevant to the argument.
This was Dresden's first trial of a warlock since being conscripted as a Warden. He knew nothing about the case, or whether the kid came from ignorance, or a family/community in the know. He explicitly didnt even know the name of the accused, let alone the circumstances; the Merlin had to detail the crimes for him when he started kicking up a fuss.
Seeing things from the protagonists PoV doesnt mean they are right.
And Dresden is often written as an audience surrogate, being ignorant whenever the author feels its convenient to explain things to him that he wants the readers to know.
Would it? Or would it just be a reminder of what they lost, preventing them from healing?
People react differently to loss.
Self-defense is an affirmative defense.
You are admitting that you killed the person, but that it was justified under the circumstances.
And you are hoping they agree with you.
I rather doubt anyone expects a wizard to pull any punches against Kemmler, for example, even if he is human.
Dresden wasnt worrying about White Council sanction before or after that public duel with Cowl at the beginning of Dead Beat when he(Harry) dropped a car on him with magic. Or when he threw Hellfire at Corpsetaker's intrusion into his mind.
Or when he killed the loup garou.
Or when he tried to kill the Denarian Polonessa Lartessa by blasting a footwide hole in her chest.
Or when he did kill at least one Denarian by using magic to knock them into the path of a Hellfire beam.
Or how the Council carefully didnt ask about whether there were any living humans in Bianca's house when he burned it to the ground.
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Thats why she's there yes.
We dont want to tell her about it because she can be interrogated and made to talk. And because the more people who know about it, the greater the chance of a leak.
But thats not the only reason why we plausibly let Eiko go.
Even without the deal, it was entirely reasonable to let her and her emtourage go to report home that Molly could wipe the floor with his agents as a deterrent to a repeat attempt. Which avoids the temptation to assume that the other half were unlucky and ran into powerful Fae or demigods or something along those lines.
This is a fair point.
Let me see if I can write up an additional stunt to addresss that.
I never said that big teamwork projects shouldn't work. I said "you shouldn't be able to throw arbitary amount of mortals at a single finite in scope projects and raise it to beyond exalted levels". There are obvious difference. in sorcery rituals you explicitely accumulate successes via sequential rolls. That represents an ongoing project, as I understand it. in projects like Ebon scales, you roll once, and if you succeed, you succeed, and the number of successes determines the "quality" of success.
Also, sorcery is strange / not like other things. It's a part where mortal and immortal domains overlap, as it was.
If we take craft as example, a small submarine we made would have taken a team of 10+ mortals with at least a million dollars budget at least a month to recreate. Diamonds? Probably tens of millions and a year of work. For 15+ successes? Yeah, maybe thousands of talented mortals working together for years with unlimited budget could make something of similar quality. Even that is arguable.
So, going back to your example, no, I flat out disagree that a team of several mortals should be able to recreate a quality of a single-roll project of exalt-make with 15+ successes. The thing should be well beyond legendary. If it was a book, it would be far more impactful that Capital (I am specifically not saying Bible because in-setting it probably had divine inspiration, but I am tempted to use that as a comparison). 15+ successes is, explicitly "other celestial exalts start thinking you are showing off". Celestial exalts, as per ExvsWoD books have the strength of millions (exigent of cities part has the text).
Ebenezar could almost certainly have throw one of the thousands of asteroids that obit the earth, but most of them are more distance then Satellites.
As for teamwork no lots of people helping only makes it go faster the actual result is simply determined by person with the best dice pool. Even exalted types stacking their crafting charms getting over 100x speed boost, still are limited by what the project head rolls.
As for teamwork no lots of people helping only makes it go faster the actual result is simply determined by person with the best dice pool. Even exalted types stacking their crafting charms getting over 100x speed boost, still are limited by what the project head rolls.
And you are shifting goalposts. Because we weren't talking about magical rituals. Your initial claim was, and I quote:
that a group of 25 mortals, with one average professional and 24 highschool equivalents, equals a celestial exalt maximally specked at a subject, running an excellency and all the difficulty adjusters available to them.
By the same logic, a group of 25 people, consisting of one cop and 24 high school children should be able to take Molly in a fight.
It is an absurd supposition. No, 25 people, of whom only one is a professional, should never be able to match an effort of a min-maxed celestial exalt that is at or near the peak of their specialization.
Let me ask you this: would one professional politician (let's say a mayor of a small town) with 24 assistants from a high school debate camp be able to outtalk Mab?
EDIT: Magic is special, I agree there. The rules are different. It's the same as how we effectively can't use excellencies for Ancient Sorcery. That makes sense.
EDIT2: And even then, we explicitly add something mortals can't do, like god-forging.
EDIT3: Also, magic rituals are soft-capped by "any of the participants botches, the whole thing fails". You need exalted leadership and shenanigans to get around that.
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Quantity will only be able to do so much in terms of quality, not sure how that will be modeled yet, but the fact itself is common sense.
Anyway Vote closed
Anyway Vote closed
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
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It is in fact that simple. If he is just pulling it down the deorbit path is easy and he doesn't need the satellite to be functional when it comes down a melted piece of slag is better if anything. Conservation of energy means that burning mass isn't going to disappear.
[]STUNT 3: Murphy leans back, her eyes intent."You are saying that this.....entire thing was foreign policy?" The last words come out in a hiss. You affirm with a nod."While many supernatural people like my friend here" you acknowledge Porter with a wave of your hand "are independent agents, or at best hold loose allegiance to a greater power? The intruders we dealt with would be best modelled as agents for a Cold War dictatorship. Think if" you cast around, then seize on a comparison "East Germany sent agents to, say, Australia to kidnap someone. Or North Korea did."
The benchmark you set up was 15+ successes. Thats the mark they were workimg to.
The US military regularly recruits 18 and 19 year olds as combat troops.
There's a reason why its strongly suggested that Exalts dont try to fistfight the US Army on the White House lawn.
There are situations that are inapplicable for mortals; mortals arent going to be leading an Exalted Craft project.
Writing a book isnt one of them.
There's no way for the professional politician to apply all his helpers to this situation of in-person social combat against the Queen of Air and Darkness.
Now would that professional politician + his helpers be able to outwrite Mab if she is working alone?
Potentially? Yes, because its a scenario where all those helpers would plausibly be able to apply their dice/dice pool.
Assuming they dont botch.
This is a Storyteller adjudication, not a mechanical issue.
Good thing I didnt say arbitrary.
Writing a book isnt something exclusive to Exalts.
Now you are shifting the goalposts.
The benchmark you set up was 15+ successes. Thats the mark they were workimg to.
Possible, as long as you dont expect them to do so in melee, and equip them accordingly, and let them choose the battleground.
The US military regularly recruits 18 and 19 year olds as combat troops.
There's a reason why its strongly suggested that Exalts dont try to fistfight the US Army on the White House lawn.
Your opinion does not appear to be supported by the mechanics or the fluff.
There are situations that are inapplicable for mortals; mortals arent going to be leading an Exalted Craft project.
Writing a book isnt one of them.
No, because it isnt applicable.
There's no way for the professional politician to apply all his helpers to this situation of in-person social combat against the Queen of Air and Darkness.
Now would that professional politician + his helpers be able to outwrite Mab if she is working alone?
Potentially? Yes, because its a scenario where all those helpers would plausibly be able to apply their dice/dice pool.
Assuming they dont botch.
This is a Storyteller adjudication, not a mechanical issue.
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It's not true, things like the Internet are so far beyond the scope of an exalted to do, if we wave away logistical concerns. At certain point sufficient number of mortals are better at a task than mortals, the limitation is that humans aren't all dedicated to doing any single thing. But we have put a man on the moon with sufficient number of mortal success. That's qualitatively better than anything an exalted has done through just skill checks and not bulkshit charm magic.
No it most definitely is not.
Even asteroids disintegrate in mid-air if they come in too fast due to differential heating, and deployed satellites are hardly aerodynamically designed for reentry. You can very easily end up with a mid air disintegration and nothing making it to the ground in enough of one piece and velocity to be a useful weapon.
This is not in dispute; we have had multiple satellites and space stations reenter the atmosphere and disintegrate well before making it to ground level. Including Kosmos 954, which disintegrated across Canada and spilled 50 kg of radioactive uranium across several thousand kilometers, necessitating a redesign of Soviet recon sats.
Or you can look at the Chelyabinsk superbolide, an 20m wide, 10,000 ton meteor that exploded in the high atmosphere in 2013 over Russia with a yield of over 500 kilotons. None of it made it to the ground in one piece to cause any impact damage
Chelyabinsk meteor - Wikipedia
This stuff isnt easy.
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First of all, we were talking about recording a video or audio lesson, with supplemental material in textual form. Even if we weren't, let's look at what our legendary successes are? Let's take Ebon Scales. That was direct atomic maniuplation to weave carbon nanotubes into a combat armor. Theoretically I know how to do this mundanely. Give me an institute of at least a hundred people, several decades of effort and a couple billion dollars, and I'll recreate it.
So far, as I see it, there are two actual types of projects: one where you roll once, and the resulting successes determine quality, and one where you accumulate a total number of successes over time (with additional successes possibly increasing the effects of the endeavor). And if mortals can outdo a single exalt in largge scale productions, absolutely, then quality successes are an entirely different things. You shouldn't be looking at tens or even hundreds skill 1 mortals. You should be looking at hudreds and thousands professionals and experts working together for long times.
I disagree. Not about "infinite mortals if given infinite time will be better than an exalt". That's true. With the scope. The power of a single celestial tier exalt is the power of millions of mortals concentrated into one being, all sprinkled on top with impossible perfection. I am not pulling millions out of my ass either. Here, have a quote about Metropolitan exalt:
fictionfan
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Link
What is the spacecraft cemetery?
A satellite won't always burn up completely as it descends. Parts of larger satellites might survive the fall to the Earth's surface.
These pieces of debris might cause damage if they landed in inhabited areas, so satellite descents are carefully calculated. When satellite teams plunge a satellite back into the atmosphere, they're often aiming for a specific location: the spacecraft cemetery.
This is located at Point Nemo, also known as the oceanic pole of inaccessibility: the point in the ocean that's furthest from land and therefore hardest to reach. It lies in the South Pacific Ocean, between New Zealand and Chile, over 2,600 km from solid ground. Because Point Nemo is so remote, it was chosen as a place to land decommissioned satellites without the risk of hitting inhabited areas or ships.
_______
And of course if you are pulling down a satellite using force magic adding a force shield to hold it together doesn't seem like a big add.
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Molecular manipulation-level craftsmanship is a situation that would be inapplicable for most mortals, without the right tools.
While an Exalt with a Tools charm and Excellency can do it.
Writing a book is not one of those situations. Its a skill available to everyone that requires no special gear.
Books often take years to write and publish even for fiction, and professional texbooks often have multiple named authors and editors on the nameplate, not counting the faceless assistants who helped.
An Exalt can probably do it faster. A writing-specced Exalt wont botch, at least.
But I expect mundane mortals can match that, given enough time and resources.
I dont agree with the bolded.
Exalts are very big players in ExWoD, but they dont automatically stomp the fusion setting, as they would if your assertions were accurate.
Even in Ex2, which is significantly higher powered, craft was gated differently, because if it was just successes, you'd expect natiomstates would be able to match the work of the Celestials.
I fail to see your point.
A 10 ton satellite that hits one spot at Mach 3 delivers enough energy to turn the target building into a crater. A 10 ton satellite that loses half its mass on reentry and then breaks up into twenty equal pieces before hitting Casaverde is just going to put a (BIG)hole in the mansion and holes across half of Honduras.
Doesnt it? Holding a force shield over a 10 ton kinetic impactor doing the same Mach 24 at high altitude as a rentering MIRV bus is a nontrivial exercise of power and agility. And an especially flashy one, both magical and mundanely.
Its meant to be an assassination; I presume Eb didnt want to let Ortega see his death coming.
Remember, these are Reds.
30 seconds is enough time to step over into the NeverNever
Writing a book is hard work and something a no mortal can compare to an exalted. 10 success is your LOTR, martin luther "I have a dream speech" a professional with max stats might at most have a single roll of 10 success in their life. For a mortal that 10+ range that is success level that enters legend that last forever. Everything has to go exactly right for a mortal to get to that level, spend 20 years on a book but suffer a death in the Family and if you cannot deal with, and use that to empower your work, guess what you don't get that legendary roll.
For an exalted turning out 10+ is just so what, every exalted can do that. To exalted legendary successes is just norm. Why I want to spend 9xp on expression, Molly can just write mass social attacks and just unite basically the entire world.
For an exalted turning out 10+ is just so what, every exalted can do that. To exalted legendary successes is just norm. Why I want to spend 9xp on expression, Molly can just write mass social attacks and just unite basically the entire world.
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