Chapter Four Is Now Available...

[robkelk]

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Would Doug get a kick out a Celestial having this kind of silly weakness?

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That depends on how he discovers it.
Hmmmmm... Doug decides to pay Mara back for turning Megumi into a car, and hits her with a "trivial shapechange" song.
Step 1: Doug plays "I'll Play for You", targetted on Mara.
Step 2: Doug plays "Disco Duck".
Result: Mara turns into a duck (because of Doug's magic) and is forced to dance (because of her compulsion).
Second-order result 1: Doug goes "what the...?"
Second-order result 2: Paradox and Megumi finally agree on something - Mara got what she deserved.
Second-order result 3: A passing anime director sees the dancing duck and a few years later creates "Princess Tutu".
Okay, maybe not that last one...

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. What's a cubit?
-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow

[zojojojo]

[/quote]Actually, that last bit, where she seemed to want to reach out toward the Norns, came together in my mind with Skuld's remark to Megumi about a fourth member of their group (Another Norn? Another sister?) who was "lost" a long time ago. I distrust certainty, but I've developed a really strong suspicion about this one. [/quote]
Hints have been dropped in other places on this board (Eva Step?) regarding the outcome of this little segment, and Doug's role therein...
-Z, Post-reader at Medium
----
If architects built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
-Z, Post-reader at Medium
----
If architects built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

[ordnance11]

If you consider NASA's definition of the earth's athmosphere ending at 60 miles, and Doug reached it in 50 seconds...that's about 4320 mph..*whistles* That's hypersonic velocity..Mach 6! I'm surprised civilian or military radar didn't pick Doug up...unless his field spoofs radar.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[WengFook]

hmm maybe Doug is too small for the radar to pick up? _______________________________
We're definitely playing this game wrong. I thought Vampire was supposed to be a game of personal horror, not about ninja airstrikes
at night.
- A friend after playing a session of Dark Ages Vampire.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. THERE IS ONLY WAR!
-Same friend.
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[robkelk]

No such thing, at that velocity...

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Norgarth]

Actually, I was thinking that the fourth sister might be Wetter Hex.
btw Bob? your comment had me LOL. My brother and I used to have that Cosby skit memorized (as well as several others, our dad had some of his old standup albums.)
How long can you tread water? 8)__________________
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live. - George Carlin.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[Vulpis]

Hidey Ho. Been reading the Walk for while, and finally decided to sign up on the forum to comment on it (as opposed to ending up dumping more e-mail in Bob's inbox like I did with my comment on the similarity between Doug's motorcycle designs and MASK...)
First off, I'm curious--is Doug going to be fated to make at least one knee-jerk reaction that he really should be smacked in the head for in *every* universe he visits? Granted, the issue has been pushed mostly to the side by the problem with Mara right now, but his reaction to how Chris and family were dealing with Megumi's new advanced-TL knowledge just seemed...wrong to me, given Doug's background.
1) While it's doubtful that he's dealt with it under the 'Prime Directive' name, I'd have thought the Warriors/UN would have *some* rules about not letting the mad-scientist uber-tech being released willy-nilly to the masses (if nothing else, someone, probably Skuld, should make a rather pointed comment about how the grav-drive that sparked off this situation started out as a *weapon* itself...)
2) I'm not sure how to look at his reaction to Megumi being 'pressed into service', especially with the 'Soldier' thing..on the one hand, he could be equating it with Arcane's virus (in particular, the concerns about free will)...but on the other hand--in a way she's being offered a chance to join up with the local equivilent of the Warriors. ;-)
On a tangent...doesn't Doug still wear his wedding ring around his neck? I'd have thought Mara would have picked up that...
And on a *different* tangent...I know you're never going to release the Valdemar story, but as a Lackey fan myself, I *have* to wonder what time period it was set in--mainly because I can't exactly see Doug's views on deities surviving too well in that environment. I mean he was hanging out with *Alberich*--and that poor guy hasn't just brushed with deity, he's had his nose rubbed in it. ;-) Not to mention the Companions themselves and *their* little secrets, given how well Doug's magesight picks up these things...

And back to the original comment a bit--it is kind of a shame Doug didn't pick up on the 'Prime Directive' aspect and end up going into a righteous fury frothing about them acting superior and treating mortals like children, finishing up with something along the lines of 'And who up and elected *you* God to make decisions like this for humanity?!?'....followed by a beat of silence...followed by Chris pointing at Skuld, Belldandy pointing upwards, Urd facepalming, Keiichi looking confused and going 'Ummm...', Megumi having a 'I can't believe he just said that' expression...and finishing up with Skuld whacking him (lightly) in the head with the Mallet and a comment of 'Idiot.' (Possibly followed by Doug, muffled by his head being One With The Floor, commenting, "Okay, poor choice of words...") ;-)
And on yet another tangent (I tend to move in non-Euclidian directions anyway)...I thought Peorth *was* the fourth?

[ECSNorway]

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1) While it's doubtful that he's dealt with it under the 'Prime Directive' name, I'd have thought the Warriors/UN would have *some* rules about not letting the mad-scientist uber-tech being released willy-nilly to the masses (if nothing else, someone, probably Skuld, should make a rather pointed comment about how the grav-drive that sparked off this situation started out as a *weapon* itself...)

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Except that in Doug's world, the grav tech was released to the masses. So he doesn't see any trouble with it.--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[robkelk]

G'day, Vulpis! I'm sure Bob will be along shortly to roll out the red carpet, so I'll just say "Welcome to the forums".

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On a tangent...doesn't Doug still wear his wedding ring around his neck? I'd have thought Mara would have picked up that...

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He does, but he wears it under his armour, or jacket, or whatever's covering his chest. He said in DW II that it's to keep the ring safe during battles, but I can't help but think there's a bit of "keeping Maggie closer to his heart" as well, whether or not he realizes it.
Besides, Mara sent Sembei to do her scouting. Sembei's a poverty demon, and thus can be expected to be a ****-up...

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Florin]

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That's hypersonic velocity..Mach 6! I'm surprised civilian or military radar didn't pick Doug up...unless his field spoofs radar.

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It's mentioned a couple of times in DW2 that his field messes with most forms of active scanning, and that he has the radar return of a sparrow (and that's when he was standing next to the sabers, not moving).
And when he uses Pioneer against the Superboomer, it's mentioned it's completly reactionless flight, no exhaust of any kind, not even heat.--
"There are crazed martial artists out there looking to improve their skills and find inner peace through exterior violence!"
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 

[itsune9tl]

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It's mentioned a couple of times in DW2 that his field messes with most forms of active scanning, and that he has the radar return of a sparrow (and that's when he was standing next to the sabers, not moving).

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I could just see Doug walking past a port security scanner, like the one in the movie Total Recall, then being made to walk past it multiple time as it shows a different image of him every single time.

[DHBirr]

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And on yet another tangent (I tend to move in non-Euclidian directions anyway)...I thought Peorth *was* the fourth?

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Peorth was the fourth goddess to show up in K1's life, but I don't believe there was any special connection to Urd, Bell, and Skuld. For that matter, when Mara mutated rats into chibi ninja, one of them, while trying to hypnotize Keiichi into a "compromising position," claimed to be "the fourth goddess." (This was something close to twenty issues before Peorth's first appearance.)
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Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

[Bob Schroeck]

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If you consider NASA's definition of the earth's athmosphere ending at 60 miles, and Doug reached it in 50 seconds...that's about 4320 mph..*whistles* That's hypersonic velocity..Mach 6! I'm surprised civilian or military radar didn't pick Doug up...unless his field spoofs radar.

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May I direct you to the Concordance?

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The Karman Line, considered to be the boundary beyond which is officially "outer space," is 100 kilometers or approximately 58 miles. At Mach 6 (about 4566 miles per hour and Doug's top atmospheric speed using "I Am A Pioneer", as seen in Chapter Six of DW2), Doug can reach the Karman Line in a hair under 46 seconds.

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So, yes, your math was quite correct.

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hmm maybe Doug is too small for the radar to pick up?

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Not exactly. His field deflects and reroutes radar around him; about the only thing that can consistantly track him, as Nene discovers in DW2, is LADAR (laser "radar") or anything else that uses purely optical frequencies. As far as radar is concerned, though, Sylia characterizes him as having "the radar silhouette of a sparrow" -- see DW2 Chapter 5.
(And now that I finish typing all that in, I see that Florin has already said it all. What the hell, I'll post it for the xrefs.)
-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow

[Bob Schroeck]

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btw Bob? your comment had me LOL. My brother and I used to have that Cosby skit memorized

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Thanks. I'm glad to see we're not the only ones who did that. Do you use it as a stock exclamation of disbelief, as we do around here?
-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow

[Bob Schroeck]

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Hidey Ho. Been reading the Walk for while, and finally decided to sign up on the forum to comment on it

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Hey Vulpis, welcome to the forums! (Now I just have to figure out who the other person is who signed up over the weekend...)

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First off, I'm curious--is Doug going to be fated to make at least one knee-jerk reaction that he really should be smacked in the head for in *every* universe he visits?

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No, he's going to get better. Slowly. As you note, a lot of his hot-button prejudices are getting triggered here. But I think you can all see that those prejudices are going to get severely eroded by the time he leaves...

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While it's doubtful that he's dealt with it under the 'Prime Directive' name, I'd have thought the Warriors/UN would have *some* rules about not letting the mad-scientist uber-tech being released willy-nilly to the masses

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Willy-nilly? No... Released? Yes -- but via consumer products, not just dumped into the market, and then only after the original weapon/gadge/whatever has been thoroughly analyzed. From Doug's point of view, he's teaching her a useful tech skill -- the equivalent of seat-of-the-pants engine repair and hotrodding.

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I'm not sure how to look at his reaction to Megumi being 'pressed into service', especially with the 'Soldier' thing..on the one hand, he could be equating it with Arcane's virus (in particular, the concerns about free will)...but on the other hand--in a way she's being offered a chance to join up with the local equivilent of the Warriors. ;-)

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That's a way of looking at it that I hadn't thought of. Doug's entire issue with this is concern about free will. Megumi essentially has no choice -- she either swears herself to Skuld, or gets mindwiped (or worse). And from his point of view, the former without the meaningful choice to do so is slavery, and the latter is an abomination (memory is identiry -- mess with it, and you mess with a person's own sense of self).

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On a tangent...doesn't Doug still wear his wedding ring around his neck? I'd have thought Mara would have picked up that...

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He does, but not out in the open like a pendant. It's under his shirt, nearest his heart. When he's wearing his polykev -- which he hasn't been before now -- it's under that, too. Mara may have picked up on the chain, but in her arrogance, she didn't bother to consider that anything other than some kind of pendant would be on it, if anything at all.

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but as a Lackey fan myself, I *have* to wonder what time period it was set in

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That's explicitly answered on the DW FAQ page: He arrives sometime between Talia's rescue and her marriage at the end of Arrow's Fall, and leaves about two years later, well before Kerowyn shows up.

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Not to mention the Companions themselves and *their* little secrets, given how well Doug's magesight picks up these things...

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Well... that was all planned before I decided Doug could detect divinity with his magesight, because it made some plotting problems go away... Not that I'm sure he's perceive most Companions as Celestials, anyway -- that's one I've never had to think over. Groveborns, yes, definitely. But the others? Probably not. Maybe. I think.

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(Possibly followed by Doug, muffled by his head being One With The Floor, commenting, "Okay, poor choice of words...") ;-)

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Now where the hell were you when we were planning out stuff? We could have used that!
-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow

[Vulpis]

*falls over laughing* Sorry...I have enough logins to keep track of to begin with, so I tend to be reluctant to join forums. And besides, the idea of Doug losing his temper and using the 'Who went and made *you* God?' line while forgetting he's in a room full of Celestials just seems so...well, obvious, at least to me. ;-) Especially since one of them has a *definite* answer on who made him one...
In any case, glad to see you're active on this again, with or without my input. Given the huuuge break in you updating the side, I had been wondering if you'd done like Kenko and either dropped off the planet (or at the very least fallen into the Pool of Drowned Salaryman)...
(And as a side note, I'm especially glad to see the last Step you added to the listing--one worry I had was that you were going to pull a Quantum Leap...I *hate* how they ended that series. Good to see that not only will Doug *eventually* get home..but he'll learn the *true* lesson of this whole thing, and go a-Warrioring with a rather wider jurisdiction. ;-) )

[Bob Schroeck]

Oh, he was always going to get home -- I suppose it's no spoiler to say that; the suspense comes in how.
No, I'm very alive and active -- as my irregular participation in the various shared world settings spawned here proves.
As for using your scene... well, things are, I think, a bit too far along now. If the next chapter goes as I expect (and doesn't metastasize and need to be split in two), the plot will be coming to a head. In fact, if things go as I expect, there should only be two more chapters after this point.
-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow

[Vulpis]

Only two? Yeef--short story, compared to the BGC step.

[Bob Schroeck]

Well, I thought DW2 was going to be only about 8 chapters long when I started...
But the Doug-Mara meeting catapults the story toward the peak of its arc.
-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow

[robkelk]

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In fact, if things go as I expect, there should only be two more chapters after this point.

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Eep! Guess I'd better get a few more paragraphs of BSBW out of my head and onto the hard drive, then - I can't see DW VI being much longer than DW V, so the deadline for BSBW is fast-approaching...

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

I can't really get a good sense of how long DW6 is going to be, Rob. My development notes total 218 KB, and the incomplete first chapter is 50 KB, though. I think it's going to be notably bigger than DW5.
-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow

[Vulpis]

*laughs evilly* I was just checking the new posts here and in the power-songs thread, and had an eeeeeevil thought for a storylet, either as a Stagger or some other form of 'aftermath' to DWV....
Basically, poor Doug gets his hands on the soundtrack to Rock and Rule (preferably *not* having seen the movie), and gets to 'What Will the Signal Be?' by Debbie Harry (not sure if that's the real song title or not). Sounds like it should be a communication song of some sort, right?
Wrong...he plays it and gets...Mara, clad in nothing but strategically placed soap suds. Apparently, she's been summoned out of the shower. She screams (mainly from surprise), Doug panics, and chaos ensues. Fortunately, he eventually figures out the reprise version sends her back...though he does wonder why he has this vague feeling she should have been wearing a genie outfit... ;-)

(Edit: Hmmm. Hopefully you know what Rock and Rule is, as well as that particular song's placement in the movie, otherwise this is going to make *no* sense...)

[Bob Schroeck]

Wait until the end of DW5 to write that, okay? Just so you know what to do to keep continuity.
-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow

[robkelk]

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I can't really get a good sense of how long DW6 is going to be, Rob. My development notes total 218 KB, and the incomplete first chapter is 50 KB, though. I think it's going to be notably bigger than DW5.

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Ah, good - that gives me a few more days than I thought/dreaded I had...

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012