Meta-song that could be a disaster...or a munchkin-maker

[Scrambler]

It's been bugging me for a long time, but how would Doug's metatalent interpret "the song that never ends"? One idea is that the next song he plays, he gets stuck with that power for 24 hours, unable to access any other ones. Obviously, the most sinister version would cause a permanent lock-up on his metagift.

[Bob Schroeck]

You know, that's the second reference to that song I've seen on the boards in the last week, and I honestly have never heard of it. Time to reinstall KaZaA and look for it.


-- Bob
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There is no spork.

[Kokuten]

"This is the song that never ends
"It just goes on and on my friends
"Some people, started singing it
"Not knowing what it was
"And now they'll be singing it forever just because
"This is the song that never ends
"It just goes on and on my friends
"Some people, started singing it
"Not knowing what it was
"And now they'll be singing it forever just because
"This is the song that never ends
"It just goes on and on my friends
"Some people, started singing it
"Not knowing what it was
"And now they'll be singing it forever just because
"This is the song that never ends
"It just goes on and on my friends
"Some people, started singing it
"Not knowing what it was
"And now they'll be singing it forever just because
"This is the song that never ends
"It just goes on and on my friends
"Some people, started singing it
"Not knowing what it was
"And now they'll be singing it forever just because
"This is the song that never ends
"It just goes on and on my friends
"Some people, started singing it
"Not knowing what it was
"And now they'll be singing it forever just because
"This is the song that never ends
"It just goes on and on my friends
"Some people, started singing it
"Not knowing what it was
"And now they'll be singing it forever just because

get the idea?
--- Kokuten Daysleeper, Retired Epicced Officered DorfWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Bob Schroeck]

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get the idea?

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Oh, I got the idea from the title. I was just curious as to exactly how annoying it was.


-- Bob
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There is no spork.

[WengFook]

hmmm i wonder... if you used that song as an ability to lock down doug's power..... what doug could use it for is to play it in conjunction with the song that turns the effects around and lock down the ENEmies' power instead. o.o
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[Scrambler]

Well, Bob? What's the answer? What would the song do? ^_^

[Bob Schroeck]

Read the FAQ. When I finish it. Since someone submitted this very question for the FAQ...


-- Bob
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There is no spork.

[Xenoproctologist]

Area effect: Compulsion to sing "The Song that Never Ends". Has additional contagion effect causing everyone in hearing range of those so compelled to be themselves compelled to sing. Good for crippling volatile sociopolitical demonstrations or annoying boy-band pop concerts. (An entire stadium of teeny-boppers, fifty-thousand-plus strong, singing in glorious unison...yesss, my precious....)
I can't help but think Doug would enjoy aborting an impending mob-rule riot by inserting himself into the middle of the crowd and making them sing repetitively until they all decide to screw it and go home.

[Bob Schroeck]

I like!


-- Bob
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There is no spork.

[The Wanderer]

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I can't help but think Doug would enjoy aborting an impending mob-rule riot by inserting himself into the middle of the crowd and making them sing repetitively until they all decide to screw it and go home.

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Question is, how does *Doug* stop the song, and hence the effect? If the version he has repeats only a limited number of times and then stops, that's fine, but then your suggestion of making the crowd sing it interminably would have a very finite limit in time... and if his copy *doesn't* end, by way of any of a number of looping techniques which are I think even now technically feasible, then he's likely to be stuck with the thing permanently as per the original suggestion. (Unless he can terminate the effect just by turning off the song - in which case he'd better have a way of doing it nonverbally, because *he*'d be singing the thing too and hence wouldn't be able to speak the "stop" command.)

[Guest]

His helmet does have a small keyboard.

[Bob Schroeck]

Yes -- the keyboard can be used to shut down a song. Doug has multiply-redundant control features in the helmet which I have not had reason yet to enumerate in the story. Most of these came about because various villains figured out one way or another to "hack" his power to their benefit.


-- Bob
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There is no spork.

[Skitz Warriors Alpha]

Bob Wrote:
B> Yes -- the keyboard can be used to shut down a song.
B> Doug has multiply-redundant control features in the helmet
B> which I have not had reason yet to enumerate in the
B> story. Most of these came about because various villains
B> figured out one way or another to "hack" his power to
B> their benefit.
Was that the time the villains figure out that very loud symphonic music woul essentially nullify you? IIRC you had your helmet specially soundproofed for just that occasion.
This happened in response to The Castle (Warriors Beta's Tokyo base) getting overrun by bad guys and successfully hacking the main computer, producing a black market book: "how to defeat the warriors" which detailed the team members weaknesses as known at that time. It didn't blow most people secret identities since those few who care are sufficiently paranoid not to put that information *anywhere*.
I forget, did Doug's secret ID get outed at that time?

Skitz

[Bob Schroeck]

That was one of the times, yeah. There was also the time Arcanum sent the customized assassins after us -- when Doug's childhood friend was borged and hit him with a sensory-deprivation attack? That's one Doug still hasn't worked out a counter to, not after the GM (whoever it was at the time) disallowed a telepathic link to someone else's working ears...

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I forget, did Doug's secret ID get outed at that time?

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Doug never kept a real secret ID. Any reporter who bothered to do a little digging could find out who he was; he didn't particularly care. I really don't remember if the book outed him or not, pretty much for that reason -- it wasn't an issue for either him or me.


-- Bob
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There is no spork.