More commentary on the commentary on the commentary...
Although, if they'd let Batman take over the tactics and planning, they'd be scary!
Seriously, though, the scales are so intensely out of proportion, I don't know if even Hexe could take on some of the more powerful or weird Angels. Silverbolt may be powerful, but she'd just get swatted by a majority of the Angels. The whole A-T field thing is another factor. Could Hexe generate one?
(Snip discussion of Lisa's memories and reasoning behind that element. You covered that completely to my satisfaction.)
This actually makes more sense in a way than Eyrie Productions Undocumented Features universe. There it seems that (unless I'm missing something) the Norse Pantheon is the one that's made a real comeback, but no one else. The Norse haven't been actively worshipped in centuries, and now they're manifesting? What gives?
This is fun for the story as long as we keep to the cardinal rule "don't examine this too closely", but it does make me wonder from time to time, what the heck is up with all the other pantheons, not to mention the Judeo-Chistian mythos? (That last would get into some potentially dangerous territory if not for the cardinal rule above.)
I mean, I see Belldandy, as she's presented in AMG, as her own entity, not an avatar or filter. Your method of presenting things so far makes me wonder what, in your version of AMG, she really is. And who she is, as well. I mean, Belldandy really loves Keiichi with all her heart. Does that apply to her other aspects as well? And if not, and Keichi really understood what Belldandy was in these terms, what would it mean for their relationship?
And then we get into some really wild territory in Evangelion. I'm beginning to think this subject deserves an entire seperate post! ^_^
Not complaining at all. Just intensely curious as to how it all is going to fit together. The closer you look at this subject, the more metaphysical it gets. Which, I guess natural, really. ^_^
Concerning the dressing down by Hexe and her short visit with Lisa -
I thought that was well handled, like the rest of the story. I thought Hexe came off as sympathetic even with all her haughtiness intact. It's like it's an integral part of her personality, but not the crucial part. And she definately shows plenty of empathy with Doug and his situation. That she promises to tell Maggie what's happened to him speaks well of her. Not just the fact that she would do it, which is more of a given. But that she wants to do it and offer as much comfort for both of them as she can. She's not cold at all, despite her snootiness. She still has to get in her digs, but it's more as an "older sister" type thing.
This is of course reinforced by her show of protectiveness towards him that is shown when she tells off the triune.
The more I think of the way her personality comes off, the more I think of her as embodying prominent aspects of the goddess Athena. If that isn't who she is at least in part, I'd be really really surprised.
Whew! Man this got long! Need sleep before work tonight... Later, dude!
-Logan
Quote:Although I do hope to someday meet you in person, I think I'll just go ahead and pass on having my fingers bent around creatively by your friends. ^.^;;
Well, maybe you can come by one night and we'll have Helen's husband Attila demonstrate all those moves on you the way he demonstrated them on me. Along with an injured finger, I got a rather comprehensively kinesthetic sense of the action between the two.
Quote:Well, I think what makes for the equalizing factor is the training and attitude involved. The JLA really aren't specifically created to work together as a unit. They do have professional warriors and such on their team - Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern - but none of them have the attitude of soldiers. They're an adventurer's club with the attitude of policemen, if they even think that officially about it. They get by often more on raw power than tactics.
I think you're overpraising us there, but we definitely have fielded individual JLA-level talents.
Although, if they'd let Batman take over the tactics and planning, they'd be scary!
Quote:Darn... I don't know what to say about that. I'm not sure what kind of reassurances they'd be wanting. You've put Doug up for view, and now have portrayed the Warriors (some of them) in fiction. All the rights issues have been seen to, I assume, so I'm not sure what the problem would be. I can assure you Peg and the others that I wouldn't use the characters without permission. Like I said, I'm just interested in crunching numbers and maybe doing conversions. That and going "Oooh! Ahh!" ^_^
To tell you the truth, Peggy's hesitant about sharing her characters. And the others, well, I sent them emails pointing them to this review, but none of them have gotten back to me yet.
(Snip)
There have been other short stories featuring Warriors, but their authors are not so stupid as I to go and put them up where other people can see them.
Quote:Oh believe me, I remember about that. My friend Mark and I, back when we played V&V, had to throw out a couple of very odd random sets of powers before we got to some that we liked.
I just want to mention that making those concepts work is harder than you might think -- V&V is a random-generation system, and a player has a major challenge on his hands assembling a reasonable theme for a character with a bunch of apparently unrelated powers... (V&V is also an explicitly self-insert game -- the rules require that your first character be you with powers!)
Quote:(Nods) Yes, I have a couple of characters like that. One is a Traveller character first created back in 1982 (Imperial Interstellar Scout Logan Darklighter - and now you know where I got my pseudonym ^_^) and a Champions character named Lora Doubet. She's gone through a couple of different incarnations now. Started off as a superhero, and I may yet play that version of her again someday. But currently, I think of her as much more comfortable in a cyberpunk themed milieu.
Above and beyond that, though, I think what you're reacting to is the fact that these characters all have 15 years or so of living history behind them, informing all their actions and dialogue even when it isn't really "visible" onscreen. They've lived, grown, faced challenges both personal and global, experienced success, experienced failure, gain, loss, and in some cases grew from teenager to mature adult over that span. There's a weight to that and it'd be impossible for me not to write them without that influence.
Quote:Well, I think we got a taste of that from one of your previews, I think. ^_^
And at the moment the plots for the other Steps don't have too much call for simulacra (Doug takes Hexe's warning to heart, too). However... can you imagine the reaction of Gendo Ikari and the Central Dogma Bridge Bunnies to a manifestation of Hexe or Silverbolt taking on an Angel?
Seriously, though, the scales are so intensely out of proportion, I don't know if even Hexe could take on some of the more powerful or weird Angels. Silverbolt may be powerful, but she'd just get swatted by a majority of the Angels. The whole A-T field thing is another factor. Could Hexe generate one?
Quote:Jim Carrey as the Riddler to Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face in Batman Forever, right after Batman crashes through the skylight at the gala and beats on a few of Two-Face's thugs. Not a good movie. But something of a guilty pleasure for me. It had it's moments. And Jim Carrey's over the top obnoxiousness was perfect for the Riddler IMHO. And, bad as it is, at least it's not Batman and Robin. (SHUDDER) That's nearly two hours of my life I'm never getting back... Joel Shumacher has yet to pay the price he so richly deserves for utterly destroying that franchise...
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"Your entrance was good, his was better. The difference? Showmanship!"
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I know that's a quote from something, but what? I can't place it.
Quote:Sounds like a smart man, and very very dangerous.
Arcanum, the campaign's central big bad for many many years, once harassed the Warriors by publishing a book of tactics that could be used against them; the number one rule in there for anyone going into combat against us was "Take down Looney Toons, fast and hard". Because you never know what he's going to come up with to screw up your plans.
(Snip discussion of Lisa's memories and reasoning behind that element. You covered that completely to my satisfaction.)
Quote:That's a good point. She didn't have to retreat very far, either. Just outside of melee range and open up a few times with her blasters. Or heck, she's go knucklebombers of her own, you know. Whether they are the contact laser variety from BGC or the actual knucklebombers that were added to the suit for Crash. Perhaps a line could have been added to the effect that Sylia _tried_ to open it up a little, but was being pressed too much by Hexe? A little late for that now, unless you want to Stalinize it. If it makes you feel any better, I got the sense that Sylia was being pressed and was off balance mentally anyway.
You're probably right. As it is, I certainly had the Sabers fighting below par; they could have done even better. Case in point: Dave Menard sent me an email last night which pointed out that Sylia -- once she realized that melee wasn't doing the job -- should have retreated to a distance and opened up with her lasers. He's right. Of course, there's nowhere on the face of the planet that she could retreat to for sniping that Hexe couldn't get to at almost the same moment, but that's irrelevant. I wrote Sylia as less intelligent than she should have been.
Quote:Oh ho! I wonder what your next GM is going to say to that? ^_^ I wonder what would happen if he manifested a couple of them while the real ones are actually still there and present? Imagine having two of Silverbolt or Hexe running around (for approx. 5 minutes anyway). The mind boggles...
Fairly early on I decided I wanted to let people see a little of the other Warriors, and the simulacra evolved as a way to do that. (No, he didn't have any Warriors simulacra songs in-game before that. He does now.
Quote:I think I'm going to save that line and put it in my quote file. ^_^
I mean, really... Warriors' World is really liberal about non-human sentients -- if the forgotten stuff in the back of your fridge moves, it has a decent chance of getting provisional citizenship and basic rights.
Quote:Yes, that all makes perfect sense.
Of course Doug will have a problem with the BGC world, and its heroic enforcers.) And I knew he'd have to face off against them somehow, if only for the symbolic value. I also knew that against the Sabers in a stand-up fight, Doug would quickly end up lying down. In a pool of blood. Well, at that point, it all came together. As Nene's arc developed, I threaded that into the fight as well. And from there it just sort of fell together while at the same growing. Thus it is that we now have chapter 12. Does that make any sense?
Quote:Huh. How about that? That's almost exactly Lora Doubet's lifting capacity as well. She can lift 12.5 tons without straining herself or her systems.
Quote:
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Just how strong is Silverbolt anyway?
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Peggy confirmed that I was in the right ballpark. Silverbolt's carry capacity is approximately 25,500 pounds, or 12.75 tons.
Quote:Humorously specific -- Yeah, if I were to make a V&V character based on myself as I am today and kept the exact same STR score from my first V&V character, "I'd" be able to lift a lot more. And that's all I need say about that. ^^;;
(V&V carry capacity is a calculated quantity that can often be humorously specific: "I can lift 3,427.15 lbs, and no more!" Just to be pedantic, it's ((Strength / 10)^3 + (Endurance / 10)) * (body weight / 2) So basically, a 200-pound character with ST 10 can lift more than a 100-lb character with the same ST, all else being equal.)
Quote:Because she had more to sample from in the case of the latter, of course, since Maggie was broadcasting that constantly.
No, not 100%, at least against the sonic attack; she was able to overwhelm Maggie's sonar at least briefly, though, which helped Nene get the drop on her.
Quote:(Edit - Going off topic here for the next few paragraphs, sorry!)
Helen has specifically asked that I not say what is known in-game. So the initial, joke answer is, "I'm sorry, Citizen, that information is not available at your security clearance."
More seriously, though, see what Hexe says a moment later -- "The gods all have many faces and names." And remember that the Three are all the Triune goddesses -- not just UK&B, but also the Furies, also the Greek Fates, also the Wiccan Goddess, also Brigit/Maebh/Morrigan, etc. etc. et nauseum cetera. Think of the pantheons as "filters" fitted over the divine reality to make it easier for mortals to get a handle on them.
This actually makes more sense in a way than Eyrie Productions Undocumented Features universe. There it seems that (unless I'm missing something) the Norse Pantheon is the one that's made a real comeback, but no one else. The Norse haven't been actively worshipped in centuries, and now they're manifesting? What gives?
This is fun for the story as long as we keep to the cardinal rule "don't examine this too closely", but it does make me wonder from time to time, what the heck is up with all the other pantheons, not to mention the Judeo-Chistian mythos? (That last would get into some potentially dangerous territory if not for the cardinal rule above.)
I mean, I see Belldandy, as she's presented in AMG, as her own entity, not an avatar or filter. Your method of presenting things so far makes me wonder what, in your version of AMG, she really is. And who she is, as well. I mean, Belldandy really loves Keiichi with all her heart. Does that apply to her other aspects as well? And if not, and Keichi really understood what Belldandy was in these terms, what would it mean for their relationship?
And then we get into some really wild territory in Evangelion. I'm beginning to think this subject deserves an entire seperate post! ^_^
Not complaining at all. Just intensely curious as to how it all is going to fit together. The closer you look at this subject, the more metaphysical it gets. Which, I guess natural, really. ^_^
Quote:I'm sure you'll work it all out. ^_^
Then again, we know from another chapter that they deliberately arranged for Doug to come to the BGC world, and they have a vested interest in watching his performance. Also, is it not the occupation of gods everywhere to watch the antics of mortals and laugh at them?
I'll figure out what I really want eventually, I'm sure.
Quote:Yeah, strangely enough. Doug is an actual superhero who thinks of himself more as a soldier. Nene is a mercenary(soldier) who thinks of herself as more of a superhero. The irony there is pretty intense.
Doug comes from outside of that frame, with what is to her an utterly alien set of axioms that fit her world as well as her own, and as is noted elsewhere in this thread, she reacts badly to having her nice neat definition of the world ruptured and expanded. What makes it worse for her is that if she's wrong, she's been actively evil by her own morality. She hasn't, mind you -- she's a small-w warrior, fighting a war to protect those who can't protect themselves -- something that Doug has yet to realize, because he, too, is limited by his preconceptions. Doug's definition of the Sabers as "slavehunters" is as uncomplicated and incorrect as Nene's definition of them as "shining heroes"; the truth is somewhere in between, and it's doubtful Doug will have the time to realize that.[/quote
Are you sure about that? I'd be somewhat dissapointed if Doug couldn't realize some of the grey nature of the Knight Sabers and their conflict before he left the BGC universe. He's certainly intelligent enough.
Quote:
she is not a murderer because she was acting in the defense of herself, her friends, and the people of the city. She has to make the mental transition from thinking of herself as a "hero" to thinking of herself as a "soldier". Which, weirdly enough, is the distinction between the JLA and the Warriors, as you'v
Quote:That's great, but she has a mask on over her "eyes", so wouldn't that interfere? Or is this another case of "Don't examine this too closely"? ^_^
It is, in fact, part of the reception system for her sonar. "Fur" is a misnomer, but Nene's in no position to make accurate observations at the moment; they're very, very fine hairs that function relative to sound much like a cat's whiskers. They handle almost all of the passive aspect of her sonar, as well as some of the active.
Concerning the dressing down by Hexe and her short visit with Lisa -
I thought that was well handled, like the rest of the story. I thought Hexe came off as sympathetic even with all her haughtiness intact. It's like it's an integral part of her personality, but not the crucial part. And she definately shows plenty of empathy with Doug and his situation. That she promises to tell Maggie what's happened to him speaks well of her. Not just the fact that she would do it, which is more of a given. But that she wants to do it and offer as much comfort for both of them as she can. She's not cold at all, despite her snootiness. She still has to get in her digs, but it's more as an "older sister" type thing.
This is of course reinforced by her show of protectiveness towards him that is shown when she tells off the triune.
The more I think of the way her personality comes off, the more I think of her as embodying prominent aspects of the goddess Athena. If that isn't who she is at least in part, I'd be really really surprised.
Whew! Man this got long! Need sleep before work tonight... Later, dude!
-Logan