Quote:M Fnord wrote:Heh. I guess you'd have to live here. There's also MegaLos Angeles and MegaSeattle (but they get REALLY mad if you call Seattle a Megacity). I think there's one or two dozen other MegaCities out there. We're just dealing with Denver. It's Gummi's Hero supers world. We've done some GURPS in it. But, for GURPS we usually do my SSD or one of its satellite worlds.
Mega... Denver.
(does not compute.jpg)
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A Twisted (?) Idea.
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  Quote:Heh. I guess you'd have to live here. Man, I do live here. I'm a Denver native, lived here all my life. I honestly can't think of a city less suited for megafying anywhere in the United States(*). I mean, this is the city that threw out the Olympics, for chrissakes! Not that my beloved hometown is bereft of weird, of course; we've got demonic horses guarding the [strike]MJ-12/NWO command post[/strike] airport, and weird & occulty public art pretty much everywhere. But MegaDenver? I can't see it. (*) Except maybe Bangor. Still don't know what G was thinking there. Don't think G knows, either. Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information "I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!" M Fnord Wrote:"Woah!" Sent you a PM.Quote:Heh. I guess you'd have to live here.Man, I do live here. I don't know what Gummi was thinking, but, we've had some issues with it (like dredging the Colorado out so they could have docks. We have the train depot, that's better!). But, Gummi's from San Diego, originally. He's a great GM. But, as it's a long-term, persistent world, it's one that I use as an example.  Mark Skarr Wrote:So, Rose’s first priority would be to keep it from infesting any of her companions (she’s plenty powerful enough to keep it from infesting her.) Followed immediately by keeping it in its own universe. The stuff is unpredictable enough in Fenspace, it could be downright lethal in other realities. Oh, dear. Perhaps we shouldn't tell her that http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?titl ... e_Universe]Noah gave Doug Sangnoir a liter of the stuff just before he left... that would only worry the poor girl. -- 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 
We've already established, in one way or another, that Handwavium works the same regardless of where it is -- the http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?title=Gernsback-2]Infinite Worlds write-up makes it clear that it works just fine (or at least is believed to) in the Infinity homeline. And for my purposes it works as advertised in whichever world Doug chooses to use it.
-- Bob --------- Then the horns kicked in... ...and my shoes began to squeak. 
Yes, but I can certainly understand Rose's caution about it anyway. It all depends on exactly which set of universes you've been through, and what you've already attempted to bring across the barriers.
-- "You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor Quote:[b]robkelk wrote:[/b]That's okay. She'll just have to go get it from him presuming any of it survives his walk (this Rose can't meet Doug until after the walk--she would take him home and deal with the cosequences at her own level--doesn't make for a good story. However, once the walk is complete, she can go back and interact with him, so long as, to her, the walk is complete and she doesn't change the walk's outcome. That's not to say that she can't give him knowledge that he already shows at the end of the walk, so she could go give him clues about what he needs to do, or give him items he'll need). She has plenty of reasons to talk to him. This just adds another one. And, it may work fine in many worlds. It may not work at all in others (the world doesn't allow itself to be rewritten in ways it does not approve of). It may work as advertised normally, but there may be things in the universe that interacting with would be BAD or it is incapable of interacting with. But, that's not a chance Rose can take. She has a lot of worlds she's been asked to look out for, and this is a potentially dangerous object. Keeping it out of the multiverse is the best bet. Situations like this are, actually, why I don't deal with fanfiction much: too many potential paradoxes. What has priority and why? For me, the world in which the story is set has priority, everything else must conform. If I pull Lina Inverse into a world with no magic, she doesn't have magic and has to deal with things normally. In the world of the PAC warriors, PAC Armor is the ultimate protection and can only be penetrated by a PAC Cannon. No other weapon is capable of doing it, and nothing short of mutliple layers of PAC Armor can stop a PAC round. But, if a PAC Warrior leaves his world, he is subject to that world's rules and his armor may not be the ultimate form of protection and his weapons may not be the last word in threat elimination. The actual behavior of Handwavium is irrelevant. What is relevant is the perception of what it could do. MonkeyFist's first thought, upon reading about Handwavium was "don't get any of that near Iron Heart, he'd corrupt it in moments and take over the world." That's because he knows how the SSD world works and understands it at a fundamental level (it's our shared supers world). He knows that there is nothing, in the world, preventing the corruption and Iron Heart is a master corruptor (Iron Heart was able to corrupt a fraction of the Great Will of the Cosmos). Whether or not Iron Heart could corrupt Handwavium is irrelevant. The simple threat that he might be able to is sufficient cause to keep it away. 
It's like fanfic Akane Tendo versus Canon Akane. Canon Akane is a temperamental lead in a slapstick romance. Take her actions literally into another genre, like, say, teen drama, from ignorance or lack of skill and you get an abusive monster in human form with LOTS of rage issues.
Kind of like Admiral Tigerclaw's "grit levels" in "Sleeping with the Girls." His protagonist gets stuck in the "no plan EVER works" rule of reality in Love Hina and falls afoul of Tenchi Muyo! comedy of romantic misunderstandings rule. ''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.'' -- James Nicoll
On the flip side, there are certain rules that apply in all universes where humans live. (If they didn't, then humans wouldn't be able to live in them.)
Does handwavium apply as a relative rule or an absolute rule? Mark is suggesting the former, Bob (and I) appear to prefer the latter... -- 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
This is why I use a word processor to type responses. My mobile broadband konked out the moment I
told it to post, and I lost my post. But: Foxboy has pretty much hit it on the head. The world dictates which actions are valid or invalid within it, not the characters. More to the point: characters will view a world through the lens of their homeworld (or, multiple worlds, in Rose’s case). To the Fen, Handwavium is an incredibly useful, if unpredictable, tool. Mildly annoying, but more useful than anything else. To Rose, it’s a terrifyingly-potent reality-altering substance. It’s a capricious, unpredictable, god-in-a-can. And in Warhammer 40,000, Rogue Trader those same Fen would be answering some very unpleasant questions to a very unpleasant Inquisitor. Yet the Fen would be gob smacked by Holly “Red Velvet” Brandt. She’s a force-field-clad (if you’re lucky, that’s not all she’s wearing), flying energy projector. But, in SSD, she’s one of many supers. The only thing that makes her interesting is that she’s drop-dead gorgeous and makes a living as a super-model. Aurora 108, a Final Fantasy-esque Summoner is terrifying almost anywhere she goes—but, in worlds where summoning doesn’t work, she’s pretty helpless (though she’s a decent shot with a laser pistol). Fen meeting her the first time, seeing her summon a creature from nothing, would be unable to explain it. Handwavium wouldn’t let her create something so outright dangerous. But, again, it all comes down to perceptions. To the Fen, Handwavium appears to be a useful tool. And, to them it is. To visitors, it’s a very dangerous tool. The fact that it allows people to do things that, by all accounts, are impossible due to the rules they know from their world will simply enforce the belief that it’s dangerous.
robkelk wrote:
________________________________________ On the flip side, there are certain rules that apply in all universes where humans live. (If they didn't, then humans wouldn't be able to live in them.) Does handwavium apply as a relative rule or an absolute rule? Mark is suggesting the former, Bob (and I) appear to prefer the latter... ________________________________________ E: to correct layout. Problems with mobile broadband. You posted the moment before I did. However, humans can exist in worlds where Magic exists, yet gunpowder cannot (D&D, 1st edition). Humans can exist in worlds wher magic and technology exist side by side. Humans can exist in worlds where magic and super powers don't exist at all. And they can exist in worlds where all sorts of things happen. Handwavium has nothing to do with humans surviving in a universe. The actual situation is fairly simple. It must be a relative rule, because it does not exist in every world. And, as it is not something that exists in every world, it must conform to the rules that are laid out for those worlds. Just like Homeline in GURPS. Most people, who use it, use it as the good guys. In my worlds, they're actually the bad guys. They can't dictate that they're the good guys, because other people will do other things with it. If you're going to introduce it somewhere that it did not exist before, it must conform to the rules of that world. As world-builders, this is what we do. If I wanted to introduce magic into BattleTech, I must accept that any changes I personally make, are only going to work in my world. But, that also frees me from caring about other changes that are made. And, as game designers are wont to do, if the designers introduce magic into BattleTech, nothing forces me to introduce it into my BattleTech world. Handwavium is nothing but a new name for magic (I'm sorry, but it's true). Dictating that it must be used a certain way in worlds you do not understand or control is a bad stand to take as it may not fit into other worlds the same way it does in the Fen. This will turn people off from using it or even exploring it. This is actually why I'm not certain Rose would be in Fenspace. She has many rules that she follows, and some of them will be in conflict with the rules of Fenspace. Mark Skarr Wrote:And in Warhammer 40,000, Rogue Trader thoseMost sane Fen would have nothing to do with the Warhammer-40K-verse. It's levels of crapsack are renown, and if some of them manage to make it to Fenspace, AKA Gernsback2, they will be delivered the ultimatum: Abide by the Convention or GTFO. Fen may not have much for boom sticks, but I imagine they can come up with some very nasty surprises, being as dangerously genre savvy as they are. That's gotta be something else that kinda wigs Rose out - that a good number of the SMOFs suspect/know transfictional universes are real.
I’m less worried about people coming into the Fen world then
Fen going out. Going into the Fen world, they’re a decent set of folks (hence the warning “Your world is a paradise”) who are going to be willing to help lost travelers, even annoying ones. However, they should be ready for a lot of “whoa, that’s not natural” comments. I’m more worried about Fen going out. Visiting worlds where their Handwavium makes them take chances the world isn’t forgiving about, or worlds where Handwavium doesn’t make sense and is negated by the laws of those realities. Rose does not want to have to stop by every so often and ask “Have you lost any out-bounders? Where did they go?” And then go rescue trapped/lost Fen. She’d do it, but she’d be annoyed about it, she’s busy enough. Rose once met an anthropomorphic cat man (Ryan “Rakasta” Black) who claimed to have spent time in the Disney-verse working for Scrooge McDuck. As proof, he gave her a copy of The Junior Woodchuck’s Guide Book. Nothing wigs Rose out after that (especially since it’s fairly accurate, though she’s had to make notes correcting its section on temporal/quasi-spatial vehicle operation). Edited to clean up and add: 40k is actually a great example of what I’m talking about, the more I think about it. Terminator Armor is, according to canon fiction, tough enough to survive plunging through the heart of a star while keeping its wearer alive and comfortable. That’s freaking impressive. If a Space Marine in Terminator Armor showed up in Fenspace, would you generally accept and portray them as the God-of-Death on two legs that the 40k canon fiction demands? Or would you tone them down into working within the Fenspace conventions. You’d tone them down. Duh. Why? Because the canon facts don’t mesh with your world. Since it’s your world, you can make those changes. It’s your world. That’s the important thing. I wouldn’t dictate how something works in your world. If an idea is contradicted by the Fen, then, it doesn’t get used—common courtesy: I’m playing in your sandbox. However, if the Fen told me that, in SSD, the Necros couldn’t have attacked in 1987, because Handwavium was discovered in that year (made up example), or that ‘waved armor would fully resist Necros weaponry, I’d politely tell them to get their hand out of my world and leave its workings to me. There’s more going on there then you know. Now, if someone wanted to borrow the Necros and asked “how would Necros weaponry interact with ‘waved armor?” I’d give an answer on how Necros weapons worked and why both Ancient and Hellion armor resisted them so well (ancient magick, in the former, and the Hellions discovered energy that was anathema to the Necros in the latter). I’d work with them, but recommend not using the Necros as they’re supposed to be scary-tough, resulting in an 85% loss of super heroes on the world. Quote:Y'know, everything I've heard about Rose so far - patronizing, condescending, supercilious - would make her the number one target on the Bureau's Chastisement List. The Osama bin Laden of annoying multiversal travellers, if you will(1).Which, in turn, turns them into worse Mary Sues. I'm used to dealing with characters like them. Everyone has them and thinks they're the first. Gummi calls them "The Rosary." Other people call them "Men in Black," "Navel Contemplators," "Justice League" or other equally "scary" names. They're not. They're simply a construct that people create to try to keep their sandbox clean. But, like I tell Gummi, and many others, that their construct is the greatest evil in their universe and, so long as it exists, it will fester. They're the literary equivelant of a shojo mallet, and I take them just as seriously. I don't use them. My sandbox doesn't need police. Sure, people like Rose and the Quorum might track down some extremely annoying perps, but, they're busy and, unless you're threatening universal stability, it's not something they need to worry about. But, if you're playing a game, or writing a story about someone capable of threatening universal stability, then they need opponents capable of dealing with them. And, no matter how well written, people will always call them "Mary Sues." And, the reason Rose is patronizing and condescending is usually because people are patronizing and condescending to her.
Y'know, everything I've heard about Rose so far - patronizing, condescending, supercilious - would make her the number one target on the Bureau's Chastisement List. The Osama bin Laden of annoying multiversal travellers, if you will(1).
(The question of course is, "what is the Bureau for Interdimensional Chastisement?" Well, it's a little side project put together by players who will remain unnamed - and whose initials are HS and MF - when the density of irritating wanderers gets too high. The Bureau exists to seek out those various Mary Sues who behave badly in Fenspace and chastise them. With grandmotherly kindness. Also, big sticks.) (1) I jest, but only a little. Skysaber is of course #1 with a bullet on that list. Rose would make the top five pretty easily, though. Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information "I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
I was editing my post, when you posted M Fnord. So, I put my response up there.
Now if you had someone like Ezekiel Darkwood, my Avatar of Raven, he'd be there either on TSAB business or because Raven's messing with him again. He'd find Handwavium to be utterly fascinating, and be utterly perplexed in it's behavior: "This stuff is like chaotic-good incarnate! There's very little it won't mess around with! I wouldn't be surprised if the Old Bird had something to do with this. I wonder how well this stuff would work in my universe? I might be able to run some experiments on an isolated asteroid..."
He'd find Mundanes to be... well, mundane. Not a bad thing, really. It's almost a breath of fresh air to be able to walk around on Terra and not be bombarded by spirits, demons, and gods. Although he totally digs the overtech the Fen rock out and their ships. "You ran off with the Soviet Buran Orbiter!? Dude, you gotta tell me more. And what's up with this guy I hear about that hauls around in a Blackbird and runs a military state? Is he someone I gotta worry about?"  EDIT: I think what Mal was alluding to was strictly Meta. Push too hard and you're gonna find yourself banned from the boards. I don't think anyone really wants that. Quote:If a Space Marine in Terminator Armor showed up in Fenspace, would you generally accept and portray them as the God-of-Death on two legs that the 40k canon fiction demands? Or would you tone them down into working within the Fenspace conventions. I wouldn't let them into the setting in the first fucking place. Quote:Which, in turn, turns them into worse Mary Sues. I'm used to dealing with characters like them. Everyone has them and thinks they're the first. Gummi calls them "The Rosary." Other people call them "Men in Black," "Navel Contemplators," "Justice League" or other equally "scary" names. They're not. They're simply a construct that people create to try to keep their sandbox clean. But, like I tell Gummi, and many others, that their construct is the greatest evil in their universe and, so long as it exists, it will fester. They're the literary equivelant of a shojo mallet, and I take them just as seriously. I honestly and for true have no idea what you're trying to say here. Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information "I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
(Quoting isn't working for me right now. Not sure why, I apologize if this is hard to follow.)
First off, let's keep the tone civil, please. I'm glad your passionate, but getting abusive makes you look bad. Second, I was using something that could be validated to make an example. That's all it was, it was an example. However, your response tells me that you treat Fenspace as a jealously-guarded sandbox and you don't want people to play in it if they have different ideas than you have. I know it's late, you could just be tired and responding out of being tired, but, it looks bad. However, the example I used fits with the "does Handwavium work as intended outside of Fenspace" discussion by reversing the situation. If you are unwilling to accept other literary facts as having priority, why should external authors/GMs accept yours as having priority? Handwavium is a literary MacGuffin. It's an interesting MacGuffin, and has birthed an interesting world. But, at the end of the day, it is just another MacGuffin of Plot Device. Third, my "confusing" statement was about your "Bureau for Interdimensional Chastisement." To be polite, that's the literary equivelant of a shojo mallet. It's a "my Mary Sue can beat up your Mary Sue because I'm in charge" argument. I know countless people who use constructs like them to "keep the peace" failing to understand that their simple existance renders stories and adventures in those worlds moot. It's very Star Trek with their "isn't it nice these deific beings let us play with our little starships?" situation. The way you keep people who abuse the privelage under control is that you don't make their stories canon. Which, having had to deal with something like this in the past, gives me a sick and twisted idea. Mwahahaha-ha-ha! BA, I think you're too close to the discussion to understand the outside point of view anymore. You're looking at it through the eyes of a Fen, because, well, you are a Fen. Every gamer I've shown Handwavium to has either looked at me with a horrified expression or said "that's really cool, but keep it away from me!" Being Fen, you know it's ultimately safe. Not being Fen, we look at it with the "Great God in a Bottle!" expression realizing how horribly it could be perverted (and, as a pervert, I'm quite familiar with perversion! Nudge-nudge). 
Handwavium works as the plot demands, no matter what universe it's in. Who's writing the plot or what those specific demands are, goo only knows.
Anything else is really just overcomplication. ________________________________ --m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
I agree to Dartz... its the basic assumption for the Fenspace "metaverse"...
anything that happens in the context of the stories written on this forum and wiki happens according to this "laws". The universe doesn't matter at all. On the other side, if someone else wants to use Fenspace ideas and adapt it to his own "metaverse" (which might have different rules), it might be different there. So on this side, we can have endless universes adapted from different sources which work by a common set of rules (and some specific additions). Other websites might do differently. Quote:Push too hard and you're gonna find yourself banned from the boards.Ahem. The only persons ever banned from these boards, to the best of my recollections, have been spammers. The discussion might get moved to Politics, but you have to be really obnoxious to merit an actual banning. -- Bob --------- Then the horns kicked in... ...and my shoes began to squeak. Quote:However, the example I used fits with the "does Handwavium work as intended outside of Fenspace" discussion by reversing the situation. If you are unwilling to accept other literary facts as having priority, why should external authors/GMs accept yours as having priority? Why should I care what 'external authors/GMs' accept as priority or not? None of this is real in any meaningful sense; it's all light entertainment, stories we create because they amuse us, or interest us. The only thing that matters to me as Moderator is the consensus of the writers, artists, brainstormers & hecklers that make up the creative group behind Fenspace. If somebody outside the consensus likes what we're doing, that's great, and I hope they keep reading. If they shy away in horror, well... maybe they should find something else to occupy their time. Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information "I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
META
From the last few posts in this thread, I think perhaps a reminder of the forum Rules is in order: 1) Have Fun 2) Play Nice If folks are following both of those rules, that's fine and I'm overreacting. If folks aren't following both of those rules, it may be time to step back and let the thread die... or at least lie fallow for a day or two. (But I'm just a poster here - what do I know?) /META -- 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 Mark Skarr Wrote:The way you keep people who abuse the privelage under control is that you don't make their stories canon.Oh, we've done that before... although we prefer to take the stories and make them fit anyway, preferably with the participation of the original writers. Contributions that didn't fit Fenspace as first presented, but the Collective and the writer worked together to get them to fit: Noah Scott, A.C. Peters, Mayonaka Rhodes Contribution that didn't fit Fenspace as first presented, but the Collective made it fit without the writer's participation: Turnerites Contribution that didn't fit Fenspace as first presented and couldn't be made to fit: Kemwler (or however the name is spelled) Note that of the writers who contributed these elements, only the ones who were willing to work with the Collective (instead of forcing their ideas onto the setting) are still writing Fenspace stories. I do not think this is a coincidence. -- 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 |
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