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John 2 John

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Started 2 years ago by M. J. Young
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JohnA1nut
Member

I believe that there are only a few dozen of them in the entire multiverse, that they are rare in the extreme and very few universes ever produce them. I also believe that they only do so for a very brief period of time, and then they realize that you can't use scriff in those dangerous ways, and stop doing so.

Then how would the people in Why Spy know how to track and capture versers? From what you're saying, they're lucky any landed there at all. I'm with Eric. Billions of versers. To say only a few diminishes the scope of the Multiverse, in my humble opinion. Scriff must occur naturally in some form or it wouldn't exist at all. That means there's caveman versers who found a pool of it by accident. There's versers native to every facet of evolution of a world where it is present.

There will be no scriff-infected artificially intelligent machine creatures, because by the time artificially intelligent machine beings are possible scriff will be tightly controlled and protected so that no one will become infected by it.

Ah, but what if it was scriff technology that made the artificial intelligence possible? It's certainly reasonable that the discovery of scriff could be the token component to someone working in AI research. Artificial intelligence wasn't possible until they discovered the property of scriff to accelerate electrical activity. (or whatever the scriff supposedly does) They could have been discovered at the same time. So, the AI robot springs a leak in his scriff containment, "dies", verses out, and only the fact that the verser keeps scriff permanently is what keeps the guy up and running. Give me some time. I can give you a pseudo-plausible explanation for damn near anything.

I have no doubt there's a version of me who makes a living as an author. It's just not this version.

(Doing Therapy)

Sat Feb 12 2011 12:42 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Two

Do us both a favor. Don't waste a lot of time with the reply. I don't want you wasting any more time than absolutely needed with my psychotic babble. It's just a pseudo-plausible explanation for it. (And I'm giggling because I think this is funny.)

(Doing Therapy)

Sat Feb 12 2011 12:45 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

Scriff must occur naturally in some form or it wouldn't exist at all.

Clever, but no. Scriff exists only in universes in which something is happening that smashes sub-subatomic particles. A high-speed supercollider does it, smashing atoms so they break into electrons and tachyons and such, then smashing these so they break into quarks, then smashing the quarks. Not even supernovae smash quarks. The Big Bang would have done so, but since scriff is unstable and leaks out of universes quickly, any residual scriff from that would have been long gone before there were stars.

You get similar problems with high-level skills in other bias areas, but you really do have to have indigs who achieved high bias in something to have it work. In tech, you're talking 12@ nuclear power. You might get it in psi 9@ manipulate chemistry. With mag it's probably 14@ physical creation, and bod is clearly 15@ non-physicality. Until you have scriff-related skills (T15@, P14@, M14@, B15@) you can't get it intentionally, but only as a by-product of other activities.

So worlds that are primitive in every bias area have no scriff; it is not a "naturally occurring" substance, but the result of high-bias skill use.

And although people will experiment with scriff as a superconductor, they'll abandon it because 1) it leaks out of the circuitry and ceases to function rather quickly, and 2) it's incredibly dangerous, which will be discovered--causes people to disintegrate sometimes. So it won't be used in electronic brains because it's too dangerous and not reliable.

--M. J. Young

Mon Mar 21 2011 10:34 pm #
JohnA1nut
Member

So it won't be used in electronic brains because it's too dangerous and not reliable.

As you pointed out, that fact wouldn't be discovered right away. Also, if the dangerous and unreliable element was the ONLY WAY KNOWN to make the AI function properly, you're deluding yourself if you think that no one would use it for that purpose, regardless of the dangers. Nitroglycerin is unstable, dangerous and unreliable at times. Please note, it's still widely in use to this day.

Scriff must occur naturally in some form or it wouldn't exist at all.

Clever, but no. Scriff exists only in universes in which something is happening that smashes sub-subatomic particles.

And so that means that God couldn't design a naturally occurring formation that smashes sub-subatomic particles? It can plausibly occur naturally.

(Doing Therapy)

Mon Mar 21 2011 10:46 pm #
M. J. Young
Moderator

And so that means that God couldn't design a naturally occurring formation that smashes sub-subatomic particles? It can plausibly occur naturally.

O.K., you're right, God could have created such an unformed and unfinished universe and put creatures in it. He could also have created people in a world where the only thing they could eat was each other.

He didn't.

--M. J. Young

Tue Mar 22 2011 12:51 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

He didn't.

Says who? The individual writing the story, that's who.

It's like saying that you could never become a molecular biologist. You're diminishing the power of God. You're saying that God could not have possibly steered your life that direction. Saying that something "can't" happen diminishes the power of God.

Tue Mar 22 2011 3:12 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

doublepost.

Tue Mar 22 2011 3:12 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

Saying that something "can't" happen diminishes the power of God.

Well, it doesn't, and I'm the theologian. I know there are certain things God cannot do. Off the top of my head, Hebrews tells us that it is impossible for God to lie. That also means he cannot break his promises. There are two things God cannot do.

Certainly I agree that creating a world in which the raw material is still dangerously lying around and there are intelligent indigs who might be badly harmed by it is not impossible. However, it is inherent in the definition of scriff that loose scriff leaks out of universes; therefore within a few hours after this world was created, all the scriff would have leaked out of it, and there wouldn't be any.

Think of it like this: it is perfectly possible for me to suspend a bucket's worth of water thirty feet in the air without a container, for an instant. Then it's going to fall to the ground. It's perfectly possible for there to be loose scriff in a universe for a short time, but then it's going to spill through the cracks between the atoms and back out into the sea of scriff in which the universes float.

--M. J. Young

Wed Mar 23 2011 2:16 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Mistake

(Doing Therapy)

Wed Mar 23 2011 2:24 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Think of it like this: it is perfectly possible for me to suspend a bucket's worth of water thirty feet in the air without a container, for an instant. Then it's going to fall to the ground. It's perfectly possible for there to be loose scriff in a universe for a short time, but then it's going to spill through the cracks between the atoms and back out into the sea of scriff in which the universes float.

Think of it like this: It's perfectly possible for God to suspend thousands of buckets' worth of water in the air without a container, indefinitely. (They're called "clouds".) So, it's reasonable that God could also make a way for scriff to stay in a universe as long as He desired.

You don't REALLY want to argue with me about this, do you?

(Doing Therapy)

Sat Mar 26 2011 5:21 pm #
JohnA1nut
Member

(OOC) This is going to sound strange, even coming from me, but I've got another one of those little things that won't get out of my head. Even though I know that the character of Sarah Connor was played by a 50 something man named Mark, I know that my character feels weird about running out like that. In his mind, he NEEDS to get back here so he can tell Sarah what happened and explain everything. I'm not asking you to pick the game back up, but if you would please indulge me by answering as Sarah Connor, it would put my mind to rest. Shouldn't take more than one or two posts from you. I've got the Verser's Survival Pack and all the guns, so Sarah can't shoot me. The scene is I've teleported back into the living room with Sarah, in the body of John Connor, age 18. It's just another one of those little things that won't get out of my head. Humor me. I must agree, these games can be dangerous for the mentally unstable.

So, I've just teleported in.

"Mom, it's me. John, your son. I'm actually not who you think I am. I'm an inter-dimensional traveler, known as a "Verser". I was born as John Connor because I know about the coming war, and I know about time travel and how to use it. I was supposed to be here to help you fight the war, but apparently God has something more important for me to do. I don't know what's going to happen now, if the machines will win the war, or what will happen next in the timeline, except that I won't be here. I've been told that the condition of versing can be passed by physical intimacy, and what is more intimate than a mother and child? You're probably going to become a verser as well when you die. Perhaps we will find one another in the verse. Everything that happened, all of the strange things you saw, that was me. I have certain powers that I was trying to use to get your attention. To show you who I was and communicate with you. You're not crazy, and there was no threat from SkyNet. The machines won't attack you again for about 13 years. By then, you will be ready for them. The machine that comes for you next will be liquid metal. Ballistic penetration will shock it, but only for a few seconds. It is vulnerable to extreme freezing and temperatures hot enough to melt steel. Strong corrosives are also rumored to be effective in fighting it. (From a Terminator fan site) Don't worry about SkyNet for about 13 years. I hope to see you in the verse mom."

OOC) After you reply, he teleports back to Eric's game. I know it's strange, but just humor me. My character needs to tell Sarah, or it's gonna drive him crazy. And since he's me, well, you can see the conundrum.

On a different note, does anyone else think they should have had Michael Biehn (Who played Kyle Reese in T1) play the adult John Connor? He's the age now that John Connor would have been at this point in the war, and who else would John grow up to look like if NOT his father? It would have kind of brought the story full circle, ya know?

(Doing Therapy)

Sat Apr 2 2011 9:04 pm #
M. J. Young
Moderator

Um--no.

Mon Apr 4 2011 4:09 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Doublepost.

Mon Apr 4 2011 7:48 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Eh, yer no fun. You wouldn't think it was strange if it was you that had it stuck in your head.

Mon Apr 4 2011 7:48 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

I don't need you to reply anyway. As far as I'm concerned, my character just told Sarah. He doesn't need to hear what she says back.

Wed Apr 6 2011 4:33 pm #
JohnA1nut
Member

MJ, I was kind of a jerk when you declared Terminators to be not sentient. I would like to explain. Admittedly, this is kind of a bad example, but I think it's one you will understand. I've studied Terminator. I've read comics, books, cannon websites, seen the movies, and several other sources. You've seen the movies. In my mind, you saying that they aren't sentient based solely on information from the movies would be comparable to me reading the book of James in The Bible and then declaring everything you know about The Bible to be completely false. You'd never stand for that. You'd protest that with your dying breath. That's the only comparison that I can make that I think you will fully understand. I just needed to explain why I was such a jerk about it.

(Doing Therapy)

Mon May 2 2011 2:50 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

I understand your example, but can I show you where the flaw is?

Let's suppose that you read the Book of James a hundred times. That might actually be more times than I've read it (not sure, but probably). Let's also suppose that you have studied it meticulously in the original Greek, along with all the resources connected to it, so that I can't possibly know anything about James that you don't know. Now, let's suppose that I told you that you misunderstood something in James, because in my superior knowledge of Paul I know that the Bible doesn't mean what you think it means, and so James couldn't have meant what you think he does. You would be perfectly justified in saying that what Paul says, or John or Peter or Luke or Matthew or Mark or that unidentified guy who wrote Hebrews (and I think I hit all the main ones, although Timothy, Sosthenes, Silvanus, and a bunch of unnamed "all those with me"'s are also authors) has nothing to do with what James means.

As long as the discussion is solely about James, nothing I know about any other book of the Bible is relevant to the discussion, except in the sense of "well, he might have meant what this other author who knew him wrote". It's a given here that I know more about everything in the Bible outside James than you; but it's also irrelevant.

It's a given that you know a lot about a bunch of universes that are similar to the Terminator Movies Universe, but are not that universe. Arguing that because it was in the Terminator comics or the Sarah Connor Chronicles it must be so for the Terminator universe is like me insisting that what James wrote has to mean what Paul wrote somewhere else.

--M. J. Young

Wed May 4 2011 2:50 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Made more sense, except that, just as my understanding of the book of James is nowhere close to yours, your understanding of even the Terminator movies is nowhere close to mine. In the extended cut of T2, there was a scene where Sarah and John remove Arnold's CPU. ("The Chip") On the chip, there is a switch which turns the chip from "Read Only" to "Write Mode". For all practical intents and purposes, this was a "Sentience Switch". SkyNet would preset it to whichever way it wanted for the mission it was on. Flip the switch one way, the Terminator was an automaton. A robot. Flip it the other way, and it was a thinking, sentient life form. So really, it would just be a standard T-800 model with the switch flipped. That scene was cut out because it took up 3 minutes that had to go. The entire scene was replaced with the line "The more contact I have with humans, the more I learn."

Wed May 4 2011 4:54 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

In the extended cut of T2....

Ah, but you know my parole evidence rule: the extended cut is not the movie, and nothing that isn't in the theatrical version counts.

On the chip, there is a switch which turns the chip from "Read Only" to "Write Mode". For all practical intents and purposes, this was a "Sentience Switch". SkyNet would preset it to whichever way it wanted for the mission it was on.

I've known enough about computers over the course of my life that I don't think I'd have made that mistake in high school. You're looking at the difference between whether the chip is Read Only Memory (ROM) or Random Access Memory (RAM). If it's ROM, then you can't change the programming; if it's RAM then you can. So assuming such a chip existed, any programmer would know that if you want to change the programming you have to flip the switch to give you the necessary permissions to make changes. It has nothing to do with whether or not the machine is sentient; it has to do with whether a programmer can alter the programming.

--M. J. Young

Thu May 5 2011 2:03 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Oh. My mistake. I still say they're sentient though.

It was a really cool scene. They're at the garage after the escape from the mental hospital and they shut down Arnold and pull the chip. The scene is looking into a mirror and how it was shot was 2 rooms. Linda Hamilton and Edward Furlong were working on a dummy Arnold head (Can't pull a chip out of a real head, after all) and Arnold was in the other room (the "Mirror") and Linda Hamilton's twin sister and another actor were playing the mirror images of John and Sarah, with Arnold sitting there telling them what to do. All four of the actors had to synchronize their movements with each other. Really cool shot, took hours to shoot a 3 minutes scene, but it was a 3 minute scene they didn't really need. Sarah tries to destroy the chip, John stops her saying "If I'm supposed to be this great leader, then maybe you should try listening to MY leadership ideas!!!" (Or something very like that) We see the reigns of leadership shift from Sarah to John for the first time. Shame it was cut.

Leslie Hamilton (Linda's twin) played the T-1000 as Sarah Connor, and also did other stand-ins for her in a lot of movies.

(Doing Therapy)

Thu May 5 2011 6:49 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Two

MJ, there was an episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles that I want to tell you about. I know that has nothing to do with my game world, but I want you to tell me if you think the Terminator's actions are those of a mindless automaton, or of a sentient, thinking artificial lifeform.

Season 2, episode Self-Made Man. A Terminator is sent back to 1920 by mistake. It's supposed to be in 2001 for an assassination mission. Whilst in 1920, it accidentally kills the man who is going to build the building where it is going to make the assassination attempt. The only thing for it to do is start up its own construction company and build the building itself. It takes the name Myron Stark. To get the start up money, it robs banks "Armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun and daring disregard for human life." It goes to great lengths to secure the land where the building will be built, even driving a rival businessman out of business. It became somewhat of a local celebrity for its fair treatment of workers and generosity. "Myron Stark could always be seen shoulder to shoulder with his workers, a pickax in his strong hands." It's discovered months before the assassination, hiding in the building awaiting the time of the assassination. Myron Stark "Fell off the face of the earth 2 weeks before the building was completed" It was never programmed to do any of this. It had to make this up as it went along. Are these the actions of a preprogrammed automaton, or of a sentient, thinking lifeform? You tell me.

And yes, I already know that this has nothing to do with the game and wouldn't influence you in the slightest about the movies. That's not what I'm asking you. I'm asking you if you think Myron Stark from the Sarah Connor Chronicles was a sentient lifeform or a mindless, preprogrammed automaton.

Fri May 6 2011 4:09 pm #
M. J. Young
Moderator

(R) Design Decision Machine
Tech 12@5
These robots have the ability to gather information about the environment, compare that information to a program, and select actions according to that program. The best of such machines (-15 to design) are capable of generating random “ideas” and comparing them to attempt to create solutions to situations not covered in the programming. These machines create the illusion of intelligence, but do not think. Botches are very like those for function machines.

I can't say with certainty that it's one of these, but I can't say it isn't. "Problem solving" is not the proof of either intelligence or sentience in Multiverser.

--M. J. Young

Mon May 9 2011 3:03 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

"Problem solving" is not the proof of either intelligence or sentience in Multiverser

Then what is?

(Doing Therapy)

Mon May 9 2011 3:26 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

A combination of self-awareness and self-determination that combined indicates that the creature in question is capable of choosing freely without constraint of programming. I can be coerced by fear of death or injury from the outside, but if I am constrained by my programming I am not sentient.

And yes, that makes it a referee's judgment call.

--M. J. Young

Tue May 10 2011 2:52 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

I can be coerced by fear of death or injury from the outside, but if I am constrained by my programming I am not sentient.

Yeah, but what could we do to coerce them? What could we offer them that they couldn't take from us by force? That would be like a nest of cockroaches begging you not to drop a bug bomb while they do everything they can to further infest your home. We couldn't coerce them.

To be honest, the more I think about it, the less sure I am that they are sentient. Well, let me correct that. I have no doubt that both versions exist in some universes. I'm not certain if the movie versions are sentient.

I still don't understand what difference it makes, really. They frequently turn on humans after reprogramming. Does that count? They made a choice to disobey their reprogramming. I doubt that would count, and it's not in the movies, so it doesn't matter.

(Doing Therapy)

Wed May 11 2011 6:45 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator
There are a lot of reasons why it makes a difference.

What is easily overlooked is that it is an essential requirement of a summoning spell that the creature summoned be able to come. With a verser, it's already dicey--the verser doesn't have the ability to travel to a specific other universe, but it is at least arguable that a summoning spell that reaches a verser "while" the verser is in the scriff would draw the verser to the summoner, and similarly arguable that since scriff is outside time, any given verser is "always" there. But a sentient creature that does not have the ability to travel to another universe does not gain that ability by virtue of being summoned; the spellcaster would have to create the gate by which it traveled.

And a non-sentient object cannot be "summoned" at all, because it has no ability of self-determination that can be bent to answer the summons. Since it does as it is programmed, it can't "want" to answer the summons. Thus such a spell constitutes a "snatch", a teleportive skill that pulls an object to the skilled user, and in this case a snatch that reaches across universe barriers. That's a very high biased skill indeed.

It's a high bias for a reason. The reason is that the game is designed to force players to work within the limitations of their present universe.

On reflection, I made the right decision for the wrong reason. It does not really matter whether sentient terminators exist in any universe. They did not exist in the universe in which you were located. To bring one from another universe, you would have to open a gate--a M12@10 skill well above the bias curve established for your game. The alternative would be to bring one from the future--a M15@10 skill if you do it yourself. Your expectation seemed at one point to be that you could summon a terminator from the future and it would travel to the past to protect you. The problems were:
1. Terminators do not have the ability to travel through time;
2. Summoning spells call creatures capable of coming, but do not provide the means for doing so;
3. Terminators in this universe are not sentient and therefore cannot answer a summons;
4. If there are terminators in other universes that are sentient, they do not have the ability to cross universe boundaries and thus (unlike angels) cannot respond to a summons from another universe;
5. If a terminator were to travel from the future, it would create an anomaly such that you would have to play the universe up to the moment the terminator departed and then revert to replay it from the point the terminator arrived, erasing everything that happened in the now erased history, so you wouldn't see the success of the spell for a long time anyway;
6. No magic you could perform had the ability to cross either temporal limitations or universe boundaries.
With that long a list of problems, I was trying to get out of the situation as quickly as possible to move on; you were trying to force it to happen by addressing individual problems to say that my judgment on the matter was wrong.

I don't really have enough time in my day to explain fully every game decision I make, or even to think them all through in this detail. I look for the clues that will give me the fastest answer possible, and go by the seat of my pants. The first reason I saw for it not to work was not the best reason, but it was sufficient. Now I've spent twenty minutes looking at it in more detail just today, and I come to the same conclusion, only more firmly.

John, when a referee says that something doesn't work "because", he's being generous. He really only has to say that it doesn't work. If you make him defend his decision, you alienate him. Yes, you can ask for an explanation; you should not then tell him that the explanation is flawed, because it is his explanation, and if it works for him, it's the rule.

--M. J. Young
Thu May 12 2011 4:53 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

John, when a referee says that something doesn't work "because", he's being generous. He really only has to say that it doesn't work. If you make him defend his decision, you alienate him. Yes, you can ask for an explanation; you should not then tell him that the explanation is flawed, because it is his explanation, and if it works for him, it's the rule.

If I were refereeing you, and the core of a spell you were casting said that Jesus Christ was the son of God, and I, as referee, said that Jesus Christ never existed, would you just lay down and take it, or would you be tempted to argue the decision? Thank you. Next question.

(Doing Therapy)

Thu May 12 2011 5:05 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Two

It was an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. Worf wants to send his son, Alexander, to the equivalent of a Klingon boarding school. Worf goes to talk to Counselor Troi about it. Troi asks "Have you discussed it with Alexander?" Worf replies "He is a child. I have informed him of my decision."

I feel like that's the way you treated me sometimes.

(Doing Therapy)

Thu May 12 2011 7:44 pm #
M. J. Young
Moderator

Your example is completely different in every way.

--M. J. Young

Fri May 13 2011 2:46 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

I knew you were going to say that. No it isn't. It's exactly the same. It's something we both wholeheartedly believe to be true.* I just used the one and only example that I knew you would argue. Hit a nerve did I? You would argue against that. What's the difference? You say it's different, what's the difference? They're both things in which we believe for our own reasons.*

*Don't get me wrong. I don't believe Terminators exist, and it's certainly not my religion. It is, however, every bit as real to me as The Bible is to you. Funny how works of fiction can have that effect on people.

(Doing Therapy)

Fri May 13 2011 3:00 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Two

Besides, the point was that even the stolid, stalwart MJ Young could be induced to argue with his referee. Bad example or not, you completely missed the point.

Fri May 13 2011 5:36 pm #
M. J. Young
Moderator
Young's Theorem--not mine, but my father's--states:

Things that are not the same are different.
1. Whether Jesus Christ existed is a question of history. There are a few people who claim he never did, just as there are a few who claim that the holocaust never happened and the gas chambers really were just delousing showers. Whether Terminators are sentient is entirely a question of the interpretation of the fiction, which begins with a decision concerning the parameters of the fiction, which I as referee get to establish, and then proceeds to the matter of the evidence within the fiction and how it should be interpreted, which again I as referee get to determine.
2. Arguably, whether Jesus Christ is God is also a question of fact; but it is also a question of religious belief, and the game specifically requires referees to accept and respect the religious beliefs of players and their characters. I have my doubts about the existence of many of the deities players have claimed to follow, but I have always permitted them into the game on the terms of their own believers within the parameters of Multiverser cosmology. It is specifically disallowed for any referee to say that Jesus, or Allah, or the Goddess, or any other divine being does not exist. It is a question of the realities in the supernatural realm, and in the supernatural realm all believed religions are true in the most important parts. As to things outside the supernatural realm, what matters is limited to the material worlds created by the referee. Thus if I never create sentient terminators, they do not exist in any universe in my game, because that's a referee's decision.
Besides, John, you admit yourself that you don't believe that Terminators are, were, or will be real, except in the realm of imagination. I can find fairly solid evidence that Jesus lived, died, appeared alive to many eyewitnesses both friendly and hostile after his death, and vanished into the sky with the promise that he would return. I can also find a very large number of people, present and past, who believe that those are facts of history.

As C. S. Lewis wrote, the only good reason to believe any religion is because it is true--not because of what it does to people, not because of whether it's useful or obstructive, or makes the world better or worse, but because it is true. The evidence has been strong enough to persuade many former atheists, including Lewis. I'm not here to defend the evidence, only to say that a referee who denied it would be on very thin ice and would be breaking the rules of the game.

--M. J. Young
Sat May 14 2011 12:42 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Putting it like that made more sense. This is supposed to be funny, for laughs, the game won't be picked up, but I'm curious.

What if I were to proclaim Terminator as my religion? I had a friend who claimed "Jedi" as his religion. If I were to claim it as my religion, would you have to respect my belief that they are sentient? It's just supposed to be a funny curiosity, not a serious attempt.

(Doing Therapy)

Sat May 14 2011 2:55 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Two

Besides, John, you admit yourself that you don't believe that Terminators are, were, or will be real, except in the realm of imagination.

You're putting words into my mouth. I admit that they don't currently exist. Whether they will EVER exist is an unanswerable question at this time.

Please do not forget that a very similar statement to yours was made about "Flying Machines" only a few short centuries ago.

(Doing Therapy)

Sat May 14 2011 3:01 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Third and Last

(Chuckling) In fact, I could legitimately imagine a divergent version of myself who invented them. When I was a kid, I wanted to design and build robots when I grew up. I've always had a modicum of interest in electronics and science. I just know there's a mad scientist version of me out there somewhere who is about to power up a Terminator endoskeleton.

(Doing Therapy)

JOHN!!! NO MORE!!!!!!!!

Sat May 14 2011 3:26 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

What if I were to proclaim Terminator as my religion?

I think that doesn't matter, at least once you are in the verse.

If when a player is creating a character he defines his religious beliefs to the referee in such a way that they state the belief in the existence of a specific type of supernatural being in the supernatural realm, the referee is bound to accept the existence of that type of being as a deity for all purposes relevant to the holy magic rules. It is up to the referee to determine what if any interactions there will be between the deity and the physical world outside the magic of the user. I thus have to allow that Eris exists because Scott is a Discordian, and that the various deities Harry worships are valid objects of veneration who have power to act on behalf of their worshipers.

However, once you have left your starting world, any notions you derive about the supernatural realm must be based on clear evidence that such being or beings exist within the supernatural realm as envisioned by the referee. Thus if in your third world you decide you're going to worship Bilbo Baggins as God of Thieves, I am not obliged thereby to determine that Bilbo Baggins is legitimately a god, and can handle the matter however I as referee like. Three obvious options are 1) Bilbo Baggins is a supernatural deity who answers your prayers; 2) there is no such being and you get no answer to your prayers; 3) some opportunistic supernatural being decides to lie to you and masquerade as Bilbo Baggins to get you to do what it wants.

So if you didn't state that you worshiped Terminators (or possibly worshiped a deity called Skynet whose supernatural messengers were Terminators) before you versed out, your decision to do so later is irrelevant to whether such a deity exists. And no, the rule that all possible imaginable universes exist does not apply to the supernatural realm. All known religions are in some sense true, but that does not mean that a verser can make up a religion and cause it to be true--that would mean that the people create the gods, and it's very clear in Multiverser that it's the other way around.

There's also a second problem, and that is that religions, under Multiverser rules, are specifically about beings in the supernatural realms, and thus about supernatural beings. If you were to make the worship of Skynet and its Terminators your religion, it would mean that they were not machines manufactured in a future earth but spirit beings from the supernatural realm. If you believe them to be robots, they aren't spirit beings, and if they aren't spirit beings your worship of them does not make it a religion, any more than making money your god makes money a spiritual or supernatural object.

--M. J. Young

Wed May 18 2011 2:49 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

If when a player is creating a character he defines his religious beliefs to the referee in such a way that they state the belief in the existence of a specific type of supernatural being in the supernatural realm, the referee is bound to accept the existence of that type of being as a deity for all purposes relevant to the holy magic rules.

So the character isn't allowed to change their religious beliefs? What if you had a player character who simply adopted the native religion of whatever world he was on? "I don't know if my god has power here, but their god apparently does. Might as well back the winner." Does that ever happen?

I have changed my religious beliefs in real life. You could almost say I claim Multiverser as my religion. It would take too long to explain that so it would make sense. Don't worry, I don't see you as a god MJ, but my increased understanding of this game opened my eyes to the true nature of God and His creation. I wholeheartedly believe in The Multiverse.

(Doing Therapy)

Wed May 18 2011 3:01 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

More than one

MJ, just a technical aside. In-game, Sarah used my 9mm for defense. She would have been far more likely to have used the 357 revolver at that point in the story. "John, show me something in the movies which backs this up." In the hotel room, before Reese leaves to get supplies, he gives Sarah the 38 revolver that he had. Why? Certainly Reese knows it would be useless if the Terminator were to show up. So maybe he gave it to her to use on herself? No, the objective here was to survive. Not that reason. Why then? Reese gave it to Sarah so she could study it. Learn its operation. Figure out how to use it. (Yes, this is from the book, but we do see Sarah examining the gun before Reese leaves) Sarah also had that 44 magnum hand cannon at the end. Also a revolver. Revolvers are far easier for an untrained person to effectively wield. Sarah would have been using my 357 revolver, not the 9mm automatic. At least at that point in the story.

(Doing Therapy)

Thu May 19 2011 2:29 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

John, you misunderstand. Of course a player character can change his religion if there is an in-game basis for him to do so. He can believe anything he wants. What is not possible is for the player to invent a religion with no basis for believing it to be true, and cause it to be correct.

Example: Bob Slade was not particularly religious before he entered the verse, but he was aware of a religion he read about in a book. Because it was a religion in a book he read, and existed in that book as a religion, it arguably was a real religion in the world of that book, and thus arguably was true. It was a version of Norse paganism, Odinism, and in his first universe he adopted it. But he doesn't get to decide what the religion believes or teaches; he gets to embrace what the religion believes and teaches as he learns about it from non-player characters. Odin exists, and is very like he is in the story, but that doesn't mean that Slade fully understands him (nor even that the story completely described him).

So certainly your character could be in Bah Ke'gehn and adopt the worship of Bah Tor, learn the holy magic that relies on him; or could be in The Industrial Complex and choose to worship Teknogee who rules that world. But being in Terminator doesn't mean that you can decide that Terminators are gods and that makes it so, nor would your decision to worship Bilbo Baggins or Paul McCartney or Barrack Obama cause those persons to become gods. Either they already exist as gods or they do not.

As a caveat, there are universes in which divine ascension is possible. In such a universe a character could become a god; if a player character did so, he would cease to be a player character or a verser, and would become a supernatural being removed from play.

--M. J. Young

Fri May 20 2011 3:53 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

"John, you misunderstand. Of course a player character can change his religion if there is an in-game basis for him to do so"

I'm intrigued by this. There were humans who chose to follow SkyNet. They were called The Grays and they were the most hated of humans. I guess they decided selling their souls to Satan was better than being his adversary. Point is, that could be considered an in-game reason to worship SkyNet. Then it's my religion. Would you then have to accept that Terminators were sentient, because it was my character's religion? To be clear, it's more of a funny curiosity. I'll commit suicide and throw the world into an infinity loop before I would become a Gray. Just curious.

I realize you said that you were never going to pick this back up. You must admit though, having a player who is not only a Terminator superfan but also knows your time theory would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. I'm much less psychotic than when I was playing with you. I'm learning from Eric to not be so argumentative. There was an issue with needing to sort out skills. If I could keep the skill increases I've gotten, and not necessarily the new skills, I'd be happy. I'm not even sure what a lot of them do. I'm just saying, who knows what tomorrow will bring?

(Doing Therapy)

Sat May 21 2011 9:56 pm #
JohnA1nut
Member

Two

This post was too much unneeded BS for MJ to sort through.

(Doing Therapy)

Tue May 24 2011 2:40 am #
JohnA1nut
Member

Three

MJ, I must apologize. I did freak out about Terminators being sentient. It just seemed to me that you weren't listening. Then I realized, I wasn't either. I promised myself I wasn't going to abuse the magic bias. In part, I agree with you that it should be flatlined. I also think though that it's only fair to give me a magical "escape clause" from the infinity loop. I promised myself I wouldn't abuse the magic bias. I wouldn't call an army of angelic warriors to defeat the Terminator army. At most, I would have Terry as my personal, angelic bodyguard. My death causes an infinity loop, after all. I wasn't listening to you. I was abusing the magic bias, like I promised myself I wouldn't. Sorry. No wonder you don't want to pick it back up, really. I'm just saying, who knows what tomorrow will bring?

(Doing Therapy)

Tue May 24 2011 4:00 am #
M. J. Young
Moderator

I'm intrigued by this. There were humans who chose to follow SkyNet....that could be considered an in-game reason to worship SkyNet. Then it's my religion. Would you then have to accept that Terminators were sentient, because it was my character's religion?

No, you misunderstood.

What you, as a player, honestly embrace as your religion in this world has to be true; I can only reject it if I honestly believe that it is not really what you believe--that is, if someone comes to me and says that he believes Adolph Hitler as the reincarnated Jesus in his second coming, I have to accept that if the player persuades me it is his honest belief, but not if I think he's just trying to mess with me. That would mean that in some universe that was true, and that if the character prayed to Adolph Hitler I would have to treat it as holy magic. I might call the player's bluff, though, because I find it really unlikely that anyone would believe that.

Generally speaking, what the player decides his character believes within the first minutes of arriving in the verse is also regarded as true. That is, Michael di Vars was not an Odinite before he entered the verse; he wasn't really much of anything, but he knew about Jesus and he knew about Odin, and when he found himself alive in NagaWorld after having died he decided it fit better with Odinism than with Christianity, so he embraced that. But of course Odinism is a real-world religion (under a different name), so there are people in this world (or at least were) who believe in Odin, so he picked a deity that is already validated independently. Had he decided that Bilbo Baggins would be his god, the referee would not be under any obligation to make a god called Bilbo Baggins. The player cannot dictate what supernatural beings exist simply by choosing to believe it.

It is different if having visited Bah Ke'gehn you embrace Bah Tor, or pick up Technogee from The Industrial Complex, or follow Amaterasu Omikami after hearing about her in Dark Honor Empire; those are worlds in which those are true religions, and thus those are real gods established as existing in the supernatural realm.

The problem with SkyNet and its Terminators is that the Greys, as you call them, do not believe that SkyNet is a supernatural being, and even if they did they would be wrong, because SkyNet is not a supernatural being but simply a very powerful AI. Nothing in the game says that there can't be false religions, people worshiping non-existent deities or objects that are not actually gods. That's the situation you have with the Greys: they have chosen to devote their lives to the service of a machine. It would be comparable to a samurai devoting his life to the service of a daimyo: the daimyo is his lord and master for whom he would give his life at a word, but that does not make the daimyo a god.

--M. J. Young

Tue May 24 2011 11:09 pm #
JohnA1nut
Member

The problem with SkyNet and its Terminators is that the Greys, as you call them, do not believe that SkyNet is a supernatural being, and even if they did they would be wrong, because SkyNet is not a supernatural being but simply a very powerful AI.

Again, not an argument, more of a funny curiosity. The word "Supernatural" means literally "Well beyond the abilities of nature." In some sense, it would be inarguable that SkyNet does fit that definition. I know what you mean, I'm just making a meaningless point.

(Doing Therapy)

Tue May 24 2011 11:19 pm #
M. J. Young
Moderator

The concept of the supernatural is clearly defined in the chapter on magic. It refers to a realm that is "above the natural", and thus to a realm of spirits and gods and magic. It does not apply to advanced technology.

--M. J. Young

Thu May 26 2011 1:17 am #

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