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.
Young's Theorem--not mine, but my father's--states:
Things that are not the same are different.
- 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.
- 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
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)
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)
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!!!!!!!!
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
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)
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)
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
"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)
Two
This post was too much unneeded BS for MJ to sort through.
(Doing Therapy)
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)
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
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)
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
One of the reasons you gave for not wanting to pick this back up was the skills Eric uses would be too difficult to sort out. I've got the solution should you change your mind.
I'm a baby and I've got a control dreams skill. Babies fall asleep on a whim. So, I passed out, dreamed 20 years in 20 minutes, and awoke to find that Terry the angel had explained everything to Sarah. Sarah is now smiling and holding her "Sweet little verser baby" who can call angels to protect her. Since, from my character's POV, it was all a controlled dream, that's the only skill that changes, and the equipment stays as you have it. You just use your sheet, and give me a new use on the Control Dreams skill. All the skills and equipment I got from Eric was a dream. It's not like I won't get better of everything in this world.
That is just a suggestion should you change your mind. A Terminator superfan who knows your theory would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. Think about it. That's all I'm asking.
bump damn you!!!