opnet [OpNet] Reactions?

[Chaos]

I want to ask you people a question but I'm not sure how to put it. Its not a tough question but maybe some background would help the understanding. Recently I had to opportunity of... Well, racing through the streets of LA at a speed in excess of... Lets just say a lot. I'm not sure if there's going to be court appearances yet. Its kind of a long story. Kidnapped clients, not mine by the way but I happened to be the only other operative in town so I got the call. White slavers. A governement witness. I'm pretty sure there were crooked cops involved but if so I can't prove it and its none of my business. Wouldn't be the first time I've seen cops whose job was a lower priority than their retirement funds.

However, in the aftermath a question came up. It started out from the guy that's a resident mechanic for my boss. And then I got visit from one of the senior mercs. A real asshole that can't figure out a mace backed by enough muscle to throw a trash can into orbit isn't the same as being bright. And then the big man came and caught me on the way out the door for a "little talk" that lasted almost two hourss. Essentially the question they were asking was why I never told them I could "that". That being able to push the car I was in to about 4 times its rated maximum speed.

I told them it wasn't really something I thought about often. Its not like I erupted with the ability to make things go really fast. I just know how to do things with energy and entropy. I told them about the time I used a flashlight to stop a would-be "evolutionary" in the middle of taking hostages back when I was a municipal defender. I told them about some other things too. I didn't tell them I wasn't pushing it as hard as I could. So my question is "Have you ever had someone freak, be amazed, or just get weirded out when they realized something you could do?"

I'm not talking about them reacting to you being a nova or something like that. I mean, when they realized what you could do with some of the mojo you had did you ever have someone just wig?

[Lemmy Chillmeister]

Not really. The fact is, when I popped node-chubby I could only do a couple things. Freeze stuff, freeze stuff real nasty, stay up a long ass time and play like a fucking demon.

Once I actually started trying to do new shit I was around folks that expected me to wow them, so when I finally manged some new and interesting stuff it was more like "It's about time" then "Ooooooh."

[Chaos]

No icicle. I'm not talking about that "flash evolution" crap where some nova nobody ever heard of before suddenly finds out he could do new and really cool things just before he felt the need to confide his secrets to a tabloid reporter and disappear without a trace. Novas don't spontaneously get new powers. Anybody that tells you different is lying to you. Its not how it works.

I'm talking about people freaking because they knew what you could do but didn't figure out what you do with it.

[Lemmy Chillmeister]

Oh. Well no. Never did that.

[Chaos]

In that case thanks ever so much for completely wasting my time.

Musicians. Jeez.

[Wakinyan]

Quote:

Originally posted by Chaos:
Novas don't spontaneously get new powers. Anybody that tells you different is lying to you. Its not how it works..

Interesting..

[Velvet]

Quote:

Originally posted by Chaos:
Its not how it works.

I don't think any of us really knows how it works, and if they do, either they aren't telling, or nobody believes them.

That being said, yeah, I've had a few experiences like that. Nothing on your scale, mind. At least, I wouldn't think so.

A few years ago, my mom and I weren't getting on so well. It was the usual parent-child conflict- she wasn't happy with the way I chose to live, and I've been on my own way too long to really think of her as an authority figure. (Don't get me wrong, though... She's my mom, and I love her.) She was seeing this guy, finally, after being alone since I was a little girl, and thought he hung the moon. Couldn't have been happier for her... Until I caught him uptown, walking out of Vicki's Secret with a little brunette on his arm. I didn't think much of it, until I caught sight of the wedding rings. Yikes. Well, needless to say, mom was pissed. She called me everything but a human being, said I was lying because I was jealous that her life was happy and stable. Well, she didn't believe me, so I showed her, clear as Memorex, right there on her front steps. It was like watching a home movie pulled straight from your brain and projected into thin air in full stereo and living color. She freaked, and didn't talk to me for about four months. Heh. She called to apologize when she found out for herself.

The other time wasn't all that long ago. I was arguing with someone, and just couldn't make him understand how I felt about him. Words just weren't enough. Instead of putting something in his head, though, I think I yanked him into mine, and made him feel it for himself. I'm still not really sure how I did it, or if I could do it again. Even if he didn't get the willies, I sure did.

That what you're looking for? Sorry if it's confusing, I'm only half here at the moment.

[The White Rat]

I have usually found that I have to try something new or be taught by someone who already has such a skill. The potential has to be there, however, so not everyone can learn the same powers. Once I tried to learn how to throw my quantum energy, and all I ended up with was a sore node.

I was able to figure out a new power by trial and error. I found a volunteer, who while not willing at first, eventually came around. He's now thinks he's the 'Second Coming of Christ'. Now, Zia takes good care of him. It's pathetic that those monkey lovers at Utopia don't seem to miss him that much.

[Chaos]

Quote:

Originally posted by Wakinyan:
Interesting..

Not really.

Quote:

Originally posted by Velvet:
That what you're looking for?

Yah. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

[Hugin]

Back in those dark days when I was employed by Project Utopia I was having a discussion with my "case manager" who was bemoaning the fact that my transhuman abilities were restricted to simple enhancement of intelligence. I was feeling a tad persnickity that day so when I left after his clumsy attempts at encouraging me to improve myself I told him how sorry I was that his wife had left him but not to take it out on me.

It took him awhile to get up the guts to ask how I knew. Baselines have a hard time understanding how to read obvious clues.

[Neil Preston]

The answer to the question, Chaos, is yes. The first time I took on someone's near fatal head wound and recovered from it.

As for the rest, I am student of the nova experience and I know I don't know most of what's going on. I don't know if I am more worried about the people who think they know what's going on, or the people who have given up trying.

I want to know, even if it turns out I can't/shouldn't use the knowledge. Maybe someone else, coming up behind me, will figure it out?

[Chaos]

Prodigy:

Yah, that's what I'm getting at.

Preston:

Umm... Not sure but I think we're not on the same page. I'm not talking about people getting weirded by your quantum abilities, however it looks or feels. I'm talking about people getting weirded out because you do something with that, something beyond the obvious.

I have some influence over energy and entropy. So if I make something fall apart people aren't really surprised. At least intellectually they knew I could do it. But when I take a flashlight and burn a hole in a wall six inchs to the left of somebody's head suddenly I get a "how the hell did you do that?" reaction. The same way I can make something fall apart, just in different proportions. Give me a complex machine, something like a hypercombustion automobile, and I can push it way beyond the design specs. How? In one set of ratios the machine starts suffering cascade failures as entropic synergy eats it, while in another set of proportions the machine becomes stuck in an infinite positive feedback loop. If Velvet says "telepath" everybody says "Oh you can read my mind" but did any one think what else she could with it?

[Machina]

I'm an inventor and engineer by trade, so pretty much everything I do gives creeps to the monkeys. My dossier with my old employer is pretty modest in its appraisal of my intellect; creative applications of showy powers can astonish the chimps, but nothing gives them the limp-dick shivers like making an observation or blythely synthesizing an idea or solving a problem that is totally beyond the capacity of anyone in the room. Like Hugin illustrated above, picking up on obvious cues or making light work of a boggling problem can really cast a snowflakes entire world into question.

One thing I like to do that even freaks out other novas is just not be at all impressed with their bullshit. You see a lot of these assholes walking around on television, in large groups, with this pathetic crowd of sycophants trailing them like goldfish shit, eager to abide their every whim, and for some reason, this magesty shit even seems to pull the wool over most novas. But not me. I guess I'm what those beret-wearin', snail-eatin' frogs would call "blase". I prefer to think I'm just too smart to be impressed by your dangerously overinflated sense of self-worth.

[Neil Preston]

Hell, in that case never, unless you count disappointment. People bring me bits and pieces of a loved one/close friend/somebody they found and expect me to bring them back to life pretty regularly. They aren't surprised when I stitch some horribly mangles mass of meat back into a living being. They are surprised when I can't. Dead is still dead. I haven't gotten that good yet.

[The White Rat]

I don't really need to do anything to freak-out the monks. They are surprised at my 'inhumanity' in general.

If you saw a five foot, fur covered albino, who had red lidless eyes and skin that flapped in the breeze, how would you react?

[Trooper]

You'd think that people wouldn't be suprised by superhuman strength when they know you have it. I mean, if you see me lifting up a jeep and throwing it out on the training ground you know I'm really, really strong.

But still, sometimes people get a little weirded out by the smaller displays of strength. Like, just because a suitcase looks light when I'm carrying it you really shouldn't be suprised when you can't lift it. It's like, I must not be using any real muscle unless I'm hefting a truck.

[Good Alice]

I can grow, that is well clear as the sun.

People do not understand what that really means, I can grow to 16 times my normal size, and grow things with me. I take a shovel grow, then start digging a an aqueducts. I have other novas look at how much work I can do. I have made more aqueducts and paves more roads than anyone in all history.

[Chaos]

Trooper and Good Alice; that's what I'm talking about. Especially your example Good Alice, but both are what I was trying to get across.

Machina; I dunno. I think your example is actually the antithesis of what I was trying to get at, which is a whole 'nother ball game.

The White Rat; on my humorous days I like to think I'd react with a fly swatter. On most days, and knowing it was you not just any fur covered albino, I think I'd react with a 9mm and shot gun combination followed by burning the remains as a prelude for a hydrochloric acid wash. Then scatter the solution over Jupiter.

What do you think? Too thorough?

Unfortunately there's an obstacle in the way of us having a meaningful conversation. You're fucking insane. That's a pretty big obstacle to overcome for a little chitchat.

[The White Rat]

Chaos: Relax and embrace your taint. Your just jealous that I have.

Underestimating your opponent will get you killed.

[Chaos]

I hear that a lot. Of course a lot of things will get you killed including being a insane freak with a rationale for sadism.

[The White Rat]

Chaos:

You speak as if insanity and sadism are bad things. There are some, me included, who see these as evolutionary steps. They are simply part of the process.

While you desperately try to hold on to your humanity, I will evolve past human frailties like morality and altruism.

How does it feel, knowing that you are a 'war slave' for the humans? Do you feel proud killing your own kind for the monkeys?

[Chaos]

I speak of insanity as if it were an obstacle to getting on with your life. I speak of sadism as if it were how you go about getting your rocks off.

How exactly does being sanity challenged and getting pleasure from messing with others lead to evolution? Its not like it hasn't been done to death by a million other people that came before you, none of who had a node as far as I know.

,,

Quote:

Originally posted by The White Rat:

How does it feel, knowing that you are a 'war slave' for the humans? Do you feel proud killing your own kind for the monkeys?

First off how about if I claim its my destiny to go out into the world and do these things, the paycheck just being a perk on the way to me "evolving" into the ultimate mercenary I can be? Oh, and I'm not resposible for the actions of the other "war slaves" because we're just like minded people that share a interest and not actually a group or a organization.

What a schmuck.

So far I haven't killed another nova although twice I've wanted to and once I came really close by thinking anyone with that big a mouth must be able to shrug off some damage.

Turned out I was wrong.

[The White Rat]

Who gives you your paycheck? Who hires you? For who's causes do you fight? It would seem that the answer is human.

You have actually convinced yourself, that your destiny depends upon humanity and their causes? Ha ha ha ha ha ha. And you call me insane? At least I admit my madness and embrace it.

What a waste of a node. Using it in the service of humanity. And for what? A paycheck. I call that 'selling out'.

[Chaos]

Did we not hear the word 'perk' in my explanation? What's wrong? Is your terat bullshit not so palatable when it comes from someone with a grasp on their sanity?

No. I don't believe any of that anymore than I believe it when its being spewed by the philosophically retarded as justification for their whims. You got a node. Zippity yay. That node isn't me. It's not the be all and end all of what or who I am. Which btw is exactly the reason I find you so disgusting. Obviously I'm not a terat. I don't think its okay you get your jollies because it rocks your crotch to jerk people around painfully. I don't think getting your jollies has anything to do with evolution. You're just fucked up.

Oh yeah. I can see how "selling out" puts me on the same level with the shit you pull.

[The White Rat]

So, you admit to committing violence acts and you want to be the best. Perhaps there is not all that much difference between us. You just get paid for doing it, while I just enjoy it.

[Chaos]

The problem with trying to talk with lunatics is that sarcasm is completely lost on them.

I do admit to sometimes committing acts of violence. I don't want to be the best if you mean as a mercenary. That was just me mocking you with your own t-rat bullshit.

You were mocked. That was the sarcasm part.

[The White Rat]

Good, I'm glad to see that you have a sense of humor.

For a while there I thought you were angry and small minded.

My mistake.

[Chaos]

I'm distantly related to you. At least on a genetic level. Fuck yes I have a sense of humor.

Being able to laugh at the situation helps.

[Trooper]

Quote:

Originally posted by Chaos:


So far I haven't killed another nova although twice I've wanted to and once I came really close by thinking anyone with that big a mouth must be able to shrug off some damage.

Turned out I was wrong.

Is that what happened?

Why am I not suprised?

[Chaos]

Quote:

Originally posted by Trooper:
Is that what happened?

Accidents happen. I hear the paradocs did good work putting his face back on.