Assembly Discusion

[Fortune's Son]

Quote:

Originally posted by Endeavor:
And Sakurako knows how to tend a bloody nose.

As a nova whose name translates to Red Hot Cherry Girl, I'd freakin' hope she knew how to tend those bloody noses.

Sorry, obscure anime references here. Nothing to see, just keep moving along.

Nice story by way. Interesting idea.

[ronin]

Quote:

Originally posted by James 'Prodigy' Meehan:
How about we let Saimhe, Alex Craft, Ronin, Troll and Machina get back into the fray?

I appreciate the thought, and I'm sorry to everybody that I've been silent so far. I can't vouch for the others, but as for myself, work has kept me very busy, as well as preparations for my weekend journey.

Problem being, I'm headed out of town for the weekend as of right about now, and I won't have access (or time to use it). I'll be returning around Monday night, and I'll be updating then. Right now, I just don't have the time to read through all the missed posts and put in my .02.

I don't expect the rest of you all to wait for me to get my shit together, but if you all feel like stalling for just a few more days, I promise I'll be catching up really soon.

Apologies again.

[Sakurako Hino]

Hey, this is gonna go on for a while. I think in "in-game" time, only an hour or so has past.

I think you'll get to chime in. Some of the others will too.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Well that's annoying. My post got eaten. I've reposted.

[Preston]

Someone needs to sideline the Ashnod-Preston debate here. Just my suggestion.

[Ashnod]

nah, don't worry. Ash is going to ignore Preston from this point on.

[Sakurako Hino]

Yeah, that's becoming quite the cockfight. Perhaps even a little personal?

[Ulysses Bailey]

Great, I go out of town for a bit and the topic gets more action than [insert favorite dirty idiom].

Anyways, carry on!

[Ulysses Bailey]

Ok... new plan:

I intended on occasional breaks for this thing (ie - like the Pow Wow) and it might be a good time to throw one in now. Hence, I'll put up the "break" post in a little bit here and this is the fair warning .

What I'll be doing is also setting up a "social" area, so to say, as a communal place for people to talk during the break. If you want to have a private conversation, you can make your own topic but please keep things within plausability and courteousness. Grace and aplomb is optional.

The second part of the Assembly will start not too long afterwards, but a recharge for everyone is a good idea.

So again, fair warning on the topic Assembly: Day One.

[Ulysses Bailey]

Alright...

So after cutting myself off from the world for over a week to complete my paper, I've got some time again to do stuff not related to school. Hence, I should be getting the next day/session/whatever ready to go soon.

On a side note, when I had my final copy done last night I began to consider what I was getting myself into. This ol' quote immediately came to mind: Self-realization. I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, when he said, "I drank what?"

[Sakurako Hino]

I hope we can get our jollies out in the common room before diving back into the fray again. We just started. (There was a lull of a few days after the common room thread was started.)

Although, I look foreward to Day 2.

[Wakinyan]

I know I am not involved but I have to ask since I am curious. Does Machina smell like a bottle of booze mixed with an ashtray and a guy's shirt who just pulled a twelve hour shift at a garage? As I read those interlude posts for some reason I get that impression.

[Singularity]

I would advise everyone giving Jager the opportunity to respond (if he wishes) to Endeavor's last post. After all, he is the security and is apparently one fast mofo.

[Sakurako Hino]

NP. I've got a way out of this too. Sakurako is bluffing.

[Sakurako Hino]

Sakurako's officially checked out of the common room story.

[Alex Craft]

Alex is using the Mirroring enhancement to lighten the situation, but with the way the power works I doubt that would affect anyone who really wanted to be confrontational.

[Hugin]

We seem to have an impasse.

This isn't a story. That's a problem. What we have here is a face to face forum for our characters to debate their philosophies. Now, if anything my years messing around on forums and the like has shown me is that there is nothing more stubbornly opinionated than a Internet Philosopher. And these aren't even our own (in some cases) philosphies that we're arguing. They are the philosophies of our characters and we all have rock solid ideas as to who and what our characters are. So we are going around and around and around. No one is going to allow their character to be convinced of anything.

Most of the interactive fictions die out about this point anyway and that's when there is actually a story. This is just Legal Philosophy 101 for Novas. Arguing for the sake of arguing and it looks like it has died. It does not help that some people are no where near as involved in it as other people and that the request that we wait for a full series of responses before jumping back in has been ignored. We have two or three people engaging in a flurry of activity while someone who's in another time zone or at work doesn't have the opportunity to jump in on the conversation when in fact their character should and/or would.

It looks broken to me. Sing, how can we fix it?

[Singularity]

Quote:

Originally posted by James 'Prodigy' Meehan:
It looks broken to me. Sing, how can we fix it?

Once I've got my finals out of the way (one tomorrow and another on Thursday) I'll be more than happy to float some possible solutions. Right now, all I can do is check things once a day, at best, and that's not enough to work towards a viable solution. Not one worth the effort and cortesy everyone gave me by particpating (which, BTW, I greatly appreciate; this got further than I expected).

One thing we might keep in mind (while I'm off re-teaching myself stuff) is that we don't need people to necessarily change their deep-down opinions, not to find and create a type of Venn diagram for nova opinions on law and society.

Anyways, I've got faith this is a doable thing, all I ask is for everyone to please bear with me as I finish out the semester.

[Jager]

I think it breaks down because the basic premise is flawed. No matter how much some people want to bend, others see no reason to bend at all. If the basic premise is that you are going to be dealing with baselines, there are those who are not going to understand for any protocols for said dealings.

If anything, this should make some people painfully aware of the gulf in opinions between novas in the nova community.

The Aberrant War is much more an internal war between novas with poor humanity caught in the crossfire.

After all, we are talking parlimentary procedure to Monarchists, Anarchists, Marxists as well as Parlimentarians.

[Sakurako Hino]

This is what happens with individuals. Some change their minds, some think their point of view is the only one, and others are shades in between.

Also, since this is a text-based thing, it is sort of hard to field several points by several individuals. It's almost out-of-control controlled chaos.

This is a good attempt though on a different sort of collaborative effort.

[Ulysses Bailey]

Alright, now that I’m done with classes for a month (advance assignments notwithstanding) it’s time for me to finally get back to this stuff.

I’ve talked to a number of you, individually and together, regarding my intent with the fiction, where I want it to go, the point of it, etc. And while I believe I’ve gotten everything relevant out to people (and the source of my optimism regarding the fiction), that information is spread out amongst everyone and I think it’d be best for me to restate it here to make it clear. Hence, please excuse some repetition from what I’ve said before but I want to get everyone on the same page.

The idea of the fiction is for a collection of novas to discuss laws and regulations in an effort to find some sense of commonality and perhaps the largest rifts. When say commonalities, I’m referring to general concepts of rules, the most boiled down ideas. For example, homicide, as a concept, has been found in every human culture throughout history: the killing of another human being is punished. And as we examine the concept further we find the differences between cultures. Some cultures didn’t include slaves in the definition of another human being, others restricted the definition even further to be only citizens of the culture/nation, and contemporary nations have expanded the definition to any human being. Ours, America, is even going further by saying a fetus is included in the definition. However, all of these fall under the general definition of homicide. It’s these kinds of general concepts, and normative judgments where cultures divide, that I intended for the group to discuss. Particularly, the concepts and components that are created by novas and their powers.

Now, each nova that was invited represents a possible culture that would include novas. Obviously these characters are not authorized representatives of their respective cultures. Hell, some of the cultures represented by each character don’t even exist yet. But the point here is to not make something binding for every culture to agree to, the point is to get each character’s opinion on certain topics, to help find those lines of normative judgments I mentioned. In other words, what Joe Nova thinks is best for a government isn’t the important thing (“a government could never regulate telepathic contact”), what Joe Nova himself thinks is right and wrong is the key idea here (“it’s wrong for someone to scan my brain without my approval”).

Returning to the question of telepaths before as an example, a general concept could be “unauthorized psychic contact is punished.” Now, we can apply that to a few of the characters on the board. For example, a culture that shares Prodigy and Singularity’s personal views on telepathy would be likely to tightly construe the concept I mentioned, eliminating nearly all unasked telepathic contact. On the other hand, a culture sharing Bastian’s views would be likely to construe the concept very broadly, perhaps limiting only telepathic assaults on some sort of innocent bystanders. While these two cultures would have apparently disparate views, there is a common element that is shared by both. Obviously, not all of the topics will have such broad differences in the cultures.

As for disagreeing characters, that’s part of the idea. Each character is there because they have their own views on how things should be regulated, punished, and considered wrong. I’ve got no illusions of getting every character to agree about how, say, telepathy should be regulated. As I mentioned above, that’s not even the point. The point, for the group, is to see these characters find a common ground they never knew existed yet between each other but was there all along. In sense of making something for posterity’s sake, the common ground the characters find (IE – the general concepts I’ve been mentioning) give cultures involving novas suggestions (unlike the specific rules of the UCC and MPC) on how to deal with the issues created by novas. Again with telepathy, the idea that telepathy should be regulated could be a product of the fiction but it’s up to the cultures themselves to figure out the specifics (assuming they follow the general suggestion at all). Getting the more argumentative characters to talk is something more related to character interaction and discussion skills.

As for “inhuman” characters, Mega-Intelligent characters, and the nature of the meta-plot, I believe the concerns there miss part of the point of the fiction. Continuing the telepathy example, Bastian could be considered to be quite inhuman yet that would not detract from the common ground connection between him and, say, “novas are human” nova shared when we consider the telepathic contact concept. Granted, particularly zealous characters might not appreciate that connection, but their discomfort does not change the truth. Also, while Mega-Intelligent characters could (and have in some cases) approach these topics with more efficiency and completely than the less intelligent characters (and us players), intelligence does not lead to wisdom, foresight, justice, or even morality or ethics. Believe you me, if raw intelligence meant being able to create effective and just laws then our government would look a lot different.

But the stickiest point is that last one: the meta-plot. While this fiction creates the awesome possibility of diametrically opposed characters to agree on something it’s just not meant to be according to The Powers That Be. As much as I’d love to see Ashnod and Preston not only find a topic where they might say to themselves “Wow, I never realized how similar our opinions were about this” or even see them mutually defend each other on a topic from another character’s assault, the canon world does not allow for this to happen, not ever. While I understand the need for the eventual Aberrant War, it would be nice to suspend the disbelief momentarily to see the characters show some kind of foresight outside of Mal’s realization in 2060 that Max was right all along. Unless Ashnod, Preston, and the others are meant to be inflexible characters.

Anyways… my brain is fried from my finals and I think I might have gotten across where I was going with the fiction. But to be sure, here are the two most important ideas behind the fiction: to do something interesting and to do something fun. Sure, they’re obvious, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt to mention them.

Did that all make sense or have I lost the ability to communicate?

[Ashnod]

I personally think that you are missing some of the issues here.

Characters have agendas. They aren't just arguing a certain viewpoint, but rather, have very specific reasons for arguing their viewpoints. I'm going to use Preston/Ashnod since they've been brought up, though I might get some of the specifics incorrect.

Ashnod has a transhuman-centric motivation. She cares JACKSHIT for all this talk about what-if, she's more interested in how all this what-if talk is going to be enforced, and she has a decided interest in making certain that the transhuman angle does not lose ground in the process. You, the player, ask through Ulysses "is telepathy a violation?" and her answer is going to depend entirely on the identity of the victim. She doesn't care in the slightest that you, the player of Ulysses, want to hear her views on the morality of the act and see how that overlaps with the morality of the other characters.

You ask her the hypothetical question, "Is telepathy a violation?" She responds "who is the victim?" You respond "The victim is unimportant, just say a member of society." She responds, "What kind of society is this?" You respond, "That doesn't matter. Just society."

To Ashnod, you've now in one perspective told her that her viewpoint doesn't matter. It's Preston's you're interested in, the CURRENT arrangement where baseline and nova are treated for the most part as equal citizens in the eyes of the law. For HER, you've changed the playing field now so that we're talking about ways of modifying the existing system, not creating something new.

She has no interest in preserving the current system. The discussion as you're proposing it actually encourages placing limitations about quantum expression, something she isn't going to be too quick to approve of.

In other words, this discussion gives her no reason whatsoever to speak her morality freely as it has the distinct possiblity of giving power to her opposition. You also have to keep in mind, again, that she isn't there speaking for herself but (in her eyes) the transhuman movement and therefore she is required to act in their best interests. Those interests, for the moment, cannot concede anything to the status quo while the status quo hold the power in societal interaction.

Ergo, her daughter follows the Monster Teras archetype. You ask Ashnod, "is killing wrong?" Well, her daughter is one of the most hunted Nova killers in the world. Is she going to say, "Is killing wrong?" No, she'll say, "The simple act of killing? No. We've established that life has no intrinsic value." You can modify this statement, "Is murder wrong?" Again, defending the Monster archetype, she will say "who is the victim?"

On that end, the "inhuman" aspect of this isn't something you can just wave away and tell the "inhuman" novas to forget while at the table. It's not the same as a Mega-Intelligent nova, though there some overlaps can occur there. The morality of the monster archetype can be absolutely terrifying to non-nova eyes and even appalling to some nova eyes. But there you have it, and as it is part of the whole the transhuman movement, she can't dismiss it and say anything to give power against it. If she were to say "yes, murder is wrong," (and i'm not saying she would) the first thing that she's going to have to face is "Why do you tolerate Geryon? Lash? Your own daughter?"

You're hoping, if I read all of that correctly, for a completely unbiased dissection of the morality of these characters and to find where they all merge and mingle. That isn't going to happen. It's has nothing at all to do with the "canon" world or the metaplot.

[Preston]

Ashnod is pretty much on the money, though Preston never felt that any of the terats here were going to do anything to advance Bailey's agenda.

After all, the very concept of a law, or even moral viewpoint, is based on some preconception of a society. Since a Transhuman society does not yet exist, what stance can they take?

One of two things were bound to happen:

I. The assembly would be exposed to the Transhuman viewpoints of existance. To a degree, Preston tried to lead the conversation that way, with his discussions of the value of life, property, and the rule of force over any law. As Ashnod pointed out, the "how" of enforcement is as important as what is being enforced.

II. Preston would try to show is that the Transhuman/Terat agenda was out to either a)remove novas from baseline society, or b)to destroy the existing society befor creating a new one.

He plans to show Bailey, and the others, that their society and said viewpoints can not exist in a terat mindset.

A baseline that runs around killing other baselines killing other random baselines is a murderer and most likely mentally unbalanced.

The same does not apply to a terat running around killing the random baseline. His fellows view the entire episode in a very different light.

If the terats are not going to express any of their viewpoints or ideas, the assembly comes grinding to a halt.

[Alex Craft]

And Alex is just sitting there and tossing something in whenever he gets bored watching everyone retread ground. ( :

[Ulysses Bailey]

Well of course we can't have an unbiased dissection or morality by the characters, that would defeat the purpose. Our normative decisions are biased by definition, even those made by utilitarians who claim otherwise.

Also, I think I'm not being clear. Bailey isn't interested in the current system, he's interested in what hasn't been made. Asking everyone to set aside their conflict momentarily is not telling Ashnod, or anyone, her point of view is invalid. Asking the question "when is telepathic contact wrong" doesn't explicitly or implicitly exclude the Terats by limiting things to only baselines and novas, it's an open question.

Continuing on that idea, there is no underlying idea or agenda behind Bailey's actions to divide or limit along transhumanism and teras. In fact, he's trying to do the opposite as has been noted. From where Bailey stands, that's an incorrect reading into his words and actions, although the transhuman/terats split is right on the money regarding Preston's goals as shown above.

From Bailey's standpoint, Ashnod is dancing around the issue. Granted, he's given her open-ended questions but I don't think it's that much of a stretch for her to respond to "Doesn't matter, just a society" with a "In the case of a nova-only society then such an offense against a nova would be right/wrong." That's all he's looking for when he asks questions. Going into depth about victims and the like is, in some ways, deeper than the discussion is meant to go (to use an analogy, Bailey is asking about the basic elements of murder while people are answering regarding closely regulated excuse and justification defenses). Sure, the blanks need to be filled in to get something meaningful out of it, but it's up to the characters to fill in those blanks as they respond.

If Ashnod thinks her point of view is being considered meaningless then wouldn't Bailey's "flippant" response apply to everyone else? Her relative paranoia about giving others power over her through knowing her morality is understandable, but the point of the assembly was give and take. Not to give characters a free peak into their potential enemies' minds. This, in my opinion, falls right into the canon mindset of the Terats. That might not be the motivation behind characters acting this way but you get the same result.

What it comes down to, in some ways, is simple miscommunication. The person running the show isn't out to push any agenda aside learning a common ground. The assembly was intended for all participants to contribute equally in the discussion. And, contrary to apparent belief, no one's opinions are invalid in his mind here. Although I can see how it can be interpreted that way.

Anyways... aside his astute observation that everyone needs to contribute, Preston is the one people should be naming as a conspirator.

[Ulysses Bailey]

Alrighty: since I'm a bit lazy, I'm nudging the fiction with a topic a few of us covered once outside of the boards and I really wanted to see the characters discuss it.

Also, it serves as a way to see if there's still interest left in this little experiment. Hence, here's a dying gasp.

[Hugin]

My hate for you is as dense as gold, as deep as the ocean and as vast as the Great Plains.

[Ulysses Bailey]

Bah, you like it and you know it.

[Ashnod]

Is there anyone in Canon who fits Troll's description didn't know they erupted? I can buy in-denial, amnesia, etc, but someone who honestly didn't know and had nothing preventing them from realizing it?

It seems a bit unlikely given the appetite increase, headaches that accompany it, and other physical changes (loss of body fat, etc) that it would go unnoticed for very long.

Just curious.

[Alex Craft]

That one guy ... Directive book?

...

Yeah. Lucas Barrows didn't figure out that he had erupted for at least a year.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Lucas made a splash in the papers when that happened. He might even live in New York (don't remember).

At Q=1, Taint=0, there appearently isn't as big a difference in appetite (etc), and Lucas figured his headache was from his drinking binge. Add to that him being fit before eruption and his big powers being psi-shield and him not noticing makes a degree of sense.

Note this ignores the (theoretical) Dorm=5 nova who never undorms. If all you buy is Willpower, Attributes, Skills, etc then it isn't that big a deal.

This also ignores the (also theoretical) Psiad who might think he is special but has medical science say otherwise.

And finally this also ignores the odd nova who erupts in a "mean streets" setting with a lot less than 30 nova points.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Sorry, but I just realized, there is also that Utopian investigator who didn't realize she had erupted for months after it happened. AB:Utopia.

Eventually she figured it out and was able to narrow her eruption date down to (maybe) a single semester.

[Ashnod]

Okay. So it *doesn't* happen, except in extremely exceptional cases.

Thank you.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

It is NOT 2 out of several thousand eruptions.

It is 2 out of maybe 50 cannon characters. That's 4%, which makes it rare, but NOT extremely exceptional.

If you want to count closet novas (i.e. novas who don't look like novas), then that number goes up.

If you want to count the unerrupted then that number goes WAY up. I very vaguely recall that AT LEAST two thirds of all potential novas still hadn't erupted.

--edit--

And then we have the movie "Unbreakable".

In it the 40+ year old hero finds out that not only does he have mega-strength and mega-stamina, but he has had them for basically his entire life.

[Alex Craft]

"I very vaguely recall that AT LEAST two thirds of all potential novas still hadn't erupted."

And might never, and are breeding.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Consider all psions in trinity were potentially novas. There are what, 100,000? psions?

The implication is that during the nova era only 10% or so of potential novas EVER erupted.

[Ashnod]

....

....

I honestly don't consider Unbreakable a good representation of a nova. A Stalwart, perhaps, but not a Nova, not even a weak one.

I disagree with the rariety of this entirely.

[Alex Craft]

That's actually a pretty skewed statistic, too - since in Trinity, active psions are themselves a fraction of latents, and not all people with the genes are strong enough latents to be triggered (obviously, since it isn't unusual for a baseline to suddenly register latent after repeated negative testing).

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Ashnod:
I disagree with the rariety of this entirely.

4% feels high to me too... but you and I are used to good amounts of nova points and experience.

The really nasty part of this idea is it could be true without people really noticing. Most people don't get tested. Say that for every 30+ nova who erupts there is a 5 point nova who typically doesn't even get a mega-stat or a first level power.

So that would only be 10,000 world wide or maybe 500 in the United States. Unless they are put under a magnifying glass, all they'd appear to be is supper-baselines. With the true novas hogging the spot light they wouldn't even rise to the top of their profession.

So even with a rate of 50%, it would be easy for the entire group to pass under the radar.

Moving back to known cannon for a moment, I think some novas erupt with a lot more than 30, I don't see how Pax and Totentanz could be built otherwise. This implies people could erupt with less. We even have comments to that effect in the APG.

All of the pieces are there for building this particular puzzle. I obviously can't say that it's true in cannon (since we only have 1 or 2 known characters who fit the bill)... but... had the abby universe had as many supliments as the WOD I think we would have seen it.