opnet [OpNet] But what if you really could?

[Loge]

Hi. I had a question. Sorry but this isn't going to be one of those deep philosophical moments offering the opportunity to wax poetic. I'm just not that deep. I was reading an article wherein the writer asked questions about giving nova powers to someone and I thought a better question would be who would I give do it for. So the question is; if you could gift someone with eruption who would it be?

Once upon a time an easy way to seperate people was to ask if they were Beatles People or Elvis People. Even later, and this was when we were willing to categorize by how shallow we were, it was whether we were Brittany People or Christina People. Luckily the world changed in 1998 and we could conveniently forget ever being that shallow. But in between those two musical ages there was a time when you were either a Madonna Person or Cyndi Lauper Person. Sweet, charming, capable of spewing invectives that would make paint blister and a sailor blush Cyndi also capable of singing her ass off. No pyrotechnics at her shows but she could drag us into her music, into her singing, and hell even into her pastime of wrestling. And if we weren't a Madonna Pet we loved every second of it.

Aljandra already got her node, Brittany is sad pedophile memory and we all know what happened to Gwen Stefanie. So yeah I'd we willing to drive a jolt of raw power into Cyndi. Just to say thanks for all those hormonal driven dreams and the memory of music.

Who would you guys give it to?

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

I find it quite telling that you start by asking who we would chose to give nova powers to, and then you talk about nobody but old-fashioned celebrities.

Those people were the novas of their age. They had money, fame, influence, and the power to do nearly anything they wanted within the context of reality as it was at that time. They had their turn in the spotlight, and history has passed them by.

Now it's our turn.

Oh, and I'd give my mom nova powers.

[Loge]

Putting a little background to my choice is telling but giving it up for mom doesn't mean anything? Whatever.

Really, I understand. They're just pictures in books and sounds on chips to you. Nice try at substance though. I did warn you it wasn't deep enough a question for that but it was still a really good try.

[Leliel]

I actually remember Cyndi, Madonna, Britney, and all those others. I thought they sucked then, and still think they suck now.

That being said, there are two people I would help erupt if I was capable of that gift. Unfortunately one of them is dead now, and the other has been missing since 2003.

[Machina]

I wouldn't give it to anyone. That's like asking me if I'd give anyone a strain of Marburg's that makes them shoot fire outta their twat and belch poison. Even if there was somebody I hated that much, they'd enjoy it too much. Fuck 'em.

Cyndi ain't a bad choice, I gotta say, though. I mean, do you remember the titanic shitheads who didn't like Cyndi Lauper?

[The White Rat]

I was always partial to Cyndi Lauper. It is of my opinion, that most entertainers don't deserve nodes. That being said, I would have to gift one entertainer in particular.

Bruce Campbell deserves a node simply because of his Evil Dead movies.

The non-entertainer who gets my nod for a node is Dr. Josef Mengele.

[Loge]

Leliel (interesting name that) -

Its okay to tell me you didn't like her music or you think my choice sucks. I don't mind. Its different when somebody tries the the three second pop analysis followed by a one second commercial but disagreement is okay. Sorry your choices aren't around anymore.

Machina -

You liked Cyndi too? Good taste m'man. And god yes I remember those idiots. Even in film and none of it was really Oscar material, Cyndi just shined but they couldn't see it. Unlike Madonna, Cyndi was selling music not sex. And its the music I remember her for.

One day I'm going to ask you why you're so down on novas but not today. The subject of the thread just won't support a weighty issue.

White Rat -

A yet another Cyndi fan!

Oh I don't know. Maybe entertainers don't deserve a node just for being entertainers but there are those people that stay in our memories. I have a special spot in my heart for Bruce Campbell too. I'd still hand over the lottery ticket to Cyndi but trying to imagine Bruce Campbell with a node boggles the mind. I hope you're joking about Mengele but if you aren't can you give a reason? Your choice and all but I don't get it.

[Leliel]

Most of my choices weren't around back then either. Favorite style of music for me was always Classical, though I did listen to some rock and R&B.

If I could give any 20th-century performer a node it would definately be BB King. He was the god of Blues.

[Loge]

Classical is okay. Its not my favorite music but there are times I listen to Beethoven and Mozart when I'm in the shop. Usually when I'm stuck working out a difficult problem or the wood is yammering at me and just will not shut up. Oh, and Christmas time. I listen to lots of string orchestras around Christmas time.

The rest of the time its all rock and roll to me. And rock and roll is just the bastard son of R&B so I listen to that too.

[The White Rat]

Loge:

I picked Dr. Mengele, because if he had a node, he would have completed his work without the killing and torturing of tens of thousands of Jews. Many lives would have been saved, and the advancements in science, made by his experiments, would still have been realized.

[Loge]

That's a very interesting idea.

Good call.

I have to admit it sounded very messed up when you first said it but it makes a great deal of sense when you explain it. I'd still give it up for Cyndi but then I never said I was deep or insightful.

[Ptesan-Wi]

Anyone? I would have to choose T‘ašunka Witko, who you would know as Crazy Horse. Perhaps if he had been a nova, he could have succeeded in his quest for a free life for the People, instead of dying on the end of a wasicu bayonet.

[GateKeeper]

John Wayne.. That guy was so bad ass though he probably did not need one.

[The White Rat]

Wasicu? Is that some sort of racial slur?

[Machina]

Pissy-Wu might try to snow you on this one, Rat, but yeah, basically, wasicu means "greedy, dishonorable paleface". It started out just meaning something like 'white man', but as the featherheads started realizing how much they didn't like all that white dick up their ass, it started taking on a lotta negative connotations.

Nowadays, Injuns who think they're smart and make cloying attempts at backhanded diplomacy like to throw that word around because they can insult guys like you an' me and then play the race card and plaintively cry "that's not what that word means!" when we call them on it.

[Ptesan-Wi]

Nice effort at a straw-man, Machina. However, you're barking up the wrong tree. I will make no bones about what I mean by the term "wasicu" when applied to Private William Gentiles, the man who ran T‘ašunka Witko through with a bayonet. "Greedy, dishonorable paleface" is actually a touch more charitable than the terminology I would use: "invading, murderous dog" is more what I had in mind.

[The White Rat]

Well Pity-Me:

Lets see if you can take as well as you dish.

As long as we are going to play race vs race, then I would offer my node to General George Custer. With a node, he would have finished what he started, and we would not have to worry about modern-day racial separatists bent on using victimization as an excuse to victimize others...

Instead Custer had some savage's tomahawk buried in his chest.

*volley*

The ball is in your court.

[z-Clark]

Why are novas (two of whom claim to be Terats) arguing about baseline racial divides? Does the word "One Race" mean "one only we have the same color skin?" We are novas; race is nothing.

On subject, I would give a node to Merit Ptah (c. 2700 BCE). She is the first record female physician and scientist. I choose her because I value science and research; I choose a woman because it would have created an interesting world if a woman had had such power early in baseline history. I would be interested in seeing the way she would have lead us into the future.

[The White Rat]

I consider the whole human race repugnant. I don't make a distinction between one human and another. Pity Me seems to think that certain humans are more worthy than another, based on their ethnicity. I wonder if she translates that into our species.

With regards to the "One Race", I think we are all equally worthy. Sure, there are some with competing agendas and ideals, and yes it does cause conflict, but I don't make judgements based on primitive concepts like ethnicity. I make judgements based on the actions of the individual. We are all kin, because we are of the same species.

Let's make war on other species, and not on our own kind. Perpetuating simplistic views like Pity Me, makes us just like baselines.

[Loge]

Just to toss in a few cents worth...

I know quite a bit about trees and stone because I am a craftsman and carpenter. I can talk about kinds of rocks and how it can be shaped, polished, joined and generally used. I can talk about which insects are a problem with which species of trees and what can be harmful to the wood and how it happens. I can tell you all of this and depending on my mood I might even be passionate about it. But I'm still not a tree and a piece of rock. If I talk about trees and rocks I'm either trying to use them as a way of describing something I feel or I've done or I have done/might do. Same thing here.

Its a hundred years later. Ptesan might feel very passionately about a situation today and because of that might try to find someone or something in the past that would change that situation today. But she doesn't care about Crazy Horse any more or less than I care about George Washington. She doesn't have nightmares about Custer anymore than I have nightmares about the English sap that butchered some people that were distantly related to me. She's just saying she'd like to see that world where Crazy Horse had a node and how that might have changed her present. That's all. It doesn't mean you can talk trash about this stuff and not get a rise out of her. Especially if she thinks you're trying to say something bad about her. Buut its just not that big a thing.

She's got points about how some people she never knew were screwed over. You can push her buttons all you want but what's the point? The people that scewed those deadmen and dead women she never knew are also dead and gone. What's done is done. You can live in the past and die in the present, or you can live in the present and make the future.

[Hugin]

I would offer it to anyone. With a node a Nova can surpass their baseline limitation, personality and worldview relatively easily. Even the most humble of salary-men who never achieves anything beyond 'listanable' when belting out drunken karaoke can sing away the sorrow of the ages with a quantum fueling his talent. The most talentless, fumble-fingered twit can suddenly make Rodin look like an amatuer once her node erupts.

[Machina]

Thanks for validating everything I fucking said, Pissy-Wu. Way to take a straw man and build him a coat of mortar and brick. The fact that you know even less about your own infantile never-made-it-out-of-the-fucking-tool-age-without-the-white-man culture than I do should surprise me, but I pretty much expected that: I have a PhD in Cultural Studies, and you're married to a teenager you think is god.

You know, Rat, people who give a shit have sometimes tried to figure out why, given my contempt for everyone, I don't sign on with the Teragen. Truth is, slopeheads like Pissy-Wu are more a deterrant than batshit psychos like you are. At least you buy the party line; the Lakota trim seems to adhere to some infantile form of backwards eugenic superiority exclusive of her alleged subscription to Teras. I know enough to know that the core belief of Teras is some Crowleyan nightmare of letting everyone figure it all out for themselves, but until you fuckers circle wagons and kick out the fucking jams, I'm not willing to have my name associated with a bunch of slack-jawed tin gods who think unlimited freedom equals a blank check to abdicate from responsibility or critical thought.

[Warren Verona]

Originally Posted By: Ptesan-Wi

Nice effort at a straw-man, Machina. However, you're barking up the wrong tree. I will make no bones about what I mean by the term "wasicu" when applied to Private William Gentiles, the man who ran T‘ašunka Witko through with a bayonet. "Greedy, dishonorable paleface" is actually a touch more charitable than the terminology I would use: "invading, murderous dog" is more what I had in mind.

Dishonorable? It was a war child. People fight, people die. Both men met on a field, one man died. There is no dishonor in that. Both faught bravely.

And seriously, are you still stuck on wars that happened all that time ago? Well, if you are, then change it. If you are going to hate the white man, then by all means do so, but hate them right. You want your land back? Take it. You want The People to rise up claim what used to be theirs? Then lead them.

But you won't, will you? You will sit in your cave. Cold. Alone. With nothing but your hate to keep you going.

You have the power wreak havoc on the minds of world leaders and officials. Take what's yours, or shut up about it.

Can you retards go through one thread with out someone statring a ignorant fuckin fight?

All the guy did was ask who you would give a node to. How fucking difficult is that?

Are you all fuckin stupid?

Do not have books out there in the caves?

Oh, and I wouldn't give anyone a node. Why give someone the potential to be more powerul than myself. I keep them a baseline and I can keep them in check easier.

[DeathMetalGirl]

Maybe the better thing to ask was who you'd like to take a node away from and return them to baseline form. At least then all the sniping and name-calling would be honest, if just as asinine.

[Regina Newcastle]

I don't disagree with Msr. Rat's reasoning regarding Dr. Mengele, but given the opportunity to grant a node to anybody, I would be hard-pressed to choosed between Dr. Stephen Hawking and Dr. Albert Einstein. Both men suffered numerous obstacles and died before they could finish their work, and both men, if given the ability to validate their theories, would have expanded the sphere of science immeasurably and put to lie many ideas we've since proven false.

[Ptesan-Wi]

Machina and Revenant: I would direct you to the comments made by Loge, who seems to have understood what I was trying to say. I harbor no fantasies of "eugenic superiority" regarding native Americans vis-a-vis Caucasians. I do, however, regret that the culture of the former was largely exterminated by the latter. It is the evolution of that culture into the modern era that I would have liked to have seen; thus, my wistful selection of Crazy Horse as the recipient of Loge's theoretical "gift node".

- - - -

Revenant: Please note that "dishonorable" was not my term of choice; that was part of the strawman construction by Machina. That said, you may surprised to learn that Crazy Horse did not die in some pitched battle. Instead, he was lured to Fort Robinson outside of wartime, was seized at said fort, and then, when he struggled against being so seized, was run through.

As for what I have done and will do with respect to the Lakota... you frankly have no idea.

[Sandcaster]

Who would I give a node to if I could waive a magic wand? Jimmy Carter. Yes, I know, many consider him to be more of a punch-line than a President; that said, he was probably the most decent man to hold that office in the past 90 years or so. Outside the U.S., President Carter was considered to be the elder stateman of the United States right up until his death, and was well respected for his dedication to human rights whether he was in South Africa or Afghanistan or Malaysia. Entirely aside from what novahood may have permitted him to do during his term of office (or in the possible second term), it would have been nice to have his warmth, his caring, his genuine love for humanity with us to this day; it is possible that he could have bridged the growing gap between novas and baselines as he had previously bridged so many other chasms between various peoples.

[Sam 'The Crusader' Hill]

Well gosh, I don't know why there's even a question. Were it in my power to bequeath that beneficent bump of brain to anyone in the whole wide world, then by gum, I’d tap that great hero, Caestus Pax. I mean, just think: if he’s done all that he has done with one node, just imagine the wonderous works he could wrangle with two!!!

[z-Sean McCline]

Wow... nothing quite as much fun as watching three grown men berating a teenage girl for being young and naïve. Way to go, gentlemen. I salute you.

Moving on to the topic at hand: I'd give a node to my adopted daughter. I'd love to see her erupt and live the kind of life only a nova could have.

[Leliel]

Jimmy Carter???

Christ, No politician deserves a node. They do a damned fine good job of fucking up cities, states, nations (fill in blank) as baselines.

Now I'm sure someone could say there are honest politicians out there somewhere, but to me, Honest and Politician in the same sentence is as contradictory as "Senate Ethics Committee"