Aberrant RPG - Stupid, weakling Abberants!

[pscion]

In Trinity, it states that the Chinese threatened the Aberrants with complete planetary bombardment of nuclear missiles launched from an orbital station.

If Abbies can create universes, and control weak and strong nuclear forces, why the hell didn't they just crush the Chinese fleet? Or grab the missiles and eat them? Or soak up the radiation?

What the hell?

[Ayre el KaBeer]

Because not all can, remember that some are purely social characters, some don't have any noticable powers they just have a heap of dots in their base attributes and abilities. Even though there are some that could do it how can they be sure that they can do it before a button is pressed? They are still human despite the terragen belief, and they don't want a dead earth. What's the point in ruling a dead rock?

[pscion]

I came a similar conclusion years ago while reading Trinity, but then when I've read so much about Aberrant and how they literally left Earth in shambles, it just seems that if they had so much power, such a silly threat wouldn't have phased them. Especially for ones whom can fly in vacuum, change into energy and teleport all over the place. But then again "plot before plausibility" has always been a writer's freedom.

[ezekiel]

Maybe the missiles and station were surrounded by quantum dampeners?

[Alex Green]

The Chinese didn’t win. Notice they didn’t rule the world afterwards.

Some things to keep in mind are

A) There were Abbies on all sides, including Chinas.

Recorded history has been tampered with.

C) Not all abbies did leave.

By the final years of the war it had become obvious that even “pro-human” abbies were going to have to leave the planet. The destruction of Florida was caused by a “good” nova making a mistake. Better still, other planets had been found.

As for the “anti-human” abbies, by the end of the abby war “new” abbies didn’t erupt into Nova godlings, they erupted into tentacled horrors. My take on it is that someone somewhere screwed up with one of the higher level powers and the Earth wasn’t all that healthy for the quantum born.

Then the Chinese make their move. The nukes are in orbit, this is out of range for all but Q6+ novas, and there aren’t many of those. I assume anyone flying up to the nukes gets nuked. And any one teleporting onto the ship triggers a nuclear self destruct. Divis decides he will take his toys and go home with all his followers (and they were the worse of the bunch).

So why exactly would anyone else contest the Chinese “victory”?

The bad guys left. The crazy ones left were put down. All the other organized groups left the Earth for greener pastures. The single novas who decided to stay either stayed under the radar, got nuked, or were dragged off by one of the other groups.

[Sphere]

Ah my favourite moment in the World of Aeon metaplot. Humanity staring at the Aberrant race down the barrels of a global nuclear strike, and the Aberrants blinked first. Score one for the primates! ::chillbeer

I think another major factor in the self-imposed exile was no-one thought China was bluffing. They nuked Bahrain and then said the next attempt at counter-attack destroys the world. Not even Mal could stop an all-out global nuking from multiple sites. Survive, maybe, but as has been said who wants to live on a radioactive rock.

Leviathan: Well hell, who wouldn't?"

Quiet you. ::angry

My own thinking on the situation is that it's unlikely every single Aberrant would have left of their own free will. But I presume they were either coerced by other factions that didn't want to see the Earth destroyed, or got sanctioned by those few Novas still fighting for Humanity.

Certainly not all of the Nova/Aberrants left Earth. It wouldn't be a stretch to see some dorming down into human form for a decade or so. There are also the one's who form the Quantum barrier that keeps Colony and his minions out of the solar system whilst Earth rebuilds. Although I'd see them living on one of the other planets and slowly moving out of the solar system as the spaceships start to land.

Of course it's possible that Mal and his followers had already walked out sideways into a new universe. Mal leaving could have soured the Quantum forces around Earth and convinced others of Q6 or higher that it would be wise to move on.

The Mal who vapes the Secretary-General could easily have been another person using Copycat, Shapeshift, or Holo. Or it could have been a fabrication designed by Aeon to keep the world scared and force them to focus on re-building in preparation for future Aberrant attacks.

[Nullifier]

Honestly, I think Mal left relatively voluntarily. He and other capable novas knew about the satellites, the could have easily devised their own technological countermeasures, or even destroyed them all with their powers.

On a slightly tangental note, it didn't have to go that way. Mal had it within his power by the time he left to turn almost every single person on the planet into a nova. Or kill everyone. Or turn them all into toads.

I think people underestimate Mal and the other aberrants that left. It's not like they couldn't have kept fighting, but I think it finally became clear that the humans, some of them at least, weren't ever going to stop trying to kill all of the aberrants, even if it meant they died too, and that it wasn't worth it to stay and fight when they could simply leave.

Certainly there were those who didn't agree, but I'd imagine when the bulk of the powerful ones were either leaving or helping the baselines to kick the others out, they left too.

I'm sure a good number stayed behind, either dormed, very well hidden, or in the heavily tainted areas.

Anyhow, I doubt that the Chinese Ultimatum was the real reason they left, just the catalyst for their realization that it wasn't worth what it would take to win. Leaving was simply a better option. They realized that even if they took out the satellites, the baselines would try again, and again, and again, and eventually the earth would be a radioactive soot-ball, not worth squat.

You guys don't give Mal and the others enough credit. Their powers are god-like by this time. They could do just about anything. It's just that there were limits to what they would do, and the constant in-fighting amoung the factions didn't help either.

[pscion]

I still feel it was "plot before plausibility". The Chinese did fire off a nuke on Bahrain, if I'm not mistaken -- in response to an Aberrant. If Abbies knew that nukes were such a threat to their existence, why didn't they collect them during the War? It's also odd that for such god-like people, they lack the ability to ****ing fly into space and smash a damned missile platform. I mean, they were friggin flying through vaccum and slicing orbital stations in half when they returned to Sol in Trinity.

I mean, powers like Disintegrate can be used at range -- AT RANGE! How the hell would you pop me with a nuke if I can crumble the rocket into dust with nothing more than a mean look?

The only thing that should frighten an Abbie is losing a connection to Quantum. Like all other WW characters, take away Blood Points, Rage Points, or Psi, and they are basically another normal human (story-wise). Some sort of anti-Quantum device or effect would have really scared the hell out of them.

I can understand the good ones leaving, reluctantly, since they would never again be trusted by the masses.

Nukes are very dangerous, I don't need to tell anyone that. We have the capability to literally destroy this planet's environment beyond repair were we to lite a few of those ****ers off anywhere on the planet. I won't even get into the aftermath of such a catastrophic event, however that scares you and I; mere mortals.

An advanced version of a nuke maybe, GURPS Space has a ton of these weapons, such as anti-particle beams, and friggin' disintegrators (campy sci-fi).

Am I just crazy? Or is every explanation a little too plot-convenient? Maybe I am pecking at old bones?

[Sprocket]

Well, if you're not currently playing in a Trinity chronicle, you might want to check out "The Story So Far". It's basically the ST's "behind the scenes" guide to the basics of what was going on during the time period covered in Aberrant. You might just find a few (just a few, mind you! ::rolleyes ) answers to the questions you've been asking here on this thread.

"The Story So Far" can be found in the Trinity softcover core book, and on the Trinity page at White Wolf's website. ::smile

[pscion]

Well, if you're not currently playing in a Trinity chronicle, you might want to check out "The Story So Far". It's basically the ST's "behind the scenes" guide to the basics of what was going on during the time period covered in Aberrant. You might just find a few (just a few, mind you!  ::rolleyes ) answers to the questions you've been asking here on this thread.

"The Story So Far" can be found in the Trinity softcover core book, and on the Trinity page at White Wolf's website.  ::smile

I have a copy of the "Story thus Far", but I was still miffed with the Trinity canon. Oh well, I'm out of Quantum...

[Sphere]

Sorry Nullifier, but that doesn't really scan as a reason why they left. If Mal and co could do literally anything by the time they left then why bother leaving at all? Why not just kill all the baselines or convert them into Novas if you can do it? Answer, he probably can't cause more eruptions than he already has. In fact the sudden rise in aberrations and general psychosis amongst Nova-kind could have been due to the big guy botching whilst attempting to quantum-up the world population.

Also why vape the UN secretary-general and promise to return? If they realised the conflict would just run on what's the point of vanishing off for a couple of decades and leaving a legacy of fear and death? It's hardly going to make the baselines less willing to kill you all upon your eventual return?

You think people underestimate Mal? I think you over-estimate him. Power of a god. Decisiveness of a British civil servant. ::wink

How the hell would you pop me with a nuke if I can make it crumble to dust with a glance?

How many can you pop at one time? Two? Four? Twenty? A multiple nuclear strike would be tough for even a Q6 Nova to stop. Especially if they have a trigger system that causes them to blow if a Nova gets too close. Plus, we can presume the missiles are supported by other orbital weapons systems (railguns, mass drivers, etc) to hamper anyone trying to stop the missiles hitting.

There is something else that no-one's considered. Maybe the nukes wouldn't have stopped the Novas directly. Maybe a nuclear holocaust would fatally disrupt the quantum field that Mal wove around the world. Cutting Nova-kind off from the source of their powers and leaving them dying on a radioactive cinder. Perhaps the nukes were, in fact, quantum devices built by Chinese hyper-minds to turn off every Nova everywhere on the planet.

[Alex Green]

I mean, powers like Disintegrate can be used at range -- AT RANGE! How the hell would you pop me with a nuke if I can crumble the rocket into dust with nothing more than a mean look?

You are all making this WAY too complicated. Quantum Devices indeed. The Math is REALLY brutal.

The Math

Range of Q-Bolt (et all): 15m x (Dots + Q).

Disintegrate is a third of that.

Maximum Range: 150m.

Range of Nuclear Blast: More than 150m.

Speed of Nuke: Enough.

150m in 3 seconds is about 108 miles an hour. Orbital Nukes are a lot higher than that. Meaning that even if the nuke is going to land 2 feet away, and you have the right powers to shoot it down, most likely you STILL won't get the chance, because it's moving too fast.

Orbital Platform (OP)

Range of OP: Very high. It can fire at things on the surface of the Earth or even if they are flying up to them.

Distance from the Earth: Can be very high. Call it 200 miles.

A flying nova could easily fly that distance… in an hour. One hour is 1,200 combat rounds. During that time the platform will shoot at him.

Hypermove would cut that time down, but not by enough. And even if he got all the way up there, for his time and effort the platform would blow up on him.

[Sphere]

Well, quantum devices are a little extreme I admit ::blush Just trying to get around the various "But Novas can do annnnnnnything." argument that people keep throwing up.

Regular ol' nukes are good enough to see off the aberrant threat. ::biggrin

[Ayre el KaBeer]

Another thing to consider about the platforms, they were built in the nova era. Any government would be out of their minds not to equip them without anti-nova weaponry, the portable laser alone would take virtually no effort to rig up to stations power supply they could riddle the stations with the new fixed lasers no sweat.

While those assualting the station from range are being shot to pieces, inside there'd likely be heavily armed troops, and even automated deffenses, to act as road blocks to give enough time to fire the nukes and hit a self destruct with a really big nuke ensurring the demise of the surrounding aberrants. To detect a nova who teleported or warped into a platform without having their own nova they just have to use geiger counters as part of the security network, as I see no reason for them not to detect a cloaked nova or at least give a reading as he/she popped aboard before dorming.

This is all assuming that the number of platforms wasn't all that high, otherwise who cares? The nukes get launched from 5 other platforms per one being dealt with by the novas, they really can't stop them all in time.

[knave]

Two things:

First - MIRV - each missle will split into 12 or more warheads and there are several hundred satellites.

Second - Trinity was written by different people people to Abbie. Aberrant abbies weren't really exactly what the Trinity people were envisioning.

[Nullifier]

Actually, all this talk of anti-nova defenses of the platforms ignores one thing that I think is critical: novas can design, and build, or even create out of thin air, devices that would be capable of destroying those platforms. Wouldn't even be that hard. A teleporting bomb with a guidance system. If the platforms are rigged to blow at the first sign of quantum intereference, even better. Now, there's some precedence for quantum dampening devices and even spatial stabilizers to inhibit teleportation, but they'd have to extend out some serious distance from the platforms to protect against the teleporting bombs.

There's that, and there's the Clone issue. Mal, at least, could have cloned himself hundreds or even thousands of times if necesary, teleported nearby, and put the whammy on each and every platform himself. Don't believe me? Just remember that while clones don't automatically get the Clone power, there're no restictions on them aquiring it through other uses of their powers. At that point, it just becomes a matter how many QPs he's got, and you can bet it's pretty damned high.

Either of those things, or even a combination of them, could be used to change the Earth and its inhabitants in just about any way he'd want it, if that was his intention or desire. It seems that it wasn't.

[Alex Green]

RE: Mal

I see no reason why Mal would need to clone.

He uses Mega-Perception to locate all the platforms.

He snaps his fingers for effect.

He zaps them all with one MIRV'ed + Homing + MASTERY X2 Q-Bolt.

It wouldn't even be hard. ::laugh

If they all launch on the Earth he just stops time for the entire planet and the missiles bounce. Temporal Manipulation is one of his "specialities", so presumably by that time he has Mastery X3.

And I could go on (and on) listing the ways he could deal with it.

On the other hand that requires decent tactical thinking and I'm not sure Mal is up to that, expecially by that time period. ::confused

Re: Everyone else

Something to keep in mind is that there were novas on all sides. Very few novas could have stopped it. Some of those could have been stopped themselves. But most of them presumably either left with Mal or otherwise didn't see the point of attacking the platforms.

Re: What the Trinity Developers were expecting

Well they darn well should have expected it. It was cannon, even in Trinity, how powerful the Abbies were. Novas were few but really powerful. Some insanely powerful. It was even cannon that the bulk of the abbies being faced in the Trinity era were basically cannon foder... and that even so the Psions are losing.

A few thousand novas nearly conquored the planet. They did destroy Florida, the USA's agro-belt, big parts of Europe, etc.

[knave]

Trinity Developers and Aberrant

The abbies in Trinity that put the big hurts on the planet almost invariably died in the process.

Most of them also seem to have a different kind of power - the kind that isn't quite so accurate or precise the more power they bring to bear.

Then again - the simplest way to boobytrap the platforms is to simply make sure that if someone damages them seriously they detonate and spread raditation over their kill zones anyway.

Also - the platforms may not have been the only threat. The Chinese could also have subs with ballistic missiles etc. Probably 10 or twenty times enough to cause an extinction level war...

I think the abbie leaders saw sense and left.

[Bahamut810]

Re: Abbies and leaving the earth

I think that the writers of Trinity just wanted a wierd mutant faction to fight, so they wrote in Aberrants. Then they came up with a simple reason to have them gone. They just wrote themselves into a corner with Divis Mal.

[phoenix]

RE: Mal

I see no reason why Mal would need to clone.

He uses Mega-Perception to locate all the platforms.

He snaps his fingers for effect.

He zaps them all with one MIRV'ed + Homing + MASTERY X2 Q-Bolt.

It wouldn't even be hard. laugh.gif

If they all launch on the Earth he just stops time for the entire planet and the missiles bounce. Temporal Manipulation is one of his "specialities", so presumably by that time he has Mastery X3.

And I could go on (and on) listing the ways he could deal with it.

On the other hand that requires decent tactical thinking and I'm not sure Mal is up to that, expecially by that time period.

Mal has Mega-Intelligence dots the way I have follicles of hair. At that time period, he was easily capable of removing the threat, and definitely smart enough to realize it. As someone on the White Wolf forums put it, Mal can shoot a Quantum bolt from the dark side of the moon and hit the glasses off a specific person in broad daylight in China. If the Chinese Ultimatum succeeded, as we are given to believe it did, it can only be because Mal decided to allow it to. That doesn't mean other novas could have interfered - they weren't all on the same side, after all - but Mal is a different story.

[Ayre el KaBeer]

MAl's intelligence:

I saw Mal as the think 20 steps ahead type character who always skips steps 3 & 4 for some 'insane' reason, why? because he's insane, that much taint even in the form of chrysallis is still messing with his mind. Also, isn't there a chanc that he was so wrapped up in the nova aspect of the war that he completely forgot or ignorred the monkeys? The famous little scene in the Trinity corebook of Divis frying the leader of the U.N. screams a petty temper tantrum to me, had he really wanted to return to earth nothing could have stopped him and yet he didn't. Even if it was by Mal's design, though I think it wasn't, he still lost, it's cannon.

[Sphere]

I realise the big flaw with this discussion is that Trinity came first. The aberrants of Trinity are, as has been previously mentioned, a bigscarymutantmenace for psions to do glorious battle with without worrying about any of the moral issues of, for instance, torturing Chromatic prisoners for information, etc.

With the arrival of Aberrant the predecessors of the bigscarymutantmenace are written as powerful beyond anything a psion character can ever hope to aspire to. Mal is there from the start with almost god-like powers sitting behind the Teragen and doing nothing but occasionally turning up as a Deus Ex Machina plot device. The Player's Guide expands into the world of Q6+ and Mastered Powers. Novas become more and more powerful. Which puts a dent in the official Trinty story of the Chinese Ultimatum.

However...

As this thread is discussing possible reasons why the Novas backed down in the face of the Chinese Ultimatum it is simply not enough to say that Mal COULD have wiped the sky clean of death-satellites. Perhaps he could have. It's certainly possible for someone who can broadcast simultaneously to every reciever in the world, whose power works on a continent-wide range.

But he didn't. So why not?

Because he saw the war would just go on and on, and baselines would always be trying to kill Novas? Okay, so the man who, by the end of the war, is pretty much on a Magneto-trip (ref: Teragen book). Who is apparently able to destroy the world with a flutter of his eyelids. Decides to leave the Earth rather than just cripple the monkey's weapons platforms and exterminate the baseline filth? BUT THREATENS TO COME BACK? Not really the action of an all-powerful godling.

So here's a suggestion as to why Mal wasn't able to get involved.

Mal: "Now shall I walk forth upon the land and scour it clean of the baseline contaminant and my children shall turn this world into a paradise for the quantum-born. With but a thought, I shall bring down their satellites and kill them all. Mwoo ha ha haaaaa!" (Presumably he has the "No Internal Monologue" aberration ::biggrin .

(Time folds in around Mal. Cutting him off from the rest of the world).

Max: "Michael, dear fellow. Perhaps we should have a little conversation first. hmm? There's always an alternative to genocide."

We know Max Mercer turns up at the end of the Aberrant War. We also know he's been empowered for at least as long as Mal, and maybe longer as he is a time traveller. So Max, unsurprisingly, stands with Humanity and convices Mal to take his people out and away.

If Mal said no? Well, Max could have kept him occupied long enough for the nukes to start falling.

Temporal Supremacy anyone? Being able to extinguish baseline life is all well and good but not if it takes you a subjective decade to do it. (Hey if the Terat-fans amongst us get to say Mal can do anything then I'm going to say the same for Max...only more so ::wink )

[ProfPotts]

The basic 'weakness' of Novas is Willpower - they, like everyone else in WW games, are limited to 10, max'. The best way to deal with insanely powerful Novas is therefore a social effort - grind down their WP with something like, oh, say, a big war; then issue a massive threat - they get intimidated & sod off. Say, that's what happened, isn't it? ::wink

Plus, like Mr Green says, actually look at the maths or play the thing out - Novas Vs baseline militaries, at any level, tend to end up with the baselines winning by sheer numbers & resources alone. Nova 'A' may have godlike powers - but government 'B' has near to unlimited manpower & equipment. Nova 'A' is gonna' run dry of QP & power a looong time before government 'B' feels the need to throw in the towel. ::m60

[Alex Green]

Mal has Mega-Intelligence dots the way I have follicles of hair.  At that time period, he was easily capable of removing the threat, and definitely smart enough to realize it.

The first I'll grant. The second I don't.

This is the same guy who in WWI has Mega-Int 8, Mega-Manip 3+, and figured the best way to swing Pax to his side was to beat the tar out of him in public in front of cameras.

[pscion]

Do any of you remember reading a passage about how it was impossible to spy on The Ministry?

How could any group of people erect some weapon against me?

I am sure that when the Chinese built those platforms, someone along the line, their intention was bragged about to someone.

You can't built an orbital station equipped with hundreds of nuclear-tipped warheads in front of 6 billion people and not have one of them not tell an Nova, "Hey buddy, check out what they're doing over there."

However, I do see that if Abbies were mini-gods then humanity would never have gotten them off the planet. So yeah, plot always wins over plausibility.

[pscion]

Re:  Abbies and leaving the earth

I think that the writers of Trinity just wanted a wierd mutant faction to fight, so they wrote in Aberrants.  Then they came up with a simple reason to have them gone.  They just wrote themselves into a corner with Divis Mal.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAA!

[Sphere]

You can't build an orbital station equipped with hundreds of nuclear-tipped warheads in front of 6 billion people and not have one of them tell a Nova "Hey buddy, check out what they're doing over there."

Depends really. We know from Worldwide: Phase 2 (Aberrant supplement set around 2015) that the Directive already have orbital railguns in place. So it's obviously not impossible to do it.

I wouldn't have thought the Chinese orbital weapons would have been advertised as such. More than likely they would have been tagged onto commercial satellite launches rather than launched with a live feed to www.chinesedeathsat@opnet.com. ::smile

It wouldn't have been necessary or practical to have all of the missiles in one location. Rather each satellite carries a payload of multi-warhead missiles and you scatter them around the planet. Each functions independantly of the others to prevent cyberkinetic hacks.

Frankly it's unlikely anyone'd brag about it. China's not notorious for it's liberal attitude towards people who give away state secrets. ::unsure

[Alex Green]

You can't built an orbital station equipped with hundreds of nuclear-tipped warheads in front of 6 billion people and not have one of them not tell an Nova, "Hey buddy, check out what they're doing over there."

By that time the War was in full swing and the Chinese were largely staying out of it. There likely wasn't a lot of social interaction between novas and the Chinese millitary. "Kill on sight" pollicies tend to limit that.

When you live in a Western Democracy it's easy to think the government can't keep a secret. But, "we couldn't do it so it can't be done" isn't sound reasoning. Think how badly Western governments misjudged the WMD situation is Iraq, not once but twice. After the first war, everyone was shocked at how far along their WMD programs were. Before the second war all of the various governments (even the ones opposing the war) believed Iraq was still working on WMDs.

China had been sitting out the situation for decades. All of the various organizations had better things to look at than the Chinese, and getting good intelligence out of there would have been as hard as it was out of Iraq. China might have been building space platforms for decades for other reasons (dual use technology).

[pscion]

By that time the War was in full swing and the Chinese were largely staying out of it. There likely wasn't a lot of social interaction between novas and the Chinese millitary. "Kill on sight" pollicies tend to limit that.

When you live in a Western Democracy it's easy to think the government can't keep a secret. But, "we couldn't do it so it can't be done" isn't sound reasoning. Think how badly Western governments misjudged the WMD situation is Iraq, not once but twice. After the first war, everyone was shocked at how far along their WMD programs were. Before the second war all of the various governments (even the ones opposing the war) believed Iraq was still working on WMDs.

China had been sitting out the situation for decades. All of the various organizations had better things to look at than the Chinese, and getting good intelligence out of there would have been as hard as it was out of Iraq. China might have been building space platforms for decades for other reasons (dual use technology).

Alex Green, you insult me by saying I think like a Westerner, if you saw me, I am the farther thing from a Western you could imagine, my friend.

Here's the funny thing about war -- sometimes you can't choose "to stay out of it".

It doesn't work that that way, imaginea dangerous neighborhood. Do you know how many innocents are killed each year in gang-related shootings?

Those dead innocents choose to "stay out of it" -- yet they still caught a bullet in the flesh are no longer with us.

I can tell you from fact that a government has no control over what is and isn't said to public. It's human nature to brag, we tell storiees, share secrets, pass notes, we entrust others with information. Do you know that 80% of all human social interaction is GOSSIP? We talk about things and each other. We have all commited some crime before, stolen a bag of chips, cheated on an exam, lied to a parent, and we have all confessed to these little deeds to friends or loved ones eventually. And any of you dare say that you've never broken one of the 10 Commandments, then you are a delusional ignoramus whose body should be ground up and used for fuel, because you obviously don't live in the real world.

Anyways, an event of that magnitude is hard to conceal -- coordination of a massive nuclear build-up -- not to mention securing the launch platforms, sending the shuttles into orbit, maybe even refitting the wareheads to not ablate upon re-entry into the atmosphere. And the crazed, inhuman Abbies just ignored it?

I can accept that China had platforms -- it only makes sense. But such a large coordination? Even with separate platforms the EARTH IS HUGE! You would need literally hundreds (China used 500) if not thousands of the stations to blanket the orbit of this planet (and Luna), not to mention an independent delivery system for each missile so that nukes can change their courses once in flight. And Sphere, I don't anyone would use only one platform -- that would be logistical suicide to put all your eggs in one basket

I just find it insane that you can "sit out" a war. I've seen urban violence before, it's no joke. The innocents are killed far more often than the criminals. You can ignore shit like that as long as you like, but sooner or later, a stray shot is gonna land right between your eyes. I dare any one of us to take a seat in the middle of a 12 gunfight and not get hit.

Furthermore Alex, the U.S did not misjudge anything -- we lied. The US has listenign post all over the world, and in space. We take photos, intercept communications and listen to the entire ****ing World all at once. From day one, the Bush administration knew that Saddam could not have made nukes and do you know why? Because of Saddam's Balls. There is nothing in the Universe Saddam loved more than himself. If he loved Allah so much, then why did Saddam have pictures of himself all over Iraq? If Saddam had nukes, he would have told everybody -- he's that kind of man. Howeever, he would NOT have used them; he's crazy -- not stupid. Iran has nukes, North Korea has nukes, former Soviet republics have been selling nukes for more than 40 years on the blackmarket. There was no error, no misjudgement, from day one Bush knew what he was going to do. And shame on me, shame on you, shame on America, and shame on humanity for allowing it to happen and allowing it to continue. May God have mercy on us all.

P.S. I'd like to take the time to thank each and every member of the EON Boards, you guys and girls have been wonderful in having mature conversations without resulting to name-calling flame-wars. I appreciate the enthusiasm and hope that we can share many more debates in the future - lock and load!

BTW - This leaves us with another question: if you could have "warped" to a distant planet when threatened with a fusion warhead, then why not leave before forced to do so? If the baselines started acting up, then bounce to some new planet a live among other Novas.

[Asbjørn]

A short off-topic moderator comment:

Alex Green, you insult me by saying I think like a Westerner, if you saw me, I am the farther thing from a Western you could imagine, my friend.

First of all, nobody accused you of 'thinking like a westerner', merely of living in a western democracy, which - according to your IP address - you do. ::wink

Second: Smileys, smileys, smileys. I'm pretty sure you're not really terribly insulted, and Alex is - usually ::tongue - a nice guy. But smileys are there to take the edge off a statement that may sound harsh without them. Just a friendly tip to avoid misunderstandings... ::bigsmile

P.S. I'd like to take the time to thank each and every member of the EON Boards, you guys and girls have been wonderful in having mature conversations without resulting to name-calling flame-wars. I appreciate the enthusiasm and hope that we can share many more debates in the future - lock and load!

Agreed! Let's keep it that way. ::thumbsup So please, no more of this:

[...]then you are a delusional ignoramus whose body should be ground up and used for fuel[...]

OK...?

[pscion]

A short off-topic moderator comment:

First of all, nobody accused you of 'thinking like a westerner', merely of living in a western democracy, which - according to your IP address - you do. ::wink

OK...?

I sure you all understand this as a jab. No ill will was meant, I just didn't want to be perceived as having some political philosphy based on my location. I am sure many people living in North Korea do not think like Kim Jong Il

As for the "ignoramus" quote, I am new here and you haven't gotten used to my sense of humor.

So get the hell outta my way Asbjørn otherwise you will be ground up and used for fuel! ::biggrin

[Alex Green]

Here's the funny thing about war -- sometimes you can't choose "to stay out of it".

It doesn't work that that way, imagine a dangerous neighborhood. Do you know how many innocents are killed each year in gang-related shootings?

I just find it insane that you can "sit out" a war. I've seen urban violence before, it's no joke. The innocents are killed far more often than the criminals. You can ignore shit like that as long as you like, but sooner or later, a stray shot is gonna land right between your eyes. I dare any one of us to take a seat in the middle of a 12 gunfight and not get hit.

A “neighborhood” is a bad analogy. Most countries choose to sit out most wars. This even includes the United States. About 15 years ago I saw a list of all the various wars that were currently going on world wide. There were about 50 of them.

I can accept that China had platforms -- it only makes sense. But such a large coordination? Even with separate platforms the EARTH IS HUGE! You would need literally hundreds (China used 500) if not thousands of the stations to blanket the orbit of this planet (and Luna), not to mention an independent delivery system for each missile so that nukes can change their courses once in flight.

Do the math. Assume the orbital platform has 20 launch tubes. A MIRV’ed nuke missile has twelve warheads, each of which can take out a different city. So one launch from one platform takes out 120 cities. Reloading might take a while, say 20 minutes. The whole thing could be done on one platform, but it really should be done on a dozen or two. I don’t know where “500” comes from but if that’s right then 95% of those were probably decoys, maybe booby trapped decoys.

And the level of “coordination” needed for something like this is minimal. Every platform has a list of it’s primary targets, and a second list of everyone else’s targets. No one is going to say “hey, that city was nuked two hours after this one, the entire project has failed”.

… GOSSIP… an event of that magnitude is hard to conceal -- coordination of a massive nuclear build-up -- not to mention securing the launch platforms, sending the shuttles into orbit, maybe even refitting the warheads to not ablate upon re-entry into the atmosphere.

And the crazed, inhuman Abbies just ignored it?

The Op-net went down at the start of the war. No abbies were in China, and China had been dealing with both nukes and space shuttles for decades. This looks to me like one of those things that is painfully obvious after the fact, but not before. 9-11 falls into that category as well. Everyone knew airport security in the US was pretty lax, and everyone knew at what temperature rocket fuel burns at, and everyone knew about suicide bombers, but no one put together the pieces.

This leaves us with another question: if you could have "warped" to a distant planet when threatened with a fusion warhead, then why not leave before forced to do so? If the baselines started acting up, then bounce to some new planet a live among other Novas.

Finding other planets is pretty hard, and going to them is also pretty hard. Warping to other solar systems in one jump takes a LOT of succ, enough so that its very likely that only a few novas on the planet had that ability. The standard nova with Warp or teleport just isn’t capable of doing this. If you have Q5, Mega-Perception 5, and Warp 5 then you MIGHT be able to do it on a powermax. Space is called “space” because there is so much of it.

Chances are good most groups didn’t have a Warper that talented. Many of the novas who left the planet presumably did so by hooking up with other groups, maybe other groups that they normally wouldn’t have cooperated with. Divis might have viewed the whole thing as a recruitment pitch.

…the U.S did not misjudge anything -- we lied. … From day one, the Bush administration knew…

The Bush administration didn’t show a lot of competence in dealing with Iraq after the war. The words “out of touch with the situation on the ground” come to mind. I see no reason to believe they were hyper-competent and omniscient on everything before the war and suddenly ‘lost’ that ability afterwards. There is a saying that goes something like “never put down to hostility what you can explain through incompetence”. Bush was wrong, but then so was most everyone else. I seem to recall French (British, etc) intelligence saying pretty much the same thing the US did.

I remember reading a magazine that defined a “tough decision” as a decision you have to make over peoples’ lives where you have less than perfect information. Some countries looked at the information and decided that there wasn’t enough information to justify a war. Others looked at it and decided the burden of proof should be on Saddam. Everyone involved had other motivations in addition to their stated ones. You are on more solid ground if you want to argue that his stated reasons for the war weren’t his true motivations.

If Saddam had nukes, he would have told everybody -- he's that kind of man

My understanding is that his army did believe they had chemical WMDs. My remembrance of the nuke issue was we more concerned with what he would do with them in the future. Waiting until he had nukes didn’t seem like a good idea.

How ever, he would NOT have used them; he's crazy -- not stupid.

I’m old enough to remember VERY similar statements and reasoning on why he would never invade Kuwait back in 1990. You could even make similar statements on why he wouldn’t invade Iran in the 1980s (he would have lost that one without chemical weapons). The problem is he did do those things. Saddam has shown that he really doesn’t understand the West, just as the West has shown we don’t understand him. That’s over and above his other traits. The guy has a historical fondness for WMDs and a history of misjudgments. Given his history I don’t see how you can claim he wouldn’t use them.

[Nullifier]

This looks to me like one of those things that is painfully obvious after the fact, but not before. 9-11 falls into that category as well. Everyone knew airport security in the US was pretty lax, and everyone knew at what temperature rocket fuel burns at, and everyone knew about suicide bombers, but no one put together the pieces.

Actually, that's not quite true. I remember hearing about terrorist hijackings and suicide bombings on the news as a kid and wondering why they didn't just fly the planes into buildings. After all, I said, an airplane's basically the same thing as a missile. Of course, few people listen to little kids when it comes to national security more than a decade later, but to say that no one put together the pieces, I think would be stretching it. After all, if a little kid in the 1980s could figure it out, I'm sure others could have. ::tongue

My understanding is that his army did believe they had chemical WMDs. My remembrance of the nuke issue was we more concerned with what he would do with them in the future. Waiting until he had nukes didn’t seem like a good idea.

I’m old enough to remember VERY similar statements and reasoning on why he would never invade Kuwait back in 1990. You could even make similar statements on why he wouldn’t invade Iran in the 1980s (he would have lost that one without chemical weapons). The problem is he did do those things. Saddam has shown that he really doesn’t understand the West, just as the West has shown we don’t understand him. That’s over and above his other traits. The guy has a historical fondness for WMDs and a history of misjudgments. Given his history I don’t see how you can claim he wouldn’t use them.

O.k., I can't really state this strongly enough. Any chemical or biological weapons Saddam had were given to him by the CIA under the control of Bush Sr. specfically to deal with the threat from Iran. This is a fact. Look it up. Go ask someone who was with the CIA at the time. That's the reason everyone thought he had WMDs. Because we knew we gave him a bunch, and the production specs, and we couldn't account for all of them. However, the U.S. never allowed the U.N. inspectors to finish their jobs, which they were perservering at doing despite the difficulties. Without that, there was no way of knowing whether or not he still had the WMDs. However, I believe psicon's right in saying he would have bragged about having them and used 'em as a deterrant. He did that during the first Gulf War.

Anyhow, the point is that the Bushes as a family are just as responsible as Saddam, if not more so, for the mess in Iraq through the past 20-30 years.

[Ayre el KaBeer]

::excl Just a quick reminder guys, the only thread in Eon history to be closed began much the same as this thread is going. The posts still hold relevance to the topic but if we get another heated political debate then this thread may have the padlock put on it, all I ask is to keep it civil, thanks folks. ::wink

Fred.

[Alex Green]

I remember hearing about terrorist hijackings and suicide bombings on the news as a kid and wondering why they didn't just fly the planes into buildings. After all, I said, an airplane's basically the same thing as a missile. Of course, few people listen to little kids when it comes to national security more than a decade later, but to say that no one put together the pieces, I think would be stretching it. After all, if a little kid in the 1980s could figure it out, I'm sure others could have.  ::tongue

Like I said, painfully obvious after the fact, less obvious before hand. ::rolleyes Hind sight is 20-20. I think the same sort of logic could easily apply to China and the orbital platforms. ::bigsmile

Any chemical or biological weapons Saddam had were given to him by the CIA under the control of Bush Sr. specifically to deal with the threat from Iran.

I think you mean that we gave him the technology to build the stuff. While true (it seemed like a good idea at the time), this is irrelevant to the discussion. We were talking about whether or not Saddam would have used it. Saying “it’s the USA’s fault he had it” doesn’t change any of Saddam’s history, his methods, or his many miscalculations. We didn’t understand him, he didn’t understand us. ::crazy

Anyhow, the point is that the Bushes as a family are just as responsible as Saddam, if not more so, for the mess in Iraq through the past 20-30 years.

Laughable. Generally speaking the gun store owner who sells the gun isn’t thought of as responsible as the nut who uses them.

Again, it seemed like a good idea at the time… no, maybe it’s better to say that it seemed like the least bad idea at the time. Back then Iran was wearing the big black hat and letting them conquer Iraq, and yes, Iraq's oil, seemed like a really bad idea. ::confused

Similar logic led to Nixon successfully preventing Russia from attacking China. China was our foe, but they provided a good counter balance to Russia. If China had then gone on to do bad things (and they have), it could be said that it's the USA's fault for stopping Russia.

That's after the fact, arm chair quarterbacking. Perfect knowledge isn't available, must less perfect knowledge of the future. Decissions have to be made with imperfect knowledge were people are going to die. Worse, the ethical choice (or even any ethical choice) might be impractical, unavailable, or undesireable.

[Asbjørn]

We were talking about whether or not Saddam would have used it.

Nope. You were talking about stupid, weakling aberrants who got kicked off earth. While there may be similarities here, you're all moving waaaaay off topic. ::wink

[Gideon]

Its more important to determine how you would pull this off. As opposed to if it could be done.

Look at what the Directive accomplished by 2015, entire opperations completed in plain sight with little or no nova awareness. China did their work in space. How many novas are exploring the upper atmosphere? very few. Yes governments of various types would recognize this activity, but with the right cover story...

for example, what about the secret mind control sattelites that the phone companies subsidized a few years ago? These supposed low-orbit "communication" satelites. Everyone knows about them, but no one realizes that I and other freedom fighters have been causing one after the other to fail, before they saturate our minds with their propaganda!

Also look at the russian sputnick program. A satelite that was placed in space without the united states knowing about it until after the fact. This is an important example, since the key is not eternal secrecy, but keeping a secret until it does not matter.

In other words, the chinesse government may have only completed their placement of the last platform shortly before its unveiling. If so it makes perfect sense that noone found out about it before hand. And it also makes sense that it would scare the heck out of most baseline born novas. The crazy novas would not care anyway, but the sane ones would realize that this is a serious request for them to leave.

I also believe this since I have had a Proteus spy amongst my players (one of them a Mega-Int) and even with heavy handed hints are in denial that Sasha could ever plot their deaths. Heck even when I had one of them overheard her on the phone discussing an assassination that had not occured yet, thought she was merely speaking hypothetically... She was even holding the murder weapon in her hands (a super sniper rifle)...of course she had an alabi and she did take them out to party the next day at the Amp Room...but novas are only as smart as their prejudices permit them, and most novas could never imagine a nation of baselines would want them dead so bad as to threaten their own unerrupted lives.

my two point five cents.

[Alex Green]

Really well put Gideon.

[Nullifier]

I like your reasoning, Gideon, but I detect a flaw in your reasoning. There are references to and even stats for several novas with the ability to see the future. This indicates, to me at least, that while not really common, it's not like there weren't a grip of 'em by the time the Chinese issued their ultimatum. The point is, they would have seen it coming, probably from a ways off, given the magnitude of the event. The leadership of the various groups had to know that the Chinese were up to, if only from that. They knew they'd have to leave, and probably prepared to in secret long before the moment. It's likely they could've prevented it. They didn't. Draw whatever conclusions that you want from that. ::bigsmile

P.S. Alex, I respectfully disagree with you on a number of those points, but this isn't the place. ::tongue ::wink ::bigsmile

[pscion]

Didn't Novas erupt all over the world? Or where it was convenient to the plot ::laugh

Sure there were, we called them Dead man walking....